Tibet.

Chapter 1253: Street Fight in the River
Immediately afterwards, Li Kuan shot the second arrow, hitting the upper right corner of the suspension bridge. As an iron chain flew up like a snake, the suspension bridge fell heavily and hit the other side of the moat, revealing the East Gate.

At this time, a violent explosion also occurred at the South Gate, and a large hole about ten feet wide was blown in the city wall.

"Fire cannon ready!"

The fire thunder cannon is a huge horizontal crossbow, specially used for throwing stones, so it is called stone cannon. It has high accuracy, but short range. Now it is basically not used for throwing stones, but for throwing iron fire thunders, so it is renamed fire thunder cannon.

A heavy fire thunder cannon rumbled forward, with dozens of soldiers on both sides holding large shields to provide cover, and several soldiers at the back pushing the fire thunder cannon slowly forward.

The soldiers on the city wall had realized the danger, and thousands of arrows rained down on the fire thunder cannon.

Li Baochen also became anxious and shouted, "Hurry up and pile up big stones at the city gate!"

The soldiers could not find any thousand-pound stones, so they quickly piled hundreds of stones used to defend the city inside the city gate. Each stone weighed about fifty or sixty pounds and filled the city gate.

At this time, the fire mine cannon had arrived a hundred steps away from the city gate. The soldiers quickly adjusted the lookout, installed a 30-jin nail mine on the launch port, and lit the fuse.

"emission!"

At the command of the leading captain, the fire thunder cannon flew out, throwing a beautiful line in the air, and with a "bang!", it hit the city gate and was firmly nailed on the city gate.

In just a moment, there was a loud "boom!" and a big hole was blown in the city gate, revealing the stones inside.

Immediately afterwards, another iron fire bomb was shot out and exploded on the city gate again. The remaining city gates were blown to pieces, and the gray-white stones were all exposed.

Guo Ziyi saw it clearly, and he immediately ordered: "Dispatch 10,000 crossbowmen to suppress the top of the city, and use large iron fire bombs to blow open the city gates!"

General Chen Hua led 10,000 crossbowmen to charge forward, and thousands of arrows were fired at the same time. The dense arrows shot onto the top of the city wall, and the soldiers on the top of the city wall had to squat down, unable to raise their heads due to the pressure.

At this time, a carriage was pulling a three-hundred-pound iron fire bomb and running fast. Three soldiers were holding the iron fire bomb tightly in the carriage, and they were about to approach the city gate.

Li Baochen saw it clearly and ordered: "Throw down a hundred jars of kerosene!"

The soldiers squatted on the ground and threw hundreds of pottery jars outside the city wall. Kerosene splashed everywhere and flowed all over the ground. Then they threw down several torches. The kerosene was ignited, and a raging fire suddenly broke out in front of the city gate.

"Come in!"

The soldier driving the carriage stared with bloodshot eyes, without any intention of stopping the carriage. He whipped the horses desperately. The horses ran forward like mad, neighed long, rushed onto the suspension bridge, and directly into the fire.

Three soldiers jumped into the sea of ​​fire holding the iron fire bomb. There was flames under their feet and around them, and their bodies were also on fire. They were not afraid at all. They rushed forward holding the three hundred kilograms of iron fire bomb and pressed the iron fire bomb tightly against the boulder. At this time, the whole fuse was ignited by the flames and was about to explode. The three soldiers did not move and pressed the iron fire bomb tightly against the boulder.

"Boom!"

With a deafening explosion, three soldiers were blown to pieces, but the huge impact force also ejected all the boulders, and the dozens of feet long city wall collapsed.

"Kill--"

General Ma Sui led 10,000 cavalrymen to charge at the collapsed city gate and rushed directly into the city through the gap.
Behind them was an army of 50,000 led by Deputy General Ma Lin, charging towards the East City, and wooden planks were laid on both sides of the suspension bridge.

The vanguard cavalry was the first to rush into the city, followed by 50,000 troops who also rushed into the county town.

Just as Guo Ziyi expected, the 20,000 defenders in the city were all subordinates loyal to Li Baochen. They refused to surrender, and the two sides engaged in brutal street fighting in Hejian County.

