In June of the eleventh year of the Great Cause, the Central Plains has begun to enter the summer, and the sun hanging in the sky has begun to shine, and the hot summer has arrived. Outside the Saiwai, June is already a good season for water and grass to flourish, and cattle and sheep begin to grow fat.

However, Yanmen, which lives between the Central Plains and the Saiwai, is still gloomy and miserable at this time, and the wind is calling. For the Sui army trapped in the lonely city, the current days are sad, and even every day that passes, it is like suffering. The city has begun to supply food in limited quantities, and I heard that if it weren't for the 200,000 people in the city, almost half would have died. It is impossible for everyone to even have a daily dry meal now, and it is estimated that they can only drink porridge like water for a long time.

The hot summer has arrived, and every evening, the people and women of the city will wrap towels around their heads, and gather the corpses of soldiers who have died after a day's fighting. The piles of soldiers' corpses were focused on a few open places, and when night fell, they were burned into huge fires, and the foul smell of corpse burning wafted throughout Yanmen City, and this disgusting smell was everywhere.

And whenever the corpses were burned in the city, basically the Turks outside Yanmen would also pick up the corpses of their own fallen soldiers in the city and burn them. Although the people of the Central Plains pay attention to the safety of entering the earth, and the grassland people do not have the custom of burning corpses, both sides know that in such a summer, if the corpses are not burned in time, in case of a plague, it will mean something.

As usual, as the sky grew dark, huge columns of black smoke began to burn up outside the city. The stench wafted in the wind, and everyone knew that it was burning corpses again. Yanmen had been besieged for ten days, during which the Turks carried out two large-scale and tragic sieges on the first and third days of the siege. In the two sieges of Light, the defenders of the city have lost more than 50,000 dead. Together with the rest of the seriously wounded and unable to fight again, there were less than 40,000 soldiers in the city who could fight.

The Turks were no better, especially the next day when they continued the siege on a large scale, and the one time after dawn they insisted on continuing the siege, caused great damage to the Turks. There were 150,000 Turks under the city, as many as 70,000 were killed in battle, and there were more than 10,000 seriously wounded and disabled soldiers and horses in the battalion. At this time, there are less than half of the people who can fight. Of the 300,000 troops that marched south, only half of the Turks remained.

Since those two fierce sieges, the Turks have made several more sieges, but they have been small-scale sieges, and they have no meaning other than leaving corpses on both sides in vain.

Li Shimin went to the city and looked far away, wanting to see his father leading the main army of the Hedong Army in Taiyuan to arrive, but it was hopeless to climb again and again, and what he saw was still only the Turkic golden wolf Daxu erected high on the opposite side. He was disappointed, the smell of dead bodies still wafting everywhere in the gray sky, and there was not the slightest sign of reinforcements arriving. This kind of waiting and expectation made him a little desperate, a kind of desperate and unobtainable disappointment.

He then turned to inspect the sentry posts and the defensive units. At this time, there was a succession of soldiers in various parts of the city, and columns of soldiers who had handed over their squads dragged their tired bodies towards the camp, their feet staggering. The costumes of everyone in the queue are really varied, because in summer, when the soldiers set off from Hedong, most of them wore spring clothes. It's hot right now, but there's no summer clothes. Everyone had no choice but to tear off the tattered jacket and uniform, hang the torn pieces of cloth on their bodies, and then put armor on the outside. Some soldiers didn't even bother to put on that bit of cloth, and put on bright light armor on the outside bare-chested, looking very embarrassed.

Watching his subordinates walk by, Li Shimin's heart was very complicated. These veterans who have been through a hundred battles are so hungry that they walk as if they are about to fall down at any time. They are tired of toil, lack of sleep and sleep, have nothing to eat, only hunger; There is no sleep, only hard fighting. The infantry struggled to walk, their trembling hands barely holding their spears. Even the Xuanjia heavy infantry, who were imposing on the battlefield, were now nothing more than a group of skeletons in iron armor. By now, these tall and strong men could no longer even put on a full double layer of infantry armor and hold the heavy steel spears in their hands.

A large number of soldiers in the city were wounded, but at this time there was not enough medicine in the city, and if they could not stand it, they could only become part of the fire in the dark night the next day. …,

However, even so, Li Shimin's 3,000 soldiers and horses who were incorporated into the Xuanjia Battalion of Zuotunwei were still the troops in the city at this time with amazing combat effectiveness. Every time the war drums sounded and the horns blew, facing the Turks besieging the city, this army, which looked like it was about to collapse, once again dragged steel guns and scimitars to kill.

After finishing his tour of the city, Li Shimin went straight to Feiyun Temple. Now flying to the temple has been heavily guarded by the Praetorian Guard, since Yang Guang was hit by the arrow, all kinds of rumors in the army continued, as a last resort, yesterday Emperor Yang Guang dragged the injury and pretended to be unharmed and went to the city again to comfort the three armies. When he was at the head of the city, Yang Guangqiang endured the pain, but when he returned to Feiyun Temple, the imperial doctors were startled, and the emperor's wound burst open, and the blood stained several layers of clothes inside. Without waiting for the imperial doctor to treat the wound, Yang Guang fell into a coma, and did not wake up until several imperial doctors rescued him for a long time.

