The Legend of Shushan Xuanjian

Chapter 405 Fierce Battle in Taiyuan

The elm leaves in Guancheng are early and yellow, and the ancient battlefield is cloudy and sandy at dusk.

Please return to the army to cover up the bones of the dust, and don't teach the soldiers to cry about the dragon.

——"Seven Songs of Marching in the Army" Wang Changling
……

"A mountain of dirt!"

Shi Siming was so angry that he ordered thousands of soldiers to go out of the camp and pile up earth mountains.

Building earth hills to attack the city is a time-consuming and labor-intensive stupid way.But other than that, there is no other way to siege the city.

Shi Siming imagined that on the opposite side of the city wall and beyond the range of bows and arrows, a large slope higher than the city wall would be piled up, and a defensive shield would be calmly built on it.

Engineers dug up the sand on the far side of the city every day and filled it to the side near the city. At the same time, they sent archers to suppress the archers on the opposite side of the city, and cooperated with giant shields to cover the engineers, so that the mound of soil gradually moved towards the city wall.

With the strength of the three armies, the amount of work to move a mound is not very big, and the casualties will be much smaller than the siege methods such as ladders.

Once the mound of soil is pushed to the city wall, it is equivalent to building a inclined bridge on the city wall, and breaking the city is just around the corner.

There are always people who better than you.

Just listening to the whistling of the wind, several huge boulders were thrown from the tower of Taiyuan City, hitting the engineers and soldiers of the Yan Army who were building the earth mountain.The vicinity of Taiyuan is rich in stone materials. These boulders are extremely hard, with sharp edges and corners. When they hit the soldiers, no giant shield will work.Every boulder thrown can kill twenty or thirty Yan soldiers.

Even the chariots wrapped in wet cowhide, wooden mantles, and siege engines with battering rams could not withstand the attack of boulders and were smashed to pieces.

Once the boulder came out, it was invincible.Whether it was the Yan army attacking the city or the engineers building the earth hills, the soldiers who were killed accounted for [-]% to [-]% of the army formation.

The Yan army suffered heavy casualties and was unable to fight any more.

Shi Siming had no choice but to call for gold to withdraw his troops, and ordered the army to retreat until it was out of the range of the boulder before he dared to set up camp.

……

It turned out that in the process of preparing for the war, the Sun brothers led the carpenters of the Ordnance Institute to make a giant trebuchet—the big catapult.This trebuchet is quite different from the trebuchet in the Central Plains.

The design drawings of the trebuchet came from the chief elder of the Persian Wisdom Palace, Huarazmi.

Khwarizmi's famous work "Shudao" introduced Tianzhu numbers to Persia.

In order to accurately measure astrology, azimuth and time, so that believers can worship in the exact direction at the exact time.Khwarizmi expanded the scope of astrology that has been passed down for hundreds of years.

In order to observe the starry sky, Khwarizmi also invented the quadrant, and invented the sine and cosine numbers for calculating astrology.

The trebuchet manufactured on the basis of this theory has larger volume, longer range and more accurate projection.

Sun Fu has been good at making all kinds of tomb-robbing tools since he was a child, and he can't put it down for all kinds of craftsmen.After becoming a rich man, his interest has not diminished, and he still looks around for design drawings for various equipment manufacturing.

At that time, Bai Fu and others found several scrolls of Khwarizmi sheepskin scrolls from the Prince Yin's mansion "Zhuanlun Zang", one of which was about the manufacture of instruments.

As a reward for assisting the Persian princess in her treasure hunt, Boniati allowed the Sun brothers to transcribe and copy the volume, and helped them translate the Persian text in the volume into Chinese.

When they came to Li Guangbi's army, the blueprints of these siege equipment immediately became useful.Sun Fu selected several types of equipment suitable for the defense of Taiyuan City, and ordered the carpenters of the Ordnance Institute to work day and night to make them.

……

The mysterious Tang Jun in the tunnel, and the extremely powerful trebuchet, made the generals of the Yan Army afraid of fighting.

Cai Xide said to Shi Siming: "Commander, today Taiyuan City is strong and arrows are sharp. If we attack by force, even if we capture Taiyuan, our army will definitely lose a lot. It is better to besiege the city.

Taiyuan City is isolated in the Central Plains, hundreds of miles outside the city are under the control of our Yan army, there are no reinforcements, and there is no city that can provide food and grass supplies for Taiyuan.

Not counting the people in the city, there were nearly 1 soldiers of the Tang Army alone.People eat and feed horses every day, which consumes a lot.As long as the siege is tight enough, there will always be a day when its food and grass will run out. "

Shi Siming followed Cai Xide's suggestion, changed his strategy, and surrounded Taiyuan City with nearly ten times the force.

Sure enough, after a while, Tang Jun couldn't hold on anymore, and could only live on the bark and grass roots.

Cai Xide offered another plan, saying: "Commander, Li Guangbi is also a Khitan barbarian, and his ancestral home is Liucheng, Yingzhou. Speaking of which, he is still a fellow with you and His Majesty. He has no reason to work for Li Longji and the Han people.

