Tibet

In the night, Gao Xiuyan stared deeply at Qi County in the distance.

Gao Xiuyan is already a veteran in his sixties. He was first a general in Longyou Jiedu Prefecture. He stayed in Longyou Jiedu Prefecture for twenty years. In the eighth year of Tianbao, he desperately led his headquarters to capture Shibao City. He also received a commendation from the imperial court and was named the governor of Yunzhou.

But this was also where his nightmare began. In the twelfth year of Tianbao, An Lushan became the governor of Hedong, and Gao Xiuyan became An Lushan's subordinate.

An Lushan was very supportive of Gao Xiuyan, which made Gao Xiuyan feel grateful to An Lushan. The next year, An Lushan rebelled, and Gao Xiuyan followed him in a confused way. Until he found out that Anlu Mountain was the rebel, Gao Xiuyan It's too late to regret it.

Fortunately, Gao Xiuyan met Li Ye. During the battle in Lantian County, Gao Xiuyan was captured and surrendered to Li Ye. From then on, his life opened a second door.

But Gao Xiuyan's reputation as a traitor has always been on him. For so many years, he has never had the opportunity to lead troops alone. He either fights with Li Ye, is responsible for logistics, trains surrendered troops, or serves as an assistant instructor in the martial arts hall. Oral.

But this time, when he was fifty-nine years old, Li Ye appointed him as the defense envoy of the southern part of Hedong Road, leading an army of 20,000 to block Tian Shenyu's way south. He finally made it through.

At this time, the deputy general Chen Mi whispered: "General, why not use a trebuchet to throw long nails and iron fire thunder and let it be nailed to the city wall."

Gao Xiuyan shook his head, "Since the city wall can still hold up, it means that the city bricks are not that fragile. The iron fire thunder may not be able to nail it, and it will fall into the water and be extinguished. That would be a pity. We have to use people to light the fire on the other side."

Gao Xiuyan paused and then said: "Prepare three groups of brothers to go up, and five thousand crossbowmen will cover you in the south!"

"I humbly obey my orders!"

Gao Xiuyan immediately sent General Zhao Fengxian and 5,000 cavalry to detour northward, cutting off the retreat route of the Qixian defenders.

Soon, three groups of soldiers ran toward the southeast corner of the county under cover of darkness.

Each group of soldiers consists of five people, and each group carries a wooden box. In the box is an iron fire thunder weighing more than 20 kilograms.

Five thousand black crossbowmen were running due south. The running crossbowmen were immediately discovered on the top of the city, and the alarm bell sounded.

"Dang! Dang! Dang!"

Three thousand soldiers at the top of the city gathered at the head of the south city, holding big bows and waiting in full formation.

In just a moment, five thousand Guanlong Army crossbowmen rushed to a place two hundred steps away from the city wall, squatted down together, and fired crossbow arrows at the top of the city.

Arrows shot like raindrops at the city head, overwhelming the defenders. They had to leave the battlements and shoot arrows outward from the middle of the city head. The defenders at the city head held city-defense bows and used heavy arrows. The advantage was The arrow is heavy and has strong penetrating power, and can easily penetrate ordinary leather armor.

But the weakness is also obvious, that is, the range is short, and the killing distance is only about a hundred steps.

Gao Xiuyan had expected this, so he sent out heavy crossbowmen, who used open-arm crossbows with a range of more than 300 steps. The defensive bows on the top of the city were of no use to them.

Of course, both sides were shooting from the air. The defenders at the top of the city did not approach the battlements, and the Guanlongnu Army's crossbow arrows had nothing to do with the defenders.

But the focus was not on the crossbow troops, but on the three groups of firearms battalion soldiers in the southeast corner. They ran like crazy and soon reached the moat. One group of soldiers entered the water silently, and the other two groups of soldiers were crawling on the bank of the moat. They were Standby, if the first group of soldiers fails, they will step up again.

Five soldiers were swimming in the moat. There was only a large wooden box floating on the river. The crossbow battle near the city gate attracted the attention of all the soldiers defending the city. Naturally, they did not pay attention to the small anomalies in the moat. It's nighttime, so basically no one will notice.

