Tibet

Li Ye stood at the top of the east city with a dragon in his hand, watching the enemy troops coming in overwhelming numbers with cold eyes. He calmly said to Nan Jiyun: "General Nan, you can give the order!"

Nan Jiyun was the general at the head of the East City, commanding 15,000 men to guard the East City. He nodded, turned around and shouted loudly: "Prepare the trebuchets! Prepare the crossbowmen!"

Ten thousand soldiers squatted down on the top of the city, raised their crossbows upwards, and twenty large trebuchets creaked open. These were a batch of large trebuchets sealed in the Ordnance Supervision Warehouse. They could lift huge rocks weighing seventy or eighty kilograms. Throw it two hundred and fifty steps away.

There are a hundred trebuchets in total, of which 20 are deployed at the east and west city walls, and 30 are deployed at the north and south city walls. Each trebuchet requires fifty people to operate. Just operating these 100 trebuchets requires 5,000 civilians. .

Li Ye stared at the enemy's siege ladder, and he suddenly said to Nan Jiyun: "Withdraw the long axemen!"

Nan Jiyun was startled and said quickly: "Your Highness, the long axe-hand can directly destroy the enemy's siege ladder and increase the difficulty of the enemy's siege. I think it is very practical!"

Li Ye said calmly: "This is just a tentative attack by the enemy. We also have to leave some backup for ourselves!"

Nan Jiyun suddenly realized, "I understand, I understand!"

He immediately rushed to notify the long-axemen to withdraw. Li Ye actually had a deeper idea. He also wanted to take advantage of the enemy's opportunity to test the attack and test the defensive capabilities of his own army.

Of course, conserving strength is the most direct reason, including the fact that he has not used caltrop acupuncture for the time being.

When the enemy tries to attack, of course he will have reservations.

The defenders of the other three city walls are in full readiness, and tens of thousands of reserve troops are continuing to train in the Taiji Palace. The gates of the entire Chang'an City have been closed. The people can live normally in their houses, but they are not allowed to go out. .

At this time, the enemy troops coming like a tidal wave were getting closer and closer, and had already entered the range of the trebuchet. Nan Jiyun shouted: "Trebuchet launch!"

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

With a series of loud noises, twenty boulders rose into the air and turned into twenty small black dots, roaring and smashing towards the heads of the dense enemy troops.

A huge boulder smashed into the crowd. Several soldiers were unable to dodge and were smashed into meat patties. Their heads were shattered and brains were scattered everywhere. The boulder continued to roll. More than 20 people were hit by the rolling boulder, either dead or injured. There was a scream.

Other boulders were equally powerful, killing and injuring countless soldiers. The first round of stone throwing killed and injured more than 300 Yan soldiers. However, this loss was not worth mentioning to the 20,000-strong army. The soldiers continued to run and entered the range of the crossbows. At the range, Nan Jiyun shouted, "Shoot!"

The soldiers at the top of the city did not use individual crossbows, but heavy crossbows. The heavy crossbow required two people to lie down and string it together. It has strong shooting power. A flat shot can shoot a long heavy arrow five hundred steps. It can be used to deal with barbarian cavalry without shields. Shoot flatly to kill enemies from a long distance.

But An Lushan's army is well-equipped, and a 500-step long-range shot cannot penetrate the shield at all. At this time, they can only sacrifice distance and use high projectiles, using their own gravity. The penetrating power of the descending end is very strong. An ordinary round shield can Can't stop a few arrows.

The first arrow can be blocked by an ordinary shield, but cracks will appear, while the second and third arrows are likely to be shot through the shield. Another serious problem is that five or six long and heavy arrows hit the shield. , the shield may be too heavy to lift.

Perhaps the soldier could draw his sword and cut off the arrow shaft to reduce the weight of the shield, but in fact, the soldier held the spear in one hand and the shield in the other, so there was no way he could draw the sword to chop the arrow. If he held the spear under his arm and then drew the sword to chop the arrow, , that is even more dangerous, everyone is running against the rain of arrows, and the soldiers may be killed by the flying arrows as soon as they draw their swords.

The only way is to throw away the spears and change from spear soldiers to sword and shield soldiers. But in this case, you will definitely die during the siege. Either you will be stabbed to death by the Tang army's spear on the siege ladder, or you will be killed after entering the city. Stabbed to death with random spears.

Experienced veterans all know that it is better to have longer weapons than shorter ones. Veterans would definitely rather throw away their shields than keep their spears.

