My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 673: Conquering Deng County and Besieging Fancheng

September 20th, Deng County, north bank of the Han River.

After Liu Bei's army successfully gained a foothold in the first two days of "beach landings", it quickly launched an offensive against Deng County, a bridgehead on the north bank not too far from Fancheng and Xiangyang.

To be honest, when Liu Bei's army first started to "seize the beach", both Liu Bei himself in Yicheng and Guan Yu and Zhang Fei who were directly commanding the troops on the front line were worried about whether they would be attacked by Cao's army halfway across the river.

Don’t think that this worry is groundless. There are many similar examples in actual military strategies and battles.

Even though Liu Bei's army now has more total troop strength and actual combat power than Cao's army.

However, due to the limited shipping capacity of the fleet, the first batch of troops that went ashore was only a small number of people.

If Cao Ren really took advantage of the fact that not many Liu Bei's troops had landed and launched a decisive counterattack to cause trouble for Liu Bei's army, it would have been very likely to succeed.

However, before crossing the river, Zhuge Jin had already said with certainty: Cao Ren has suffered a series of defeats, so he will definitely be very cautious now. Even if he sees an opportunity to fight, he will regard it as a trick to lure the enemy. So there is no need to worry too much about this matter.

What's more, our army has not even captured Xiangyang City yet. If we suddenly take on an aggressive attitude and cross the river to attack Fancheng at the same time, it will definitely catch Cao Ren off guard.

Liu, Guan and Zhang always believed in Zhuge Jin's speculation, so they didn't dwell on this issue for too long.

But when everything was finally settled and Liu Bei's army landed safely without encountering any obstruction, and it was proven that Zhuge Jin had been right again, everyone couldn't help but sigh with emotion.

Tzuyu's speculation is still as stable as ever. Whatever she says is true.

Yesterday, the vanguard army landed smoothly without any trouble, which gave Guan Yu and Zhang Fei a small boost in confidence.

The two men discussed it overnight and decided to let Guan Yu lead his troops to station in the west of Fancheng to block Cao Ren. Zhang Fei also led his troops to attack Deng County.

Before the action, Guan Yu helped Zhang Fei to do some calculations: if all the 120,000 troops had to set up camp after landing, the amount of work required would be huge, wasting manpower, money and food, and slowing down the progress of the advance.

Therefore, we must strive to capture Deng County within three to five days, or even shorter, and let the main force live in the city. This will also save a considerable amount of expenses for setting up camp for the army, and subsequent deployment will proceed more smoothly.

Zhang Fei was also an old man who had fought for more than 20 years. He understood these principles very well and accepted the task with full confidence. He spent only half a day to hastily deploy the troops and launched the offensive early the next morning.

……

Deng County in Zhangling County during the Eastern Han Dynasty was not in the same place as Deng County in later generations.

Deng County in later times was located further north than Xinye and was not close to the Han River. However, Deng County in the Eastern Han Dynasty was located just west of Fancheng and on the northwest bank of Xiangyang, on a plain, only about 20 miles away from the Han River.

This is a typical fertile agricultural county town located on an alluvial plain.

The land of the entire county and even the surrounding countryside was formed by the sediment carried by the Han River when it turned and washed away. Therefore, it is very soft and fertile, with flat land and no strategic location to defend.

In the city of Deng County, Cao Ren only left two thousand people to guard the city. They were second-line troops, mainly composed of Liu Biao's former subordinates who had surrendered, and assisted by several direct troops of Cao's army as supervisors.

Of course, Zhang Fei would not take such combat power seriously.

Zhang Fei did not waste the night's preparation time on rebuilding temporary siege weapons such as flying ladders and battering rams. Instead, he directly ordered the landing troops to transport the unloaded parts of the ladders from the boats on the bank of the Han River to the front line and speed up the assembly.

The twenty-mile land route can be reached in the middle of the night by towing ox carts and horse carts. After being assembled in the second half of the night, it can be used directly in actual combat at daybreak.

This rapid response capability shocked the defenders of Deng County. When did Liu Bei's army come up with heavy siege equipment like ladders to attack the city just one day after arriving at the city? Didn't they need time to cut wood and prepare?

Of course, Liu Bei's army could not have done it so quickly under any circumstances. Deng County was a special case because it was close to the Han River, so the siege weapon parts shipped by ship could be directly transported to the front line.

If it was a city farther from a large river, it would not be so easy. On the other hand, if it was a county town closer to the Han River than Deng County, it would be even more difficult to escape this disaster.

