Jinju, the land of the long war. Shi Yanchao also fought a bloody battle here, and now the head of this city is standing towards the arch.

Xiang Gong held his head high, pressed his sword with his left hand, and took a deep breath in the wind. The smell of war seemed to be heard in the wind, but nothing could be seen or heard at the moment.

"Will Murong Yanzhao quietly open the city and surrender? The Jinju army is all in his hands. Zhang Jianxiong said softly.

The atmosphere was already tense, and Li Jixun's forward men were less than 200 miles away from Jinju; Xiang Gong has military power, and seals "Hedong and Hebei fronts are deployed" to control all border troops from Hedong to Hebei, but only 2,000 Zhen'an troops in his hands are his own men.

After a long time, he turned his head to Gong and said, "No, whoever Murong Yanzhao surrenders, I believe it; But he was just unwilling to surrender to Li Jixun...... Because Zhao Kuangyin may be in Li Jixun's army. ”

Zhang Jianxiong may not know much about the in the circle of generals, but Xiang Gong knows it very well. Xiang Gong has never been in the forbidden army, and he has been the envoy of the local festival at the highest, but he has entered the Tokyo power circle since Wang Pu recommended him to participate in the battle of Shu, and he knows a lot of things.

After Zhao Kuangyin took the throne, his attitude towards Gao Huaide and Murong Yanzhao was almost the same. Gao Huaide was kicked from the front of the palace to the guard department, and Murong Yanzhao was sent from the front of the palace to the place to be a festival envoy. It is not clear what the specific gap is in the middle, but you can guess the process from the actual results.

Zhang Jianxiong was all worried: "This battle is difficult! The lord only has two thousand horsemen in his hands, and Murong Yanzhao may only have seven or eight thousand soldiers, and he doesn't know what he thinks in his heart...... Li Jixun Keri is about to come to the city, and Li Chongjin has also arrived in the territory of the Northern Han Dynasty, and he must be coming for us. There are 60,000 people who attacked Jinju in total? ”

Xiang Gong said: "Although Li Jixun has three cities, all the soldiers and horses add up to 20,000 at most, and he may have temporarily coerced some messy people in such a big battle; Li Chongjin's town soldiers were only seven or eight thousand, mainly because of the German army that had been incorporated by Huainan troops, and the Huainan army was not bad in combat strength and slightly less loyal, and Li Chongjin's strength was slightly greater than Li Jixun's. ”

"No matter how you count it, it's five or six times our strength." Zhang Jianxiong sighed.

Xiang Gong said in a very affirmative tone: "Guo Shao will come to save me." ”

"It's possible, but Guo Du has just taken the position, and Tokyo is too busy to take care of himself, but he doesn't know when he will come." Zhang Jianxiong said.

"Nope! You don't understand him, Guo Shao will definitely send reinforcements in time. Xiang Gong shook his head and said thoughtfully, "Guo Du is a person who is very good at seizing the opportunity, and I am very impressed by Xin Kou's rescue of Shi Yanchao." He is also a person who is very good at working well with his peers...... At that time, he was in danger in Xinkou and surrounded by enemies on all sides, and his brother was fierce, but if Guo Shao hadn't been by his side, he would have died thousands of times! ”

Xiang Gong seemed to be convincing himself, and muttered: "I believe that he can see the situation in Jinju and will cooperate with me tacitly!" ”

Zhang Jianxiong still stubbornly said: "If Guo Du doesn't come to the inspection, we will be completely finished." ”

…… A few days later, Li Jixun's troops came to the city. Xiang Gong and Murong Yanzhao closed the door and defended themselves, holding on to it. Li Jixun camped and deployed ten miles west of the city, neither approaching nor besieging the city, and the besieging force was slightly insufficient.

Apart from occasional skirmishes in the field by scouts, there were no signs of fighting between the two armies.

At this time, Zhao Kuangyin had already come to Li Jixun's Chinese army. The two sighed and sighed, only talking about the vicissitudes of the world.

After a while, Zhao Kuangyin stopped gossiping and hurriedly asked: "Brother Li, I'll give you that recipe and let you prepare, but it's done?" ”

Li Jixun said: "It has been properly purchased and filled with twelve coffins." Charcoal is easy, sulfur is a little harder, and the hardest thing to get is saltpeter. Fortunately, it is not too far from Guanzhong, and I sent someone to Guanzhong more than two months ago to contact the dealers to buy it with a lot of money; The traffickers brought some from Hanzhong and Longyou one after another, and the weight was finally enough for several trips back and forth. ”

"The battle of Shouzhou, then Guo Shao issued a military order to break the city within one month, all relying on this thing." Zhao Kuangyin said, "Jinzhou City is strong, and Brother Li's troops are insufficient, so the siege is the next policy." You can try to send Xizuo in to contact Murong Yanzhao to try to discord, and at the same time, you are ready to blow up the city with **, and if you blow up Brother Li's men and horses who rushed in, you will have more than twice the advantage. ”

Li Jixun said: "If you can't break it, you have to wait for Li Chongjin to arrive." ”

Zhao Kuangyin nodded and said, "That's right." If Li Chongjin attacks together, he can occupy Jinju and half of one person, thinking that he will retreat; If Brother Li captures Jinju alone, you occupy Jinju and ask Li Chong to enter Jiangzhou in the south...... However, it is better to take Jinju quickly and avoid Tokyo coming to help; After capturing Jinju, he immediately divided his troops to the southeast to strengthen the defense of Zeju. That place relied on Taiyue, and if it was defended properly, it would be easy to spend a few months. ”

The next day, Li Jixun and Zhao Kuangyin began to deploy siege fortifications in an orderly manner. There were more than 40,000 in all, but only 20,000 of them were town soldiers; More than 10,000 people are the strong men and prisoners from all over the country, and the township warriors are still insufficient in weapons, each person almost only has a spear or short sword and wooden shield, and has no armor at all. The rest were forcibly recruited by men, and even women, who carried grain and worked.

