Xue Yantuo's army arrived at Jiuyuan City at night. The gates of Jiuyuan City were closed tightly. The soldiers guarding the city wall heard the movements outside the city all night long. They felt that enemies were walking around everywhere and heard their roars and curses. They burned
People outside the city built houses, filled in trenches, and cut down trees.
This time Guo Song did not spread tribulus thorns outside the city. Last time, Xue Yantuo's army suffered a big loss. The effect of repeating the same trick this time will not be very good, and the sequelae will be great, which will pose a huge threat to the production and life of the people of Fengzhou.
.
In the darkness, an unknown number of Xue Yantuo's troops approached the city, but in the morning, when the hazy morning light quietly descended on the Fengzhou wilderness, the answer was revealed. A few miles to the west of the city, there were densely packed white or black tents, as if they had grown overnight.
of mushrooms.
More than a dozen trenches dug by the Tang army outside the city have been filled in. The entire west city is covered by a flat river, which is extremely smooth and is very suitable for the advancement of large-scale wheeled siege weapons.
This is not an attack on the east, but a tactic on the table. Xue Yantuo's army is going to attack from the west, and the Tang army has made corresponding arrangements. Six thousand combat soldiers are deployed on the top of the city, and rolling logs and stones are piled up like a mountain on the top of the city.
The twenty large trebuchets on the platform in the west city have been debugged and are controlled by a thousand militia soldiers.
Five thousand crossbowmen were also deployed between the inner and outer cities. The crossbows and arrows they fired would hit the enemy forces within fifty steps of the city.
On the city tower, Guo Song stared at Xue Yantuo's army in the distance. He said to the generals next to him: "Xue Yantuo learned his siege techniques from the Geluolu people, and the Geluolu people learned their siege techniques from Da Cannibal.
We must not underestimate the enemy."
Several generals bowed and saluted, "Please reassure me that you will never underestimate the enemy in your humble position!"
At this time, the rumble of war drums was heard in the distance. Everyone hurried down the city and climbed up the outer city wall. They saw Xue Yantuo's army starting to gather a few miles away. Guo Song ordered: "Send the entire army to the city and prepare for battle!"
"
The rapid sound of war drums also sounded on the top of the city, 'Boom! Boom! Boom!' Soldiers of the Tang army rushed up the outer city wall from all directions, and the crossbowmen and trebuchet operators quickly took their positions.
A big flag was fluttering on the top of the city, and six thousand soldiers lined up neatly. Their spears shone coldly in the sun. Behind them were a thousand steel fork-hands and a thousand trebuchet-operating soldiers.
The Tang army defended the city in a more organized manner. They usually formed a team of fifty people. Among the fifty people, there were twenty spearmen, twenty archers and ten slingers. They were then commanded by a team leader. They passed by countless times.
Training and cooperation are very good.
‘Woo——’ A low horn sounded in the wilderness, and the Xue Yantuo army appeared, slowly rushing forward like a tide.
In fact, the Xueyantuo people did not have many troops, only 18,000, which was similar to the number of Tang troops in the city. But they had to fight in this battle. On the grassland, the law of the jungle has always been respected, and the strong will always be stronger. They had a battle the autumn before last
The disastrous defeat severely weakened Xue Yantuo's position on the grassland. Many small tribes that had originally relied on them began to move closer to the increasingly powerful Sijie tribe.
Xue Yantuo Khan Xue Mantou was eager to start a war to prove his strength. Among Lingzhou, Fengzhou and Sijie, he finally chose Fengzhou, which was weaker. He got up wherever he fell.
This is the best way to prove yourself.
However, Xue Manzi also made a mistake in this war that had not yet started. He should not have divided his troops. There were originally 22,000 people, of which 4,000 were divided. As a result, the Tang army concentrated its forces and annihilated 3,600.
people.
Xue Man had a headache and learned from the pain. He did not dare to divide his troops any more, and he no longer tried to attack. Instead, he concentrated 18,000 troops to attack Xicheng with all his strength.
"Prepare to siege the city!"
The team moved out of the way, and six large wooden rollers appeared from behind, like large wine barrels with wheels on both sides. They were one foot high and two feet five feet wide. They were called rollers and were used to defend against arrows on the top of the city.
Yawa trebuchet.
Three thousand archers stood under the wooden wheel, followed by eight thousand main troops carrying siege ladders. Behind them, more than a dozen three-foot-tall siege vehicles and siege rams could be faintly seen.
Xue Man swung his sword and shouted loudly: "Attack!"
'Dong-dong-dong-'
Rhythmic war drums sounded, six large wooden wheels were slowly pushed by the soldiers, and more than 10,000 Xue Yantuo soldiers rushed toward the city wall with murderous intent...
"Trebuchet ready!"
