In the palace city of Chang'an City, Xia Houmao came to Cao Zhang with excitement on his face.

"Ziwen, I think the catapults of the rebel army today will not be able to cause any major damage to the city wall."

This was the first thing Xia Houmao said after he came to Cao Zhang.

From this sentence, one can clearly feel Xia Houmao's delighted tone.

After seeing the dozens of catapults launched by the Han army at the beginning, Xia Houmao was actually full of worry.

Because the catapults launched by the Han army were different from those he had seen before.

Importantly, Xia Houmao also learned from Cao Zhang how powerful the catapult was.

Compared to Xia Houmao, Cao Zhang naturally recognized the dozens of catapults.

After all, not long ago, those catapults were the siege weapons of the Wei army.

After explaining the power of the continuous catapult to Xia Houmao that day, Cao Zhang actually had worries in his heart.

But the subsequent progress was enough to make Xia Houmao and Cao Zhang overjoyed.

The strength of the Chang'an city wall is far superior to that of ordinary wooden tents.

The strong city wall withstood the fierce attacks of the Han army's catapults many times.

And this also brought a great sense of security to Xia Houmao and Cao Zhang.

Originally, Ma Jun's improved catapult would not have caused such damage to Chang'an City.

Mainly because Mi Yang issued an order to ask Ma Jun to adjust the range of the catapult and try not to let the boulders hit too far into the city, so as not to cause a lot of damage to the people in the city.

Cao Zhang had disdained Mi Yang's "pedantic" behavior more than once in the past few days.

After hearing Xia Houmao's words, Cao Zhang also smiled on his face.

"When the thieves wanted to attack my west wall, I was still a little worried.

As you know, the western wall of Chang'an City suffered serious damage during Li Guo's Rebellion and Ma Chao's Rebellion.

I just didn't expect that the newly repaired city wall would be so strong.

Judging from the strength of Chang'an City Wall, it can be compared with Ye City."

Seeing Cao Zhang comparing Chang'an to Yecheng, Xia Houmao's sense of security increased even more.

According to common sense, the city defense of Chang'an City should be higher than that of Ye City, but in fact this is not the case.

As Cao Zhang said, Guanzhong has been in a state of turmoil for decades.

Chang'an City must be the center of the turmoil.

Under this circumstance, the city walls of Chang'an City have been damaged many times, especially the west wall.

On the contrary, since Cao Cao captured Yecheng, he was determined to make Yecheng his base camp.

Therefore, for decades, Cao Cao continued to spend a lot of manpower and material resources to increase and repair the city defense of Ye City.

In terms of the strength of other city walls, Chang'an and Yecheng may be on par with each other.

But if we just talk about the west wall, Chang'an is definitely inferior to Yecheng.

This has always been what Cao Zhang was most worried about before.

Of course, Cao Zhang also knew why the Han army knew this - it must have been Zhang He, the traitor to Wei, who leaked the secret.

It was just that the worries in my heart gradually disappeared after the Han army took action to attack the city.

There is a saying in later generations that a skinny camel is bigger than a horse.

What I’m talking about is the current situation of the city wall on the west side of Chang’an.

Perhaps the west wall is the weakest compared to other walls, but it is not comparable to that of an ordinary small city or camp.

After the two of them laughed, Xia Houmao, who had a calm personality, became worried about one thing again:

"The bandit army is digging a tunnel. I hope Ziwen will take precautions against this in advance."

Xia Houmao originally reminded him well, but Cao Zhang suddenly burst out laughing after hearing Xia Houmao's reminder.

"How could I not know about this?"

"It's just that I want to laugh at the thief's plan!"

"Seeing that a frontal attack was not possible, the bandits thought of digging tunnels and sending troops to attack the city from the tunnels. This is common sense.

But he should definitely not let the soldiers and civilians work day and night in a hurry for success.

In this case, how can this matter be hidden from me?

And since this matter is known to me, I naturally have a way to deal with it."

Cao Zhang's confidence surprised Xiahou Mao.

Xiahou Mao didn't understand military strategy, so he certainly didn't know how to deal with the Han army's authentic tactics.

Seeing Xia Houmao's confusion, Cao Zhang said with a teaching heart:

"Our army does not need to go out of the city to stop the rebels. Our army only needs to build many trenches in the city.

In this way, once the rebels dig tunnels into the city, they will naturally have no way of hiding in front of our army.

The tunnel is narrow and it is bound to be difficult to accommodate a large number of bandit troops to pass through.

At that time, as long as our army stays outside the tunnel, intercepts and kills, or releases water and fire into the tunnel, all the traitors will die without a burial place!"

Cao Zhang's explanation made Xia Houmao suddenly realize.

After understanding Cao Zhang's countermeasures, Xia Houmao couldn't help but admire Cao Zhang.

Full of sense of security!

The next thing they have to do is to remain unchanged in response to all changes, and just wait for the rebel army to come and die.

Thinking about it, if they can defend Chang'an in the end, they will definitely be remembered in history for this battle!

Thinking of this, both Xia Houmao and Cao Zhang were very excited.

...

When Xia Houmao and Cao Zhang in Chang'an City were discussing countermeasures and belittling Mi Yang, Mi Yang was not idle either.

Several days have passed since Liu Bei arrived at Chang'an City.

In the past few days, Han generals came back one after another to report that the tunnel had been opened to Zhangcheng Gate.

And just when those Han generals who had completed the mission earlier thought they no longer had to enter the tunnel, Mi Yang assigned them a new mission.

This task is a bit dangerous, so it requires personal supervision by the Han generals.

This task is for the Han generals who opened the tunnel to dump a sufficient amount of stone grease and a large amount of flammable materials into the tunnel.

Mi Yang's order made all the Han generals even more puzzled.

But due to Mi Yang's prestige, they could only obey the instructions honestly.

As early as after the Battle of Jieting, Mi Yang knew that he might use stone fat again in the future, so he issued orders many times to remind Han generals about the precautions of stone fat.

Although stone grease is flammable, fortunately it is winter and the temperature in Guanzhong is extremely low.

In addition to unrefined petroleum grease, the flammability is still quite different from that of later generations of petroleum.

Therefore, as long as there is no open flame, the stone grease is within control.

With Mi Yang's reminder, except for Wei Yan, all the other Han generals completed the tasks assigned by him today.

Today, Mi Yang is in the tent, waiting for Wei Yan's report.

After the sky gradually darkened, Wei Yan, who had been cursing all the way, finally returned to Mi Yang's military tent.

However, Wei Yan, who was still spouting sweet things outside just now, became quiet as soon as he entered Mi Yang's military tent.

He followed the rules and came to Mi Yang to report:

"General, I have completed my mission!"

Since Wei Yan was the last to come back, he hadn't had time to wash up yet, and he had the pungent smell of stone fat on his body.

But Mi Yang did not dislike Wei Yan.

After hearing the words "mission accomplished", Mi Yang's face was filled with joy!

Mi Yang suddenly stood up from his seat and issued a military order to the Han generals in the tent:

"Starting tomorrow, all of you will fall into the city together with Gu!"

Mi Yang's impassioned tone excited the generals in the tent.

But after being inspired, the generals could not help but have doubts.

Among them, Wei Yan was the most confused:

Could it be that he had been underground for so long in the past half month that he didn't know where the hole in the city wall was made by the catapult?

Otherwise, how should we capture the city?
To be continued...