"This king said not necessarily, it is definitely not self-immeasurable, let alone arrogant!"

"Yes, the overall strength of Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande's two thieves together is indeed superior to our army, and our army can only ensure a safe victory when dealing with one of them alone! But why would we be stupid enough to fight these two traitors at the same time? Wouldn't it be enough to defeat these two traitors one by one? Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on eating one of the rebels first, and then free up your hands to deal with the other traitor? ”

"Don't forget, Dou Jiande is still only allied with Wang Shichong, and did not immediately send troops, now whether it is in time or space, we still have plenty of room to break Wang Shichong first, and then destroy Dou Jiande!"

Listening to Chen Fuliang's arrogant words, the Sui army's civil and military forces opened their mouths and stammered, and quickly started their heads that had been filled with poison by Chen Fuliang and carefully calculated, and then soon, the veteran Qu Tutong first asked questions and said: "Your Highness, it is indeed a wonderful strategy to defeat the enemy with less, but Wang Shichong is now guarding the city, and we want to destroy him, it is definitely not so easy?" Once this siege battle is protracted, our army is tired and demoralized under Luoyang City, and Dou Jiande leads the army to kill again, let's not say that the two strong enemies have been defeated, whether we can stop Dou Jiande's new force is a big problem? ”

"There is no need to exterminate Wang Shichong first, and Wang Shichong must not be exterminated immediately!" Chen Fuliang replied categorically: "If Wang Shichong is destroyed first, Dou Jiande will not come, so it is enough to beat Wang Shichong to a serious injury!" first beat Wang Shichong to a basic life and couldn't take care of himself, forcing him to do everything possible to beg Dou Jiande to send troops to help him at any cost, and also let him have no strength to make trouble when we fought Dou Jiande. In this way, we can use a small part of our strength to contain Wang Shichong, concentrate most of our strength on Dou Jiande, and wait for a decisive battle with Dou Jiande's expeditionary division! Break Dou Jiande first, and then go back and clean up Wang Shichong! ”

Listening to Chen Fuliang's idea of beating the wishful thinking, Qu Tutong was greatly moved, but after careful calculation, Qu Tutong still reminded: "Your Highness, this kind of tactic is easy to do, can we hit Wang Shichong hard before Dou Jiande sends troops to help, not to mention, regardless of how much military strength we have left after hitting Wang Shichong, how to hit Wang Shichong hard alone is a big problem." Wang Shichong is currently hiding in Luoyang City and can't defend it, Your Highness, you said that our gunpowder blasting tactics can't help the walls of the Eastern Imperial City, how can this be good? ”

"Yes, our current siege tactics are that it is difficult to quickly take the Imperial City of the Eastern Capital and the Outer City, but we are not afraid of the Outer City of the Eastern Capital?" Chen Fuliang said with a fluttering eyebrow: "At present, Wang Shichong has not given up the outer city of the Eastern Capital, as long as we move fast enough, while taking the outer city of the Eastern Capital, we can hit his main force hard before Wang Shichong's thief army retreats into the imperial city?" Also, Wang Shichong still has nearly 40,000 thief troops stationed in Tiger Prison Pass and Luokoucang, those two places are also rammed earth city walls, we don't need much strength to kill them, take down these two places, doesn't it not only hit the strength of Wang Shichong's thief army, but also grasp the initiative in the Central Plains battlefield, and can face him more calmly when Dou Jiande attacks? ”

Qu Tutong shut up at this time, but his expression was obviously still worried, and he was still worried about whether Chen Fuliang's tactic of swallowing elephants with snakes was too risky, and most of the other Sui army civil and military forces were also like this, only Luo Shixin, Xue Renguo and Guo Feng A few bold generals applauded loudly, believing that Chen Fuliang's tactic would definitely succeed. Chen Fuliang, who believed that he would definitely do better than the old Li family, did not hesitate, and immediately said: "That's it, first hit Wang Shichong's main force, and then seize Luokou Canghu Pass, and wait for work to face Dou Jiande!" Kill Dou Jiande, turn around and destroy Wang Shichong! ”

The dictatorship had this advantage, although most of the Sui army's civil and military forces were skeptical of Chen Fuliang's overly greedy and bold decision, but since Chen Fuliang had made up his mind, all the accomplices and lackeys still did not dare to oppose it at all, and all of them immediately began to formulate a tactical plan to destroy the enemy's main force as much as possible in the outer city of the eastern capital according to Chen Fuliang's request.

