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The sound of the city gate slamming resounded in the night sky, and the rumble seemed to knock on the hearts of the people in the city, making their hearts beat with the rhythm of the rushing cars outside the city. After the previous impact, their hearts also rose to their throats, and they took a deep breath and held their breath, until the moment when the city car hit the city gate again, they sighed, and their hearts beat violently for a while, until the impact subsided, and the heart that had just fallen was lifted again.

This cycle repeats itself, and it is torture for people, and it is really fearful, and life is worse than death. But the reason why they were hanging their hearts was that they didn't want to die, for fear that the army outside the city would rush into the city and kill and plunder wantonly, thus harming their own lives. Ants are still greedy for life, let alone humans?

Just as they were watching the sound of the crash outside the West City Gate, there was a knock on the door outside the window, both at their own door and at the door of the neighbor's house around them, and the streets and alleys were filled with knocking sounds.

The moment they heard the knock on the door, all the people living in Ping'an Lane in Nancheng were excited, and almost all the heads of households (the men in charge) climbed to the lattice window and peeked out through the walnut-sized hole. Immediately they saw the Taishou and the officials in the yamen of the county government, and then the eldest son of the old Zhang family on the street opened the door with courage, and then saw the Taishou say a few words to him, Zhang Da didn't say a word and turned back home, and after a while he came out with a shovel and followed behind the Taishou.

After seeing this scene, the people who were peeping at the window understood that Taishou and his subordinates were here to recruit strong men to defend the city. In recent years, this situation has been relatively rare, and this is because Yingchuan County is under the jurisdiction of the Jin State. Since the beginning of the third year of Jian'an, there has been no war in Yingchuan and even the whole territory of Yuzhou. But before that, it was not uncommon to knock on the door in the middle of the night to recruit young people to defend the city. You can meet each other at both ends in almost every three days. The people of Yiyang Zhai City are no strangers to this.

Before, the people weren't keen on this kind of thing. After all, fighting is to kill people, once the men of the family are handed over to help defend the city, if it is defended, it is fine, if the city falls, everyone who participates in the defense of the city will die, and no one will be spared. In addition, at that time, they had nothing, their families were poor and white, and there was no overnight food. After eating the last meal and not the next meal, I don't know where tomorrow will be after today. Therefore, they don't care if the city will fall, anyway, no matter who occupies the city, they don't have a good life, so it doesn't matter who occupies the city. But tonight is different, or rather not the same as before.

Now, after four or five years of accumulation of stable life, plus they have been given the land. Almost every family has built a new house, and they have a good life without food and clothing, and the family has savings, even if they don't farm for a year. Nor will they starve. Therefore, whether the city falls or not is closely related to their net worth and life, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is closely related.

After all. The good days at present are not easy to come by, and the people cherish them very much. It can be said that cherishing is like life, and someone is attacking the city at this time. It is tantamount to not wanting them to live a stable life, and wanting to take away their hard-earned food, how can they agree? For these civilians who have come from a hard life, whoever wants to take away their existing qiē, they will fight with whomever they want.

Therefore, when the people saw that Taishou personally came to recruit strong men, almost every family took the initiative to open the door and let the strongest man in the family take the handy iron guy out and follow Taishou to defend the city. In this way, Tai Shou Changlin's task of recruiting strong men has gone very smoothly, and hundreds of young men have been recruited just by knocking on the two rows of houses in Ping'an Lane. Then without him coming forward in person, these young people can come forward on his behalf, contact the young people around him, and then like a snowball, the range is getting bigger and bigger, and there are more and more young people.

In less than half an hour, the youth of the whole city were mobilized. This is an extremely powerful force, the number of people has far exceeded the defenders of the city, the enthusiasm is high, the fighting spirit is strong, compared to the defenders who are fighting on the city tower at the moment.

Compared with the enthusiastic commoners, the families of the city sergeants, families, and powerful gentry were unusually quiet, and they closed their doors one after another, and there was hardly a glimmer of light around the huge courtyard. It is clear that until the situation is clear, they would rather stay on the sidelines and watch than act rashly. Although they had no good impression of Emperor Jin, were not very satisfied with the current situation, and did not fully recognize the rule of the Western Jin Dynasty, they were also not interested in the unknown forces attacking the city at this moment, and they were extremely unoptimistic about them. Because the current situation has shown that the Western Jin Dynasty is the most powerful force among the three vassal states in the world, and its strength is far superior to that of the Southern Han and Northern Wei dynasties.

Since Yingchuan County was incorporated into the territory of the Western Jin Dynasty, although the major families and powerful gentry were suppressed by a certain amount of Chengdù, the land, servants and maids were ordered to be reduced, causing them to suffer huge losses; But as the shops earned more and more money, and the business became better and better, they made up for their previous losses over the years. It's just that the land has turned into gold and silver, so that the land in their hands is less, but the wealth they have has not diminished at all, and they still live a rich and noble life, as long as they do not violate the law and abide by the law, they will not be suppressed again, and they will not suffer losses for no reason. Therefore, they have gradually accepted the rule of Li Li of the Western Jin Dynasty, are accustomed to the current life, and have personally realized the superiority of the current law, which has both restrictions and protection, and is not blindly suppressing the scholars and the powerful as rumored by the outside world.

