The beginning of spring is the beginning of the year, and the white sunrise is long.

In half a month, the battalions under Li Li's command arrived at the Liyang camp one after another, and then slowly marched into Yecheng step by step.

During this period, Cao Cao's army, which was supplemented by war horses and grain and grass, took the lead in opening roads and building bridges for the follow-up army.

However, to Li Li's surprise, Cao Cao himself did not go with the army first, but stayed in the Chinese army and set off with Li Li.

At this point, many of Li Li's previous suspicions about Cao Cao were swept away, and he often talked with Cao Cao about wine, many opinions coincided, and the words were speculative, so that they felt that they hated each other late, as if they were friends who forgot their years.

In fact, Cao Cao is now in the age of no doubt, while Li Li is only twenty-five years old, and there is a generation difference between the two. If Cao Cao's eldest son, Cao Ang, is still alive, he is about the same age as Li Li, with a difference of two or three years at most.

However, Li Li's status and strength are far above Cao Cao, because he is qualified to have a relationship with Cao Cao's peers, and Cao Cao has to be careful everywhere and dare not slack off. In this way, one of them intends to take the opportunity to figure out each other, and the other also has the intention to get closer and closer to observe, so that they are very close to each other and have a very happy conversation.

However, they both knew in their hearts that at the moment, it was only interests that drove people's hearts, and they would bring each other together, and the day they broke through Yecheng would be the time when both sides revealed their true colors.

Liyang is only more than 100 miles away from Yecheng, and the army marches 50 miles every day, and arrives at the city of Yecheng in three days.

When Li Li's army arrived, Cao Ren had already led his army to set up camp on the north bank of the Zhanghe River, ten miles southeast of Yecheng.

After seeing this scene, Li Li frowned slightly. He immediately ordered the army to camp on the south bank of the Zhanghe River, twenty miles southwest of Yecheng. Subsequently, Li Li ordered the commander of the Chinese army to temporarily live on the south bank, and Gao Shun's troops were trapped in the camp to garrison the camp. and ordered Zhou Yu to lead the Youzhou battalion and the Qinglong battalion to cross the river and enter the camp on the north bank.

Cao Cao, who had been following Li Li, saw this, his expression changed slightly, but it was fleeting, and he followed Li Li with a calm expression, following in unison, silently, and did not express any opinions.

Since then. After the army was stationed, the army under Li Li was divided into two. The Youzhou battalion led by Gongsun Zhan and Kebineng and the Qinglong battalion led by Xu Chu and Pang De were stationed on the north bank of the Zhanghe River, while Li Li was on the south bank. There are also three battalions of soldiers stationed around, namely: Jin Yiwei, Flying Bear Camp and Trap Camp. Cao Cao's 50,000 soldiers and horses were all stationed in the camp on the north bank, shouldering the heavy responsibility of taking the lead in attacking Yecheng.

The next day, Cao Ren led an army of 30,000 infantry to attack the city. Just as expected before the war. The pre-battle preparations of Yuan's army defending the city were extremely sufficient. Starting from the moat, the moats, pits, antlers, fences, and horse rejection arrays were scattered and dense, and the bow and crossbow defense line of more than 10,000 people was placed under the city in advance, which made it difficult for the Cao army to attack the city, and every step forward had to send out a huge cost of casualties.

After five consecutive days of siege of the city, Cao Ren led the army to break through the layers of defenses under the city and led the troops to attack the city. For this reason, Cao's army suffered heavy casualties. More than 15,000 soldiers were lost. Even so, the strong combat effectiveness displayed by Cao Jun also attracted the attention of Li Li, Guo Jia, Zhou Yu and others who were watching the battle in the rear. The tenacity of its battles, the rigor of its arrangement, and the bravery of its soldiers are far above the soldiers and horses of Xuzhou Lu Bu and Jiangdong Sun Ce.

And Cao Ren, who commanded the siege before the battle, was calm from beginning to end, not impatient or impatient, and his command was determined, with the style of a general. Under his command, even though the besieging soldiers encountered the stubborn resistance of Yuan's army, and saw the soldiers under his tent fall one by one and die in batches, he still handled it calmly, remained unmoved, actively thought about countermeasures, and then increased his troops. Starting from the moat and ending at the south gate of Yecheng, the soldiers of the Cao army can capture it by attacking twice in front of each checkpoint, and no more than three times. And every time a checkpoint was captured, the casualties of Cao's soldiers were within two or three thousand, without exception.

Such a well-founded method of attacking the city really opened the eyes of the generals under Li Li and amazed them. This also allowed Li Li, Guo Jia, Zhou Yu and others to see the amazing combat power of Cao Cao's soldiers, whose infantry troops were well-trained, ordered and forbidden, and had an extremely strong will to fight, brave and tenacious in battle. In particular, the generals under Cao Cao are extremely rare, and most of the leading generals are from the Cao clan, and their loyalty is undoubted, and it is interesting that Cao Ren, Cao Hong, Cao Zhen and Cao Xiu and others all have the talent of generals, who can not only charge into battle, but also arrange troops and lead troops to attack fortifications.

After seeing the Cao army attacking the city with their own eyes, Li Li, Guo Jia, Zhou Yu and Huan Fei had to admit that the overall combat effectiveness of the Xiliang infantry army was slightly inferior to the Cao army, especially in the siege of the city, there was a big gap with the Cao army. This is also the biggest weakness of the Xiliang Army under Li Li, who is good at field warfare but not good at attacking fortifications, and has fought extremely difficult battles in all previous siege battles, far inferior to the brave and good fighting of war horses.

