Five days later, the tunnel was finally dug and its end was located under the wall of the west gate of Fanyang City.
It's early morning and the sun has not yet risen.
The Anxi Army carefully lifted out heavy wooden barrels one by one from the rear camp's baggage store, and slowly moved them to the front line under the watchful eyes of the Tang Army soldiers.
Guo Ziyi had never seen gunpowder before, and wanted to ask his soldiers to bring torches and get closer to have a look.
Li Siye quickly stood up, stepped forward to stop everyone, and motioned them to stay away.
Zhou Jun stood on the high platform of the Chinese army, watching the soldiers transport barrels of gunpowder into the tunnel, then ducked into the tunnel and crawled towards Fanyang City.
After arranging everything, Li Siye walked up to the high platform and came to Zhou Jun's side.
The latter asked: "The route of digging the tunnel is arranged according to what I said before?"
Li Siye found a branch, drew an "S" shape on the ground, and said to Zhou Jun: "The shape of the tunnel excavation was designed in the shape of nine curves at the end near the city wall according to the commander's instructions;
Also, once all the gunpowder is placed, seal the exit of the medicine chamber with stones and hard soil, leaving only a small ventilation hole at the top."
Zhou Jun: "Do you know why tunnels are built like this?"
Li Siye scratched his head: "I heard from the craftsmen that Anxi has done hundreds of experiments on the gunpowder siege method. This method of burying the gunpowder can maximize the power of the explosion."
Zhou Jun nodded first, then looked at the sky and said, "Give me the order, the three armies will form an array and prepare to attack the city."
Li Siye: "Here!"
At the west gate of Fanyang City, Cai Xide, the general of the Yan Army, stood on the tower. His face was full of exhaustion from having directed the war in Fan Yang for many months. He saw from a distance that there were many people in the Tang Army's camp, and he frowned.
A scout came to report: "The Tang army's front, middle and rear battalions have assembled, and most of the troops have gathered on the plain outside the west gate."
The deputy general next to Cai Xide heard this and reminded in a low voice: "General, the Tang army is afraid that they will launch a general attack today."
Cai Xide nodded and said: "A few days ago, the Tang army divided the army into several teams and took turns to attack the city. The momentum seemed huge, but the thunder was heavy and the rain was light. The number of soldiers lost every day was less than a hundred. However, today suddenly the entire army
Press on, I'm afraid something may have happened."
The deputy general said: "I think it was Shi Duhu and the King of Peking who led the army to attack the city in Boling. The Tang army knew that Boling city was about to be lost, so they had no choice but to make a desperate move at Fan Yang."
Cai Xide: "I hope so."
The sun has risen a little higher, and the sunlight has dispersed the morning mist.
The Tang army formed a 400-step formation outside Fanyang City.
According to the Tang Army's previous siege tactics, crossbowmen were generally placed in the front line, cooperating with heavy infantry and using long-range projection capabilities to suppress the enemy troops on the towers and create opportunities for their own soldiers to approach the city walls.
However, this time, the Tang army directly abandoned the siege tactics of mixed infantry and bows, and instead placed heavy cavalry in the front line.
Seeing this, Cai Xide kept shaking his head: "The general of the Tang army is really confused. How can the cavalry be placed in the front line during a siege? Is it possible that these cavalry can still climb the city wall?"
As he was talking, something strange suddenly happened in the Tang Army camp.
I saw a light cavalryman of the Tang Army, holding a torch, riding out from the front formation, and then rushed towards Fan Yang's city wall.
Seeing this scene, Cai Xide's eyes widened and he asked the person next to him: "Is this... the envoy of the Tang Army?"
The lieutenant general was also confused: "Shouldn't the envoy before the battle, whether he is persuading surrender or admonishing, hold a banner in his hand?"
Under the watchful eyes of the two armies of Tang and Yan, the light cavalry arrived a stone's throw away from Fanyang City, threw the torch into a prepared cave, then turned the horse's head and ran wildly.
