"I may not say that, it is not overestimating my abilities, nor is it underestimating the enemy!"

"Yes, the overall strength of the two thieves Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande is indeed one step ahead of our army. Our army can only ensure a sure victory when dealing with one of them alone! But why should we be foolish at the same time? Just defeat these two thieves one by one? Isn't it enough to concentrate our efforts to eat one of the thieves first, and then free up our hands to deal with the other thieves?"

"Don't forget that Dou Jiande is only an alliance with Wang Shichong and has not sent troops immediately. Now, whether in terms of time or space, we still have enough room to defeat Wang Shichong first and then destroy Dou Jiande!"

After hearing Chen Sangliang's arrogant words, the civil and military officials of the Sui army were speechless and quickly started to move their heads that had been filled with toxins by Chen Sangliang and carefully considered it. Then, soon, the veteran Qu Tutong first raised a question and said, "Your Highness, defeating the enemy is indeed a clever strategy of defeating the more with less, but Wang Shichong is now guarding the city tightly. It is definitely not that easy for us to wipe out him? Once this siege war lasts for a long time, our army is tired at the Luoyang city and his morale is declining. Dou Jiande leads his army to fight again. Let alone defeating the two powerful enemies, can it block Dou Jiande's new force? "

"There is no need to wipe out Wang Shichong first, and you must not wipe out Wang Shichong immediately!" Chen Sangliang replied firmly: "Drunk Wang Shichong first, and Dou Jiande will not come, so it is enough to beat Wang Shichong to a serious injury! First beat Wang Shichong to a basic life and cannot take care of himself, forcing him to do everything possible to beg Dou Jiande to send troops to help him at any cost, and also make him have no power to make trouble when we fight Dou Jiande in the decisive battle. In this way, we can use a small part of our power to restrain Wang Shichong, concentrate most of the power on Dou Jiande, and wait for Lao and Dou Jiande's expeditionary army to fight! Defeat Dou Jiande first, and then turn around to deal with Wang Shichong!"

After hearing Chen Sangliang's idea of ​​making the wishful plan sound, Qu Tutong was very moved. However, after careful consideration, Qu Tutong still reminded again: "Your Highness, this tactic is easy to do. Not to mention whether it can severely damage Wang Shichong before Dou Jiande sent troops to aid. No matter how much military force we have left after severe damage to Wang Shichong, it is a big problem just how much damage Wang Shichong is. Wang Shichong is currently hiding in Luoyang City and can't guard it. Your Highness, you have said that our gunpowder explosion tactics cannot do anything to the walls of the Dongdu Imperial City. So what should we do?"

"Yes, our current siege tactics is difficult to quickly capture the Dongdu Imperial City and the Outer City, but are we not afraid of the Dongdu Outer City?" Chen Sangliang said with a graceful look: "Wang Shichong has not given up the Dongdu Outer City. We just need to move fast enough. While taking the Dongdu Outer City, wouldn't it be enough to severely damage his main force before Wang Shichong's thieves retreated into the Imperial City? Also, Wang Shichong still has nearly 40,000 thieves stationed in Hulao Pass and Luokou Cang. Those two places are also rammed earth walls. We don't need much strength to kill in. Taking down these two places will not only severely damage the Wang Shichong's thieves' army, but also take the initiative in the Central Plains battlefield. When Dou Jiande attacks, can he face him more calmly?"

Qu Tutong shut up, but his expression was obviously worried, and he was still worried whether Chen Sangliang's tactic of swallowing elephant with a snake was too risky. Most of the other Sui army's civil and military officials were like this. Only Luo Shixin, Xue Renguo and Guo Feng, a few brave generals who were brave, shouted loudly, and believed that Chen Sangliang's tactic would be successful. Chen Sangliang, who believed that he would do better than the old Li family, did not hesitate, and immediately made a decision: "That's it. First, severely damage Wang Shichong's main force, then seize the Luokou Cang Hulao Pass, and wait for Lao to fight Dou Jiande! Destroy Dou Jiande, and then destroy Wang Shichong again!"

