Guiyi Fei Tang

Chapter 164 Daxia is in danger

"Screw rustle..."

August 15th of the seventh year of the Dazhong era is the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is the middle of the three autumns for the Han people.

But for Liu Jilong, conquering Daxia was the best gift for him to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In the Daxia River Valley, there were anxious cries...

Two thousand armored soldiers and four thousand civilians were lined up about a mile west of Daxia City, with flags fluttering and their might shaking the heavens.

Clouds covered the sky, and it was dark inside Daxia City. However, the shining armor of the Longxi army outside the city was dazzling, as if soldiers from heaven had descended.

Obviously, the number of people on both sides was almost the same, and the number of people in Linwei and Wei states was even greater, but they were still nervous.

Shang Yanxin and the other two stood in front of the city wall, leaning against the parapet, their breathing disordered.

As they watched, the city gate opened wide, and General Lin Ruzhen walked out of Daxia City, escorted by more than a dozen elite cavalrymen, holding a flag of peace in his hands.

They laid wooden boards to avoid the trenches while approaching the Longxi army.

Soon, under the attention of Shang Yanxin and others, they arrived in front of the Longxi army.

"May I ask who is Governor Liu?!"

General Lin Ruzhen was shouting on horseback, and more than ten riders came out from the Longxi army formation fifty steps away from him.

Lin Ruzhen's pupils shrank. In the past two and a half years, Liu Jilong's figure could not be erased from his mind.

After all, it was his negligence that led to Liu Jilian leading more than a hundred elite cavalrymen to cut down their banner two and a half years ago.

After two and a half years, Liu Jilian became more powerful than before, and his power increased to the extent of annexing He and Lan states.

General Lin Ruzhen shook his horse's reins and rode alone towards the Longxi army, until he was only two feet away from Liu Jilian.

At this distance, Lin Ruzhen could even see Liu Jilong's facial features clearly.

Liu Jilong had an imposing appearance, and was the most brilliant and resolute man that Lin Ruzhen had ever seen in the army in his life.

"I am Liu Jilong, and you are the foreign general who was stationed at the Donggu Pass yesterday?"

Liu Jilong had a calm expression and an indifferent tone, but he obviously asked the captives and only then did he know the identity of General Lin Ruzhen.

In response, Lin Ruzhen bowed and agreed, "It is a misunderstanding that I am an enemy of the governor."

"Misunderstanding?" Liu Jilong narrowed his eyes, and General Lin Ruzhen immediately explained:

"My Jiedushi has actually been in private contact with Xue, the governor of Qinzhou, the Jiedushi of Tianxiong Army, and the governor of Qinzhou and Chengzhou, and has already surrendered to the court."

"Right now, Governor Xue is already on his way to Linzhou with his troops, so I call it a misunderstanding."

Lin Ruzhen followed Shang Yanxin's instructions and lied without blushing or beating her heart.

After all, the letter was just sent yesterday. Even if the speed was very fast, it probably didn't go beyond the scope of Linzhou, not to mention that there is Weizhou between it and Qinzhou.

However, in order to delay Liu Jilong, Lin Ruzhen could only say this.

Thinking of this, he nervously watched Liu Jilong's expression, but Liu Jilong's face was very calm, showing no sign of anything.

Liu Jilong did not immediately believe what General Lin Ruzhen said, but he did not deny it immediately either.

In history, Shang Yanxin did take the three states of He, Lin and Wei to surrender to the Tang court, but the person he surrendered to was Gao Pian, a famous general of the late Tang Dynasty.

The current governor of Qinzhou is Xue Kui. Liu Jilian has no idea how long it will take for the two to take over, and he is too lazy to find out.

Regardless of whether Xue Kui is already on his way to send troops to take over Linzhou, Liu Jilong will not easily let go of the piece of meat that is in his mouth.

But before taking action, he still had to test it out:

"In that case, please hand over the letter from Governor Xue, or the imperial edict issued by the three provinces!"

Liu Jilong spoke in a deep voice, which made Lin Ruzhen very confused.

How could he have Xue Kui's handwritten letter or the imperial edict from the three provinces in his hand?

"No?" Liu Jilong chuckled, but his laughter was not at General Lin Ruzhen, but at the truth of the matter.

He didn't understand Xue Kui, but how could he not understand the late Tang court?
Previously, when he was in Hexi, Gao Jinda, Wuzhen and Wang Jingzhi all talked about the whole process of going to Chang'an, especially the whole process of Tang Dynasty's recovery of Qinyuanwei three states and Weizhou.

Whether it was Sanzhou or Weizhou, all of them were completed after the foreign generals surrendered, and then the governor reported to Chang'an, and it was approved by the Emperor Li Chen and the three provinces, and an imperial edict was issued.

