In mid-December, when the battle of the Lightning River defense line began, Li Qi had quietly left the Youzhou front line, and arrived in Zhangyuan from Ulzhou with 3,000 cavalry of the forbidden army from Bauhinia Pass to the Flying Fox Road.

Li Shaowei, the assassin of Wuzhou, died of illness last year, and his son Tuthorn inherited his position as the leader of the Xi tribe in Shanbei, and was given the name Li Jihua by Li Qi, and then moved to Zhangyuan as a defense envoy. There are about more than 20,000 Xi people attached to Shanbei, but now they have all been scattered, and most of them are incorporated into the garrison armies in various places, and the Xi cavalry directly under Li Jihua is only more than 5,000 people, and nearly half of the Han army is mixed into it.

Bai Yanwei, the defense envoy of Xinzhou, had already followed Li Qi to Zhangyuan with 3,000 Xinzhou cavalry, and a few days later, Yuan Ren also led more than 10,000 cavalry of the forbidden army to arrive here one after another.

The reason why Li Qi let the forbidden army move from Yizhou to Shanbei in batches was because he was afraid of arousing the vigilance of the Khitans.

His plan this time was to break into the Khitan and go to Beijing along the Huangshui to plunder the Linhuang Mansion after defeating Li Hu. Didn't the Khitans often break into Youzhou to rob, and this time they also gave them a taste of being robbed.

……

In the Lightning River Valley, the siege war has entered the white heat, and the offensive of the Khitans is like a surging wave, constantly impacting the city of Guyuan City.

As the main general, Wu Luan was already covered in blood, and the armor on his body was full of traces of smoke and fire. The red flag is broken, but it still stands tenaciously at the head of the city.

The battle has been going on for seven days, and the city is already full of corpses. The day's battle lasted from morning to evening, and both the Tang army defending the city and the Khitan army besieging the city were almost exhausted, but the Khitan offensive still showed no sign of abating.

This series of castles built by the Tang army on the border of the Northland grassland is indeed the best way to deal with the Khitans, so that the opponent cannot give full play to the strengths of the cavalry, and can only fight with the Tang army under the city. Although Guyuancheng, which had 12,000 defenders, lost more than half of its troops, the number of enemy losses besieging the city was almost three times that of the defenders.

Forcibly attacking the city is always a huge casualty, and on the grassland, it is easy not to try.

The huge casualties had made Yelu Lihu very crazy, expelling the Diviners, Enemy Martyrs and Murwei people, charging the city again and again, and even sending the elite Khitan and Xi troops into the battlefield and throwing them into the siege with heavy casualties. The Tang army defending the city also suffered more than half of the casualties, and there was no way, Wu Luan even mobilized the old people, women, and teenagers in the city to devote themselves to the cruel defense battle.

After inspecting a section of the city wall, Wu Luan entered a watchtower, his eyes firmly fixed on the changes in the situation on the battlefield.

As the strongest weapon to defend the city, there was only one elm cannon left in the watchtower that could be used, and the continuous fierce fighting, coupled with the high-intensity use, had damaged most of the original deployed artillery pieces. Now the few artillery pieces are not easy to use until the critical moment.

The remnant sun is like blood, the original snowfield has been replaced by the Khitan people's extended camps, and many of the fireballs under the city that have been thrown off are still burning, emitting black smoke, and black blood is everywhere.

The shouts of the Khitan army rang out like a tsunami, and those Khitan elites in heavy armor mixed with the steppe herdsmen with huge wooden shields or leather shields emitted terrifying strange screams in their mouths, and once again launched a charge towards the city wall. Behind them, a phalanx of archers rained down like locusts and flew across the city.

The rammed city wall made of loess was full of arrows, and under the urging of the rapid sound of war drums, more than 5,000 Khitan troops besieging the city braved arrows like raindrops, carrying 100 ladders and continued to charge. The arrows of the Song army in the city rained down, and the shouts of killing resounded in the sky. A group of Khitan elites in black armor burst under the city wall, quickly set up the ladder, held the waist knife in their mouths, and began to climb along the ladder towards the city.

"Throw a torch!" Wu Luan, who was carrying a waist knife, shouted loudly at the head of the city.

After receiving the order, the Tang army at the head of the city set fire to bundles of reeds soaked in fire oil and sprinkled with gunpowder, and then threw them off the city.

A mixture of gunpowder and oil burned violently, and a scorching and pungent smell poured up from beneath the city, and hundreds of bales of straw burned violently, turning the city into a sea of fire purgatory. The few siege vehicles that had just been pushed under the city suddenly turned into several fireballs, and some brave Khitan troops did not hesitate to climb along dozens of ladders even if they were on fire. The Tang army defending at the head of the city pushed the ladders with their long forks to the side, and several ladders were pushed down, and a scream suddenly came from below.

The Khitan army continued to climb the city, and was killed back by the Tang army defending the city with spears or crossbows, and the flesh and blood on the city head were splashed, and the defending Tang army was shot by flying arrows, screaming and falling off the city wall, and the casualties gradually increased.

Thick smoke shrouded the Khitans and focused on attacking the east and north walls, and from time to time in the smoke, there were Khitan elites wearing heavy armor like evil ghosts, screaming and rushing to the city. But he was pushed down from the city by several Tang soldiers with spears. The crossbow erected from the watchtower on his side kept firing, extinguishing the Khitan's attempt to ascend the city in one fell swoop from the side.

Rumble! Boom!

The few pieces of artillery began to fire, and the dense raindrops of shotguns could clear a large area of densely charged enemy forces with a single shot, and to a large extent, intercept the enemy's follow-up siege forces.

This kind of steel ball directly kills not many enemy soldiers, but it can cause a large area of damage, compared to death, the wounded and not dead is the most feared place for the steppe soldiers.

Seeing that the artillery in the watchtower at the head of the city was spewing fire, Yelu Lihu's face twitched involuntarily two miles away. As the artillery began to fire one after another, the offensive of the entire Khitan army was stalled, and some uninjured soldiers stood in place in a daze, at a loss.

A fierce light flashed in Yelu Lihu's eyes, and then he shouted loudly: "Continue to attack the city, and those who violate the order will be beheaded!" ”

Arrows are like locusts, and flesh flies.

The fire under the city was raging, and the air was filled with the smell of burnt human flesh.

Wu Luan's face was covered with black cigarette stains, mixed with sweat and dyed into a big flower face, revealing only a mouthful of cold white teeth. His voice was hoarse, his whole body was covered in blood, the long knife in his hand was full of gaps, and his legs trembled slightly from weakness.

The flames of war and black smoke shrouded the wilderness, blurring the vision, and there were thousands of Khitan corpses lying under the city, and some wounded soldiers who were not dead lying on the ground and wailing loudly, willing to beg their companions to come to the rescue to make up for them and end this painful ordeal.

It was getting dark, and the Khitans finally couldn't bear such huge casualties and slowly retreated.

The thick smell of blood and death in the air had already made the soldiers on both sides of the war very numb......

After a whole day of fierce fighting, the defenders in Guyuan City lost more than 1,000 people.

How many more days will you be able to hold out here?

Wu Luan, who was standing at the head of the city, looked blankly at the southwest direction, even he himself didn't know if he could hold out until the reinforcements arrived!

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