Chapter 2434: Breaking through the Sanguan, locking the pass
"With Kong Peng's temper, how could he not avenge you?"
Gongsun Xuanyuan sighed and shook his head.
He originally wanted to conquer the three kings, lions, kings, elephants and Kong Peng. After all, the three of them were easy-going and had worked against the Qin Dynasty, but they did not cause any big losses, so they were all acceptable candidates.
One hero, three gangs.
If Xuanyuan could surrender the three generals Kong Peng this time, his lineup would be greatly improved. However, he didn't expect that he had already captured the king, lion, and elephant alive, but was destroyed by a stray arrow that came from nowhere.
Now that Wang Shi and Wang Xiang are dead, the hatred between Kong Peng and Da Qin has further deepened, and it is completely impossible to surrender to Da Qin.
Although Kong Peng was interrupted again this time, there is still no doubt about his potential. With such a big threat, Gongsun Xuanyuan naturally cannot let him grow.
"Brother Kong Xuan, I'm sorry, it's not me that won't help you, it's fate."
After Gongsun Xuanyuan underestimated such a sentence, he said in a deep voice: "Chasing, we must not let Kong Peng go."
"promise."
The four generals Yuwen Chengdu, Huang Tianhua, Pei Yuanqing and Qin Yong said in unison.
The more Xuanyuan and his men chased into the pass, the more Tang troops there were. In addition, Kong Peng's speed was faster than everyone else, so he gradually disappeared.
"Damn it, let Kong Peng run away."
Huang Tianhua's face was full of reluctance. He was just a little short of completing the feat of killing the sixth general on the list.
Just after Kong Peng exited the state of unity between man and nature, he even prepared the drill, but he didn't expect that Xuanyuan was going to force Kong Peng to surrender, let alone that Kong Peng would run away.
If he had known this would happen, he should have pretended not to hear it and nailed Kong Peng to death with a drill.
But who shot those two arrows?
The incident happened so suddenly that even Yuwen Chengdu, let alone Huang Tianhua, did not react.
"As long as Kong Peng is still against me, Da Qin, he will meet him sooner or later, and it won't be too late to kill him then." Yuwen Chengdu comforted him.
He was not upset about Kong Peng's escape. After all, the top ten people in the general list were all notoriously difficult to kill. Killing Xiang Yu alone would have gathered all the powerful generals in the world.
Luo Shixin, Yuan Hong, Hou Yi, Ran Min, no one is easy to kill.
"Since Kong Peng has disappeared, the top priority is to capture Sanguan as soon as possible."
Hearing what Gongsun Xuanyuan said, all the generals nodded in agreement, and then each led a group of troops to kill the Tang army in the pass.
There are not many masters in the Tang army, but without the three gods of war, King Kong Peng, King Lion and Xiang, the strongest remaining ones are just god generals, who were directly killed by Yuwen Chengdu with a single blow.
The other first-rate and first-rate generals did not pose any threat to the Qin army and were quickly slaughtered by the four gods of war.
Although there were 15,000 defenders in Sanguan and there were famous generals commanding them, they were extremely lacking in high-end combat power and were crushed by the 5,000 Qin troops who invaded the pass.
Four generals, Gongsun Xuanyuan, Yuwen Chengdu, Pei Yuanqing, and Qin Yong, single-handedly charged into the Tang army and galloped at will, charging back and forth to kill.
The Tang army was thrown into chaos, blood flowed into rivers, and corpses were scattered everywhere.
The Tang troops who were killed were completely frightened and no longer dared to resist. They all knelt down and begged to surrender.
Seeing that the resistance of the defenders was getting weaker and weaker, Li Siyuan knew that the situation was over, so he decisively ordered the burning of the grain depot and armory, while leaving part of the army behind, while he himself withdrew to Hanzhong with a small number of his confidants.
"General Gongsun, something bad has happened. All the warehouses in Sanguan are on fire."
"What?"
Gongsun Xuanyuan was startled, then gritted his teeth and said: "Damn Li Siyuan, you really can't relax at all.
Quickly bring people to put out the fire. Don’t worry about anything else. The ordnance must be rescued."
"promise."
The reason why Gongsun Xuanyuan gave priority to rescuing the armory was naturally because the Qin Dynasty was not short of food. Regardless of the distant places, the grain stores captured in Chencang alone were enough to keep the scattered defenders alive until the end of the war.
Chencang is not far from Sanguan, so even if there is no food in Sanguan, it can still be transported from Chencang.
But if it is ordnance, it will be too late to transport it from Chencang.
Once the armory of Sanguan was burned and the Tang army in Hanzhong counterattacked Sanguan, the Qin army without the equipment and supplies to defend the city would have difficulty taking advantage of Sanguan's defensive advantages.
Therefore, Gongsun Xuanyuan gave priority to preserving the armory.
When the raging fire was about to get out of control, a large number of Qin troops came to put out the fire with buckets or sandbags. They extinguished the fire in time and saved most of the ordnance.
The armory was saved, but the ration depot was not so lucky. 90% of the rations were burned, and only 10% was saved.
"General, the fire has been put out, 70% of the armory has been saved, and only 10% of the grain depot has been saved."
After hearing this, Xuanyuan breathed a sigh of relief and asked: "What are the casualties of our army?"
"General Qi, the Japanese army suffered a total of 1,000 casualties, killed 4,000 Tang troops, captured 8,000, and beheaded the Tang general Wang Shi Wang Xiang...
The guard general Li Siyuan of the Tang Dynasty fled to Hanzhong with his remaining troops."
Li Tang deployed a total of 20,000 troops in Chencang and Sanguan.
All 5,000 Chencang defenders were captured, and another 8,000 were captured at Sanguan, making the total number 13,000 prisoners of war.
