At dawn the next day, the Sui army camp sounded a rumbling muffled drum, like a burst of muffled thunder from the low hanging dark clouds, this was the first time in ten days that the Sui army made a loud drum sound, and the Tang army guarding Lou Fu Pass rushed to the head of the city, vigilantly looking at the Sui army camp three miles away. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Li Jiancheng also hurried over, standing at the head of the city and looking into the distance, the Sui army camp had obviously changed, the battle flags increased, the camp gate was wide open, and through the open camp gate, you could vaguely see that the army in the camp was rapidly assembling.

At this time, three cavalrymen rushed out of the camp and rushed towards Lou Fu Pass, and in a moment, they ran to the city, shot an arrow letter at the head of the city, turned around and ran back, and a soldier at the head of the city had already picked up the arrow letter and ran to present it to Li Jiancheng.

Li Jiancheng took the letter, which read: His Royal Highness the Tang Prince, signed by Pei Xingyan, the third Weihuwei general of the Northern Sui Dynasty.

The content of the letter was very short, the Sui army was about to launch an attack on Lou Fu Pass, and the Tang army was limited to withdraw from Lou Fu Pass within an hour to avoid the soldiers from meeting each other.

Li Jiancheng's face turned pale, and he tore the letter to shreds, and a small enemy general dared to threaten him, which was too deceitful.

"Pass my order, the three armies are ready to fight!"

Although there were only 3,000 Tang troops on the Lou Fu Pass, there were tens of thousands of Tang troops outside the pass who were ready to replenish their troops at any time.

At this time, the Sui army began to line out from the camp, in front of which was a group of infantry rushing out, behind the infantry came out a huge trebuchet figure, as high as two feet and five feet, higher than the north city wall of Lou Fu Pass, ten trebuchets like ten giants, slowly lined up under the pull of the strong ox, behind the trebuchet was 10,000 Sui cavalry.

18,000 Sui troops and 10 heavy trebuchets set up a formation about a mile away from the northern wall of Lou Fu Pass, 8,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry formed six black carpets, bright armor, spears like a forest, murderous, brought great pressure to the 3,000 defenders on the city head, although there were also 30,000 Tang troops lined up in the south of the city pass, but after all, there were only 3,000 people on the city pass, and they had to directly face the enemy six times their size.

Even Li Jiancheng was a little uneasy in his heart, he began to calm down, thinking about whether he should give up Lou Fu Pass, he also understood in his heart that Lou Fu Pass was not of great significance to defending the enemy in the north, and it could not play a defensive role, he couldn't always have 30,000 troops stationed here, first of all, food supply would be a problem, but just give up Lou Fu Pass and retreat south, he was unwilling in his heart.

His father's attitude is also to hope that he can try his best to keep Lou Fuguan, which is related to the face of the Tang Dynasty, he always felt that his father took face too seriously, but after becoming the prince, he gradually understood the importance of face to the Son of Heaven.

"Archer prepare!"

The three thousand Tang troops raised their crossbows on the ground, and at this time, the general Wang Junkuo stepped forward and whispered: "Your Highness, the other party actually didn't bring a siege ladder!" ”

Li Jiancheng was stunned, he didn't notice this detail just now, under Wang Junkuo's reminder, he also looked carefully at the Sui army, and sure enough, he didn't see any siege ladders, Li Jiancheng suddenly came to his senses, and the Sui army was ready to use trebuchets to smash the city wall, and then the army directly entered.

What should I do? Li Jiancheng had no idea for a while.

Wang Junkuo said worriedly: "Our city wall is still relatively strong and can withstand trebuchet attacks, but we are worried about the northwest corner, which is a single wall, and if the Sui army finds that it is weak, the consequences will be serious." ”

"No matter how serious the consequences are, we must fight to the death!"

Li Jiancheng threw down a sentence, and walked quickly to the northwest corner of the city, although Wang Junkuo did not say what the consequences were, but Li Jiancheng quickly understood what he meant, the northwest corner turned out to be a single wall, and inside the single wall was a warehouse, if a heavy trebuchet was used, the city wall would soon be unable to withstand the blow, and the Sui army would enter the city from the place where it collapsed.

Li Jiancheng was speechless for a long time, he didn't even know that there was this loophole in Beicheng, of course, the people who built Lou Fu Pass never thought that the enemy army would kill from the north, and Lou Fu Pass was originally used to defend against the enemy army from the south.

Li Jiancheng licked his chapped lips, his heart began to waver, he once again had the idea of retreating, at this moment, he only heard Wang Junkuo shouting loudly from afar: "His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has an order, even if the battle is to the last person, never give up Lou Fuguan!" ”

Li Jiancheng had to sigh secretly, it seemed that this battle had to be fought to the end.

.........

An hour passed in a flash, and the Sui army was completely lined up, at this time, the sky was already bright, Pei Xingyan saw that there was no movement in Chengguan, and immediately waved his sword and shouted: "Attack!" ”

"Knock-knock-knock-"

The drums of war for the attack sounded, and ten giant-like trebuchets began to move in the direction of the northwest corner, a move that shocked Li Jiancheng, and the Sui army actually knew where Lou Fuguan's weakness was.