The process is complicated and can take anywhere from one month to three months.

Before the army recaptured the place, the Tubo general exchanged countless letters with the governor who was in contact with him.

This is why Tubo was divided and unable to interfere in the border areas, which gave the border generals the opportunity to wait.

If the Tang court had dared to delay for two or three months during the heyday of Tubo, the Tibetan generals there would have been killed by officials sent from Lhasa City.

But because of this, Liu Jilong saw one thing from Lin Ruzhen's panicked behavior.

Regardless of whether their so-called surrender to Xue Kui was true or false, it certainly did not happen long ago, otherwise they would not be able to produce even a letter.

"Since you can't produce the letter and the imperial edict, then treat it as a lie. Please go back, Protector General!"

Liu Jilong turned his horse around and returned to his camp, not giving General Lin Ruzhen any chance to explain.

Lin Ruzhen had no choice but to turn his horse around and retreat back to the city, while removing the wooden boards on the trench.

"Governor, what did this man say?"

As Liu Jilong returned to the main camp, Shang Duoluo and others immediately began to ask questions, and Liu Jilong told them the truth.

"Damn it, they surrendered to Qinzhou?"

"Provincial Governor, what should we do?"

"This...are you still going to fight?"

Everyone was undecided for a moment, but Liu Jilong said firmly: "Fight!"

"I don't care whether they have contacted Xue Kui or not. As long as Xue Kui hasn't taken over Linwei and Weizhou, we don't need to care."

As soon as he finished speaking, Liu Jilong raised his hand and said, "Pass the order, use the catapults to attack the city!"

"I obey your command!" The generals were excited and took action.

All of a sudden, the carriages loaded with trebuchet parts were driven to the front of the formation one after another, and moved forward step by step until they were less than ten steps away from the trench where General Lin Ruzhen was passing.

Soon, parts from more than a hundred horse-drawn carriages were removed, and thousands of civilians, under the command of hundreds of armored soldiers, began to build a catapult position.

Shang Yanxin and the other two saw this scene, and their hearts were in their throats.

When Lin Ruzhen was about to come back, the three of them hurried forward to ask, "Why? Liu Jilong doesn't believe it?"

"He wants us to take out Xue Kui's handwriting and the imperial edict..." Lin Ruzhen's face was gloomy, and Shang Yanxin and the other two were stunned when they heard it.

They did not expect that Liu Jilian, who claimed to be born a shepherd slave, was so familiar with the process of the Tang court's annexation of counties.

They originally thought he was an illiterate shepherd slave, but now it seems that Liu Jilian understands the Tang Dynasty better than any of the three of them.

"Damn it, then defend it!"

"Hold on! Hold on until news comes from Qinzhou. I wonder what excuses he will have by then!"

"It will only take ten days to go back and forth. I don't believe we can't hold on!"

The three were furious and expressed their determination to stay in Daxia.

However, when General Lin Ruzhen, who had just climbed onto the city wall, saw catapults rising one after another in front of the Longxi army, his face suddenly changed.

"Qiliben, the number of catapults Liu Jilong brought obviously exceeded my expectations. Please move to the government office!"

Lin Ruzhen urged them to perform the salute, and Shang Yanxin and the other two looked outside the city upon seeing this.

They saw that more than thirty catapults had been built in front of the Longxi army. The scene made the three men pale.

"It's time to eat." Shang Yanxin was looking for an excuse, and Zhe Buhui quickly agreed:

"Let's go to the government office to eat first, and come back after dinner."

"Okay!" Lu Ruyue followed suit and then the three of them walked down the city wall one after another, while the Longxi army outside the city was performing their duties.

Thousands of laborers built the trebuchet positions, and another three thousand laborers went to collect trebuchet materials.

The armored soldiers set up camp in armor, not paying any attention to the troops in Daxia City.

Even so, General Lin Ruzhen did not rush out of the city to attack, because he had seen the Longxi army's assembly capabilities yesterday.

He had no doubt that if he led his troops out of the city to fight, the Longxi army would be able to form a battle formation in half a cup of tea and launch a counterattack against them.

"There is really only one way left..."

Lin Ruzhen gritted his teeth, while Liu Jilian outside the city was observing the Daxia River Valley and Daxia County.

The Daxia River Valley is dozens of miles long and nearly two miles wide from north to south, with the Daxia River flowing through the valley.

Daxia City is located on the north bank of Daxia River, close to the mountains. It is more like a pass than a city.

Shang Yanxin and his men built a rammed earth wall on the south bank of the Daxia River, and a floating bridge was built across the river, so the defenders could quickly travel back and forth between the north and south banks via the bridge.

