Although the Liang army's vanguard had arrived at Chang'an City, they did not immediately encircle them.
The circumference of Chang'an City is nearly sixty miles, and the city is so tall that it is completely impossible for ordinary people to break through it with the aid of ants. This has been mentioned in detail in the previous article. In addition, there is a trench two feet deep and three feet wide outside Chang'an City, which serves as the first barrier to defend against enemies. It is also isolated by the Wang Canal in the east of the city. This was the ditch dug to divert water from Nanshan when Zhongzong built Shanglin Garden. , it can also be used as a cover at this time to prevent the Liang cavalry from crossing here.
What's even more terrible is that Chang'an also has a sub-city within the city, which is where the royal officials and soldiers live. Even if they invade Chang'an, the Liang people may not be able to capture Wang Yun immediately. This cast another shadow on Liang Jun, who was pursuing a quick battle.
Jia Xu was not in a hurry about this. He had no intention of attacking Chang'an forcefully. However, after negotiating with various ministries, Chang'an was still surrounded from all sides early the next morning. Zhang Ji was sent to attack Huaili. Huaili was empty and was quickly occupied by Zhang Ji. Then Zhang Xiu led hundreds of light cavalry and headed for Fufeng along the Weishui River. Countless barren hills and luxuriant mountains could be seen, until Zhang Ji stopped for a moment in front of the ruins of Wubao that had been reduced to coke.
Perhaps Xiwu was built too great. Although Lu Bu led his army to loot everything here, Xiwu could not be completely destroyed. The broken walls and ruins were filled with the atmosphere of murderous silence. Zhang Ji sent people to search for it and found the place where Lu Bu's corpse was buried after breaking the fort. They then worshiped in front of the pit. In just three months, this corpse pit has become overgrown with weeds.
But Zhang Xiu's mission was not to worship here. He led his army to continue westward, heading west for a hundred miles, and went straight to Chencang City. He shot an arrow to persuade the city to surrender. The defenders of Chencang City had received Dong Zhuo's favor, and saw the shooter Shu, immediately surrendered to Kaicheng.
When Jia Xu received the news, it was still on the morning of the seventh day of August. He was very happy when he received the news. He sent an order to everyone: "Chencang has been sent down, and we have our way back. Don't worry about the rear, just focus on We are focused on attacking the city. This time we enter Chang'an. We can take control of the artifact when we advance, and we can return to Longshang when we retreat. What else is there to fear? What's more, the sign from the sky the day before yesterday means that we will definitely win. Please don't let down God's will! "
The morale of the army was further boosted, so they quickly began to encircle Chang'an.
Unlike Gaoling City, the Liang army with a force of 140,000 cannot besiege Chang'an from all sides. Considering that there is Ouchi in the north of the city, Weishui in the east, and Wangqu in the west, these three sides are not conducive to cavalry maneuvers, so after the military discussion, The Liang people decided to leave some troops on three sides to block the city gates, build fences to prevent the defenders from escaping, and then place the main troops on the south side of the city.
To the south of Chang'an City is a gently undulating mountain plain, called Longshou Plain, also known as Longshou Mountain. Legend has it that in ancient times, a black dragon meandered northward from Fanchuan in Chang'an to drink water from the Wei River, and its tracks became Longshou Plain. As the name suggests, it rises abruptly from the western end of this mountain plain to the Wei River, like a dragon's head. Chang'an City is located on the northern slope of Longshouyuan, and the Liang people camped at the highest point of Longshouyuan. The cavalry can go down the slope and be invincible.
Lu Bu in the city saw their intentions clearly. When the other three sides were building fences, he suddenly opened the door and attacked, and then started a fierce battle with the Liang army who had built the fences. There was a loud sound of killing outside the city. The citizens, princes and ministers who were originally worried in the city were quite uneasy. They looked at the place where the killing sound came from, imagining the scene of bloody battle in their hearts. Wang Yun hurriedly took off his autumn robe and went up to the city to watch. After watching for a while, he came down again with the same expression. Everyone speculated on the success or failure of the battle outside the door, but after listening for a while, the sound of fighting did not weaken, but intensified, which made the people in the city more and more afraid.
