Zhang Yemen blocked the Yan army again early last night, Zhu Di stopped at the head of the city, seeing that the southern army had no way to start in the face of such an ice city, and it was difficult to storm the city wall, so he simply withdrew thousands of defenders from the city, so as not to lose troops needlessly in the artillery fire.

After storming for an hour and gaining nothing, Li Jinglong had no choice but to order the army to stop the siege and return to the camp to hold out.

In the afternoon, among the marshals of the Southern Army, Wu Jie, Marquis of Anlu, Wu Gao, Marquis of Jiangyin, Geng Rong, Qu Neng, all commanded Sheng Yong, Ping'an and others looked at each other and were speechless.

"The frozen city wall, our army has no way to start, what is your best strategy to break the enemy?" Li Jinglong glanced at the demoralized generals in the tent and asked in a deep voice.

Qu Neng snorted coldly in his nose, and he no longer had the high-spirited attitude of playing generously a few days ago.

Sheng Yong recalled the white scenery between the sky and the earth covered by the heavy snow he saw today, bowed down and said: "In the humble opinion of the last general, our army has frostbite under the cold weather, and it is really not suitable to attack again at this time, it is better for the army to retreat temporarily, and then march to rebel when the ice and snow melt next year." ”

Didn't Li Jinglong know that most of the sergeants and generals in his army were southerners, and it was really unwise to fight against the Yan army, which was mostly northerners, in the middle of winter, which would only get colder? In his mind, he recalled the solemn and stern words of His Majesty the Emperor when he led the army to the expedition, and asked helplessly: "The 500,000 army has spent several months on grain and grass without calculation, and the soldiers lost under such a labor expedition and returned in vain, I am afraid that Your Majesty will not spare us and others." ” ”“

Rao is Sheng Yong was resourceful, and when he heard Li Jinglong say this, he recalled the solemn entrustment of Zhu Yunwen, the Jianwen Emperor of the Fengtian Palace, and the solemn entrustment of all the scholars, and also lamented in his heart, speechless, and secretly thought to himself: Although Cao Guogong missed the opportunity last night, His Majesty the Emperor and the adults in the court who never knew the soldiers were impatient to want to pacify Zhu Di. If the ice and snow melt and the weather warms up, the army will come against him, and Zhu Di's little trick of splashing water to build an ice city will not be able to be used at all.

Li Jinglong saw that the generals who were high-spirited a few days ago were helpless in the face of such a cold ice and snow, and recalled his predecessor, Changxing waited for Geng Bingwen to be demoted to a concubine after the defeat, and secretly thought to himself in his heart: The army has lost its troops and lost its generals, and it has been fruitless, even if Your Majesty can spare you, he will never let me Li Jinglong go. Thinking of this, I can't help but be in a dilemma and hesitate.

In the palace of King Yan of Beiping, Zhu Di looked at Zhu Quan, Zhang Yu, Zhu Neng and others who were sitting on both sides, and said slowly: "The heavy snow has frozen Beiping, the morale of the enemy army has fallen, and this king is determined to attack the enemy camp tonight. The generals must move forward with all their strength and break the enemy in one fell swoop. ”

After several days of bloody siege of the city, Zhu Quan already understood in his heart that most of the sergeants and generals of the imperial army were southerners, and if it weren't for the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen who chose such a midwinter to attack Beiping, the trick of watering and building the city would not be able to be talked about at all. If Li Jinglong, the commander of the enemy army, disregarded the casualties last night, and dispatched a large army to reinforce Qu Neng, the governor who broke through Zhangye Gate, I am afraid that Beiping may not be able to survive last night and will be breached. After several days of bloody battles, the Yan army in the city has already seen a state of panic under the heavy casualties, except for the descendants of the Yanshan guards who are loyal to Zhu Laosi, those generals who had to lead the army to return to Shun were justifiable court officials in the past, and it is difficult to guarantee that they will not have other thoughts. When the two armies were in a stalemate, Zhu Laosi urgently needed a victory to consolidate the army's heart, thinking of this, he immediately stood up and said in a deep voice: "The foolish brother is willing to go out of the city with the fourth brother to break the enemy." ”

The first heavy snow of the winter had already fallen, and Beiping was impregnable under the ice, making it difficult for the enemy to attack. The colder the weather will only be more and more unfavorable to the imperial army, and if Li Jinglong calmly withdraws the army, it is Zhu Di's most worrying thing. Because he deeply understood in his heart that if he allowed these hundreds of thousands of troops to retreat calmly, the emperor would dismiss Li Jinglong from his post under the question, and when the ice and snow melted next year, he would be defeated after all, so even though he knew that the enemy forces outside the city were far superior to his own, this risk must be taken.

Zhang Yu, Zhu Neng, Qiu Fu and others knew that they were waiting for the henchmen of King Yan since they followed him to rebel and rebel, and they all stood up and bowed down to take their fists.

