Shuhan

Snow particles mixed with ice chips fell on the copper-nailed city gate of Xuanyang Gate, making a fine rustling sound.

When the captain guarding the Biyong gate raised the torch for the third time, a sharp whistling sound suddenly erupted from the corner tower on the city wall. The rocket wrapped in wolf dung had not yet fallen into the moat, but countless cracks had already appeared on the frozen river surface.

The Han army's black-armored cavalry broke through the ice and snow, and the felt wrapped in the horses' hooves rolled over the ice without making any sound. It was not until the first ladder hooked onto the parapet that the Wei soldiers on duty discovered that the black tide below the city had overflowed the three trenches.

"Light up the fire! Light up the fire quickly!" The gatekeeper's roar was torn apart between the teeth of the north wind.

He swung his sword to cut off the flying hooks entangled on the battlements. The moment the iron chain broke, the entire section of the city wall was shaken by the cannon tips of the Han army's catapults.

Burning resin bombs exploded on the wall of the city wall, and the melted snow water wrapped the charred corpses of the defenders and rushed down the drainage stone trough, dyeing the stone lions in front of the Xuanyang Gate into a hideous bloody color.

Wang Bi, a student of the Imperial Academy, volunteered to stay in Biyong to protect the ancient books, calligraphy and paintings in Biyong with the chief doctor. However, the Han army arrived quickly and he was awakened by the loud noise of the beams and pillars of Biyong Hall breaking.

When he rushed into the courtyard barefoot, he saw the Han army's heavy armored infantry breaking down the cypress gate of the Liyue Pavilion.

Amid the roar of bronze chimes being swept down by long spears, the white-haired Doctor Jijiu opened his arms to block the remaining stele of the Xiping Stone Classics, but the next moment he was chopped into two pieces by the Mo Dao, along with the stele.

"Run! Run to the Mingtang!" The moment Wang Bi grabbed his classmate and rolled into the drainage ditch, the rockets shot by the Han army's crossbowmen had ignited the silk curtains of the library, and the thousand-year-old classics burned into a red dragon rising into the sky in the snowy night.

The first smoke signals were raised from Cui's Fortress in Yongheli in the east of the city.

The head of the family, Cui Lin, looked at the fire in the direction of Xuanyang Gate, and the whisk in his hand was almost broken. "Will you open the gate?"

He asked the elder beside him for the fifth time, but still got silence.

The private soldiers holding spears on the wall suddenly became agitated - at the entrance of the alley ten feet away, the retreating wounded soldiers of the Wei army were being driven towards the ruins of Jinyong City by the Han army's light cavalry like sheep.

The leading captain suddenly turned around and cut off the legs of the pursuing soldiers and horses, and yelled towards the fort: "The Ninth Rank Zhongzheng raises only pigs and dogs!"

The Tongtuo Street in front of the Taiji Hall has turned into a river of blood.

The Han army's vanguard, A Huinan, dragged his long spear and stepped across the frozen imperial ditch. The sparks from the spear tip on the bluestone slabs illuminated the scattered Yulin Guards in front of him.

"Break through!" he shouted loudly, and three hundred rattan shield bearers immediately formed a formation and crashed into the last gate of the palace.

As the snow on the door hinges fell off, boiling oil with white steam suddenly poured down from the city wall, and the Han soldiers in the front row instantly turned into howling firemen.

Ah Huinan thrust his long spear into the crack in the ground, grabbed two rattan shields and leaped up: "Stack them! Give me a human ladder!"

Suddenly, a dull explosion was heard from the direction of the armory in the west of the city.

Xiahou Xian, the general of Wei who was supervising the battle, reined in his horse suddenly and looked at the smoke rising into the sky with bloodshot eyes: "It's the Thunderbolt Chariot!"

Before he could finish his words, an ownerless warhorse carrying a half-dead body crashed into the camp. The bronze plaque with the words "Yingchuan Chen Family" on the saddle was still dripping with blood.

Military officer Yang Fu suddenly pointed at the armory and exclaimed, "General, look!"

Thirty improved Han army thunder chariots are being dismantled.

The craftsman with a white scarf wrapped around his head swung the hammer to break the mortise and tenon joints with such skill that it seemed as if he was dismantling the beams of his own house.

"General! Biyong. Biyong is lost!" The blood-soaked messenger fell off his horse, still clutching a half-broken flag in his hand.

