Chapter 193: The height of the temple (21)

Chuzhou City is like a hedgehog, with its erect thorns hurting the Great Zhou army to its blood.

The Great Zhou army suffered extremely heavy casualties, and the early soldiers who died in battle could still have a coffin. By January of the fifth year of Xiande, all the coffins near Chuzhou were collected. By the end of February, the soldiers who died could only wrap a straw mat and buried collectively in a large pit.

These soldiers fought together during their lifetime and could get together after their death. There were people on the road to the underworld, so they were not very lonely.

The Zhou army had an absolute advantage in military strength and failed to do many attempts, so they did not hide their intention to fight. The Zhou army's catapults, chariots, and rushes to the car, all concentrated on the east city, and continued to attack for a day. The South Gate, North Gate, and West Gate were extremely calm, and there was no garrison in the north gate.

The Chuzhou army had only more than 5,000 people, and the Zhou army had a population of about 60,000 people. The Zhou army was stronger than the Chuzhou army in terms of number of people to combat effectiveness. If you go out of the city to fight in the field, the Chuzhou army will inevitably be defeated and destroyed faster. There may be a way out for defending Chuzhou City to the death.

Under the insistence of Zheng Qiye, the Chuzhou army sent all the cavalry in the city to tentatively attack from the north gate. As soon as the cavalry left the city, the Zhou cavalry surrounded from not far away. More than 200 cavalry were destroyed in the blink of an eye. After this battle, no one of the generals of Chuzhou proposed a plan for the city. The city had a large granary built in Chuzhou. The residents in the city usually had the habit of storing grain. Chuzhou would not have a shortage of food for a year. Zhang Yanqing ordered the use of huge stones to seal the four city gates to fight for trapping beasts.

Since January of the fifth year of Xiande, the Zhou army has built a dirt mountain in the east of the city. At the end of February, it finally built a dirt mountain slightly higher than the city wall. The Zhou army has installed dozens of bed crossbows on the dirt mountain, which can directly threaten the Chuzhou army at the East City Gate.

The Zhou army also concentrated all the chariots outside the Dongcheng City, and each chariot could hide six soldiers. They were all archers in the army. There was also a giant archer outside the moat in the Dongcheng City, with eighty soldiers stationed on it. Inside were all crossbowmen, earthen mountains, chariots and chariots were slightly higher than the city wall. The Zhou army soldiers above used their crossbows to shoot at the Chuzhou army on the city wall to cover the infantry soldiers under the city wall.

On the moat, Zhou Jun built several floating bridges with a boat, and dozens of angry cars were parked on the other side of the moat. The roof of the angry cars was covered with raw cowhide, which could resist the impact of wood and huge rocks, and effectively resist the fire attack. The soldiers hid in the anger and relied on the protection of the anger to come to the foot of the city wall for excavation.

Although the Zhou army's anger car was made particularly solid and solid. Moreover, the Zhou army's crossbowmen tried hard to suppress the Chuzhou army on the city wall, more than 20 anger car were still destroyed by Chuzhou with huge rocks. Two anger car were ignited by fierce tinder oil and violently exploded. Each anger car could hide five soldiers, and more than 100 Zhou army soldiers hiding in the anger car were smashed into meat cakes or fried into meat quickly by huge rocks. However, under the strict order of the front-line commander-in-chief Zhao Kuangyin, the anger car still approached the city wall one after another.

Each anger car was filled with two barrels of black gunpowder. The soldiers in the anger car were exploring dense stones on the city wall. They dug a hole in the city wall and put the wooden barrel into the hole. After igniting the fire line, the soldiers rushed out of the anger car and jumped into the moat. Each loud bang could blow up some of the city walls.

With the continuous blasting of the Zhou army, on February 26, a gap was finally blown out of the Chuzhou city wall. After the gap appeared, the Zhou army was not in a hurry to attack. Under the cover of the archers, they continued to blast, and a large gap of more than one meter wide appeared in the city wall.

For this gap, tens of thousands of weeks of military service spent three months, killing thousands of people and consuming countless food and grass.

Although the battle in Chuzhou was fierce, it was not as good as the battle in Shouzhou. In the third year of Xiande, the Zhou army surrounded Shouzhou City for more than a year. It was not until Shouzhou was out of food that it was not captured. Just when Shouzhou City was broken, the defending general Liu Renchan was worried and had a stroke. His subordinates and son carried him out of the city to surrender to the Zhou army. Chai Rong did not punish Liu Renchan. Instead, because of his loyalty, he was granted the dying Liu Renchan as the governor.

