In front of the Jiannan army under the city, the Shenwei cannon was slowly advancing to the position. Wang Yuan is actually very conflicted in his heart, this kind of indiscriminate bombing will cause a large number of civilian casualties, which is not what Wang Yuan wants. However, if the powerful force is not enough to deter Ge Luofeng and not burn this city to rubble, it will not be possible to force Ge Luofeng to withdraw from this city and retreat to Taihe City. If you don't push Ge Luofeng into a corner, this guy won't give in.

In Wang Yuan's heart, he actually already had a rough idea of the outcome of this crusade against Nanzhao. This expedition to Nanzhao, if the army is defeated, there is nothing to say. If there is victory, then there is a problem that needs to be solved. What is victory? All the way to Huanglong, taking Taihe City, the capital of Nanzhao Kingdom, is it considered a victory? There is no doubt that it was a victory. However, what this victory will bring, Wang Yuan has to think carefully about this issue.

On the way here, Wang Yuan deeply realized that in a barbaric place like Nanzhao, which is high in mountains and dense forests, what the Tang Dynasty can do is actually very limited. The army may be able to conquer all the large and small cities of Nanzhao by force, but it is impossible to conquer the mountains, dense forests, Erhai rivers and rivers of Nanzhao Kingdom, and it is impossible to conquer the hearts of the Nanzhao barbarians.

In such a situation, conquest may not be a good thing, but it is likely to be the beginning of trouble. The barbarians could abandon the city and live in the mountains and dense forests, but the Tang army could not. The only thing Tang Jun could do was to stay in the city. It is conceivable that the city is the territory of the Tang Army, and outside the city is still the world of the barbarians. With such a long distance and such a tortuous road, it will be extremely difficult to supply supplies. Not only in the face of the harsh natural conditions, but also in the face of the ubiquitous barbarian sneak attack and harassment. The so-called conquest, then, is to sink oneself into a quagmire.

Therefore, Wang Yuan had to think of a means of conquest that was the safest and most beneficial to himself. Because Wang Yuan had to think about it for the future, if he defeated Nanzhao this time, a large area of Nanzhao would undoubtedly be under the jurisdiction of Jiannan Dao. In the future, when he becomes the envoy of the Jiannan Festival, he will have to do his best to maintain the stability here. And this stability is impossible to maintain. As you can imagine, the situation must have been a mess by then. Wang Yuan didn't want to hold a mess in his arms, because it would take a lot of energy to maintain, and if it was not maintained effectively, it would very likely become an excuse for others to attack him.

Wang Yuan is by no means unfounded, and a large number of examples in later generations have proved how difficult it is to completely conquer foreign races. At the time when Wang Yuanlai came, the most powerful country in the world was deeply troubled in order to conquer the alien mud feet. This is evidenced by examples from Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, and many others. According to Wang Yuan's cognition, the best way is to make an alliance under the city, and it is the most reasonable way to rule the barbarians with barbarians.

Therefore, the goal set by Wang Yuan for himself was to force Ge Luofeng to make an alliance under the city, rather than to take Taihe City and destroy the Nanzhao Kingdom and cut off Ge Luofeng's head. Wang Yuan's purpose is not to conquer Nanzhao, but to make Nanzhao no longer a hidden worry in the southwest of the Tang Dynasty, or a hidden worry in Jiannandao, on the premise of completing Yang Guozhong's explanation to regain the situation. If Ge Luofeng could promise this, Wang Yuanjue wouldn't mind turning war with him.

In Wang Yuan's opinion, instead of killing Ge Luofeng and causing a chaotic and turbulent situation in the Nanzhao Kingdom, it is better to control Ge Luofeng for my use. Just like his dead father Pi Luoge, surrendering to the Tang Dynasty and becoming a vassal state of the Tang Dynasty is the best ending.

Of course, Wang Yuan could also see that Ge Luofeng was still ambitious, and if he wanted to be obedient, he could only use more powerful force to make him submit. To deal with this kind of guy whose heart is higher than the sky, he must be beaten with a stick before he will relent. Because of this, Wang Yuan never intended to leave the slightest dead end for the sheep and Baa City. Originally, the blow of the Shenwei cannon had already hit the city hard, but Wang Yuan still wanted to extend the area and distance of the blow, so that Ge Luofeng could see the tragic scene and completely hit his arrogance.

Just as the Shenwei cannon was pushed forward to a distance of three hundred paces by Kenma and the gunners, everyone began to pile up and fix again, ready to start a new round of firebombardment. On the square behind the west gate of the city, the barbarians who were originally guarding the city wall and the city tower received the order to assemble in the lower city, and the dense barbarians crowded the large square behind the urn city and the city gate.

The targets of the Tang army's attack were the streets and houses in the city, which became the safest place. Although the buildings around the square were in full swing, it was nothing.

