Watching Zheng Guanyin and his son from a distance as they walked into the east city of Taiyuan, Chen Sangliang, who was lamenting the uncertainty of his fate, was shaking his head and sighing when an urgent bulletin with chicken feathers on it was suddenly delivered to him by his own soldiers. Chen Sangliang thought for a moment that It was the Tangbao of the Left Wing War, and he casually asked: "Is it Liu Heita's Tangbao? Did you capture Lishi?" "This is for the King of Tang, it's not Mr. Liu who is in charge of Tangbao, but Old General Yun's Tangbao." My dear. The soldiers quickly corrected themselves and reported: "It's the Tongbao sent from Xin'an by Old General Yun Dingxing Yun in a five-hundred-mile rush?" "Five-hundred-mile rush? Something happened in Dongdu!" Chen Sang's conscience shivered. They quickly took the Tang newspaper and opened it to watch the content. The Sui soldiers and civilians present also guessed that a major change must have occurred in Luoyang, the eastern capital. They all watched Chen Sangliang's reaction nervously, and found that Chen Sangliang was obviously surprised at first, and then He frowned again, with a worried look on his face, and didn't say a word for a long time. Qu Tutong couldn't restrain his curiosity and asked cautiously: "Your Highness, what happened?" "Li Mi was defeated." Chen Sangliang frowned and replied: "The defeat was very disastrous. The people west of Hulao Pass The main force was almost lost, and Luokou Cang was also taken away by Wang Shichong. Yun Dingxing also found unconfirmed news that Li Mi might have been seriously injured in the battle and was unable to command the Hulao Pass defenders to launch a counterattack to recapture Luokou Cang. Dong fled to Baima. ""Li Mi was defeated so miserably?" Qu Tutong was a little surprised and said doubtfully, "Isn't this impossible? Even if Wang Shichong is a cunning and cunning person, Li Mi's strength is still higher than Wang Shichong's. He could have lost so miserably by accident, right? " "Li Mi made the mistake of underestimating the enemy. The internal conflicts accumulated with Zhai Rang before always broke out at critical moments. The defeat was a bit unfair, but it doesn't count. Injustice." Chen Sangliang sighed, and then handed the newspaper to a group of accomplices and lackeys to watch. When Yuan Tiangang and others hurried forward to read with Qu Tutong, they understood why Chen Sangliang said that Li Mi had lost. Injustice but not injustice. Li Mi's disastrous defeat was completely caused by his own suicide. After confirming that Chen Sangliang personally led the Guanzhong Sui army in the Northern Expedition to Taiyuan, Li Mi, who felt that he was strong and had nothing to worry about, ignored the battle between his main soldiers and the Xiaoguo army. With the reality of the greatest losses and casualties in the decisive battle, they rashly launched a frontal attack on Luoyang Jiancheng in an attempt to seize the time to eliminate Wang Shichong and dominate the Central Plains. As a result, this played into Wang Shichong's hands. When the food shortage was alleviated and his strength was replenished, the treacherous Wang Shichong not only did not rush to launch a decisive battle, but also deliberately showed weakness and abandoned the outer city of the eastern capital, gathering elite troops and strong generals to defend the eastern capital. The imperial city, with its stronger imperial city and palace city, consumed Li Mi's strength and morale. Li Mi, who successfully captured the outer city, fell into the trap and stormed the Eastern Capital Imperial City regardless of casualties or costs. Wang Shichong's army suddenly became very strong due to the sharp contraction of its position, and each army took turns to fight in the city. , in the battle to defend the city, it consumed a large amount of the strength of Li Mi's army at a relatively small cost. It also made Li Mi's army tired after long-term attack on the fortified city, and its morale declined. Then Wang Shichong seized the appropriate opportunity to counterattack in an all-out way, which greatly Unprepared for the defeat, Li Mi regained the outer city of the Eastern Capital in one fell swoop, and pursued the victory with all his strength to attack Li Mi's defeated army with all his strength, and in turn wanted to eat Li Mi's army in one bite. At the critical moment, internal conflicts broke out in Li Mi's army. Dissatisfied with Li Mi's refusal to adopt his suggestion of luring the