In Pibo City, Chen Qi still did not choose to attack the city in the past few days.
However, even without the pressure of the Tang army to attack the city, the atmosphere in Pibo City seemed even more strange and unpredictable.
Because, since the chieftain of Sangmu was beheaded by Ma Meng, it was the first time in Tubo history that a powerful chieftain was beheaded by the general who defended the city. Therefore, all of a sudden, the garrison generals and chieftains of Pibo City seemed to have reached some kind of agreement secretly, and began to effectively target and counterattack Ma Meng's brutality and rudeness. As a result, the entire Pibo City was on the verge of a tense situation. situation.
Ma Meng thought that by killing Chieftain Sangmu, he had achieved the effect of killing the chicken to scare the monkeys, and served as a warning to the guards and chieftains of Pibo City. However, he forgot an eternal truth, that is, a strong dragon cannot overwhelm a local snake. No matter how powerful your Ma Meng is, you will always be your guest in Pibo City, and no matter how weak the generals, generals and chieftains of Pibo City are, they are from aristocratic families that have been operating in Pibo City for several generations and hundreds of years. They want to compete with Pibo City. It is not that easy for the city's garrison generals to fight with the chieftain.
Therefore, when Ma Meng sent his troops to see the generals and chieftains of Pibo City's defenders, the generals and chieftains of Pibo City's defenders also sent people to secretly monitor Ma Meng's every move. It's just that Ma Meng is new to Pibo City, so naturally he doesn't know about the people sent by the chieftains to monitor him.
Therefore, when Ma Meng thought that his deterrent power had intimidated the generals and chieftains of Pibo City's defenders, the generals and chieftains of Pibo City's defenders had already discussed and reached a consensus through special channels, that is, to organize the troops. began to counterattack Ma Meng, and in order to avoid being killed by Ma Meng when the counterattack failed, the final result of everyone's discussion was to unite with Songtsan Haiqing of the Eastern Tubo Kingdom and the Tang army outside the city to act together to kill Ma Meng and him. It was the personal guards and the elite cavalry who were killed together in Pibo City.
When Chen Qi outside Pibo City received the letter from the messenger sent by Yaze Songtsan Haiqing and met the courier jointly recommended by the chieftains of Pibo City, Chen Qi finally confirmed that the declaration of surrender in his hand was authentic. .
"What do you want to do, Mr. Chieftain? Do you have any specific plans?" Chen Qi asked lightly.
"Returning to General Chen Qi, our chieftain's opinion was that the general led his troops to attack the city, attracting Ma Meng's attention to the defense of Pibo City, and giving him a chance to avoid Ma Meng's attention, so that they can take advantage of it. Take this opportunity to escape and organize your own private forces in the city to kill Ma Meng and let the Tang army enter the city." The messenger replied.
"Behead Ma Meng?" Chen Qi said coldly, "Ma Meng has tens of thousands of elite cavalry in his hands and thousands of personal guards around him. How can you, a few chieftains with less than 10,000 private soldiers kill him?" How about him?"
"General Chen Qi, our chieftain doesn't want to outsmart the enemy, he just wants to outwit them!" The messenger replied respectfully, "But how they want to outsmart them, this little one doesn't know!"
"Humph¡ª¡ª" Chen Qi smiled coldly, making the Tibetan messenger tremble with laughter.
Because the Tubo people described Chen Qi as a murderous demon without blinking an eye, many Tubo people were very afraid of this Tang army general. There is a story circulating in Tubo that when a baby is crying, if the adults say that Chen Qi is here, the baby will be frightened into silence.
"Then how can I, the general, cooperate with you?" Chen Qi asked with disdain when he saw the Tibetan messenger trembling.
"General, as long as you attack Pibo City for three days and don't give Ma Meng a moment to breathe, our chieftain will have a way to deal with Ma Meng." The messenger said softly.
"Why should I believe you, general?" Chen Qi asked.
"General, this is the allegiance of all the garrison generals and chieftains of Pibo City to the Tubo Kingdom in the east. Please take a look at it!" After the messenger finished speaking, he handed a brocade scroll to Chen Qi.
