Chapter 747: Tao Qian's Defeat and Escape

Huang Zhong's Hu Ben cavalrymen were guarding thousands of civilians. Their mission was to build camps for the two armies at the north gate and the east gate. After today's battle, the two armies did not need to return to the camp to rest, but could rest directly outside the city.

The first day of the battle was spent filling the river to prepare for the siege passage. At the end of the day, dozens of siege passages had been filled in the moat outside the three walls.

At this time, news from Meng Yi in Shuanghe City came back from Xuzhou: Cao Cao's army captured Tancheng. The Xuzhou army, caught off guard, only lasted two days in the face of Cao Cao's army that came from the sky, and the city was breached.

Tao Qian was also wounded by stray arrows while defending the city. Finally, under the protection of General Hulie Cao Bao and the Danyang soldiers of the governor's mansion, Tao Qian and Xuzhou civil and military officials were able to escape from Tan County. Among the 50,000 defenders of Tancheng, only 10,000 Cao Bao soldiers and 10,000 Danyang soldiers were left. The rest of the army was either captured or killed or wounded. Of course, some soldiers fled in all directions.

The Xuzhou officials who escaped from the south gate of Tan County retreated to Xiapi State in a hurry under the protection of the army. Tao Qian, who had just entered Xiapi City, only had time to give a few instructions to strictly guard the city before he fell into a coma.

It is said that a country cannot be without a king for a day. In desperation, the people of Xuzhou had to support Tao Qian's eldest son Tao Ying to temporarily serve as governor. After discussing with everyone, the helpless Master Tao ordered the troops of Xiapi and Guangling counties to close the city and guard it strictly, and not to go out of the city to fight. At the same time, he urgently asked for help from the surrounding princes again. As for Langya County and Langya State in the north, they could not take care of it for the time being.

At this time, Langya Governor Ye Laixiang had led his troops to Jiqiu County of Langya State, but received news that Tancheng had been lost and the state governor's life and death were unknown.

Under the advice of military strategist Xi Zhicai, Ye Laixiang's army urgently stationed in Jiqiu, and then sent scouts to Tan County to inquire about the news. While waiting for the news of Tancheng, Ye Laixiang had already begun to control Langya State.

Now, people in Langya are in panic everywhere. Most of Xuzhou's soldiers are in Tan County. Now that Tan County has been captured, the governor is not sure whether he is alive or dead. If Cao Cao marches north, Langya will basically have no power to fight back. At this time, Ye Lai Xiang leads a large army to help, which makes Langya feel relieved.

In addition, Ye Lai Xiang has established a great reputation in Xuzhou in recent years, and his army is strong. It is under such circumstances that Ye Lai Xiang's control of Langya is very smooth.

One day later, the scout finally brought back the news of Tan County. Tan County has been lost, and the governor Tao Qian retreated to Xia Pi with serious injuries. The connection between Langya and the governor's mansion is completely cut off, and Cao Cao's army may go north to attack Langya at any time.

The scouts not only brought back news about Tao Qian, but also brought back thousands of Xuzhou's defeated soldiers and several officials, two of whom were Xu Xi and Mao Hui, who were subordinates of Liu Dai, the governor of Yanzhou. Ye Lai Xiang was overjoyed and immediately came out to receive the two in person, and then offered to recruit them.

The two came to Xuzhou after Liu Dai's death. Although they served in Tao Qian's governor's mansion, they were not given important positions. This time, after breaking through the siege, the two simply did not follow the army south. After several disasters, seeing that Ye Lai Xiang had strong troops and horses, the two quickly agreed to Ye Lai Xiang's recruitment.

Under Xi Zhicai's suggestion, Ye Lai Xiang decided to recommend Xu Xi as the prime minister of Langya and Mao Hui as the governor of Langya County. In this way, Ye Lai Xiang finally freed herself from the heavy government affairs and concentrated on rectifying the armaments of the two counties with Xi Zhicai and Yue Xi.

What made Ye Lai Xiang even happier was that he actually found a famous general among the county soldiers of Langya State, the young Xu Sheng who would be known as the "Tiger Minister of Jiangbiao" in the future.

With the addition of these people, Ye Lai Xiang finally had officials and generals who were able to support the two counties.

Although Cao Cao was very happy to capture Tan County, he also felt that he had not done his best. The main reason was that although he captured Tan County, Tao Qian successfully broke through and retreated to Xia Pi under the protection of 20,000 elite soldiers from Xuzhou, and the Langya State to the north of Donghai State was also on high alert by the 20,000 troops of Langya Governor Ye Lai Xiang.

In this way, although the troops had captured the two counties of Xuzhou this time,

they failed to achieve all their goals. Tao Qian was not dead yet, and it seemed that the other three counties of Xuzhou could only give up for the time being. Moreover, the army of Sizhou would attack Yanzhou at any time, so Cao Cao had no time to stay in Xuzhou any longer.

On October 12, General Fenwei, the governor of Yanzhou, Cao Cao, appointed his cousin Cao Ren as the governor of Donghai and Lü Qian as the prime minister of Pengcheng. Each of them led a school of elite Qingzhou soldiers to guard the two counties, while Cao Cao led the army back to Yanzhou as soon as possible to prepare for the possible attack of the Sizhou army.

In fact, Cao Cao had to leave the Qingzhou soldiers to Lü Qian, because Lü Qian could not exert the greatest combat power of the Qingzhou army at all. It was just that he only had Qingzhou soldiers in Xuzhou. In order to allow Lü Qian to smoothly control Pengcheng, he could only arrange it in this way and send a large army to replace the Qingzhou soldiers.

What Cao Cao did not expect was that when he was about to lead his troops back, Huangfu Chaobo's Sizhou army had already launched an attack on Puyang City.

At this time, in Puyang City, Xiahou Dun only had one school of elite infantry, one school of Qingzhou soldiers, and two schools of ordinary county soldiers, totaling 20,000 soldiers and horses.

On the 14th, the tragic ant-attached siege finally started between the armies of Si and Yan states.

In yesterday's battle, the Sizhou Army's weapons continued to attack the walls of Puyang, causing considerable damage to the walls. Fortunately, Xiahou Dun reacted quickly and quickly adjusted the layout of the city walls, which resulted in minimal losses for the defenders.

Today was different. As the drums and horns of the central army siege sounded, the siege soldiers began to attack the city walls.

Under the command of thousands of soldiers and generals, they were divided into dozens of siege teams, carrying assault ladders and other equipment and running towards the city wall. Behind them, the siege equipment of the Sizhou Army once again attacked the top of the city.

So, Puyang City was once again shrouded in war. Arrows and slings flew in the air, and then pounced on their respective enemies, stirring up splashes of blood and blood mist from time to time, as well as the screams and shouts of soldiers one after another.

Standing on the top of the city, Xiahou Dun looked at the Sizhou Army soldiers shouting and attacking from the bottom of the city with a cold expression. Beside him, the other generals in Puyang City, except for the commanders of the other three gates, all stood beside him.

Cao Charlie said: "General Xiahou, is there any news about the lord's army?"

Cao Charlie's Tiger Guards did not follow Cao Cao's army to Xuzhou, but were arranged under Xiahou Dun's command to attack Chenliu and defend against the attack of the Sizhou Army.

After returning to Puyang, the Tiger Guards were arranged to the east city wall. The brothers Xu Chu and Xu Ding were responsible for the defense of the east, the north city wall was handed over to Puyang deputy, and Xiahou Dun was personally responsible for the west city wall.