enemy into a decisive battle in the wild, Pei Renji, an expert in cheating, suffered water in his head again when he was defeated. He refused to perform the rearguard mission and led his army to flee back to Luo City. Breaking away from the main force, the morale of Li Mi's army was once again severely damaged; then the Xiaoguo Army's surrendered general Zhang Tong'er, who succeeded Pei Renji at the rear, turned against the tide again and led his army to surrender to Wang Shichong. Wang Shichong took the opportunity to successfully catch up with the main force of Li Mi's army and seize the opportunity before Li Mi's army entered Luokou. Cangqian was defeated again, and then Zhai Rang's old subordinate Bing Yuanzhen, who was guarding Luokou Cang, gave Li Mi another fatal blow. He opened the gate of Cangcheng and surrendered to Wang Shichong. Li Mi's army, which had been defeated in consecutive battles, suddenly collapsed completely. Surrenders came one after another in a hurry. Yang Jishan, who led the Hulao Pass garrison to the west, was also defeated by Wang Shichong's army with high morale. Seeing that the situation was over, Li Mi could only lead a small number of his cronies and fled into Hulao Pass. Wang Shichong successfully captured the Luokou warehouse and completely solved the food shortage problem. . By the way, because Pei Renji, a professional cheater, was afraid that Li Mi would hold him responsible for leading his army to leave the battlefield, he took the initiative to ask Wang Shichong to surrender as soon as he received the news of the fall of Luokou Cang, and immediately ran to Heyang to defeat Yu. Wenhuaji's advance team to cross the river burned down the Heyang Bridge, destroying Yu Wenhuaji's dream of taking advantage of the fire. Zhai Rang's other two deputies, Shan Xiongxin and Xu Shiji, also surrendered to Wang Shichong one after another in fierce battles. Wang Shichong, who was once at the end of his rope, gained momentum and his overall strength was greatly improved. However, Li Mi's army, which once dominated the Central Plains, collapsed. A handful of defeated soldiers were left, lingering east of Hulao Pass. After carefully reading the Dongdu war report that Yun Dingxing worked so hard to collect and compile, Qu Tutong, Yuan Tiangang and others were astonished at Wang Shichong's Black Eight Miracle and Li Mi's collapse, and they inevitably asked Chen Sangliang a little strangely: "Your Highness, Li Mi is a powerful enemy of our army. HisDefeat is a good thing for our army anyway, so why are you so worried? Are you worried that after Wang Shichong's victory, he will pose a huge threat to our Guanzhong hinterland? " Chen Sangliang shook his head and said in a heavy tone: "Wang Shichong will be a bit of a threat to us after his victory, but given his foundation and moral character, even if he is a bit of a threat to us, it will not be a big threat. I don't think so. Take it seriously. I am not happy because I am worried about a few of my friends. I don¡¯t know whether they were hurt in this war or what their current situation is. " "Your Highness, your friend? Qu Tutong was stunned and said hurriedly: "Your Highness, since you have friends who have been affected by this war and are worried about their situation, then you will send someone to contact Wang Shichong and ask Wang Shichong to help find their whereabouts?" Wang Shichong and you are related to Weng's son-in-law, so you won't be able to help with this little favor, right? " Chen Sangliang smiled and thought, is it that easy? But after thinking about it, Chen Sangliang said again: "It is not necessary to ask Wang Shichong to help find someone, but courtesy must be maintained. Fujia, on the basis of my personal reputation, you can write a letter to my father-in-law Wang Shichong to congratulate him on his victory in the Eastern Capital and express my willingness to get along with him in a friendly manner. We haven't captured all of Taiyuan yet, so how much can we do? Be humble. " Sun Fujia made a promise and promised to write the book immediately after returning the account. Chen Sangliang nodded, looked at the east city of Taiyuan for a moment, and ordered: "Transport the eighteen artillery pieces to the west city of Taiyuan, together with the ones that were sent there before. Two artillery pieces and twenty artillery pieces were set up at the top of the west city. When they found a suitable target, they opened fire to bombard the east city of Taiyuan, making Li Jiancheng