, fled towards the Tang army’s camp at full speed.
The cave gave off a burst of white smoke, and then fell silent.
When Cai Xide saw this, he was even more puzzled: "What are you doing?!"
The garrison generals on the city tower looked at each other in confusion, and no one could explain the reason.
After a while, Cai Xide saw that the Tang army was still not attacking. Just when he was about to ask the scouts, a violent vibration suddenly came from the ground, knocking everyone on the tower to the ground.
Immediately afterwards, accompanied by an earth-shaking loud noise, an explosive mushroom cloud tens of meters high exploded in the ground at the west gate of Fanyang City in an instant.
The huge impact enveloped most of the city wall on the west side of Fanyang City. The already fragile city gate flew directly into the air more than ten meters high under the impact of the explosion. The masonry and rammed earth on the city wall were like bullets.
Generally, it splashed everywhere and spread to every place within a radius of several miles.
Almost one-third of the defenders on the Fanyang city wall were reduced to nothing in an instant. Human blood, stumps, organs and broken bones were all blasted into pieces, like a rain of blood, breathing
In a short time, Fanyang City Wall was completely dyed red.
Even in the Tang army's camp more than a mile away, there were many light armored soldiers and auxiliary soldiers with less protection. Their heads were bruised and bleeding, and many injuries were caused by the flying bricks and stones.
For a period of time after the explosion, neither the Tang nor Yan armies took any action.
The Yan army was the most invincible soldier on the city wall, but the Tang army was shocked by the power of the explosion, and everyone froze on the spot.
Generals such as Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi stood there dumbfounded and did not speak for a long time.
The two men led hundreds of thousands of troops to attack Fanyang City for several months, but failed to capture it. Now it was just a gunpowder explosion, and it turned out to be like this.
As for Zhou Jun himself, after seeing the explosion, he was stunned on the spot for a moment. He was not shocked by the power of gunpowder, but realized a huge problem - the amount of gunpowder loaded seemed to be too much.
The reason is that the land in Anxi is loose and the energy of the gunpowder explosion is more dispersed. Therefore, when the craftsman conducts an experiment to siege the city and explode, the charge must be larger; while Fanyang is mostly covered with frozen soil, and when the gunpowder explodes, the energy goes to more places.
Because it is concentrated, the charge should be reduced.
However, the amount of gunpowder under Fanyang's city wall and the power of the explosion not only blew open the city wall, but even upturned the entire land.
Looking from a distance, it looks like a scene like landslides and ground cracking.
The entire battlefield fell into deathly silence. In the end, Li Siye, who had experienced the gunpowder explosion, was the first to recover and led the Tang army's heavy cavalry to charge towards the wall of Fanyang City.
The city wall in the western section of Fanyang City is now in ruins.
There was a huge pit at the center of the explosion, which was bottomless. The Tang army's heavy cavalry detoured through the pit, stepped over the collapsed city wall, and rushed directly into the city.
Before Li Siye entered the city, he was already prepared for the enemy's stubborn resistance.
But when he actually entered the city, he found that the situation in the city could only be described as horrific.
Inside the city wall, there are scattered debris and human remains everywhere.
Those Yan soldiers who were lucky enough not to be killed by the explosion, shock, crushing, or falling were sitting on the ground and had long lost their will to fight.
Some people were like walking zombies, muttering something in a low voice; others were even so frightened that they cried and ran around in panic.
Of the eight thousand defenders of the Yan Army stationed at the Ximen Camp, as many as a thousand people died due to the gunpowder explosion. Most of the remaining people fell into chaos for a while. Facing the cavalry under Li Siye,
They were completely unable to resist, and most of them were captured.
However, the remnants of the Yan army, faced with an unknown explosion, which some said was a witchcraft and others said it was a punishment from heaven, did not dare to compete with the Tang army and directly withdrew into the inner city of Fanyang, where they hunkered down and never dared to fight again.