From Liu Jilong's perspective, as long as there are enough people and the river valley is large enough to cultivate hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land, it will be no problem to feed hundreds of thousands of people.

However, according to the "Yuanhe County Atlas" of the Tang Dynasty, the entire Linzhou had no more than 13,000 to 14,000 people, and Daxia had at most 3,000 to 4,000 people.

In fact, if you think about it carefully, Gansu during the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty could support tens of millions of people. There is no reason why the warm climate of the Tang Dynasty could not support so many people. The reason why it could not support so many people was that productivity and stability played a decisive role.

As long as there is enough food and manpower to complete the initial development and maintain stability in the later stages, Longxi's population can triple or quadruple in a few decades.

"Governor, we can attack now!"

Zhang Chang rode up on horseback and bowed to Liu Jilian.

Liu Jilong looked towards the position as he said, and saw thirty-nine catapults lined up in front of the army, and carts of stones collected by the civilians were placed behind the catapults.

"attack!"

"Boom bang bang-"

Following Liu Jilian's order, five hundred armored soldiers and two thousand civilians began to operate the catapults.

In the rear, a thousand elite cavalrymen were standing guard ten miles away, and two thousand civilians were constantly collecting and carrying stones on both sides of the Daxia River.

The severe drought caused the water level of the Daxia River to drop by six or seven feet. The rocks that were once washed to both sides of the river were exposed due to the drop in water level.

These stones have no edges and are the most suitable for trebuchets.

Thirty-nine stones flew across the sky, covered a distance of more than three hundred steps, and hit the city walls and arrow towers of Daxia City, raising dust.

Some of the stones fell between the moat and the trench, or hit the city, causing a commotion.

Although General Lin Ruzhen sent the message to Shang Yanxin and his men to reinforce the city walls, the time was too short and Shang Yanxin and his men had no time to reinforce the walls with river stones.

Because of this, General Lin Ruzhen could only retreat behind the city wall with his soldiers and lean against it to wait for news.

There was no one on the horse trail except for a dozen armored soldiers on guard.

Feeling the thick wall, Lin Ruzhen could only hope that the city wall could block the catapults of the Longxi army.

"Boom bang bang-"

"You pig-dog fellow, how can Liu Jilong's catapult reach so far?!"

Shang Yanxin, Lu Ruyue and Zhe Buhui were standing on the bell tower in Daxia City. They could clearly see the dust rising from the west city wall. From time to time, they could see stones being thrown over the wall and smashing into the houses in the city, causing wailing everywhere.

Although the bell tower was still three hundred steps away from the west city wall, the three men still felt uneasy. After observing for a while, they withdrew to the yamen and waited for news.

Shang Yanxin and his men did not know anything about counterweight catapults, so they used rammed earth to reinforce the city defenses, without even mixing in sand, gravel or river stones.

The consequence was that a large section of the wall of Daxia City was quickly destroyed under the heavy bombardment of thirty-nine catapults.

Without the parapet, the soldiers and their equipment had no shelter and were completely exposed to the catapults.

Although the counterweight trebuchets were not accurate, the thirty-nine trebuchets concentrated their attacks in one direction and always managed to hit the target, killing several observing foreign soldiers and destroying a large number of crossbows and small trebuchets.

From the afternoon to nightfall, the catapults of the Longxi Army attacked the Daxia City without stopping, and the crossbows and small catapults on the horse path were almost swept away.

During this period, there were armored soldiers who tried to resist, but the crossbows could not hit the counterweight trebuchets at all.

As time went on, the morale of the more than 2,600 foreign soldiers in Daxia City became low, and even the civilians were in panic.

At dawn the next day, as the sun gradually rose from the east, Daxia City was exposed to everyone's sight.

Standing at the gate of the camp, Liu Jilian could clearly see that many dents had been made in the wall of Daxia, and collapsed rammed earth was piled up at the base of the wall.

"It seems that they have reinforced the city walls very thickly."

Liu Jilong retracted his gaze and squinted at Li Ji behind him: "Tell Shang Duoluo to use all the asbestos and rags seized from Hezhou."

"I obey your command!" Li Ji agreed, and soon sent people to bring out more than a dozen barrels of asphalt and a cart of rags.

These rags were the worn-out clothes discarded by the civilian laborers in Hezhou. After they became civilian laborers, Liu Jilong had people make new clothes for them using the linen in the warehouse, and their old clothes were washed and put to use at this moment.

The old clothes were sunk into barrels of pitch and, after soaking, tied to the slings.

As the torches were lit, the blazing fire enveloped the stones and they were thrown out through the trebuchets.

For a moment, a "fireball" streaked across the sky and slammed heavily into the city.