Now that the Tang army is running out of food and grass, it is a good time to send people to persuade Li Guangbi to surrender. "

Shi Siming nodded deeply.

Just as Cai Xide expected, Li Guangbi was willing to approach him.Tang Jun immediately sent someone to negotiate with Shi Siming to discuss the terms of surrender.

The Tang army hoped that Shi Siming would lead his troops into Taiyuan City and surrender in the city; while the Yan army hoped that Li Guangbi would lead his troops out of the city and disarm in the Yan army camp.

While listening to the negotiating envoys of the two sides, Shi Siming kept twirling a mouse whisker with his fingers, and his grayish-yellow eyeballs rolled around.

When the envoys of the Tang army left, Shi Siming called all the generals to discuss to see if there was any fraud.Everyone has different opinions and opinions are not unified.

It is a fact that the Tang army in the city is short of food and grass.But Li Guangbi has always been cunning, whether there will be fraud, no one can say.

Cai Xide whispered a few words in Shi Siming's ear, and Shi Siming was overjoyed.

Calling the Tang army envoy into the account again, Shi Siming said to the Tang army envoy: "In order to ensure the sincerity of the Tang army's surrender, the Yan army will send a team of one hundred people into the city to supervise the Tang army's destruction of large-scale defense equipment such as trebuchets.

After the defense equipment is destroyed, the Tang army can keep half of the soldiers in the city, and the other half will go out of the city and surrender.

The Tang army's crossbows and horses must be handed over to the Yan army, and the Tang army who surrendered out of the city will carry them to the Yan army's camp. "

Li Guangbi finally agreed to Shi Siming's harsh conditions, and the two sides quickly reached an agreement on the specific details, and agreed on the date when the Tang army would leave the city and surrender.

After the two sides negotiated, Yan Jun also relaxed his vigilance.

On the appointed day, the gate of Taiyuan City was opened wide.

An always prudent general of the Yan army led hundreds of engineers into the city to supervise the Tang army's destruction of large-scale defense equipment such as trebuchets.

Sure enough, Li Guangbi did not break his promise. In front of the generals of the Yan army, he ordered people to pour kerosene on the dozens of giant catapults at the top of the city—Dachen.Light the torch, and the big scorpion will burn blazingly, and it will be reduced to ashes in less than a stick of incense.

Thick smoke was billowing from the top of the city, and the generals of the Yan Army below the city whispered to each other and nodded frequently.

After the inspection was completed, General Yan led the engineers back to the battalion to return to the camp.Shi Siming was convinced of this.

At this time, Li Guangbi lined up half of the army on the city tower, and sent his deputy general to lead thousands of people out of the city to surrender.The generals and soldiers of the Tang army led their horses and carried bows and crossbows, lined up in a column, entered the Yan army's barracks, and surrendered.

When they came to the center of the camp, the officers and soldiers of the Tang army put down their weapons and belongings, handed over the horses to the Yan army, and retreated silently.

The central open space is filled with Tang Jun's bows, arrows, swords, guns, swords and halberds.Gold and silver treasures, cloth brocades and other goods are piled up like mountains.

The entire Yan Army barracks was joyful and peaceful. The soldiers of the Yan Army came to the open space and watched the surrender ceremony with great interest.

Just as the officers and soldiers of the Yan Army were happily selecting the trophies, there was a loud bang, and the ground in the center of the barracks suddenly collapsed, and more than 1000 officers and soldiers of the Yan Army who were watching were instantly buried alive on the spot.

When the generals of the Yan Army were stunned, they surrendered to the Tang Army and took advantage of the chaos to sneak into the Yan Army's barracks.Soldiers of the Tang army took out their weapons hidden in their armors, chopped at everyone they met, and set fire to tents when they saw them.

In an instant, the tents were on fire, the horses fled, and the Yan army's barracks were in chaos.

Seeing the fighter plane appear, the battle drums were rumbling on the tower of Taiyuan City, and Li Guangbi personally led the attack.

Due to the surrender, the gate of the Yan army camp was opened, and all defensive objects such as antlers and barbed wire were removed in front of the gate.Holding a long spear, Li Guangbi took the lead and led his army into the Yan army camp.

The soldiers of the Yan army were unprepared, panicked, and fled in all directions.

……

It turned out that during the days when the two sides were negotiating, the Sun brothers led people to dig the tunnel under the Yan army camp and supported it with wood.

As soon as the surrender ceremony began, the mechanism was activated, and the ground collapsed, burying the soldiers of the Yan Army.

The Tang army won a great victory in this battle, beheading and capturing tens of thousands of Yan army soldiers.

Shi Siming fell into the trick and lost his troops and lost his generals. He was ashamed.Sitting alone in the big tent all day long, drinking too much to relieve boredom.

When Shi Siming didn't know how to explain to An Lushan, in February of the second year of Zhide, Luoyang sent [-] miles to rush.

Shi Siming opened the military newspaper and took a look, gasped!
"An Lushan is dead?!"

(End of this chapter)