Chapter 1279 Shortcomings of Avoiding Street Fighting
The winter moon dawned very late, making the night seem particularly long.
Shi Zheng led his troops to Anzhenmen, but the order he received was, "There are Yuan troops blocking the city. It will take time for the army to enter the city. Let the soldiers sleep first."
He felt that the order was so ridiculous that it seemed like a joke, but military orders could not be questioned. So the soldiers set up a temporary tent to protect themselves from the wind in the snow and lay down huddled against each other.
The killing cries in the distance are still coming, making people unwilling to sleep. But there are also many old soldiers who fall into a deep sleep as soon as they close their eyes. They have an open-mindedness that treats the sky as their bed, and disregards life and death.
This open-mindedness fell in the eyes of the new recruits and made them feel more at ease.
Shi Zheng, however, did not sleep. He kept looking around his station. When soldiers from other troops passed by, he asked them about it.
"How's the battle ahead?"
"General Shi, don't be anxious. I'll probably let you enter the city once we seize the city gate. Let's take a rest first."
"How can you rest?"
Shi Zheng dared to say this to other generals, but when he returned to his soldiers, he seemed to calm down again. He lay down and closed his eyes. In fact, his mind was still excited and he couldn't sleep at all.
I don’t know how long it took, but a whistle came from the front. "Commander’s order, Shi Zheng’s troops are preparing to enter the city..."
Shi Zheng immediately sat up and ordered the soldiers to get up and eat.
The dry food was so frozen that it made a crunching sound in his mouth, as if it could break a person's teeth. He picked up the snow from the ground, took two bites, and wiped the rest on his face, feeling sober.
Quite a few.
Looking up and forward, I saw that the progress of the siege was extremely slow.
After waiting from darkness to dawn, they finally arrived at the city wall.
In addition to the soldiers and horses waiting in front of the city gate, there were also many ladders set up on the city wall.
"Quick! Get on the ladder!"
There were ten ladders allocated to Shi Zheng's thousand men, but they had to wait for the Tang army on the top of the city to get out of the way. Since they had not yet broken through the Yuan army's defense line and occupied more places to deploy their troops, the speed of climbing the city was not fast.
At this rate, all 50,000 troops will have to enter the city, and the comrades behind will have to have lunch first.
Suddenly, there was a "bang" sound, and a huge boulder hit the tower, and Zhang Jue's flag fell down immediately.
"Commander?!"
Shi Zheng was climbing the ladder and was shocked when he saw this scene. Fortunately, he saw the big flag raised again in a moment.
Then the flags on the tower were waved and the war drums urged.
Shi Zheng received the flag order, but he was ordered to lead his troops from the top of the city to the west and seize the Jiande Gate on the west side of the north city wall.
"Have you all arrived at the city? Let's go this way!"
After running dozens of steps on the top of the city, the sky was getting brighter. I turned around and looked south, and I could already see the interior of the newly built Yuan Dynasty Capital City.
Compared to the cities in Sichuan and Sichuan, Shi Zheng's first impression of this city was "It's so damn majestic!"
The city has a square layout, and a house that can be built on one acre of land must occupy three acres.
The streets are clear and straight, especially the street south of Anzhenmen, which is extremely wide.
The Yuan army lined up on the street and kept firing arrows and thunder cannons. At the same time, they could see several giant cannons being transported this way.
There were also cavalry from the Tang Army trying to cut through the formation of the Yuan Army, and the flag was from Hu Legen's.
"General, this city is really big."
"It will be our city soon, hurry up!"
The battlements swept behind them one by one. It was still snowing in the sky, but all the snow on the top of the city had been trampled and mixed with blood and flowed away. There were corpses everywhere, from both sides.
There are four miles from Anzhenmen to Jiandemen. Shi Zheng only ran for more than two miles before he heard the killing cry ahead.
"It's General Liu!" "There are so many Yuan troops."
Liu Jinsuo was leading his troops to seize Jiande Gate, but the Yuan army was already on guard. They piled up wood and rocks to block off the city. They hid behind the wood and rocks and kept firing arrows and throwing thunderbolt cannons at the Tang army.
At the same time, there are more and more people in the city
The Yuan army rushed here and blocked the road for Liu Jinsuo's troops to bypass the city.
Shi Zheng looked up again and found that there were still many Yuan troops on the tower.
Go down to the ground and shoot arrows.
"Let's go down to the city wall and go around from the inside!"
"General, the city ladder is blocked."
"Is this what people from Diaoyu City are afraid of? Hang up the rope ladder while others shoot arrows."
The rope ladder was hung up on the battlement, Shi Zheng stuck the ax on his back, and the first one climbed down.
When he encountered arrows coming from the Yuan army, he would kick his feet on the city wall and drift left and right. Occasionally, arrows would hit his cotton armor, but he would not care and quickly jumped down from the city.
The commander said this, and the rest of the soldiers quickly climbed down.
But as their crossbows, grenades and other long-range weapons gradually ran out, more and more Yuan troops came up, and the rain of arrows shot became denser and thicker, so they stopped holding up.
"Bang!"
Stones were thrown at them, and several Tang soldiers were hit.
Another artillery carriage appeared in the south, and it was still moving slowly this way. Seeing that it was about to be surrounded, Shi Zheng shouted hurriedly: "Siege tower! Let's go!" Fortunately, because they had their backs against the city wall, the Mongolian cavalry
They won't charge directly into them.