The dictatorship has this benefit. Although most of the civil and military officials of the Sui army were skeptical of Chen Sangliang's overly greedy and bold decision, since Chen Sangliang had made up his mind, the accomplices and lackeys did not dare to object at all. They all immediately began to formulate a tactical plan to try to eliminate the enemy's main force in the outer city of Dongdu according to Chen Sangliang's request.

Then, Sui army officials suggested to take down Jinyong City, the most important acropolis in the Eastern Capital, and attack the outer city of Dongdu without any worries. However, after careful consideration, Chen Sangliang shook his head and said, "You can't attack Jinyong City first. Once Jinyong City is broken, the old fox will definitely prepare to give up the outer city and withdraw the imperial city in advance. As long as the situation in the outer city is slightly wrong, they will immediately withdraw all the imperial city. If you want to kill him, you can only attack Luoyang's outer city first, and then turn around to deal with Jinyong City. When siege, it is enough to send an army to monitor the bandit army in Jinyong City."

Thinking that Chen Sangliang's words made some sense, the Sui army's civil and military officials re-discussed the tactical plan to first capture the outer city of Luoyang. Then Qu Tutong, Liu Heita, Yuan Tiangang and others unanimously decided to set the main battlefield at the Shangchun Gate, which was the most open, to attack other city gates, to restrain the enemy's main attack on Shangchun Gate and break the city. However, Chen Sangliang, who had always been cautious in using military style, was crazy this time, and just had a little calculation and said viciously: "No! Shangchun Gate is not the ideal main battlefield, Hui'an Gate is! Fake attacking Shangchun Gate and actually attack Hui'an Gate!"

"Your Highness, the terrain in the area of ​​Hui'anmen is not open enough, which is not conducive to our main force's deployment of troops." Yuan Tiangang quickly reminded: "Also, Hui'anmen is close to the Dongdu Imperial City, and the imperial guards of the bandit army can threaten our attack path with bows and arrows, which is not conducive to our siege."

"But after our army entered Hui'anmen, we can immediately cut off the road for the outer city thieves to move to the imperial city." Chen Sangliang said quietly: "If you want to destroy the outer city thieves more, you can only break Hui'anmen first."

The civil and military officials of the Sui army looked at each other and smiled bitterly. In desperation, Qu Tutong and Yuan Tiangang had to propose to attack Hui'an and Shangchun Gate at the same time, and at the same time, they set up Chen Sangliang's flag outside Shangchun Gate, making the Zheng army unable to understand the true main attack direction of the Sui army. They gave priority to breaking Hui'an Gate with elite strong troops, and then broke through Shangchun Gate, and eliminated Wang Shichong's vitality as much as possible in the battle in the outer city.

Chen Sangliang had a long time to do so, and then he reluctantly accepted this relatively stable tactic, but he specially explained to prepare a reserve team in advance for the situation in the Eastern Capital City. After breaking the city, he immediately attacked the Luoshui Bridge and cut off the connection between Luoyang's southern city and the imperial city in order to eliminate the enemy's southern city defenders. At the same time, Chen Sangliang also decided to send troops to attack the city in the afternoon and break the city at night, making Wang Shichong's imperial city defenders afraid of being killed by the Sui army in the dark, and did not dare to open the city gate and let the defeated soldiers into the city, creating more opportunities for the Sui army soldiers to kill the enemy. The civil and military officials of the Sui army smiled bitterly and accepted the order, and muttered in their hearts: "Old thief Wang Shichong, you have found our Emperor Tang as your son-in-law, it is really your ancestors who have not accumulated virtue."

In addition, while the Sui army and civil and military officials carefully discussed the specific tactics, Chen Sangliang also called his confidential secretary Sun Fujia aside and whispered in his ear: "Send an absolutely reliable and meticulous job to Linming immediately, try to contact Wang Xuance, so that he would induce Li Mi to instigate Dou Jiande to lead his army to reinforce Wang Shichong. If he succeeds, he can also take the opportunity to come back."

