Although the capture of Linhuang City will complete the primary task of the Left Route Army of the Northern Expedition, this can only be regarded as the first step of the Long March compared to its entire deployment. On the one hand, Zuju to the west of Linhuang City, Huaiju to the northwest, and Gyeongju further away need to be captured. On the other hand, beyond the Great Khing'an Mountains, there were more than one-third of the Khitan territory, including the Zhubu (Tatar) tribes, the Wugu tribe, the eight enemy tribes, and a large area of land further west that needed to be subdued in cooperation with the Central Route Army. Therefore, after the Northern Expeditionary Left Route Army occupied Linhuang City, it only took a short rest and left Wu Peng to lead a battalion of the "Flying Dragon Army" and two regiments of the "Security Army" to stabilize the order in the city, and its main force left the city and marched west on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar to kill the governor of Zuzhou.

First, the distance between Changba and Linhuang is only about fifty miles, and the battle in Linhuang City is in full swing, and it is impossible not to hear a little movement on the side of Zuzhou Changbacheng. Second, the Khitan people living in the northern city of Linhuang City also needed to have their own people who were familiar with their situation to appease, and Xiao Jixian and Xiao Daxiang did not continue to march west with the army. Therefore, the main force of the Left Route Army of the Northern Expedition did not use stratagem and deception as in the previous capture of Linhuang City, but purely relied on its own strong force to fight a real battle of the city.

Although there are so-called "intellectuals" like Xiao Jixian and Xiao Daxiang who betray their own nation, the country, and the king for the benefit of themselves and their families, and there are also so-called "people who are forced to surrender by the form" for the sake of the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers under their command when the back road is broken and there is no hope of victory, but there are also many so-called "unyielding people" who die for the sake of the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers under their command when the back road is broken and there is no hope of victory. And Yelusha, the supreme commander and decision-maker in the Khitanzu governor's tyranny, is precisely the latter.

Speaking of which, Yelu Sha, who is the prime minister of the Khitan South Mansion, should have accompanied the Khitan Emperor Yelu Jing in the "Spring Bowl" at this time, instead of staying in the small Ancestral Governor Bacheng. But as soon as it came, at the beginning of spring, Yelusha accidentally suffered from a cold and was unable to go to Changchun Prefecture with Yelujing because of his poor health. Second, after learning that the Zhou army had occupied Yongzhou, Han Kuangsi was worried that there would be any mistakes in the mausoleum of Liao Taizu Yelu Abaoji and his father and ancestor in Zuzhou, so his body had not completely healed, and it was not suitable for Yelu Sha, who had marched east with his army to King Qin, rushed to Zuzhou to strengthen the defense of Changba City. Therefore, the Khitan guard who is now guarding Zuzhou has changed from the original little thorn history to Yelusha, the prime minister of Nanfu, who is a high lord. As an important Khitan minister and a descendant of Yelu, even if he knew that he was a young man with a temporary organization, and only about 7,000 soldiers and horses in his hands could never be the opponent of more than 40,000 Zhou troops outside the city, but Yelu Sha was not afraid, while ordering people to strengthen the city and defend it tightly, while sending people over the mountains and mountains to go to the Wugu Enemy Lie Commander Army Division and the Northwest Road Recruitment Division to ask for reinforcements, and sent an envoy to urgently inform the Khitan Emperor Yelu Jing who was in the "Spring Bowl", to inform him of the details of the battle in Linhuang Mansion, and ask the other party to make plans as soon as possible.

Of course, although he sent a messenger for help, Yelusha, who knew the steppe shape well, didn't really think that the Khitan garrison responsible for suppressing these steppe tribes, the Wugu Enemy Lie Commander Division and the Northwest Road Recruitment Division, would risk the rebellion and rebellion of the grassland tribes and send a large army to support him. You must know that even in the past when the Great Liao was strong, the grassland tribes were also subdued and rebelled, not to mention the decline of the Great Liao now, and the Liao army has not won a victory since the Zhou army invaded the north. What's more, even if the grassland tribes didn't stick a knife in their backs, the two divisions that had already sent tens of thousands of soldiers and horses to Linhuang Mansion to help the battle under the order of Han Kuang's heir Han Liu, it would be impossible to send many reinforcements to confront the Zhou army in a hurry. Therefore, for Yerusha, sending people to ask for reinforcements is just a knee-jerk reaction, and what is really reliable is the 5,000 Khitan soldiers and horses guarding the ancestral tomb - as for the 2,000 young men who were temporarily summoned, because most of them were Han and Bohai people, in the face of the surging Zhou army, Yerusha did not expect them to fight to the death, at most they were to fill the façade, put on a show, and serve as coolies for strengthening the city defense and fortifications.

