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

The entire area outside Hongdu City was completely transformed into a huge meat grinder. Hundreds of thousands of troops were fighting madly under the light of fire in the dark night. The battle lines were jagged and countless lives were lost every moment.

On the top of Hongdu City, Chu Ning was still standing on the parapet.

The cold night wind blew his clothes, but it could not blow away the calm smile on his face, which showed that everything was under control.

He watched as almost all the Han army's troops in the camps outside the city were successfully attracted out, and rushed into the battlefield like moths to a flame, entangled with the Chu army that had taken the initiative to leave the city. A cold arc appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Very good, Liu Xiu, you really have been fooled."

Chu Ning whispered to himself, as if he was enjoying a carefully choreographed drama being performed according to the script.

"I want you to throw all your troops into this fight and fight to the death with our army. Once you get deeply entangled, it will be impossible for you to escape!"

His gaze passed over the bloody battlefield and into the distant darkness, as if he had already seen the scene of tomorrow's dawn.

"Fight on, fight on, consume as much as you can. When the sun rises tomorrow, Xue Huaide's 100,000-strong army will arrive as scheduled."

"By then, you will be attacked from both inside and outside. You will be exhausted, and your hundreds of thousands of troops will be trapped in the melee, unable to escape. You will be like a turtle in a jar, unable to escape even if you have wings!"

"Liu Xiu, your death will be tomorrow."

The night slowly faded away in the bloody battle, and the dawn light struggled to penetrate the dense smoke and dust, illuminating a scene outside Hongdu City that looked like a Shura hell.

With the towering but ruined city as the center, the vast plains within a radius of twenty miles have completely turned into a huge and chaotic killing battlefield.

Everywhere the eyes looked, flags were fallen, corpses were scattered all over the ground, broken weapons and battle flags were everywhere, and the land had long been soaked in blood and turned into dark red mud.

Black smoke billowed from the burning wreckage of vehicles, tents and siege equipment, and the air was filled with a strong smell of blood, sweat and burnt food, which was nauseating.

From midnight to dawn, hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the Han and Chu armies fought each other fiercely here.

Liu Xiu's decision to decisively deploy all his main forces to try to wipe out the Chu army leaving the city in one fell swoop did gain the upper hand. The Han army, which had an absolute advantage in manpower, once tried to divide and surround the Chu army.

However, the tenacity and eliteness of the Chu army exceeded the expectations of many Han army generals.

Despite being outnumbered, the core force under Chu Ning's command was an elite force that had been through hundreds of battles and had been built with all the strength of the Chu State.

Their weapons were sharper and could easily cut off the Han army's weapons in combat; their armor was thicker and more sophisticated, and whether it was lamellar armor or chain mail, it could effectively resist a considerable degree of slashing and arrows.

Their individual combat capabilities and team coordination are extremely high, especially in such chaotic close combat, they can often rely on their advantages in equipment and quality to defeat the enemy with fewer troops and hold on to their positions.

The Chu army did not collapse at the first blow as Liu Xiu had initially expected. Instead, it formed circular and square formations of varying sizes, and resisted the Han army's wave-like attacks as tenaciously as a rock.

The battle quickly evolved from the Han army's attempt to encircle and annihilate the enemy at the beginning to an extremely brutal war of attrition and a miserable battle.

The battlefield situation was completely out of control.

There is no clear front line and no stable rear.

Often, just when a phalanx of the Han army had defeated the enemy in front of it, a new force of the Chu army suddenly appeared from the flank or behind.

On the other hand, when an elite group of Chu troops tried to retreat while fighting towards Hongdu City, they would immediately be besieged on all sides by Han troops that were several times their number.

The infantry and cavalry of both sides were completely mixed together, forming countless small battle groups fighting independently.

Officers could not find their soldiers, and soldiers could not recognize their own troops. Many times, they had to rely entirely on the styles of uniforms and armor to distinguish between friend and foe.

Roars, the clash of weapons, the wails of the dying, the neighing of war horses...all kinds of sounds intertwined into one, deafening.

Relying on its superior military strength, the Han army launched wave after wave of fierce attacks, trying to completely crush the Chu army.

The Chu army relied on its equipment and the quality of its soldiers to refuse to give up an inch of ground and fought to the death.

The battle spread from the foot of the city wall to the plains, to the nearby hills and woods, and even to some of the Han army's outer camps.

Every mound, every ravine, and every forest became the focus of repeated battles between the two sides.

A brutal tug-of-war continues.

An area was just occupied by the Han army's flag, but was recaptured by the Chu army in the blink of an eye.

A Han cavalry unit successfully broke through a formation of the Chu army, but before they could expand their victory, they were blocked by a phalanx of Chu spearmen rushing from the flank.

The art of war has become ineffective here, and what remains is only the most primitive and brutal collision of power and consumption of life.

The sun rose, but the sunlight did not bring any warmth. Instead, it illuminated the tragedy of the battlefield more clearly.

The exhausted soldiers continued to swing their swords and kill by relying on willpower and inertia. Everyone's face was covered with blood and mud, and their eyes were numb and crazy.

The number of casualties rose at an alarming rate, with people falling down every moment and never getting up again.

Liu Xiu had already gone to the front line to supervise the battle in person. The high ground where his central army commander's flag was located was also attacked several times by small elite troops of the Chu army. Although they were all repelled by his personal guards, it was enough to illustrate the degree of chaos on the battlefield.

His face was ashen, and the initial excitement and ecstasy had long since disappeared, replaced by solemnity and a hint of imperceptible anxiety.

He realized he had made a mistake.

The Chu army's departure from the city was not a foolish act of suicide, it was clearly a ruthless move to risk their lives!

Chu Ning's goal was to use his elite ace army as bait and shackles to completely drag the numerically superior main force of the Han army into this chaotic and inescapable close-range hand-to-hand combat!

The Han army had an advantage in manpower, but was unable to deploy it and make full use of its strengths in formation and deployment.

The Chu army was like a group of porcupines covered with sharp thorns, tightly entangling the Han army, which was like a tiger. The tiger had sharp claws and fangs but was unable to deliver a fatal blow, and was instead stabbed all over.

"Your Majesty, the situation is not right!"

Huo Guang rode up to Liu Xiu, his armor stained with blood, and his voice hoarse, "The Chu army is fighting to the death. Although our army fought hard, it was difficult to defeat them and we are stuck in the mud!"

"The casualties among the various units are immense, and the formation is disrupted, making communication difficult! I'm worried about an accident!"

After fighting for a few hours, if no problem is found, then Huo Guang will be unjustly appointed as a general.

Through observation, he discovered that the purpose of the Chu army was not to break out, but to deliberately entangle with them!

This made him feel very uneasy.