A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 528 Bloodbath at Yanmen

Daizhou,

In the afternoon, it was hot and humid with no wind.
Banners hung low atop Yanmen Pass, and all was deathly silent.

The sky was covered with dark clouds, piled up in layers.

Dark clouds loomed over the city, threatening to crush it, silently swallowing the last ray of sunlight.

A bolt of lightning flashed through the leaden clouds.
A muffled clap of thunder boomed.

"Woo!"

The alarm horn sounded urgently.
Liu Shirang, the governor of Daizhou, strode to the front of the city wall to take a look.

A black tide suddenly appeared on the distant northwest horizon.

At first it was just a thin line.

It kept wriggling and piling up, like a surging torrent.

"Wolf Riders!"

The Turkic wolf cavalry came in, covering the sky and the earth, seemingly without end.

Liu Shirang, fully armored and clad in helmet, stood like an iron tower atop the city wall, expressionless.

This time, there were more Turkic wolf riders than in the previous ones.

The earth groaned and shattered.
The sound of horses' hooves converged into a thunderous roar that swept across the heavens and the earth.
The Kuroshio Current surged closer and closer.

Those were countless Turkic cavalrymen, densely packed together, like locusts flying across the land during a locust plague.

Horses neighing and men shouting

Their swords and spears emitted a ghostly light.

An overwhelming sense of suffocation.

"General, it must be Khan Jieli himself. There are too many Turkic cavalry. Can we hold them off?" a captain said in despair.

Anyone who saw the overwhelming number of Turkic cavalry would tremble.

Liu Shirang's face was ashen, yet his back remained straight. Faced with his subordinates' fear, he simply issued a cold command, breaking the heavy atmosphere.

"Beat the drums,"
Swords drawn, bows nocked, ready for battle!

The orders were passed down the chain of command. Soldiers ran on the city walls, swords clashed, and bows were nocked. The noisy preparations for battle reduced some of the pressure.

Among countless Turkic cavalry, a massive white banner embroidered with ferocious golden wolves moved slowly.
It represents the Great Khan Jieli!
The army surged to the foot of Yanmen City like a tidal wave, and suddenly stopped just an arrow's throw from the city wall.

Two armies confront each other.

The imposing military stronghold of Yanmen in northern China appeared isolated and vulnerable, surrounded by 100,000 Turkic troops.

Amidst the clamor and shouts of countless Turks

Beneath that golden wolf banner,

Khagan Jieli rode out slowly on his horse.

He was clad in magnificent silk armor inlaid with gold and silver, and covered with a cloak embroidered with gold.
He was tall and imposing, with a powerful presence.

Ashina Duobi's sharp, hawk-like gaze swept across Yanmen City, carrying the cold indifference of someone surveying their prey from above.

This formidable border city seems to be already his for the taking.

Last winter, he led 100,000 cavalry to besiege the city for more than a month. Li Da'en fought desperately, but he was unprepared and failed to take it down. In the end, he had no choice but to retreat.

However, when Li Da'en arrived, he had already died in Shuozhou New City outside Loufan Pass. Of his 20,000 Daizhou soldiers, more than 3,000 died in battle, and the rest became his prisoners. At this time, many Daizhou soldiers were incorporated into the army and became Turkic vassal troops.

This time,
He was determined to capture Yanmen City.

Li Da'en is dead, and this Liu Shirang can't stop me.

Jieli's lips curled into a smug smile.
He drew his jewel-encrusted golden wolf-sword from his waist, its tip pointing directly at the Yanmen city gate tower. He saw a heavily armored general, as imposing as an iron tower, atop the city wall.
That must be Liu Shirang, the new governor of Daizhou!
Woo! Woo! Woo!
Three mournful, long blasts of a bull's horn ripped through the sky.
The sound of the horns instantly ignited the fury of the Turkic army, and countless swords were drawn, baring their fangs and claws at Yanmen City.

The color of heaven and earth changes.

The dark clouds over Yanmen completely obscured the sunlight.

The earth was plunged into darkness.

suddenly,

A pale, twisted flash of lightning streaked across the darkness.

Like a giant spear hurled by a god, it pierced fiercely into the thick, leaden clouds.
Followed by,

A deafening rumble of thunder suddenly exploded.