Xiahou Xian looked at the gradually weakening shouts and cries from the direction of the palace, and suddenly tore off his scarlet cloak and threw it on the ground: "Blow the horn! All the armored cavalry, follow me to charge at Xuanyang Gate!"

At the darkest hour of the snowy night, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry left behind by Cao Chun finally showed their fangs.

Five hundred heavily-armored cavalrymen galloped along Tongtuo Street, the clanging of their armor audible in the snow mist raised by their horses' hooves.

Ah Huinan had just broken open the last bolt of the Luhe Gate when he suddenly felt a gust of wind at the back of his head - Xiahou Xian's three-pointed, double-edged sword had cut off half of his iron helmet.

When the most elite forces of the two armies collided violently in the doorway, the broken spear shafts and flying armor pieces condensed into a sudden metal rain in mid-air.

"General! On the city wall!" Someone shouted in the melee.

Xiahou Xian and A Huinan, who were fighting, looked up at the same time and saw that the black flag of the Wei army was slowly lowering on the city wall of Xuanyang Gate.

Zhuge Liang, dressed in a white robe, was standing on a high hill in the distance. He waved the feather fan in his hand lightly, and three red smoke beams rose into the sky - that was the signal for the Han army's general attack.

At this moment, the bell on the top of Yongning Temple Pagoda suddenly rang loudly.

Dan, who was supposed to be in the Mangshan camp, led 8,000 central troops to charge out of the snow-covered Mangshan Valley Road. The white mist from the mouths and noses of the frozen war horses formed a cloud formation like a blue dragon.

The Han army's heavy infantry phalanx at the forefront was suddenly in chaos. Behind them was the blazing Biyong, in front of them was the fresh troops that descended from the sky, and the ice under their feet was cracking under the kerosene poured by the Wei army.

"Kill the Han traitors!" Gao Tanglong pointed with his sword, and three thousand crossbowmen fired at the same time.

The specially made whistling arrows tore through the snow curtain and disintegrated for the second time during flight, with the bursting caltrops instantly covering the entire battlefield.

Ah Hui was about to retreat after blocking Xiahou Xian's chopping blade when he suddenly felt a chill in his chest - half of a broken Wei army spear pierced through his chest from behind.

The last thing he saw was the blood of the Doctor Jijiu, whom he had killed with his own hands, winding like a river along the marks on the Xiping Stone Classics in the Xuanyang Gate city wall.

Ah Huinan endured the severe pain and rode his horse back.

At the beginning of the morning hour, the Han army was ultimately unable to break into the palace.

When the retreat horn sounded, everyone in Luoyang heard the crisp sound of Zhuge Liang's feather fan hitting the shaft of the carriage.

The Cui's Fortress did not quietly lower the drawbridge until noon. In the ruins of the Imperial College, when Wang Bi crawled out from the pile of corpses of his classmates, he was still holding half a volume of "Mencius" in his hand.

When he shook open the blood-soaked scroll, he found that the three words "People are the most important" were pierced by an arrow.

The snow started falling again, but it couldn't cover the blood ice that had formed in front of Xuanyang Gate.

Xiahou Xian stationed his horse under the dilapidated gate and watched the craftsmen use iron chisels to pry open the severed fingers that were frozen in the cracks of the bricks.

Behind him, Gao Tanglong was stroking the wreckage of the Thunderbolt Chariot, his fingertips stroking the inscription of the word "Chen".

The Han army's attack was so swift that after today, I'm afraid Luoyang will be shaken.

. . . .

The cold wind swept across the river, carrying tiny ice crystals, and split the frozen Yellow River under the vast sky into millions of sharp silver mirrors.

The ice groaned softly in the north wind. Occasionally, a broken crack snaked through it. Dark blue river water surged under the ice shell, as if a dormant dragon was leaning against a cage with its back.

When the sound of horse hooves came from upstream, the scouts on lookout on the top of Luoyang City almost mistook it for the thunder of cracking ice - until the dark shadows of the riders tore through the mist, and they could see clearly that the wolf flag of the Han army was galloping along the frozen river, and the broken ice splashed by the iron hooves reflected a dazzling cold light in the sunlight.

The battlements of Luoyang City's city walls were already covered with frost.

The defenders piled logs and rocks onto the top of the city walls overnight. Dark red ice formed in the cracks between the blue bricks, which were traces of the Han army's surprise attack yesterday.

