Just when Gao Xianzhi was forced to stay in the north of the capital to wait for the holy decree, outside Luoyang City, more than 100,000 soldiers and horses of An Lushan and Shi Siming's 60,000 troops who captured Taiyuan and led the army to Luoyang had successfully rounded, and nearly 180,000 rebel soldiers were approaching Luoyang City, and the siege battle was about to break out. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The city of Luoyang was in chaos, and the dense array of rebel soldiers outside the city made the defenders of Luoyang and the people scattered. They hadn't really seen the momentum of the rebels before, but now they realized what kind of situation they were in, so many soldiers and horses gathered under the city, this momentum alone was enough to make them panic.

Feng Changqing urgently convened a meeting and put forward a proposal to let the people evacuate Luoyang in advance, because Feng Changqing realized that Luoyang City could not be defended, and it was better to let the people flee than this, and it was the best policy to leave the soldiers and horses to fight to the death. Otherwise, once the rebels besiege the city on all sides, you will not be able to escape if you want to. This proposal was supported by Li Cheng and Lu Yi, who suggested that the old and weak women and children should be evacuated from Chang'an first, leaving young and strong men to assist in defending the city, so that there would be no worries and manpower to defend the city.

Yin Da Xi Xun of Henan Province strongly objected, saying that letting the people go would be to abandon Luoyang City, which was a move to shake the morale of the army without a fight. He also said impassionedly: "The fact that the people, women and children stay in the city can arouse the determination of the soldiers to defend the city." Millions of people in Luoyang City, even women, children and children, have the heart to fight to the death, and one person and one mouthful of foam makes it difficult for the rebels to move an inch. ”

Feng Changqing decisively ignored this person's nonsense, and regarded Da Xixun as a fart, and women, children and children staying in the city would only become the targets of slaughter and mutilation by the rebels. Still counting on women, children and children to participate in the war and defend the city, is it really a paper paste for hundreds of thousands of rebels? A wolf can drive and kill thousands of sheep, and thousands of sheep may not dare to kill a sheep, this is the simplest truth, but Xi Xun will say this crooked reason.

Of course, the meeting broke up unhappily, and Da Xixun brushed his sleeves away again. Ignoring him, Feng Changqing and the other three reached an agreement and immediately began to actively evacuate the people. After the order was issued, there was a riot in Luoyang City, and the people dragged their children and daughters with large bags and small bags of valuable belongings, drove their livestock, and pulled Taiping chariots from the four cities to gather in the west gate of Luoyang. From the opening of the city gate in the afternoon to let the people out of the city, the dense crowd poured out of the city like a flood that opened the floodgates, and until midnight, it was still in a steady stream.

Luoyang City is so big, it is one of the few cities in Datang with a population of one million. The people of Luoyang, who are citizens of the capital, even have a sense of superiority over the people of Chang'an, but they never imagined that they would one day end up fleeing. Fleeing from their homes and businesses is painful, and the people are like groups of silent lambs. Sheep poured out of the city numbly. The people who fled to Luoyang from the lost state capital in the east were even more panicked. I thought that when I came to Luoyang, I could stay away from the scourge of swords and soldiers and get shelter, but I didn't expect to start the journey of escape again. And most of them have nothing to do, so where are they going?

In the cold winter, the cold wind is like a knife. Under the bleak wind and cold moon, the people of Luoyang City are like homeless children who are far away from their homes, plunging into the vast and unknown night, stepping into the unpredictable fate.

For seven or eight hours in a row, Feng Changqing stood quietly on the tower of the west gate of Luoyang City, motionless looking at the soldiers pouring out of the city from the city gate under his feet. His mood was complicated, he didn't know how difficult and miserable the escape road of these people was after leaving Luoyang City, but he had to do it. All he could do was to stand on top of the tower and watch them leave Luoyang, while he himself would stay here with his troops and horses, trying to defend their homes so that they could return to their homes intact after the war.

What a wise decision to retreat in time turned out. In the early hours of the morning, after all the people had withdrawn from the west gate, in the dawn of dawn, the Tang army at the head of the city saw the rebels encircling the city wall from the northeast to the southwest. As long as it is half a day long, the entire Luoyang City will be surrounded by the rebels, and no one will be able to leave at that time.

In the early morning of the 11th day of the lunar month, the horn of the rebel attack sounded through the mountains, and An Lushan couldn't wait to issue the order to capture Luoyang. At the end of the day, thousands of catapults were in place and began to bombard the Tang army at the head of the city. For a time, there was a pouring rain of falling stones on the city wall of the four cities of Luoyang, the smoke and dust were flying, and the stones as big as the fence bucket and as small as the fist fell unscrupulously towards the city, and the yellow cloud of sand and dust rose from the head of Luoyang City. Dust clouds hung over the city for a long time.

Fortunately, the walls of Luoyang City were tall and sturdy, the battlements were thick and tall, and there were arrow towers and urns built on the city walls every few dozen steps, which became a hiding place for the soldiers defending the city to hide from stone attacks. Although the rain of stones was fierce, it did not bring much damage to the Tang defenders at the head of the city, and the only damage caused to them was psychological deterrence and intimidation. The soldiers defending the city are all recruits who have only joined the army for more than ten days, and they usually don't talk about fighting, but they will be frightened when they see a dead person, and now, they not only want to see these big scenes that make people's souls scatter, but also see the soldiers who were standing next to them one moment ago were stoned to death the next moment. This kind of transformation is too rapid, and in this case, people will go to two extremes, either they will be reborn as a qualified warrior and mature all at once, or they will quickly collapse.

