Chapter 1,224: Capture of Huguan County
After hearing what the messenger said, Huangfu Chaobo was very happy and quickly ordered: "Come here, tell the three armies that Lu Bu's cavalry has been driven back by General Zhao Yun!"
After hearing Huangfu Chaobo's words, the white horse Yi Cong glanced at him hesitantly. When he was about to speak, he was stopped by Guo Jia's look.
Sure enough, after the news that Lu Bu's cavalry was repulsed, the morale of the Tang army was greatly boosted, while the morale of the Zhao army defending the city was obviously stagnant.
A moment later, when Zhao Yun returned with more than 20,000 cavalry, the morale of the Tang army's soldiers was even higher. Seeing that more than 30,000 cavalry set off, but only more than half came back, Huangfu Chaobo couldn't help but feel distressed. You must know that these are all The most elite cavalry, especially the 30,000 special units, has now lost nearly half.
Soon, Zhao Yun rode his horse to the central army. After dismounting, he quickly climbed up to the watchtower and handed in his orders to Huangfu Chaobo: "General, I will pay my respects to the king. Fortunately, I have fulfilled my order. King Zhao Lu Bu has led the cavalry to retreat." . However, our cavalry also suffered heavy losses.”
With that said, Zhao Yun reported the losses of the army to Huangfu Chaobo. After listening to Zhao Yun's words, everyone on the watchtower also took a breath. After a battle, the most elite cavalry of the Tang army was lost. More than 15,000, this should be the largest cavalry loss of the Tang Army since the beginning, and Lu Bu's cavalry loss was only 15,000.
You know, the Tang army had six thousand more cavalry, and finally they were evenly matched. This shows how powerful the cavalry under Lu Bu's command was.
While everyone in the Tang army was frightened, Lu Bu was also heartbroken in the camp. He had finally saved up to 30,000 Bingzhou Wolf Cavalry, but half of them were lost in the first battle. After lunch in the camp at noon, Lu Bu again He wanted to lead his troops into battle, but was dissuaded by his subordinate generals.
"Your Majesty, we can no longer fight head-on with the Tang Army. Although the Tang Army's cavalry is comparable to ours, it has a large number of crossbowmen. If we are targeted by their crossbowmen again, the losses will be even greater. According to the arrangements of the Prime Minister, If you only need to contain the energy of the Tang army and delay the siege as much as possible to buy time for the people to be transferred, there is no need to fight the Tang army to the death. "
"Yes, Your Majesty..."
"Yes, Your Majesty, the Tang State has a vast territory and a large number of people. It is not difficult to replenish troops and horses, but our Zhao State is different. It is not as easy as them to replenish troops and horses."
After being persuaded by the general generals, Lu Bu did not reprimand them. Thinking about it, the entire Zhao country has a population of only more than one million, and it will take him several years to replenish the 15,000 Bingzhou wolf cavalry. If he fights with the Tang army again, If they carry it a few times, even if they eat all the more than 20,000 remaining cavalry, it is estimated that there will be very few wolf cavalry left in the end.
In the next two days, the battles between the cavalry of the two countries of Tang and Zhao no longer involved large battles involving more than a thousand men, but small fights between the two armies continued.
Often hundreds of Wolf Cavalry suddenly appeared on the outside of the siege army, and Zhao Qu immediately sent troops to drive them away. Not long after, hundreds of Bingzhou Wolf Cavalry appeared in the other direction, and Zhao Yun sent troops again. Drive them away, repeated confrontations like this.
The battle in Huguan City is also proceeding in an orderly manner. Even if the Bingzhou Wolf Cavalry attacks from time to time, it does not have much impact on the army attacking the city. Huben Camp, Baotao Camp, and Yingyang Camp again Together with the Iron Eagle warriors of the Guards, supported by the Yuanrong crossbowmen, they launched a continuous attack on Huguan County.
As time went by, the ratio of battle losses between the offensive and defensive sides reached almost one to one, and it continued to expand. There is no way. The attacking soldiers of the Tang Army are much more elite than the soldiers of the Zhao Army who defend the city. In almost every round of attack, there are several soldiers who can attack the city. Once Tang soldiers attack the city, Zhang Yang and Li Feng will It almost took several times the casualties of soldiers to repel the Tang army's attack. In this way, the losses caused to the attacking side due to the advantage of the city wall were eliminated in these few battles for the city head.
Coupled with the continuous attacks by thousands of soldiers and crossbowmen under the city, Zhao's soldiers at the top of the city suffered a lot. Over the past few days, the number of soldiers killed and injured by Zhao's crossbows alone reached thousands. In addition to the soldiers lost in each battle at the city head, by the third day of the war, Zhao Jun's losses had exceeded 5,000.
Originally, the morale of the Zhao army officers was somewhat low due to the defeat of Lu Bu's cavalry, but now facing such a powerful attack by the Tang army, it was even worse.
On the fourth day, Huangfu Jianshou left one school of soldiers to defend Changzi City. He personally led the two schools, a total of 10,000 soldiers from the Hujie Camp, to rush to Huguan City for support. Facing the Tang Army who once again increased their troops, Zhao Jun's Morale took another hit.
Originally, Zhang Yang hoped that the army could withdraw from Shangdang as soon as possible in order to preserve more strength, but now only the people of Nie County, Tongtan, Xiangyuan and Huguan in the northern cities of Shangdang have withdrawn from Shangdang territory, and more People in the three cities of Lu County, Guyuan and Zhan County, which are farther away, are still several days away from the county seat of Nie County, let alone evacuated to the north of Nanguan. You know, there are more than 50,000 to 60,000 people. With such a large population, Lu Bu was really unwilling to give up.
So Lu Bu ordered Zhang Yang and other generals to defend Huguan for another five days. At the same time, Chen Gong had already rushed to Nie County to personally command and arrange the migration of the people. After learning about the situation, Chen Gong suggested that Lu Bu first withdraw 5,000 soldiers from Shangdang City, and then quietly withdraw to Nie County with 10,000 infantrymen in the camp in the city, and prepare for layers of blocking.
At the same time, 20,000 war horses were quietly sent to Huguan City. Now there are 25,000 soldiers in Huguan City. After 5,000 soldiers were transferred, there are only 20,000 soldiers left. In the next few days, there will definitely be considerable losses. In this way, these war horses are enough for all the Zhao troops in Huguan City to evacuate smoothly.
With war horses as a means of transportation, plus Lu Bu's 15,000 wolf riders who personally cut off the rear, Chen Gong is confident that he can successfully withdraw most of the Zhao infantrymen in Huguan City back to Taiyuan.
At this time, the Tang army had never expected Chen Gong to do this. Although there was news that the Zhao army had moved the people in several cities in the north to Nie County, they did not expect that Chen Gong had no intention of defending the cities in the north of Shangdang.
On the evening of October 5, ten days after the battle of Huguan City began, the Zhao army soldiers evacuated from the north gate overnight, abandoned Huguan County, and retreated to Xiangyuan in the north. When the Tang army received the news, it was already two hours later. Huangfu Chaobo hurriedly sent people to capture Huguan City while sending Zhao Yun to pursue. However, when Zhao Yun chased to the north of Huguan, he was blocked by Lu Bu's 15,000 cavalry. In desperation, he could only watch the Zhao army leave.