In order to delay the Zhou army as much as possible, so that it could not quickly kill Changchun Prefecture, so as to buy more time for his own emperor, Yelusha took great pains in the defense of Zuzhou. On the one hand, he divided the 7,000 soldiers into two parts, 5,000 men, including the Khitan soldiers, guarded the imperial ancestral governor's overlordship, and the other 2,000 men and horses protected the ancestral mausoleum area, relying on the dangerous terrain there and the existing mausoleum wall to defend it, so as to make the last resistance to protect the ancestral mausoleum.

On the other hand, under his command, the Khitan army, which was responsible for guarding the city of Governor Zu, not only made full use of all the space in the city that could resist the enemy, built a large number of barricades and dug a large number of traps, but also dug a deep trench around the entire city of Governor Zuzhou fifty steps away from the city wall, and used the excavated soil and the bricks and stones that forcibly demolished a large number of houses outside the city as materials, and built a circle of sheep and horses outside the original city wall inside the ditch to hinder the pace of the Zhou army's attack.

Under the organization and dispatch of Yelusha and the hard work of the defenders and tomb guards, from the time they learned that the Zhou army was besieging Yongzhou to the arrival of their troops in the city, the Zuzhou governor overtook the city from an ordinary city to a complete war fortress in just twenty days, so that Yang Xin and Wang Feng, who led the army to face this city, couldn't help but nod, secretly praising this Yerusha is indeed a person, far from being comparable to those Khitan guards including Han Kuangsi who he met before.

However, praise is admiration, and the battle must be fought. After surrounding the entire Zuzhou Governor Bacheng, and learning about the general situation in the city through various observations and inquiries, Yang Xin ordered the siege of the city on the morning of the eleventh day of the fourth lunar month of the seventh year of Jianlong.

At the same time, more than 400 artillery pieces and mortars of various types of artillery regiments and battalions under the Left Route Army of the Northern Expedition, as well as battalions and batteries of infantry cavalry, opened fire at the same time, focusing on the city walls on the north and south sides and the sheep and horse walls on the periphery, and fired at the city of Zuzhou for about five minutes, drowning this small city in smoke and flames in an instant.

The five-minute artillery fire prepared to completely stun the Khitan defenders in the city, and at the same time, it also blasted out a number of gaps in the sheep and horse walls and city walls on the north and south sides of the city of Zuzhou, and caused heavy losses to the Khitan soldiers behind the sheep and horse walls and the city walls.

After the fleeing Han and Bohai people were under centralized supervision, the soldiers of the four regiments of the "Security Army" quickly attacked with sandbags and dirt bags on their backs under the cover of their own machine-gun fire and cavalry on the left and right flanks, and the soldiers were divided into two directions, and pounced on the trenches outside the sheep and horse walls on the north and south sides from the north and south directions to carry out the trench filling operation. Although the sheep and horse wall and the remaining Khitan defenders at the head of the city used bows and crossbows to block and shoot at the "security army" of the Zhou army that filled the trench, some brave Khitan soldiers rushed out of the sheep and horse wall and engaged in face-to-face hand-to-hand combat with the Zhou army. However, under the heavy machine-gun fire of the "Flying Dragon Army" responsible for covering, the Khitan defenders' blocking did not play any real role. It took less than half an hour for the four regiments of the "security forces" to fill the trenches outside the sheep and horse walls on the north and south sides at a very small cost, paving the way for the ensuing attack.

At the beginning of the day, the first battalion and the second battalion of the first composite infantry division of the "Feilong Army", a regiment and a battalion of the "Security Army" and a battalion and a battalion of the second regiment, and a regiment of the "Security Army" were the main attacking forces, and under the cover of the flank cavalry, they crossed the queue of the four regiments of the "Security Army" to prevent the Khitan defenders from counterattacking the trenches, and rushed to several huge gaps in the city walls on the north and south sides of the city of Zuzhou, and killed the city.

