Liang Ziyu racked his brains, and he couldn't figure out what went wrong in his judgment - did the Shu thieves really go straight out of the Meridian Valley? How the hell did they get here? Could it be that tens of thousands or even more people and horses squeezed into the narrow valley road together, walking for half a month or even longer, and the road beckoned to guard the valley mouth, without being aware in advance? The old man is disobedient, and if it is!

But we also have spies in Hanzhong, if thousands of people win food and travel quickly, they can't find it for a while, or even if they do, it's a step too late, and it's too late to spread the news, there is still something to say; As for the movement of more troops and horses, it is impossible to strictly keep secrets, block news, and not be noticed by the spies.

Besides, if it is to shoulder the food, how many people and auxiliaries will be needed? Can the Shu thief take it out? If it is transported by car, on the narrow road of Meridian Valley, there are only plank roads feasible in many places, and the speed cannot be improved at all.

What's the problem? Is it a suspicious tactic?

Liang Xi actually guessed correctly, Pang Tong used the strategy of suspicious soldiers, first made Liao Chun lead some soldiers, one pawn raised two torches, and the two pawns were separated by more than a foot apart, and rushed out of the camp and went straight to the east, pretending to block the citrus road and Changmen; then Zhao Yun led some of his soldiers, also arranged, went around the city to the north, and pretended to occupy Weiqiao; As for the "big army" that appeared from afar in the end, it was a thousand people under the command of Fu Wei, who originally guarded Ju County.

- Pang Tongxin said that I plan to die here, what do you care about the back road, we don't want to do it in Juxian County!

Liang Ziyu lacked experience in leading the army, and he didn't think about declaring the city just because he was pondering and speculating with him repeatedly. The enemy is nothing more than a suspicious soldier - even if a large force has arrived. To boost morale. You'll have to be sure you're a suspicious soldier. As a result, the news gradually spread from the city, and the soldiers and civilians in the city were all panicked, and it was rumored that General Xiahou was seriously injured in the battle, and Chang'an was no longer defensible......

As for Xiahou Nan, as soon as he heard the news, he hurriedly packed his bags and planned to run away - fortunately, he had too much property, and he was reluctant to throw it away, otherwise it was estimated that he would not be able to find a trace that night.

Wait until the red sun rises. The Wei army defending the city looked out of the city, good guys, the camp tents of the Shu army were more than twice as many as last night, extending to the end of the field of vision - in fact, the real camp was nearby, and the distance was just a fake tent built up by cutting wood and cutting grass overnight. Those who have experience counted on their fingers: this is estimated to be almost 20,000 people, and then last night there were about five or six thousand people who went to the east, and another five or six thousand people who went to the direction of Weiqiao...... That's not much like the number of soldiers and horses in our city......

One spread ten, ten spread hundreds, and when it reached the city, it turned out to be "Shu thieves 100,000 troops out of the meridian to attack Chang'an!" ”

Fortunately, the Shu army did not attack the city that day, but saw someone logging from a distance. I guess I'm going to build siege equipment. Liang Xi didn't sleep all night, and patrolled the city with two black circles. A few people who spread rumors and failures were caught on the streets, but they failed to suppress the general panic.

After a day, the defenders of the city began to nap, and suddenly heard a drumbeat that shook the earth, and saw several fire dragons coming out of the enemy camp again, but this time they came straight to the city. When Liang Xi heard the news, he hurriedly put on his armor and went to the city, and when he looked from afar, he saw thousands of enemy troops holding torches high and marching forward.

The enemy attacked at night, but Liang Ziyu breathed a sigh of relief. He estimated that holding the torches high last night and opening the tent this morning was indeed just a suspicious tactic, and if the army was out of the meridian, why didn't he attack it during the day, but came over at night? It was evident that there were not enough troops, so they were afraid that reinforcements would arrive, so they hurriedly attacked at night after resting for a day, and wanted to use the cover of night to make it difficult for us to accurately judge their number.

So he beckoned all the defenders to go up to the city, prepared bows and crossbows, and waited for the enemy to come within a hundred paces, and then looked at the fire.

In fact, in a big city like Chang'an, there are moats outside the city, and there are sheep and horse walls, if it is really a defense battle, it should be placed outside the army city, and these two barriers should be used to greatly kill and injure the besieging soldiers and horses. It's just that because Xiahou Nan returned from defeat and his morale was low, no one dared to stay outside the city anymore, so he had to take a step back and defend the city wall.

