Liangzhou's Hutou City had become the second Fishing Island of the Central Plains.
However, that time, it was the Xu Clan's Iron Cavalry that was obstructed in the Central Plains. This time, it was the Northern Mang's horseshoes that were densely packed together in the Dragon Eye Plains outside the city.
The Great King of the Southern Courtyard, Dong Zhuo, personally led a crow's pen, patrolling a troop of infantry that was ready to attack. Beside this fatty was a young man and woman of noble status. Among them, the sickly looking young man had many identities. None of them were simple. He was Chun Jinjo of Northern Mang's Four Great Jinjo, the leader of the Southern Dynasty's Strategist, the Chess, Sword, and Music School's Divination Operator. Of course, his most fundamental identity was Tuoba Bodhisattva's eldest son, Tuoba Qi Yun. The woman who had just been officially taken away by Zhong Tan of the Calabash Vanguard was called Yelu Yuhu. This man and woman almost succeeded in scheming against Hsu Fengnian outside the Calabash Vanguard. Unfortunately, Yuan Zuozong led 10,000 Great Snow Dragon Cavalry to the battlefield, making them and that Taiping Commandant's efforts go to waste.
Dong Zhuo pointed at Hutou City with his horsewhip and said, "Hutou City, which is said to be able to support ten years of war, has run out of winches and wooden bales in less than half a year. We've also used up more than half of the bricks and clay bales. We've also cut down countless iron bales, spears, and battering poles. There are only three crossbows left on the city wall that are still intact. The broken ones have piled up into mountains. Of course, there are still many small and medium crossbows and light crossbows in the city. There are still hundreds of thousands of arrows in the warehouse. However, compared to Xiangfan City, which had less than 100,000 soldiers but 300,000 civilians, Hutou City has a fatal flaw. There are too few people. Crossbows are dead. If they are broken, they can go to the warehouse and get new ones. The Beiliang Frontier Army in Hutou City is not immortal. Their arm strength is far inferior to the early stage. If you two have the opportunity to watch the battle, you should be able to see that most of the archers on the city wall have bandages on their arms. To put it bluntly, if you give me another three months, I, Dong Zhuo, will be able to stand a hundred steps away from the city. I reckon that not many archers will be able to pierce through my armor and kill me. "
Tuoba Qi Yun, whose body emitted a faint medicinal smell, had a solemn expression and did not comment.
Because His Majesty had personally deprived Xia Jemo of his position, Yelu Yuhu came to Tiger Head City in a fit of pique to 'relax'. She glanced at the fat man with a playful expression. He was a thirty-five-year-old King of the Southern Courtyard, and he had millions of soldiers in his hands. He was almost as powerful as the old Prince Liang, Xu Xiao, and the two Liao Gu Jiantang. It was this guy who had insisted on attacking Beiliang first and had caused such a big commotion, causing His Majesty and the Taiping Commandery to bear great pressure. In the end, other than Yang Yuanzan on the eastern front, whose merits could barely offset his faults, the other two fronts were overshadowed. Especially Fatty Dong himself, who was forcibly blocked outside Liangzhou Pass by Hutou City. Even Liu Gui, who had only lost a few thousand men, had been cursed as an old dog in the Western Jing court. For the time being, no one had the courage to impeach Commander-in-Chief Dong Zhuo. Yelu Yuhu was very curious about how long this fat man, who privately called His Majesty 'Sister Emperor', could last.
Dong Zhuo seemed to casually mention three months, but Yelu Yuhu, who knew the rules of the court very well, sneered in her heart. Had he fallen to the point where he needed her and Tuoba Qi Yun to help him pass on a message to some people? Or was it that His Majesty and the Taiping Commandery, who had placed great expectations on Dong Zhuo, could no longer hold back?
Tuoba Qi Yun finally said, "General Dong, I have been to the Northwest Camp on the Longyan Plain."
Dong Zhuo grunted in acknowledgment.
When she thought of the so-called Northwest Camp, Yelu Yuhu suddenly felt somewhat disgusted. What camp? It was just a place to pile up sick and dead bodies. Pile up! The strength that the Southern Dynasty had accumulated over the past 20 years was all focused on offense, especially on siege materials. Otherwise, they would not have been able to pull out nearly a thousand catapults of various sizes in one go. However, Beimang had never been good at treating the wounded on the battlefield. Under the scorching sun, Yelu Yuhu, clad in a gorgeous golden armor, was already dripping with sweat. She had a natural yearning for war, yearning for the thrill of exchanging lives on horseback, yearning for the piercing feeling of an arrow piercing through the enemy's skull. Yelu Yuhu was used to seeing dead people, but even someone as determined as her almost couldn't help but vomit when she arrived at the Northwest Barracks. Carts after carts of corpses were dragged down from the battlefield and thrown into large pits that had been dug. Wounded soldiers lay not far from the pits, wailing in pain. Many of the wounded soldiers, who had been badly mutilated by the city defense equipment, begged for a quick death.
At the time, Tuoba Qi Yun was standing at the edge of a new pit with seven or eight hundred corpses piled on top of it. She asked the soldier in charge of sprinkling the lime for a basin. Yelu Yuhu, with a thick cotton cloth covering her mouth and nose, watched as the spring basin expressionlessly sprinkled out handfuls of lime.
She suddenly realized that she, who had been more cold-hearted than the men of the grassland since she was a child, actually felt sad for the first time after seeing this scene.
