Although Tao Qian is greedy, he is still an honest man in the final analysis, because of the idea of Yangzhou, he is somewhat weak-hearted, and he was speechless by Wei Xuan's few words. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Cao Bao saw it on the side, was annoyed and angry, and shouted: "Release the arrow!"

Arrows rained down on the city, and a salvo was fired at Wei Xuan. Wei Xuan laughed, slammed the reins, and the red rabbit horse's four hooves flew like flying, and in a blink of an eye, he returned to the field of arrows, and all the feather arrows fell behind Wei Xuan. Wei Xuan glanced towards the city, shook his head slightly, and raised his right hand. Suddenly, there was a loud "boom" sound behind the Chu army, like thunder.

The defenders didn't understand what was going on, when they saw countless large and small stones in the sky "crackling" down, and some of them couldn't dodge, and their heads were bleeding on the spot. There are also many stones that directly cross the city wall, smashing the people waiting on the inner side of the city wall, and even many houses close to the city wall have been smashed to the point that the walls have collapsed, and many soldiers and civilians have been killed and injured.

Wei Xuan also saw the power of the Thunderbolt for the first time, but he soon discovered the shortcomings of the Thunderbolt. It takes a lot of manpower to operate this kind of thunderbolt, and each car often has more than 100 people. On the other hand, the stones were scattered and inaccurate, and the damage to the walls was much lower than expected.

As a popular science teacher, Wei Xuan knew that there was a more powerful trebuchet in history, called Huihui Cannon, also known as Xiangyang Cannon, but he didn't know how to make it.

Fortunately, the Xiapi defenders also encountered the thunderbolt for the first time, and the army was in turmoil for a while, and they fled to the city one after another, Tao Qian and Cao Bao couldn't stop drinking.

At this moment, a boulder smashed into the city tower, collapsing a corner of it, Tao Qian was also injured by the broken tiles, bleeding like an infusion, embarrassed, left and right hurriedly rescued him from the city. In a few moments, there was not a single defender in sight of the city. It wasn't until the thunderclap stopped that they dared to emerge from the cantonment hole.

Seeing this, Guo Jia suddenly had a plan, and arched his hand: "The lord can make all the soldiers march forward with a nois, set up a cloud ladder to feint, and wait for the defenders to enter the city, then they will retreat and hit them with thunderbolts." If this is the case several times, the defenders will not dare to come out. And then with a bang, the city will be available!"

Wei Xuan was overjoyed, so he passed the order according to Guo Jia's strategy.

Sure enough, after being hit several times in a row by thunderbolts, the defenders heard the shouts and clamours outside the city, but they did not respond in front of another feint. Who knows, Chu Jun did a fake show this time, and rushed to the city in one go.

The defenders panicked and rushed out of the cantonment cave, wanting to drive the Chu army out of the city. However, they were not the opponents of the Chu army that had been trained for a long time and were equipped with horizontal swords. Soon, more and more Chu troops rushed to the city, killing the defenders with heavy casualties and discarding the entire city wall.

Tao Qian stabbed back at Shi Fu and hurriedly wrapped the wound on his forehead, and was about to rush back to the city to supervise the battle. Suddenly, Cao Bao led more than ten horsemen to gallop over, and shouted: "Zang Ba and Xu Sheng rebelled, the lord can get on the horse quickly, and the last general will desperately escort the lord out of the city, and go to Guangling, and then try to resist the enemy!"

It turned out that although Tao Qian was generous, he had a problem of disliking the poor and loving the rich. Zhao Yu, Cao Bao, and Mi Zhu who he reused were all from the Xuzhou Wang family, while Zang Ba, Sun Guan, Xu Sheng, Lu Dai and others were all outstanding in martial arts, but they could not be trusted because of their poor backgrounds. At this time, seeing that the Chu army had already landed in the city, Zang Ba and others knew that the general trend had gone, so they simply abandoned Tao Qian and switched to Weixuan, and there were many followers, and Xiapi City was immediately captured by the Chu army.

Tao Qian rushed out of the south gate under the escort of Cao Bao, but was surrounded by Sun Ce's army. Cao Bao came to fight Sun Ce with a spear, and after fighting for three or five rounds, Sun Ce picked up a spear, lightly stretched his ape arm, captured him alive, and asked the sergeant to tie him up. The accompanying sergeants were all killed by the Chu army, and Tao Qian had to be captured. Mi Zhu was responsible for supervising the transportation of grain and grass, and when the city was broken, he was in the warehouse, and he was also taken prisoner before he could escape.