At this time, Chang'an City was under martial law. Except for princes and court officials, no one was allowed to go out on the streets, and if there was a temporary call-up, no one could refuse. But at such a tense moment, wouldn't they want to know the outcome of the war outside the city? So they all carried ladders and looked at the city wall from the courtyard wall, hoping to see something with their own eyes.
After about half an hour, the sound of fighting outside the city finally subsided. The people near Ba City Gate saw that the city gate was wide open and the protruding cavalry withdrew from outside the city.
Lu Bu brought about 500 cavalry in this attack. He originally thought that the ones left here to build the fence were just a few miscellaneous soldiers. Unexpectedly, the Liang people did the opposite. Instead of placing their elite troops on the Longshou Plain, they placed them in the city. Tie a fence in front of the door. These men were skilled in tactics, and were led by Li Ying, the injured Li Jue's brother. They used a triple spear formation with powerful crossbows. Except for the first charge, Lu Bu soon fell into the dilemma of having nowhere to start and was unable to expand the results of the battle.
But he was unwilling to withdraw his troops, so he led his cavalry to circle back and forth here, hoping to mobilize more Liang people to besiege him. Lu Bu was riding a tall and strong red rabbit horse, and he was also wearing black and red two-level armor, with white feathers decorating the iron pocket. He was very conspicuous in the city, and many people guessed that he was Lu Bu. Sure enough, the surrounding Liang people couldn't resist the temptation to capture the enemy general, so they all moved closer, but Li Ying couldn't hold back his shouts.
As soon as the formation changed, a flaw was revealed. Lu Bu seized this opportunity and rode his horse to charge through a loose area. Unexpectedly, the Liang people were shocked that he dared to counterattack, and they fired arrows at Lu Bu randomly. Many of Lu Bu's subordinates were shot and wounded, and the rest dispersed. Lu Bu was also hit by more than ten arrows, but because of his thick armor, he was not seriously injured.
But this once again caused Lu Bu's formation to become longer. Gaishun, the commander of the Eagle and Harriers, was following behind. He wanted to support Lu Bu but was unable to come. At this time, Li Ying seized the opportunity and mounted his horse with a high pitch. He rode alone to challenge Gai Shun. Gai Shun did not dare to be careless and also held a high position to fight back. When the two horses were facing each other, they faced each other head-on, but both missed the first time. At this time, the two horses were close to each other. Li Ying quickly drew his knife and slapped it on Gaishun's backbone like lightning, knocking the backbone crookedly and causing his hair to spread out, covering his face. Li Ying grabbed his hair, thrust the tip of the knife into his mouth, smashed his teeth and tongue, penetrated it all the way to his throat, and then pulled it out with force, blood suddenly gurgled from his mouth. Li Ying successfully cut off Gaishun's head and took away his mount.
This was a huge blow to the morale of the cavalry leaving the city. Lu Bu was eager to fight, but he couldn't help but curse in his heart when he saw this, so he had to ride his horse to break through the encirclement, unite the cavalry into a group, and kill them back. When the Liang people saw Lu Bu coming and going freely, they knew they couldn't keep him, so they stopped pursuing him.
When Wang Yun heard the news of Gaishun's death, he felt very heavy. He said to the people accompanying him: "The position I am in now should belong to brother Yuan Gu (Gai Xun), but he died early and could not see Dong Zhuo. If he dies, I can only bear the heavy responsibility reluctantly. But now I haven't even taken care of his children. Will he blame me? "
In addition to his father's legacy, Gaishun himself is also quite intelligent. He was responsible for attacking the camp and setting fire to it during the Battle of Jingshui. He made great contributions. Therefore, the court had high hopes for him and ordered him to assist Lu Bu like Xun You. Unexpectedly, The first time he went out of the city to fight back, he was killed brutally, and all the officials sighed.
Lu Bu retreated hastily, and a dozen of his cavalry were trapped in a tight siege. They had no time to follow him back to the city, so they were all taken prisoner. Jia Xu ordered people to torture and plunder, and learned a lot about the situation in the city. He also learned from the prisoners that the deputy general Li should behead today was Gaishun, the son of Yilang Gaixun. So Jia Xu congratulated Li Jue and said, "Brother Li, my brother is so brave. The thieves in the city must have become frightened."
Li Jue's face was full of pride, but he was still modest: "A small victory, but not being able to enter Chang'an is all in vain."