However, if one time and another, if Zhang Yanqing is given a high-ranking official because of Chuzhou's stubborn resistance, it will inevitably convey a wrong message to the generals of the Southern Tang Dynasty: as long as you resist firmly, you can get high-ranking officials and generous salaries. For this reason, Chai Rong disagreed with the opposition and issued a "City Massacre Order", warning those generals of the Southern Tang Dynasty who dared to fight with the Zhou army and burned their way.

Since the first explosion sounded from the city wall in Dongcheng, the Chuzhou defense envoy Zhang Yanqing knew that Chuzhou would be lost. Zhang Yanqing gathered all the men in the city and distributed all the weapons in stock, so that they could resist from house to house. He then organized five thousand Chuzhou soldiers into three teams, one team led by Zhang Yanqing and guarded the Chuzhou yamen. One team was headed by Zheng Qiye, the military commander, Ci'en Temple as the base, and the other team led by Zhang Yanhong to block the Zhou army at the East City Gate.

Zhang Yanhong led a total of 600 soldiers, guarding the gap in Dongcheng, more than 1 meter wide. The 600 soldiers were all well-trained Chuzhou infantry. The first row of soldiers held large square shields, followed by pike soldiers, and archers were sandwiched between the spearmen.

Zhang Yanhong is in the forefront of the team and commands the battle.

Although the Zhou army had tens of thousands of troops, the gap was only more than one meter wide and there were moats blocking each other. In order to avoid chaos caused by trampling on each other, Zhao Kuangyin only sent 500 soldiers to grab the gap. After half an hour of bloody battle, more than half of the five hundred soldiers were lost, but the gap was still not broken. The commander of the Zhou army was killed in the gap.

Several Chu Prefecture's spearmen picked up the body of the commander of the Zhou army on the tip of the gun and shouted "ho, ho" wildly.

Zhao Kuangyin's face turned pale, stared at the tooth general Wang Yansheng, and said in a verbal voice: "Take a hundred personal guards and cut off the enemy's head." Wang Yansheng was born in a wild and was an old subordinate of Zhao Kuangyin. After receiving the order, he held a simple sword and rushed towards the Chu army with great momentum.

The Chuzhou army withstood the first round of Zhou's attacks, and more than half of them were injured. Zhang Yanhong was stabbed in the face, and the tip of the gun stabbed his right ear off. Zhang Yanhong did not care about bandaging the wound, hid behind the shield player, and stabbed several Zhou soldiers to death one after another.

Wang Yansheng had twenty soldiers holding giant axes under his command. These soldiers were specially used to chop the city gates. The inside and outside of the Chuzhou city gate were blocked by huge stones, so the giant axe soldiers had no place to use their skills. Seeing that the Chuzhou shield soldiers were defending their way, Zhao Kuangyin sent this team of giant axe players.

These giant axe soldiers were all strong men in the Zhou army. They rushed to the front and after the formation. Under the cover of the Zhou army's spearmen, they raised the giant axe and slashed hard. The shield soldiers of the Chuzhou army were quickly split into a gap under the attack of these giant axe warriors.

A Chuzhou shield player was chopped to the ground, and another axe slashed down with an axe. The shield player's chest was split on the spot, and the giant axe slashed directly to the ground. The Chu general Zhang Yanhong took advantage of the opportunity of the warrior's old power to make the old and new power not yet alive, and raised his gun to stab him in the face. These giant axe warriors were all wearing iron armor. Only their faces were their weakness. The sharp spear tip pierced into the giant axe warrior's head from his left eye. The giant axe warrior raised his head and screamed, and died.

Zhang Yanhong raised his foot and kicked the giant axe warrior away, pulled out a spear from his head. A Zhou army's short knife hand slashed at Zhang Yanhong with a fierce sword. Zhang Yanhong was unable to return the gun and was about to be hit. At a critical moment, a Chu army shield soldier fell to the ground and used his last strength to stab Zhou army's short knife hand with a short knife. This sword went from bottom to top and penetrated straight into the lower body of Zhou army's short knife.

