Ma Chao could feel the earth shaking from two hundred meters away, and the impact on the city wall could be imagined. You must know that most of the city walls at that time were made of rammed earth, and there were more or less stones and giant trees in the middle, and the general fortified city was wrapped in blue bricks or stone strips, but how could this structure resist the bombardment of more than 100 catties of boulders?

The first round was designed to be tempting, and seventy or eighty of the hundred boulders fell inside and outside the pass, and less than twenty actually smashed on the city wall. The trained and hard-trained gunners immediately adjusted the angle and corrected the direction, and the second round of stone shells hit the city wall forty percent. After five rounds of correction, the hit rate is between 50 and 60 percent.

This has almost reached the limit, and Ma Chao is very satisfied with this, because the weight of the stone projectiles fired by the same Xiangyang cannon is different each time, and the landing point must be deviated. Moreover, at that time, there was no convenient and accurate large scale, and it was inevitable that there would be a large error in the measurement by human feeling.

Let's say that Niu Fu, the guard of the Tiger Prison Pass, panicked when he saw this situation, he had only heard of the stone thrower, and he had never seen anyone use the stone thrower to attack the city. And this kind of stone thrower is too perverted, how many people do you need to pull the tip to throw such a heavy boulder two or three hundred steps away? I'm afraid it will take at least three or four hundred people to work together!

I saw that the arrows and stones fell into the pass like rain, which not only caused great damage to the city wall, but also caused many unlucky soldiers to be killed and injured. The arrow towers and sentry posts on the city wall were also hit by boulders, and the city wall was even more miserable, and no one dared to go up to the city wall to watch.

Ma Chao only fired ten rounds of boulders, followed by small and large stone shells, each Xiangyang cannon had five to ten stone projectiles flying into the pass for each projectile, and each salvo of one hundred Xiangyang cannons was five hundred to one thousand stone bullets. The most terrifying thing is that the Xiangyang cannon has an extremely fast rate of fire, and each Xiangyang cannon is powered by ten war horses. After each launch, the ten war horses only need to pull out a distance of more than 20 meters through the steering pulley to fix the hook under the stone sac at the bottom end, and after placing the stone bullet, the hook can be launched.

On average, it can cycle once in 15 seconds, and each time it can fire 10 small stone bullets weighing 6 or 7 kilograms, and 40 stone bullets will fly into the pass in one minute. One hundred Xiangyang cannons are 4,000 stone shells, and the destructive power and lethality caused by them are by no means obvious.

But this is the problem, at this rate, ten minutes is 40,000 stone bullets, half an hour is 240,000 stone bullets, you come up with so many moderately sized stones? In this regard, Ma Chao had already made preparations, he ordered 30,000 sergeants to dig the ground, and dug out more than one meter of clay in the plains, and then asked the sergeants to make a large number of mud balls the size of human heads, which not only solved the "bullet problem", but also greatly improved the accuracy due to the small difference in weight. The most important thing is that this mud pellet will be smashed once it hits the ground, even if the opponent wants to use it to smash the siege soldiers or throw it back with a stone thrower.

After half an hour of shooting, 100 Xiangyang cannons threw 200,000 stone bullets into the Tiger Prison Pass, and only screams were heard from afar, and the torches on the city were extinguished because no one took care of them. Ma Chao made a quick decision and ordered Zhang He, Gao Shun and Cao surnamed Cao to lead 20,000 troops to carry the ladder and start attacking the city. The Xiangyang cannon continued to fire mud pellets, and by appropriately reducing the number of stone bullets, the mud pellets shot farther, almost all of them smashed into the pass, and could not hurt their own people at all.

The 10,000 defenders in the city were stoned to death and wounded nearly 2,000 people, and the rest were lying under the women's wall or simply hiding under the city wall, and no one dared to show their heads. The army rushed to the city at night, and was not discovered by the defenders until it crossed the moat, but it was too late, Zhang He and Gao Shun commanded their respective soldiers to attack the city, and the surname Cao led the battalion of 5,000 descendants under his command to cover with bows and arrows, and there were constantly sergeants through the ladder to the head of the tiger prison pass.