Jia Xu smiled and immediately began to write a letter of surrender. He felt that he should take this opportunity to further weaken the morale of the city. As long as the morale of the defenders in the city fell to the bottom, they would be able to fall naturally without a hard attack.
Just as he was thinking about it, suddenly Ge Feng, the military commander under Guo Si, came in and said that he had captured a prisoner and asked Jia Xu if he wanted to interrogate him personally. Jia Xu was quite surprised and replied that he was busy with important matters and had no time to interrogate a guard in the city. Unexpectedly, Ge Feng said that he was not a guard in the city, but that they caught him in the west of the city. He wanted to cross the fence and go to Chang'an City, but was discovered by the scouts. After a preliminary interrogation, he said that he was from Hedong. , so Ge Feng felt that the matter was not trivial, and immediately reported it to Jia Xu and Guo Si.
Hearing that they were coming from the east of Hedong, the generals in the military tent immediately became energetic, and Jia Xu waved his hands to have the prisoners brought up quickly. The prisoner was wearing civilian short clothes, but he was quite tall. There were bloodstains on his face, and he had obviously been beaten just now.
When Jia Xu saw him, he didn't go around in circles and asked directly: "Did Longshou personally lead his troops?"
The prisoner was stunned for a moment, then raised his head and replied: "With such a big disaster, how can Lord Chen be called the leader of the dragon if he doesn't personally send troops?"
Jia Xu smiled when he heard this, put him aside, and wrote a letter to persuade him to surrender. After he finished writing, he handed the letter to his chief historian, and then turned to Ge Feng and said: "What he told is a lie. You Immediately push him out of the door and kill him, don't let him harm the morale of the army."
"The Point Guard Is Here"
Ge Feng didn't know the deeper meaning. He clearly felt that catching this prisoner was a great achievement, so he came to see him. Unexpectedly, Jia Xu said that this man was a fake. He did not dare to disobey him in the camp. When he came out of the camp, he took the prisoners to find Guo Si and said to him: "Everyone says that Jia Xiaowei is sharp, but sometimes he is confused. This is obviously an envoy from Bingzhou. Why?" Is it just fake?"
Guo Si said: "It doesn't matter if he is true or false. He is not one of ours anyway, so it won't be a big deal if he is killed."
Unexpectedly, at this time, his chief historian Hu Jing came forward to offer advice and said: "Have you forgotten, general, that Jia Jun deceived Lu Bu in Gaoling? Now Xijing is still holding on, but he still believes that Chen Chong can send reinforcements. We threaten this Man, if you ask him to go to the city and say that Bingzhou has been defeated, can he deceive the city?"
Guo Si was delighted when he heard this and ordered Ge Feng to handle the matter.
Ge Feng went to threaten the prisoner, and the prisoner agreed happily. So Ge Feng led more than ten cavalry to escort the prisoner to Anmen and asked him to shout to the city.
Chang'an's guards didn't know what Liang Ren wanted to do, so they all took their bows and crossbows and went to the city wall to prepare.
At this time, the prisoner said loudly: "I am Cao Weisheng, a soldier of Hedong County in Bingzhou. I am here under the orders of Chen Chong, the pastor of Bingzhou, a great Han Dynasty. I am here to announce to you that I, Bingzhou, have gathered 300,000 strong men from all over the state. Tomorrow we will cross the river with troops and use force in Xijing. Our goal is to serve the king and fight against the thieves until death! I hope that all the gentlemen will be loyal to the court and stick to Xijing. As a Han official, I will die without death..."
Before the word "regret" was uttered, Ge Feng beside him knew that he had messed up the matter. He angrily hit Wei Sheng's mouth with the handle of his knife, smashing seven or eight of Wei Sheng's teeth in succession. He was knocked to the ground and spat out a mouthful of blood. He wanted to open his mouth to speak again, but then he was hacked to death by several knights behind him.
But it was too late. Even though Wei Sheng only said it once, the guards on the city had probably heard it clearly. They were silent for a moment, and then suddenly burst into loud cheers, like seeds that had been suppressed all winter, finally finally Touch the first drop of rain in the new year. The cheers were deafening and soared into the sky. Although the Liang people surrounding the city behind them didn't know what happened, they all turned pale and their palms were weak when they saw this situation.
When Jia Xu learned of this situation, he said nothing for half a day.
Chapter 17 The Siege of Chang'an
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