Chastity Layman

  Chapter 530 The Beacon Fire Shines at Night

   "I don't know what's going on in Songzhou!"

  At night, the bonfires under the mountain are lit like stars in the sky. In Diezhou City, the soldiers were very happy. During the day, the Qiang people launched a tentative attack. As a result, the archers used the Qiang soldiers as targets in the city to practice their hands.

  Easy shot and killed more than 200 people, the Qiang people retreated down the mountain in desperation, Wu Su had no choice but to withdraw his troops.

  The Qiang people didn't even come to take away the corpses of the dead. Some seriously wounded soldiers were lying on the ground, howling and screaming.

"General Qin regained Jiachuan, and General Zhang Shigui led his army to the reinforcements. Songzhou and Jiachuan will be safe. Now, Duke Wei, you are stationed in Diezhou again. This time, the tens of thousands of invaders must have come and gone. Come back, their best end is to beg for surrender. If they are unlucky, their entire army may be wiped out by the Baishui River."

  Lao Liu has been in the frontier for seventy years, and he is very familiar with the Qiang people and the frontier here. Qin Qiong and his father were blocked at both ends, and now the Qiang people want to go home, it is really difficult.

"Based on the traitorous nature of the Qiang people, the biggest possibility is to ask to surrender, but these people are capricious, and it is normal for them to surrender today and rebel tomorrow. It is best to take this opportunity to trap them to death in Fuzhou, and find an opportunity to gather and annihilate them .”

  Qin Lang admired this old governor wearing leather armor. Although he was old and sweet, he was still very ruthless.

   Such a person is indeed the most needed talent in the frontier, but it is a pity that he is old.

   "I'm just worried that Zhang Shigui's 20,000-strong army will not be able to keep up with the logistics and food."

"Grit your teeth, you can always make it through. Didn't Duke Wei say that he killed more than 20,000 Tuoba Qiang and his vassals, and captured countless cattle and sheep? And when Situ captured Jiachuan, he also wiped out thousands of enemies and captured many Cattle and sheep."

  Dinner is quite rich.

  Haggis soup, served with highland barley tsampa, and a plate of cold wild vegetables, marching and fighting, it is really rare to have such a meal.

   "Since Emperor Wu of Zhou drove the Rong to the west and took these places to set up prefectures and counties, the conflicts have never stopped in the past 50 years. The Tuyuhun people and the Qiang people have always wanted to take back the former lands of Qiangshui, Baishui and even the Minjiang River."

The Qiang people have always believed that these places belong to them, because these places belonged to the Qiang people since ancient times, but for the Central Plains, when it is strong and prosperous, it must expand its territory, and once the territory is successfully opened, then this territory belongs to the Central Plains . Even if it is lost for a while, then future emperors, whoever has a little ambition, must find a way to regain it.

  For the Central Plains dynasty and those aspiring kings, the territory of the Central Plains can only increase, never decrease.

  Diezhou and other western borders were developed by Emperor Wu Wenyong of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, but since then, these territories have belonged to the Central Plains, and no emperor would be willing to give up.

  Just like Emperor Sui Yang once destroyed Tuyuhun and Yiwu and set up the four prefectures of Yiwu and Qiemo, those places have been included in the archives in the hearts of the Central Plains monarchs and ministers, and they will be recovered sooner or later.

  The same is true for the four counties of Liaodong established by the Han Dynasty, which are now occupied by the Goguryeo people, but they will be recovered sooner or later.

  Even Yang Guang has the ambition to regain Liaodong. How could Li Shimin, the Khan of today, let him go?

  Even if Tuyuhun and Dangxiang don’t come to fight this time, the court will actually fight them next time.

The trigger for this war was Qin Qiong's appointment as the governor of Songzhou, and regained Songzhou, which was taken by the Qiang people a few years ago. A harbinger of action.

  So this war is inevitable.

  Old Liu lost half of his teeth, and couldn’t eat haggis, so he had to drink soup, "I predict that the Qiang people will come to attack at night tonight!"