Wang Yansheng was determined to win the head of the enemy general. At this time, he had already set his sights on Zhang Yanhong, wearing general armor. When Zhang Yanhong pushed his gun through the chest of a giant axe warrior, Wang Yansheng rushed to Zhang Yanhong and raised his Park knife to slash at Zhang Yanhong. Zhang Yanhong hurriedly pulled the gun to fight. Unexpectedly, the giant axe warrior grabbed Zhang Yanhong's gun tightly. Zhang Yanhong was anxious to pull the spear back. Seeing that Wang Yansheng's blade attacked, he was forced to give up the spear in his hand and dodge the left.

Wang Yansheng became famous in the Zhou army as the "Thunder Break". The sword was extremely fast, and Zhang Yanhong was unable to slash and his left arm was chopped down. Seeing this, a Chu army's short knife hand swung his knife at Wang Yansheng. Wang Yansheng's hand strangely drew a curve in the air and slashed hard at the waist of the Chu army's short knife hand.

Zhang Yanhong bent down to pick up a waist knife that fell to the ground. When he bent down, a giant axe warrior held up a sharp giant axe and cut Zhang Yanhong into two pieces. Wang Yansheng said furiously: "Fuck it. This person is mine." After that, he cut off Zhang Yanchong's head with one knife.

The chief general of the Chuzhou army was killed, and the Yu people were soon dispersed by the Zhou army. Only dozens of 600 soldiers retreated into the city, and the rest were all killed in battle at the city wall.

The fierce Zhou army rushed into Chuzhou City, and the Zhou army soldiers suffered heavy casualties under the city of Chuzhou City. After His Majesty issued the "City Massacre Order", the Zhou army soldiers, under the bloody stimulation, turned into wild beasts, and Chuzhou became hell on earth.

The people of Chuzhou had a premonition that the coming of the future, young and middle-aged men were holding kitchen knives and other weapons to deal with the Zhou army in the streets and alleys. Although they caused some trouble to the Zhou army, the Zhou army was a well-trained tiger and wolf army after all, and the resistance of the people was soon extinguished. The Chuzhou army that really caused huge casualties to the Zhou army in the street fighting was led by Zhang Yanqing and Zheng Qiye.

The fierce battle in the mainland of Chuzhou City lasted for four hours and was not over yet. However, the situation of the Chuzhou army was gone. Ci'en Temple had been lost. More than a thousand remaining Chuzhou soldiers were concentrated in the yamen. The gate of the Chuzhou yamen was extremely thick and covered with copper skin. The Chuzhou army was thick and logs on the top of the inside, so the Zhou army was unable to enter the yamen for a while.

Hou Dayong followed Chai Rong into Chuzhou City. Even though Hou Dayong had experienced many battles, the tragic situation in the city still shocked Hou Dayong.

Chuzhou City has become an authentic Shura field. The streets are full of corpses with broken limbs and legs. There are Chuzhou soldiers, Zhou soldiers, and more are the corpses of ordinary people, with blood staining the streets and alleys red. When Hou Dayong rode his horse through some courtyards, he looked in through the empty or open courtyard gates. Many courtyards have corpses of old, weak, women and children. Two soldiers also saw holding down a woman who was stripped naked, and the other was venting his desire for animals.

Hou Dayong was silent immediately. After experiencing the cruel war, the army would become a group of devils in hell without restraint. Hou Dayong sighed in his heart: If he did not offer the plan to "break the city with gunpowder", perhaps this massacre would not have happened. But Hou Dayong immediately thought: If he did not use gunpowder to break the city, the soldiers of the Zhou army would definitely shed more blood under the city. The people of Chuzhou are humans, and the soldiers of the Zhou army were also born to their parents. As the saying goes, kindness to the enemy means cruelty to themselves. As long as there is war, there will always be tragedy.

However, Chai Rong issued a city massacre order, which was somewhat beyond Hou Dayong's expectations. He tried hard to recall the history he had learned in another world, and whether the city massacre had happened, but he had no clue.

Chai Rong and his party soon arrived at the Chuzhou Yamen. The blood-covered front-line commander Zhao Kuangyin quickly came up and saluted and reported: "There are more than a thousand people in the Chu army, Zhang Yanqing and Zheng Qiye are all inside, so people can't escape. Just wait for the small rushing car and long ladder to transport the outside of the city to launch the general attack."

Chai Rong, Fan Zhi, Hou Dayong and others watched the last battle in Chuzhou City.

Like the traditional yamen, the Chuzhou yamen is a courtyard made of housing and walls. Moreover, there is a courtyard in the courtyard. The Zhou army's troops entering the city were all infantry, chariots, beds and crossbows and other heavy weapons were still outside the city. The Zhou army was unable to cross the wall for a while, and could not push open the gate of the yamen, so they squeezed into a group outside.

