Thang Long City is the political, economic and cultural center of the entire Cochin, and originally there were more than 30,000 elite standing troops stationed, but after being transferred to the auxiliary general Li Changjie twice, there were less than 10,000 left.

This time, in order to deal with Li Nan's attack, Li Renzong withdrew most of the elites who guarded against the Great Song Dynasty in the northern passes, as well as the southern resistance to the Zhancheng state, and currently had nearly 40,000 elite regular troops and 60,000 slave troops in the city, which can be regarded as a heavy gathering of troops.

Although everyone has known that this Thang Long City is the largest city in Cochin, they have been attacking all the way, and they are used to seeing the low and narrow small city of Cochin, and suddenly they see such a majestic and majestic city, and everyone feels that their eyes are bright and their hearts are shocked.

The city was built by Li Gongyun, the founding monarch of the Li Dynasty in Jiaozhi, in decades.

Li Gongyun, also known as Li Taizu, the word Zhaoyan, was originally a minister of the former Li Dynasty, and the official was the commander of the left pro-guard palace, and was given the surname Li. In 1009, civil strife broke out in the former Li Dynasty, and Li Gongyun took the opportunity to seize the throne.

After becoming the king of Jiaozhi, Li Gongyun ordered the capital to be moved to Daluo City, and the reason is: "I look at the map, Gao Biao's former capital Daluo City, living in the middle of the world, there is the potential of dragons and tigers, the four directions, the characters are Fanfu, and the emperor is above the capital." I want to take advantage of this location to settle down. Li Gongyun consulted the ministers in the court, and the ministers all said: Your Majesty said that this world will benefit forever. Emperor Dayue is from Hualu to the capital of Daluo City. When the royal boat went to the city, there was a dragon who saw it, and ordered to change its city to Shenglong City.

Li Gongyun mobilized the manpower and material resources of the entire Jiaozhi in that year, imitated the architectural style of the Han people, and built a large city for several years, and finally built such a strong city.

In the imperial palace in Thang Long City, there is a court hall, the left is the Jixian Palace, and the right is the Martial Arts Palace. The left Qifei Longmen, the right Qidanfeng Gate. Zhengyang Qi high hall, all said dragon pier, the inner wing of the pier to the corridor, around the turn on all sides. Behind the Qianyuan Palace, there are two halls of Long'an and Longrui. The left is built with the sun hall, and the right is built with the moon hall. There is Cuihua Palace behind. Four gates are opened on all sides of the city, the east is called auspicious, the west is said to be Guangfu, the south is said to be Daxing, and the north is said to be Yaode. In the city again, Xingtian Temple, five phoenix star building, the city leaves the party to create Shengyan Temple. In the city, Xingtianyu Temple, Taiqing Palace, Wanshou Temple are built, and outside the city, Shengyan Temple, Tianwang Temple, Xingsheng Temple, Tianguang, Tiande, and Xiangyi Temples are built.

At this moment, the gates of Thang Long City have been tightly closed, the city is crowded with soldiers, and all kinds of bows and crossbows that have captured the Great Song Dynasty are neatly placed.

At present, the defenders of Thang Long City have reached 100,000 people, while Li Nannan outside the city has only 50,000 people. Although the Li Dynasty was not as talented as the Song and Liao dynasties, there were also many capable generals, and after learning from the experience of Li Changjie's two field defeats, they learned wisely and decided to use the defenders in the city to consume Li Nan's army.

Sun Tzu's Art of War has a cloud: "Ten are to surround it, five to attack it, and to fight it if it is doubled, the enemy can divide it, if it is less, it can be defended, and if it is not, it can be avoided." ”

The meaning is very simple: surround the enemy if there are ten times the enemy's strength, attack the enemy if there is five times the enemy's strength, fight if the enemy is twice as strong, disperse the enemy if the strength is equal to the enemy, defend if the enemy is less than the enemy, and avoid fighting if the enemy is inferior to the enemy's strength.

The 50,000 troops under Li Nan's command were neatly arrayed outside the west gate of Thang Long City, and the baggage soldiers in the rear quickly assembled and made various siege equipment.

In the big tent of the Chinese army, Li Nan was whispering to the rat king Xiaobai lying on the table.

After half a ring, one person and one rat stopped talking, and Li Nan ordered people to recruit the generals into the big tent, ready to discuss matters related to the attack on the city.