restless day and night, forcing him to make a choice! " Yuan Tiangang, who was in charge of weapons, made a promise and asked Chen Sangliang: "Your Highness, will you continue to build the dam? " "No more building. Chen Sangliang replied: "There is not much food in the east city of Taiyuan, and the city is much smaller than the west city. It can be taken by force. Building more dams will only waste time, and it will make Li Jiancheng unable to escape even if he wants to. Prepare to attack." City weapons use force to attack the city. The sooner the east city of Taiyuan is captured, the better. Wang Shichong has already won a decisive victory, so we should speed up our actions. ¡± Because of Chen Sangliang¡¯s order, although the innocent soldiers and civilians in Taiyuan escaped the disaster of the flood, starting from that night, the poor soldiers and civilians in Taiyuan East City fell into constant fear. Twenty artillery pieces were mounted in the distance. There are only more than 200 steps on the west wall of Taiyuan East City. First, a round of volleys blasted the west gate tower of the East City into rubble for demonstration. Then, when there were many people there, they attacked those who were very talented in mathematics. Qian Xiangmin commanded the artillery team of the Sui Army. He fired one or two artillery pieces into the East City of Taiyuan at random intervals, blasting the Taiyuan Army garrison on the East City Wall until they were howling like ghosts. There were constant casualties and they were forced to do nothing. Squatting, crawling, and walking, the decent buildings in the East City were blown to pieces and collapsed one after another. The poor East City defenders and the people were shouting and screaming in the city, running back and forth to avoid the bombardment, and lived in this world all the time. In fear, morale was greatly affected. At the same time, Chen Sangliang not only sent toad trucks to fill the East City moat, but also sent Liu Dewei and Samurai Xun to the city to shout for surrender, so that the Taiyuan garrison officers knew the Sui army's prisoner policy. , encouraged the Taiyuan defenders to leave the city and surrender, further damaging the confidence and morale of the Taiyuan Army. As expected, it had some effects. On the night of the ninth day of July, more than ten Taiyuan Army soldiers quietly slipped down the city wall and surrendered to Chen Sangliang and Sui. The main force of the army brought a lot of important information. Among the information provided by the surrendered troops, Chen Sangliang was of course most concerned about the psychological impact of his execution of the Li clan on the Dongcheng defenders. The result made Chen Sangliang extremely emotional. Li Jiancheng did not use this opportunity to intimidate and force the Dongcheng defenders to fight to the end. He gave up the opportunity to coerce the entire city's soldiers and civilians to bury him with him, and allowed the Taiyuan army officers to listen to Feng Li, Liu Dewei and others' accusations against Chen Sangliang about killing the Li family. Explain, so the officers and soldiers of the Taiyuan Army knew that the killing of the Li clan was caused by his own death, and that it was not Chen Sangliang who broke his promise and surrendered. The civil and military officers of the Sui Army were also very happy about this. They all said that Li Jiancheng had been moved by Chen Sangliang's sincerity and peace. There was hope for liberating Taiyuan East City. It was precisely because of this hope that Feng Deyi suggested that Chen Sangliang go to the city in person to recruit Li Jiancheng. However, Chen Sangliang shook his head and refused after only thinking about it for a moment, saying: "There is no need to waste your energy. , Li Jiancheng is not someone who gives in easily. As long as he makes up his mind, he will not waver even if I break the sky. He should attack the city with force according to the original plan. He can no longer place his hope on the enemy to surrender on his own. ¡± After more than eight days of careful preparations, and repeated psychological battles in which surrender soldiers were sent to the city to shout for surrender, on July 17, under the personal command of Chen Sangliang, the main force of the Sui army officially A frontal attack was launched towards the East City of Taiyuan. Ten artillery pieces destroyed the east gate tower of the East City into rubble in a matter of seconds. More than 500 trebuchets were