Niu Fu commanded the defenders to meet the battle in a hurry, and a white-knuckle battle immediately began on the city, and the soldiers on both sides were elite soldiers, and the battle was extremely fierce. But Ma Chao's army rushed up every time one had to put pressure on the other party, with the chaos at the head of the city, the soldiers who attacked the city with ladders below were even more unimpeded, and the 20,000 advance troops continued to kick the tiger prison, and the advantage became more and more obvious.

And Niu Fu was already inferior in terms of troops, and the elite level of the soldiers did not have any advantage, coupled with the destruction of the Xiangyang cannon and the psychological coercion, the morale of the army was already discouraged at this moment. After only resisting a cup of tea, they were defeated, and after Zhang He stepped up to the city, he first commanded the soldiers to open the city gate and lower the drawbridge, and then led people around to find the main general Niu Fu.

Ma Chao saw that the drawbridge was lowered and the city gate was opened, and he knew that the overall situation had been decided, and ordered Wen Ping and Zhao Yun to lead the army to rush into the Tiger Prison Pass. Therefore, it was decided to take the Tiger Prison Pass, so the southern gateway of the state Kei Pass also lost its threat, and Wen Ping was also transferred by Ma Chao to fight with the army. The same is true of Huguan, which is garrisoned by the surname Cao, because Bingzhou and Jizhou are both Ma Chao's territory, and the strategic role of Huguan is equivalent to zero, so naturally there is no need for heavy guards.

Niu Fu saw that the general trend had gone, and his first thought was to abandon the pass and flee for his life, and walked down the city to step on the war horse and go straight to the south gate of the Tiger Prison Pass. Luoyang City, which is only fifty miles away from the south gate, is in flames at this moment, and you can see it from afar. But Niu Fu should also be unlucky, the war horse just ran out of the range of the city gate, and was hit by a flying mud pellet on the left span, the bone was broken, and he fell under the horse!

As Wen Ping and Zhao Yun led the army into the city, the situation was quickly controlled, nearly half of the 10,000 defenders were killed, the rest were captured, and the main general Niu Fu also died in the chaos, and only a few hundred people were lucky enough to escape the rain of bullets to protect Li Ru, Guo Yan and Niu Fu's family from the south gate to Luoyang City.

Ma Chao also suffered nearly 2,000 casualties, but he didn't have time to compensate for the soldiers now. After entering the customs, he immediately led Zhao Yun, Zhang He, and Chen Zhisan to lead 20,000 cavalry to Luoyang City to kill. Gao Shun, Wen Ping, and Cao led 30,000 infantry troops to follow closely, leaving only Fu Hu to lead thousands of soldiers and horses to clean up the mess and guard the prisoners.

Here, Ma Chao used the power of the Xiangyang cannon to take down the Tiger Prison Pass where 10,000 people were stationed in only half an hour, and Luoyang City had just begun to act.

However, he said that Li Ru led 60,000 troops into Luoyang City, and the primary target was naturally the palace, but he didn't want to let go of Lu Bu, Yu Fuluo and even Yang Feng and others. At the same time as attacking and killing in the city, Li Ru also arranged a team of ambushes at the south gate, the west gate, and a few miles outside the east gate, and only waited for a few groups of rebels to arrive to intercept and kill.

Li Ru led his troops to quickly take control of the palace and the residences of the ministers of the court. The four generals Li Dao, Guo Yan, Fan Chou, and Zhang Xiu led their troops out of the city to pursue and kill Lü Bu, Yang Feng, and Yu Fuluo. Especially Lu Bu, the culprit who directly killed Dong Zhuo, was chased by Zhang Xiu and Fan Chou with 10,000 troops. Li Dao and Guo Yan each led 5,000 cavalry to pursue Yang Feng and Yu Fuluo.

