Da Wei Chun

Chapter 611 Li Chengzhi is alive or dead

The summer was hot and the sun was high. Gao Zhao sat in the courtyard, leaning on a deck chair, with an umbrella on his head, his clothes were half smooth, his chest muscles were half exposed, but he still felt the heat was unbearable.

Looking at the nearly half-melted smoothie in his hand, Gao Zhao finally held back his appetite.

The servant repeatedly told him that he was so angry that he could not eat hot food, let alone extremely cold food.

Out of sight, out of mind, Gao Zhao simply took the lid to cover the smoothie, and just held it in his arms to cool down.

He was sweating profusely from the heat, but Li Shixian and Yuan Yi were shivering from the cold in the hot sun, and the upper and lower rows of teeth were chattering.

Those who haven't tried it can't imagine the feeling of hanging in the cold well water for a night after being exposed to the sun for a day.

The stabbed bones hurt, more painful than whipping...

When it was the hottest in the afternoon, it only took a moment or two in the sun, the chill in his body gradually disappeared, Li Shixian's trembling became smaller and smaller, and finally he was able to speak a whole sentence.

"I heard that the Taiwei is in poor health, and I fainted in the Yamen the day before yesterday. I wonder if I'm better?"

Only listening to the voice, Li Shixian seemed to be concerned about Gao Zhao.But looking at his face, he was full of gloating, his teeth bared, white and bright.

Looking at Yuan Yi who was still trembling on one side, as if he couldn't even open his eyelids, Gao Zhao sighed sadly: "Li Shixian, it is often said that those who know the truth and practice are heroes, why do you want to provoke me on purpose? It's better than Qinghe If the king is like this, he doesn't want to give in, at least he doesn't have to ask for trouble..."

Unexpectedly, before he finished speaking, Yuan Yi seemed to be dismantling the stage, and said tremblingly: "It's not...not lonely...not wanting to laugh, but...cold...unable to open my mouth..."

Li Shixian was taken aback for a moment, then raised his head and let out a loud laugh that shook the sky.

Gao Zhao's face sank, and his anger filled his heart like a vine that had gone crazy.

Seeing that he was about to suffer, his confidant shouted anxiously: "Press it down!"

"Grandpa hasn't had enough sun exposure yet..."

He only yelled six or seven words, and another rag was stuffed into Li Shixian's mouth.Yuan Yi giggled happily watching...

The two of them were put into the dungeon again, Gao Zhao was still furious, like an old cow who had plowed more than ten acres of land, breathing heavily from his mouth and nose.

A group of confidantes stood on the left and right, all silent like cicadas, for fear of being angered by Gao Zhao.

It wasn't until he calmed down that his trusted aide came to his ear and persuaded him in a low voice: "These two people should have guessed that the Taiwei would be wary of rats, so they were confident and made progress. But under torture, why can't you ask for it? Why don't you ask for it?" I will let the two thieves bow their heads and obey their ears..."

Gao Zhao looked at his cronies like an idiot.

Under torture, what can he ask for? He has been an official for decades, so he doesn't even understand such a simple truth?

If punishment could be used, it would have been used long ago. Why should Li Shixian be treated like a guest of honor for several months?

It's because Gao Zhao still has a trace of fantasy left after all, and he wants to take it back to his heart and use it for himself.

Even if it cannot be subdued, it will not harm its life.It's just because whether he or Li Chengzhi, although they plotted against each other and tried their best to harm each other before, it is now this moment and that moment.

For example, the three beasts are facing each other now: the imperial court is a sick tiger, and he and Li Chengzhi are two lone wolves.

Can't the tiger's troubles have not been eliminated, and the two wolves fight first?

Therefore, based on emotion and reason, both parties should abandon their previous suspicions and share the same hatred.

Take another [-] steps back, and if it really comes to the time of confrontation with Li Chengzhi on the battlefield, the living Li Shixian will definitely be worth [-] times more than the dead Li Shixian.

It is also the same reason to stay Yuanyi's life...