At noon in the morning, Zhang Fei organized a vanguard of 20,000 troops to attack the city with all their strength. The scale of the troops mobilized was almost ten times that of the defenders of Deng County.

Deng County also had no moat, only a dry trench. Zhang Fei's troops filled the ground, built a temporary trench bridge, and then pushed the light ladder through the trench bridge to the base of the city wall.

At the same time, thousands of archers under Zhang Fei's command, carrying large shields on their backs, wearing steel-filled helmets and holding pedal-drawn crossbows, approached the outside of the moat and fired at the enemy troops on the city wall.

Arrows rained down like rain, pouring down from the sky to the ground. The defenders struggled to resist the enemy, but the difference in numbers was too great, and Zhang Fei's attacking troops were well protected by shields and helmets, so Cao's resistance was ineffective.

It can be seen that Zhang Fei cares very much about saving time.

If it was a normal attack, he should have spent two or three days to have his troops set up many fixed giant rattan shields at the front as temporary shelters for his own crossbowmen. If there was more time, the attackers might have spent time building wooden formations as shelters.

But now, Zhang Fei simply asked the crossbowmen to carry a large shield on their backs. When they shot the arrows, their bodies would move forward briefly. After shooting, while they were stringing the arrows, they would turn their backs to the enemy city and let the shield on their backs block the arrows.

As time was being raced so decisively, the defenders of Deng County felt endless pressure coming at them.

In addition, the number of troops mobilized by Zhang Fei was ten times that of the defenders. The defenders had to spend more manpower to shoot at the archers under Zhang Fei, so there was less firepower available to guard against the ladder soldiers and trench-filling soldiers.

The ladder team encountered almost no setbacks and reached the base of the city wall one after another.

The sword and shield soldiers wearing steel-filled armor flew up first, followed closely by the horse-slaying swordsmen. They rushed to the top of the city wall and started hacking and chopping wildly, fighting to the death.

The two armies fought in a bloody battle. Cao's army only managed to suppress the attacking side in the first few cups of tea, relying on the numerical advantage on the city wall.

However, after suffering the initial casualties of a hundred or so men in hand-to-hand combat, Zhang Fei's troops managed to gain a foothold by fighting desperately and tearing open a gap in the enemy's defense line.

Moreover, Zhang Fei's troops were attacking the east, west and south walls of Deng County at the same time, leaving the defenders stretched thin.

After blocking the two most threatening entry points, as the defenders' reserve troops were exhausted, the entry points, which were originally ranked third and fourth in terms of threat, collapsed.

In this kind of battle, if there is a problem anywhere on the city wall, the entire situation will collapse, there is no doubt about it.

"Western City is the first to go up to the city! Brothers, make more efforts! Cao the thief is in trouble!"

During the fierce battle, Zhang Fei also personally beat the drum to supervise the battle, and inspected and inquired about the situation in various places. When he found that the South City, which he was directly supervising, had not been broken through, but the West City had been broken through first, he immediately ordered the subsequent reserve troops to step up their efforts, and shouted while fighting to disturb the enemy.

"The West City has been breached! The tower is on fire!"

"Brothers under Liu Biao, stop working for Cao. Kill Cao the supervisor and surrender. Not only will you keep your original position, but you will also be rewarded handsomely! The eldest son and General Huang are both highly valued by the Grand Commandant!"

The swift and fierce physical attack and the psychological impact caused great chaos in the defenders' morale, which soon turned into a complete collapse.

Zhang Fei's subordinates successively captured three city gates. The hundreds of Cao's direct subordinates remaining in the city were unwilling to sit and wait for death, so they opened the north gate and fled in all directions.

Zhang Fei didn't care about the battle results of these hundreds of people. He was only focused on taking the entire city first, stabilizing the situation, and putting out the fire that Cao's army had set in the chaos.

By the evening of that day, order had been restored in Deng County, and the countless houses left behind by Cao's troops after their withdrawal were cleared out and reserved for Liu Bei's troops.

That night, Zhang Fei ordered all 20,000 siege troops to enter the city and camp there. If there were any landing troops with nowhere to camp, they could also relocate some of them to Deng County. Anyway, the bridgehead on the north bank of the Han River had been established, so whether they were attacking Fancheng or even directly attacking Xinye upstream of Fancheng, they could march along the plain land route.

Cao's army temporarily lost the ability to stop the advance of Liu Bei's army on the northern land of Han. They could only rely on the barrier of Tang and Baihe river systems to cut off and restrict Liu Bei's army's offensive route.