Then, some Sui army officials suggested that they first take the most important acropolis in the eastern capital, Jinyong City, and then attack the outer city of the eastern capital without worry, but after careful consideration, Chen Fuliang shook his head and said: "You can't hit Jinyong City first, once Jinyong City is broken, the old fox will inevitably be prepared in advance to give up the outer city and withdraw to the imperial city in order to preserve his strength. When besieging the city, it is enough to send an army to monitor the bandit army of Jinyong City. ”

Feeling that Chen Fuliang's words were a bit reasonable, the Sui army re-discussed the tactical plan of first attacking the outer city of Luoyang, and then Qu Tutong, Liu Heimin, Yuan Tiangang and others unanimously decided to set the main battlefield in Shangchunmen, the most open terrain, and feint to attack other city gates to contain the enemy's main attack on Shangchunmen and break the city. However, Chen Fuliang, who has always been cautious in his military style, was as crazy as a chicken blood this time, and after only a little calculation, he said viciously: "No! Shangchunmen is not the ideal main battlefield, Hui'anmen is! Feint to attack the Spring Gate, and attack the Hui'an Gate! ”

"Your Highness, the terrain around Hui'anmen is not open enough, which is not conducive to the deployment of our main force." Yuan Tiangang hurriedly reminded: "Also, Hui'anmen is close to the imperial city of the eastern capital, and the defenders of the imperial city of the thief army can threaten our attack path with bows and arrows, which is not conducive to our siege. ”

"But after our army enters Hui'anmen, we can immediately cut off the road for the thief army from the outer city to transfer to the imperial city." Chen Fuliang said quietly: "If you want to destroy the defenders of the outer city of the thief army, you can only break the Hui'an Gate first." ”

The Sui army looked at each other and smiled bitterly, and was forced to be helpless, Qu Tutong and Yuan Tiangang had no choice but to propose to attack Hui'an and Shangchun at the same time, and at the same time set up a false Chen Fuliang handsome flag outside Shangchun Gate, so that Zheng Jun could not figure out the real main direction of the Sui army, and gave priority to breaking through Hui'an Gate with elite and strong soldiers, and then broke through Shangchun Gate, and eliminated Wang Shichong's living force as much as possible in the battle in the outer city.

Chen Fuliang pondered for a long time, and then reluctantly accepted this relatively safe tactic, but he specially explained that he had prepared a reserve force in advance for the situation in the eastern capital, and immediately attacked the Luoshui Bridge after breaking the city, cutting off the connection between the southern city of Luoyang and the imperial city, so as to eliminate the enemy's defenders in the southern city. At the same time, Chen Fuliang also made an extremely insidious decision to send troops to attack the city in the afternoon and break the city at night, so that Wang Shichong's imperial city defenders were afraid that they would be killed into the imperial city by the Sui army in the dark night, and did not dare to open the city gate to let the defeated soldiers enter the city, creating more opportunities for the Sui army soldiers to kill the enemy. The civil and military forces of the Sui army accepted the order with a wry smile, and they all muttered in their hearts: "Wang Shichong, old thief, you have found our Royal Highness the King of Tang as your son-in-law, and it is really your ancestor who does not accumulate virtue." ”

In addition, while the Sui army was carefully discussing specific tactics, Chen Fuliang also called his confidential secretary Sun Fujia to the side, and whispered in his ear: "Send an absolutely reliable meticulous work to Linhuo immediately, try to get in touch with Wang Xuance, and let him induce Li Mi to instigate Dou Jiande to personally lead the army to reinforce Wang Shichong no matter what." If he succeeds, he can also take the opportunity to come back. ”