constantly throwing stone bombs weighing dozens of kilograms onto the city wall. Rammed earthThe wall was riddled with holes, hundreds of crossbows were fired one after another, and thick arrow shafts were inserted all over the city wall. Sui army soldiers did not need any ladders or flying ladders, but could climb directly to the top of the wall by stepping on the thick crossbow arrow shafts. There were also tens of thousands of Sui army crossbowmen pouring arrows on the city. The arrow feathers flying at the top of the city were like hedgehog hairs, as if they were covered with reeds. The West City was also pouring artillery fire on the East City like crazy. The Taiyuan Army reserves were unable to assemble in the middle of the city. They could only get as close as possible to the east wall. After the Sui Army's feather arrows and stone bullets flew over the city head and entered the city, another Continuous shots hit these reserves. The Taiyuan Army officers and soldiers were attacked from left to right and suffered terribly. The fierce battle had not yet begun, and the casualties were already considerable. After noon, the Sui army's siege of the city officially began. The attacking queue was as turbulent as the sea waves. In the first wave of attacks, hundreds of light flying ladders were set up on the city wall. The Sui army soldiers stepped on the ladders. Shouting and climbing up on the arrow shaft of the bed crossbow, there were more than twenty ladder trucks and the same number of ramming trucks slowly approaching the city wall driven by the Sui army officers and soldiers. The target of the ramming trucks was of course This era did not have very strong rammed earth city walls, and as long as one ladder truck was put up on the city wall, it would immediately become the biggest nightmare for the defenders on the city. Under the personal command of Li Jiancheng, the Taiyuan Army also showed admirable courage and willpower to resist the Sui Army's attack, and used a variety of defensive weapons to attack the Sui Army officers head-on. However, the disparity in strength was too great. The most important long-range weapons have a huge generation gap for hundreds of years, so no matter how heroic the Taiyuan Army soldiers resisted, they still could not completely defeat the Sui Army soldiers' repeated attacks. Fierce battles continued on the city walls, and the individual combat effectiveness of the soldiers was obviously greater than that of the Sui Army soldiers. The Taiyuan Army's superior Sui Army soldiers rushed to the city wall one after another. The Taiyuan Army had to sacrifice their lives to prevent the Sui Army soldiers from expanding their city head positions. Even with the advantage of being at a commanding height, the casualties suffered by the Sui Army soldiers in the battle were basically similar. Feather arrows are constantly coming and going in the sky, but the shafts of these feather arrows all bear the stamps of the Taiyuan Army. The Sui Army's ladder carts and city-crashing cranes are also constantly burning under the attack of swallow-tailed torches and kerosene pots. However, it was a pity for the Taiyuan defenders that most of their kerosene reserves were in Xicheng and had fallen into the hands of the main force of the Sui army. The precious kerosene was used less and less. Because even the weapons supply officer had shamelessly surrendered to Chen Sangliang, their weakness had long been known to the main force of the Sui army. Therefore, even though they burned down hundreds of Sui army ladder trucks and city ramming trucks, they still had more Many heavy siege weapons were slowly moving towards their position. As the sun gradually set, a loud noise suddenly erupted from the bottom of the city wall, which was riddled with holes by ramming vehicles and Sui army infantry. A section of the rammed earth wall that was at least four feet wide collapsed. It turned out that the Sui army soldiers were digging holes. After finding a suitable cave, a coffin filled with gunpowder was stuffed into the cave, set on fire, and detonated. The Taiyuan Army soldiers who could not accumulate similar experience in this era were unable to cope with the reaction, and were successfully blasted by the Sui Army soldiers. More than ten soldiers in the city exploded. In the sound, he fell off the city wall and was buried by the rammed earth, and a gap was also exposed in the city wall. Fortunately, a similar situation had occurred in the previous cold weapon