Less than a month after the capture of Chang'an, the enemy troops came to the city. How could it be possible if there was no pressure?
After taking the emperor hostage, Li Jue, who was promoted to General Yangwu, and General Yang Lie, as well as Duan Xuan, Hu Zhen, Li Meng, who had contributed to the capture of the city and were promoted to General Zhonglang, and Fan Chou, who later led troops to surrender.
Zhang Ji, Wang Fang, and eight people gathered together to discuss countermeasures.
It was certain that Chang'an would be defended, and no one wanted to go out to fight in the field. However, there was a lot of disputes over who guarded the city wall and who guarded the palace.
Why argue?
Those guarding the city wall must have suffered heavy losses.
We have to talk about the layout of Chang'an.
The terrain of Chang'an City is high in the south and low in the north. In order to match the terrain, the city is irregular in the shape of a bucket, so it is called "Doucheng". It can be understood as the shape of a funnel, that is, the north city is a right-angled triangle and the south city is a rectangle. When they are stacked together, they become Chang'an.
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The city wall is made of rammed loess, five feet high, which is twelve meters, and the base is sixteen meters wide. Outside the wall is a moat eight meters wide and about three meters deep.
According to actual measurements, the east wall is 6,000 meters long, the west wall is 4,900 meters long, the south wall is 7,600 meters long, and the north wall is 7,200 meters long, totaling 25,700 meters.
The city covers an area of about 36 square kilometers, four times that of Rome at the same time.
The North City is mainly a residential area and is divided into 160 li by criss-crossing streets. The northwest corner is Chang'an Nine Cities, separated by Hengmen Street, divided into three cities in the East City and six cities in the West City. The East City is where merchants gather.
In this area, the West Market is densely covered with various handicraft workshops.
The south of the city is dominated by palaces and official offices, and the southwest corner is the Moyang Palace, covering an area of about five square kilometers. The emperor's harem and the palace where government affairs are handled are all here.
To the north of Weiyang Palace are Beigong and Guigong, and between the two palaces is the main residence of the ministers: Beique Jiadi.
To the east of Weiyang Palace are the arsenal and the East Palace.
Changle Palace is located in the southeast corner and is the residence of the Queen Mother. It covers an area of about six square kilometers. It is located in Taicang to the east and Mingguang Palace to the north.
There is also the Jianzhang Palace outside the west city wall, which belongs to the Shanglinyuan area.
With this layout, Chang'an's city defense must be a comprehensive defense system that combines city wall defense and palace and street fighting.
After the city is defeated, you can retreat to the palace city south of the city and continue to resist.
Therefore, no one wants to go to the North City Wall, and there is no way to retreat.
After much fighting, the unpopular Duan Xuan and the weak Wang Fang were assigned to the north wall. Hu Zhen, the strongest soldier, could not compete with the combined forces of Li Jue, Guo Si, Fan Chou and Zhang Ji.
After passing the longest south wall, Li Meng, who led the old soldiers, went to the east wall.
Then Zhang Ji, who once belonged to Niu Fu's group and was the weakest among the four, went to the Western Wall.
Li Jue, who kidnapped the emperor, guarded Weiyang Palace, Guo Si, who kidnapped hundreds of court officials, and guarded Changle Palace. Fan Chou, who was attracted by all parties, got a good job, guarding Mingguang Palace, and was also responsible for supporting the defenders of the North Wall.
As for whether it will be accepted or annexed at that time, I don't know.
Jia Xu did not appear during the entire military meeting. He was completely disappointed. In such a critical situation, the various ministries were still divided and fighting with each other. No one could lead Liangzhou anymore.
The defeat has been decided and there is no way back.
He is thinking of a way out.
When Dong Zhuo was assassinated, he was stationed at Zuo Fengyi. He could have crossed the Yellow River west and joined Liu Huaqi. With General Huqi's attention to him and the power he occupied in the six states, there was no need to worry about safety issues.
But his family is in Chang'an. If Chang'an is not taken back, his family will be liquidated sooner or later.
Now that Liu's hussar cavalry is approaching the city, and there is a chaotic battle between more than 200,000 troops from both sides, how can we save the lives of our relatives?
Swordsmen have no eyes. In a chaotic army, one can only look at fate, which is not safe.
It requires careful planning.
I heard that Zhang Ji has been squeezed out, so you can pay him a visit.