Zhu Di said with a solemn face: "Brother Quan followed Brother Yu and led an army of 50,000 out of the city to fight at night. Zhang Yu, Zhu Neng, and Qiu Fu each led 20,000 horses to fight......" said such an arrangement, but involuntarily felt a little difficult in his heart. Only because of the Yan army in the city at the moment, the Ning army has a total of more than 100,000, and there is no shortage of generals who can recruit the accustomed to war, but tonight's battle is a matter of life and death, except for Zhang Yu and Zhu Neng, those who have been defeated and captured since their rebellion, or forced to submit to their own generations, but they never dare to hand over too many troops in their hands, and they must be afraid of what if tonight's melee is under, these guys lead the army to join the enemy again.

At this moment, a person behind Zhu Quan bowed down and said: "The villain is not talented, and he is willing to lead an army to attack Zhengjiaba Village." ”

Zhu Quan looked back in amazement and saw that the person who spoke was Ma Sanbao, and his face couldn't help but change slightly. Just because he knows very well that this seemingly inconspicuous place outside Beiping City on weekdays is now the tent of Li Jinglong, the commander of the imperial army, which can be described as a place where heavy troops gather.

Zhu Di frowned when he heard this, and after a moment of silence, he resolutely said: "Since this is the case, this king will hand over the 20,000 Yan troops guarding the city to you, and attack the tent of Li Jinglong in Zhengjiaba Village at night." Seeing that the young eunuch beside Zhu Quan also had such courage to not be afraid of life and death, he couldn't help but inspire the pride in his chest and decided to do his best. He knew very well that this eunuch in Zhu Quan's mansion had also fought with the army in the past, and he had been on the battlefield many times, and he was not ignorant of soldiers. The most secure thing is that he is Zhu Quan's confidant, even if he wants to surrender to the court, he is afraid that he will not escape the unforgivable crime of rebellion.

Zhu Quan knew that Ma Sanbao's move of leading the army to attack Zhengjiaba Village was undoubtedly a move of nine deaths, and he wanted to dissuade him, but when he saw the resolute and resolute attitude on his face, he couldn't help but be silent, because he knew one thing in his heart, since he joined Zhu Di's Jingnan Change, it was difficult for all the people around him to stay out of the matter, either the meritorious ministers who succeeded in Jingnan, or the rebellious ministers and thieves who were defeated and died.

At dusk, the sight gradually dimmed, with the sound of several horns and cannons, the Yan army in Beiping City poured out from all the city gates and killed the southern army camp not far from the city.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the southern army, the camp stretched from outside Beiping to Zhengjiaba Village, Zhu Di, Zhu Quan led the 50,000 Yan army to attack, the first to bear the brunt of the governor Qu Neng, all commanded Sheng Yong's garrison camp.

Qu Neng has fallen short since the night before when he broke through Zhangye Gate, and he has already held a breath of evil breath in his chest, at this time, he has to repay Yan against Zhu Di who is so bold that he went out of the city to attack, Huo Ran stood up and smiled at the generals under his command: "The anti-thieves are so rampant, and the army follows the general out of the camp to meet the enemy." ”

Sheng Yong saw that he was quite out of shape under his anger, and hurriedly bowed down and clenched his fists to admonish: "The enemy situation is unknown in the night, and our army should only stick to the camp and look forward to the governor." ”

Although Du Du Qu Neng is as hot as fire, he is not an ignorant and reckless person, and when he heard Sheng Yong's kind words and persuasion, his heart was clear. At this moment, although the imperial army still has an advantage in terms of strength, the military camp is too scattered for more than 20 miles, and although the sky is dark, although the enemy army is attacking in a big way, it is impossible to know the strength of the enemy army that is attacking. Today's siege has already made the morale of the army frustrated, if he leads the army out of the camp to fight, a careless will fall into Zhu Di's trick to lure the enemy. Thinking of this, he turned around and said in a deep voice: "All the troops strictly guard the camp, and those who are not allowed to fight without permission under the orders of this general will be immediately killed." ”

More than 100 steps in front of the southern military camp, the sound of killing shook the sky and resounded throughout the world. Thousands of Yan soldiers armed with shields and swords rushed forward against the arrows flying like locusts in the air. Behind them were countless soldiers carrying dirt bags on their shoulders, intent on filling the first line of defense in front of the enemy camp under the cover of the robes ahead, a trench several feet deep. It turned out that the governor Qu Neng and Sheng Yong were all experienced in battle, and the camp was not only made of rough wood very strong, but also dug down the trench and set up a deer pan to prevent the enemy from attacking.

The Yan soldiers were constantly hit by arrows and fell to the ground, and finally rushed to the front of the trench, forming a shield formation with the shield in their hands under the dense formation to resist the arrows that kept flying from the enemy's strong bows and crossbows.