Tuoba Qi Yun's thoughts jumped around quickly. She changed the topic and said slowly, "General Dong was anxious when fighting Beiliang, but he slowed down when fighting Hutou."
The resilience and fighting habits of the nomads made Beimang's low need for food far exceed the imagination of the Central Plains cavalry. At least Beimang still did not lack food. However, if they could send their troops down south during the autumn season, Beimang would be able to handle the situation more easily in a stalemate. Tuoba Qi Yun didn't want to speak too much belated advice. Besides, there was a reason why Dong Zhuo and the Taiping Order wanted to go down south at the beginning of spring. What Tuoba Qi Yun really wanted to say was the second half of the sentence. If Dong Zhuo's Eastern Front had attacked the city without thinking of the consequences and took Hutou in one go, the current situation would not be so difficult to get off. This was not Tuoba Qi Yun criticizing Dong Zhuo for not putting in effort when fighting Hutou. In fact, there was nothing wrong with Dong Zhuo's deployment. However, since Dong Zhuo was the King of the Southern Courtyard and the commander-in-chief of the million-strong army, he should have done more.
Dong Zhuo nodded and said, "At first, I suspected that other than the thousands of elite cavalry reported by our spies, there was another group of armored cavalry hidden in Tiger Head City. For example, the 6,000 Iron Buddhas that were later given to the Qidang Kingdom. I even suspected that at least one of the two groups of Northern Liang's heavy cavalry, which totaled about 9,000 people, was hidden in Tiger Head City. Because I felt that since Chu Lushan dared to place the Huaiyang Pass behind Hutou, he must have wanted to fight me head-on. He wanted to fight with me south of Hutou and north of Liuya and Fuling in a big battle where both light and heavy cavalry would appear. "
Dong Zhuo said in a deep voice, "Until that ambush where everyone had their own schemes, I first used four thousand cavalry at Ya Slope as bait. As expected, the Fuling Army's commander-in-chief Wei Liang was greedy for merit and advanced prematurely. His formation was disrupted by the eight thousand cavalry. If it was not for that Beiliang's junior commander-in-chief Wei Liang who ruined things at Qifulong Pass and was too brave to help the Fuling cavalry break through, the Beiliang's ambush should have entered the battlefield on time. My Dong Family cavalry would also have moved. In the end, on that battlefield, I could lure out Fuling and Liuya, the two commanders-in-chief Huaiyang Pass, and even the Hutou City cavalry. In this way, it would have become a situation where both sides' cavalry swapped places. Even if I, Dong Zhuo, suffered more losses, as long as I could destroy the mobility of the Beiliang cavalry's defensive line south of Hutou City, it wouldn't be a problem whether Hutou City was conquered or not."
Dong Zhuo said self-deprecatingly, "Perhaps many people in the Beiliang Protectorate are cursing that junior commander-in-chief of Qifulong Pass for using his strength in the wrong place. But in reality, Liangzhou was lucky enough to escape a calamity. A single Hutou City isn't scary. What's scary is the nimble cavalry behind it that doesn't seek to kill the enemy, only to restrain them. Right now, I, Dong Zhuo, am not sure if I'm thinking too much, or if Chu Lushan's luck is good, or if he's actually thinking more than I am. "
Yelu Yuhu frowned and said, "Can't we just press forward with all our forces and attack Fuling and Liuya together? In any case, we have the absolute advantage in terms of military strength. It would be a waste not to fight! "
Dong Zhuo dismissed it with a laugh and didn't explain anything. Tuoba Qi Yun shook his head and said, "It's not that we can't stake it all in one throw, but there's not much point …"
Just as Tuoba Qi Yun was about to explain the specifics to Yelu Yuhu, Dong Zhuo rode along the edge of the infantry formation toward a group of dusty carriages. When the thousand-man commander in charge of supervising his subordinates moving the corpses saw the king of the southern courtyard, he quickly dismounted and reported the battle situation to Dong Zhuo. It turned out that these corpses had all been dragged out from the tunnels leading into the city. Beimang's catapult attacks had intervals in between, but this' unpresentable 'method of attacking the city had never stopped. However, there were still no obvious results. Apart from a group of five hundred soldiers who entered Tiger Head City at the beginning, but they were quickly intercepted and killed by the armored city guards, the rest died in the narrow paths of the tunnels or were easily killed by those waiting for rabbits to appear at the cave entrances. It was reported that City Guard General Liu Jinu had long made preparations. He had dug out more than ten holes that were three zhang deep in various strategic locations within the city beforehand, allowing the soldiers with sharp ears to stay within. As long as Beimang's cave masters and armored soldiers made any movements within several hundred or even a thousand steps, they would be able to immediately seize the opportunity. Afterwards, whether it was digging holes horizontally to set up an ambush or using windmills to fan the smoke and lime, all of this was easy.
That thousand-man commander had only taken up this post because he lost an arm in the Formation Charging Ant Attached Army. After the single-armed man finished reporting the general battle situation and death toll, his eyes became slightly red. After lowering his head, he said quietly, "Great general, there have been sixteen tunnels in total. Including this wave, the number of our brothers who have died underground has already reached five thousand. Is it worth it? To be able to die on top of Tiger Head City's city walls is also good. "
Dong Zhuo said calmly, "You all should head to the Northwest Camp."
The single-armed thousand-man commander raised his remaining arm to wipe his eyes. After getting on his horse, he led the carriages piled with corpses into the distance.
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