Emperor Zheng Yao saw this scene in his eyes on the top of the Pingchang Gate Tower, although he didn't hear what Zheng Rong said because of the distance, but he saw Youyan's army slowly retreating, and hurriedly ordered the forbidden army gathered under the city to follow and pursue.

The forbidden army of the imperial court, which was lucky to avoid death, saw that the Youyan army gradually retreated, but the banner was strict and clear, and the array of troops behind the palace was murderous.

Seeing the unenterprising appearance of his soldiers and horses, Zheng Yao became more and more angry, and issued several holy decrees in succession, urging the army to attack.

Although Zheng Yao is not powerful, he is still the emperor and cannot blatantly disobey the holy decree.

Therefore, several generals of the forbidden army under Luoyang City discussed with each other, and no one wanted to be this bird. So they each sent 5,000 soldiers and horses to form a dense formation of 25,000 people, just to drive Youyan farther away, so that they could make a difference.

Unexpectedly, although the Youyan army retreated, they did not relax their vigilance at all. Seeing that the imperial forbidden army came to pursue, the troops behind the palace immediately advanced to resist the enemy's advance, and the cavalry on both wings also turned around in a large circle at the same time, taking advantage of the situation to attack the two wings of the forbidden army.

The imperial forbidden army was originally a newly defeated army, and it only thought about making contact with the Youyan army, and then retreated, and was not ready for defense, so it was completely unable to resist such a fierce offensive - under the simultaneous attack of the Youyan army on three sides, it immediately lost its fighting spirit and dispersed towards the capital Luoyang.

After two successive blows under the capital, the morale of the forbidden army finally collapsed completely, and the formation that was originally a little orderly suddenly became a mess, and countless soldiers trampled on each other and poured towards Pingchang Gate.

There were also many imperial court sergeants who saw that the Pingchang Gate was crowded, so they turned around and rushed to the Xuanyang Gate and Kaiyang Gate on both sides, thinking of trying their luck at these two gates and trying to see if they could enter Luoyang.

Fu Kui, the secretary of the military department who accompanied Emperor Zheng Yao to watch the battle on the top of the city tower, saw that the soldiers and horses of the imperial court were defeated, and hurriedly started: "Holy Lord! Our army is newly defeated, can we take advantage of Zheng Rong's lack of progress, open the Pyeongchang Gate, let the defeated soldiers enter the city, and after recuperation, in order to fight again? ”

Zheng Yao glanced at Fu Kui and said: "The good fighters of the ancients, there are allusions to the destruction of the cauldron and the battle against the water, if I give the order to open the city gate now, then who will dare to go out of the city to challenge the swallow thief in the future?" Even if they barely get out of the city, who will sacrifice their lives to fight? ”

Zheng Yao's words were reasonable, leaving Fu Kui speechless.

I also heard Zheng Yao say to the eunuchs beside him: "If the decree goes down, the twelve gates of the capital will be closed, and they cannot be opened without my will!" ”

This holy decree was passed on, and the officials and soldiers outside the city were suddenly in an uproar - more than half of them lost their armor and fled in all directions; There are also thousands of people who turned around and went east to seek refuge in Youyan King Zheng Rong. Among the remaining soldiers who remained in front of the Pyeongchang Gate, I don't know who got up, drew out his official knife and slashed at the wooden gate, vainly hoping to smash this heavy city gate with the thin blade in his hand......

Youyan's army, as Zheng Rong promised, did not take advantage of the chaos to attack, and slowly retreated.

The imperial officers and soldiers who stayed in front of the Pyeongchang Gate cut for more than an hour, until all the blades in their hands were lost to bladeless pieces of iron, and they themselves had back pain and exhaustion, so they lay on the ground and stopped their meaningless actions.

Emperor Zheng Yao, who was on the top of the city tower, saw that the Youyan army had left the capital very far away, and really had no intention of attacking the city by taking advantage of the chaos, so he left a will of "Pingchang Gate continue to be closed, open the Xuanyang Gate and let the forbidden army enter the city", and returned to the imperial city under the protection of countless imperial forest guards.

However, Zheng Yao was always afraid that these forbidden troops entering the city would be mixed with Youyan spies, and they would take advantage of the dark moon and high wind to enter the imperial city and take their lives.

