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After the barbarian vanguard general Chaolu was killed, it greatly boosted the morale of the soldiers and civilians of Dunhuang City, and Li Mao once again became the hero of the city!

The government also withdrew the secret agents arranged near Xu's house, and soon the news spread throughout the city, and the three aunts and six mothers-in-law in the neighborhood also came to Xu's house to apologize.

But Li Mao didn't know these things, from the time he decided to assassinate the barbarian general, he had thought that before the barbarian army withdrew, he would never return to the Xu family, and only in this way could he avoid implicating the Xu family.

In fact, from the day Li Mao successfully assassinated Chaolu, he did not have a chance to return to the inner city, he was temporarily recruited by General Fan, and was specially responsible for preaching on the city wall and in the military city to cheer up the officers and soldiers defending the city.

The military now needs to establish a hero, a hero who can defeat the myth of the barbarians, this hero is, of course, Li Mao, and in the following three days, Li Mao made at least dozens of speeches, which also made the border army and the city defense army's fear of the barbarians and the sense of panic about the war drop a lot.

In the early morning of the fourth day after Chaolu's death, the people of Dunhuang City woke up to the sound of gongs and drums, horns, and shouts of killing.

After three days of preparation, the barbarian coalition army finally came to take revenge today, in order to increase the difficulty of defense for the defenders of Dunhuang City, the barbarian coalition army was divided into two ways, the army of the Mengyuan Empire attacked the north gate, and the armies of the Western Regions and the Western Fan attacked the west gate, and the war on both sides started at the same time.

When countless barbarian warriors wearing animal skin armor lined up from the snow line out of sight, the Tang army on the city wall began to stir.

With the overwhelming, unsightly enemy army spread across the snowfield, constantly pressing forward, this powerful deterrent force, so that the Dunhuang City defenders who have not experienced a battle for many years feel dizzy and weak under their feet, many of them have never seen blood at all, how can they withstand the crushing of this kind of military momentum.

At this moment, suddenly the drum sound on the city wall in the north of the city immediately attracted the attention of the Tang army on the northern front, and I saw a man in snow-white clothes standing on the battlements, waving the drumstick in his hand vigorously, hitting a huge snare drum.

It can be heard that he does not know how to beat the snare drum of the Tang army, but his vigorous and powerful percussion quieted the restless Tang army on the northern front, and the previously panicked snare drummers quickly returned to their positions, picked up the drumsticks and beat them along with his rhythm.

The Tang army in the west of the city was also in chaos, and suddenly heard a military drum from the north of the city, although it was not a standard military drum sound, but the rhythm was simple and the drum sound was powerful, which gave people great encouragement.

The general of Chengxi was stunned for a moment, and immediately reacted, and asked the drummers of Chengxi to beat the drum along with the beat of Chengbei.

Soon the snare drums in the south and east of the city also beat to the beat, and at this time, the war drums of the whole city rang out, and the sound shook the sky.

Li Mao swung his drumstick vigorously and shouted with all his strength: "Victory! Victory!"

Soon this simple slogan spread throughout the city, and the soldiers defending the city shouted "Victory!" with all their might, as if to vent their anger and fear in their hearts!

The rhythmic shouts really helped to increase morale, and after a roar, most of the Tang troops defending the city with stiff hands and feet seemed to have their strength back on their bodies, and their hands and feet could be used normally again.

The officers immediately commanded the border army to go up to the city wall to fight, and all the personnel who operated the city defense equipment were also in place in time, and the bed crossbows, crossbows, bows and arrows and other sharp weapons for defending the city were well prepared on the city wall.

The battlements of Dunhuang City have been raised to the height of more than one person, and the battlements are also about five feet, and the defenders can hide behind the battlements and fire arrows directly from the battlements.

The city defense army quickly transported all kinds of fortification materials to the city, and arrows, wood, stones, hooks, and fire oil were continuously delivered to the city walls.

The Mongol army was led not by cavalry or infantry, but by a group of slaves with heavy wooden shields and shovels, who rushed desperately towards the snow cliff line under the blows of arrows.

Their charge had only one purpose, to smooth out the gap between the snow and ice, otherwise the Mongol army would not be able to reach the city walls quickly, and the siege equipment would be even more difficult to reach.

A large number of Mengyuan archers followed behind the slave soldiers, relying on their strong arms and excellent bowing skills, constantly shooting arrows at the city, hoping to suppress the archers in the city.

A large number of slaves died on the road, and more slaves came to the snow cliff, as soon as they reached the top of the snow cliff, they would throw away their shields, use the wooden shovels in their hands to quickly dig up the hard snow, and scatter it on the ice below.

These slaves could often only dig a few shovels of snow before being shot by the city's bows and arrows, or squeezed off the cliffs and falling on the ice below.