The Yuan army's temporary tactics are still that the Han army fights in the front, and the Mongolian army shoots arrows from behind. Therefore, its advantage cannot be used, but it seems a little constrained.
Therefore, Shi Zheng fought his way straight into the city tower despite casualties.
The soldiers of the Tang Dynasty carried shields and rushed into the Yuan army against the rain of arrows. They broke open the wooden doors of the city tower and chopped them with axes.
"kill!"
Shi Zheng was young, with a boyish face, but his arms were extremely strong, and he swung the big ax as if chopping melons and vegetables.
"Puff, puff, puff..."
For a moment, there was the sound of iron cutting into flesh. Shi Zheng chopped down several people one after another, and he also received a few blows. However, his armor was thick, so as long as the wounds were not very deep, he didn't care.
The winter in the north seems to make people feel less painful. No wonder they say northerners can fight.
They fought their way up the city tower, cutting down an enemy every few steps. They continued to attack the city tower. The defenders on the tower were firing arrows at Liu Jinsuo's troops. When they turned around and saw the bloody Tang army rushing up, they couldn't help but be shocked.
Shi Zheng ignored him and rushed forward to chop him down.
When blood splashed everywhere, he suddenly saw something, kicked the enemy general in front of him away, and looked to the south.
"Damn, I thought I saw it wrong."
The city tower is relatively high, and you can see the black crows in the distance, all filled with Mongolian cavalry, extending to the end of the line of sight.
Shi Zheng's heart immediately pounded, thinking that if these tens of thousands of people surrounded him again, all of his troops would definitely die at Jiande Gate.
But he was still uttering harsh words, muttering to himself: "Goulu, come on..."
Naiyan raised his telescope and scanned the northern wall that was trapped in chaos.
"Brother Yixiang is right. If we want to fight the Tang army in the city, the terrain is not conducive to our cavalry."
"After all, the Han army was originally expected to defend the city, and the cavalry was not intended to be used to defend the city."
The person who answered was a middle-aged man, wearing a red robe, with a hood covering his head, and a cross hanging on his chest. There was a lotus flower underneath the cross.
His name was Maserikis, and he was an elder of the Nestorian sect of Christianity. The Nestorian sect was also called "Nestorianism." Naiyan was a follower of Nestorianism and even embroidered it on his banner.
Made a cross.
With this layer of faith shrouded in it, the conspiracy between Naiyan and Maserigis seemed to be protected by God.
"Then we can only go out of the city for a decisive battle."
Maserigis asked: "The king really wants to lose his warriors to defend the Central Plains for Kublai Khan?"
He spoke in ancient Turkic language, which sounded low and mysterious.
"If we can defend the Central Plains." Naiyan also responded in ancient Turkic language and whispered: "Since we want to rebel, we might as well become the emperor of the Central Plains as well as the Great Khan of the grasslands."
Maserigis was a little surprised and said: "When the Han people defeat Kublai Khan,
, it is easy for the king to return to the grassland and proclaim himself Khan. But it is very difficult to seize Kublai Khan's throne after defeating the Han people."
"But there is no way out. Juyong Pass has been lost. If you want to return to the grassland, you have to go through a fierce battle. In this case, I would rather fight to win the world than fight to escape."
"The strange thing is that Kublai Khan suddenly said that Juyong Pass was lost, but there was no news before. The Han people have two words, which are called 'breaking the cauldron and sinking the boat' and 'fighting with a last ditch'
"If Kublai Khan had such determination, why couldn't I
Boat'? The Golden Family has never been afraid of war." Naiyan said: "I didn't want to contribute before because I thought I would have to retreat to the grassland sooner or later. But now, Kublai Khan has the possibility of defeating Li Xia. Do you think, Li Xia was
The strength to annihilate Kublai Khan was also very weak."
Maserigis squinted his eyes and began to think about this possibility.
After recruiting soldiers and horses from all over the Harah Forest and grasslands, the Yuan army had a large number of troops and had been shrinking its defense line.
Throughout the entire battle up to now, what the Yuan army lost was not their strength, but their momentum.
Now, the Tang army seemed to have made a strategic mistake... They divided the city from the south and the north to attack the city. Although they could catch the city by surprise, if they were too far apart, they would not be able to connect with each other from head to tail.
It was already difficult for Li Xia to command the troops in the north of the city. This was just like the mistake Wanyan Chengyu made in the Battle of Yehuling.
"We almost forgot Kublai Khan's ambition. He had a chance to win, but when he won, you see, Zhenjin was dead, Brother Mang was stabbed, Namuhan was a fool, and the Tolei family ended up here
Already."
As Naiyan spoke, he rolled his eyes and looked at the sky, asking, "Will the Lord bless me?"
Maserikis closed his eyes, as if communicating with God.
After a while, he murmured in a deep voice: "The Lord will bless you, and you will be the new Khan of this land."
Naiyan then leaned down, picked up the cross lotus in front of Maserigisi and kissed it.
They all forgot that at first they just felt that Kublai Khan's situation was not very good and that he should conserve his strength to seek independence.
It's just that ambition grows faster than the situation changes...
In the distance, a loud noise was heard, a tall cannon fell down, and the Yuan army began to retreat.
That was when the Tang army had captured Jiandemen.
Naiyan was not interested in this kind of offensive and defensive battle in the city, and thought that he would just let the Han people waste away around the city wall. The Mongolian cavalry should go to a wider battlefield to regain the glory of their ancestors.
Today is the second day of November.
The west gate of the capital city of the Yuan Dynasty was opened, and groups of cavalry poured out of the city.