At this moment, the torches on the city wall were lit day and night, and the melted snow dripped down the iron-clad city gate and condensed into turbid ice edges on the door axis.

Seven gaps had been dug into the moat long ago, and the river water mixed with broken ice flowed over the frozen rammed earth, weaving a piece of glazed ice armor at the base of the city wall. The parade ground in the city was steaming with white hot air.

Three hundred hard bows were being repeatedly soaked in boiling oil. The vibration of the taut cow-tendon bowstrings mixed with the hammering sound of the iron forge startled the war horses in the stable, causing them to constantly scratch at their horseshoes wrapped in linen.

The grain carts rolled over the icy imperial road, and the millet scattered in the ruts was quickly dug up by the hungry people.

When the night watchman was banging his gong and shouting along the street about the curfew at 12:00 p.m., he happened to see a group of warriors with Mo Dao carrying two-meter-long sabers heading towards the west of the city. The cold light from the newly sharpened blades split the twilight and reflected the mottled marks of Wei Wu Zhu on the signs of the taverns on the street.

On the watchtower of Wangchun Gate in the north of the city, the capstan of the three-bow crossbow had been raised to the third gear.

The guard stretched out his hand to try the crossbow string, and the string made of deer tendons and horsetail hair immediately left bloody marks on his palms.

He looked at the smoke rising from the camps outside the city and suddenly remembered the news he had intercepted three days ago - the Han emperor had set up the central army tent at Baiguyu on the southern foot of Mangshan Mountain, which was the site of Bigui Garden built by Emperor Ling of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

At this moment, the rebel campfires in the night spread along the tributaries of the Luo River, like a burning red-chain snake coiling around the entire Luoyang Basin.

At three quarters past midnight, the patrolling soldiers found the frozen prostitute among the city walls.

The woman huddled in the shadow of the soldier hiding cave, her toes frozen purple revealed under her faded pomegranate skirt, a coarse cloth bundle tightly clasped in her arms.

When the auxiliary soldiers who were ordered to collect the body pried open her stiff fingers, half a millet cake and a pair of rusty scissors rolled out of the bundle - someone recognized that this was Qiao Niang, who was the best at cutting gold foil flowers in Pingkangfang.

When the morning light first appeared, her body was thrown into the crematorium along with the seventeen beggars who had frozen to death the previous night. Thick smoke mixed with sulfur swirled over the city wall and condensed into a grayish ghostly shadow above the city wall.

The sound of ice cracking came from the direction of the Yellow River.

The guard took off his cloak and covered the crossbow with it to prevent the night dew from rusting the mechanism.

He looked at the torches that were becoming more and more dense on the ice, and suddenly he heard the sound of a bell coming from the inner city - it was the Yangyang Bell on Lingyun Terrace. Since Dong Zhuo burned down Luoyang, this bell from the previous dynasty was ringing for the first time.

The moment the bell shattered on the city wall, the war drums of the rebels outside the city responded. Strong men wrapped in animal skins swung up their copper-clad drumsticks, and the sound waves made the cracks on the ice surface of the Luo River three points deeper.

When the first rocket streaked across the night sky at the hour of Yin, the arrows from the eight-ox crossbows on the city wall were tearing through the thick fog.

The burning arrow shaft fell into the ice of the moat, and the iron hook of the ladder immediately extended from the melted hole.

When the defending general slashed the first ladder to the battlement with his sword, he caught a glimpse of a strange bluish-white color in the eastern sky - that was not the dawn, but the surrendered soldiers and civilians driven by the Han army who were carrying sandbags to fill the trenches, and the frozen corpses mixed with mud and sand were built into a new siege ramp.

The sun never rose after all.

Under the leaden and low-pressure sky, the frozen soil outside the Twelve Gates of Luoyang was cracking under the horses' hooves. Broken ice and blood were thrown into the air by the cannons of the catapults, and condensed into scarlet icy rain in the north wind.

The fish at the bottom of the moat had been scooped out a month ago. Now only the broken spear tips were shining coldly under the ice, like an inverted galaxy of stars.

Luoyang curfew.

At this moment, in the Zhong family mansion.

When the copper sparrow lamp wick burst into flower, Zhong Hui was using a silver hairpin to fiddle with the plums floating in the ice jar.

The snow particles on Xun Xi's black cloak fell to the ground, leaving black marks on the Persian carpet.