After thinking for a while, Gao Zhao secretly sighed: "Take the pen and ink, and I will write a handwritten letter. Later, I will send it to Fuming together with Li Chenghong and Li Chengxue, and hand it over to Zijian..."

The confidant was puzzled, and asked in a low voice: "Dare to ask the Taiwei, what does this mean?"

"Why else? Of course it's a big gift to Li Chengzhi..."

After pondering for a while, his confidants understood: Taiwei wanted to show his sincerity to Li Chengzhi, or even persuade Li Chengzhi to join forces...

After a pause, he asked cautiously: "Then what about Li Shixian, should he be released from the dungeon?"

Release the dungeon?

How can it be so cheap?

Gao Zhao replied in a cold voice: "Let's close it first, wait for him to take care of that broken mouth!"

The confidant promised in a low voice, and helped Gao Zhao into the Yatang.

That day, he was just in a hurry, although it was not a Jue syndrome, but Gao Zhao was old and frail, how could he go through such a toss?
Shi Yu repeatedly urged, saying that the Taiwei must rest in peace and rest, and dare not work hard anymore.

And now Gao Zhao, how can he calm down?
He wrote two secret letters and handed them to his confidants: "When I met Zijian, remind him: this battle should be done sooner rather than later. If you can send troops earlier, you will be able to seize the opportunity earlier... Don't dare to neglect your cowardice." war……"

"I will inform Yu Jinglue (Gao Meng) again that he does not seek meritorious deeds, but seeks no faults, so he must guard Lu Cheng..."

But before the words fell, a drum sounded, like thunder.

Gao Zhao repeatedly sighed inwardly, stood up with the help of a few cases: "Xing Luan is going to attack the city again?"

Seeing him trembling, his confidant hurriedly gave him a hand: "Let the lower officials watch the battle first, and if the battle is unfavorable, then rush to report to the Taiwei?"

Gao Zhao pondered for a moment, then waved his hand: "Forget it, help me to the city?"

Since that day, Xing Luan's offensive has become stronger day by day, if he doesn't take a look, how can he rest assured?

……

Xing Luan is a famous general, how can he send nearly a thousand soldiers to die every day just to procrastinate?

One is to observe the location, and the other is to test the reality of the city.

After a few days of testing, he found that except for the rockets in Jinming County, the rest were all in the middle range.

Although there are a few crossbows in the city, they are all dilapidated, and it takes only a moment to activate a crossbow.There are a lot of beating stones and rolling logs, but if the officers and soldiers don't attack the city with ants, these two things are useless.

In addition, the food and grass in the city are still sufficient, but because every meal time, there are troops transported to the city to eat food, all of which are millet cakes and pickles, and there is a sufficient supply without restrictions, so the morale of the army is still stable.

Xing Luan was thinking, should he besiege the county on all sides?
However, Xiazhou has already joined the rebellion. Once the city is besieged on all sides, if it cannot be attacked for a long time, the officers and soldiers may be attacked by the enemy.

Now we can only hope that Xi Kangsheng will make great achievements as soon as possible and restrain Gao Meng in Lucheng (the border between Xiazhou and Bogulu, which is now Yinchuan).Then Cui Yanbo firmly blocked the rebels in Si and Ding states to the north of Lishi Town, preventing them from going south to Jinming.

Only in this way can Xing Luan dare to completely besiege Jin Ming, and is confident that he will break through the city within a month.

Now I just take it for granted, and I don't know how the battle between Xi Kangsheng and Lu Cheng will be, so I can only wait and see.

Hearing a drum beating from the top of the city, Xing Luan came back to his senses and looked towards the top of the city.

Compared with just now, there are many more generals on the top of the city, and a long flag with the word "Gao" printed on it flutters slowly, and Gao Zhao is watching the battle at the top of the city if he wants to come.

After being aggrieved for nearly a month, it happened to let Gao Zhao see my Xing's methods.

Xing Luan shouted in a deep voice: "Siege the city!"