Many people have collapsed in this situation. In the smoke and dust, many people came out of hiding in a daze, no matter how the officers and soldiers around them shouted, they did not look back, and then they were stoned to death by falling stones. Others rushed out shouting and jumping off the battlements several feet high, ending the nightmare by themselves.

The trebuchet's bombardment lasted for more than half an hour, and when the bombing was over, a thick layer of large and small stones was piled up on the walls of the four cities of Luoyang, as if it had experienced a major earthquake. Some of the battlements were destroyed, but most of the city's defenses remained.

At the moment when the trebuchet stopped bombing, Feng Changqing gave the order to immediately take place and prepare to defend the city. Because Feng Changqing knew that the trebuchet's bombardment was not to kill and injure the defenders at the head of the city, but to cover the approach of the siege soldiers and horses, when the catapult stopped bombing, it indicated that the rebel infantry had begun to attack the city.

The situation was similar to what Feng Changqing expected, and when the dust clouds at the head of the city cleared, the Tang soldiers on the city wall saw the situation that made them dizzy. Below the city wall, a dense crowd of ant-like rebel siege soldiers has been pouring towards the city wall from all directions. Under the cover of catapults, the leading rebels were less than fifty paces from the city wall and were about to reach the side of the moat.

Feng Changqing gave an order, and the defenders at the head of the city and hundreds of arrow towers suddenly fired thousands of arrows. Although it is a new recruit, this kind of archery only needs to be shot out, and there is no need to aim at all, and the emphasis is on a large area of shooting to increase the chance of shooting. The rebel soldiers who rushed to the close distance below the city fell in pieces, wailing and screaming endlessly. After a rain of arrows, the rebels suffered more than a thousand casualties, and it was like stomping on the ants all over the ground with the huge soles of their feet, and the arrows would always shoot at someone.

However, the rebels did not flinch because of this, and An Lushan's 10,000 warlords were behind the battle with a snowy Daguan sword in their hands, and anyone who dared to take a step back would be swept in half with a sword. Advance or live, retreat or die, in this case, the rebel offensive does not decrease in the slightest.

Soon, the rebel archers began to fire back at the head of the city, and although the power of shooting from the back was not great, it still caused psychological distress to the recruits defending the city. When I saw a dense number of arrows shooting towards the city, I didn't know if I could hit myself, but my first reaction was to shrink my head and dodge, which is the difference between a veteran and a new soldier. At this time, the veteran will simply ignore the arrow fired from the back and shoot down on his own, because they know that the chance of being hit is very small, and there is no need to worry about it. And this subconscious little action of the recruits made them lose the opportunity to shoot one more arrow. The arrows at the head of the city were visibly sparsely scattered.

The rebel soldiers were well-trained elite border troops, and the siege was carried out in an orderly manner. As pontoon bridges were erected over the moat, the siege road leading to the city under the city walls finally became a thoroughfare. Countless soldiers and horses poured into the city and began to climb the city wall by ladder. And the vicinity of the east gate of the city was also quickly broken by the rebels. The gates of the city were not strong in the first place, and they were quickly breached.

It was not surprising that the gates of the city were broken, and the gates of the city did not need to be strong, because only if it was broken, it would attract enemy troops into the city and then be besieged by archers on the four walls.

However, as if they knew that the urn city was not to be invaded, the rebel soldiers did not rush into it until a short time later, with a large shield on their heads, pushing a giant wooden rushing car with a long and thick iron cone head several feet long and thick to reach the city gate in the rain of arrows. The three groups of rushing cars were three large iron-armored centipedes dozens of paces long, ignoring the rain of arrows shot down from the city head and rushing into the urn city, rushing straight to the city gate of the main gate. A moment later, the sound of a boom crashing against the city gate suddenly resounded on the battlefield.

Feng Changqing's heart was cold, less than an hour after the battle began, the rebels had already begun to attack the city gate, which was caused by the disparity in strength. The combat effectiveness of the recruits is too weak, and they are still afraid of death by virtue of the benefits of the fortified city, and they dare not resist to the death. The firepower of nearly 80,000 soldiers and horses defending the city was not even as strong as the firepower of the 20,000 people of the Anxi Army that they had led, so easily let the rebels build countless pontoon bridges on the moat, and also let the rushing car cross the river and attack the main gate.

"Don't pour the oil yet, stop the rushing car from attacking the city gate!" Feng Changqing shouted.

The defenders above the scrambling gates hurriedly poured several large pots of oil down, and the oil fell on the large iron shields and splashed everywhere. Feng Changqing thought that he could see the result of these rushing drivers crying and jumping into the moat to avoid the hot oil, but what he didn't expect was that the boiling oil fell to no effect, and those rushing drivers under the shield actually panicked for a moment and then began to 'boom' and hit the city gate again.

"What's going on?" Feng Changqing asked in astonishment.

"Damn it, these idiots forgot to light a fire to boil the oil, and poured a few large pots of cold oil on it, and it didn't work at all." One of the generals shouted in reply.

Feng Changqing almost fainted, what kind of soldiers and horses are these, they have completely lost their souls, and they are so panicked that they can't do anything, how can this city be defended?

Without waiting for Feng Changqing to react next, he heard a loud bang, smoke and dust rose everywhere, and the city gate tower almost shook several times. The rebels under the city cheered, and the main gate of the sturdy Luoyang East City, which was wrapped back and forth with large chains, opened the main gate of the sturdy Luoyang East City.