Tibet

Another unexpected situation occurred. Without the Tang Army soldiers to stop them, the Yan Army soldiers on the two siege ladders began to rush to the top of the city one after another.

Facts have proved that Li Ye's establishment of an army with heavy hammer hooks and guns was a major mistake. It was completely unnecessary and instead became a major hidden danger. The heavy armored infantry of the Tang Army surrendered a large number of enemy troops to them. Not only did the soldiers with heavy hammer hooks and guns failed to eliminate them, Instead, the enemy troops were killed in large numbers by the other side.

Not only did one nest vehicle have problems, but other nest vehicles also had the same problem. Although the heavy armored infantry of the Tang Army changed their strategy in time and stopped releasing the enemy troops.

However, more than 200 Yan Army heavy armored infantry were still wreaking havoc on the top of the city. They led more than 3,000 Yan Army soldiers to rush to the top of the city. The Tang Army's defense line was torn open one after another, and a major crisis appeared on the top of the city.

Li Ye also realized that he had underestimated the enemy and should have taken action earlier. He shouted sternly: "Send the order to set fire!"

"Woo——" the horn sounded.

Five hundred fire-breathing soldiers sprayed fire oil into twenty nest cars. Dozens of torches were thrown in, and the nest cars immediately burst into flames. Many soldiers also threw large bundles of wheat straw into the car, and the flames rose. Finally forcing the enemy troops in the nest car down, Tang Jun got a chance to breathe and quickly threw a large number of fire oil cans into it.

At the same time, the Tang army poured the last few hundred cans of kerosene on the seventeen siege ladders that the enemy had broken through, igniting the fire. The fire blocked the subsequent Yan army's way up the city. The kerosene in the city had been exhausted. , the militia soldiers below quickly sent five thousand bundles of wheat straw, causing the fire inside the chariot and under the city to burn more and more fiercely.

After solving the problem of the increase of enemy troops, what remains is the problem of the stock of enemy troops on the city wall. Twenty thousand Tang troops are fighting fiercely with 3,000 Yan troops.

Li Ye held a bow and arrow in his hand and shot out arrows like a volley of arrows, specifically shooting into the eyes of the Yan Army's heavy armored infantry. He killed more than thirty lone Yan Army's heavy armored infantry in one breath. The rest of the Yan Army's heavy armored infantry were all killed. Four thousand heavy armored infantrymen of the Tang Army surrounded the partition and quickly killed them all.

Twenty nest chariots were completely engulfed by the fire, and the Yan army soldiers fled far away. The Yan army soldiers on the top of the city became fewer and fewer as they fought, and were eventually engulfed by Tang army soldiers.

The three defense zones quickly rebuilt their defense systems and continued to fight against the Yan army soldiers on the eighty siege ladders.

This mistake caused the Tang army to lose more than 3,500 people, most of whom were heavy hammer soldiers and Goulian gun soldiers.

Ying Yanglang knelt Zuo Dazhi in front of Li Ye and apologized with tears on his face. Only less than 2,000 soldiers with heavy hammers and guns were left, which made him heartbroken.

Li Ye helped him up and sighed: "It's not your problem, it's my responsibility. I underestimated the enemy and underestimated the bravery of the Yan army."

Li Sheng consoled him from the side: "Your Highness, the idea of ​​heavy hammer, hook and gun soldiers is very good, but it is because of too little training time that we failed to cooperate."

Li Ye shook his head, "These are just appearances. We should not have rashly formed an army, thrown it into the battlefield rashly, and entrusted it with important tasks at a critical moment. In addition, I have not ordered the fire attack on the nest chariots in order to annihilate the Yan Army's heavy armored infantry. Essentially, I underestimated the enemy, and I will admit my mistake to the entire army. I will be fined for one year and demoted to one rank. I am not worthy of the title of general."

Li Sheng sighed, "Winning or losing is a common matter for military officers. Why should Your Highness blame himself so much?"

Li Ye said solemnly: "If I don't do this, I won't remember this lesson. If I don't do this, how can I be worthy of the thousands of brothers who died tragically because I underestimated the enemy? You don't need to persuade me, I have made up my mind!"

Li Ye turned around and strode away. Looking at the coach's leaving figure, Li Sheng had mixed feelings for a while.

At this time, the retreating bell rang in the distance, "Dang! Dang! Dang!"

The soldiers of the Yan army retreated like an ebbing tide. Gao Shang successively invested 60,000 siege troops, and finally lost more than 25,000 people. The siege finally ended in failure.

The soldiers of the Tang Army on the top of the city raised their arms and cheered together. They paid the price of more than 6,000 deaths in this battle, and finally defeated the powerful Yan Army.

