Chapter 614 The Battle of Chang'an by the Central Route Army
The 200,000-strong army on Beitang Middle Road set out from Lingwu and marched south to Luoshui.
Regarding how to fight the Yan army next, Guo Ziyi made a decision at the military council.
Guo Ziyi led the main force of 150,000 troops from Xiaoguan to Chencang and attacked Chang'an from the west.
Li Siye, Guo Yao and other generals led an army of 50,000 as a partial army and headed for Tongguan from the east.
Guo Ziyi's strategy for attacking Chang'an was a classic encirclement and reinforcements campaign.
There were 60,000 soldiers of the Yan army in Chang'an City. The city was not only strong, but also well-defended. Even if the Northern Tang army had artillery, it would not be easy to break through the Chang'an city defenses in a short period of time.
Guo Ziyi planned to surround Chang'an City with superior forces. While using artillery to attack the city to weaken the enemy's will to fight, Guo Ziyi also gathered heavy troops to attack the city, forcing the enemy forces in Chang'an City to ask for help from other Yan troops.
Other Yan army troops must pass through Tongguan if they want to rush to Chang'an.
Guo Ziyi equipped Li Siye and his eldest son Guo Yao with one hundred tiger squatting cannons and two thousand ring cavalry. The purpose was to snipe the reinforcements heading to Chang'an outside Tongguan and kill the Yan army's effective forces.
To be honest, there is nothing wrong with Guo Ziyi's tactic of surrounding the target for reinforcements.
Using Chang'an as a bait to ambush a partial army and ambush the Yan army coming for reinforcements halfway can reduce the pressure of the main force of the central army to attack Chang'an to the greatest extent, and also prepare for the later attack on Luoyang.
But in the entire tactical arrangement, Guo Ziyi forgot one thing, and that was the leading general.
The chief general of the partial army was Li Siye, and the deputy general of the partial army was Guo Yao, the eldest son of Guo Ziyi.
Guo Ziyi didn't have much contact with Li Siye. He only knew that the latter fought bravely and made great achievements. He fought many victorious battles in Anxi, Beiting and Hebei.
However, Li Siye was brave enough, but not resourceful. He often got into fights and indulged in fighting, and did not care about anything else.
As for Guo Ziyi's eldest son Guo Yao, although he has made many contributions since he was in the army, he spends most of his time with his father and rarely has the opportunity to lead troops alone. Naturally, he is also deficient in commanding.
But these two people, one is the prime minister's favorite general, and the other is the eldest son of the commander of the central army. There may be some discerning people in the army who can detect problems in personnel appointments, but no one dares to speak out.
At the military council, Kong You, the judge, took advantage of the discussion to make a cryptic comment: "Tongguan is in a dangerous terrain. If the war is in a stalemate, there will be a dilemma, which may not be conducive to the mobilization of troops."
Kong You's speaking out to this extent is already commendable.
After all, Kong You was known as "human massacre" because of the bloody night in Liangcheng. He did not have a good reputation in the army, and all the generals were more or less disgusted with him.
At this time, if Kong You made his words clear, he would not only offend Li Siye and Guo Yao, but it would also be even more difficult for the Central Army.
However, Guo Ziyi only understood half of Kong You's words.
The latter did not take back the personnel appointments of the partial army, but only told Li Siye and Guo Yao that when ambushing the Yan army, they must be quick with their troops and not be reluctant to fight.
Li Siye and Guo Yao bowed to Guo Ziyi and said hello, and then ordered their troops to lead 50,000 partial troops towards Tongguan.
After that, Guo Ziyi led an army of 150,000 troops and arrived at Fufeng outside Chang'an City in mid-May.
The commander-in-chief of the Yan army left behind in Chang'an City was General Tian Chengsi.
Tian Chengsi was the general of Zuowuwei of the Yan State. When he was under the command of Anlu Mountain, he served as a vanguard to attack the city and captured the territory, and he was invincible. Later he was sent to Nanyang to attack the Southern Tang Dynasty, and he won successive victories, and even advanced the troops to the foot of Xiangyang City.
This time, Guo Ziyi led an army to attack Chang'an.
The State of Yan transferred Tian Chengsi from the south to Chang'an and assigned him 60,000 soldiers to take charge of the city's defense.
God bless you for three years, May 19th.
When the army of the Northern Tang Dynasty arrived outside Chang'an City, Guo Ziyi stood on the high platform of the Chinese army, looked at the capital city in his memory, and sighed deeply.
On the plain, hundreds of thousands of troops surrounded Chang'an City from three sides.
All the generals of the Northern Tang Dynasty, facing this city regarded as the heart of the empire, everyone was eager to give it a try, just waiting for the commander's order.
Guo Ziyi calmed down and ordered the herald to display the school flag.
After the three-way drum beat, the Chinese artillery array took the lead.
Along with the deafening sound of shelling, dozens of large long cannons bombarded the towers of Chang'an City with batch after batch of shells.
After several rounds of shelling, when the smoke slowly dissipated, Guo Ziyi looked intently into the distance.
The walls of Chang'an City, except for some minor damage, are generally intact.
Guo Ziyi shook his head.
Regardless of the city walls, city defenses, and moats, Chang'an City is unique in the entire world.
The purpose of the existence of dozens of large long guns is not so much to cause damage to Chang'an City, but to dampen the enemy's morale.
Seeing that the artillery bombardment had little effect, Guo Ziyi ordered the front troops to approach the city wall and begin to attack the city.
Looking down from the sky, an army that looks like a sea is attacking towards the majestic and magnificent Chang'an City.
On the top of the city, bows, arrows, crossbows, slings, wood, and boiling oil were poured down without any reservation, turning the hundred steps in front of the city wall into a land of death.
Hundreds of soldiers from the Northern Tang Dynasty died on the way to the charge, but more soldiers stepped on Pao Ze's corpse and continued to attack the city in sight.
The Battle of Chang'an was fought within seven days, and the Northern Tang Army successively invested 80,000 troops from three directions: west, north, and south.
To the west of Chang'an City, a section of the city wall that saw the most intense fighting once changed hands six times in one day.
Under the city wall, the corpses of soldiers from Tang and Yan countries were stacked more than three meters high because there was no time to clean them up.
In order to prevent the Northern Tang Dynasty from climbing up the city wall with piles of corpses, the Yan army would pour kerosene from the towers every night and incinerate the corpses.
This can firstly clear obstacles, secondly prevent epidemics, and thirdly prevent night attacks.
When the battle reached this point, Tian Chengsi, the defender of Chang'an City, couldn't stand it any longer.
The 60,000 Yan troops in the city originally had low morale due to the existence of the Thunderous Thunder. In addition, the Northern Tang army was not afraid of death, so they often fought with their lives in a life-threatening manner.
The Yan army's losses were increasing day by day, and deserters had already appeared in the army. If the battle continued like this, Tian Chengsi was worried that after a while, there would be no soldiers available.
Therefore, Tian Chengsi sent out fast horses to ask for help from Luoyang.
When Luoyang received Tian Chengsi's letter asking for help, it was not ambiguous and directly ordered An Shouzhong to lead 50,000 elite troops to take the Tongguan Road to rescue Chang'an.
At this point, the Battle of Chang'an by the Middle Route Army of the Northern Tang Dynasty began to enter the second stage.