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Volume 7: Laughing and Talking about Drinking the Blood of the Huns Chapter 26: Climbing the City

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    Update time: 2010-05-06

    After the victory at Shiling Pass, the imperial camp set out from Zhenzhou, traveling both ways, and arrived in Taiyuan on April 22.  At this time, there were more than 200,000 Imperial Guards gathered around Taiyuan. On April 23, Zhao Jiong personally inspected the Imperial Guard camps around Taiyuan City on horseback to check whether the siege equipment was complete and where he passed.  The soldiers of the Imperial Guard saw Zhao Jiong in a bright yellow brocade robe from a distance, and cheered in unison. The sound was heard dozens of miles away, and the morale of the defenders in Taiyuan City was shattered.  Zhao Jiong also ordered hundreds of warriors he had tamed to dance with swords in hand. They stabbed and threw each other with sharp knives under the city of Taiyuan to show his military power. He also wrote a letter to surrender to the Northern Han Dynasty Lord Liu Jiyuan. Then, the tragic and long Fourth Battle began.  The siege of Taiyuan officially began.

    On April 24, Zhao Jiong personally led the imperial squad to the west of the city to assist in the battle. Pan Mei, Cui Han, Cao Han and other generals supervised the battle and attacked the west wall closest to the Northern Han Palace.  Chen De also wore heavy armor and followed Zhao Jiong with other generals to watch the Forbidden Army attack the city. He saw that a crossbow array of 40,000 to 50,000 people had already been arranged under the city. The array was densely covered with trebuchets, bed crossbows and other siege weapons.  .  The soldiers in the crossbow formation were divided into five teams. After stringing the string, they squatted on the ground, waiting for each order. Then they stood up and fired all the crossbows non-stop. The sky was filled with a continuous rain of arrows, shooting at Taiyuan.  The defenders at the top of the city could not raise their heads.

    After the trenches under the city wall were filled up and the antlers were removed, the siege trucks selected from the Konghe and Hujie armies were pushed to the bottom of Taiyuan City. They leaned under the city wall and dug up the city wall while setting up ladders to climb up. This siege  The chariot was made of hardwood and fine iron, covered with several layers of rawhide. Wet mud was applied between each layer of rawhide, and a thick layer of water-soaked sponge was sandwiched. Hundreds of dead soldiers were killed in the siege vehicle.  Inside, they desperately excavated the city wall. The defenders' rolling stones and crossbow arrows fell like raindrops, hitting the roof of the car with a loud popping sound. The sound was as dense as the torrential rain pouring on lotus leaves in the southern summer, and there was no sound outside the siege vehicle.  The soldiers covered by the city simply used their flesh and blood to bear the blows from the city. Arrows, wood, stone bullets, boiling oil and boiling dung were crisscrossed down. Many officers of the Forbidden Army with strong armor were shot all over their bodies.  They had to be filled with arrows like hedgehogs, but the officials behind them were supervising the battle and could not retreat. They all gritted their teeth and ordered the sergeants to shoot arrows at the top of the city, or build ladders to climb the city.  Even so, within a short time, the ground was covered with dead and wounded Imperial Guard soldiers, layer upon layer, accumulating higher and higher, and screams could be heard one after another.

    The Taiyuan soldiers on the city suffered heavy casualties under the attack of the Song Army's crossbow array.  Under the rain of arrows and stone bullets, there was almost no foothold on the city wall. A commanding soldier replenished the city wall, and all of them were dead and wounded in an instant. Some soldiers had just fired two or three arrows, and they had five or six wounds on their bodies.  Arrows, the defenders did not even have space to transport the wounded and corpses, so they had to push the wounded soldiers and corpses on the inside of the city wall at will. Blood was flowing everywhere, and the city wall was extremely slippery.  Immediately ordered the old and weak civilians who were assisting the defenders to go to the city, carry the corpses and wounded down, sprinkle lime on the city wall, and divide the city defenders into ten teams. Most of them raised their shields on the inside of the city wall to avoid arrows.  Some of them leaned out to throw rocks and shoot arrows to reduce casualties.