After finalizing the strategic and tactical plan, the soldiers of the Sui army immediately made every effort to make arrangements and make preparations. They first left a army stationed in the Qianjin Fort snatched by Wang Fubao to protect road traffic, and moved the main camp to ten miles east of Luoyang. They were backed by Luoshui camp to deter Shangchun Gate, and at the same time threatened Jinyong City, and then immediately prepared all their efforts to siege equipment. Wang Shichong, who was familiar with his son-in-law's steady style of military use, was also deceived. He was expected that his unfilial son-in-law would definitely take down Jinyong City first and then attack Luoyang's outer city. In order to gain time and wait for Dou Jun to come to help, he ordered Wang Deren and Zhao Jiqing to defend Jinyong City to the death, and deployed heavy troops at Shangchun Gate, which not only prevented the treacherous son-in-law from changing the virtual and real situation of the virtual and real people, but also prepared to send troops to appropriately share the pressure for Jinyong City at any time.

At the same time, Chen Sangliang, who had some hypocritical reputations in the eastern capital Luoyang City, re-used his old tricks and issued a manifesto to declare to the soldiers and civilians of Luoyang that after the city was destroyed, he would only kill the rebel King Shichong's family, and that as long as the city was destroyed, the rest would be exempted from death as long as they surrendered. He also pointed out Duan Da, Shan Xiongxin, Yang Qing and Yang Wang, and Wang Shichong's important names, and declared that even if they helped the evildoer to commit crimes of abuse, they should die, as long as they opened the city gate and led the army to surrender, they would not blame him, pardon the death penalty and reward him as appropriate. In order to separate Wang Shichong's family, politically isolated and unpopular Wang Shichong's family.

In addition, Chen Sangliang naturally had to pretend to be hypocritical and love the people as if they were as good as their sons, and announced that all the people in Henan County would be exempted from all taxes, money and grain this year. Using this little sweetness to win over the people's people, it also further demonstrated that Wang Shichong still aggravated the injustice and cruelty of the people's corvee during the spring plowing season.

Although Wang Shichong strictly prohibited Chen Sangliang's manifesto from spreading, Chen Sangliang, who had been prepared, ordered the soldiers to shoot the manifesto in large quantities into Luoyang City with bows and arrows, and arranged loud soldiers to read the content of the manifesto under the city to let the defenders on the city know about His Royal Highness the Tang Dynasty's kindness and loving people and kindness. As a result, it really played a role. The overwhelmed Luoyang people all longed for Chen Sangliang, who had jumped into the city to block the gap for the people to rescue them as soon as possible. The civil and military officials of the pseudo-political court also breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that since Chen Sangliang could even pardon the culprits such as Duan Da and Yang Qing, as long as the city was destroyed, it would be no big problem to save his head and his life after the city was broken.

After seven days of careful preparation, at noon on the sixth day of the March 19th, the main force of the Sui army suddenly launched a large-scale move. Liu Heita led 10,000 troops north to Jinyong City to monitor and restrain the Zheng army there. Chen Sangliang personally led 48,000 Sui army soldiers to advance westward, and set up a formation at Shangchun Gate, and then divided 13,000 troops to continue advancing westward, slowly setting up a formation under Hui'an Gate, directly north of Luoyang.

The unfilial son-in-law did not attack Jinyong City first, but directly attacked Luoyang's outer city. Wang Shichong was also wary of this in advance, and was not too scared about this. However, the unfilial son-in-law deployed a force outside Hui'anmen Square that cannot be ignored. Wang Shichong felt something was wrong and doubted the real purpose of the unfilial son-in-law. However, Duan Da cleverly believed that Chen Sangliang wanted to disperse the forces of the Eastern Capital defenders, so that the Eastern Capital defenders could not rescue each other when they were far away. At the same time, it also had the effect of restraining the Zheng army's imperial city defenders and reducing the pressure on the battlefield on the Chunmen. After hearing this, Wang Shichong felt it was reasonable, and then he felt a little relieved. In addition to preparing for the battle with all his might, he also hurriedly prepared to give up the outer city and withdraw back to the imperial city at a critical moment.

