In the fourth year of the Ming Li year, the second year of Zhangwu (197), on September 30, the rooster crowed.

The twelfth day after the Ming army crossed the Ji River.

Zhu Acheng was already broken on the fifth day. Even though he had a brick wall, under the continuous bombardment of counterweight catapults, Zhu Acheng's wall was still damaged.

Zhu Acheng's soldiers were young, and Xu Huang repeatedly launched attacks at night, which made many of Zhu Acheng's defenders not have a rest.

The Eagle Wolf Guard set fire in the granary in the city, which burned most of the grain in Zhua City and exhausted the defenders of Zhua City.

Now the Wushu and Ruishi of the Ming army have basically escaped the trouble of night blindness.

Night time is not an enemy to the Ming army. Long-term and strict training allows them to maintain order even in the dark.

Although the Ming army was still equipped with equipment from the Cold Weapon Age, most of their thoughts had been changed.

The Ming army's mental outlook is becoming more and more like a modern army, and they are dividing the boundary with the feudal army of the old era.

The custom of ordinary army, where officers bully ordinary soldiers, let ordinary soldiers be cows and horses, and regard ordinary soldiers as slaves, has disappeared from the Ming army.

This situation is not allowed whether it is military law or Taipingdao thought.

In the army, military orders must be obeyed, but not all orders can be summarized into military orders. Private requirements are not considered military orders.

Outside the army, no matter how high or low the military vocation meets each other, only colleagues are allowed to be called.

All these changes are actually due to Fu Zhu among the various armies.

The most respected in the army is the talismans of each army.

In wartime, generals and officers lead the army, while in peacetime, Fu Zhu leads the army.

The general is the chief military officer, in charge of military affairs, while Fu Zhu in the army is the chief political officer, in charge of ideological work.

The Ming army was able to have a spiritual outlook today entirely because of the deep prevailing thought of Taipingdao, and their old ideas had changed.

The change in mental outlook made the Ming army no longer troubled by Ying Xiao. Their pressure and emotions in the war could be relieved after the war. Fu Zhu in the Ming army would comfort and encourage them as much as possible.

The Han army is the opposite. The Han army is of strict hierarchy, and oppression and exploitation are just common sense in the military.

The regular army of the Han army directly regarded the township heroes as cannon fodder and slaves. If they were slightest mistakes, they would beat and scold them when they were moved, and even kill them on the spot at worst.

At night when the Han army faced the siege, the township brave men not only couldn't help, but even sent people to supervise them to prevent the township brave men from causing chaos and roaring.

Zhu A's Han army retreated step by step under the high-intensity attack of the Ming army and had no power to fight back.

On the fifth day of the siege, Xu Huang led his troops to attack and suddenly launched an attack, fighting down Zhuacheng.

After the city was broken, Zhu Acheng garrison committed suicide and killed himself. Zhu the remaining 2,000 soldiers and more than 7,000 rural brave men in the city surrendered.

Xu Huang followed Xu An's order and detained all the regular Han army and the children of the aristocratic families among the village warriors as prisoners, and sent people to Qingzhou Pingyuan County.

These prisoners will use their labor to atone for their sins and will be free after spending several years in the prisoner-of-war camp.

Those local warriors were temporarily requisitioned as civilians and told them that they would be free after the war and could pay for travel expenses and dry food to allow them to go home on their own.

This time, Xu An dispatched a total of 50,000 troops, but in fact, the number of civilians who recruited and maintained logistics had already exceeded 100,000.

The civil servants recruited by the Ming army were not free labor, and they had money to receive.

These recruited local heroes are also treated equally.

These recruited townspeople thought they would be used as cannon fodder again. When they heard that they not only did not need to fight, but they only needed to transport food and grass, help repair the city and do some miscellaneous work, and they could also get a certain amount of money for service.

All the local heroes were ecstatic and thought there was something wrong with their ears and they heard the wrong words.

When they transported food, grass and soldiers, their enthusiasm was even greater than that of the logistics and supplies troops responsible for escorting money and grain.

Even Fu Zhu, who followed the army, was shocked by these energetic local heroes.

With the help of these township heroes, floating bridges in various parts of the Ji River were constantly being built, and Zhu Acheng quickly returned to normal use.

Xu Huang led his army to continue the attack and pulled out the fort left by the Han army along the way.

These military fortresses were able to persist at the beginning, which caused considerable obstacles to the Ming army.

