Nu Yalang of Tang Dynasty

The tenth day of September.

Peng Zu's 100 taboos: If the five elements cover the lamp, it will be dangerous to the south; if you don't ask for divination, you will definitely see disaster.

At three o'clock in the morning, the moon and stars were scattered over Chang'an City, and the whole city was silent.

In the official office of Jinyiwei North Town, Banweizheng stood in the courtyard of the headquarters, looking worriedly in the direction of the imperial city.

A civil servant worked overtime to finish the paperwork and returned from the imperial city to the inner garden of the mansion. Ban Weizheng stopped him and asked, "Is Wang Dugong back from the palace?"

The civil servant shook his head and said: "On the day when the emperor was assassinated, when I took over the post of guard in Beizhen, Wang Dugong felt guilty. He went to the palace several times to plead guilty and wanted to ask for his removal, but he failed. Today at noon,

The Governor has gone again, it's already dark now, and I don't know when he will come back."

Ban Weizheng scratched his head, feeling helpless.

The civil servant glanced around and said in a low voice: "Logically speaking, on the day of the Qianqiu Celebration, it should be Nanzhen's turn to be the guard. It happened that Nanzhen's Governor Yuan went to Jiangnan to serve, so the job fell to Beizhen.

For me, it’s unlucky.”

Ban Weizheng glanced at the civil servant: "They are all the emperor's attendants, how can they be said to be unlucky?"

The clerk was stunned and quickly replied: "Yes, yes, I made a mistake."

Ban Weizheng waved his hand and signaled the civil servants to leave. He sighed and found a step, intending to sit down and think about how to persuade Wang Xu to change his mind.

At this moment, a soldier in uniform ran in from outside the door, with a look of panic on his face.

Ban Weizheng looked over and asked, "What happened?"

The soldier opened his mouth and was so nervous that he could only make a sound of "ahhhhh" and pointed his hand towards the south of the mansion.

Ban Weizheng felt something was wrong and scolded him loudly.

The soldier finally shouted: "There is a rebellion in the city and they are planning to attack the imperial city!"

Ban Weizheng was stunned for a moment, then showed disbelief, pushed away the soldier, walked to the height of the tower of Beizhen Mansion, and looked towards the direction of the imperial city.

On the streets of Chang'an City, there were countless long dragons composed of torches, sweeping in from the streets of Nancheng.

Wherever the torch touched, there were flags and soldiers everywhere. From a distance, they looked like waves, heading straight for the imperial city.

Ban Weizheng's face changed drastically, and he shouted towards the bottom of the tower: "Bang the drum! Meet the enemy!"

There were only about 600 soldiers on duty in Jinyiwei North Town. They heard the war drums in the army. Although they didn't know what happened, they all put on their armor and sharpened their weapons and lined up in preparation for battle.

A general from Beizhen came over and asked Ban Wei Zheng, "What should we do now when Duke Wang is not around?"

Ban Weizheng thought for a moment and said: "Send two units of fast horses, one to the imperial city to warn the palace guards, and the other to the Daming Palace to find Wang Du Gong. As for the brothers who are left behind, follow my command and defend to the death.

Jin Yiwei Mansion, waiting for reinforcements!"

Under the command of Ban Weizheng, the Beizhen Mansion closed its doors and urgently reinforced the walls of the mansion.

One of the rebels in the night separated from the main force and attacked in the direction of Jinyiwei North Town.

When the rebel arrived at the gate of Beizhen Mansion, it was not in a hurry to attack. Instead, it shouted outside the door and asked to see the person in charge.

At this time, Ban Weizheng also wanted to find out who was the rebel, so he walked up to the wall and looked carefully by the firelight outside the courtyard.

What surprised him was that the soldiers outside the hospital were actually wearing Jin Yiwei's armor, and the leading general was someone whom Ban Weizheng was very familiar with - Zhang Yanling.

Seeing this, Ban Wei Zheng roared: "Are you crazy?! This is rebellion, and the whole clan should be punished for the crime!"

Zhang Yanling rode his horse to the outside of the courtyard wall and shouted to Ban Wei Zheng: "There is a traitor in the palace who is holding the emperor hostage and causing harm to the country and the people. We will raise troops tonight just to protect the Qing emperor and the emperor!"

Listening to the rebels outside the courtyard shouting slogans in unison, Ban Wei Zheng became furious, took a bow and arrow, and wanted to shoot Zhang Yanling.

