Chapter 745: Dispatching Troops to Baima Port

As for Jizhou, everyone's intention was to defend first. Yuan Shao's fighting power was much stronger than Cao Cao's now. Even if the Sizhou army was fully fired, it might not be able to get much benefit from Yuan Shao. Therefore, Han Fu had to be sacrificed.

Han Fu's army tried their best to defend the existing territory. If there was any problem, they would retreat to Wei County. Only by preserving Han Fu, the richest county, could Han Fu's army last longer under Yuan Shao.

On October 10, Zhou Tai's 10,000 naval forces of the Sizhou army escorted 10,000 defenders in Luoyang to the outside of Baima Port. At the same time, Huangfu Chaobo also arrived on horseback with his 10,000 personal guards, and at the same time, there were 15,000 troops from Huang Zhong's Huben Camp.

The person in charge of defending Baima Port was a lieutenant of Cao Cao's army, who led 3,000 soldiers to garrison the port. For Cao Cao's army, there was no real navy, so there were not many ships in the port, not to mention the water fortress.

1,000 of the 3,000 Cao troops were stationed at the water fort, and the other 2,000 were stationed at the port and the camp.

Facing the water fort defended by 1,000 soldiers, Zhou Tai did not make much preparation, and directly pressed forward with his entire army. Two hundred warships instantly shot out a rain of arrows. After several rounds of rain of arrows, the defenders of the water fort had suffered heavy casualties.

With Zhou Tai's order, several boats rushed to the gate of the water fort, and then dozens of naval soldiers jumped off from them, quickly climbed up the wall of the water fort, opened the water gate, and the Baima Port Water Fort was officially captured by the Sizhou Navy.

Then a large number of ships entered the water fort, and thousands of naval soldiers landed to clear out the remaining enemies of Cao Cao's army in the water fort. At this time, it was less than half an hour before the navy began to attack the water fort.

At this time, Cao Cao's army in the port camp on the shore was also attacked by the Sizhou army. After Huang Zhong's army arrived, they also sent troops to attack the port camp after the water fort battle began.

The defenders of the port camp were only ordinary county soldiers of Cao Cao's army. Under the cover of the archers of Huangfu Chaobo's personal guard camp, 5,000 soldiers of the Tiger Guard Camp attacked Cao Cao's camp.

In just half an hour, the Baima Port camp was captured by the Tiger Guard Camp. At this time, Baima City, several miles away in the south, sent thousands of soldiers out of the city to reinforce the port.

Because when the port was first attacked by the navy, the 20,000 Sizhou troops on land did not appear. After asking for help from the soldiers at the port, the Tiger Guard Camp began to attack the port camp, so the defenders in Baima City did not know that there were tens of thousands of Sizhou troops between themselves and Baima Port.

So, the 3,000 Cao Cao troops sent out of the city were tragic.

The 3,000 soldiers who were less than five miles out of the city were suddenly surrounded by 10,000 cavalry. After fighting desperately and failing to break through, more than a thousand people were killed and injured. In desperation, the remaining soldiers had to lay down their weapons and surrender.

Afterwards, after joining forces with 5,000 guards, the 30,000-man army began to attack Baima County. At this time, there were only 2,000 soldiers in the county.

Looking at the tens of thousands of Sizhou troops under the city, the defenders of Baima City were disheartened, especially the 3,000 captives filling the trenches in the front, who were still chatting and laughing with him a few hours ago. Now they must kill them if they want to survive, which makes the 2,000 soldiers in the city feel sympathetic.

In fact, there are not many guards in Baima City and Baima Port. There are 5,000 soldiers in the city and 3,000 soldiers in the port, a total of 8,000 soldiers. Now if the defense is effective, the two places can support each other and wait for Puyang to send troops for support.

Unfortunately, they underestimated Huangfu Chaobo's Sizhou Army. First of all, in terms of the navy, because there is no special navy general, they don't know much about the navy and water fort. The defense of the water fort is already very good in their eyes, but it is simply vulnerable in front of professionals like Zhou Tai.

Another point is that they did not expect that the 20,000 troops of Huangfu Chaobo's personal guard camp and the Huben camp would ride directly to the hinterland of Dongjun. In addition, Cao Cao's army did not have many cavalry, and the battlefield intelligence was completely avoided by Sizhou. Therefore, under the situation of completely unequal intelligence, only 2,000 soldiers were left before the 8,000 soldiers had made any waves.

Of the remaining 6,000 soldiers, nearly 3,000 were killed or injured, and

the rest were all captured by the Sizhou army.

Since there were more than 3,000 prisoners, Huang Zhong would definitely use these prisoners as cannon fodder for the siege. In fact, although he said that they were used as cannon fodder, Huang Zhong still ordered shield soldiers and archers to fill the trenches for the prisoners to cover.

With the order from the central army, the 3,000 prisoners under the city began to rush to the moat under the city wall. They had been promised that each person only needed to fill the trench three times to get three strings of copper coins. Of course, this must be counted after the earth bags were thrown into the moat. If anyone dared to be sneaky or shrink back, he would be killed on the spot.

The captives who had received the promise ran desperately towards the moat under the protection of the shield bearers. While running, many soldiers shouted loudly to their former Zepao on the top of the city.

The shouts came one after another from under the city. After hearing the shouts, the defenders on the top of the city became even weaker in their counterattacks. There were also some winners among the captives who directly persuaded the defenders on the top of the city to surrender. Anyone with a discerning eye could see that there was basically no chance of winning for the two thousand defenders facing the 30,000 elite troops.

This made the morale of the people on the top of the city even lower, and soon the moat outside the city was filled with dozens of siege passages.

Although Baima City was only a middle county, the height of the city wall was more than three feet, and it was one of the strongest cities in Dongjun. You must know that in the Battle of Guandu in history, Liu Yan, the governor of Dongjun, relied on two or three thousand people to defend Baima and resisted Yan Liang's 20,000 troops for several months.

But now, Baima City only has two thousand soldiers with low morale, but they have to face the attack of Huangfu Chaobo's 30,000 elite troops. And there are also captured soldiers who constantly help to lower morale.

After the moat filled the siege passage, Huang Zhong did not arrange for the soldiers to rest, but immediately organized the army to attack the city. Because there were navy troops transporting soldiers and horses this time, various siege equipment came with the ship, and there was no need to make them temporarily.

As soon as the army on the city wall engaged in the battle, they attacked the city wall in the first round of attack. At this time, the defending soldiers had no intention of fighting, and they were simply unable to resist the attack of the Sizhou army. Although the general defending the city wanted to resist with all his heart, he found that he was powerless to turn the tide.

So he decisively led his 100 guards to break out from the east gate. After fighting desperately, he finally broke through the siege of the Sizhou cavalry and rushed towards the county city of Puyang in the east. At this time, there were only five guards left by his side, and they were all covered with scars.

Seeing that someone finally broke through, Hu Yan, who was in charge of interception, was very upset and asked Huangfu Chaobo to lead the troops to pursue, but was stopped by Huangfu Chaobo.

It was a blessing from heaven that they could capture Baima Port and Baima City within one day without losing more than a thousand people.