At this time, Wang Junkuo shouted and ordered: "Prepare dirt bags!" ”

This is no way, if the outer wall is breached, they can only temporarily build a wall of earth with dirt bags, as long as they can survive tonight, they will transport the boulder into the pass at night, and build a high wall with boulder in the northwest corner, this should have been done a long time ago, they did not find this loophole until today, it should be said that the defender of the city will be the main responsibility of Wang Junkuo.

Of course, Wang Junkuo from a military point of view, he thought that the north city wall, which was only two zhang high, was more suitable for attacking with siege ladders, so he spent a lot of effort to prepare bows and arrows and rolling wood and stones, but he did not expect that the Sui army actually used trebuchets, and found a loophole in the northwest corner, which made Wang Junkuo both worried and guilty, he stepped forward to Li Jiancheng and saluted with a fist: "Please allow Your Highness to lead a cavalry to attack trebuchets, and take advantage of the enemy's unstable foothold to kill them by surprise." ”

Li Jiancheng looked out of the city with his hands and said lightly: "The city defender is going to go out of the city to fight, is this the way of the general?" “

"But it's a lowly ......."

Li Jiancheng waved his hand, not allowing him to continue, "It's normal for Lou Fu to not be able to hold it, it's strange to keep it, instead of feeling guilty now, you might as well learn a lesson and think about how to defend Taiyuan City." ”

Wang Junkuo said with guilt on his face: "I understand my humble position. ”

Li Jiancheng immediately ordered: "Order the whole army to retreat to Taiyuan!" ”

He said to Wang Junkuo again: "As long as you hold on for half an hour, you will also lead the army to retreat!" ”

"Obey the order!" Wang Junkuo sighed helplessly in his heart, and His Royal Highness finally decided to give up Lou Fuguan.

The 30,000 Tang Army began to retreat rapidly to the south, while the 3,000 Tang Army in the Lou Fu Pass was responsible for buying time for the main force to withdraw and covering the main force to move south smoothly.

At this time, the attack of the Sui army began, two hundred and fifty steps away, ten trebuchets took turns to open the offensive posture, the boulder weighing 100 catties was put into the iron pocket, with the command of the soldiers of the red flag waved, the long throwing rod popped out violently, the 100 catties boulder rose into the air, whistling towards the northwest corner of the city wall smashed.

Ten boulders roared and slammed, three of them crossed the city wall, and two boulders fell before reaching the target, but five boulders hit the city wall one after another, and the brittle city wall suddenly appeared one after another terrible cracks.

At this time, Wang Junkuo was commanding 2,000 soldiers to urgently carry the materials in the warehouse, they needed to empty the materials in the warehouse, and then pile them up in the warehouse with mud bags, at this time they had moved nearly 1,000 bags of grain out of the warehouse, and the soldiers carried bags of soil into the warehouse.

'Boom! There was another loud bang, and a boulder finally broke through the wall, and the seven or eight soldiers in the warehouse could not dodge, and were hit by the boulder, and immediately killed and wounded.

"Speed up!" Wang Junkuo shouted anxiously.

Each soldier carried seventy or eighty pounds of mud bags to the warehouse, the city has formed a long thirty zhang, one zhang high, about eight feet wide mud bag wall, the soldiers are desperately increasing the height, as long as the height is increased to two zhang, it can be connected with the rest of the city wall.

At this time, two more boulders broke through the wall, but this time there were no casualties, but the single wall collapsed one by one, revealing an empty scene outside the city.

Fang Xuanling looked at the city wall in the northwest corner being breached, revealing a mud bag wall, he smiled and said to the soldiers next to him: "Summons General Su, he can attack!" ”

........

As more and more boulders broke through the walls, the whole warehouse began to crumble, "The roof is going to collapse!" "I don't know who shouted, I saw the sand and gravel falling on the roof of the warehouse, and the Tang army in the warehouse was so frightened that they panicked and rushed to flee outside, only to hear 'boom!' With a loud bang, a large part of the roof of the warehouse collapsed, and dozens of soldiers who had not had time to escape were crushed in the warehouse.

However, due to the fact that the mud walls in the warehouse had been piled up to a height of one zhang and five feet, and the collapsed roof, the height of the mud bag wall in the entire northwest corner had reached one zhang and eight feet, which was only two feet shorter than the other city walls, which made Wang Junkuo breathe a sigh of relief.

At this moment, a soldier stumbled and rushed to report, "General, Su Dingfang, the general of the Sui army, has led the army to attack the head of the northeast corner of the city!" ”

This news immediately stunned Wang Junkuo, it turned out that the trebuchet attack was just a false attack, in order to attract his own soldiers to build the northwest corner of the city wall and lower the defense of the city wall, but the Sui army attacked the city head in the northeast corner on the other side.

"The whole army goes to the wall and fights the enemy to the death!"

Wang Junkuo knew that the general trend was gone, but in order to buy time for the main force of the Tang army retreating south, he decided to fight to the death. (To be continued.) )