The latter turned his horse around, returned to the army, and said to Ban Weizheng: "We are all members of the Imperial Guard. I originally wanted to save your lives. If you don't want to, don't blame me for being ruthless!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the rebels actually launched a long cannon and pointed the muzzle at the courtyard wall.

With the deafening sound of artillery, the walls of Beizhen's courtyard were shaken by earth and rocks flying from the shells and were on the verge of collapse.

Firearms were prohibited in the palace guards and military camps in the capital. The only weapons available in Jinyiwei North Town were bows and crossbows. They were immediately at a disadvantage, and dangers abounded.

On the other side, Luo Anyuan led the main force of eight thousand rebels and accompanied the prince to the Danfeng Gate, the outer main entrance of the Daming Palace.

Looking at Weiwei Palace City in the night, Luo Anyuan rode to the side of the prince and said: "Capture this gate, which will be the inner city of the Daming Palace. As long as we capture the Guangfan Gate and Zhaoqing Gate in the inner city, there will be

The emperor’s bedroom, Zichen Hall.”

Prince Zhou Xiao was dressed in armor, looking into the depths of the Daming Palace, and nodded slightly.

Luo Anyuan: "Yuan Du is leading an army to attack Jinyiwei North Town, and Beiyasuwei is attacking the imperial city. I ordered Luo Yingcai to lead three thousand soldiers to detour north to attack the north gate of Daming Palace - Chongxuanmen.

.”

Zhou Xiao: "Shilang Luo only has 3,000 men at his disposal, so he goes to attack Chongxuan Sect. Isn't it a bit overwhelming?"

Luo Anyuan smiled and said: "There is only the Beiyuan Imperial Army at Chongxuanmen. They are a group of improvised soldiers. The leader is still the eunuch Fan Jinian. Three thousand people are enough. As long as Chongxuanmen is captured, it will be cut off.

The Daming Palace is the only channel to connect with the north, making it unable to ask for help. If Yuan Du Gong can successfully capture the Beizhen Mansion, then the channel between the imperial city guards and us can be opened."

Zhou Xiao nodded, indicating that he understood.

Luo Anyuan turned his head and looked at the imperial soldiers on the tower.

A rebel general came and asked if he wanted to shout to the city to persuade the defenders to surrender?

Luo Anyuan shook his head: "From here to the Zichen Palace, they are all the emperor's guards. Most of them are from Anxi and Beiting. They will not surrender. Let's just order an attack on the city."

After a few breaths, the main force of the rebels pulled out hundreds of long cannons and started bombarding the walls of the Daming Palace.

The Daming Palace is also called Dongnei. Its outer wall is made of rammed earth and is three feet high. It was reinforced several times during the Xinyuan period. The thickness and height of the wall have reached a staggering figure.

In later generations, even the walls of the Forbidden City were only 8.5 meters high, which was not worth mentioning compared with the Daming Palace at that time.

After a burst of long artillery bombardment, there were only some potholes on the city wall of Daming Palace, and the main part was not damaged at all.

Luo Anyuan also knew that relying on artillery to blow up the Daming Palace was a fantasy.

As a result, the main force of eight thousand rebels began to implement the second siege plan.

The rebels first used a shield formation to move closer to the city wall under the rain of arrows and muskets. When they arrived at the city wall, they then dug loose soil under the city wall.

Once the pit is dug, the rebels will bury the gunpowder barrel in the pit, then press a cast iron plate over the pit, and finally use long nails to pass through the holes on the edge of the iron plate to secure the iron plate firmly.

Once the gunpowder barrel in the pit explodes, the shock wave will be reflected back when it hits the iron plate, causing damage similar to directional blasting to the loose soil at the bottom of the city wall.

At this time, most of the city walls in the Tang Dynasty were made of rammed earth. No matter how strong they were, they would collapse after five to ten repeated blastings at the same location.

This method is also a new tactic developed by the Privy Council in recent years using gunpowder in order to deal with fortified cities.

It took nearly half an hour and hundreds of lives to finally blast the outer wall of the Daming Palace into a sloping upward path by the rebels.

At this time, the defenders seemed to be in urgent need of city defense supplies, so they actually abandoned Danfeng Gate and began to move to the inner city.

When Luo Anyuan saw this, he couldn't help but be overjoyed, and couldn't help saying to those around him: "The outer city has been destroyed, and victory is in sight!"