   "They have no chance during the day, and they won't have a chance at night." Qin Lang picked up a sheep's egg from a bowl. It tasted a bit stinky, and it wasn't handled well, but the food in the army can't be too picky.

   Regarding the fact that the Qiang people will attack at night, he and Lao Liu have the same judgment. The Qiang people will definitely try, but it will not be effective.

  Qin Lang accompanied Lao Liu while eating dinner, while chatting a lot about the past in Xijiang, talking about going to bed in the middle of the night.

  Woke up from sleep, Zhang Chao told Qin Lang with some excitement that the Qiang thieves attacked last night, but they had been prepared for it, and deliberately let them go to the city, and then shot and killed all the Qiang thieves.

"How many?"

   "Three hundred!"

   Regarding this result, Qin Lang just let out a sigh, no surprises or joys, no waves in the ancient well, for Qin Lang, this can no longer impress him, it is just a cold number.

   Another addition to my record, I recorded beheading three hundred Qiang thieves, that's all.

For breakfast, it became boiled pimple noodle soup with beef, added some wild vegetables, ate in a daze, and filled my stomach. I went to the city for a tour, and then summoned the soldiers who guarded the city and killed the enemy last night to reward them. Visit wounded soldiers.

   Several soldiers died in battle, Qin Lang also went to mourn, and organized a cremation ceremony for them, and the soldiers saw them off together.

  The flames engulfed those corpses, related to the Zhongzi disciples, there were also Diezhou defenders, and there were even a few attached Qiang city soldiers.

  No matter how different their original identities were, at this moment they were cremated together as victims who died in battle and were loyal to the Tang Dynasty.

In the morning, Qin Lang led his soldiers to choose a house in Diezhou City and turn it into a martyr's shrine. He provided the spirit plaques of the dozens of soldiers who died in battle in it, and wrote a commemorative inscription himself, so that the craftsmen could engrave it on the stele. , forever in memory.

   Afternoon.

  A column of smoke was lit from the beacon tower on the mountain in the north of the city.

   Soon, the flames of other forts also rose.

  All the castles were also safe and sound. Although early in the morning, they saw large groups of soldiers and horses from the Qiang camp going out to the various castles, but they obviously couldn't do anything to those dangerous castles.

  After the beacon smoke.

  The Qiang people seemed to be enraged by the smoke, so they blew the horn again and launched an attack again.

   This time, it was obviously not just a test, Na Wusu seemed to want to launch a fierce attack regardless of casualties, and wanted to take it by force.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and horses lined up at the foot of the mountain. They seemed to have made a lot of shields impromptu. They used newly felled trees to make a large wooden raft that was one person tall. , Just hold it like this, you can hide your whole body behind.

  The Qiang soldiers each had such a large shield.

  Although it is extremely bulky, it is actually a relatively strong defense.

  The Qiang people came slowly up the mountain with big wooden shields on their shoulders, chanting chant.

  Old Liu Yi watched from the battlement for a while, with disdain in his eyes.

"It would be ridiculous if such a simple wooden raft could break the danger of our overlapping states." In fact, the soldiers defending the city had to face all kinds of siege equipment, such as the Central Plains city defense battle, and even All kinds of specialized siege vehicles are many times more advanced than this crude wooden raft.

  Some siege vehicles, the inner layer and the outer layer are made of rawhide and wet wood boards, and they are forcibly built into moving castles, allowing soldiers to hide below and approach the city wall.

   But you have Zhang Liangji, I have wall ladders, and the defenders have various methods to resolve them, and even have a lot of defense equipment.

  Old Liu waved his hand, making people prepare to roll stones and beat trees.

  On the city wall, a simple wooden frame and pulley block was erected, and began to hoist the rolling stone that had been prepared earlier.

   "I also prepared a lot of big grass balls, which can be ignited and thrown down to become big fireballs, and there are also a lot of wooden barrels, which can be filled with hot dung juice and thrown down..."