Because he carried ten heavy artillery and a large number of heavy siege weapons, the Sui army's partial division under the command of Qu Tutong did not set up a formation north of Hui'anmen until he approached Shen. During this period, the main force of the Sui army, who was under the banner of Chen Sangliang outside Shangchun Gate, had already begun a routine artillery opening. Twenty artillery fired in a neat round of ten rounds, smashing the city tower of Shangchun Gate, and knocking the defenders on the front of the city to the point of not daring to look up. He also reconnaissed through firepower that Wang Shichong had blocked the city gate corridor with a sandbag.

Then the Sui army's catapult came forward. More than 200 catapults desperately poured stone bullets into the city, smashing the Shangchun Gate with holes. Finally, the long shield and archers went into battle, covering the city with dense feather arrows like storms. The Zheng army defenders also fought back with bows and arrows. The arrows in the sky came and went like locusts. In about half an hour, they fired more than 200,000 feather arrows at each other, which was the point that Chen Sangliang hated the most.

At the same time, the Sui army's partial division under the banner of Qu Tutong had already begun to pour artillery fire into Hui'anmen Gate. First, it smashed the Hui'anmen Gate Tower, and at the right, it destroyed the imperial city Deyou Gate Tower near the right, which forced the Zheng army's imperial city defenders to quickly block the gate corridors of Hui'anmen and Deyou Gate with sandbags, and cut off the road out of the city. Then Qu Tutong sent a scattering machine and a bow and archery team to move forward to fight the Hui'anmen Gate to waste long-range weapons reserves.

When the time was halfway through You hour, the war suddenly stopped. I saw Sui soldiers eating dinner on the spot from afar. Wang Shichong understood that the Sui army must have started a night battle, so he quickly asked the soldiers of his own army to hurry up and prepare a large number of torches and bonfires and other night battles. However, Li Shiying, an important counselor under Wang Shichong, who was second only to Dai Zhou, saw that the situation was wrong and ran to Wang Shichong to warn: "Your Majesty, the bandit army had just sent troops at noon, and first attacked with artillery bows and arrows, delaying the time until near evening. The purpose seemed to be to break through the outer city at night, and then severely damage our army in the street fighting in the outer city, so that our army would not have sufficient troops to defend the imperial city. On the ground of caution, Your Majesty would better start immediately to arrange the withdrawal of troops and concentrate its strength to defend the imperial city first."

After hearing this suggestion, Wang Shichong was a little hesitant, but after careful calculation, Wang Shichong shook his head and said, "You can't retreat. The bandit army is already at the city. When you withdraw your troops and return to the imperial city, the soldiers in the outer city will definitely think that they have been abandoned by us, which will seriously shake the morale of the army and give the bandit army a chance to break through the outer city of Luoyang faster."

It cannot be said that Wang Shichong's concern is unreasonable. Even the tired Zheng army soldiers could not withstand the blows of morale decline and the wavering of the army's morale. Therefore, Li Shiying was not too persistent. He just reminded: "Your Majesty, be careful of the thief army outside Hui'anmen. If they enter the city from Hui'anmen, they will immediately cut off the road to return to the city by our main force in Shangchunmen. The ministers believe that Your Majesty would better draw some troops deployed in Taipei City to strengthen Hui'anmen in advance."

"No need." Wang Shichong laughed and said, "I know Chen Yingliang's little thief's military habits. I want to be undefeated before fighting. I also need to consider how to minimize the losses of soldiers. Hui'anmen has the protection of our imperial guards, so he will never dare to launch a main attack from here!"

Facts proved that Wang Shichong's guess was right. Just after the You hour, when the two Sui troops launched an attack at the same time as agreed, the war on Shangchunmen was obviously several times more intense than Hui'anmen. In the first wave of siege alone, the Sui soldiers threw more than 600 flying ladders into Shangchunmen, and more than fifty pointed wooden donkey carts. The Zheng army soldiers rose up to fight and fought with the Sui army in the siege, so they could not get along.

