Hanbei County of Chu State, after Xiong Huai left Wancheng, he first went to the Danxi defense line in the west, and after seeing that the Danxi defense line was still very stable under the attack of Gan Mao, he went north along the Xishui all the way, until the Xishui was about to end, and then climbed the Great Wall of Fangcheng Mountain.

On the Great Wall, Xiong Huai followed the Great Wall all the way to the east, and arrived at Luyang Pass half a month later.

The arrival of the king of Chu greatly boosted the morale of the Chu army, and also greatly encouraged the Qin-Han coalition army outside the pass.

Xiong Huai stayed in Luyang for two days, and during those two days, Sima Cuo, who was outside the gate, went to the front line every time, risking arrows to personally supervise the battle, while Han General Storm Kite personally led the army to attack the city for two consecutive days.

Although the offensive of the Qin-Han coalition army was extremely fierce, on the side of Luyang Pass, when the King of Chu personally beat the drum and personally came to the pass to supervise the battle, the Chu army in Luyang was extremely excited, and did not let the Qin-Han coalition army occupy the general.

Then early in the morning of the third day, Xiong Huai continued to advance along the Great Wall under the reluctance of the soldiers, and went to the end of the Great Wall.

Seven days later, Xiong Huai arrived in Fangcheng before the Wei reinforcements arrived.

On that day, after the Chu army repelled the attack of the Korean army, Xiong Huai led the crowd back to Guancheng.

Soon, Xiong Huai sat down on the main seat in the hall of the city guard's mansion, and then waited for nearly half an hour before he saw Deng Lingguang, the commander of Hanbei County and the city lord of Fang, who had arrived in advance, enter the hall with the calculated results.

"Two virtuous gentlemen, please take a seat first."

"King Xie!" The two bowed, and then sat down on the left and right under the king of Chu.

Then, Xiong Huai waited for a while, waiting for the two of them to take two breaths, and then looked at Deng Lingguang and asked in a slightly concerned tone: "General, how is the situation on Fangcheng's side during this time?" What are the casualties of our troops?

Today, the widow supervised the battle on the city wall for nearly an hour, and found that the fierceness of the battle on the side of Fangcheng was even greater than that on the Luyang side, so I think the casualties of our soldiers must be not light! ”

When Deng Lingguang heard this, his resolute and tired face suddenly showed a trace of bitterness: "King Mingjian, the casualties of our army are not light, but heavy casualties. Under Han Chen's strong attack regardless of casualties, the two thousand defenders of the original Fang City are now nearly eighty percent of those who are killed and seriously injured in battle, and even if there are a few hundred people left, basically everyone is injured.

The first 3,000 slaves brought by Jiezi have been killed and seriously injured in the past month, and more than 2,000 have been killed and seriously wounded in succession, and the remaining people are now afraid to let them go up to the city wall.

And..."

Speaking of this, Deng Lingguang suddenly paused, and then said with a little sadness: "The Great King's Guards brought by the minister, in the past month, have suffered nearly half of the casualties, and the remaining soldiers have also shown fatigue after a month of continuous fierce fighting, and even their combat strength has decreased. ”

At this time, Jiezi saw that King Chu's face was slightly stagnant, and immediately spoke: "King, in the past, the number of guards was still relatively abundant, and the soldiers of the guards at that time could still be divided into two and take turns to kill the enemy. However, since half a month ago, the casualties of the defenders of Fangcheng have been too large, and the number has been insufficient, so the soldiers of the Guards need to go into battle every day to kill the enemy. ”

Xiong Huai couldn't help frowning when he heard this, the soldiers were tired, this is indeed a big problem.

The Guards are powerful and well-equipped, but their energy and spirit are also exhausted one day, and the only solution is to find a batch of reinforcements that can be replaced for a while.

Otherwise, the Guards he had worked so hard to manage would all be lost here.

Moreover, even if he could keep the remaining guards, now this half-crippled guards would not be able to support the Huaibei battlefield.

