Year 3 of Xiangfu, autumn.
The yin energy grew heavier, and the dew turned white.
The coldness of the central plains was the heaviest at the northwest border.
In the twilight, 400 thousand grassland cavalry troops set up camp outside of Jbei City, endless and endless. The war horses neighed, gathering like thunder.
From time to time, there were dozens to hundreds of small groups of cavalry coming out of the battle formation and approaching the North Rejection City quickly. Then, when they were at the edge of the shooting range of the crossbows, they raised their heads and looked up, pointing their horsewhips and sabers at the top of the city wall in an arrogant manner.
Just on the north city wall of Jbei City, there were 40 of the expensive ballistae that were hailed as the most important weapon of the country. Their range and power were far beyond the imagination of the grassland. The Spring and Autumn War Armor Ye Baikui had once exclaimed on the West Wall battlefield, "Nine oxen crossbow, one arrow can destroy a mountain, 300 steps, can kill a grandmaster!"
However, for some reason, facing the Beimang cavalry troops that were outside the range of normal crossbows, the Beiliang city wall ballistae did not move at all. They did not show any signs of using this top-grade weapon to show off their might.
Beimang had actually already experienced the power of the Hutou City ballistae. However, the group of grassland pickers that were responsible for sieging the city, at that time South Yard King Dong Zhuo attacked Hutou City without caring about the casualties, causing the other divisions to suffer heavy casualties. Today, most of them were still licking their wounds in the grassland territory and did not participate in this southern expedition. In the first battle of Liang Mang, General Yang Yuanzan, who led the army to attack Hulukou, Youzhou, died for his country. If Beiliang didn't want to exchange the head of this old general for the corpse of Liu Jinu in Hutou City, Yang Yuanzan's body would probably continue to be one of the piles of bones in a certain capital temple at Hulukou. As for Deputy General Zhong Tan, who made meritorious contributions in breaking Huogong City and He Luan City, he was defeated in the battle of Miyun and was still imprisoned in Jubei City. Dong Zhuo was in the north mainly attacking Huaiyang Pass and did not follow the army to the south to Jubei City. Therefore, the Beimang army's impression of Beiliang was still the word "Iron Cavalry". Of course, this was all thanks to Dong Zhuo who used a stratagem to break Hutou City. Even though Dong Zhuo had resigned as the King of South Courtyard, he had reminded his colleagues in the Southern Imperial Court that Hutou City, the first town in the northwest border, was extremely difficult to attack. The magnificent new city outside Liangzhou Pass, which was built by Xu family for 20 years, could not be broken in a short time. The grassland cavalry's way to the south was like jumping over a natural moat, so they had to be prepared for the worst. It was a pity that Dong Zhuo had already lost his prestigious title as the King of the Southern Courtyard, so his words carried a lot less weight. Secondly, in the first battle of Liang Mang, Dong Zhuo deliberately held back his strength and wantonly depleted the grassland forces for the sake of that old lady. His reputation in the Northern and Southern Capitals was getting worse and worse. Finally, in the officialdom of the two Imperial Halls, they all felt that Dong Zhuo was deliberately exaggerating, saying that attacking the new city of Beiliang was as difficult as ascending to the heavens. It was nothing more than that Dong Zhuo wanted to show off his military exploits, since he had already achieved great merit in taking down the Hutou City. He still hoped that one day he would be able to unify the power, and once again ride on the necks of all the great generals and give orders.
Outside the city, there were grassland dignitaries galloping on their horses, shouting domineeringly, "Grandpa is here! That coward surnamed Xu from Beiliang, do you dare to come out of the city and fight? "
Some grassland generals with astonishing strength even pulled their bows like a full moon, urging their horses to gallop forward, the bowstrings pulled taut. After a 'thump' sound, the arrows shot toward the city gate of Beiliang City, swiftly and violently nailing into the city gate, the feathers of the arrows trembling non-stop.
When these famous archers of the grassland turned their horses back, they won the deafening cheers in front of Beimang's main camp.
It turned out that the catapults behind the cavalry were constantly advancing south along the gaps in the main camp, there were more than nine hundred catapults in total. In addition to the one thousand four hundred catapults that Wang Yong, the military governor of Aquarius, would escort to the battlefield before dawn, there were two thousand three hundred catapults in total. Moreover, there were so many boulders that it was said that they had emptied the two opposing mountain peaks in the Southern Dynasty's Dragon Waist State. It was said that His Majesty the Emperor of Beimang and the military governor of Taiping had personally taken the time to go there. The old woman who wore a dragon robe and spoke of the heavenly law had personally conferred the two mountains as the Mountain Gods of the State. She had promised that when Beiliang City was breached in the future and the grassland finally unified the Central Plains, the two Mountain Gods who had temporarily lost their foundation would be able to rule over the two mountains respectively.