Chen Qi¡¯s personal guard handed the brocade scroll to Chen Qi. Chen Qi glanced at it and handed it to Pei Xingjian who was standing aside to identify the authenticity.
Because the brocade scroll was written in Tubo script, Chen Qi did not understand Tubo script, so he asked Pei Xingjian to identify the authenticity.
When the Tang Dynasty attacked Tibet, Pei Xingjian unexpectedly learned a section of the Tubo language and Tubo characters. With his learning ability, although he was not proficient in all the Tubo culture, it was not difficult for him to read the text.
Pei Xingjian looked through the brocade scroll carefully, and then handed it to Chen Qi with both hands, "General, everything written on it is true!"
Chen Qi received an affirmative answer from Pei Xingjian, and then he replied to the Tibetan messenger in front of him, "Then you go back and tell your chieftain that my general will follow his plan to attack the city for three days. If he does not open the city and surrender after three days, , when the Tang army breaks through Pibo City on its own, I, the general, will choose to massacre them without any hesitation, and will make them pay for their gaffe."
"I know, I know. I will definitely report it to my chieftain when I get back!" The messenger kept wiping his sweat and said respectfully.said.
He had heard about Chen Qi¡¯s massacre of the city, but when he heard the word massacre from Chen Qi¡¯s mouth today, he was still shocked. Because he had his family and relatives in Pibo City. He could not imagine what his family and relatives would do when the Tang army massacred the city.
When the Tubo messenger returned to Pibo City to tell the defending generals and chieftains Chen Qi¡¯s answer, everyone chose to remain silent. Because they themselves know very well that Chen Qi is a man who must keep his word and his actions must be resolute. If he wants to massacre the city, he will definitely not scare you. He will really massacre the city. Therefore, in order to prevent Pibo City from being massacred by Chen Qi, everyone began to discuss and perfect the strategy against Ma Meng through special channels.
The day after the messenger left, Chen Qi ordered 20,000 infantry to prepare siege equipment, including catapults, crossbows and ladders, and launched the first siege battle against Pibo City. Because Pibo City is the second largest city in Tubo. It is a tall and solid city that is easy to defend but difficult to attack. Therefore, the Tang army's siege on the first day did not make any progress except throwing down more than a thousand corpses. But even so, due to the use of large siege equipment and Tubo's shortcomings of not being good at defending the city, Ma Meng was quite surprised when he commanded the army to defend. Another factor is that the generals who defended the city were besieged by Ma Meng in their mansions. Without the command of the generals who defended the city, it was difficult for the original defenders of Pibo City to reach a tacit understanding with the generals sent by Ma Meng. This also made the Tubo When the army was defending the city, the military orders could not be consistent.
The next day, Chen Qi still ordered the army to continue attacking the city.
This time, the Tang army mainly used catapults and bed crossbows to attack the city. The catapults surrendered large rocks to Pibo City, while the bed crossbows used long arrows about two meters long to kill Pibo City. Under the threat of the Tang army's catapults and crossbows, the Tubo defenders could only hide under the bunkers of the city wall and did not dare to poke their heads out. However, using this kind of offensive, the Tang army's siege soldiers climbed the walls of Pibo City for the first time. . However, because there were too few people who climbed to the top of the city, they were killed on the top of the city by the personal guards led by Ma Meng.
Although the siege was not successful this time, the Tang army attacked the top of Pibo City, which made Ma Meng very angry. After the war, he killed many generals and soldiers who had poor command and were not active in fighting. The soldiers guarding the city were frightened by Ma Meng and did not dare to show any disobedience.
The next night, Ma Meng did not dare to slack off. He still patrolled the city, for fear that the Tang army would attack the city at night.
However, because the Tang army's siege in the past two days put a lot of pressure on him and his guards, and because the generals and chieftains of Pibo City's defenders seemed very honest, Ma Meng relaxed his surveillance of these people. intensity.
Therefore, when Ma Meng inspected the city defense, these people had already contacted each other in a unique way and were ready to kill Ma Meng when the Tang army attacked the city on the third day.
The strategy formulated by the garrison generals and chieftains of Pibo City to kill Ma Meng was very simple. In one sentence, Ma Meng was able to be killed because he was too high-profile.