Among these three groups of deserters, Lu Bu was the most powerful, with more than 15,000 soldiers and horses in his hands, composed of a small part of the Bingzhou army and the original left and right Yulin army, and the generals were Zhang Yang, Cheng Lian, Li Su, Song Xian, Hao Meng and other generals. And Yang Feng and Yu Fuluo are insufficient, although there are more than 10,000 soldiers and horses in their hands, but whether it is weapons and equipment, or the personal quality of the soldiers, they are far inferior to Lu Bu, and they cannot be compared with the elite troops of Li Dao and others.

However, it was said that the relationship between Yang Feng and Yu Fuluo was very good, and after the two fled, they were afraid of Li Ru's ambush, so they did not rush to flee for their lives, but quickly gathered outside the south gate along the moat. Because they were unprepared, the two of them now had no food in their hands, no money in their hands, and more than 20,000 mouths waiting to eat, and the situation was extremely grim. The two discussed it for a while and decided that the only way to survive was to take refuge in Lu Bu, so they hurriedly went to the east gate to find Lu Bu.

Lu Bu is a person who loves flowers and cherishes flowers, and he does not forget his wife and children when he runs for his life, which is much better than a big-eared thief. But such a delay made Zhang Xiu and Fan Chou catch up, and the two armies immediately fought in one place outside the east gate. The strength of the two armies was equal, but the generals under Lu Bu were excellent, and Zhang Xiu and Fan Chou did not dare to fight at all. Lu Bu also had no intention of fighting, and fought and retreated, and soon happened to meet Yang Feng and Yu Fuluo, who came over.

There are more than 30,000 people in one place of the two armies, so Lu Bu's confidence is even stronger, and with the advantage of having more soldiers and more generals, he finally fought a bloody way at dawn and went straight to Yongning. 30,000 people lost 4,000 or 5,000 people, plus deserters, and after entering Yongning City, there were only 20,000 people left in the middle of the army.

However, it was said that Li Ru hated Wang Yun, Huangfu Song, Huang Qi and Gai Xun very much, and immediately sent troops to rush into the mansion of the four after entering the city, and the men were all killed, and the maids and women were also detained. But he didn't dare to kill all the ministers, otherwise it would be useless to leave Liu Xie as a bare-pole commander in this court. He himself quickly broke through the palace and firmly controlled Liu Xie.

When Li Dao and Guo Yan returned in vain, the three of them were not happy for long when they got together, and there was a sudden chaos in the north of the city, and it was Ma Chao who brought 20,000 cavalry to kill from the north gate.

However, Fa Zheng and Wu Kuang acted according to Ma Chao's instructions, and as soon as Li Ru and others were let into the city on the front foot, Pang De was sent to lead 2,000 Shenwei battalions to raid Li Ru and others' empty camp outside the city, while Wu Kuang and Zhang Zhang led 5,000 soldiers to firmly guard the north gate. This move not only seized Li Ru's temporary headquarters, but also blocked the news from the Tiger Pass, and captured the scouts who rushed from the Tiger Pass to report the news and the hundreds of remnants of the soldiers later, and Li Ru was still immersed in joy and did not know anything about it.

With 20,000 elite cavalry, plus Pang De's 2,000 Shenwei battalion and 5,000 troops under Wu Kuang, Zhang Zhang, and other former He Jin, a total of nearly 30,000 people launched a surprise attack on the Xiliang army of Li Dao, Guo Yan and others. The Xiliang army, which had just experienced a major battle, was taken by surprise and collapsed, with extremely heavy losses.

By the time Li Ru and Li Dao figured out what was going on, Ma Chao's army, under the leadership of Zhao Yun, Pang De, Zhang He, Chen Dao, Wu Kuang, Zhang Zhang, and others, had already pocketed half of Luoyang City. Moreover, the 30,000 infantry army led by Gao Shun, Wen Ping and Cao will soon be killed, and the battle situation is extremely chaotic. (To be continued.) )