Although the previous shelling caused huge casualties to the Khitan defenders in the city, under the supervision and encouragement of Yerusha and his generals, the surviving Khitan defenders did not collapse as quickly as the Zhou army expected, but stuck to their positions and stubbornly resisted the Zhou army that broke into the city. As the infantry on both sides began to fight face-to-face, their own artillery bombardment had to stop, and the Zhou army's artillery firepower advantage was lost. In addition, the Khitan defenders had previously built a large number of barricades, dug a large number of traps, and laid a large number of traps in the city, so that in the face of the Khitan defenders who were scattered throughout the city to sneak attack and block themselves, the Zhou infantry that broke into the city made very slow progress, and the casualties gradually increased.

Fortunately, Zhou Jun was well-trained and had a plan in place for any situation, even if it was very unlikely. Therefore, after suffering a minor setback, the two deputy regiment commanders in charge of the immediate command of the two assault clusters in the north and south immediately adjusted their deployment according to the battlefield situation, and according to the ratio of the "Flying Dragon Army" and the "Security Army" to two, they divided the two units into a number of small offensive detachments with platoons as units, coordinated with each other and covered each other, gave full play to the superiority of their own "Flying Dragon Army" infantry in individual firepower, and fought street by street, courtyard by courtyard, and even house by house with the Khitan defenders.

After nearly half an hour of fighting, the two assault forces finally met under the Xingsheng Gate at the east gate of the inner city, and after a short exchange, they again split into two ways. The northern assault group attacked and advanced along the Chengzhong Avenue with a width of nearly 50 meters in the direction of Wangjing Gate, the east gate of the outer city (Dongcheng), and swept away the Khitan defenders in Dongcheng; The southern assault group used its subordinate recoilless artillery to blast through the north-south and nearly two-zhang high walls between the inner and outer (east-west) cities, and smashed into the inner city (west).

Perhaps because of the strict orders of Yelusha and other Khitan generals to supervise the battle, or because of his strong sense of responsibility as a soldier guarding the tomb, or maybe it was just a simple military integrity, in short, the appearance of the Khitan defenders in the city of Zuzhou can be said to be the most tenacious opponent that the "Flying Dragon Army" has encountered since its establishment. Even if the entire defensive front has been cut off by the Zhou army, and defeat is only a matter of time, the Khitan defenders in the city still fight to the death, and they are desperately fighting with the Zhou army that occupies technical and tactical advantages in weapons, firepower, and tactics.

In the early afternoon, with the assistance of the 1st Regiment and 3rd Battalion, the 2nd Regiment and 3rd Battalion and the two regiments of the "Security Army", which entered the city later, as a reserve, the two assault groups of the Zhou army finally completely wiped out all the Khitan defenders in the outer city (Dongcheng), and the inner city (Xicheng) was only left on the south side of the inner city, built on a platform 10 meters long, 13 meters wide and 2 meters high, with seven complete granite stone slabs with a thickness of 40 (four walls) - 75 (top) centimeters. and Yelusha, the prime minister of the Khitan South Mansion, who led nearly 20 personal soldiers in the stone room and was still resisting.

Yerusha is so tenacious, naturally he doesn't think that he can still have a chance to turn around, he just wants to delay some more time. In his opinion, if he can delay for a moment, his emperor will have an extra moment to prepare for the enemy. It's just that what he didn't expect was that as early as after encircling and annihilating Han Kuangsi's troops, the Zhou army had already divided his troops and marched. While Yang Xin, Wang Feng, Wu Peng and others led the Left Route Army westward into Linhuang Mansion, Zeng Zhilin, Cheng Fei, Muttel and others had already led the main force of the Right Route Army to march eastward and kill Changchun Prefecture.

Still, regardless of whether or not Yerusha's delaying tactics were effective, he, his men, and the stone chamber where they were hiding still caused some trouble for the Zhou army. Because the stone chamber was made of a whole thick and solid granite slab, the ordinary light weapons of the infantry had no effect on it, and the stone gate that entered the stone chamber was tightly sealed by the Khitan defenders in the chamber with bows and crossbows, so that the regiment, battalion, and company responsible for taking down the stone chamber attacked many times in vain.

