In the morning, Pang Tong's army formed ten phalanxes, with fluttering flags and high morale, pushing the cloud cart forward. Li Ru and Zhang Xiu stood at the head of the wall, Zhang Xiu gasped and said, "This monster?" ”

Li Ru nodded and bared his teeth and said, "This angry thing, I want it to look good today!" ”

After the cloud car approached the distance of 100 meters, Li Ru gave an order, and the archers on the wall lit the kerosene cloth bag after the arrows. Pang Tong smelled a pungent smell in the array, and when he woke up, he saw a rain of fire bursting out from the wall. The rocket pierced or fell on the cloud car, and immediately burned, the whole cloud car was like a fire frame, the soldiers panicked, and some of them could not escape simply jumped down or were squeezed down, and many fell to death.

Li Ru smiled and pointed to the cloud lane: "Pang Tong Xiaoer, look at your fire rack!" Zhang Xiu on the side also laughed.

Forty fires crackled outside the wall, and then collapsed. Pang Tong gritted his teeth and hurriedly ordered Mingjin to withdraw his troops. Pang Tong retreated to Dazhai, gathered in the tent, and sighed: "Li Ru is really good at calculating. ”

Lu Budao: "Don't worry, brother Xian, our army will storm his city, see how he is!" ”

Lu Sujin said: "Our army can try to dig a tunnel to open the door. ”

Pang Tong shook his head and said: "Li Ru has a lot of plans, if he sees through it, he will not say anything about the loss of the army, and he will laugh off his big teeth." ”

Lu Su was speechless. At this time, Jia Xu opened the curtain and smiled at everyone, saying, "You are all fine!" ”

Pang Tong hurriedly got up and greeted him, and asked, "How?" ”

Jia Xu arched his hand and said: "I watched Ma Teng's troops, 100,000 people from the headquarters, and 100,000 people from the Qiang tribe. Right now, it's time to storm Tianshui County. ”

Pang Tong smiled and shook his head: "Li Ru and Zhang Xiu will die." I still use a cloud car to break his city! ”

Everyone was stunned, and Lu Su frowned and said, "What is your plan, can you tell me?" ”

Pang Tong said loudly: "Call the craftsman officer to come over." ”

Pang Tong ordered the elite cavalry to wear and carry Li Rujun's clothes and banners, and they have been patrolling intensively five miles outside the four gates.

Pang Tongjun did not move for more than ten days. Li Ru and Zhang Xiu drank on the city tower, laughing at Pang Tong's incompetence. Unexpectedly, at noon, the spies came to report that Pang Tong's army was approaching.

I saw that forty cloud carts were pushing in front of me. But this time it was different, even Li Ru on the wall frowned, there seemed to be something wrapped outside the cloud ladder, refracting light in the sun, sometimes dazzling and unbearable. When it was only a mile away, Li Ru realized that it was a layer of bright silver. He didn't care about thirty-seven twenty-one, and ordered the archers to shoot arrows within two hundred meters. I saw that the rockets were shot over, and the "clanging" ones were all blocked. Zhang Xiu ran to the side and said in a panic: "That's an iron sheet!" ”

Li Ru gritted his teeth for a while, but he couldn't help it, watching the iron cloud car lean against the wall, a piece of iron was pushed down, and the soldiers inside shouted: "Kill!" Jumping down with a knife, Li Ru was born as a civil official and was not good at martial arts, so he hurriedly found a guard and ran down the city wall. Zhang Xiu led the troops to resist for a while, but more and more soldiers poured out of the cloud car.

The crash car didn't do much, and there were boulders stacked behind the door. Pang Tongjun still relied on the cloud car to successfully occupy the wall. In the chaos, Li Ru saw that Pang Tong's army was unstoppable, and wanted to abandon Zhang Xiu and flee. I only heard the sound of the other three doors crashing in the distance, and I knew that something was wrong. There was no stone behind the three gates, and the latch was about to reach the peak of its toughness. Li Ru ordered the men and horses of the headquarters to march towards the gate on the west side and gather behind the gate. Waiting for a loud "rattle" sound, several door latches were broken. Before Pang Tong's army poured in, they killed it first. The cavalry was in front, scattering Pang Tong's siege troops, and the infantry then went out like a swarm of ants. After all, Pang Tong's men and horses on the west side were only a few thousand, and they were defeated and retreated by his army. Li Ru knew that he could not fight hard, so he rode in the middle and ordered the whole army to flee westward.

At this time, Zhang Xiu was still fighting in the formation, located in the central square. He also thought that Li Ru's soldiers and horses were against the enemy on the west side. The shadow of the sword flashed around him, and the sound of shouting and clashing weapons was in his ears. His face was stained with blood, but there were more and more enemies. In the distance, the banner of the unified army moved with the wind. I could only hear the earth-shattering charge of the cavalry, and a group of men and horses galloped out of the alley behind him, killing him on his side, and the first general was Zhao Yun. Zhao Yun saw that Zhang Xiu was wearing a wolf's head silver helmet and swallowing his head and shoulder blades in the formation, so he knew that it was a general and rushed over. I heard someone shouting: "Lord Zhang, be careful!" ”

Zhao Yun bent the corners of his mouth, and when Zhang Xiu turned around, the gun in his hand pierced his throat and pulled it out violently, and Zhang Xiu fell forward and was already dead. Zhao Yun shouted: "Zhang Xiu is dead, and the rest of the people will descend early!" ”

Zhang Xiu, who saw this scene around, abandoned his weapons and knelt on the ground. Pang Tong personally jumped from the ladder to the top of the wall, pulled out his double swords, and walked to the inner wall, only to see that there were fights on all roads. A rider carried a head through various roads, constantly shouting: "Zhang Xiu is dead, Li Ru has fled, and the rest of the people will descend early!" ”

Pang Tong knew that the voice coming from afar was Zhao Yun's. After half a ring, the soldiers who learned of this abandoned their weapons and surrendered. Zhang Xiu's military general Yang Ding led 5,000 men to kneel on the ground and beg for mercy. About 40,000 of Zhang Xiujun's remnants surrendered, and the corpses of the others filled the streets and alleys, even in the houses and tiled roofs. The whole battle has been decided.