Li Jixun's ministry did not intend to surround it on all sides. They first divided the main force of 20,000 men into three battalions, and stationed one battalion on each side of the south side of the city; To the northeast of the city, five miles from the city, three thousand cavalry were stationed outside.

Then he drove the Zhuangding prisoners to start building a fence and ditch in front of the south gate, and advanced to the city one by one, with three layers of fortifications; Heavy troops are located in the south. There are also craftsmen who are busy working on the camp to build catapults, ladders and other tools.

(A radius of dozens of miles from Jinju has been looted; Li Jixun first collected the three cities of Heyang, and then occupied Jiangzhou, which was empty, as a rearguard, and then robbed the periphery of Jinzhou and Jiangzhou because they had no reliable source of supplies. ）

For a while, the open space outside Jinju Fortress seemed to be a construction site for the main hall. ......The sound of sawing wood, the clanging of the knocking, and the sound of people carrying wooden pounds to ram the earth...... It was a busy scene.

On both sides, there were flags like clouds, and a group of men and horses lined up, standing still. Looking at the tower of the city, several generals walked around the wall, and there were many soldiers standing on the wall, but the defenders did not shoot a single shot, because no matter what weapons could not reach the "construction site" outside the city.

Behind the fence, eight tunnels were already being dug quietly, using houses, tents, and ditches as a cover to keep the people of the city from seeing where the tunnels were.

Zhao Kuangyin rode a horse to a tunnel to take a look, turned around and saw Li Jixun, so he stepped forward and said: "When you dig the front fence, you will open a hole upward, one is to breathe, and the other is to determine the location; After that, it is only more than 100 steps to dig under the city, and then find a small hole in the middle of the place to hide, so you don't have to worry about the direction being too off. At night, I quietly found someone to take a rope to measure the distance of the city wall, and just dug the tunnel under the wall. ”

Li Jixun said: "During the Battle of Huainan, Brother Zhao was in Yangzhou, but he was so clear about the tactics of the Battle of Shouzhou, which is really admirable. ”

"I don't know how Guo Shao dug it, but it should be the same." Zhao Kuangyin said, "Digging the tunnel to hide **, the same as the previous way of 'cave attack', the cave attack has to dig into the city and dig farther...... There are not a few generals in the army who know how to attack caves, and there are other particulars, such as wood support to prevent collapse, and you can't make a mistake if you know how to dig. ”

Li Jixun said: "Brother Zhao will take full charge of the bombing of the city." ”

"Then I'm commanded." Zhao Kuangyin bowed.

…… On a sunny afternoon, the autumn air is crisp and the sky is very clear, but the ground below the city is full of dust. Xiang Gong stood on the tower and carefully observed the fortifications below, he didn't plan to take the initiative yet.

"The deployment is very rigorous, not like Li Jixun's style." Xiang Gong didn't look back and said, "When Li Jixun's guy was in Huainan, he wanted to fight Chai Kehong's reinforcements, but because of his carelessness, he was defeated because of the ambush of Chai Kehong's weak soldiers; Not a cautious person at all...... Zhao Kuangyin should be in Li Jixun's army. ”

The big man with round eyes next to him was Murong Yanzhao, the envoy of the Jianxiong Army, and Murong Yanzhao heard Zhao Kuangyin's name, and his expression changed slightly.

Xiang Gong was much whiter, his cheeks were flat, his facial features were straight, and his beard was light. Xiang Gong remained silent, and he already had a full view of Murong Yanzhao's expression in the afterglow.

"Murong Jieshuai looks over there......" Xiang Gong Yao pointed ahead.

Murong Yanzhao said: "The dust is too big, you can't see anything." ”

"Look carefully at the new soil behind the fence." Xiang Gongdao, "Zhao Kuangyin is digging a crypt." ”

"Cave attack?" Murong Yanzhao frowned.

Xiang Gong said: "It's too difficult to attack the cave, I think Zhao Kuangyin wants to draw a scoop to blow up the city." In the world-famous battle of Shouzhou, Guo Du inspected the city wall with **. Zhao Kuangyin may have already got a way...... Therefore, Zhao Sanlang plotted to assassinate Guo Du in the Datong Temple Inn, and only then did he use **. ”

"Hey, General Xiang knows a lot of things! I've heard about the Zhao family's Saburo, but it's the first time I've heard about the assassination. Murong Yanzhao said.

Xiang Gongdao: "More than 2,000 cavalry of the Zhen'an Army under my command will be deployed on Chengnan Avenue, in case the gap is blown up, the Zhen'an Army will take the lead in quickly plugging the gap; Then Murong Jieshuai saw the opportunity to reinforce me. ”

Murong Yanzhao bowed and said, "Obey the orders of the capital deployment!" ”

Xiang Gong said again: "In this way, the defense of the city depends on the Jianxiong army. Once the city is broken, the lives will be destroyed, and you and I will die without a place to be buried! I hope that Murong Jieshuai will not retreat. ”

"Order!" Murong Yanzhao's expression froze, "The last general took half a step back and raised his head to see him." ”

Xiang Gong listened, and then turned back and said: "Zhang Jianxiong, you immediately send someone to seal the Heng Street in the south of the city and the main road in the north and south, and issue a notice that these two roads are no longer passable, and those who block the route of troop transfer will be corrected on the spot!" ”

Zhang Jianxiong hugged his fists and said: "The last general will be ordered!" ”

……

(Weak Monthly Pass)