It was at this time that several people in charge of the government and the emperor decided to block the emperor's temporary palace, Feiyun Temple, and strictly forbade anyone to pass on the emperor's message. Even those officials in the city who wanted to see the emperor had to get the consent of all the people who participated in the politics and the emperor, and anyone who passed on the emperor's physical condition would be killed.

The guards went in and asked the queen and the other seven people before leading Li Shimin into Feiyun Temple.

Walking into Yang Guang's house, Yang Guang's face was pale at this time, and he was lying on the soft couch listening to Su Wei and other ministers of political affairs report on the military situation. Seeing Li Shimin come in, Yang Guang reluctantly raised his body and asked, "Hasn't your father arrived yet?" ”。

At present, the city is becoming more and more critical, and only Li Yuan of Taiyuan is the closest in the entire Great Sui, and only he has nearly 100,000 troops in his hands who can come in the shortest possible time.

Li Shimin shook his head, "The minister estimates that it won't be long before the soldiers and horses from Hedong will be able to arrive." When the city inspected the city defense just now, it was found that among the large camps of the Turks, several troops and horses had just been sent out of the camp in succession, and it was observed that there were at least about 20,000 people. The minister predicted that either the reinforcements from the imperial court Taiyuan had arrived at the border of Yanmen. Either it was the 100,000 Hebei soldiers and horses of General Pei Renji of Hebei who arrived at the Flying Fox Pass. ”

As soon as the news came out, everyone in the room was excited. Even on Yang Guang's pale face, there was a hint of ruddy. It is not a possibility, it means that there will be 100,000 strong troops to help immediately, and the siege of Yanmen will be solved at that time.

Pei Yun on the side looked at everyone extremely happy, but his face was still heavy and said, "In addition to these two reasons, there is another possibility, which will also make the Turks send troops out of the camp." ”

"What is the reason?" Li Shimin turned his head and asked pretending to be puzzled, in fact, he had already thought of that possibility in his heart, but he was unwilling to say this possibility after saying his hope, so that everyone was disappointed.

Sure enough, Pei Yun muttered, "There is also a possibility that the Turks are running out of food and grass, so they have to send people and horses to look for food." ”

The Turks besieged the city for ten days, and the daily food consumption of the 150,000 troops under the city was a huge number. When the Turks came, they did not bring any food at all, and all the food was plundered on the spot. After besieging the city for so many days, it is very likely that the Turks have run out of food, so they eagerly sent soldiers and horses to transport grain to the various cities they had captured before.

As soon as they heard such a possibility, the originally excited faces of Yang Guang and the others darkened completely.

Li Shimin looked at everyone's expressions and said loudly, "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that tonight is an opportunity. At present, the Turks have only 70,000 or 80,000 soldiers, and now they have sent another 20,000 horses. The minister thinks that we can take advantage of the middle of the night tonight to go out of the city and attack the Turks at night. ”

Yang Guang looked at Li Shimin with some surprise, all the people in the city were thinking about how to defend the city, but he was the only one who could think about how to go out of the city to counterattack the Turks. Although Yang Guang was a little worried in his heart, in case of failure, the already small number of troops in Yanmen City might be even smaller, so he would not be able to hold Yanmen. But thinking about the reinforcements that have been waiting for a long time. Thinking of Princess Izumo, who was originally going to be sent away three days ago, she has been struggling to find a chance. Yang Guang's eyes flickered, and after thinking for a long time, he finally said, "Tell me about your plan, how to attack the Turks at night?" ”

Su Wei on the side said loudly, "Your Majesty, by all means, although you are trapped in Yanmen City right now, the soldiers and horses from Hebei and Hedong are not far from here. Even all parts of the world must have received the edict of King Qin and are leading troops to come. As long as we hold on for another ten days and a half months, as soon as the imperial army arrives, the siege of Yanmen will be lifted. Now that he is so calm, he may have an accident if he makes a risky move. Your Majesty, at the moment when the Turks suddenly left the camp with several troops and horses, how can we not know that this is the tactic of the Turks to lure the enemy? ”

"A strategy to lure the enemy?" Yang Guang shook his head, "Na Shi Na." Duji is just a barbarian on the grassland, how can he know these strategies. The last time he feinted to attack Xicheng, he made a strategy to attack the west, and you also saw his strategy. What's more, I believe that General Li must have a well-thought-out plan. It's not that Yang Guang doesn't believe Su Wei's words, but now there is less and less food in the city, and there are fewer and fewer soldiers and horses, plus he is worried about the situation in Hebei, and he urgently needs Yang Ji'er to rush to Liaodong, so he can only gamble again at this time.

Seeing that the emperor was so resolute, everyone wanted to persuade him again, but at this time they couldn't say anything. Everyone had no choice but to turn their eyes to Li Shimin to see how he came up with a foolproof ......,