    Just now, the Northern Han army refused to retreat. Although the imperial army tried its best to build ladders, and the dead soldiers of the crane control army climbed up desperately with sharp knives in their mouths, but there was a dense rain of arrows, wood, wolf fangs, rolling stones, etc. at the top of the city.  Under the boiling oil, the soldiers on the ladder kept falling down like dumplings in soup. Even so, many captains and centurions begged the governor Cao Han to postpone the attack on the city until the defenders on the city wall  After exhausting his energy, he then attacked with all his strength, but Cao Han said sternly: "When the two armies meet, the brave will win, and the officials personally supervise the formation. This is the time for us to serve the country with all our strength." He personally put on heavy armor and went into the attack under the protection of his own soldiers.  In the city carriage, the soldiers were urged to climb the city and dig into it.

    After the archery garrison was reduced, the Forbidden Army ascended the ladder to the city regardless of casualties and immediately achieved results. Tianwu Military Colonel Jing Si was the first to ascend the city.  When he was approaching the top of the city, there happened to be a wolf-fang bat that had been put down and was being retracted. Jing Si ignored the iron thorns all over the wolf-fang bat and grabbed it. Using his strength, he jumped up to the top of the city and took advantage of the soldiers guarding the city.  Before he could react, he shouted loudly and immediately knocked to the ground the two Northern Han soldiers who were pulling the hemp rope and putting away the mace. The Han soldiers next to him were also very tough and immediately abandoned their crossbows upon seeing this.  Drawing out horizontal knives and big swords, they gathered around and fought with Jing Si and the other three Song troops who came to the city later.

    Under the city wall, Zhao Jiong saw the Song army ascending to the top of the city from a distance. He was overjoyed and pointed at Jing Si's figure and said: "I have such a warrior, why worry about Taiyuan being immortal? Beat the drum and urge the troops to continue going up!" All the generals headed there one after another.  Pan Mei, Cui Han and other generals looked relaxed, and Chen De also looked surprised. He was well aware of the Taiyuan Han soldiers' toughness and daring to fight, but he did not expect that the Kaifeng Forbidden Army was so powerful, attacking the city with all its strength.  In half a day, you can climb to the top of the city.  Only Liu Yanrang, Zhang Mei and other veterans still acted like their old gods were here and it had nothing to do with them.

    Seeing the imperial camp beating drums and urging them, the Song army shouted loudly and gathered towards the place where Jing Si and others were ascending the city. In almost dozens of breaths,There were more than a dozen transport ladders set up on a short section of the city wall. Hundreds of tiger soldiers and Tianwu Army sergeants took advantage of the fact that the Han soldiers at the top of the city were busy fighting with the Song army who climbed the city. They had no time to send arrows downwards and hit the rocks.  Not dodging the arrows from all sides, he climbed up using his hands and feet. Every siege ladder was densely packed with soldiers of the imperial army, bending the ladders. Even Cao Han, who was in charge of the siege in the west, also climbed up from the siege vehicle.  He got out and stood in the open space not far from the city wall and shouted loudly. Thousands of elite Tiger Army soldiers gathered around him. They were just waiting for this Song army of several hundred people to achieve a breakthrough and attack continuously.  The thousand-year-old fortified city of Jinyang seems to be crushed to pieces as long as it sheds a little more blood.

    When the guard Guo Wanchao saw this on the top of the city, his heart sank. He immediately called the head of the Ya soldiers and ordered him to supervise the battle immediately. No matter the casualties, he must defeat the Song army who had climbed onto the city. The heads of the Ya soldiers sank.  Following the order, they took more than 500 elite soldiers with them, collecting brave warriors who took shelter behind the city walls along the way. More than 1,000 people gathered together. However, under the extremely dense rain of arrows and stone bullets from the Song army, they only marched for a few days.  After a hundred steps, there were more than two hundred casualties. Even Shen Kai, who was heavily armored, had more than a dozen arrows stuck in his body.  At this time, the Song Army's arrow rain suddenly became sparse. The Song Army's crossbow array composed of tens of thousands of people consumed so many crossbow arrows that it was difficult to replenish them at the moment.  Shen Kai was overjoyed and shouted loudly: "Song's army has run out of arrows. Move forward quickly and chop those who climbed the city into a pulp!"