It was so loud it hurt people's ears.

The torrential rain poured down, and large raindrops, accompanied by strong winds, pounded heavily on the two Tang Tu armies below.

The rain fell like a waterfall.
It resembles the Milky Way bursting its banks.

Yanmen City Wall

Liu Shirang stood in front of the battlements, tilted his head back, and opened his arms to welcome the downpour. He was instantly soaked, but he laughed loudly.

This rain came just in time!
The once boisterous Turkic army had vanished into the rain.

The rain poured down, turning the whole world into a chaotic mess.

in heavy rain,
Khali was forced to order a retreat.

Such heavy rain makes it impossible to attack the city.

···
Three days later,
The sweltering heat, mingled with the stench of blood, enveloped Yanmen City. This majestic city, built against the mountainside, resembled a wounded man trapped among a pack of wolves.

Outside the rammed earth city wall, in the moat more than two zhang deep and twelve zhang wide, the corpses of the Turks who died in battle were piled up in a jumble. There was no time to clean them up, which attracted swarms of flies, and crows circled in the sky.

The Tang-character banners on the city walls, though torn to shreds by arrows, still fluttered defiantly in the scorching wind.

Faced with the attack of Jieli leading an army of 100,000 Turks,

Liu Shirang showed no fear and, relying on this important border town of Bali, fought a bloody battle with the Turks for three days.

Fortunately, although Daizhou City lost Yanmen Pass to the north, it remained strong. It not only had a city wall that was eight miles long, but also a barbican and a patrol wall outside each of the four gates.

Yanmen City is long from east to west and short from north to south, resembling the Chinese character "丑" (chou), hence the name "卧牛城" (Wo Niu Cheng, meaning "Sleeping Ox City"). Outside the city, on the east, west, and north sides, there are three passes, forming a tripod-shaped barrier around the city. The three passes have circumferences of four li, three li, and four li respectively.

In the center of the city stands a drum tower, also known as Bianjing Tower.

Liu Shirang dispatched troops here to use smoke signals to direct communication with various city gates, barbicans, watchtowers, and passes.

After the torrential rain, the Turkic army attacked.

Liu Shirang commanded from the city wall, and the bloody battle lasted for three days without him ever leaving the city.

Fortunately, although the Turks were numerous, they lacked siege equipment, while Yanmen City had high and sturdy walls, and its moat was wide and deep, surrounded by flowing water.

The Turks fought for three days, but aside from leaving countless corpses, they achieved little.

"Manager,"

A general stepped forward and said, “The arrows are being used up too quickly, and in the past three days, most of the troops attacking the city have been auxiliary troops, mostly captured and surrendered followers of Li Da’en. The few others are also from the Turkic tribes, and there are not many real Turks.” “Jieli is very treacherous and cunning. We have fought a bloody battle for three days, but most of the people we have killed are our own people.”

Liu Shirang's eyes were bloodshot.

His voice was as firm as iron: "When they surrender to the Turks and obey their orders to attack the city, then they are the enemy."

“If we show weakness, and Yanmen City falls, they will not hesitate to raise their swords and slaughter us.”

This is true; some prisoners of war who surrendered to the enemy were even more ruthless to their own people than the foreigners.

"Sir, when will our reinforcements arrive?"

Liu Shirang did not answer, because he did not know either.

The Turks sent in an army of 150,000, along with tens of thousands of vassal troops under Yuan Junzhang, Yang Zhengdao, and Gao Kaidao, bringing the total to 200,000.

They breached Yanmen and Loufan, and surged into Dai, Xin, Lan, Shi, Bing, and other places like a tidal wave, although they had not yet captured any major cities.
Faced with such an attack from the Turks, the generals dared not engage in open battle and could only retreat to the city.

Some small towns had no choice but to be abandoned, allowing the Turks to plunder them.

Liu Shirang, the governor of Daizhou, could only guard Yanmen City in Daizhou. He guessed that Li Gaoqian, the governor of Xinzhou, was probably in the same situation.

The general guarding Bingzhou will likely only be able to defend Taiyuan as well.

There was something he didn't tell his soldiers: the one now guarding Bingzhou was no longer Dou Cong, but Li Shenfu, the Prince of Xiangyi, who had a grudge against him.

