Nine dragons fight for the throne, I don't want to sit on this throne

Yanzhou, Wei army camp.

Just after the third gong sounded at midnight, Xu Fang's knuckles, which were holding the secret letter, had turned blue.

Suddenly, a north wind blew outside the tent, blowing up the red soil unique to Wei, which hit the cowhide tent and made a rustling sound, as if thousands of ghosts were scratching the tent curtains.

He suddenly opened the wax seal, and half of the blood-stained bronze tiger talisman fell on the table with a clang - it was the military talisman that Sima Yi gave him to send troops.

"Bring me my black armor."

Xu Fang suddenly spoke, startling the guards so much that they shook the torches in their hands.

As the firelight flickered, the thoughtful expression on his face became more ferocious. "Order each camp to prepare meals at three o'clock in the morning and reach the Mangshan Pass before five o'clock."

When the deputy general Zhao Po Nu lifted the curtain and entered, he saw Xu Fang pressing the Chu army's defense map into the clay stove.

The sheepskin curled up into strange shapes in the flames, like a trapped animal struggling to death.

"General, the enemy's patrol schedule has changed."

In the copper box he held was a half-broken arrowhead with teeth: "The scout found this thirty miles southeast of the granary."

Xu Fang's pupils suddenly shrank.

This type of three-edged barbed arrow is unique to the main archers of the Chu army. The elite troops who were supposed to be stationed three hundred miles away actually appeared here.

This also shows that there must be food in that granary, otherwise elite troops would not be sent to guard it.

He grabbed the jar of wine on the table and drank from it. The turbid wine flowed through the gaps in his armor onto his breastplate, reflecting the blood-red waning moon outside the tent.

"Replace the prepared tung oil with fierce kerosene."

He suddenly smashed the wine jar at the sign of the Chu army's granary, and the pottery shards flew everywhere. He grabbed the command flag and said, "Let the cavalry battalion change into the Chu army's armor and feint an attack on the beacon tower from the west slope at 3:30 am."

At the darkest hour of the fifth watch, three thousand Wei army soldiers, with gauze in their mouths and cotton wrapped around their hooves, crept along the dry riverbed.

Xu Fang lay behind the cold basalt, looking at the dim lanterns on the Chu army's sentry tower.

"Fire arrows!"

As the arrows in his hands whistled, a rain of arrows soaked in flaming oil suddenly rose into the air from three directions.

Before the first wave of arrows hit the ground, the second wave of sulfur-tipped rockets tore through the night.

The tarpaulin of the Chu army's granary caught fire, and a fire dragon jumped up three feet high along the grain stack, burning half of the sky red.

Just as the large flag with the word "Xu" was unfurled in the firelight, the sound of horse hooves like thunder suddenly came from the southeast.

Xu Fang's heart trembled. This was the unique sound of the Chu army's heavy cavalry.

He pulled off his cloak and lit it, then jumped on his horse and held the torch high: "Soldiers, the enemy's reinforcements have arrived. He only needs to hold them back for a moment to let the fire burn down their granaries!"

The bloodiest fight in the melee took place at the well on the north side of the granary.

When the Wei army's assassins used iron chains to wrap around the hind legs of the Longxiang camp's war horses, the Chu army's lieutenant's nine-ring knife had already chopped at Xu's face.

Amid the sound of metal clashing, Xu Fang's shoulder guard cracked, but he took advantage of the momentum to direct the opponent's blade towards the burning grain cart.

When the lieutenant general's horse was startled and stood up, a stray arrow hit his throat - it was the whistling arrow shot by Zhao Po Nu from three hundred steps away.

At dawn, Xu Fang climbed up the ruins of the granary on the charred wheat grains.

He took off his broken visor, and the blood from the old wound on his left eye formed ice crystals on his face.

On the southeast horizon, the thirty-mile smoke was twisting into the shape of a tiger's head - that was the reception team he had arranged in advance.

"General, our people are here." Zhao Po shouted loudly.

Xu Fang suddenly burst into laughter, startling the crows that were eating carrion on the ground. They flew over the still smoking grain stack in a black mass.

"Send the message, our army has burned down the Chu army's granary, retreat immediately!"

At the command, the Wei army retreated like a tide.

In Maple Leaf City, Huo Quji also received an order from the Han Emperor Liu Che.

As a waning moon shone on the top of Maple Leaf City, Huo Quji was pressing the imperial edict into the hot pine resin.

The silk curled up into a gray butterfly in the brazier, but he stared at the two words "three days" that finally turned into green smoke, as if he saw the ice mirror melting on the steps of the Weiyang Palace.