Du Du Qu Neng was on top of a watchtower several feet high in the barracks, and saw that the torches in the hands of the enemy soldiers near the trench outside the barracks were as dense as stars, and guessed that the enemy troops had begun to fill the trenches, and immediately issued military orders.

The torches in the hands of the gunners were lit one after another, making a sneering and burning sound, and the artillery that had long been ready to fire at the wooden fence of the camp burst into flames, and suddenly there was a loud and shocking sound under the tongue of the fire.

Although the shield array can resist the arrows in the sky, this artillery is not a human force that can resist. The Yan army, who was shoulder to shoulder, was caught off guard and did not come back to his senses at all, so he was bombarded by the earth-shattering artillery fire, which was miserable. At this time, Qu Neng, the governor of the Southern Army, knew that the trench and the deer were an important obstacle to killing and wounding the enemy, so that the artillery in the army could wait for the enemy to approach the trench and then shoot flat, and give the enemy heavy damage at a relatively close range and easy to aim.

In the dark night, the huge tongues of fire spewed by enemy artillery were particularly conspicuous.

In the Yan army's formation, Zhu Quan had already roughly seen the location of the enemy's artillery, and with his deep voice, Sima Chao led his soldiers not to light torches, stumbling in the dark night, and moving more than 20 artillery pieces forward as much as possible. It turned out that artillery was the first weapon to attack the city and deter the enemy, Zhu Di faced the imperial army that was far superior to his own army, and tonight was already desperate, breaking the kettle and sinking the boat, so he simply let the army use the heavy artillery originally used to defend the city to use ox carts and carriages to pull alive here.

In the southern army camp, a group of gunners were hurriedly cleaning the chambers of the guns after the second round of firing, preparing for the next round of bombardment.

Suddenly, the sound of the enemy's artillery outside the camp rumbled, and the Yan army's artillery fire poured down, bombarding the southern army's artillery array one after another.

Seeing that the artillery fire in the enemy camp was much thinner than the others, the Yan soldiers were greatly boosted and braved the continuous rain of arrows to fill the trench in front of them with mud.

Seeing that the enemy's artillery fire had been suppressed, Zhu Quan hurried to the artillery array, pointed to the watchtowers in the enemy's camp that were several feet tall and conveyed the enemy's situation with lanterns, and said coldly: "Bomb down those wooden buildings." "It turned out that this watchtower was used as a watchtower to observe the movements of the enemy army, both day and night. The soldiers hid on it, judging the strength of the army and the direction of attack roughly by the number of enemy torches, which was actually the eyes and ears of the enemy commander to observe the enemy situation in the dark night.

After a long period of effort, the Yan artillery was aimed at a watchtower every three or four under Sima Chao's order, and fired one after another.

Although the accuracy of the artillery was not satisfactory, and many of them missed, fortunately these tall watchtowers were fixed dead objects, and under the second round of bombardment, two watchtowers were finally hit one after another.

Qu Neng, the governor of the southern army, saw that the enemy's artillery had blasted the watchtower in front of him to pieces, and he was busy crawling down, and as soon as his feet hit the ground, there was a bang above his head, and he didn't have time to think, so he hurriedly avoided.

The watchtower, which was half made of thick wood, fell in a daze of broken wood in front of him, and smashed a tent nearby.

After paying heavy casualties, the Yan army finally gradually filled the trench with mud and sand and the corpses of the robes, and rushed to the dense Lupan.

Qu Neng saw the dense number of enemy torches in front of the camp, and turned to the dense archers who were already on standby behind him, and ordered the arrows to be fired in a volley.

The bow and arrow were the most important weapon in the confrontation between the two armies, but the archers could bear the responsibility of the weak. Even if he is the best marksman, at most he will have to shoot his arms about ten times in a row, so Qu Neng does not order such a volley when the enemy is charging with a shield at dusk, and when the enemy is holding a torch and weapon, he can no longer hold a shield to defend the salvo, so as to get a large damage.

When the bowstring like rain hitting bananas sounded, countless arrows rained down on the heads of the Yan army that attacked the camp like a storm in the dark night.

At this moment, the night was dark, and in order to avoid trampling on each other in the dark night, the Yan sergeant and colonel had to hold a torch in one hand and wield a war knife in the other to chop Lupan. In a miserable cry of blood splashing, a group of Yan soldiers landed and shot down a large area of arrows like a storm.

In the Yan army's large array, countless starry rockets leaped out from the bowstrings of the Yan army's archers, and fell towards the southern army camp in the night.

The rockets that flew randomly kept coming and landed on the camp tents of the Yugoslav army, causing fire in all directions.

Hundreds of Yan sergeants with shields in their hands and canisters of fire oil in one hand rushed to the ground and sprinkled the fire oil on the deer pan and the fence.