Because of this, in recent years, many big families and powerful people in the city have received olive branches from the Southern Han Dynasty and the Northern Wei Dynasty, but they have not accepted the co-optation, and have always been specious prevarication and unclear attitudes. Take tonight's sneak attack on the city as an example, some of their families received a message from the Southern Han Dynasty in advance, promising heavy profits, and wanted them to dispatch the family Ding Guardian to cooperate with the Jingzhou army that infiltrated the city to capture the city gate. But now the battle for the city gate has begun, but there is no place for them.

??????“ The sound of "bang bang" continued, and the battle outside the city gate intensified, and the fierce battle was in full swing.

Rushing cars hit the city gate again and again, hundreds of ladders were erected on the city wall, and thousands of Jingzhou soldiers climbed the ladders one after another, trying to climb the top of the city and engage the defenders in hand-to-hand combat. However, the space under the city wall is limited, and there is a moat not far behind him, so that more than 20,000 Jingzhou troops cannot be put into the siege at the same time, and only go up to attack the city in batches, which gives the defenders a chance to breathe, and then increases the difficulty of the siege.

Most importantly, in order to hide their whereabouts, the soldiers and horses led by Xu Shu did not carry heavy siege weapons, and the strongest long-range strike weapons were simple ballistas and two improvised assault vehicles, in addition to all weapons were ordinary weapons, knives, guns, shields, bows and arrows, etc. All their expectations were pinned on a sneak attack on the city gates, trying to seize them in one fell swoop, and then the army swarmed up and took the entire city.

But now a quarter of an hour has passed, and the gates are still closed. The defenders on the city tower were originally only 500 people, but when Jiang Qin led 2,000 soldiers and horses to hit the city gate, 2,000 archers suddenly appeared on the city. As the defenders of the city increased to more than 2,000 people, the siege pressure of Xu Shu's army increased dramatically, so that Xu Shu thought that he could capture the city gate with one blow, but now a quarter of an hour has passed, and the city gate is still as stable as a rock.

Fortunately, the defenders at the head of the city also paid heavy casualties during this time, and less than 1,000 of the 2,500 defenders have been killed so far. In contrast, the Jingzhou army suffered three times as many casualties as the defenders, losing 5,000 men and horses in just a quarter of an hour, the most heavy casualties in any siege battle.

Time passed little by little, Xu Shulema stopped by the moat, looked up at the fight on the head of the city, his mind was highly nervous, his left hand clutched the reins, his fist clucked, his right hand clenched the hilt, and the sword was quietly drawn halfway.

"Where is Wei Yan?" Wei Yan heard the sound and came out of the queue, and came to Xu Shu with a horse.

At this time, when he saw Xu Shu pull out his sword, he said in a deep voice: "Looking at this situation, Zhou Tai has already missed, and we have to send it when we are ready to shoot." At this point, there was no good way but to attack the city gate with all his might. Lao Chang Wen personally led a large army to attack the city, and I led the army to follow up and crashed open the city gate at any cost! ”

Wei Yan looked at Xu Shu with a surprised expression, but unexpectedly, the volley met Xu Shu's cold and sharp gaze, and suddenly looked at each other, Wei Yan's eyes flashed, and he was stunned in his heart, and responded: "No, the last general will take the order!" Immediately he turned his horse and led his five thousand men and horses straight to the city gate.

After riding his horse and running for more than ten steps, Wei Yan turned his head suddenly, glanced at Xu Shu again, and secretly said: "No wonder the military advisor (Pang Tong) jokingly called him a Xu madman, a scribe has such a fierce murderous aura, this time it is considered to be a long insight!" Looking at this posture, it seems that he wants to personally lead the army to attack the city, with me Wei Yan here, do you need a literati to charge into battle? ”

As soon as he thought of this, Wei Yan jumped his horse and raised his sword, and while riding his horse and rushing towards the city gate, he shouted loudly: "There are only a few hundred defenders left in the city, there is no need to worry, all the soldiers will attack the city gate with me." The first person to enter the city gate would have promoted him to the third rank, rewarded him with 100 taels of gold, 10 jars of fine wine, and a beautiful woman! ”

"Kill into the city! Kill--" Wei Yan's loud offer of reward attracted a positive response from all the soldiers, but when he saw the 5,000 soldiers running wildly, their running speed was comparable to the speed of Wei Yan's sprinting on horseback. There will be brave men under the great reward. Wei Yan has always been a man of words, and he has won the support of the soldiers, and since he promised in public this time, the soldiers under his account naturally believed it to be true, and rushed to the city gate with the strength to eat.

―――――――――――― To be Continued ―――――――――――――――― (To be Continued......

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