Ge Luofeng stood above the tower of the Urn City, looking at the black army gathered together, with a complicated expression on his face. He knew that it was extremely risky to face the enemy head-on, but the great general Ah Hu's strong assertions, and the thought of the risks posed by abandoning the last barrier to Taihe City, made Ge Luofeng feel the need to fight. Besides, he still has the last secret weapon at the bottom of the box that he didn't use. The Tang army's military formation was only a few hundred steps outside the city, and this secret weapon could come in handy.

There was a commotion, and thousands of crossbows were in hand. Well-armed brutes poured out of nowhere, and made their way through the gap between the barbarian formations to the tall huts built beneath the walls. The barbarians looked in amazement at the group of neatly armored and crossbows in hand. The soldiers and horses with bows are secretly surprised. In the Nanzhao Kingdom, in addition to the personal guards of the lord and the princes and ministers, they can have a full set of armor and can use crossbows. Soldiers with bows are a rarity. These more than 3,000 people obviously have a special status.

But he saw more than 3,000 crossbowmen divided into more than 300 small teams, each team of more than ten people, led by a barbarian with a long whip, galloping to the shed under the city wall to stand still. In front of each hut stood a small squad of crossbowmen.

Everyone was amazed, but when they saw the shouting, the fence door of the hut was opened at the same time, and the barbarian with the long whip in his hand spoke a language that even the barbarians did not understand, and shouted strangely, and the long whip in his hand 'snapped'.

A tall hut suddenly let out a high-pitched hissing sound, followed by hundreds of huts should be in harmony with the high-pitched hiss, and for a time the 'ang' and 'ang' neighing resounded inside and outside the city gate.

One of the brutes was stunned for a moment and suddenly came to his senses, and shouted loudly: "It's an elephant, it's an elephant." ”

The barbarians came to their senses and looked happy: "Elephant, is it an elephant cavalry?" The gods are above, and the elephant cavalry of my Nanzhao Kingdom is finally going to war. ”

The barbarians rejoiced, the most powerful type of the barbarians was the elephant cavalry, the elephant cavalry was invincible, suitable for any terrain of combat, and could be walked on the ground in the mountains and forests. It was a class of arms that the barbarians were proud of.

Sure enough, after the neighing, accompanied by the continuous elephant language commands of the elephant rider holding the long whip, the tall elephants slowly walked out of the tall hut. The big ears waved like a fan, the long nose waved up and down, and the long ivory shone white in the sun like two long knives. The elephant's legs, which were as thick as giant trees, stepped on the ground, and more than 300 elephants walked together, and the ground trembled and trembled, and the momentum was really amazing.

The barbarians erupted in earth-shattering cheers, like cavalry, the strongest class of the barbarians, a guarantee of victory. Many people have never seen elephant cavalry fighting in their lives, let alone more than 300 elephants appearing together, and it is simply a creation to see this scene.

Many people wept with emotion. The domestication of more than 300 elephants cost a lot of money and energy, all ethnic groups in Nanzhao have elephant cavalry, but most of them only have a dozen, and they cannot be used for battle, but appear on the streets during festivals or sacrifices for everyone to admire. The real myth of elephant cavalry warfare can be traced back to nearly 200 years ago, when Meng Shelong, the leader of the Nanzhao barbarians, used a hundred elephant cavalry in the Great Sui War, and broke the 30,000 Sui army with 2,000 soldiers and horses, so that the Central Plains did not dare to touch the southwest. But that myth is a long time ago, and I didn't expect to see the myth reappear today, and not a hundred, not two hundred, but more than three hundred elephant cavalry.

More than 300 giant elephants came out of the slaughter, and the neighing sound resounded through the heavens and the earth, but with the reprimand of the elephant rider, these behemoths stopped neighing and stood still obediently. And with a command, he leaned down, and knelt on his front legs.

Elephant constellations woven like small fortresses are mounted on the back of the elephant, and the elephant's head and abdomen are covered with rattan armor. After that, a barbarian general gave a loud order, and more than a dozen crossbowmen successively drilled into the fortress on the elephant seat, and the elephant rider also climbed to the front of the elephant seat. After an elephant shout, the elephants stood up. The tallest elephant began to walk slowly towards the city gates. The rest of the elephants also staggered, and followed behind with heavy steps towards the city gates.

All the brute soldiers looked at the huge team of elephant cavalry blankly, and fell to their knees excitedly, raised their hands to the sky, and prayed to the heavens, thanking the gods and ghosts for their help.

"Lord, the three hundred and thirty elephant cavalry are all in place, please show the lord of the country, do you want to go out of the city to meet the enemy immediately?" General Hu rode on a war horse and shouted loudly towards the city.

Ge Luofeng gritted his teeth and shouted in a deep voice: "Kill them without leaving a piece of armor, and tonight I will sacrifice to the ghosts and gods with the head of Jiannan's deputy envoy Wang Yuan." ”