Houses were shattered, thatched roofs were set on fire, and smoke filled the city.

"Why is it on fire?!"

"Protector General, the Han slaves outside the city are using asphalt to throw stones!"

"Put out the fire quickly!!"

General Lin Ruzhen urged the armored soldiers to take people to put out the fire. At the same time, he sent people to ask the remaining armored soldiers on the horse road to report the movements of the Longxi army.

The Longxi army was still lined up outside the city as they did yesterday, the civilians were still collecting stones, and the catapults were still attacking.

The catapults that had started working the day before had cracks on their main beams due to insufficient endurance.

Shang Duoluo ordered his men to reinforce it with wooden boards and iron ingots and continued to attack the city of Daxia.

Every quarter of an hour, the catapult can fire three rounds of stones, which means twenty-four rounds in an hour and more than two hundred rounds in a day.

In just one night, countless rocks from the Daxia River were dug up.

"Boom bang bang-"

The attack continued, fireballs continued to fall into the city, reigniting the fire that had been put out with great difficulty.

"Add more counterweights and smash these flints into the city. Have the laborers explore the way and fill the trenches. Push the catapults forward 200 steps!"

On horseback, under Shang Duoluo's orderly command.

With the crossbows and catapults on the horse path being destroyed, the only things that could pose a long-range threat to the counterweight catapults were the bows and arrows in the hands of the foreign soldiers.

Faced with such a situation, Shang Duoluo ordered his troops to move forward without hesitation.

The armored soldiers pushed forward, found the trenches and filled them, and after paving a road, the catapult position began to move forward.

The Longxi army made its movements known without concealment, but the foreign soldiers in the city were helpless.

By noon, the catapult positions of the Longxi Army had been pushed forward to a hundred steps west of Daxia City.

At such a close distance, some heavier slingshots would also come in handy.

"Throw hundreds of pounds of rocks at those indentations!"

Shang Duoluo shouted, and the soldiers and civilians of the Longxi army were operating the catapults according to his command.

Slingstones weighing one hundred, one hundred and fifty, or even two hundred pounds were wrapped in leather belts.

As the armored soldiers pulled the mechanism, these heavy stones were thrown high up and then fell heavily down.

"Bang! Bang! Bang..."

The sound of falling rocks changed, and Lin Ruzhen was keenly aware of it: "Come here, search for the rocks that just fell and see if there is any difference!"

"Yes!" The elite cavalry responded and mounted their horses to start searching for fallen rocks.

Soon, the defenders on the city wall ran down the road first and reported to General Lin Ruzhen: "Protector General, the Han army's stones are bigger and heavier!"

"How heavy is it?!" General Lin Ruzhen asked hurriedly, and the guard replied: "Some weigh 150 kilograms or even 200 kilograms!"

"What?" Lin Ruzhen took a deep breath, shocked.

They could certainly build a trebuchet that could throw 200 kilograms of stone, but such a trebuchet would require at least five or six hundred people to operate.

"Liu Jilong... How did they manage to operate so many trebuchets with such a small number of people?!"

Lin Ruzhen clenched her teeth and turned to look at Jie'er beside her: "Tell Qiliben and the others about this!"

"Yes!" Jie'er also knew how important this matter was, and hurriedly mounted his horse and rushed to the yamen.

In less than a cup of tea, he appeared outside the yamen and walked hurriedly inside.

Seeing him walk into the yamen, Shang Yanxin and the other two, who were already restless, stood up one after another, and he also hurriedly saluted.

"Qiliben, I don't know what kind of catapult Liu Jilong outside the city is using, but he can throw a 200-jin boulder with only dozens of people operating the catapult!"

"What did you say?" The three were stunned.

In this era of human-powered trebuchets, it is indeed difficult to imagine how a giant trebuchet could be operated by dozens of people.

"I'm afraid this Great Xia City won't last until winter..."

Zhe Buhui had an unhappy expression on his face, and so did Shang Yanxin and Lu Ruyue.

Giant catapults usually only appear when an army of tens or even hundreds of thousands of people is attacking a city.

Liu Jilong's catapult could actually throw a 200-jin boulder and only required dozens of people to operate it. This had already determined the fate of Daxia City.

It is only August 16th now, and there are still at least two and a half months before winter begins.

Originally, they wanted to hold out until winter, so that even if Liu Jilian conquered Daxia, they could surrender to Xue Kui.

Liu Jilong dared to hit them, but he might not dare to hit Xue Kui. At least that's what Shang Yanxin and the other three thought.

But judging from the current situation, they might not be able to hold out for even half a month.

Thinking of this, the three of them looked at each other with very ugly expressions...

(End of this chapter)