In the Yan army camp, Gao Shang and his generals knelt down in front of An Lushan's bed to apologize.

An Lushan was lying on the couch, squinting at the tent roof, and said slowly: "I attacked Chang'an with an army of 200,000, and lost more than 50,000 soldiers, but could not enter Chang'an. Li Ye was just a local warlord, but he could attack Chang'an." Our Yan army is disgraced, and I deeply doubt that we can still conquer the world."

Gao Shang said quickly: "Your Majesty, there is only one Li Ye in the world. Although he is brave and good at fighting, I believe that the emperor of the Tang Dynasty will never use him. On the contrary, he will do everything possible to suppress him and weaken him. Your Majesty does not need to worry too much." .”

An Lushan sighed softly, "You make sense. Li Heng is indeed such a person. He is cold-hearted, ungrateful and suspicious of his subordinates. The greater the contribution Li Ye makes, the more he hates him. I also believe that Li Ye Ye will never end well, generals, do we still want to fight?"

All the generals bowed their heads and remained silent. An Lushan said: "General Quy Nhon, you should speak first! Tell the truth."

Li Guiren whispered: "Originally we had a chance to seize Chang'an City today, but in the end we fell short. I think it's not that our soldiers are unwilling to fight to the death. The main reason is that the opponent's kerosene weapons are too powerful. If we build a nest car again, , but ultimately could not escape the result of being burned by fire, and in the end the lives of the soldiers were sacrificed in vain, so I do not recommend fighting anymore."

"I understand, what does General Shouzhong mean?"

An Shouzhong said quickly: "Seeing that the Tang army has at least 100,000 troops and tens of thousands of civilians, they are not far behind us. I believe that with the strength of Chang'an City and the opponent's 100,000 troops, we need at least 30 Only ten thousand troops can suppress the opponent. Now we only have fifteen troops. Your Majesty, I even think that there is little chance of victory."

"Zhang Tongru, you are a counselor, please tell me!"

Zhang Tongru hurriedly came out and said: "Your Majesty, attacking the city is nothing more than a strong attack and a soft trap. If we continue to attack by force, we will definitely be able to capture it, but the loss will be too great. We will not agree with the whole situation for the sake of one city. If you give up the strong attack, then there is only one option left: soft trap.

We trap the other side for a year and make the other side run out of food. In the end, Li Ye will definitely have to break out and retreat. But the problem is that we don't have much food. We can only last for half a month, so soft trap cannot be implemented. Such a humble position I can only advise His Majesty to retreat as soon as possible, otherwise there will be big problems with food supplies. "

After all, Zhang Tongru was a counselor and knew how to give An Lushan a step to retreat. An Lushan sighed and said: "I didn't expect that I, An Lushan, would eventually be defeated due to lack of food. According to my will, the whole army began to clean up. Three We will retreat back to Luoyang at the end of the day. In addition, Gao Xiangguo will stay, and everyone else should go back and take care of it!"

Everyone bowed and left, and An Lushan suddenly said: "The prince makes me very disappointed!"

Gao Shang quickly hit An Qingxu hard and said, "Replying to Your Majesty, attacking Xiangyang is actually the best way to force Li Ye to retreat. Chang'an is not his territory. As a minister, he has to send troops. Now Li Heng has retreated to Hanzhong, and then You can retreat to Bashu when you come down. Li Ye's mission has been completed, so as long as there is a slight crisis in Xiangyang, Li Ye will definitely withdraw his troops and go back to save his hometown. Unfortunately, Xiangyang did not put any pressure on Li Ye."

An Lushan snorted heavily, "He couldn't even attack the Han River. My son is really capable!"

Gao Shang suddenly realized that An Qingxu was An Lushan's son after all, and he could not sow discord between father and son, otherwise An Lushan would be dissatisfied with him.

He immediately changed his strategy and cut off An Qingxu's right and left arms first.

"Your Majesty, there is actually a reason why the Han River was not attacked. Maybe it has something to do with Prime Minister Yan!"

An Lushan was startled, "Why is it related to Yan Zhuang?"

"Your Majesty, the governor of Shangzhou is Yan Hanhai, the eldest son of Yan Zhuang. His humble position has been confirmed. He was captured by Li Ye. So will Li Ye use Yan Hanhai to reach some kind of deal with Yan Zhuang?"

An Lushan understood immediately, and he suddenly became furious, "What a Yanzhuang, he ruined my big things, I have to skin him!"

Gao Shang was not sure that An Lushan would make up his mind to depose the prince, but he was sure to kill Yan Zhuang first.