As more and more slaves fell off the snow cliff and more snow was shoveled off the ice, finally an hour later, the slave soldiers opened a snow slope more than two miles wide and five zhang long on the snow cliff at an extremely painful price, so that the follow-up troops could attack in formation and not be completely suppressed in the narrow passage by the defenders of the city.

The first stage of the strategic goal was achieved, Su He immediately ordered the withdrawal of the army, a horn sounded, and the remnants of the slave soldiers fled back to the main formation under the cover of the archers.

More than 3,000 corpses of slave soldiers were left on the battlefield, most of which were mixed with the snow and became part of the snow slope, and the death was very tragic.

It only takes a quarter of an hour for the dead slaves to be frozen so hard that they melt into the snow and cannot be dug out.

The archers of the two sides suffered casualties to each other, and the Tang archers took advantage of the protection of the battlements and shot arrows from the top of the city to the bottom of the city to occupy a certain advantage, but the Mengyuan archers also shot and wounded many Tang troops with their accurate archery and strong arm strength.

In general, the Mengyuan archers died more, the Tang army was more injured, and the Tang army won a small victory in the first battle.

The Western Regions and Western Fan coalition forces in the west of the city were not as good as the Mengyuan soldiers in terms of the level of tactical coordination and the execution of strategic intentions, leaving more than 4,000 corpses, but only opened a snow slope for one and a half miles, and finally the whole army was defeated and returned, instead of retreating to their own positions in an orderly manner like the Mengyuan soldiers.

The two sides rested for a while, and at noon, Meng Yuan's second wave of attacks arrived, and the slave soldiers who were still holding the shield rushed to the front, and the slave soldiers behind were carrying various sacks and straw bags on their heads, and the bags were filled with sand, gravel and soil, and they rushed all the way.

They quickly crossed the slopes, threw their sacks or straw bags on the smooth ice, and immediately turned and ran back, intending to make a non-slip path on the ice.

The defending generals of the city were furious, pulled out the bed crossbow that he had been reluctant to use, and shot a few arrows angrily at the small leader of the Mongolian army who commanded the slaves to carry the sand bags in the distance.

The slave soldiers were panicked for a while, and the efficiency was obviously low, and then the law enforcement team of the Mongolian army pressed up with giant axes and sledgehammers, and the slave soldiers quickly returned to a state of death.

The two sides fought on the ice for three days, but the Mongol army paved a road nearly four miles wide under the city wall in the north of the city, which meant that the Mongol army could launch a siege attack in this four-mile-wide section of the city wall.

On the same day, the Mongol army sent troops to cut down giant trees in the distance rushed back, and the whole Mongol army rested for two days, and their generals made a battalion to make a batch of tall and cumbersome siege shafts and ladders.

Finally, a brutal siege battle began, because the number of siege equipment was limited, and the Mengyuan soldiers could only carry out each attack around a very narrow section of the city wall.

At the beginning, the Tang defenders in the city also relied on the height of the city wall and various city defense equipment, and the defense was not leaky, which caused great damage to the Mengyuan soldiers.

On the fourth day of the siege, the first Meng Yuan soldier finally stepped on the city wall, although he only stayed on the battlements for less than two breaths before two spears pierced his body and fell from the city wall.

But his small step encouraged more Mengyuan soldiers who were already desperate, from this day on, every day there were Mengyuan soldiers who could attack the city, and the number of them was increasing, and the stay was getting longer and longer, although each time they would eventually be surrounded and annihilated, but let the Mongolian army outside the city see the hope of breaking the city.

The Mongolian army began a more frantic attack, only ten days, more than 40,000 people were killed and wounded under the north wall of Dunhuang City, each time the Mongolian army would leave a large number of corpses to retreat, they never collected their own corpses.

The Tang army in the city scolded the Mongols for being ruthless, but a few days later, the defenders of the city found that the situation was wrong, and the Mongol army left the corpses not because they were ruthless, but because they wanted these dead soldiers to continue to fight for the siege of the city.

Soon, the corpses of these soldiers and horses killed in battle, mixed with fragments of various siege equipment, were stacked not far from the lower edge of the battlements.

Immediately after that, the Mongolian soldiers in the brigade would rush up the stairs of these dead people with sacks and branches, ready to lay a flesh and blood staircase under the north wall.

If it weren't for Fan Yunchao's timely arrangement to scatter a large amount of fire oil to burn the corpses under the city, the northern city wall of the city would almost have been taken advantage of by the Mongolian army.

The battle in the north of the city was very brutal, with heavy casualties on both sides, but they did not give an inch, showing the fierceness of the Mongolian army and the tenacity of the Tang army.