Seeing the enemy troops marching forward, they did not enter the range of a hundred paces, and stopped a hundred and fifty steps from the city wall. Liang Xi raised his left hand, ready to give the order to shoot, and he didn't know whether to continue holding it up—it was really tiring—or put it down for the time being. What does the other party want to do? Is it planning to form a whole queue and rush down to the city in one go? But you didn't carry a ladder or a door or anything, so how are you going to cross my moat?

He was puzzled, but when he saw that the enemy soldiers spread out left and right, and turned into three lines, they immediately stuck their torches on the ground and took their bows and arrows off their shoulders. Wei Bing looked at each other - what is this trying to do? Even if all of you are Taishi Ziyi's resurrection, it is impossible to shoot that far, do you plan to rely on archery to fill the moats? Not to mention a few thousand people, with a hundred thousand, how many rounds of arrows do you have to shoot to fill the trench with those thin arrow shafts? Isn't that!

When I looked closely, I saw that the enemy army opened its bow and aimed at the city, and then a drum sounded, and the strings were loosened one after another. Those feathered arrows were bubbling with sparks on their buttocks, flying dozens of feet upwards, and suddenly the fire was in full bloom, burning violently, and then suddenly accelerating, flying everywhere like fireflies - the firelight pierced the night sky, as if weaving a huge fire net, and Wei Bing was dazzled!

Don't say it, nearly a tenth of the rockets were shot at the head of the city, and the ones that were nailed to the wooden corner towers and watchtowers immediately burst into flames; There were even more than a dozen arrows that flew extremely far, flew directly over the city, and fell into the city.

There was the uninformed Wei Bing who couldn't help but shout: "Isn't it a demon Faye?!" There are also those who understand, but the panic is even worse: "This is the flame arrow made by Taiwei, how can the Shu people also use it?" Liang Xi was completely dumbfounded, but fortunately, he quickly calmed down and shouted: "This flame arrow, although it can reach far, it is difficult, don't be afraid!" "The herald ordered to put out the fires in the city quickly.

In fact, the burning power of black powder is only ordinary, and the problem is that the things that are commonly used to ignite fire in these years are only firewood, grass, and grease, which burn more slowly than black powder, so in the eyes of ordinary soldiers, this fire speed is quite terrifying. Especially the dozen arrows that came into the city. Soon the dwellings in the city were set on fire—the houses that were usually built against the walls were all poor. The houses are all thatched. The climate has been quite dry lately, so that's not the case. The city was in turmoil because of this.

In fact, as early as in the chapter on city defense in "Mozi", it was mentioned that when defending the city, the houses along the walls must be demolished to avoid being ignited by enemy rockets. Liang Ziyu is not ignorant of this reason, but he has not yet judged the exact strength of the Shu army, thinking that the fierce offensive and defensive battle will not break out for the time being, so he loves the people. The demolition of the house has not yet been ordered......

The Shu army fired several rounds in a row, and there was chaos in the city and the city, and Liang Xi spent a lot of effort to finally reorganize the soldiers and finally extinguish the fire. Just breathed a sigh of relief, and suddenly saw a fire rising in the direction of the north gate, and then a small school came to report: "The thief has entered the north city!" ”

It turned out that Pang Tong launched a night attack in the south of the city, shooting with flaming arrows, and he himself knew that it would not have much effect, at most it would create chaos for a short time. Just crush the morale of the defenders in the city. This was a plan to attack the west, and Zhao Yun took advantage of the fact that the defenders' attention was turned to Nancheng. He personally led hundreds of daredevils to sneak outside the northern city in the dark, threw ropes and climbed onto the city. Immediately, Zhao Yun rushed into the city and set fires everywhere, causing even greater chaos in the city.

In fact, just these hundreds of people entered the city, and there were still tens of thousands of Wei troops in the city, as long as they were properly commanded, they would soon be able to make dumplings all of them. The problem Liang Ziyu is still in the south of the city, and his prestige is not credible, many of the generals under his command do not obey orders, the lack of unified command near the north gate, coupled with low morale, and Zhao Yun's troops are all elites in Shu, each with the heart of death, so under the chaos, it is completely out of control.