The war on Hui'anmen was just a little smaller, but the intensity was not as strong as Shangchunmen. During the fierce battle, it was still bombarded the northwest corner of Luoyang Imperial City with artillery, suppressing the Zheng army's bow and archery troops on the city. While attacking the city with flying ladder ants, it also invested a large number of pointed wooden donkey carts to hit the city wall.

Here we must also introduce what the pointed-headed wooden donkey cart is. This siege weapon invented by Hou Jing is a four-wheeled cart. The car has a roof that looks like a roof that can prevent arrows and can effectively slide away the stones smashed from the city. People in the car push the cart forward, and they can hide under the cart to dig the city wall. Only by concentrating a large number of huge rocks or swallowtail torch attacks can it be effectively destroyed. It was once a very common siege weapon in the era of rammed earth city walls.

However, the excavation of the city walls by manpower is naturally slow to achieve results, so Chen Sangliang did not attach much importance to this weapon when he used troops before, and he rarely made it and rarely appeared. It was the rise of another siege tactic. Chen Sangliang, who needed to effectively dig the city wall, picked up this weapon and made it in large quantities and used it as the main weapon of the siege. He was a treasure when needed, and he was a grass when not needed. From this point, it can be seen how realistic and snobbish we Chen Sangliang is in addition to being despicable.

The pseudo-political court actually suffered a great loss from this new tactic in the Xin'an War, but unfortunately, when Xin'an City was broken, it was also at night, and it was too dark, the Zheng army soldiers could not see what the Sui army soldiers used to collapse the Xin'an city wall. Therefore, even if a certain number of Xin'an defenders fled back to the Eastern Capital, the pseudo-political court still did not understand the reason for the Xin'an city breaking. Naturally, the pointed-headed wooden donkey that Chen Sangliang had dispatched for the first time was not enough. Hui'anmen still focused its main force on dealing with the Sui army's ants attack. It did not work hard to deal with the Sui army soldiers who dug the rammed earth wall. Anyway, there were not many hours, and the Sui army soldiers could not dig out a road to the city. And even if they were dug out, they could easily deal with it.

In addition, the strong combat effectiveness of the Sui army soldiers attacking Hui'anmen is also an important reason why the Zheng army soldiers have no time to take care of each other. Even if only one Sui army soldier can kill and injured several Zheng army soldiers to cover the next companion to go up the city from the stairs. Therefore, the Hui'anmen defenders have some strength and try their best to deal with the ants-attached Sui army, and they don't have the time and energy to attack the pointed wooden donkey cart under the city.

If you know nothing about the Sui army's new tactics, you will naturally have to pay a heavy price. After more than half an hour of fierce fighting passed, when Wang Shichong, who was in charge of the imperial city, was nervously paying attention to the progress of the war at Chunmen on the main battlefield, two loud noises came from the battlefield of Hui'anmen Square, one after another, like huge thunder, and the volume was far more than the sound of the cannon fired by the Sui army. Even if the distance was far enough, it made the palace window lattice tremble slightly. Hearing these two loud noises, Wang Shichong was stunned at first, and then an unknown premonition suddenly came to his mind, and he said to himself: "What happened? Don't be something unexpected happening in Hui'anmen Square. Even if I withdraw the army in the outer city immediately, I will definitely suffer heavy losses..., Bah! No! No! No!"

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Your Majesty is in trouble!"

Those who should come will always come. Soon, a guard of the imperial city rolled and crawled into the Golden Palace, screaming like a pig before he could salute, "Your Majesty! The big thing is wrong! The city wall on the east side of Hui'an Gate suddenly collapsed, and two more sections of it collapsed!"

"What?!" Wang Shichong stood up in shock, and his face suddenly turned black.

"And." The guard screamed again: "And, the banner of the thief army commander outside Hui'anmen City suddenly became Chen Yingliang's Tang King's banner! The thief army launched a large attack and was rushing into the city from the gap in the city wall!"

"I've fallen into the trap!"
Chapter completed!