Cao Cao's total force on the battlefield on the north bank of the Han River was only a little over 100,000. These people were distributed in the vast battle zone from Fancheng to Wancheng, covering the middle and lower reaches of the Baihe River.

Liu Bei's army had planned to land 120,000 troops, with more troops than Cao Cao, better soldiers, better equipment, and a more densely packed troop assembly area. Cao's army simply did not have the courage to seek a field battle in any single battlefield.

……

It only took Zhang Fei one day to capture Deng County and find a temporary base for the army.

When this news reached the west of Fancheng and the siege camp that Guan Yu had just set up, Guan Yu was quite pleased.

After not seeing him for several years, my third brother has made great progress. When my third brother just arrived in Jingbei as reinforcement, he was asked to make a feint attack on Xiangyang in the first battle to establish his authority, but he failed to capture it.

That was only because Xiangyang was indeed strong and had sufficient military force, and Yu Jin was also a famous general, which prevented the third brother from immediately displaying his fighting spirit.

Now, after changing the target of the attack to the small Deng County, Zhang Fei's true strength was immediately revealed: without a famous general like Yu Jin, and with weak military force, it would only take one day to break into the city!

"When Cao Ren hears this news, he will surely become even more afraid of fighting and will not dare to compete with our army." Guan Yu stroked his beard with satisfaction and commented pertinently.

In his opinion, capturing Deng County was a small matter, but capturing it so quickly and cleanly would definitely have a significant deterrent effect on the enemy.

While feeling emotional, Guan Yu also thought of some ideas that Zhuge Jin had discussed with him during the pre-war deduction: "Now that our army is strong and the enemy is weak, the enemy will definitely try to hold on and delay. So we want to take the opportunity to hit the morale of Cao's army and chill the defenders of Cao's outer strongholds.

We must make good use of every opportunity to intimidate Cao Ren and force him to do something that would be ineffective. If Cao Ren has already done so, we should make it known, which may be beneficial to our army.

Zhuge Jin had said these words to Guan Yu before they crossed the river a few days ago, and Guan Yu could still hear them clearly.

Moreover, Guan Yu sincerely felt that this analysis made sense. This was similar to the situation before the final battle between Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan.

After Yuan Shao gained an absolute advantage in the Youji battlefield, Gongsun Zan adopted a delaying tactic, holding on and waiting for changes. But when holding on and waiting for changes, if your core forces only defend a stronghold and do not help the surrounding areas, then those peripheral generals will soon surrender to Yuan Shao.

Since Zhuge Jin guessed that Cao Ren had to hold on and wait for changes because of a series of defeats, Liu Bei's army could also imitate Yuan Shao's idea of disintegrating Gongsun Zan and at least shake up the periphery of Cao's army.

Thinking of this, Guan Yu also knew how to use the information from his third brother to quickly capture Deng County.

He immediately summoned Gao Shun, Chen Dao, and Guan Ping and instructed them: "Each of you should divide up a cavalry unit, go by land, bypass Fancheng, and go north to harass Rangcheng, Xinye, and Huyang.

Cao's army is now hiding and defending, there should be no troops in the wild to stop you. So you don't have to fight to the end, just make a gesture of intimidation and persuasion to surrender wherever you go, and shout and curse.

Tell Cao's army that our army took only one day to capture Deng County, and Cao Ren did not save Deng County. So once these small counties are threatened, Cao Ren will not save them. Our navy will also enter the Baihe River soon to block Cao Ren's waterway to communicate with the counties along the Baihe River, so that they will no longer have illusions. "

Gao Shun and his men would certainly not refuse this order, but Gao Shun still asked one more question: "I wonder if General Wei is really planning to send the navy into the Baihe River to harass the enemy, or if it is just a lie to deter the enemy... We are not good at fighting in small boats in a small river, and the mouth of the Baihe River is narrow, so it may be difficult for the navy to enter."

Guan Yu raised his hand, indicating that Gao Shun didn't need to worry about this issue. "I will ask Lu Boyan to deploy this matter. You don't have to worry about it. Just do a good job of cavalry harassment. Anyway, I said that there will be navy to cut off the communication between the enemy cities, so there will be navy."

Seeing that Guan Yu spoke so confidently, and it was obvious that he had thought it all through in advance, Gao Shun stopped reminding him and just said goodbye to carry out his mission.

……

A day or two later, the cavalry units under Guan Yu's command were indeed deployed according to this plan and attacked Cao's army deep in the north.

Cao's army also cleared the fields in advance. In addition, it was already the end of September and the beginning of October, winter was approaching, the autumn grain had already been stored in the warehouse, and the people could all return to the city to hibernate. There were not many people to migrate between the countryside, and there was no money, grain or supplies to be requisitioned.

