Chapter 898: Guojiabao Seeks Help

In Yulou County, at three o'clock in the morning, the city gates of the county have been opened since noon today and have been open for nearly two hours. At this time, they are slowly preparing to close. At this moment, several people suddenly ran out of the south gate, shouting as they ran: "Wait a minute, please wait and close the city gate!"

The captain of the city gate looked up, only to find four people dressed as civilians running over in a hurry. Although he was surprised, he still stretched out his hand to stop his subordinates from closing the door. He raised his head and looked around the outer gate of the city. No one was around for miles, so he said to the soldiers: "Slowly close the door and see what's going on!"

In a moment, the four people ran to the city gate. The leader was a middle-aged man in his forties. Several of them stopped panting and said to the officer guarding the city gate: "Army...Master Jun." , I am the eldest brother of Guo Cangli, who is fifteen miles south of the city. Please help us. I'm being attacked by a group of rebels. Please report it to me as soon as possible, and ask the county captain to send troops to support you."

The captain was startled. Although Guo Cangli had a small official position, he was in charge of the entire county's warehouses. It could be said that his position was not high but he had great authority. Usually, all the rice grains for the army in the city had to be collected from him. He was a person who could not be offended.

Thinking of this, he quickly asked carefully: "How many rebels are there on the other side and what is their combat strength?"

"About two...three hundred people, with all kinds of weapons, and dozens of bows and arrows. My small observation should be that the Yuzhou bandits retreated a few days ago." The middle-aged man thought about it. After a while, he replied;

"Mr. Guo, please go into the city quickly and go find Guo Cang Li yourself. I will send someone to report to the county captain immediately!" The captain thought that this was an opportunity to curry favor with a powerful person like Guo Cang Li, so he immediately reported to the Cang Li. The middle-aged man said;

"Okay, okay, thank you very much, Master!" The middle-aged man thanked him repeatedly, and immediately led a few servants into the city and ran to his brother's house.

Half an hour later, a thousand guardsmen hurriedly came out of the city, went out of the south gate, and headed towards Guojia Town, fifteen miles south of the city.

There is a Wubao fifteen miles south of Yulou County, with a population of 2,000. This is the Wubao of the Guo family that ranks among the top in Yulou County. The Guo family is a large family in Hulou, and one of their sons serves as a warehouse clerk in the county government. Because this is a lucrative position, within a few years, the Guo family has jumped from an ordinary family ranked more than ten in Hulou to a ranked one. The fifth family, and Guojia Town outside the city, spent several years building a medium-sized dock that could accommodate thousands of people.

This time, the Andong Army and the Yuzhou Army allied forces attacked Yulou. Guojiabao was spared the disaster because it was fifteen miles away from the county seat, and the coalition forces did not stay in Yulou for a long time.

The coalition forces finally retreated. Just when everyone was breathing a sigh of relief, this afternoon, hundreds of broken soldiers suddenly ran out of the woods outside the fort. They were all in ragged clothes and their faces were covered with dust. Fortunately, the people guarding the fort were sharp-eyed. , this group of people saw it when they were still two miles away, so the bells of the whole Wubao rang loudly, Wubao quickly closed the gate, and all the young men in the fort went up to the wall to guard the fort.

Guojiabao was originally a medium-sized fort with only more than 2,000 people and less than 400 clan soldiers. If you include the young and strong people in the fort, there are only 600 to 700 people. However, there are 200 to 300 defeated soldiers outside. , this frightened Mr. Guo, so he ordered all the young and strong members of the clan to go to the fort wall to help defend, and at the same time sent his eldest son to the county seat to ask for help from his second son, who was an official in the city.

However, what makes Mr. Guo feel strange is that after these hundreds of defeated soldiers surrounded his Wubao, they were not in a hurry to attack, but instead had the intention of surrounding it.

Soon, the sophisticated old man realized, no, this is about to besiege the city and call for reinforcements! But at this time, he had no way to send any more people out. Although the opponent had less than 300 people, he knew that they were far beyond what his own clan soldiers could compare with. Now he could only hope that the defenders in the city would be cautious enough.

Able to avoid being ambushed by the opponent.

However, he had a high opinion of the defenders in the city. Although Chen Xi, the county captain, after receiving the report, his initial idea was to send 500 defenders to support. In his opinion, these defeated troops should be deserters when the coalition retreated. They would definitely not be elites, so their combat power should not be strong. The five hundred defenders plus the hundreds of soldiers from the Guo family should be able to successfully defeat them. Its annihilation.

But in the end, he could not bear the requests of the county magistrate and Guocang officials, so for the sake of safety, he sent a thousand guards to support. As a result, there were only more than a thousand soldiers left in the county. In his opinion, General Ji now We are currently fighting a battle with the coalition forces, and the area around Yulou County should be safe, so there is no problem with more than a thousand soldiers.

What he didn't expect was that no matter how many troops he sent out of the city, the county seat was destined to be lost.

Five miles north of Guojiabao is a road with mountains to the west and water to the east. This is the only road connecting Guojiabao with the county. The hill to the west is not high, only a dozen feet high, but its area is not small. There are many trees on the mountain, which are extremely dense.

In the woods, Zhang He and his more than 5,000 soldiers were ambushing here, preparing to catch all the reinforcements from the county.

Seeing that it was getting late, just when the soldiers were getting a little anxious, the soldiers responsible for surveillance in the front suddenly heard the news that the county defenders had left the city and were heading towards Guojiabao. There were thousands of them.

The news of the enemy reinforcements made the soldiers excited. After a few days of lurking, the soldiers were already very anxious. In particular, everyone knew that the camp was fighting with Yuan Shu's army, but they were doing nothing here, which made the soldiers anxious. Fortunately, Zhang He had always had a high prestige, so there was no problem. Of course, this was also because these soldiers were basically transferred to Zhang He's subordinates in recent months. If Zhang He was allowed to train for another half a year, they would definitely become first-class elites and obey orders.

After waiting for half an hour, the traces of Yuan Shu's army appeared in everyone's sight. A thousand soldiers lined up in a long line and were heading towards Guojiabao. Because they knew that there were three or two hundred defeated soldiers, and there was still five or six miles from Guojiabao, the army did not take extra precautions and marched in the form of several queues. During this period, the leading captain was still urging the soldiers to march quickly.

Seeing that all Yuan Shu's troops had entered the ambush range, Zhang He ordered the army to attack.

"Bang bang..."