Fierce fighting broke out in various places in Hejian City. The four city gates were wide open, and the Tang army continued to send groups of ordinary people into the city.

This is also an effective means of street fighting, which can minimize the casualties of ordinary people by sending civilians out of the city continuously.

However, it was common for the enemy to use ordinary people as hostages to threaten Tang soldiers. In this case, the Tang army would not be held hostage, but would directly kill them. If the hostages could be saved, they would be saved. If they could not be saved, they would have to perish together. This was the cruelty of street fighting, so once street fighting broke out, ordinary people would suffer heavy casualties.

There are two tough bones in Hejian County. One is Cangcheng, which has a four-meter-high city wall and a moat around it. Three thousand soldiers are standing on the inner city to guard it.

Chen Hua, the Lieutenant General of the Tiger Guards, led 10,000 soldiers to attack Cangcheng. Cangcheng had no city gate, only a water gate for entry and exit.

The Tang army quickly found a solution. Since Cangcheng was built based on the city, its other half was the city wall.

The soldiers rushed to the city wall. Two thousand soldiers climbed down the city wall using rope ladders, while the other two thousand soldiers shot arrows at the three thousand defenders on the inner city wall from behind.

Soon, the Tang army took control of the warehouse. More than a dozen soldiers punched a hole in the inner city wall, stuffed an eighty-jin iron fire bomb into the hole, and lit the fuse.

In just a moment, there was a shocking explosion, "BOOM!"

The very thin inner city wall collapsed, and more than a thousand soldiers fell, most of them were buried by the wall.

The Tang army tasted the sweetness and used the same trick one after another. After a while, there were four consecutive explosions and the entire inner city wall collapsed. Before the soldiers could get up, the Tang army fired arrows at them, cutting off their way to survival.

Another tough nut to crack was the Chengde Palace, which was attacked by Ma Lin and his 10,000 men. The Chengde Palace covered an area of ​​200 acres and was located in the north of the city. Li Baochen and his family hid in the palace, and 5,000 elite soldiers guarded the safety of the palace.

Ma Lin watched for a moment, then immediately gave the order: "Prepare the catapults and burn down the palace!"

More than a hundred small catapults were brought in, and the Tang soldiers also brought hundreds of jars of kerosene. At Ma Lin's command, burning kerosene pots were thrown into the palace.

A raging fire started and quickly ignited the interior of the palace. With the second and third rounds of kerosene burning, the fire became more intense.

Thousands of soldiers fired gunpowder arrows together. Gunpowder arrows were more flammable, and after just one round of arrows, the entire palace was engulfed in flames.

The five thousand soldiers never broke out. They chose to be loyal and live and die with the palace.

At this time, Li Baochen was in critical condition. He was buried by bricks and mud from the city when the city gate exploded. His right leg and spine were broken, and he was dug out of the mud by soldiers.

He could no longer move and could only wait for death to come.

The fire burned for a day and a night, and the royal palace covering an area of ​​200 acres was eventually burned to the ground. Including Li Baochen, his wife and children, 5,000 soldiers were all burned to death, and no one survived.

The street fighting lasted until the next morning and finally ended.

All 20,000 Chengde soldiers were killed. The Tang army did not accept prisoners of war, and all the surrendered soldiers were executed.

In this street fighting, the Tang army suffered more than 6,000 casualties, and the number of civilians also exceeded 10,000 in the morning.

After the battle, Li Ye rewarded the four soldiers who died in the bombing of the city gate. The soldiers driving the carriages did not escape either. He rewarded each of them with 1,200 taels of silver and gave them to their families.

At this time, news came from Zhao County that the 15,000-man Zhao County garrison opened the city and surrendered.

Lei Wanchun and Li Sheng's 80,000-strong army surrounded Zhao County. Zhao County's commander Xu Chongjun was killed by mutinous soldiers, and the entire army left the city and surrendered.

With the surrender of Zhao County, the two major vassal states in Hebei, Tian Chengsi and Li Baochen, were successively destroyed.

The Tang army of more than 200,000 continued to advance northward.

Two days later, an army of more than 200,000 arrived at the Juma River and set up camp on the south bank of the river.

(End of this chapter)