In general, the actions of Gao Shun and others did not encounter any substantial resistance, nor did they yield any substantial gains. Instead, they boosted the morale of their own side and hit the enemy.

Liu Bei's cavalry saw that their patrol might even approach Rangcheng, which was a hundred miles north of Fancheng. Doesn't that mean that Cao's army has already given up? Even though they went so far, Cao's army didn't dare to come out to intercept them.

It can be said that as long as Liu Bei's army did not cross the Tang and Baihe Rivers and only operated in the area north of the Han River and west of the Tang and Baihe Rivers, Cao's army would not have the courage to come out for a field battle. In this area, Cao's army only dared to defend a few cities in a scattered manner and fight you relying on the cities.

Gao Shun did not achieve any substantial results, so he just methodically ordered his men to approach the city and shout insults at the enemy, which indirectly put pressure on Cao Ren.

"Don't work for Cao anymore! Surrender to the Taiwei's rebel army immediately. That's the right thing to do! The Taiwei's rebel army conquered Deng County in one day! Cao Ren is simply watching you die without helping! Even if you are besieged, he still won't come to save you!"

The Cao army in Rangcheng and Xinye was not shaken and remained stationary. However, they had to send out patrol boats downstream to Fancheng to report the various situations in the north and let Cao Ren know that Guan Yu's cavalry harassment troops had penetrated so far and showed off their power.

In contrast, Huyang County, which was selected by Guan Yu as one of the three potential deterrence targets, was not so determined.

On the one hand, Huyang County was not as important as Xinye and Rangcheng. On the other hand, because Huyang County was not so close to the Tanghe and Baihe River systems, the location of the city was still more than ten miles away from the river.

Therefore, if Cao's army had no courage and ability to fight on land and only wanted to rely on the control of the water transportation of the Tangbai River system to control the situation, Huyang County might still be isolated by Guan Yu's army.

Because even if Cao Ren sent a fleet to reinforce, and the fleet arrived at the Tanghe Wharf closest to Huyang County, you would still have to get off the boat and walk the last ten miles to enter the city.

Now Liu Bei's army is large in number, well-trained and in high morale, and Cao Ren dares not fight a land battle. So, in the end, you will have to provide support to the places you want by land, which means you will not be able to provide support at all, right?

Finally, Guan Yu's army had another advantage, that is, the three cavalry units he sent out to harass and deter, Xinye and Rangcheng were sent by Guan Ping and Chen Dao respectively, while Huyang County was sent by Gao Shun himself to deter.

Gao Shun's ability to attack a stronghold far surpassed the other two generals, and was not on the same level. Moreover, Gao Shun had just attacked and broken through Cai Mao's Yuliangzhou Water Fortress more than a month ago, and now his reputation for attacking strongholds was at its peak.

Under the threat of Gao Shun, Huyang County finally chose to surrender directly to Guan Yu's army, helping Guan Yu to eliminate one of Cao Ren's support points on another flank of Fancheng.

Deng County was captured by Zhang Fei, and Huyang County was forced to surrender because Guan Yu publicized the story of "Cao Ren not saving Deng County".

When Cao Ren in Fancheng heard about this double setback, both civil and military, he couldn't help but feel overwhelmed.

Moreover, the defenders of Xinye and Rangcheng also sent urgent reports by water, expressing their respective concerns and requesting Cao Ren to take some action to reassure the military morale. Cao Ren knew that he had to do something.

And at this moment, the last straw that forced Cao Ren to make up his mind finally fell.

The next morning, Cao Ren had just woken up when he heard his subordinates coming to him urgently to report the bad news from last night.

"General! Last night, because of the moonless night, Guan Yu's Lu Yi led a small boat deep into the mouth of the Baihe River and burned two of our docks, causing some casualties and material losses. Cai Mao did not dare to pursue and counterattack."

After hearing these annoying things, Cao Ren became even more troubled. He finally gritted his teeth and made up his mind to carry out the prime minister's advice:

"From now on, our army will completely abandon the plan to re-enter the Han River. Urgently recruit auxiliary soldiers and civilians to block the Baihekou waterway with earth and rocks! I want no ship to enter the Baihekou!"

Cao Ren knew what this meant. If he did this, it would definitely cause a lot of noise and he might be caught and used by Guan Yu.

But he had no choice now. If he didn't do this, the people in the cities along the Tang and Baihe Rivers in the rear would be unstable. He could only choose the lesser of two evils.

(End of this chapter)