Among the siege weapons, other than the catapults meticulously built by the Southern Dynasty's Military Weapons Supervisor, Beimang, which did not hesitate to exhaust its national resources to fight this huge battle, also had more than a hundred siege towers that were as tall as Beiliang City. Because the siege towers were originally built to target Hutou City, they had to be temporarily raised after the more majestic and towering Beiliang City was built. For this reason, nearly ten thousand young and able-bodied craftsmen were urgently hired to work through the night to avoid delaying the battle and causing His Majesty the Emperor's anger. Because of the huge scale of the project, the Southern Dynasty's imperial court put even more pressure on the Military Weapons Supervisor. As a result, the officials in the Weapons Supervisor, from top to bottom, appeared to be thin and bony. However, when it came to the construction of the catapults and the addition of the siege towers, it was rumored that the officials in the Weapons Supervisor earned a lot of money just by relying on this extra income. This was ridiculed by a depressed Hongjia remnant who wrote a poem, in which there was a line, "Skinny and bony with a bulging purse, two sleeves originally not a clear breeze", which was widely circulated. It was specifically used to ridicule the officials in the Weapons Supervisor for stuffing their own pockets and profiting from the national disaster. The Southern Dynasty's Military Weapons Supervisor in Beimang had three departments: Armors, Crossbows, and Siege Towers. The siege weapons such as the siege towers all belonged to the Siege Towers Department. The supervisor did not expect this matter to be spread so widely both inside and outside the imperial court. He was on tenterhooks and almost wanted to resign and apologize. Unexpectedly, His Majesty the Emperor, who had always been lenient to the Southern Dynasty's aristocratic families, actually issued an order to arrest the scholar from the Southern Dynasty's Ding Clan and execute him for the crime of misleading the public with his lies. What really made the supervisor feel relieved was a private conversation with the supervisor of the Military Weapons Supervisor. The supervisor said that His Majesty the Emperor had personally seen the items made by the Supervisor and believed that there were no flaws. The materials were of excellent quality. Since this was the case, it was already a great contribution to the grassland and a little windfall was not a big deal.
Apart from this, the Southern Dynasty, which had always imitated the Central Plains in opening up courier routes on a large scale, built three more courier routes within half a year to transport grain and fodder. Although the provinces to the north of the Dragon's Waist Prefecture did not exhaust the national treasury's financial resources like the Dragon's Waist Prefecture, they also opened up a courier route to the Dragon's Waist Prefecture. On the fertile grassland in the north, there were easily hundreds of thousands of cattle and sheep that followed the soldiers of the grassland down south. All of this was undoubtedly to pave the way for the Battle of Beijue City. At the same time, almost all the resources of the Southern Dynasty were tilted toward the Dragon's Waist Prefecture that bordered the Liangzhou Pass. This was also the reason why Dong Zhuo was able to easily obtain a large number of grassland youths to besiege the Huaiyang Pass. Before the first Battle of Beimang, Tuoba had purged the forces of the grassland and the North Court. A large number of refugees and sinners who had lost their protection had to go to the battlefield and rely on military merits to regain their identities. At that time, because the main force of Yang Yuanzan's southern expedition was unexpectedly annihilated, the Middle Army of Beimang also failed to break through Hutou City. This gave the Beiliang Frontier Army some breathing room. It was believed that this time, Beimang would not retreat so easily. Even though Huang Songpu had died in the battle of Liuzhou, ending up in the same miserable state as Yang Yuanzan and becoming the highest-ranking general of Beimang, the Beimang Emperor did not hesitate to let the Crown Prince, Yelu Hongcai, take the position of regent and lead the army down south to Beijue City. She personally guarded the West Capital to calm the people down.
Beimang was determined to win this battle!
It was probably because the silence of Beiliang's Beijue City had increased the arrogance of the grassland generals. In addition, the Crown Prince, who personally led the expedition, did not give orders to restrain the valiant generals under his command. Leading the elite cavalry out of the camp seemed to have become an unwritten rule of the Southern Dynasty's border army and the grassland's North Court. It was as if not going to Beijue City was an act of cowardice. In the beginning, not to mention the silent and ferocious large arcuballistas, even the ordinary city-guarding bows were nothing. They rode their horses forward, hating that they could not ride their horses up to the top of the city wall. Some young generals from the North Court wore gold and silver armor, dazzling under the setting sun. To these young grassland dignitaries who had been promoted from the Cowardly Xue Wei to the Centurion or even Chiliarch of an army, they had been tired of hearing about the independent Liyang Border Army since they were young. Calluses grew in their ears. They even had a lot of silent criticism. They felt that among the people whom His Majesty valued in the South Court, other than Fatty Dong who had some ability, Huang Songpu, Yang Yuanzan, and Liu Gui were not worth mentioning. If His Majesty did not welcome Hong Jia and those stray dogs who had fled to the grassland to seek refuge in the North and inexplicably made an alliance for the Southerners to govern the Southerners, how could Huang Songpu and the other old fellows who had an undeserved reputation become great generals?
After two riders left the camp, they did not go straight to the North Resisting City, but instead rode slowly along the outskirts of the camp. These two riders were young. They wore ordinary armor and sabers, but one of them had a Xianbei buckle jade belt on his waist, which allowed them to travel unimpeded. This young man was none other than Yelu Dongchuang, a member of the King's tent of Beimang. Yelu Dongchuang's Xianbei buckle was also divided into high and low ranks, according to the number of gems embedded on the jade belt. Most of the children of Yelu and Murong could embed two or three gems, and then the number of gems would increase according to their military exploits. Murong Baoding, a member of the royal family who held military power in his hands, or Yelu Hongcai, an appointed minister of three dynasties, who was Yelu Dongchuang's grandfather, could embed eight gems. Yelu Dongchuang's Xianbei buckle originally only had six gems. After he was conferred the title of Zhenguo General and Assistant Minister of War of the Western Capital, he added a large cat's eye stone to one of the four military towns, including the tiles of Gentleman's Pavilion. He should have stayed in the Western Capital Temple or one of the four military towns at the border of Gusai Prefecture, but this time he made an exception and followed the army to the North Resisting City. He and the young knight beside him were both Middle Army Supervisors.
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