    The soldiers he led were all experienced in hundreds of battles. He knew that although the stone bullets were powerful, the chance of being hit was very small. The most serious damage to the defenders was the dense rain of arrows, especially for the Song Army, which was almost  No expense was spared, and the crossbows and arrows rained down like a violent storm. At this moment, the Song army saw that all their arrows were exhausted, and their morale was greatly boosted. They moved forward hundreds of steps and surrounded dozens of Song army groups who had climbed onto the city. They lowered their swords.  Immediately, several dead soldiers of the Song Army on the periphery were stabbed to death with random swords.

    "What's going on?" Seeing that the rain of arrows hitting the city had stopped, Zhao Jiong became furious and shouted.

    "Your Majesty, one million arrows have been used up, and I am trying my best to replenish them from the camp. However, it will take a while." Hao Shourong, the governor of Haozhai in the west and the eighth commander, stumbled up to explain. Hao Shourong had to explain several times.  They were responsible for replenishing military supplies during the war. Unexpectedly, Zhao Jiong personally supervised the battle this time. The Konghe and Hujie troops who arranged the crossbow formation were afraid of ineffectiveness in the battle, so they shot the crossbow arrows like running water. In less than two hours,  The west wall of Taiyuan was actually shot into a dense mass like hedgehogs, and the millions of arrows originally accumulated in the crossbow array below the city were almost empty. Hao Shourong was so anxious that he ordered his soldiers to quickly replenish the crossbow array with arrows.  Unexpectedly, he happened to step on the critical moment of the Forbidden Army's battle to enter the city and lost his arrow, so he hurried over to apologize.

    "What are you doing here? Why don't you hurry up and supervise the replenishment of arrows? Don't delay the important matter anymore!" Zhao Jiongping suppressed his anger. Although he was eager, he never expected to capture the city on the first day of the siege and see it from a distance.  Taiyuan soldiers were quickly surrounding the city from both sides of the city wall, their hearts almost in their throats.

    On the top of the city, the Northern Han soldiers quickly surrounded the small area where the Song army climbed into the city. The corpses of the killed imperial soldiers were constantly thrown down. The reserve Han army in Guo Wanchao's hands was more trained than the ordinary soldiers on the city.  Yousu, under the command of Shen Kai, the elite tooth soldiers directly attached themselves to the sparse Song army that had climbed into the city, and several of them attacked one by one.  A large number of other Han soldiers used poles with iron hooks to push away the ladder that the Song army put up on the top of the city. At this moment, the Song army was afraid of the large number of soldiers on the top of the city and did not dare to release their weapons towards this section of the city wall.  The stone bullets were just in time for dozens of Han soldiers to form a team, shouting slogans in unison, and knocking down the heavy ladders to the ground one after another.  Unfortunately, the ladder was full of dead soldiers from the Crane Control Army. They didn't even see the faces of the enemy soldiers, so they fell to pieces and were bloody.

    The Song army on top of Zhao Jiong City fought less and less, and corpses kept falling down. If the battle continued, all the hundred or so Forbidden Army warriors who climbed the city would have to surrender at the top of Taiyuan City. They clenched their fists tightly with their left and right hands, and finally let out a long sigh and said: "  That's all, let's fight again tomorrow, call the gold and withdraw the troops. Tell the warriors at the top of the city to retreat." After the voice fell, the flag officer ordered the soldiers to ring the golden gongs. The Imperial Guards at the top of the city who had been struggling to support themselves finally breathed a sigh of relief.  They fought and retreated, and more than ten people retreated. However, the few Hujie soldiers who finally broke off were chopped into several sections by the Northern Han soldiers who swarmed up, and were thrown down the city wall.  Zhao Jiong saw that the veins on his head popped out, his eyes widened, and shouted: "Where is the crossbow formation? Quickly release the arrows and shoot these thugs to death!" At this moment, the arrows of the Song Army's crossbow formation were finally replenished, and thousands of arrows were fired in unison.  , the Northern Han soldiers who could not take refuge on the city wall suffered numerous casualties.

    The Song army attacked the city and was defeated again. Their morale was exhausted, so they stopped attacking the city that day. Zhao Jiong sent an order to the warriors who first climbed to the city of Taiyuan without having to disarm, but to come immediately to see them. He wanted to praise them personally.

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