So Zheng Yao issued an order overnight to let the military department designate a fixed military camp for the troops to enter the city and station, and send other officers and soldiers to take care of it. In this way, instead of strengthening the defense of the capital, the forbidden army weakened the already stretched garrison.

Zheng Rong was not idle here.

After the next big victory in Luoyang City, Zheng Rong ordered Zhong Likuang to be responsible for disrupting the soldiers of the forbidden army who surrendered, registering them, and then sending the corresponding troops to Tongguan, where Zheng Xin, the eldest son stationed in Tongguan, was in charge of taking care of them.

Zheng Rong also ordered his third son, Zheng Sen, and the rebellious general Cui Nan, to lead the light cavalry and launch continuous attacks, and wiped out all the participating officers and troops around the vicinity of the capital Luoyang.

Only then did he set up a large camp of the Chinese army in front of the east city wall of Luoyang, and he wanted to use Qiu Yizhi's strategy to collapse the city wall in one fell swoop and capture Luoyang, the capital of the world's leaders.

Qiu Yizhi had already made preparations, so he divided the eighteen bandits who had become more and more proficient in tunneling technology into six groups, and each led 500 soldiers from miners, river workers, and well drillers to excavate in six different directions on the east wall of Luoyang.

At the same time, Zheng Rong listened to Zhong Likuang's suggestion and drafted a notice to reassure the people, which was written:

The puppet emperor Zheng Miao misbehaved, killed his father, framed Zhongliang, listened to traitors, and poisoned the people. Zheng Rong, the king of Lone Youyan, is the son of the first emperor and the brother of Emperor Daxing, in order to ensure the stability of the Han Dynasty and the health of all the people in the world, he raised troops in Youyan, fought fiercely in Henan, crisscrossed Heluo, and hoarded troops in Luoyang. There is also a Yanshi county order to resist stubbornly, Lone Ben does not want to kill more good people, how can the destiny of heaven return, rain thunder, at that time collapsed the Yanshi city wall, it can be known that Zheng Yaotian is angry and resentful! Therefore, the soldiers and civilians in Luoyang City, who have spared their lives, must not do the act of using the mantis arm as a car, and leave the Luoyang city wall immediately, otherwise it is inevitable that the sky will be unpredictable, and the jade will be burned!

The general Zuo, who ordered the army to read the text and ink, copied hundreds of copies overnight, together with the "Revenge Text" drafted when the army started, and shot into the Luoyang city wall with a strong bow and crossbow.

The people in the city found the documents and circulated them one after another, and the people in the capital were panicked for a while.

When Zheng Yao, who was cowering in the deep palace, saw this leaflet, he immediately became angry and ordered the Quanshan Division to go out in a big way to collect and destroy the leaflets that were shot into the city. The soldiers of the common people in the capital, who had privately passed on the discussions, were immediately thrown into the prison of the Criminal Department as soon as they were discovered.

But the Youyan army outside the city shoots hundreds of leaflets every day, and the more tightly the court arrests them, the more people risk being killed and imprisoned to spread them around, and how can they be collected?

But he persuaded the good division to obey the emperor's personal order, and he didn't dare to slack off, so he had to search house to house, which made the people in the capital panic for a while, and the people were not happy. Emperor Zheng Yao was still too busy to take care of himself, how could he have the heart to restrain what others did, so he let the eagle dog of the persuasion Si Si do evil outside.

The ministers of the DPRK and China, such as Zhang Chaohe and Shi Liangzhi, also gave a few words of advice, but Zheng Yao did not accept it, so angry that the ministers complained of illness and did not go to the court again.

I don't know which eunuch in the palace said that he had found a Taoist with high mana from the Taoist temple who could curse Zheng Rong to death for Zheng Yao. Zheng Yao believed this absurd remark at such a time when everyone was betraying his relatives and leaving.

So he built a Dharma altar in the imperial garden of the palace, found out the Taoist robes that his father wore when he first cultivated, the magic tools he used, and the scriptures he recited.

Outside the city, Zheng Rong was not in a hurry to attack the city, but ordered Zheng Xin to step up the transfer of grain and grass from Tongguan, Zheng Miao tightly blocked the passage of Dasanguan, and the rest of the generals set up camp and practiced every day, just waiting for Qiu Yizhi to dig the tunnel and then collapse the Luoyang city wall, and then lead the army into Luoyang City.

