Before the siege officially began, Chai Rong did not give up his efforts to "surrender without a fight" and break up the enemy army through a political offensive. From the afternoon of the 27th lunar month of the lunar calendar when he arrived at the city of Taiyuan, he sent hundreds of elite horsemen to the city every day to shout to the city, usually for a whole day. The content of these loud Later Zhou soldiers shouted was mainly twofold, on the one hand, they counted Liu Jun's "crimes", and on the other hand, they persuaded the civil and military generals of the Northern Han Dynasty in the city to abandon the darkness and turn to the light, and to ensure the safety of the lives and property of all Northern Han officials who returned to the Later Zhou Dynasty, as well as the future glory and wealth.

Chai Rong's price to the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs of the Northern Han Dynasty is not high, and there are indeed some people among the ministers of the Northern Han Dynasty who are attracted by such conditions. But first, at this time, the military power of Taiyuan City was controlled in the hands of Liu Jun's adopted son Liu Jiye (Yang Ye), and Liu Jiye (Yang Ye) was loyal to Liu Jun. Second, with the arrival of the so-called "Beiping Army Military Advisory Group", a series of changes have taken place in Taiyuan City from the inside to the outside, and all kinds of defensive means and defensive equipment that they have never heard of and never seen before are presented in front of everyone, which also makes many ministers who were originally a little shaken see the hope of defending Taiyuan City, and gradually strengthen their determination to defend the city. Therefore, although the conditions given by Chai Rong were generous, they did not achieve any practical results in three or four days, but gave the Northern Han defenders in the city more time to improve their defensive facilities, so the means of seizing Taiyuan City finally inevitably shifted from policy to military siege.

If it had not been for the arrival of the "Beiping Army's Military Advisory Group," I was afraid that in the face of the bombardment of various firearms by the "Shenji Army" in the Later Zhou Dynasty, even if Taiyuan City was far thicker than the county towns in other prefectures, it would only be a matter of time before it was finally bombarded by artillery fire. However, with the arrival of Xin Feiyu and others, this one-sided battlefield situation has changed.

On the day Xin Feiyu arrived in Taiyuan City, after entering the palace to meet with Liu Jun, the emperor of the Northern Han Dynasty, and receiving the title of the deployment of the Taiyuan defense capital from the other party, he began to issue orders to the Taiyuan defenders. Moreover, with the full cooperation of Yang Ye, these orders were carried out very well - whether these orders were understood by the officers and soldiers guarding the city, the civil and military ministers of the court, and the people of the Northern Han Dynasty in the city.

The first order issued by Xin Feiyu was to fill in the soil bag and build the earth city. With the issuance of this order, almost all the soldiers and civilians in Taiyuan City were mobilized. Some of you sew pockets with various materials, some dig earth from outside the city to fill these bags, and some transport haode earth bags to the city and pile them up along the Xiangshang fortress layer by layer on the outside of the city wall of Taiyuan City. After several days of working day and night, before the Later Zhou army came to the city, a five-foot-thick earthen bag parapet wall was piled up on the outside of the city wall of Taiyuan City. This is not the end, while piling up the dirt bag wall, Xin Feiyu also instructed the defenders to regularly pour water on these soil bags to ensure that the soil in the bags is always in a wet state.

It is also thanks to the Northern Han Dynasty that all the people around Taiyuan were moved to the city, so that there were enough manpower to complete this almost impossible work. At the same time, a large amount of soil was needed to build up the earthen wall, and in just a few days, the Taiyuan soldiers and civilians actually dug a trench outside Taiyuan City around the entire Taiyuan City that was nearly one zhang wide and deep. The appearance of this moat gave Yang Ye, who was good at defending the city, a new idea, and he immediately ordered the water of the Fen River on the edge of Taiyuan City to be introduced into this newly dug moat, transforming it into the second moat of Taiyuan City.

Originally, Yang Ye also wanted to build a sheep and horse wall on the inside of this new moat, and arrange a certain number of troops behind the wall, so as to add a new line of defense to the defense of Taiyuan City. However, as soon as his idea was proposed, it was vetoed by Xin Feiyu and Chang Shengjun and other members of the "advisory group". Seeing that his suggestion that he was very in line with the defensive battle of the city was vetoed, Yang Ye naturally did not understand it very much, and he couldn't understand that Xin Feiyu and others wanted to veto. …,

Although he was appointed by Liu Jun, the emperor of the Northern Han Dynasty, he could completely ignore Yang Ye's opinion and force the other party to carry out his orders. But considering that Yang Ye is Yang Xin's righteous brother after all, his attitude towards him cannot be too simple and rude. Second, Yang Ye is Liu Jun's adopted son after all, and his status is not comparable to that of ordinary generals and officials in the Northern Han Dynasty. Therefore, in the face of Yang Ye's incomprehension and doubts, Xin Feiyu had to patiently explain to him: "General Liu should not be impatient, and listen to Xin explain the truth to General Liu clearly" - in order to take care of the habits of the Northern Han monarchs, after Xin Feiyu arrived in Taiyuan, he always called Yang Ye General Liu instead of General Yang.

Speaking of this, Xin Feiyu paused slightly, and saw that although Yang Ye's face was full of puzzlement, he did not mean to be annoyed, so he continued to explain: "Yes, if General Liu is facing other countries or ordinary armies of Shili, then there is nothing improper about building a sheep and horse wall behind the trench and arranging a certain number of troops to garrison behind the wall, but it is a very appropriate arrangement. But now the general is facing the Zhou army, the Zhou army with the powerful force of the 'Divine Machine Army'. Fighting this unique and formidable force can cause the tactics and tactics that have been tried and tested on the battlefield to lose their effectiveness.