"The Minister actually came here in violation of the curfew ordered by His Majesty," the young man suddenly threw the silver hairpin at the celadon cup, and the clear tinkling sound startled the bronze bells on the eaves.

“But have you figured it out?”

Xun Xi's sleeves trembled slightly.

"The ladder that burned down at Xuanyang Gate last night," he said, his Adam's apple rolling three times before he spoke, "I heard that it was stained with Mangshan pine resin."

"Wrong!" Zhong Hui stood up suddenly, and the jade pendants on his waist were strangely silent.

The hem of his moon-white brocade robe swept across the charcoal basin, and the silver-threaded dragon pattern suddenly became a threatening gesture in the firelight: "That is the fierce fire oil produced in Nanzhong. The emperor of the Han Dynasty got the recipe from the Nanzhong barbarians when he pacified Nanzhong. Later, it was modified by the Academy of Sciences and became so powerful."

A piece of burnt silk suddenly appeared at the young man's fingertips, barely reflecting the cinnabar seal of "Han Prime Minister Zhuge".

Xun Yi took half a step back and bumped into the antique shelf, causing a gold-inlaid Boshan furnace to fall over.

A bronze talisman rolled out of the ashes, and the tooth marks on it were somewhat similar to those of the Han army's secret military commander.

"You..." Before he could finish his words, Zhong Hui suddenly tore open the landscape painting on the west wall, revealing a box of secret letters made of plain silk in the secret compartment behind it.

The edges of the silk book on the top layer were burnt and curled.

"Minister, do you know what this is?" The young man took out a piece of letter and shook it open. Between the Shu brocade patterns was the gold-thread mud seal specially used by the Han emperor.

Suddenly, a night owl howled outside the window.

Xun Yi was surprised to find that the fragrance of the white plum blossom on the desk was wrong - it was clearly mixed with the unique scent of Thuja saburoki, which was unique to Chang'an.

Zhong Hui had already circled behind him, and his cold fingers brushed across the back of his neck: "Brother Jing Qian, didn't you notice? The night watchman stopped ringing the night watchman's clock the moment you stepped into this room."

A half-broken arrow slipped out of the young man's sleeve, and the word "Yangping" on the arrowhead glowed faint blue under the candlelight.

"On the 27th of last month, Zhang Yi's troops crossed the floating bridge at Pujin Pass at night," Zhong Hui inserted the broken arrows into the twelve gates of Luoyang on the map.

"You are using your Xun family's private port in Mengjin." He suddenly clapped his hands three times, and a man wearing a veil came out from behind the screen. In his hand was a lacquer box containing a blood-stained jade seal - it was the official seal of Xun Xi's cousin when he was the prefect of Hongnong.

Xun Xi's knees went weak and he knelt down on the mattress.

The bamboo slips that slipped out of his sleeve revealed the two words "Zhong Yao" written in red, which were the old notes between Xun Yu and Zhong Yao on the military farming system.

"How do you want me to trust you?" He suddenly grabbed the edge of the boy's robe, as if he was grabbing a life-saving straw in despair.

Zhong Hui laughed and said, "If you believe in me, I can save you. If you don't believe in me, there is nothing I can do. However, the reason why His Majesty did not take action is not because he was not angry at the Yingchuan Xun family for being indecisive, but because he was afraid of alerting the enemy and disrupting the defense of Luoyang. But even if Luoyang is defended, will you have a good ending? Will the Yingchuan Xun family have a good ending?"

Xun Yi was silent.

Zhong Hui continued, "A dynasty of a hundred years, a family of a thousand years, our Yingchuan gentry has been prosperous since the Western Han Dynasty. It is not based on blind loyalty, but on the ability to judge the situation. Doesn't the Minister understand this?"

Xun Yi swallowed his saliva and said, "But I am a minister of Wei."

"Then your father was a Han official back then, what happened?"

Xun Xi was speechless. His father Xun Yu was indeed a minister of Han, but in the end he died as a minister of Wei.

Since my father could do that back then.

Why can't I do it?
After the psychological pressure was removed, Xun Yi's stress was suddenly reduced.

The so-called ruler is the ruler and the subject is the subject, let’s all go and see the Lord of Mount Tai!

For the thousand-year prosperity of the Xun family of Yingchuan, what does my good reputation mean?
Xun Xi's eyes suddenly became sharp, and he asked: "If I surrender to Han, what should I do?" (End of this chapter)