With a wave of the corner flag on Yunlou, a gong sounded in the camp, nearly ten thousand soldiers marched in unison.

It is almost sixty, and it is inevitable that the old eyes will be dim.Gao Zhao could only see the officers and soldiers pressing down on the city like ants, but he couldn't see it clearly.

But vaguely, he could still see that compared with the previous days, the number of siege soldiers was several times more, and there were many more heavy weapons.

Gao Zhao stretched out his hand and asked in a cold voice, "What did the enemy's front army push?"

"Looks like a cannon!"

The confidant squinted his eyes and took a look, "But for some reason, it is much smaller than the commonly used stone cannons. It is less than one foot high, and only two horses pull it, and there are seven or eight soldiers accompanying it..."

Cannon?

Gao Zhao's heart skipped a beat, and he shouted urgently: "Look at the cannon cart throwing the pole, is there a big rock falling from the tail?"

The confidant took a look: "Indeed!"

"Maybe you can see clearly, how many are there?"

The confidant replied respectfully: "There should be at least five or six hundred for a car of ten soldiers!"

Gao Zhao's face changed suddenly: "Hurry up, order all the soldiers to go down to the city and hide under the urn!"

All the confidantes were a little confused, thinking that if all the guards went down to the city, wouldn't they let the enemy do what they want?

At worst, a city crossbow should be erected, and the cannon carriages should be blasted to death one by one.

Gao Zhao lamented: "How could we be in time? If I had known that Xing Lian had this thing, I should have hollowed out the battlements and hidden the crossbows in it...order it!"

When he was in Beizhen last year, he heard about it, and heard that Li Chengzhi had created a sharp weapon for siege.Without the help of cattle and horses, only a dozen soldiers can use stone cannons to throw stone bullets weighing tens of catties one to two hundred steps.

After leading the army back to Beijing, he went to the Ministry of Industry to have a look, admiring Li Chengzhi's pedantic nature and ingenuity.Just adding a heavy stone after throwing the pole saves the effort of oxen and horses and dozens of people, and it is more convenient to travel and place.

At that time, he also planned to send the blueprints to Xiazhou and Shuozhou, and let Gao Meng and Gao Zhi copy some, just in case.

But at that time, Gao Meng had just tasted the sweetness of rockets, and he didn't even have enough young people to dig kerosene, so how could he free up manpower to fell wood and build artillery carts?
After receiving the blueprints, he put them on the shelves, and reminded Gao Zhi that if he had enough manpower, he would send some to Jinming, and it would be serious to help him dig fire oil...

Gao Zhao didn't regret it at all, but he didn't expect that Xing Luan brought so many gun carriages and hid them so deeply that none of them showed up a few days ago.

If I had been prepared, I wouldn't be so flustered right now...

Annoyed in his heart, he was helped left and right to the hidden stacks in the half wall, and when he looked again, the artillery battalion of officers and soldiers had already stationed within more than a hundred steps, and they were erecting stone cannons.

This distance is neither far nor close, and the stone cannon can be smashed on the city wall, or thrown over the top of the city, but it makes the defenders on the city helpless.

It is the archer (sharp shooter) in the army, the longest throw is only 150 steps, and the ordinary archer is at most a hundred steps away.So even if rockets are used, it doesn't matter if they can hurt people, even if they want to burn the gun car, there is nothing they can do.

But it is not impossible.

Gao Zhao was quick-witted: "Let the front army throw the ball, if the rear army dares to cross the artillery barracks, they will order the bowmen to shoot rockets into the hidden piles..."

The city wall of Jinming County was nearly two feet wide, even if Xing Luan had five or six hundred gun carriages, it would definitely not be able to smash the wall down in a day or two.Therefore, if Xing Luan was not probing but attacking by force, he would first order the artillery battalion to suppress it, and then order the rear army to push the building carts and ladders to the city wall, and attack the city with ants.