For example, in the past, when two countries or two shili were fighting, the defending side could use the fortified city and hard fortress to contend with the superior enemy army. As long as there is enough food and grass in the city, the generals who are good at defending the city can defend the city for several months or even three or five years, and eventually drag the enemy troops outside the city to death. But with the emergence of Zhou Jun's 'Divine Machine Army', I am afraid that such a situation will be difficult to happen again. Because no matter how strong the city wall is, no matter how strong the soldiers, in the face of the continuous bombardment of the artillery, ballista, and gunpowder bags of the 'Divine Machine Army', there will always be a moment when the city collapses, the walls collapse, and the morale collapses. It can be said that with the large-scale use of firearms, the defensive role of the city in the war has been greatly reduced, and its liliang bonus to the defending side has been greatly reduced. Xin used so much manpower and material resources this time to put on a 'coat' composed of earthen bags for Taiyuan City, and its purpose was to deal with the artillery, ballistas and other firearms of the Zhou army's 'Shenji Army', reduce its damage to the Taiyuan city wall, so that the city wall of Taiyuan City could provide liliang bonuses for the defenders in the city for as long as possible, so that the Han army, which was weaker than the Zhou army in strength and momentum, could hold Taiyuan City for as long as possible, until the Zhou army was exhausted and dragged down by us, and Zuihou had to retreat.

As for Xin's disagreement with General Liu's construction of the sheep and horse wall on the inside of the outer trench, it was because in the face of the artillery and ballista of the Zhou army's 'Shenji Army', the sheep and horse wall, which was much lower and thinner than the city wall, could not play much defensive function at all, and would soon collapse under the bombardment of enemy artillery and ballistas. At that time, except for the casualties of the Han army, there was nothing conducive to the defense of the city. Unless we can build this sheep and horse city to be as wide and thick as the city wall of Taiyuan City, and cover it with enough dirt bags like the city wall. But now that the Zhou army is not far from Taiyuan City, we simply don't have enough time and no need to build such a large-scale Yangma City. Therefore, Xin and several other brothers did not agree with General Liu's suggestion, and I hope that General can understand. ”

After listening to Xin Feiyu's explanation, Yang Ye suddenly realized that he had thought things too simply, in the face of the firearms of the Later Zhou army, many of the tactics and tactics used in the war before were no longer applicable, and he still had a lot of things to learn from his brother-in-law, and the commander of Xin who was a few years older than his brother-in-law, as well as all the generals in the "Qingyuan" brothers.

In addition to piling up earthen bag walls to put on a thick "body armor" for Taiyuan City, Xin Feiyu and others formulated a series of defensive tactics for the Northern Han defenders according to the existing tactics of the Later Zhou army using firearms to attack the city, so that they could avoid the firearms of the Later Zhou army as much as possible and retain enough life to deal with the attack of the opposing infantry. As the core of these new tactics, when the Later Zhou army used firearms to bombard the city of Taiyuan, the defenders only kept a small number of troops on the city to monitor the movements of the infantry of the Zhou army under the city, and the rest of the horses used the hidden hole on the inner side of the city wall to protect themselves from artillery fire, and then rushed to the city head for defense after the infantry of the Later Zhou army began to attack and the firearms of the Later Zhou army had to stop firing. …,

The tactics proposed by Xin Feiyu and others to deal with firearms bombardment are actually very similar to the tactics used by Cao Jiyun, the general of Gu'an during the Battle of Youyun the previous year, the only difference is that Xin Feiyu and others did not ignore the monitoring posts that were sticking to the city, and let them use their lives to provide a short warning time for the brothers in the city, but used the corresponding materials they brought and had been transported before, and built more than a dozen observation shelters with reinforced concrete for those monitoring posts on the city. In this way, the security protection of these surveillance posts who risked their lives to go to the city was provided to the greatest extent -- with the power of the firearms used by the Zhou army after the city, this kind of shelter made of reinforced concrete could not cause serious damage.

While strengthening the defense of Taiyuan City through various jishu means, Xin Feiyu and others also psychologically decompressed the Northern Han defenders, telling them that although the firearms of the Later Zhou army were sharp, they were not divine weapons with supreme mana as the rumors said, but just some weapons with exquisite structures and the power of black powder to the maximum. A person being struck by a firearm is no different from being struck by other common weapons. There was no difference between the soldiers of the Later Zhou "Shenji Army" who used firearms and the soldiers of other branches of the Later Zhou Dynasty except for the types of weapons they used. These "Shenji Army" soldiers will also be injured and killed, and they will never be as invulnerable and possessed by gods as people rumore, which can be seen from the previous year's Youyun War, when the rear army of the Northern Expedition of the Later Zhou Dynasty was attacked by the Khitan army, and thousands of "Shenji Army" generals were killed or wounded after a fierce battle. Therefore, when fighting against the "Shenji Army" of the Later Zhou Dynasty, there is no need to be afraid or timid, just fight bravely to kill the enemy like other ordinary generals.

Through the eloquent speeches of Xin Feiyu and others, who were already close to the general existence of "gods" in the minds of the Northern Han defenders, the morale of the Northern Han defenders, who were originally afraid of the "Shenji Army" in the Later Zhou and Han armies, and thus did not have much confidence to fight against the other side, gradually rose, and the confidence in sticking to Taiyuan City gradually increased.