After finalizing the strategic and tactical plan, the officers and men of the Sui army immediately made full deployment and preparations, first leaving an army stationed in the Qianjin Fort that Wang Fubao snatched to protect road traffic, and then relocated the main camp to ten miles east of Luoyang, with the back of Luoshui to set up a camp to deter Shangchunmen, and at the same time threaten Jinyong City, and then immediately prepare siege equipment. Wang Shichong, who is familiar with his son-in-law's steady military style, was also really fooled, and it was expected that the unfilial son-in-law would inevitably take Jinyong City first and then attack the outer city of Luoyang, in order to buy time and wait for the Dou army to come to help, he ordered Wang Deren and Zhao Jiqing to defend Jinyong City, and at the same time deployed heavy troops at Shangchun Gate, not only to prevent the treacherous son-in-law from suddenly storming Shangchun Gate, but also to be ready to send troops at any time to properly share the pressure on Jin Yongcheng.

At the same time, in the eastern capital of Luoyang, there are some hypocritical and famous Chen Fuliang repeating his old tricks, promulgating a document to the soldiers and civilians of Luoyang, declaring that after the city is broken, only the rebel king Shichong's family will be punished, and the rest will be exempted from death as long as they surrender, and they are extremely insidious and directly named the names of Duan Da, Shan Xiongxin, Yang Qing and Yang Wang, several important foreign surnames of Wang Shichong, stating that even if they help the people to die for the crime of abuse, as long as they open the city gate and lead the army to surrender, they will not be guilty of the past, and will pardon the capital crime and reward it as appropriate. In order to divide Wang Shichong's internal affairs, he politically isolated the unpopular Wang Shichong family.

In addition, Chen Fuliang naturally had to pretend to be hypocritical and love the people like a son, and announced that all the people in Henan County would be exempted from all taxes, money and grain this year, and use this little sweetness to win over the people of Luoyang, which also further demonstrated that Wang Shichong still aggravated the injustice and cruelty of the people's forced labor in the spring ploughing season.

Although Wang Shichong strictly forbade the dissemination of Chen Fuliang's inscriptions, Chen Fuliang, who had been prepared, ordered the soldiers to shoot a large number of inscriptions into Luoyang City with bows and arrows, and arranged for soldiers with loud voices to read the contents of the inscriptions aloud under the city, so that the defenders in the city knew that His Royal Highness the King of Tang was benevolent, loving the people and kind-hearted. The result really played a little role, the overwhelmed people of Luoyang were all eager for Chen Fuliang, who had jumped into the flood for the people and plugged the gap, to enter the city as soon as possible to rescue them, and the civil and military officials of the puppet court also breathed a sigh of relief in their hearts, feeling that since Chen Fuliang could pardon the culprits such as Duan Da and Yang Qing, then as long as he surrendered after the city was broken, it would definitely not be a big problem to save his head and his life.

After seven days of careful preparation, at noon on the sixth day of the third lunar month, the main force of the Sui army suddenly made a big move, Liu Heimin led 10,000 troops north to Jinyong City, to monitor and contain the Zheng army there, and Chen Fuliang personally led 48,000 Sui soldiers to march westward, lined up at Shangchun Gate, and divided 13,000 troops to continue westward, unhurriedly lined up under the Hui'an Gate just north of Luoyang.

The unfilial son-in-law did not attack Jinyong City first, and directly attacked the outer city of Luoyang first, which Wang Shichong was also wary of beforehand, and he was not too frightened by this, but the unfilial son-in-law deployed a force outside Hui'an Gate that could not be ignored, Wang Shichong felt that something was wrong, and he also had some doubts about the true purpose of the unfilial son-in-law. However, Duan Da thought it was clever to believe that Chen Fuliang wanted to disperse the forces of the defenders of the Eastern Capital, so that the defenders of the Eastern Capital could not rescue each other when they were far away, and at the same time, it also had the effect of containing the defenders of the Imperial City of the Zheng Army and reducing the pressure on the battlefield of Shangchunmen. Wang Shichong felt justified when he heard this, so he relaxed a little, and in addition to preparing for the battle with all his might, he also hurriedly began to prepare to abandon the outer city and withdraw to the imperial city at a critical moment.