  Old Liu has a lot of bad moves, but they are actually quite effective against heavy wooden rafts.

  Wooden rafts can also defend against arrows and crossbows, but they are useless against more cumbersome rolling stones and raging wood.

  The city was very patient, and they still put them close to the city before starting to fight back.

  The wooden raft that the Qiang people relied on was useless in front of the huge rolling stone. The boulder rolled down from the city and rolled down the stone ladder, constantly accelerating.

  The Qiang people who stood in front of them were all pushed down and crushed, injured when touched, and broken when touched.

  The drums of the Qiang people at the foot of the mountain were even louder, urging the Qiang soldiers to continue their strong attack.

   Screaming again and again.

  The attack lasted for half an hour, and finally the Qiang soldiers collapsed. No one could bear such a ruthless blow. From the beginning to the end, they didn't touch the city wall of Diezhou, who could bear it.

   Tuoba Chici persuaded Wusu, who insisted on continuing to attack by force, that such casualties were simply unbearable, and if he continued to attack, he would have no chance of capturing Diezhou.

   "Strong attack is not enough, Diezhou City is too dangerous, only this path goes up the mountain, no matter how many times we go, we will just die, we can't fight any more, just send ten thousand people to surround the mountain, let's continue to go deeper."

  Tuoba Chici had already received the news sent by Xifeng Bulai's men desperately. Jiachuan was blocked by Qin Qiong, and Gansongling was defended by Jia Runfu's troops.

Although Xifeng Bulai and others took Fuzhou and broke Songzhou, they have already become turtles in the urn. They have no chance of defeating Qin Qiong and Zhang Shigui's 20,000 troops, so now they can only hope to detour Qiangshui and kill Tongwu and Dang , Fang, and Zhuzhou went home.

  They need a backup.

   "If we don't take Diezhou, we will go deep into Qiangshui. If Tang Ting sends troops from Tao and Minzhou, won't we also be surrounded like Xifeng Bulai?"

  Wu Su is not without brains, he refused to go deep under the city of Diezhou because he was worried about this problem.

"The king leads troops to guard the city of Diezhou, and I will take people to meet him." Tuoba Chici planned to lead the Dangxiang and Qiang tribes deep into the city, and instead of attacking the city, he only looted and burned along the way, oppressing the Fang, Dang, and Wu prefectures. The Tang army dared not go out of the city to intercept them, so that Xifeng Bulai and others could go around the city and return to Dangxiang.

  Of course, we should also take revenge on the Tang people by the way, looting a few fiercely, and let them know the anger of the party members.

   "My lord, please keep an eye on Qin Lang here. In case the Tang people send troops from Longyou to help, your lord will stop them for me."

  Wu Su thought for a while, "Forget it, I'll continue to besiege the city here, and you hurry up to meet Xifeng Bulai, but I want half of the plundered proceeds!"

  Tuoba Chici was dissatisfied in his heart, but he didn't show it on the face. After thinking about it, he finally bargained and agreed that the proceeds from the robbery would be divided into three and seven, Tuoba got seven, and nothing got three.

Tuoba Chici continued eastward with tens of thousands of Qiang people that day. He was in a hurry to leave Wusu because he was afraid that this guy would continue to take the lives of the other Qiangs. Difficult to capture.

   During several attacks, the Wusu faction was all Dangxiang Qiang, and more than a thousand people died before and after.

  More than a thousand Dangxiang Qiang people died, all of them were the youngest and strongest fighters, but they died in vain without even touching the city wall of Diezhou. More than a thousand of them died, but none of the Tuyuhun people were injured, and at most a dozen of the Tang soldiers on the mountain died in the arrows.

  Tuoba Chici could not afford to fight this kind of battle, nor would he want to fight it.

  As soon as Tuoba Chici left, Wusu immediately withdrew several miles to camp, and never sent troops to attack the city again.

  Up and down the mountain, the well water does not interfere with the river water, and there is no problem for the time being.

  (end of this chapter)