Thinking about it, Xiong Huai immediately looked at Jiezi and said, "Sir, it has been more than a month since the widow arrived in Hanbei, I don't know how many private armies of important ministers and new nobles have come?" ”

Hearing this, Jiezi immediately responded: "Back to the king, on the side of the important ministers in the court, the clansmen of the three important ministers such as Zuotu and Si Luo had already arrived in Fangcheng ten days ago, as for the other ministers, some of the ministers' clans were far away, and they were still on the way to Hanbei, and on the side of the new nobles, except for the first five doctors, Cai Dafu, who took the lead in gathering a thousand private troops and had already rushed to Fangcheng, the others had not yet arrived in Fangcheng because of the insufficient number of private troops. ”

"How can their speed be so slow," Xiong Huai immediately frowned when he heard this.

The new nobles were a little slow to assemble their troops, which was not what he expected.

At this time, Deng Lingguang saw that the king of Chu frowned, and immediately explained for those new nobles: "The king doesn't know, where did the ministers get the news from Zuo Sima, those new nobles have no intention of slacking off, but because there are too many new nobles in Yingdu at the same time, a large group of nobles who do not have enough private troops are recruiting soldiers near Yingdu at the same time.

As a result, because most of the people in Yingdu were relatively wealthy, there were not many people willing to accept recruitment to participate in the war, and there were too many nobles in recruiting soldiers, so except for a few new nobles who took the lead in recruiting, other nobles could not recruit private troops who were not satisfied.

As a result, many new nobles have gone deep into the townships to recruit soldiers, and this will take more time, so there are fewer nobles coming to Fangcheng now. ”

Speaking of this, Deng Lingguang frowned again, and sighed: "Also, there are serious problems with the army recruited by the new nobles, such as Dr. Cai, although he recruited a thousand people to Fangcheng, but most of his private army are ruffians and hooligans in Yingdu and the counties near Yingdu, these have no military discipline, are very scattered, and have a low fighting spirit, but the combat power of a thousand people can only exert the combat power of three or four hundred people.

It's okay for these people to let them fight a tailwind battle, but it's really ugly to use a vicious battle like Fang Cheng. Even, they are inferior to those people in Zuo's family who are mixed with many old and weak. ”

When Xiong Huai heard this, he immediately glanced at Deng Lingguang hesitantly.

He knew that Deng Lingguang had taken over the position of the leader of Chu Mo, and he was extremely dissatisfied with those ruffians who claimed to be rangers, and even had a lot of hostility, thinking that those rangers who could only rob tombs, kill, rob and extort money were really insults to the name of rangers.

So, is he bringing his usual emotions to the battlefield now?

At this time, Jiezi saw that there was a suspicion in the eyes of the king of Chu, and saw that Deng Lingguang was still uninclined at the moment, and did not notice the gaze of the king of Chu, so he immediately explained for Deng Lingguang: "King, the right Sima is reasonable, although those ruffians and hooligans also have the desire to serve the country, their fighting spirit is too low.

Seven days ago, Dr. Cai led the private army to the city wall to kill the enemy, as a result, these people were full of enthusiasm on the battlefield, as a result, as soon as the Korean army attacked the city, but after a while, Dr. Cai's private army was killed by the Korean army, and fled directly, and the city wall was also given to the Korean army.

Fortunately, the incident happened suddenly, and Han Chen outside the city did not react, and fortunately, the right Sima Shoucheng was able to obtain the law and urgently dispatched the guards to the rescue, so that the city wall was defended under the desperate struggle of the guards.

However, that time, Dr. Cai's private army directly killed nearly 300 people, and the Guards killed nearly 300 people. Then, in order to deter the army, Right Sima ordered all the more than 200 people who fled to be killed on the city wall, which shocked the others. ”

As soon as Xiong Huai heard that the guards had killed nearly 300 people in the direct battle, he immediately gasped.

You know, when he had just reached the end of the battle, he heard that the Guards had only suffered 500 casualties after five days of fierce fighting, and that time the Guards had 300 dead, so you can imagine the crisis of the situation at that time.

Then, Xiong Huai thought that the Chu army that came to the aid next was all aristocratic clansmen mixed with men, women, and children, plus a private army composed of local ruffians and hooligans from all over the country, and the combat power of these people should be similar to that of Dr. Cai's private army.

Once these armies go into battle, and the army collapses again, what should we do?

You must know that last time there was a Guards army to turn the tide, and in the future, as time goes by, the Guards are getting more and more tired and their combat strength is getting lower and lower, it may be a situation where the army is defeated.

Thinking of this, Xiong Huai immediately made up his mind that he would immediately start changing the law in Hanbei County, and he couldn't wait for the Wei army to arrive, or even wait for him to return to Wancheng.