In the era of cold weapons of "killing 1,000 enemies and losing 800 self", it took only half a day for the Chu army to conquer the fortified Xiapi City, and the loss of sergeants was only 1,000, thanks to the work of the thunderbolt.

After entering the city, only more than 400 people died directly under the thunderbolt car, and more than 300 houses were damaged, which is almost negligible compared to the more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians in Xiapi City. The deterrence of Thunderbolt is more on the psychological level. Zang Ba and the others also had the factor of being afraid of the thunderbolt, so they defected.

These are just afterwords, so I won't say them for the time being. However, it was said that after Wei Xuan entered the city, he first met with Zang Ba and others, and immediately appointed Zang Ba and Xu Sheng as Yamen generals, and Sun Guan and Lu Dai as Zhonglang generals.

After a while, Sun Ce escorted Tao Qian and Cao Bao to the front. Wei Xuan condescendingly looked at Tao Qian, who was kneeling in front of him, and said lightly: "Lonely and now take your position, but you can't stay!"

Tao Qian sighed: "Tao didn't dare to ask for forgiveness, he only asked for a rest to hurt the lives of the sergeants in this city. ”

Wei Xuan said: "He is also a Han people, and he is a lonely Han minister, why do you need to say more! The people of Lonely Jingyang live and work in peace and contentment, and they are better than Xuzhou." Remember that you are generous to the people, and you can pardon your wife, concubines, and children. ”

Tao Qian had long learned about Wei Xuan's methods of disposing of Chen Wen and others' families, and when he heard that his wife, concubines and children had been pardoned, his heart couldn't help but feel relieved.

But he listened to Wei Xuan's order: "Push Tao Qian out and behead him, all his family wealth will be used as military funds, and his wife and concubines and children will be demoted to commoners, and people will give five acres of land, and let them cultivate their own land." ”

Is five acres a lot? Not much at all. Because the level of agricultural production in this era was relatively low, it was not much better than planting widely and harvesting little. If you meet a good year, five acres of land can barely feed a person, and if you encounter a disaster year, you can only sell your sons and daughters.

Tao Qian hated the poor and loved the rich all his life, but he didn't expect that after his death, his wife and concubines and children would end up in poverty. Tao Qian was shocked, and wanted to plead, but he was pushed out by the guards, and his hand fell with a knife, and he beheaded him.

At this time, three more people came in outside the door, one was Wang Lang, one was Xia Pi Xiangrong, who was recuperating from his injuries at home, and the other was Mi Zhu's younger brother, Duwei Mi Fang. The three of them were all colorless, obviously bumping into the scene of Tao Qian being beheaded.

Wei Xuan's gaze swept over the five people, and he pointed at Zhen Rong and said, "This useless person, what good is it to keep it? ”

Zhen Rong shouted for mercy, but to no avail, and in the end, only a miserable scream fell in everyone's ears.

Cao Bao saw Wei Xuan's gaze fall on him, and involuntarily shivered, knelt on the ground with a "plop", and kowtowed again and again: "The adult spares his life, and the villain is willing to surrender!"

Mi Zhu saw him knocking his head with a bang, and immediately said shamelessly: "Cao Bao, the lord treats you well. Now the lord has been harmed by thieves, and it is time for my generation to be loyal, how can you be greedy for life and afraid of death!"

Cao Bao said: "Mi Zhu, don't you hear that good birds choose trees to perch on, and good ministers choose the master to do things? Lord Wei is wise and martial, not comparable to Tao Qian's generation." You listen to Cao's words, come down!"

Wei Xuan watched the two arguing with interest, and suddenly smiled: "Cao Bao, what can you do, want to forgive you?"

Cao Bao was stunned, and he really didn't know how to answer. He is not good at martial arts, and his talent is not obvious, so there is really no reason for Wei Xuan to value him. When he was in distress, he suddenly heard the sound of a woman crying from the back house of the Assassin Mansion, but it was Tao Qian's family who was driven out. Cao Bao perked up and immediately had an idea.