Generally speaking, the detection of this kind of sneak attack has a lot to do with the number of defenders watching. If a hundred defenders stare at the river, the probability of discovery is about 70%. If 30 soldiers stare at the river, the probability of discovery will decrease. It is 30%. If there are only a few soldiers watching the river, the probability of being discovered is very slim.

In fact, this is also a process from quantitative change to qualitative change. The number of people watching continues to increase, which is a quantitative change, but one of them discovered an abnormality in the river, which is a qualitative change.

Gao Xiuyan sent five thousand crossbowmen to attack the city in order to reduce the defenders in the southeast corner and attract the attention of the remaining defenders.

Five soldiers climbed ashore and stood closely under the east city wall at the turn. There were definitely no soldiers at the head of the east city. Even if there were soldiers, they would walk to the head of the south city more than ten steps away to watch the fierce battle in the distance.

Two soldiers used steel awls to pry the city bricks. As expected, the city wall was very rotten. Pieces of bricks were pried off, and soon a two-foot-wide hole was formed. The other three soldiers stuffed the iron fire thunder into the hole. At that time, the iron fire thunder was no longer gunpowder, but explosives. Although it was only twenty kilograms of iron fire thunder, its power was comparable to that of several hundred kilograms of gunpowder mine.

The leading soldier waited for the four companions to enter the water and go away, then he flicked a fire stick, lit the fire, quickly jumped into the water, and dived desperately to the other side.

"Boom!"

I saw a burst of red light, followed by a thunderous explosion. The entire city wall was blown away, countless bricks and stones flew into the sky, and thick smoke filled the city head.

On the top of the city, all the soldiers were stunned. Countless soldiers fell to the ground, but their eyes were full of shock.

General Du Feng could see clearly that a huge gap was opened in the city wall.

Without saying a word, he turned around and ran towards the city.

At this time, the war drums sounded ‘Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! ’ The sound sounded, and the Guanlong and Tang troops came to kill like a tide.

"General Du has run away! General Du has run away!"

The soldiers couldn't help shouting when they discovered that General Du Feng was leading hundreds of soldiers on horseback to flee towards the north gate.

In panic, the soldiers threw off their helmets and armor and ran away towards Beicheng.

They originally had only 4,000 people, but the Tang army on the opposite side had 20,000 people. Their only support was the strong and tall city wall. Unexpectedly, the city wall was broken in an instant. It was unknown what kind of terrifying weapon, as if it was split by thunder. .

Along with the collapse of the city wall defense line, it is also the psychological defense line of thousands of defenders. Once the psychological defense line collapses, everything will be lost.

The Guanlong Tang Army entered the city, and more than 2,000 soldiers who had no time to escape knelt down and surrendered.

Li Ye no longer allows killing and surrendering. Mining requires labor. These surrendered soldiers will be sent to the mines to serve for three years before being released home.

Du Feng led his soldiers to escape from Beicheng. Du Feng was experienced and cunning. He guessed that the Tang army would set up an ambush outside Beicheng to intercept them. On the pretext that he wanted to meet the brothers behind him, Du Feng let more than 1,700 people flee north first. .

He himself led more than 20 mounted soldiers to escape to a small road in the northwest, and fled back to Taiyuan City in a circle.

Sure enough, more than 1,700 soldiers fled more than ten miles away before being killed and surrounded by 5,000 Tang Army cavalry. The cavalry shouted sternly: "Those who surrender will live, and those who resist will die!"

More than 1,700 people were so frightened that they knelt down and surrendered.

This battle was fought beautifully. Gao Xiuyan wiped out all the enemy troops without losing a single soldier and captured Qixian County.

Two days later, Li Fei Yuanli led an army of 30,000 to Qi County. The two armies then continued to march north. According to Li Ye's deployment, the two armies were independent. Li Fei Yuanli led an army of 30,000 to besiege the west city of Taiyuan. Gao Xiuyan led 20,000 troops to besiege the south city of Taiyuan, and Lei Wanchun also led 30,000 troops south from Loufangguan to surround the north city of Taiyuan, leaving only the east city unsieged, giving Tian Shenyu a chance to abandon the city and escape.

Of course, Tian Shenyu could escape from Jingxing, but his army could not escape the pursuit of tens of thousands of Guanlong cavalry.