Because they carried ten heavy artillery pieces and a large number of heavy siege weapons, the Sui army's partial division, which was commanded by Qu Tutong, did not line up north of Hui'anmen until it approached Shen; During this period, the main force of the Sui army outside the Shangchun Gate under the banner of Chen Fuliang had already begun the routine artillery opening road, and twenty artillery pieces were fired ten rounds neatly, smashing the city tower of Shangchun Gate, and bombarding the defenders at the head of the city so that they did not dare to raise their heads, and also reconnoitred through fire that Wang Shichong had blocked the city gate with sandbags.

Then the trebuchet of the Sui army stepped forward, more than 200 trebuchets desperately poured stone bullets on the city, smashed the head of the Shangchun Gate into a thousand holes, and finally the long shield and archers went into battle, covering the city with dense feather arrows like a storm, the defenders of the Zheng army also fought back with bows and arrows, and the arrows in the sky came and went like locusts, and in half an hour or so, they fired a total of more than 200,000 feather arrows at each other, which was also the point that Chen Fuliang hated the most.

At the same time, the Sui army's partial division under the banner of Qu Tutong has also begun to pour artillery fire on Hui'an Gate, first bombarding the Hui'an Gate Tower, and destroying the Imperial City Deyou Gate Tower near the right, and also forcing the Zheng Army's Imperial City defenders to quickly block the city gate and road of Hui'an Gate and Deyou Gate with sandbags, and cut off the road out of the city. Then Qu Tu sent trebuchets and archers to the front to confront the defenders of Hui'anmen to consume long-range weapons reserves.

When the time was halfway through, the war suddenly stopped, and saw the soldiers of the Sui army eating dinner on the spot in the distance, Wang Shichong understood that the Sui army was definitely going to start a night battle, so he also hurriedly asked the soldiers of the self-army to hurry up and eat, and at the same time prepare a large number of torches and bonfires and other things for night battles. However, Li Shiying, an important strategist under Wang Shichong, who was second only to Dai Guan, saw that the situation was wrong, and ran to Wang Shichong to warn: "Your Majesty, the thief army only sent troops at noon, and first attacked with artillery bows and arrows, delaying the time until close to evening, and its intention seems to be to break through the outer city at night, and then severely damage our army in the street battles in the outer city, so that our army will not have enough troops available in the defense of the imperial city." For the sake of prudence, His Majesty would do well to immediately begin to arrange and withdraw troops, and concentrate on the defense of the Imperial City as a priority. ”

Listening to this suggestion, Wang Shichong hesitated for a while, but after careful consideration, Wang Shichong still shook his head and said: "Can't withdraw, the thief army has already arrived in the city, and at this time withdraw the troops and return to the imperial city, the soldiers in the outer city will definitely think that they have been abandoned by us, which will seriously shake the morale of the army and give the thief army a chance to break through the outer city of Luoyang faster." ”

It can't be said that Wang Shichong's worry is unreasonable, and even the soldiers of the Zheng army who are tired from the battle can indeed withstand the blow of declining morale and shaking military morale, so Li Shiying did not insist too much, but reminded again: "Your Majesty, then be careful of the thief army outside Hui'an Gate, if they enter the city from Hui'an Gate, they will immediately cut off the way back to the city for our main force in Shangchun Gate." His Majesty believed that it would be better for His Majesty to transfer some of the reserves deployed in Beishi in advance to reinforce the Hui'anmen troops. ”

"I don't need to." Wang Shichong laughed and said: "Chen Yingliang's thief's habit of using troops I know, before the battle is not defeated, but also first consider how to minimize the loss of soldiers, Hui'anmen has our imperial city defenders bow and arrow cover, he will never dare to launch the main attack from here!" ”

Facts have proved that Wang Shichong's guess is correct, just after the unitary hour, when the two Sui armies launched an attack at the same time as agreed, the battle on the side of Shangchunmen was obviously several times more fierce than that of Hui'anmen. In the first wave of siege alone, the soldiers of the Sui army threw more than 600 flying ladders into Shangchunmen, as well as more than 50 pointed wooden donkey carts.

Hui'anmen is only a much smaller scale of the battle, but the intensity is not actually pressed by Shangchun Gate, and in the fierce battle, the northwest corner of the Luoyang Imperial City was constantly bombarded with artillery, suppressing the Zheng army's archery troops on the city, and attacking the city with flying ladder ants at the same time, it also invested a large number of pointed wooden donkey carts to impact the city wall.