war. The Taiyuan Army soldiers who had been prepared immediately pushed the gate cutter into the gap and quickly built a wooden fence to repair the gap. However, it is a pity that such a contingency strategy Although they could not have been more correct in the cold weapon war, the poor Taiyuan Army soldiers encountered the main force of the Sui Army that was already equipped with quite advanced gunpowder weapons-ten artillery fired only one salvo and destroyed the Semen Knife Cart. It was reduced to the state of parts, and the fence that the Taiyuan Army soldiers worked so hard to build was smashed into sawdust. The officers and soldiers of the Sui army shouted and rushed forward, charging into the city from the gap in an endless stream. Looking at the fatal gap with great despair, Li Jiancheng ordered the army to launch a counterattack in a desperate struggle to drive the Sui army soldiers out of the city again. Yang Wenqian led his army to shout and engage in a close melee with the Sui army soldiers at the gap. It was extremely intense, but the disparity in strength meant that it was difficult for Li Jiancheng to get what he wanted. As the fighting continued, the sound of gunpowder explosions was heard again under another section of the city wall, and another section of the city wall more than two feet long collapsed again. By the way, the reason why Chen Sangliang dared to squander so much precious gunpowder in his first all-out attack was because of Li Jiancheng and Li Er. Li Er obtained the gunpowder formula for the Taiyuan Army through the relationship with the Eastern Capital Court. Li Jiancheng, who valued war preparations, spent a lot of money and food to produce a large amount of gunpowder. Unfortunately, most of the gunpowder was stored in the Xicheng arsenal. After being captured by the Sui army, it in turn became a weapon for killing Taiyuan army officers. Chen Sangliang did not like frontal offensive battles that were costly in all aspects. This was the greatest confidence that Li Jiancheng, Yin Kaishan and other Taiyuan Army officers dared to resist in the east city. However, when Chen Sangliang really launched a frontal offensive, which was very rare, Li Jiancheng Talents such as Yin Kaishan and others discovered that Chen Sangliang's attack methods were more powerful than they imagined, and they were so powerful that they could not resist them at all. stunnedLooking blankly at the endless stream of Sui soldiers who entered the city from two gaps, Li Jiancheng, Yin Kaishan and others could not help but feel complete despair, and they murmured together: "Is it necessary to continue this battle? ?" At the same time, the civil and military officials of the Sui army around Chen Sangliang were ecstatic, dancing and congratulating Chen Sangliang: "Your Highness is so powerful that he is invincible and can conquer everything in just one day! Taiyuan Fort is really unheard of. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed that His Highness's power could be so sharp!" "Is it sharp?" Chen Sangliang sneered and said to himself: "One. The cost of making feather arrows is more than 30 yuan. So far, we have used more than 500,000 of them. More than 15 million yuan and more than 15,000 arrows have been scattered. Wood, gunpowder and weapons are just In terms of baggage consumption, our military expenditure today is at least more than 30,000 guan, which is the hard-earned money of the common people. It is hard-earned money that tens of thousands of strong men cannot earn without eating or drinking for a year. Moreover, our soldiers have been injured and killed more than one thousand. More than 1,800 people and more than 1,800 lives were lost. Nearly two thousand pairs of gray-haired mothers will never see their sons. I would rather not have such sharpness." Sui Jun. Wenwu shut his mouth, and then he understood the real reason why Chen Sangliang, who was actually very good at fighting tough battles, didn't like to fight frontal tough battles. Fortunately, Chen Sangliang was also good at regulating his emotions, and he soon got over the heartache of the huge consumption. He got out of the middle and said comfortingly: "But it's worth it. Li Jiancheng is too stubborn. If we don't hurt him and conquer him at all costs, his stubbornness will only bring us more casualties. Pass on the order." , continue the attack, be sure to capture the East City of Taiyuan before dawn!" As the Sui Army soldiers launched another fierce attack, the Taiyuan Army finally