The county seat of Ji in Tianshui County has been captured. On the way back to Chang'an, Li Ru learned that Ma Teng had attacked Tianshui County for many days, and wondered why the Tanma didn't come to report. He didn't know that Pang Tong's dense cavalry team was there to snipe his spies. He knew that Zhang Xiu's defeat was going to collapse, and if he wanted to make a comeback, he had to absorb Tianshui and Wudu County. Li Ru ordered the cavalry to gallop to the county towns of the two counties and informed Li Ru that the army had set off and must hold on. A few days later, he learned of Zhang Xiu's death in battle and called himself Yongzhou Mu.

Li Ru himself led 100,000 men and horses to hold Chang'an, and mobilized 80,000 people from all over the country to Linwei County. When the men and horses entered the city, the county town of Jieting in the north had just been attacked. Because Li Ru's soldiers went out of Linwei County, he sent a cavalry team to the west to rob and kill Ma Teng's grain team from Ji County to the northeast, so that Ma Teng's army had to guard the street pavilion after running out of food, and asked the people to supply food for the soldiers.

On the other hand, Pang Tong reorganized the men and horses, and after taking Zhang Xiujun into the army, he formed an army of 210,000 people. At this moment, he has arrived at Xiazhai thirty miles outside Chang'an City. Pang Tongjun was stunned to find that there was an extra circle of trenches three meters wide and three meters deep outside Chang'an City. As a result, the tin cloud cart could not get close to the city walls.

Under Pang Tong's account, Lu Su said: "Li Ru mobilized the soldiers and people to dig a deep ditch, which is actually the road to break the clouds. The only four junctions were as wide as the city gates, completely unsuitable for a large army charge. Li Ru is determined to stick to it. It is better to wait for Ma Teng to destroy his forces on the western flank, and then we will move. ”

Jia Xu said: "There is a plan below." ”

Pang Tong said happily: "Wenhe has a plan, so say it quickly." ”

Jia Xu said: "The trench is three meters wide, so there is nothing to be afraid of. Adults can have their planks made to be used as bridges. If you want to let the cloud car pass, it must be a little thicker, and you can use a large cart to carry it. ”

Pang Tong pondered for a while, raised his head and said: "You can only use this strategy, but you must wrap a thick iron sheet outside the wooden board, otherwise you will be made into a fire bridge by that Li Ru." ”

Jia Xu nodded yes. He ordered the overseer, and he was very concerned about the thickness of the planks, so he ordered someone to dig a trench about the same width as the trench outside Chang'an City, and then lay the planks to see what thickness of the planks could be supported. When the cloud car can pass, he will let twenty more people fight on the cloud car and experiment again. After repeating, you will know which thickness is the easiest to carry and safest. He also ordered the construction of many large carts to transport these heavy objects.

Half a month later, Pang Tong came to the place where the carpenters were working hard, and saw the wide carts and the heavy wooden planks laid on them. He walked over and knocked on the iron sheet on it, but there was no echo, and he couldn't help but nod his head, thinking: "Close to the board, just this process, you know the rigor." ”

Three days later, everything was completed. Pang Tong's army of 200,000 people drove straight in, galloped over, and caused dust to fly into the sky. The enemy standing on the high wall waits solemnly. When they got close to a hundred meters, the arrows rained down like a shower, and when they got close to thirty meters, they reached the place where the trench was. The soldier in front of him with his shield and sharp arrows could only hear the clanging above. After the cart was in place, the soldiers began to lay the planks in groups of twenty people with shields in each hand and wooden planks in one hand.

Although there was a shield to resist, it was really inconvenient to hold the board in one hand, and some of them were shot by arrows, and as long as two or three people fell, the board in the hands of the others was completely tilted and fell heavily to the ground. Pang Tong held the hilt of his sword tightly in the Chinese army, and the probe horse came from time to time to report. Half an hour later, thirty boards were laid, which was far from enough. Pang Tong ordered 10,000 infantry to charge the city with ladders, and the enemy's attention was pinned, and the engineering team that laid the planks was able to proceed smoothly. After all the planks are laid, the iron cloud car is pushed over, the wheels are rolled on the board, and the whole cloud ladder makes a "crunch, crunch" sound. After the cloud cart drove over, it slowly approached. Li Rujun rained down arrows and stones, and resisted hard. The soldiers on the ladder were the most miserable, broken flesh by stones, or brains smeared on the ground. Some of them had just climbed to the middle of the ladder when they were knocked down and fell to their deaths.

Their sacrifice was not in vain, after the cloud cart leaned against the high wall, the guards at the head of the wall had to take care of the cloud ladder and look at the cloud car, and at the same time they were busy on both sides, the soldiers on the cloud car pushed down the iron sheet and went down with their shields. The wall was killed, soldiers continued to pour out of the cloud car, and the defenders also went forward one after another. The walls were stained red with blood.