…………
Liu Xiang was woken up by Su Wei late at night, and a silk letter was sent from the city. The messenger slipped down from the west city wall in the middle of the night. When he unfolded it, there was only one sentence: "Flawless and beautiful jade is the supreme."
No beginning, no signature.
"Jia Wenhe sent you?"
The messenger kowtowed and said "aba" and "aba" twice, indicating that he was mute.
Su Wei handed over a wooden sign, which read: "Sending the letter, the General Hussar will personally sign it."
This is a dead man.
Liu Xiang muttered the words "flawless" and "supreme", and it must be Jia Xu. This letter means that if he wants to ascend the throne, he cannot bear the stigma of regicide. It seems that he wants to establish a reputation before surrendering.
great merit.
Only he and he know about the great power of the world.
How to reply?
Liu Xiang cut off a piece of silk and wrote: "It's winter this year, and the troops in Guanxi are still alive."
The messenger returned to the city immediately, and Su Wei reported that there were people in the city who came to meet him and pulled him up with ropes.
I wonder if Jia Xu can understand his reply. The Anping Army may not be able to launch an offensive before winter. He will not have a truce in the severe winter. This period is the window of time for making plans.
Jia Xu was too careful not to say it clearly, so he had no choice but to speak in a more subtle way.
Safety comes first.
Anyway, he can attack Chang'an with or without Jia Wenhe, so just play a game with him.
It is now mid-October, and the armies around Chang'an are being mobilized. Zhao Yun has returned to the Chinese Army and is stationed at Jianzhang Palace. There are 22,000 Chinese infantry and cavalry stationed here, 10,000 Western Army, and Huangfu Song.
and Zhu Jun's eight thousand troops.
Xu Rong led the rear army and Hanzhong troops to take over the east side of the city.
In the north of the city, Xu Huang led the right army and an additional 15,000 troops to conquer the west, with Xia Houyuan as deputy general.
To the south of the city was Sun Jian's command, and he added 10,000 troops to the Western Expeditionary Army, with Cai Mao as deputy general.
Yan Rou led the Duliao camp's 5,000 cavalry to guard the area south of Baqiao, guard the land supply line, and eliminate the Liangzhou scouts.
Zhang He led 20,000 Bingzhou troops to guard the baggage in Wannian County, and directed the civilians to transport supplies.
Everyone was busy, not only in attacking the city, but also in making equipment. They were all busy building wind walls, shelters to keep out the cold, felling trees, and accumulating firewood.
The weather in October of the lunar calendar is already very cold. If we don't prepare measures to avoid the cold as soon as possible, people will freeze to death soon. This winter, Liu Xiang is not planning to retreat. He wants to wipe out the remnants of Dong Zhuo in Chang'an to avoid future trouble.
The 35,000 troops in Wudu and Hanzhong are in a hurry to change their equipment. Their weapons are still the standard equipment of the Han army. They need to be replaced with new equipment made of steel from the Anping army. Shields, bows and arrows also need to be supplemented, and jackets to keep out the cold are also needed.
It must be distributed as soon as possible.
Take advantage of this opportunity to eliminate the old and weak, replace mid-level officers, and increase control.
After conquering the Western Army and falling into the camp, plus the soldiers and horses from these two counties, the Qianniu Guards were completely replaced, but the number increased to a thousand. The current Qianniu Guards are all newcomers, and some of them have already accepted Lu Lu in the book city.
Zhi’s teachings are still on their way.
By replacing the middle and low-level officers with people who are loyal to him, Liu Xiang can safely let the surrendered generals behind him lead the troops in battle.
There are many generals he can trust, but the territory is getting bigger and bigger. Those who surrender must be used, and they must be used well. Only in this way can more people come to serve. It is like a snowball, and the power can become bigger and bigger.
This is what he did when he started his army: capture the county town, rob powerful families, allocate land to the people, gain money and people's support, expand the army, and then lay down a larger territory, grab more money and food, allocate land to more people, and establish
A stronger army.
Then, he became the king of Youzhou.
He is familiar with this game.
Actually, the biggest reason why he didn't attack the city now was the lack of gunpowder. He didn't prepare saltpeter and sulfur in advance. Now that he was mobilized from Bingzhou, he could only do it himself. A few hundred kilograms of gunpowder could not be made so quickly. He had to wait.