could no longer resist. When it was dark, the Taiyuan Army Yang Wen blocked the gap! The cadres were the first to collapse and were scattered and defeated by the Sui army. They were forced to flee deep into the city. The Sui army officers marched forward in triumph and continued to advance into the city. The Taiyuan army was forced to engage in street fighting with the Sui army officers and soldiers. Seeing that the situation was extremely serious, Li Jiancheng had no choice but to order preparations to abandon the city and break out, and decided to lead the remaining troops to flee to Mayi to join Liu Wuzhou's two brothers-in-law, Song Jingang and Yuan Junzhang. Although Yin Kaishan and Shi Wanbao It was clear that there would be no hope of recovery by fleeing to Mayi, but he still gritted his teeth and accepted the order, and immediately began to arrange for the army to break out and retreat. This time, Li Jiancheng finally did not forget his wife and children. While his soldiers were still fighting in the streets and resisting, Li Jiancheng and his soldiers hurried back to his temporary residence in Dongcheng and asked Zheng Guanyin to take his children and go out of the city with him through the north gate immediately. Zheng Guanyin agreed without hesitation, but then said to Li Jiancheng: "Da Lang, I can leave with you, but of your two sons, you must leave one here and let someone give him to his uncle." "Why? ?" Li Jiancheng was stunned. "Because uncle has long expected that you will run to Mayi Mobei, so he has already told the slave family that you must leave one of your sons with him and let him raise the child for you. You carry on the family line and inherit the incense." Zheng Guanyin replied calmly. "When did this happen? When did he tell you this?" Li Jiancheng was shocked. Only then did Zheng Guanyin tell Li Jiancheng what Chen Sangliang had told her when he sent her out of the camp. He was even more shocked after hearing this, and hurriedly asked: "Then why didn't you tell me earlier?" "I told you a few days ago, is it useful? Will you agree?" Zheng Guanyin asked back. Li Jiancheng was completely stunned, while Zheng Guanyin said calmly: "Dalang, you have never forgotten the revenge of killing your father, and you must fight to the death with your good brother, Uncle Yingliang, who is closer than your own brother. I don't blame you. But you Have you ever thought about how many people your father-in-law killed on the battlefield? Should the sons of those who were killed by your father-in-law on the battlefield also come to us to avenge their father's murder? If it was your father-in-law who killed them on the Daxing battlefield at that time? When my uncle's son grows up, should he seek revenge on his father-in-law for killing his father? If his father-in-law died on the battlefield fighting his uncle, can he blame his uncle for not being merciful to his father-in-law? If it hadn't been for my uncle's rescue, my father-in-law would have died in the sky prison in the eleventh year of Daye, right?" The shouts of death in the city became more and more fierce and getting closer. The soldiers outside the door kept urging Li Jiancheng to leave quickly, and Li Jiancheng Instead, he sat down and lowered his head in deep thought. Zheng Guanyin saw her husband's wavering and said again: "Da Lang, your biological brothers are as cruel as wolves, but your brothers with a foreign surname are as close to you as brothers. Your vicious brothers are all dead. Do you still want to fight with you?" Brothers with a foreign surname who are as close as brothers will always be hostile and stay alone? " "If you decide to go to Mobei to eat and drink, I will accompany you," Zheng Guanyin said again, "But I must do it for you. I beg you, children, and I beg you for the ancestors of your Li family, please keep one of your sons and keep some incense for your Li family.??¡± Li Jiancheng said nothing, but the corners of his eyes were filled with tears, and he remained motionless. I don¡¯t know how long it took, but Yin Kaishan and Shi Wanbao suddenly broke in and shouted in unison: ¡°Commander Zuo, leave quickly! The bandit army has already reached a close place. If we don't move away, it will be too late! " "Da Lang, let's go. Zheng Guanyin stood up and asked Li Jiancheng: "Do you think we should keep Chengzong or Chengdao?" " Li Jiancheng continued to hang his head and remained motionless. After a long time, he choked out and said, "No, I'm not leaving. Let's all stay. "