"Your Majesty wants us to attack Maple Leaf City?"

Deputy General Su Ding had a solemn expression on his face: "But Maple Leaf City is easy to defend but difficult to attack. If our army attacks forcefully, we will surely suffer heavy losses."

Huo Quji did not answer, his eyes flashing with an unpredictable gleam.

Of course he knew that a strong attack would result in heavy losses, but this was the emperor's order and he had no choice but to carry it out!

"Okay, stop talking and go down and prepare for battle!" Huo Quji didn't want to explain and gave the order directly.

When the morning mist of the third day of June, wrapped in the smell of blood, spread over the battlements of Maple Leaf City, the Han army's red-scale heavy armor had already formed a wedge formation on Tianshu Cliff.

Huo Quji stroked his newly-worn bronze visor and stared coldly at the Maple Leaf City before him.

"General, all the catapults are in place."

The voice of Deputy General Xiang Ying was muffled inside the iron mask, and the flag in his hand was dyed an eerie dark blue.

The creaking sound of the winches of three hundred Thunderbolt chariots turning simultaneously startled the crows all over the mountain, and they flew over the bronze mirrors that the defenders had placed on the top of the city wall.

At three quarters past the hour of Chen, the first wave of flints broke through the air.

The Chu army garrison commander suddenly ordered the removal of all arrow-blocking curtains, allowing the huge rocks covered with sulfur to hit the main city tower.

When the seventh flint smashed the golden plaque of "Maple Leaf City", he waved the black iron flag fiercely:

"Open the gate!"

The roar coming from underground caused the warhorse under Huo Quji to jump up in shock.

Suddenly, seventy-two secret doors opened at the base of the city wall, and tung oil ignited by flint poured down along the iron ditch. In the blink of an eye, a three-meter-high fire wall was built outside the moat.

The Han army's iron armor quickly became hot in the high temperature. Amid screams, the heavy cavalry in the front row were melted into red-hot iron along with their horses.

"Change the ladder!" Huo Quji roared.

Five thousand lightly-armored warriors climbed the city wall with their soaked cowhide shields, but they had no idea that the defenders had buried traps in the hidden grooves of the battlements.

When the third group of Chu troops reached the city wall, the defenders suddenly removed the iron nets and released tens of thousands of red-eyed crows that had been hungry for three days.

Amid the sound of sharp claws digging into his eyeballs, the Han army watched as their brother was dragged high into the sky by a flock of crows, his intestines drawing a seven-foot bloody line in the air.

At 3 p.m., a rainstorm suddenly came. Huo Quji personally led 800 soldiers to attack the water gate.

As the steel-made siege spike hit the gate, the Chu army on the city wall suddenly removed the heavy gate.

The backflowing flood carried the poisonous caltrops that rushed down from upstream, and rolled the elite Han army into an iron cage covered with barbs.

When Huo Quji struggled to the surface, he saw the defenders standing in the arrow tower with their bows drawn.

"General, be careful!" The guards swooped over and shot arrows through the chests of two men and nailed them to the mast.

Huo Quji wiped the blood off his face, his eyes flashing with murderous intent!

"Someone, come and let them out!" Huo Quji was unwilling to give up and wanted to give it a try.

At 3 p.m., the setting sun was as red as blood, and the Chu army's final killing move was finally revealed.

Twenty blindfolded rhinos were soaked in kerosene and rushed towards the city gate with poisoned blades tied to their horns.

On the city wall, the defenders unfurled their flags, and suddenly hundreds of bronze mirrors dropped from the top of the city wall.

The sunlight from the west was refracted by the mirror and accurately penetrated the rhinoceros's single eye.

The mad beasts turned around and broke through the main formation of the Han army, and Huo Quji's white tiger flag was trampled into the mud by the hooves of cattle.

Seeing that his trump card was broken, Huo Quji could only snort coldly: "Send the order, retreat!"

At the hour of Xu, the Han army's call to retreat resounded throughout the valley, but the gates of Maple Leaf City were wide open.

Eight hundred light cavalry rushed out dragging straw men soaked in pine resin and ignited the Nine Palace Fire Array on the retreat route of the Han army.

"Retreat, retreat!"

The Han army ultimately failed to capture Maple Leaf City and chose to withdraw to the camp.

But the Chu army did not dare to be careless. They immediately cleaned up the battlefield and strengthened their vigilance.

At the same time, he also ordered someone to pass the message to Chu Ning immediately!