All the generals stood in their tents, and Li Nan introduced in a deep voice: "According to the latest information, there are 100,000 garrisons in Thang Long City, including 60,000 slave soldiers, and since a large number of Jiaozhi officials and wealthy nobles live in the city, they can also gather tens of thousands of slaves, miscellaneous servants and guards to join the city defense team at any time. ”

After dozens of battles large and small, everyone despised the Jiaozhi soldiers with low combat effectiveness, and even Lin Chong, who had always been cautious, said: "Our army has attacked the Jiaozhi city several times before, relying on the long-range Shenjian crossbow to suppress and the demoman to blow up the door. This time I can follow the precedent, as long as the army enters the city, the 100,000 Jiaozhi soldiers, I will regard them as grass mustard! ”

"No!"

Li Nan immediately rejected Lin Chong's proposal and explained: "Thang Long City is the capital of Cochin, which is completely different from other cities, not only has a moat and a nine-meter-high strong city wall, but the most unfavorable thing for us is that there are many eight-ox crossbows and catapults on the head of the city of the Cochin people. ”

"Eight bull crossbows?" When everyone heard about this long-range weapon, they couldn't help but exclaim.

"Wujing General Essentials" contains a variety of multi-bow bed crossbows, among which the most powerful three-bow bed crossbow is also known as the "eight-cow crossbow", which requires more than 100 people to twist the shaft and stretch the string, and can usually shoot up to 700 steps, and the range of the transformed eight-ox crossbow has reached the peak of the cold weapon era of 1,000 steps. In the Song Dynasty, one step was 1.536 meters, and 1,536 meters in a thousand steps.

In the first year of Jingde (1004), in the battle of Lanyuan, the Song army installed bed crossbows at the head of the city. The Liao army attacked the city. The crossbow guards were frightened, and in a hurry they hit the crossbow, and the arrows thundered out, and they did not intend to be in the Liao army's main general Xiao Tzu Rin, who was killed on the spot, and the Liao people died because of the main general's death, and they had no intention of fighting, so they negotiated peace with the Northern Song Dynasty.

This kind of weapon has always been only equipped in the cities of the Great Song Dynasty, and it can be regarded as a special weapon that the military strongly restricts secrecy, so I heard that Thang Long City also has it, Lu Zhishen asked with a puzzled face: "Where did the Jiaozhi people get the Eight Bull Crossbow?" ”

"Alas!" Li Nan sighed and said: "Since Li Gongyun, the Jiaozhi Li Dynasty has repeatedly invaded the Guangnan Road of the Great Song Dynasty, and has caused countless killings in a hundred years. In addition to plundering a large number of Song people as slaves and robbing all kinds of property, these Jiaozhi people also had armor and weapons that they would not let go. ”

Li Nannan's army was small in number, originally crisscrossed with its powerful long-range attack ability, but now the enemy is more than twice as numerous as his own, and he also occupies the fortified city, and has a long-range eight-bull crossbow to defend, so it is difficult to capture this city.

At the moment, it seems that the only way to achieve victory is to use the traditional way of attacking hard, but in this case, the casualties are too great.

Li Nan's imaginary enemy was not the Jiaozhi people, but the Song, Liao, and Jin kingdoms in the north, and if too many soldiers and horses were lost here, it would be too unfavorable for future plans.

Spartacus saw Li Nan's thoughts, so he persuaded: "Master, casualties between the two armies are inevitable, just let my infantry legion attack the main attack!" ”

There were some things that Spartacus didn't say explicitly, but everyone understood that his infantry corps was basically composed of Cochin slaves and prisoners of war, and these people were relatively easy to recruit and relatively cost-effective, so Spartacus's proposal won the unanimous approval of everyone.

Although slave soldiers were not valuable in the area of Jiaozhi and were very easy to recruit, the people who remained in the infantry corps today were carefully selected veterans who had experienced many battles.

After thinking for a while, Li Nan still did not take Spartacus's suggestion, and after ordering everyone to disperse to prepare for war, only Cress from the Roman world was left, and the newly acquired concubine barbarian girl Xiangman.

"Kress, go and pick three thousand of the most dishonest, but able-bodied men from the prisoner of war camp. Take them to the woods in the rear, and I'll use them at night. ”

Cress said little and nodded in response, "Yes, master!" ”

After seeing Kress take the order to leave, Li Nan said to Shanman: "Can you take someone to catch fifty live rhinoceros and bring them to the woods in the rear of the army?" ”

Shanman asked suspiciously, "What do you want the rhinoceros to do?" ”

Li Nan smiled and said, "General Ben has his own clever plan, you will know when the time comes." ”