This is also the result of Li Li's consistent strategy of destroying the enemy in the movement. For a long time, he did not care about the gains and losses of a city or a place, and did not want to see the soldiers under his command suffer unnecessary casualties in the siege battle, so as to preserve the vital strength to the greatest extent, so he would not order his soldiers to storm the city until he was forced to do so. Over time, the soldiers under his command were good at field warfare and long-distance running, but they were not good at attacking cities. At the same time, after so many years of development and growth, the number of war horses is increasing day by day, but the infantry army is growing slowly. Until now, the number of infantry troops under Li Li accounted for only half of the cavalry, and they were used as reserves for a long time, and they were reduced to vassals of war cavalry.

It was precisely because of this situation that in the previous campaign against Shouchun, Li Li had to use Xuzhou Lu Bu and Jiangdong Sun Ce to lead the army to attack the city.

Coincidentally. Fortunately, Yanzhou Cao Cao's soldiers and horses rushed to the front, otherwise, Li Li would really make a difficult mistake and would face a difficult choice. However, Li Li was not unprepared for this. The reason why he transferred Gao Shun's sinking camp from Hangu Pass this time was precisely to deal with the tough battles that he was very likely to encounter.

It is no exaggeration to say that the trapping camp is the most elite infantry army under his command, well-equipped, offensive and defensive. In frontal combat, the trapping faction can confront the powerful warhorses head-on; In the siege battle, the trapping camp can also attack the city with one enemy and ten. Up to now, the trapped camp led by Gao Shun has won all battles, and has not been defeated for many years.

?????? The siege battle was in full swing, and the attacking and defending sides fought fiercely, and the battle was extremely tragic.

After half a month, Cao Cao's 50,000 soldiers and horses were almost completely lost. However, Cao's army also achieved impressive results, following the south gate, successively uprooted the defensive front outside the west gate, north gate and east gate of Yecheng, and climbed the head of the city several times to fight with the defending Yuan army in close combat.

Seeing that Cao Cao's soldiers and horses suffered heavy casualties and were already unable to fight again, just as Li Li was about to send a trapped camp to take over the siege of the city, Cao Cao did not hesitate to refuse Li Li's kindness, and ordered Cao Ren to continue to besiege Yecheng, while sending people back to Yanzhou, and quickly dispatched 80,000 cavalry from the rear of Yanzhou and Qingzhou to participate in the battle.

Li Li was happy to see this, so he no longer insisted, and let the stubborn Cao Cao dispatch troops, while he led more than 100,000 Xiliang troops to watch from the wall.

At this moment, the sentry came to report, the south gate of Yecheng suddenly opened, and the Yuan army that was cowering in the city finally went out of the city to face the battle.

After Li Li heard the news, he immediately led the army to the south gate of Yecheng. It goes without saying that Yuan Jun went out of the city to meet the battle at this time, undoubtedly seeing that most of the Cao army under the city had been killed and wounded, he thought that there was an opportunity to take advantage of it, and tried to rush out by surprise, wanting to completely kill more than 6,000 soldiers under Cao Ren's department under the city.

Li Li, who hurriedly led the army, saw from a distance that in front of the south gate, a general of the Cao army and two Yuan generals were fighting fiercely in front of the battle. Looking at his figure, Li Li recognized at a glance that this general of the Cao army was Cao Hong, while the two Yuan generals who fought against him were very angry, as if they had never seen him before.

Raising his hand to signal the army to stop, Li Li rode his horse to the dirt slope not far away, followed by Cao Cao, Guo Jia, Zhou Yu, Li Zhi and Cao Chun.

"General Cao Hong is brave and fierce, and now these two Yuan generals are fighting with him on a par, and it is difficult to distinguish between them, but it is quite surprising to me. Does Meng De know these two? On the mound a few miles away from the south gate, Li Li stared into the distance and asked Cao Cao softly.

Cao Cao replied when he heard this: "General, these two people are not unknown, but they were not famous before. They are a pair of brothers, the one wearing black armor is called 'Lu Kuang', and the one wearing silver and white armor is Lu Xiang. These two followed Yuan Shao very early and were quite respected, but at that time, Yuan Shao had Yan Liang and Wen Chou by his side, so that the two had no chance to get ahead, and they were always unknown and buried. It wasn't until Yan Liang and Wen Chou died in battle that the Lu brothers had the opportunity to enter Yuan Shao's sight, so they were promoted to reuse, and they were not far from the left and right on weekdays, and they were actually Yuan Shao's most trusted close guard commanders. ”

"Lu Kuang, Lu Xiang?" Li Li groaned, nodded thoughtfully, and said softly: "These two people's martial arts are not weak, and their cooperation is very tacit, but they are not among the super-first-class generals. However, since they are siblings, they are still inseparable before the battle, and they must have something extraordinary, or they must have an unknown joint attack technique. In this way, under the long-term war, General Cao Hong is only afraid of more evil and less auspicious, and he is afraid that he will not be in danger! "It's a kind reminder.

With Li Li's rich experience in the battlefield, after a little observation, we can see which of the warring sides is stronger and which is weaker. In view of the current situation, coupled with the fact that he and Cao Cao are allies fighting side by side, it is necessary for him to remind Cao Cao and let him prepare early, so as not to make a mistake in Cao Hong.

"Are these two really so powerful?" Cao Cao was surprised when he heard this, and immediately turned his head to look at Cao Chun behind him??????

―――――― To be Continued ―――――――――――― (To be Continued......

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