Qiu Yizhi's side is not going well.

The topography of Luoyang, as Shi Dajian said, has a water vein underground, and if it is dug a little deeper, a lot of water seeps out of the tunnel. Don't say that gunpowder is set in it, but it is even more difficult to pass normally.

However, Qiu Yizhi knew that the capture of Luoyang was the key to the final success of the rebellion, and he must not leave anything to chance, so he ordered that whenever the tunnel seeped water, it should be re-excavated, and it was necessary to ensure that the Luoyang city wall must be blasted open six gaps.

However, the bandits and bandits under Qiu Yizhi did not learn the skills in Shi Dajian's hands, and they did not know the ability to recognize the soil and identify the position, so they could only dig in the direction of the Luoyang City Wall very blindly.

In this way, I have been digging for nearly a month, and only two of the six tunnels have been barely dug through.

At this moment, a cold wind blew, and the weather immediately became cold.

This summer, Kannai Province was very hot, and winter came very early, and the temperature dropped very quickly. It has not yet reached the winter solstice, and the weather is already freezing near the Guannai.

Zheng Rong saw that the army under his command was still dressed in autumn clothes, so he strictly ordered Zheng Xin to immediately transfer leather clothes, cotton clothes and other warm clothes from Youyan Road to prevent the soldiers from frostbite. Youyan Road was originally in the bitter cold land of the north, and there were a lot of warm clothes usually prepared, but now the passage from Youyan Road to is unimpeded, so Zheng Xin was a little attentive and sent nearly 100,000 pieces of winter clothes to the front line within a few days.

There is no such good thing in Luoyang City.

Luoyang has a large population, and food, clothing, tools, etc., all rely on the surrounding transportation and supply. Now that Luoyang City has been surrounded by Youyan's army, how can foreign materials be transported into the city?

When Zheng Yao planned to defend Luoyang, he transported millions of stone grain into Beijing, so the supply of grain and grass for the army and the people was not yet tight, but he did not expect to prepare clothes and bedding for the winter. Therefore, if the people in the city want to keep out the cold, they either pay a high price to buy the few remaining warm clothes and quilts, or look for wood and coal to burn for warmth—in short, the people of the capital have been miserable and complaining in the bitter cold of winter.

However, God doesn't seem to have the slightest sympathy for the benevolence and righteousness of the people in the capital, the north wind blew one after another, and became more and more cold, but inadvertently helped Zheng Rong and Qiu Yizhi.

It turned out that the cold weather had frozen the mud tightly, and although it caused great trouble to excavate, it also froze the groundwater that had infiltrated everywhere into ice.

In this way, with the permission of Zheng Rong, Qiu Yizhi sent an additional 2,000 elite soldiers, stepped up work day and night, and finally dug all six tunnels under the Luoyang city wall before the arrival of the winter solstice.

At the same time, Qiu Yizhi specially transferred the classics of the Tianzun Sect from Guangyang City, set aside a special area in the Youyan camp, and prepared 4,000 catties of gunpowder by himself according to the detailed records in the classics. He also selected dozens of soldiers from the army who were quick and calm, and transported the gunpowder into the tunnel in two days, and the other party was at the foot of the Luoyang city wall, and only waited for Zheng Rong to give an order, so he lit the gunpowder fuse to turn the Luoyang city wall into rubble.

Youyan King Zheng Rong is also waiting, waiting for the completion of the gunpowder preparation of Qiu Yizhi, and the arrival of the winter solstice.

Although Zheng Rong's several rebellious essays and Anmin's notices were written in a high-sounding and righteous manner, he knew very well in his heart: Zheng Yao, this kid, is far inferior to himself in terms of talent, experience, and popularity, but after all, he is the son of heaven; Only by constantly winning can we stabilize the morale of the army and win the hearts of the people, and if the war is unfavorable or protracted, it will be difficult to ensure that the world will change!

Therefore, when Qiu Yizhi completed all the preparations, Zheng Rong still deliberated and discussed for a few days, and then made up his mind - to attack the Luoyang city wall on the day of the winter solstice!