Here we must also introduce what is called the pointed wooden donkey cart, this kind of siege weapon invented by Hou Jing is a four-wheeled vehicle, the car has a roof shaped like a roof can prevent arrows, and can also effectively slide away the stones thrown down from the city, the car hides people to push the cart forward, and you can hide under the car to dig the city wall by relying on the city wall, only by concentrating a large number of boulders or dovetail torch attacks can be effectively destroyed, and it was a fairly common siege weapon in the era of rammed earth walls.

However, digging the city wall by manpower alone naturally took effect slowly, so Chen Fuliang did not attach much importance to this weapon when he used troops before, and rarely made and rarely appeared, or to the rise of another siege tactic, Chen Fuliang, who needed to effectively dig the city wall, picked up this weapon and made it in large quantities, and used it as the main weapon for siege. Be a treasure when you need it, and be a grass when you don't need it, from this point it can also be seen how realistic and snobbish our Chen Fuliang is in addition to losing his conscience.

The puppet government had actually suffered a big loss from this new tactic in the Xin'an War, but unfortunately, when the Xin'an city was broken, it was also at night, and the Zheng soldiers couldn't see how the Sui soldiers used to collapse the Xin'an city wall. Therefore, even if a certain number of Xin'an defenders fled back to the eastern capital, the puppet government still did not understand the reason for the destruction of Xin'an City, and naturally did not pay enough attention to Chen Fuliang's first large-scale dispatch of pointed wooden donkeys, Hui'anmen still focused its main forces on dealing with the Sui army's ant siege, and did not go all out to deal with the Sui army soldiers who excavated the rammed earth city wall Anyway, there were no hours of time, and the Sui soldiers did not want to dig a road into the city. And even if you dig it out, you can easily deal with it.

In addition, the strong combat effectiveness of the Sui soldiers who attacked Hui'anmen is also an important reason why the soldiers of the Zheng army have no time to take care of him, even if only one Sui soldier kills the city wall, he can usually hack to death and injure several Zheng soldiers to cover the next companion from the flying ladder to the city, so the defenders of Hui'anmen have a little strength and try to deal with the ant attached Sui army, and they have no time and energy to fight the pointed wooden donkey cart under the city.

Ignorance of the new tactics of the Sui army naturally had to pay a heavy price, after the fierce battle unconsciously passed more than half an hour, when Wang Shichong, who was sitting in the imperial city, nervously paid attention to the progress of the battle in the main battlefield of Shangchunmen, the nearby Hui'anmen partial division battlefield, but one after the other, there were two loud noises, the sound was like a huge thunder, the volume far exceeded the sound of the Sui army's artillery firing, even if the distance was far enough, it also shook the palace window lattice trembled slightly. Hearing these two loud noises, Wang Shichong first shook his head, and then an ominous premonition suddenly came to his mind, and said secretly: "What's wrong?" Don't have any accidents at Hui'anmen, even if I immediately withdraw the troops from the outer city, I will definitely lose ...... heavy losses, phew! No! Definitely not! ”

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Your Majesty is not good! ”

Soon, a guard of the imperial city rushed to the Jinluan Palace, screaming like a pig before saluting, "Your Majesty! Big things are wrong! The city wall on the east side of Hui'an Gate suddenly collapsed, and it collapsed in two sections! ”

"What?!" Wang Shichong stood up in shock, and his face suddenly turned pitch black.

"And." The guard screamed again: "Also, the banner of the commander of the thief army outside Hui'anmen City has suddenly become Chen Yingliang's banner of the Tang King!" The thieves are attacking and are entering the city through a gap in the city wall! ”

"Hit the mark!"

Wang Shichong's pitch-black face suddenly turned pale again, and the cold sweat all over his body suddenly soaked his clothes and pants, and after finally coming back to his senses, the first thing Wang Shichong did was to roar wildly, "Quick!" Hurry up! Withdraw all the defenders of the outer city to the Imperial City! Hurry up, or it'll be too late! ”