(Thanks to AD5432 for the tip!)

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Yang Xi stood at the head of the city of Sui Tong Pass, his eyes barely blinking as he watched the battle in the direction of Han Tong Pass.

The topography of the Sui Tong Pass is higher than the Hantong Pass City, standing on the gate tower of the Sui Tong Pass City and watching, except for the situation under the city in the southeast direction of the Han Tong Pass, the scene in other places can be said to be unobstructed, Yang Xi who stands on the city gate tower to watch the battle, can basically see clearly the impact of the rebels and the situation of the Tang army returning fire at the head of the city.

If Li Fu's previous ambush battles had given Yang Xi a preliminary glimpse of the tactics of the Cold Weapon Age, then the rebels' reckless and ferocious siege of the city made him further see the same cruelty of warfare in the Cold Weapon Age. Yang Xi did not really experience large-scale warfare in the era of hot weapons in later generations, and the actual combat he experienced was only small-scale special operations, and the loss of personnel was only in single digits, at most ten digits.

The cruelty of war is felt from those documentaries or movies, coupled with his own experience of several actual battles, he has killed several enemies with his own hands, and he can predict the horror of war, but all of it is not as real as it feels now.

Hordes of sergeants, shields and arrows falling from the city, rushed forward with all their might, and countless people were shot by the arrows and fell, wounded or killed. The wounded man fell to the ground and groaned in pain, but no one came forward to help, and the bodies of the dead were slowly piled up under the city, and after half an hour, hundreds of corpses were piled up under the city of Tongguan, and even in good light, he could vaguely see the tragic condition of the dead. This is not the same feeling as seeing Li Fu lead an ambush in the morning.

In the morning, because of the distance, the details of the battle were not clear, and the casualties were not clear, but now all this is clear, and it would be unreal to say that it is not shocking. Although Yang Xi in later generations had undergone very strict training, and the situation in the training of the special brigade was close to hell, he had also killed people, and seen enemies and companions die in front of him, but the killing in such a simple way in front of the Hantong Pass still made him tremble a little. It's just that this kind of emotion only arises in his heart, and there is not the slightest wave on his face, and he stands very calmly on the city gate tower, looking at the place where the battle is going on.

But the people standing next to him were different.

Li Chengguang and Gao Shi are not by his side now, these two generals have gone to the city to arrange commands, no one knows whether the Hantong Pass can be defended, how long it can be held, if the defenders of the Hantong Pass City are defeated, and the city is captured by the rebels, then the next battle will break out in the Sui Tong Pass where they are now standing, and several of them will directly command the generals of the war, of course, they must go to the city wall to command.

Standing next to Yang Xi were only his generals, Yang Dong and Yang Zheng and some other people who were responsible for Yang Xi's safety.

Among them, Yang Dong has experienced a lot of scenes, and he has also been on the battlefield, he has seen such scenes a few times, and he has a little tolerance for the bloodiness of killing. But the young ones, like Yang Zheng and a few other "gangsters" who are the same age as Yang Xi and usually only bully the market, have never seen such a cruel and bloody scene, and some of them are frightened with trembling legs and pale faces.

The generals of the pro-guard family were amazed at Yang Xi showing such calmness!

Yang Xi is not too surprised that these guards around him will behave like this, and his attention will not be on these people now, all his attention is on the ongoing and increasingly fierce battle for Hantong Pass. He also carefully observed the characteristics of the attack and defense of the two sides, whether it was the attack method of the rebels or the method of our army to defend against the enemy, he looked at it very carefully.

In the process of Yang Xi's attention, the battle of Hantong Pass has been going on, and there is no sign of stopping.

After the initial wave of attacks was blocked and suffered great casualties, the rebels did not flinch or give up, and the follow-up attacks continued to come. Fortunately, there are not many flat places outside the east and south gates of Hantong Pass, and the rebels cannot deploy a larger number of troops, and the number of attacks in each direction is hundreds of people, and more people and horses cannot squeeze the undulating place outside the city gate.

With such a scale attack by the rebels, the defenders at the head of the city were not too difficult to defend, which made Yang Xi feel relieved. But after watching for a while, after seeing that the rebels had suffered heavy losses in successive waves of attacks, but still did not give up, he also understood the method of the rebels' attack, that is, to use the tactics of almost wheel warfare to drag down the soldiers defending the city, and after the soldiers defending the city were exhausted, they would concentrate on attacking the city.

No matter how strong a person is, there is always a limit to his physical strength, if similar actions are repeated all the time, he will definitely be tired soon, and eventually he will not be able to use his strength, just like the Tang army at the head of the city now, they continue to draw the bow and shoot, the power consumption must be very large, and eventually they will be exhausted and unable to pull the bow, and when the sergeant at the head of the city cannot pull the bow, it is when the rebels fight back and attack.

If the defenders at the head of the city were to become tired, the number of rebels besieging the city would definitely increase, and the waves would become denser.

Thinking of this, Yang Xi complained bitterly, he knew that the continuous attacks of the rebels would continue, and it was possible that he would not stop until it was dark and not suitable for attacking, or when the corpses were piled up outside the city and there was no way to charge.

But now there was still more than an hour before dark, and the corpses of the rebels under the city were not so numerous that the rebels could not charge at all.

Now Yang Xi only hopes that the defenders at the head of the city can maintain their physical strength and continue to insist on the next battle. He also immediately ordered Pang Zhong and Li Fu to rotate with the limited number of hundreds of mobile troops, so that the sergeants had a chance to rest and recuperate.

At the same time, Yang Xi passed on the order to them to hold on until dark. After dark, a suspicious array was arranged, so that the rebels did not dare to attack at night, and the sergeants defending the city should take the opportunity to withdraw to the Sui Tong Pass behind.

In the pre-arrangement, the already very dilapidated Hantong Pass City is not a pass that must be defended, but only as a fortress to block the speed of the rebels' attacks, which can slow down the rebels for half a day or a day, and the real battlefield is in the Suitong Pass where he is now standing.

At present, there are only about 10,000 sergeants in the head of Suitong Pass, and many of them are disabled or in poor mental state, and their combat effectiveness is not strong. Two hours ago, more than 1,000 sergeants had been sent to guard the passes of the 12 Liancheng, and the arrangement of men and horses at the head of the city was already very tight, and it was impossible to send more men and horses to aid Hantong Pass, and Yang Xi could not tolerate the more than 2,000 soldiers at the head of Hantong Pass being consumed.

The danger of Hantong Pass is much smaller than that of Sui Tong Pass, and any general will defend Sui Tong Pass with all his might, just like Ge Shuhan, who gave up Hantong Pass when he knew that his troops were insufficient.

Yang Xi also understood the reality that it was more difficult to capture the Sui Tong Pass City, and he would definitely ensure that the two thousand soldiers at the head of the Hantong Pass City could return safely and enrich the strength of the Sui Tong Pass City.

How to pick them up is also very technical, if they are chased by the rebels and flee back, it will be difficult to take them into the city......