The sound of clappers sounded, and thousands of arrows were fired from the top of the city. Long poles and heavy arrows formed a cloud of arrows, densely packed and whizzing from the sky. Among them were also mixed with the boulders shot by the second round of trebuchets. Looking at the boulders and heavy arrows falling from the sky, The soldiers were a little frightened and raised their shields while running to meet him.

"ah--"

The crowd screamed, and countless shields were pierced by long and heavy arrows. The soldiers behind the shields fell down after being hit by arrows. Many soldiers were beaten to pieces by boulders. More than 1,300 soldiers fell during the attack. .

Immediately afterwards, a second round of long arrows and boulders flew out, causing more than a thousand casualties.

It is normal for a 20,000-person siege force to lose 10% during the attack. An Lushan will not take it to heart, nor will the general Tian Qianzhen. They are more concerned about the enemy's defense of the city.

In the twelfth lunar month of winter, the moat was frozen solid. Countless soldiers rushed across the moat and set up the siege ladder on the city wall. Under the stern shouts of the generals, the soldiers climbed up the siege ladder one after another and climbed to the top of the city.

The rolling logs and rocks on the top of the city fell like raindrops. The shield of the soldier in front was smashed by the big stone, and his head was bruised and bloody. He rolled over and fell down the ladder. However, the soldiers of the Yan army were indeed very brave. The soldiers in front were smashed over, and the soldiers behind were smashed. Push it up immediately and push it up little by little.

What threatened the siege soldiers was not only the rolling wood and stones, but also the cold arrows on the horse walls on both sides. Dozens of sharpshooters were hiding on each horse wall, raising their crossbows to shoot at the enemy's back. One soldier screamed when the arrow fell, and the siege soldiers suffered heavy casualties. Most of them were shot in the back and neck by cold arrows.

Although the casualties continued to increase, the drums of the Yan army's attack were still louder and louder, intensively urging the soldiers to increase their offensive intensity.

The siege soldiers climbed up step by step, and the two armies finally came into contact. The siege soldiers and the defenders began to fight fiercely. In front of each siege ladder, there were dozens of Tang soldiers participating in the battle.

Just as a man emerged, dozens of spears were stabbed at him. He dodged one but couldn't dodge another, dodged two but couldn't dodge the third, and the sharp spears pierced the enemy soldiers, screaming. Roll down town.

Siege warfare is so cruel. One person stabs the lower city, and the other comes up next, but is quickly stabbed again. If he can survive two or three rounds, he is a very powerful soldier. Even if he is highly skilled in martial arts, he still has two weapons. His fists were no match for his four hands, and with dozens of sharp spears stabbing him from all directions, no matter how powerful the soldier was, he was mercilessly assassinated.

However, the defenders were constantly stabbed by the enemy's spears, fell on their backs, and were immediately carried down by the militia soldiers.

Some siege soldiers also broke through. On a siege ladder near the city gate, a tall and powerful captain of the Yan Army held a dozen spears with his shield, lifted it up suddenly, and jumped Jumping onto the top of the city, he created a short opportunity, and several soldiers followed him and rushed to the top of the city.

The crossbowmen on the horse wall discovered the crisis, raised their crossbows and fired together. Dozens of arrows were shot at the same time. Several soldiers behind were killed by random arrows and rolled down the city. The opportunity they finally created was interrupted. The soldiers of the Tang Army He took the opportunity to rush forward and blocked the gap again.

The four soldiers who rushed to the city were surrounded by dozens of Tang soldiers, and three of them were assassinated instantly. Only the Khitan captain who was the first to rush to the city was very powerful. He held a shield, wielded a spear with one arm and dozens of soldiers. The Tang army fought fiercely, and he had already assassinated seven or eight people.

At this time, there was a flash of cold light, and a flying knife came to the door in the blink of an eye. The captain just turned his head and was stunned for a moment, "Pfft!" The flying knife shot through his forehead.

The captain opened his mouth wide, his shield fell to the ground, and dozens of spears pierced his body. He died immediately. The spears held him up in the air and threw his body down the city.

"Dang! Dang! Dang! Dang!"

The retreat bell rang, and the soldiers under the city retreated like a tide. The 20,000 Yan army soldiers lost more than 6,000 people, and the Tang army also suffered about 1,000 casualties. The casualty ratio of both sides was one to six.

This result made Li Ye very satisfied, but made An Lushan extremely angry.