The battle in the west of the city became more and more interesting, and it took more than ten days before the armies of the Western Regions and the Western Fan paved the sandbag road under the city wall.

Only twice a day, morning and evening, the barbarian army in the west of the city will send one or two thousand people to set up one or two wells or ladders to pretend to charge the city wall, if they encounter a strong counterattack on the city, the siege troops will immediately throw down the well or ladder and flee back, as long as they retreat, the Tang defenders in the west of the city will not deliberately let go of arrows to chase and kill, and the two sides have a tacit understanding in the west of the city.

The general of the Mongolian army, Su He, was the commander of the coalition army, as if he did not know what was happening in the west of the city, and he still waved his army every day to attack wildly.

By December 26, when 200,000 men and horses from the second division of the Western Front of the Mongolian army arrived at Dunhuang City, Su He's men had only more than 80,000 Mongolian troops left.

The commander of the second division of the Mongolian army is General Batu, Batu's tribal population and the number of warriors far exceed that of the Suhe tribe, and Batu's own rank and status in the Mengyuan country are also above Suhe, so as soon as he arrives, he will take over the position of Suhe's coalition commander.

When Batu saw Su He, Su He's face was haggard, his eyes were red, his lips were chapped, and his whole person fell into a state of madness, and he kept shouting to attack.

Seeing Su He's state, and hearing that the Suhe tribe had almost lost half of its personnel, Batu blamed Su He again, and asked Su He to lead his troops back twenty miles to rest, and the north wall was replaced by Batu's main attack.

When Su He heard this order, a smile appeared on his face, and then he passed out.

He attacked desperately before, fighting to the death, just to let the country know that he had done his best, to avoid the Golden Horde Khan's blame, sure enough, although the Su Hebu exhausted the slave soldiers, but kept most of the warriors of his clan, now he can finally retreat, the goal is achieved, he will naturally faint.

The Western Regions and the second part of the Western Regions also arrived on the 27th, and the Western Regions added 120,000 troops, and the Western Regions increased their troops by 50,000, plus the Western Regions and the Western Regions had no more than 10,000 casualties in the early stage, and now there are as many as 360,000 barbarian coalition troops in the west of the city.

Two days later, half of the Chengxi coalition army divided its men and horses, bypassing Dunhuang City to prepare for a sneak attack on the Hexi Corridor, the main purpose was to solve the problem of food for the troops.

The defenders of Xicheng can only report the movements of the Western Regions and the Western Fan army in the rear, but they are powerless to stop it, 100,000 defenders against 700,000 siege troops, especially the Mongolian army in the north of the city, the combat strength is strong, almost half of the defenders of Dunhuang City are contained, and the slightest carelessness is in danger of breaking the city, and the Dunhuang defenders have done their best.

The remnant sun is like blood, shining on the head of Dunhuang City.

Today is December 29, and tomorrow is the most important festival of the Chinese people every year -- Chinese New Year's Eve, and the defenders of Dunhuang repelled the attack of the Mengyuan army for the 14th consecutive day.

There is a four-mile-long corridor of flesh and blood on the wall in the north of the city, where thousands of Mongolian and Tang warriors die every day.

The nearly six-zhang wide city wall is covered with dead bodies, minced flesh and blood every day, and if it weren't for the reservists who take turns to clean up and eradicate the blood that freezes into ice, this place would have been unusable for a long time.

The reservists also exercised their courage by cleaning the city walls, and many people who had not been on the battlefield would vomit for the first time, and after a few times, they would be numb.

All those who cleaned the city wall would consciously bypass a blood-clad man who was looking south with his back to the wall, their eyes full of reverence, for fear that their voice would be too loud and disturb the hero.

The clothes on his body were originally white, and he was first called the "Hundred Slashing Heroes", later called the "White-clothed Zhuanzhu", and now known as the "Bloody God of War".

In fact, he didn't even have a military membership, and he took the initiative to participate in the war from beginning to end, but he fought to the death at the head of the city every day, encouraging the defenders in the north of the city with his own martial arts, and it is said that no less than 700 Mongolian troops died under his sword.

He did not speak to his colleagues every day after the battle, but just stayed silently for a while, and then went into the corner tower on the city wall to rest, and the next day he still came out to fight to the death, so repeatedly and so tenaciously.

As long as the defenders in the north of the city can see his bloody clothes flying in front of the battle, their morale will be high and they will fight to the end, which is also one of the important factors for the defenders in the north of the city to resist the attack of Meng Yuan's soldiers.

Today, Li Mao was routinely in a daze behind the battlements, silently reading in his mind: "New Year's Day is coming, I don't know if the second sister and third brother are good, I'm afraid that my brother will die here, you have to take care of yourself!"

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