Chapter 1,244: The Battle of Hukou Town Begins

On the 25th, Tian Yu's army finally arrived at the south of Hukou Town on the west bank of Caisangjin. Unfortunately, Caisangjin Pier was too close to the town wall of Hukou Town, less than a hundred steps away. If Koucheng was captured first, the Tang army on both sides of the river would not be able to build a pontoon bridge.

Tian Yu stood hundreds of steps south of Hukou Town. After thinking for a moment, he made up his mind and said, "Come here, order the camp to be set up and prepare to attack!"

It's not that he is eager for success, but that a town-level territory like Hukou Town has limited defensive capabilities, especially since terrain like this limits the size of the territory, so he decided to directly capture the territory and then attack the other side of the territory. The army came over.

Following his order, the 30,000-strong army was divided into several groups. A school of ordinary infantry, crossbowmen, and cavalry, totaling 15,000 troops, set up a defensive formation 300 steps south of Hukou Town to prevent The enemy troops in the town came out of the town to make a surprise attack. The ordinary infantry soldiers of the first school retreated two miles and set up a defensive formation facing the south to prevent possible surprise attacks by the Qin army following them.

Of the remaining 10,000 troops, 3,000 civilians were assigned to cut down trees on the nearby mountains, while the other 2,000 civilians and 5,000 defenders took the time to build the camp.

On the east dock of Caisangjin on the opposite bank, Hua Xiong's tens of thousands of troops had already arrived here and were preparing to cross the river. At the same time, 10,000 civilians had returned under the escort of 5,000 cavalry. Pi, prepare to transport the next batch of food and come as soon as possible.

On the wall of Hukou Town, Xu Huang and a group of generals were also observing the Tang army rolling in from the south. This was the third time Xu Huang faced the Tang army. The first time was in Yiyang County, Hongnong County, and the second time was in Hedong.

Seeing the Tang army outside the town slowly retreating, Xu Huang couldn't help but feel a trace of regret in his heart. If the generals had pressed directly against the army as soon as they arrived at Hukou, and wanted to attack Hukou Town with thunderous momentum, Xu Huang would have There is a 70% to 80% certainty that the Tang army will lose troops here and suffer heavy casualties. However, the Tang general who is leading the army now is very rational and leads the army to retreat slowly. It seems that he is preparing to recharge his batteries and be ready to attack again. In this way, he You do need to be careful.

Returning to his residence in the town, Xu Huang wrote down in detail what he saw about Tang Jun on a piece of paper, then put it in a red mailbox, carefully sealed it with mud, and then directed it at the guard outside the door. Said: "Here comes someone!"

"General! What are your orders?" Two guards immediately pushed open the door and entered.

"Send someone immediately and work hard to deliver this letter to the Lord. There must be no mistake!"

"No!" A soldier took the mailbox from Xu Huang's hand, took the order and turned around to leave.

Xu Huang then said to another soldier: "Send the order and order the soldiers on duty to be more vigilant and not to slack off in the slightest. Soldiers who are not on duty should take the time to rest. Tomorrow's war will definitely not be that simple!"

Hukou Town is too small. From the 5,000 soldiers, at most one thousand people can be on the wall at a time. This is the result of arrangements from all sides. If there are more, the wall will basically be unable to move, which is simply a gift to the Tang army. Head. Moreover, the town wall is less than one foot high and about one foot wide. If Xu Huang hadn't worked hard to reinforce it these days, it would only be five feet wide, making it even more difficult to defend.

As Xu Huang expected, early the next morning, the sound of trumpets and drums sounded in the Tang Army camp, and soon five steps of infantry were guarding nearly twenty wells that had been built overnight and headed towards Hukou Town. , above the well is a thousand crossbowmen, and next to the six thousand army are two thousand cavalry divided into two groups, guarding the side. It is not that Tian Yu is unwilling to send more soldiers and horses, but the south of Hukou Town. It's really too small, no matter how many soldiers and horses there are, they don't want to launch an attack.

"Send the order! Start the attack!" Tian Yu gave the order, and the drums of the Chinese army's attack sounded "dong dong", and the Tang soldiers rushed towards the town wall amidst the shouts.

"Whizzing……"

As Jing Lan arrived within the shooting range, thousands of crossbow arrows rushed towards the defenders on the town wall like a continuous rain of arrows.

"Attention shield bearers! Enemy crossbows!" On the wall,

The general in charge of the defense shouted an order;

As his order came out, the shield bearer on the wall quickly raised the large shield in his hand high, and immediately felt the continuous crossbow arrows hitting the shield he was holding, and only heard the sound of "click" "Du..." There were sounds one after another, and the huge impact of the crossbow arrows made the hands of the shield hand almost numb.

The fast shield bearers quickly protected themselves and the comrades next to them under the shield, but there were also many shield bearers who did not have time to hide their entire bodies, or who had already protected themselves but were in the process of the crossbow attack. , the continuous crossbow arrows prevented him from holding up the shield. A moment after the Tang army's crossbow attack, screams could be heard from everywhere on the wall.

"Ah! I was hit by an arrow..."

"Well……"

"Help...someone come to save me..."

"flutter……"

The soldiers of the Shangjun coalition army on the town wall huddled together tightly while praying that the rain of arrows falling from the sky would not fall on themselves. At the same time, they secretly watched the continuous arrows in their hearts. The rain will end soon.

It is a pity that their prayers did not have much effect. There were a thousand crossbowmen on the twenty Tang Army Jinglan. They had one Jinglan for every fifty people, and then the fifty people were divided into two waves, one after another. He poured the crossbow arrows in his hand towards the town wall.

In Hukou Town, Xu Huang had already set up a high nest car. Standing on the nest car, Xu Huang was also somewhat stunned looking at the soldiers on the southern town wall. The crossbow arrows that fell from the sky were simply an overwhelming rainstorm, leaving people nowhere to hide.

"Come here, order the catapults in the town to start firing stone bombs and try to suppress the crossbow arrow threat of the Tang army!" Although he knew that his catapults could only play a limited role, he had to order the catapults to attack the Tang army's wells outside the town, hoping to destroy as many wells as possible to minimize the threat of the soldiers on the town.

"Hu..."

"Bang..."

Soon, nearly twenty catapults in the town began to fire stone bombs at the Tang army outside the city. Although there had been arrangements in advance, the instability of the catapults meant that the first round of twenty stone bombs only destroyed three wells of the Tang army. The rest of the stone bombs were either far away and hit directly behind the wells, or some fell in front of the wells and hit directly into the advancing infantry.

As soon as the coalition's catapults started firing stones, Tian Yu had already discovered their position.

"Pass the order, the enemy's catapults are twenty steps behind the town wall, order our catapults to start attacking and destroy all the catapults in the town."