Regardless of the building, car and ladder, if it is made of wood, there is no reason why it is not afraid of fire.So as long as there are enough rockets, at least Xing Luan can be forced to retreat.

And as long as they survive these two or three days, even if the houses are destroyed and the beams are demolished, a few crossbows or cannon carts can be rushed out.At that time, if Xing Luan dared to send troops to attack, throwing out the oil sand that would burn at the sight of fire would definitely make him cry for his father and mother.

Thinking in his heart, Gao Zhao couldn't help feeling a little powerless.

When it comes to planning and plotting, he is naturally not behind others.But when it comes to fighting on the battlefield and fighting in battle, he is far behind.

If this was replaced by Li Chengzhi, he would definitely have expected it and have a perfect countermeasure.

……

Standing on the cloud tower, Xing Luan is five feet high, so it can be seen very clearly.

Seeing the defenders on the city receding like a tide, he was at first confused, and then he was overjoyed.

The rebels clearly recognized the improved stone cannon and knew its advantages and disadvantages.But I don't know why, but there is no way to prevent it?

The so-called wise man has a lot of worries, and he must make mistakes.Gao Zhao, oh Gao Zhao, do you really regard that kerosene as the most precious thing, and think that it will be beneficial to everything?
He kept yelling: "Hurry up, order the artillery battalion to attack only one place. Even if we hit hard today, we will smash a gap in the city wall..."

For a while, stone bullets rained, and fifteen or six stone cannons smashed into the city wall.Like an overturned dragon, the city wall shook...

……

Xing Luan's hundreds of artillery vehicles were all made by Xi Kangsheng before he sent troops from Luoyang.He left in a hurry, so he didn't take half of the rack with him.

But what is surprising is that under the west side wall of Lucheng, there are actually quite a few, hundreds of them?

Xi Kangsheng pinched his chin, and looked at Li Shao curiously: "You are planning for a rainy day, and you have such a good thing?"

"The commander-in-chief's award is just a coincidence!"

Li Shao responded neither humble nor overbearing, "It's just that Uncle Yuan was happy to see Liexin, and after moving to Lingzhou (formerly Bogulu Town), he rushed to make some. I didn't expect to be able to use them today!"

"It's a sharp weapon, but it's a pity for Li Chengzhi's painstaking efforts!"

Watching the former soldiers test the cannon, and the stone bullet weighing more than ten kilograms was thrown over hundreds of steps, Yang Shu felt a bit sad, and sighed sadly:

"It's also thanks to him. If it were Yang who was repeatedly persecuted by those gangsters and suffered all kinds of grievances, even if he burned it to the ancestors, he would never let this thing be revealed to the world, let alone dedicated to the court?"

Beside him is Yuan Yuan, the supervisor of the army, and Yuan Lu, the eldest son of Xi Kangsheng's Chinese military counselor who has inherited the title of King of Zhongshan from Yuan Ying. Isn't Yang Shu pointing at the monk to scold the bald donkey?
The two blushed, neither arguing nor arguing, they could only look at Xi Kangsheng eagerly, hoping that he could mediate.

Xi Kangsheng chuckled: "Yang Yanrong, how can you be honored to bully two juniors? If you are capable, after you return to Beijing, it will not be too late to find the parents of the two of them to argue with you! Besides, you are so sure that Li Chengzhi is really killed Did Gao Zhao die?"

Ignoring Yang Shu's astonishment, Xi Kangsheng looked at Li Shao with a smile that was not a smile: "Uncle Yuan, give me an accurate word, is Li Chengzhi dead or alive?"

Li Shao's face turned dark: "Grand Xi, you may have asked a hundred times?"

"Even if I ask it a thousand times, I don't think it's too many!"

Xi Kangsheng squeezed his beard, "Okay, since that's the case, you can help me explain one thing or two to the old man: It is clear that Gao Zhao sent his confidant to summon Yuan Chen to make him riot. But why Yuan Chen didn't know this until his death, but you Li Yuanbo strikes first, and Yuan Chen is caught off guard?"

(End of this chapter)