A team of Zhou Jun built a wall of human eyes and tried to climb over the wall. The fastest-moving sergeant had just poked his head out on the wall. Several iron arrows shot over. The soldiers were shot with one arrow on their faces and chests, and they turned over and fell down. No Zhou Jun dared to go to the wall again.

There was a noise from afar, "The car is coming, get out of here."

Although the rushing car transported into the city was a small rushing car, it was used to deal with the city gate after all. Although the yard gate was thick, how could it withstand such great force? In a few seconds, the gate of the yamen was knocked open. A team of Zhou soldiers rushed in with shouts. Unexpectedly, the Chuzhou army placed cabinets, horses, beds, chairs, coffee tables and other debris behind the yamen gate, forming a simple line of defense. The Chuzhou army took advantage of the short time when the Zhou army was blocked, and arrows were like locusts. More than a hundred Zhou soldiers were shot in front of the debris.

The commander of the Zhou army had extremely rich combat experience and ordered the attack to be stopped in time. After a while, several soldiers carried large barrels and under the cover of the large infantry shield, they quickly poured the turbulent oil onto the debris. Soon, there was a fire at the door.

Zhou Jun fired some rockets into the courtyard. Since the wall was a hundred steps away from the houses in the courtyard, most of these rockets were shot on the open space and failed to ignite the buildings in the courtyard.

The debris in the courtyard was quickly burned down, the gate opened, hundreds of weeks of sabre players holding a small round shield in their left hand and a waist knife in their right hand swarmed in. Then, archers and spearmen also entered one after another, shouting and screaming loudly in the courtyard.

Chai Rong kept his face and expression. When he heard the shouts of killing in the yard gradually weakened, he turned his head to Hou Dayong and said, "Chuzhou is settled."

At this moment, on the roof of Chai Rong's left, a Chuzhou soldier suddenly appeared. He rushed down from the roof regardless of everything, just like diving on the high platform, with the spear and his body in a straight line, and the tip of the gun pointed at Chai Rong.

The roof was far away from Chai Rong. This man could not stab Chai Rong without anything. Chai Rong did not dodge at all. He watched him pounce on the ground. With a "puff" sound, the tip of the gun pierced into the ground. Under the huge force, the gun rod was "bang", and the broken gun rod pierced into the body of the Chuzhou soldier. The Chuzhou soldier spit out some blood bubbles from his mouth, and he twitched on the ground for several times, but he could no longer move.

Chai Rong said calmly: "It's really a warrior."

Hou Dayong broke out in a cold sweat. He looked up and saw that the street houses were densely packed, mostly two-story buildings. If an archer hiding it, the consequences would be unimaginable. Although he was not responsible for the guards of Chai Rongdi, he still shouted to the imperial guards behind him: "Send people to search the house quickly, and you can't leave alone in the room."

Gao Huaide, the commander of the imperial guards Long Jie left wing, was responsible for protecting Chai Rong. Hearing Hou Dayong's order, he glanced at Zhao Kuangyin quickly, and then bowed and said, "Receive the order." Two teams of imperial guards rushed into the houses on both sides of the street. After a while, they heard screams constantly in the houses.

At this time, dozens of people rushed out of the Chuzhou yamen. A shirtless man was carrying two heads and quickly walked to Chai Rong.

Zhang Yanqing's eyes were open round and half-closed. He usually had a habit of half-closing his eyes before making major decisions. When his eyes suddenly opened, it meant he had made up his mind. At this time, Zhang Yanqing lost his vitality, and all his thinking and determination disappeared with the wind, and his eyes went their own way.

Chai Rong looked at Zhang Yanqing's head for a long time. When Chai Rong was young, his family was poor and humble. He once went to the south to do business. At that time, Zhang Yanqing was still a junior high school in the Southern Tang Army. The two had a few encounters. Zhang Yanqing also helped Chai Rong. At this time, when he saw the head of his old friend, all kinds of feelings surged into Chai Rong's heart.

Chai Rong quickly adjusted his mentality and said coldly: "Hang the heads of Zhang Yanqing and Zheng Qiye onto the wooden pole."

The killing in the city continued, and the imperial guards were running around in groups of three or five. As long as they saw that they were not wearing military uniforms, they would be killed immediately. When the generals were late, the city was filled with bloody smell that was so strong that they could not be dissolved.
Chapter completed!