In fact, for the "Flying Dragon Army" that can collapse even a city wall several feet thick, a small stone chamber was originally difficult for this Li Company Commander. After all, no matter how thick the stone slab is, as long as you dig a pit in the foundation next to the stone wall and lay a large amount of explosives, it is enough to blow up the entire stone chamber. But the problem is that before the war, Yang Xinyang, the commander-in-chief of the Left Route Army, once issued an order to capture as many of the Khitan nobles in the city, especially Yelusha, who was the prime minister of the Khitan South Mansion, and to preserve as many sacrificial buildings with special properties in the city as possible. In this way, it can not only break the will of the Khitan generals to resist, but also reduce the resistance of the Khitan ordinary people to the Zhou army. Therefore, although he has the ability to destroy the entire stone chamber, in the face of this obviously special building, Company Commander Li can only suppress the anxiety in his heart, while trying to capture the stone chamber in a conventional way, while racking his brains to use the method of agitation to provoke the Khitan defenders in the stone chamber. I never thought that the Khitan defenders in the stone room, especially that Yelusha, would not enter at all, no matter how much he scolded, he would treat it as if he hadn't heard it, and he wouldn't come out. Seeing that the fighting in other directions in the city had gradually subsided, and that only his own side could not solve the problem, it was strange that the commander of the "Flying Dragon Army" of the "Flying Dragon Army," the commander of the first division, regiment, battalion, and company of the "Flying Dragon Army," who often called himself the first company of the "Flying Dragon Army" in front of his colleagues, was not in a hurry to get on fire.

In the end, it was his immediate boss who solved the problem for this company commander Li, Yang Xin and Wang Feng, who learned that there was a stone room that could not be attacked for a long time and specially came to inspect the situation. After learning about the relevant situation from Company Commander Li, although he understood that this stone chamber was likely to be an important facility for the Khitan people to worship Taizu Yelu Abaoji and his fathers and ancestors, and hiding in it was Yelu Sha, the prime minister of the Khitan South Mansion, who was in a high position, but considering that there were still more important strategic goals such as seizing the ancestral mausoleum area, Huaizhou, and Gyeongju, as well as subduing the grassland tribes, and more important strategic goals needed to be completed, after carefully weighing the pros and cons and exchanging opinions, Yang Xin and Wang Feng still unanimously decided not to delay too much time and immediately blow up the stone chamber, to end the battle in the city as soon as possible.

At the end of the afternoon of the tenth day of the fourth lunar month of the Jianlong Seventh Lunar Calendar, with a huge explosion that shook the entire inner city, the back wall of the stone chamber that had caused Company Commander Li a headache suddenly fell apart, and the entire stone chamber also collapsed in the powerful shock wave generated by the explosion because it lost its important support. The more than 20 people in the stone room all died, and none of them were spared. And several people, including Yelusha, the prime minister of the Khitan South Mansion, were blown to pieces because they were closest to the back wall of the stone chamber, and they did not even leave their corpses.

Looking at the stone chamber in front of them, which had become a ruined wall, and the stumps and flesh that were blown out of the stone chamber by the shock wave, Yang Xin and Wang Feng glanced at each other, and shook their heads at the same time, praising in their hearts that Yelusha and the Khitan defenders in the city who had caused nearly 300 casualties to their own side - including nearly 40 casualties of the "Flying Dragon Army" - were true heroes, and admitted that the governor of Zu Governor Bacheng could be called a rare "hard bone" since the establishment of the "Flying Dragon Army" and the most difficult to gnaw since the war with the Khitan. When they encounter an opponent like themselves that they can never defeat, they are destined to have only a tragic ending, but not a brilliant feat.

Of course, whether it is praise or sigh, it is just a flash of thought in Yang Xin and Wang Feng's minds, because the most important thing in their hearts is to complete the combat mission on time. Therefore, after taking the Governor Zu Governor to dominate the city, but after a short rest, the two of them were divided into two roads. The main force was led by Yang Xin, who stayed in the city of Zuzhou to clean up the battlefield and restore order, and sent some soldiers to go to the surrounding mountains to find the Han and Bohai people who were hiding in them because they were hiding from the war, firstly, to appease, and secondly, to persuade everyone to return to their homes and live a down-to-earth life. After all, the Northern Expedition of the Zhou army was not only to recover the homeland of the Han and Tang Dynasties, but more importantly, to receive the common people who lived on it - especially the Han people. At the same time, Wang Feng led a partial division consisting of nearly 10,000 people from the Second Regiment of the First Composite Infantry Division of the "Flying Dragon Army", the First Independent Artillery Regiment, the First Independent Cavalry Regiment, and the two regiments of the "Security Army" to continue westward and go to the Ancestral Tomb, which was about five miles away from the city of Changba, Zuzhou, to eliminate the 2,000 Khitan troops stationed there, so as to completely end the battle of Zuzhou.