In addition, four thousand were killed in the battle, so Li Siyuan only managed to escape back to Hanzhong with only 3,000 remaining troops.
Most of the thousand casualties suffered by the Qin army were before Xuanyuan arrived, and most of them were Sun Chongjin's subordinates.
Sun Chongjin originally had only a thousand cronies in his headquarters, but now only more than three or four hundred were lost. It can be said that his vitality was severely damaged, but he was not sad at all, because Xuanyuan not only gave birth to his official, but also gave birth to an official.
All the prisoners of war of the Wan Tang Army were handed over to him for reorganization.
Because Sun Chongjin offered Chen Cang and falsely opened Sanguan City Gate, he was directly promoted to Zhonglang General, commanding two infantry battalions with a total of 10,000 troops. This was ten times more military power than when he was a Tang general.
"General, Li Siyuan should not be far away yet, let the last general lead his army to chase him." Huang Tianhua took the initiative to ask for orders.
After Xuanyuan heard this, he thought for a moment and then shook his head.
"The Qinling Ancient Road has steep terrain and is very easy to set up an ambush, making it difficult to guard against. If you fall into an ambush by Li Siyuan, you will have to stop trying."
"But it would be a pity to waste such a good opportunity like this. I will be cautious in the end."
"This is not something you can prevent by being careful..."
Before Gongsun Xuanyuan finished speaking, soldiers suddenly came to report.
"General Qizhen, Yue Yun, and Pei Yuanqing, two generals, led a thousand troops out of the border to pursue Li Siyuan."
"What?"
Gongsun Xuanyuan's face suddenly became extremely ugly. He had long heard that Yue Yun and Pei Yuanqing had a history of disobeying orders and going into battle without authorization. He thought that these two people had already taught them a lesson, but he didn't expect that they would dare to do so without asking for instructions.
Go to war without permission.
"If you win, that's it. If you lose, it depends on how I will deal with you." Gongsun Xuanyuan snorted coldly.
Half a day later, news came back from the chasing army. Even though Yue Yun and Pei Yuanqing had been very careful, they still fell into Li Siyuan's serial ambush plan. Nearly 80% of the 1,000-strong army was lost, and only more than 200 people escaped alive.
.
In the Sanguan meeting hall, Huang Tianhua looked at Yue Yun and Pei Yuanqing who were kneeling below with arrows stuck in their bodies, and secretly thought that it was very dangerous.
Fortunately, the people who chased him out were not him, but Yue Yun and Pei Yuanqing, otherwise the people kneeling nearby would have been him.
On the other side, Li Siyuan set up an ambush and after repelling Yue Yun and Pei Yuanqing, he did not send anyone to chase them, but returned to Hanzhong at full speed with the remaining army.
The Qin army chasing him only numbered a thousand men. Even if they were all annihilated, it would not matter to the overall situation. The top priority was to return to Hanzhong to take control of the overall situation.
"General Kong Peng, we will arrive in Hanzhong soon, ah..."
Before Li Siyuan finished speaking, Kong Peng grabbed him by the collar.
After hearing Oli Siyuan's cry, the soldiers quickly surrounded Kong Peng and shouted: "Bring the general here quickly."
Kong Peng turned a deaf ear, stared at Li Siyuan coldly, and asked: "Did you shoot those two hidden arrows?"
Kong Pengmang was a little reckless, but he was definitely not stupid. After escaping from Sanguan, he quickly thought of one thing, that is, it was obviously abnormal for the two arrows to appear so coincidentally and shoot through the rope so coincidentally.
After thinking about it, he felt that there was only one possibility, that is, someone did this deliberately. Even if his two sworn brothers were captured, they might not die, but if they escaped after being captured, they would most likely be killed.
After the rope is shot through, it is natural for Wang Shi and Wang Xiang to escape, but if they cannot escape and are killed, they will definitely fight to the death with Da Qin.
No matter which one it is, there is no harm to Tang Guo, but it will put his eldest and second brothers in danger
At this thought, Kong Peng was extremely angry. He asked himself that he had never felt sorry for Li Tang or Li Shimin. Is this how Li Tang repaid him?
When Li Siyuan heard this, he looked confused and said: "What kind of hidden arrow?"
When Kong Peng saw this, a cold light flashed in his eyes, and he said coldly: "You are still pretending to be stupid with me. If it weren't for you, how could it be such a coincidence that two arrows happened to shoot off the rope of my eldest brother and my second brother?"
"Brother Kong, have you misunderstood something? If I am so good at archery, how could I never use it?" Li Siyuan said with a bitter smile.
Kong Peng was silent, Li Siyuan was indeed not an expert in archery, and that man's archery skills were extremely high, and he was by no means an ordinary archer.
"Did you ask your men to do it?" Kong Peng asked forcefully.
"Brother Kong Peng, your understanding of Sanguan is no less than mine. If there really is such a magic archer, I will definitely send him to support you when you fight against the four fierce and eight hammers alone. How can I let you go at this time?"
Two cold arrows."
Kong Peng was speechless and could only say coldly, "Don't let me find out that it's you behind this." Then he let go of Kong Peng's collar.
Looking at Kong Peng's leaving figure, Li Siyuan only had one thought in his mind, that is, Kong Peng had changed, became smarter, and became more able to use his brain.
Before Li Siyuan and his party could escape back to Hanzhong, the senior officials of Li Tang in Chang'an received the news of the fall of Sanguan, which shocked the entire Tang state.
After all, Sanguan is the last gate in Guanzhong. Once it falls, the entire Guanzhong will be turned into a cage, locking up the more than 100,000 Tang troops still in Guanzhong.