Liang Juer shouted, and a thousand soldiers pulled hard. The throwing pole containing large rocks was lowered little by little, and the iron box containing thousands of kilograms of large rocks in the front gradually rose.
This is the simplest self-weight trebuchet. It is like a seesaw. The short end is a large stone weighing several thousand kilograms. The long end is a throwing rod. The top of the throwing rod is a throwing bag, which contains a fifty kilogram stone.
The two ends of the stone were extremely unbalanced, but it was only the pulling of dozens of soldiers that made the throwing pole gradually sink. As soon as the soldiers let go, the front part sank, and the throwing pole would throw the big stone heavily.
The wooden wheel rolled and gradually approached the city. The wooden wheel entered the three hundred paces line, the red command flag waved, and Liang Juer shouted: "Launch!"
Twenty large trebuchets were launched at the same time, and twenty large rocks were suddenly launched, 'Bang! Bang! Bang'. The twenty large rocks flew out, streaking across the sky in curves, directly hitting the dense crowd.
Xue Yantuo's soldiers scattered in all directions to avoid the stones for initiation, but some soldiers were still unable to escape and were hit by big rocks with broken bones and tendons, brains bursting, and died tragically on the spot.
‘Boom!’ A big wooden wheel was hit, the wood pieces shattered, and a big hole was punched through.
But the boulders hitting the wooden wheel did not stop it from moving forward, nor did it hurt the archers hiding behind the wooden wheel. The boulders fell one after another, and the casualties of Xue Yantuo's soldiers gradually increased. The Tang army polished the boulders smoother, and after the boulders fell to the ground
He would follow the inertia and rush forward for more than twenty steps before stopping. Most of the casualties were knocked down by boulders.
At this time, the big wooden wheel was pushed to about 150 steps away from the city wall. Arrows rained down from the top of the city. Three thousand Xue Yantuo archers hid behind the big wooden wheel to avoid the rain of arrows from the top of the city. However, some soldiers were still shot.
, screaming and falling to the ground.
Soon, the arrow rain on the city became more dense, and the crossbow arrows fired from the city merged into it. At the same time, the big wooden wheel also entered the bow and arrow range of the Xue Yantuo people. Three thousand Xue Yantuo archers used the big wooden wheel as a cover.
, fired arrows at the city head together, and the arrow rain from both sides formed a large dark cloud.
The number of arrows on the city head gradually decreased, and the main siege force behind shouted and rushed forward. They held spears in their hands and carried the siege ladder, and they rushed all the way against the dense rain of arrows. People were shot down constantly, causing heavy casualties.
But the siege soldiers still rushed to the bottom of the city and put up ladders. Teams of Xueyantuo soldiers struggled to climb up, while the rolling logs and rocks above their heads fell like raindrops...
........
In the political affairs hall of Chang'an, the five prime ministers were sitting at attention. Chang Gun, the right prime minister, passed several copies of the censor's impeachment letter to everyone, "Please take a look at it! This is the report of the supervisory censor Chen Lun's impeachment of Guo Song, the eunuch of the three towns.
.”
Yan Zhenqing opened the report and took a closer look. He sighed slightly in his heart. Among Guo and Song's five major crimes, the second was that he misappropriated special funds from the court to build city walls. He had long known that someone would make a fuss about this matter.
The impeachment document lists Guo Song’s five major crimes:
First, he reached an alliance agreement with the Sijie tribe in private without the permission of the court, which seriously exceeded his authority;
Second, they misappropriated special funds from the imperial court without authorization and used them to build the city wall;
Third, without the approval of the Ministry of Industry, the city wall was raised without authorization and the inner city wall was built at the same time;
Fourth, land was allocated without permission from the court, and the allocation standards were self-determined, seriously exceeding the laws of the Tang Dynasty;
Fifth, without approval from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, they signed immigration agreements with disaster victims without authorization, turning the victims into immigrants, resulting in a large number of empty households in Shengzhou and Xiazhou.
Every one of them is extremely targeted and every one of them is heavyweight. If true, then no one can save Guo Song.
"Yan Xiangguo, you have been to Fengzhou for inspection. You should be familiar with these five articles of impeachment!" Chang Gun looked at Yan Zhenqing with provocation in his voice.
Yan Zhenqing said calmly: "It is true that the second and third items are true, but I don't know about the other three items."
Chang Gun sneered and said, "I won't go into details on whether you know the other three, but since you know that he committed the second and third crimes, why didn't you explain it to the court and kept silent to protect him?"
Yan Zhenqing said calmly: "First of all, I don't think this is a crime, and of course it's not a cover-up, but I do admit that what he did was inappropriate, so I asked him to complete the formalities with the court in the spring."
"This is obviously a serious violation of the rules. Why does Yan Xiangguo still want to protect him? I don't understand. Please explain!" Chang Gun's saliva almost sprayed onto Yan Zhenqing's face.