In the end, the morale of the Wei soldiers completely collapsed, and they opened the east and west gates one after another and fled out of the city; Liang Ziyu had no choice but to keep Xiahou Nan out of the east gate - Zhao Zilong only used hundreds of soldiers to successfully grab the strong city of Chang'an!

The news spread to both the east and the west. Cao Zhen in the east was forced to garrison Xinfeng and did not dare to go forward - didn't the previous report say that the Shu army had less than 10,000 people out of the Meridian Valley, how could it capture Chang'an City? When the enemy situation is not yet clear, I still pause and wait for Taifu to come together. And the three generals of the West, Zhang He, Xu Huang, and Le Jin, originally heard the warning of Chang'an, but they each sent thousands of people to help, and when they heard about it, Chang'an City was lost? Le Jin panicked and hurriedly came to the rescue in person.

Le Wenqian guarded martial arts, and his departure was equivalent to emptying the Fu Luo crossing, Zhang Fei spun out of Fu Luo and easily captured Wugong County. Immediately, Zhang Yide did not go east according to the original plan to reinforce Chang'an City, but went west to Yixian, cooperated with Guan Yu, who came out of the Bao Slope, and attacked Xu Huang - Xu Gongming's two fists were invincible and four hands, and he was forced to abandon the city and retreat to Yongxian. Only Zhang He still stayed in the key pass of Chencang, fought for three days, and finally repelled the Shu army Wu Yi all the way out of the old road.

The news of the great chaos in Guanzhong and the fall of Chang'an reached Luoyang earlier than expected—but thanks to the power of carrier pigeons—the Cao Wei court was shocked when they heard the news.

You must know that Chang'an is not an ordinary city, but the old capital of the former dynasty and the state of Yongzhou, which is actually the core of Guanzhong. At the end of the Han Dynasty, Guanzhong was in turmoil, the household registration was scattered, and there was no one in ten, until it was Xun Zhijie who suppressed the appeasement, and the generals such as Lu Bu and Ma Teng attacked and destroyed Li Dao and Guo Yan, and then recovered Chang'an. In the nearly 20 years since then, Yongzhou has also been mostly attacked by soldiers, Ma Chao, Liu Bei and others have come to fight each other, but they have never been able to get close to Chang'an City. Guanzhong's household registration gradually increased, and the number of taxes amounted to half of Henan, and the city defense of Chang'an was gradually repaired, and the merchants were scattered, which was the first in Hexi. Therefore, Shi Xun once suggested that the capital of Chang'an should be established, although this proposal was over, Cao Wei still took Chang'an as the capital of the West - who would have thought that in an instant, this city could change hands!

In particular, the location of Chang'an City is in the east of Yongzhou, Fufeng County in the west, Fengyi County and Anding County in the north, and even the entire Liangzhou, which has been completely separated. If Liu Bei takes advantage of Chang'an's solidity and gains a firm foothold in Yongzhou, then the west can capture Liangzhou and unite with Lü Bu, and the east can go out of Taolin to threaten Henan and directly attack Cao Wei's central capital Luoyang. Having already won three of the four parts of the world, and the momentum of unification was about to be achieved, the bureaucrats felt that the foundation that they had thought was inexorable was shaking violently - like an earthquake.

Hundreds of officials talked about it, and there was a lot of panic on their faces. Shi Xun couldn't help but stand up and shout: "Even if Yong and Liang are lost, the strength of the country is more than three times that of a thief, why be afraid?!" Then he raised his wat to Cao Cao: "Victory and defeat are common things for soldiers, and the loss of a city is not shaken." If you want to send a rescue quickly, echoing the three generals Zhang, Xu, and Le, it is still possible to revert to Guanzhong. Your Majesty is invited to make a hasty decision. ”

Cao Cao was so angry that his eyeballs were about to burst out, and he scolded him: "Xiahou Zilin is really a dog!" Then I thought about it wrong, Xiahou Nan is his son-in-law after all, and he scolded him for being a pig or a dog, so what is his daughter? What's wrong with you? So he changed the topic and roared: "How can the Shu thief also know how to use the flame arrow?!" "The gunpowder is produced exclusively by me, it is a military secret, who leaked it?

An order was immediately issued, Xie Zheng was arrested, and he was strictly interrogated. (To be continued.) )