However, later, as the Ming army was attacked by the method of attacking the military fortress and had no reinforcements to wait for assistance, these military forts lost their original role.

It only took three days to get rid of all the twenty-seven military forts on the front line of Licheng.

By the ninth day, Que Yi and Xu Huang had already led a large army to the city of Licheng.

At the same time, Xu An also led all the troops into the south bank of the Yellow River, stationed troops around the county and Luoyin cities, and divided troops to attack Guanxian and Dongchaoyang cities.

The Ming army's siege speed was completely beyond Li Qian's imagination.

He guarded Licheng, and he personally participated in the supervision of Zhu Ahe's defense line, so he naturally knew the degree of difficulty in attack.

If he was asked to attack Zhu A and Licheng and these troops under his command, it would probably take at least one or two months to be removed without reinforcements from the defenders.

When Chen Gong said that Zhu A and Licheng could only last for 20 years, Li Qian felt it was a bit exaggerated.

Later, Chen Gong said that it would be a bit reluctant for Zhu Ah and Licheng to last for half a month, and Li Qian only thought it was sensational.

But now it seems that what Chen Gong said is true.

The Ming army, who had just removed Zhu Ahe's military fortress along the way, was as powerful as rainbows at this time.

In just three days, Li Qian felt a little unable to hold on.

This is not because Licheng is weaker than Zhu's city defense.

Although the main attack direction of the Ming army was Zhua, it also left an army to attack Licheng.

Afterwards, more siege equipment from the Ming army arrived at Jishui at this time.

By sieging the wells, the Ming army used bows and arrows and catapults to suppress the defenders on the city walls, and then built many earthen hills. The construction of those earthen hills allowed the Ming army's crossbowmen to climb the earthen hill and shoot at high altitude.

Although the city defense of Licheng has been strengthened, the height is indeed difficult to increase for a while.

Under such pressure, the Ming army's civilians calmly filled the gullies outside the city and even built two mounds that could directly hike up the city wall.

As soon as the main force of the Ming army arrived, the situation on the battlefield instantly fell to the bottom.

In just two days, the attack launched by the Ming army was like a storm, and it never stopped for almost a moment.

Li Qian has followed Cao Cao's command since Yanzhou. He experienced the Battle of Yanxu and the Battle of Qingzhou.

He even faced the most powerful tiger and leopard cavalry among the Wei army.

But no army he had ever seen was as terrifying as the Ming army outside the city today.

The continuous and harsh whistle sounded like a dream demon, and it couldn't be gone in his mind.

In the past two days, Li Gan has not been able to sleep well for a day, and the harsh whistle of Ming Jun always echoes in his ears.

Li Gan's mind was in chaos. He had hardly slept much in the past few days, and his eyes were covered with blood.

The Ming army's attack had just stopped for less than an hour.

During these two days, the Ming army always launched attacks at night inadvertently, which made his spirit weak.

"Dongdongdong..."

The rapid knock on the door interrupted Li Gan's thoughts.

Li Gan opened his blood-covered eyes and grabbed the Han sword placed on the eucalyptus table in front of him.

"Come in."

The wooden door was opened by the personal guards guarding outside the house, revealing a young face.

"uncle."

The young man walked in slowly and said in a deep voice.

"It has been arranged, and the provosts outside the city did not see the shadow of the Ming army. The troops that Chen Changshi Shu protected us to evacuate were also ready. Taking advantage of the night, we left the south gate now. Even if the Ming army discovered it, it would be difficult to catch up with it for a while."

Li Gan looked solemn and nodded.

"I understand, you go to Nancheng first, and I will arrive later."

"Then my nephew took his leave first."

The young general responded and then walked outside the room.

"Mancheng..."

But just as he walked to the door, Li Gan suddenly stopped him.

This young general is actually his nephew Li Dian.

"What are the instructions for uncle?"

"If the palace army collapses, don't show off, just take your personal guards away."

This time, he asked Li Dian to serve as the chief officer of the Palace Hou Army.

Li Dian was fond of learning since childhood and was not interested in military affairs, but he was extremely talented in military affairs, so Li Gan gave the important task of the Palace Back Army to Li Dian.

But the young people were impulsive, and Li Gan was afraid that Li Dian would pay too much attention to it and spared no effort to live.

Only he, Xiahou Dun and Han Hao knew Chen Gong’s plan, while the rest were all ignorant.

Li Gan also buried this plan in his heart, even if it was his own son Li Jin.
To be continued...