Even if Li Shenfu had troops at his disposal, he probably wouldn't come to his rescue.

They can only rely on themselves.

Fortunately, Daizhou is strategically located north of the Yanmen Pass and south of the Hutuo River, with magnificent city walls comprising three passes, four fortified walls, and four patrol walls.

The moat is wide.

The city had previously stored up a considerable amount of food, enough to last another three to five months without any problem.

Patrols outside the West Gate

The outer city and the barbican are located on both sides of the moat and are connected by drawbridges with iron chains that allow them to be raised and lowered.

The fortified city was built to protect the drawbridge and served as the first line of defense for the city gate.

The city wall of Luocheng was only half the size of that of the state city, and only two zhang high, so it was not considered large.

Inside the enemy tower, several archers were bandaging each other's wounds, with spare bowstrings and bundles of arrows at their feet.

"Damn it, this is never going to end."

An old soldier was taking a break from his busy schedule to eat a bran cake. In order to maintain the long-term defense, food supplies were rationed, and wheat bran was used to make cakes.

"They were also caught in a bind; whether they kept their heads down or stuck their necks out, they would still be killed."

They also knew that the vanguard of the siege over the past three days was mostly Li Da'en's troops who had led the expedition to Mayi. These people were all Han Chinese, mainly young men from the Taihang Mountains.

The Taihang Mountains were already short of land and water, making life impoverished. By the end of the Daye era, survival became even more difficult, and many people either fled to escape famine or became bandits. Li Da'en was from such a background, as were many of his former subordinates.

Now, they have transformed from the Tang Dynasty's Daizhou government troops into a suicide squad of Turks.

The veteran, however, didn't find it strange at all.

Since the end of the Daye era, various warlords in the Central Plains have been fighting each other for ten years. Who would be merciful?

If I don't kill you, you'll kill me.

The Turkic army formation broke apart.

A group of wolf rider guards escorted a man to the city walls.

The archers in Xiluo City stood sideways beside the arrow slits, peering at the approaching figures through the narrow outer and wide inner slits.

"Who is that person?" an archer asked.

The veteran had excellent eyesight and suddenly spat on the ground. "That's Zheng Yuanzhu!"

"Zheng Yuanzhu?"

"Zheng Yuanzhu, who held the official titles of Left General of the Martial Guard and Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies, and was granted the title of Duke of Xin, was a member of the Zheng clan of Xingyang, one of the Five Surnames and Seven Clans, and was the uncle of the Crown Princess."

"Does the foreman recognize him?"

"He had previously made several trips to the Turks and passed through Yanmen Pass several times, where he met them on several occasions."

One of the archers said, "Didn't they say that Zheng Yuanzhu poisoned Chuluo Khan in the Turkic Khanate? He was a hero of our Great Tang Dynasty, so why isn't he alive?"

Another person asked, "What is he trying to do?"

The veteran sneered, "That goes without saying, you can tell from their appearance that they're here to persuade Jieli to surrender."

"what?"

outside the city.

It was Zheng Yuanzhu, riding a Turkic horse, and wearing not the purple robe of the Tang Dynasty, but a Turkic robe.

He was escorted to the city walls by a troop of Khan's loyal wolf riders.

Zheng Yuanzhu looked up at the tattered Tang banners on the city wall, his eyes filled with complex emotions.

"Steward Liu!"

Zheng Yuanzhu shouted, "By order of the Great Khan Jieli, 100,000 wolf cavalry have besieged the city. Their momentum is unstoppable. For the sake of all the people in the city, open the city gates and surrender immediately to ensure the safety of the people."

If they stubbornly resist, the day the city falls will be the day of their massacre!

On the city wall,

Liu Shirang remained as still as a bell.
He was furious when he saw Zheng Yuanzhu trying to persuade Jieli to surrender.

"shut up!"

A thunderous roar instantly silenced the entire battlefield.

"Zheng Yuanzhu!"

"You come from a prestigious family of five surnames and seven clans, and as an important official of the Tang Dynasty, you have received the country's favor and were sent as an envoy to the Northern Hu. Now you actually wear Hu clothing and act as an accomplice to the tyrant. How dare you come to the city walls to speak for the Northern Hu?"

His voice was as sharp as metal, each word carrying immense weight.

Liu Shirang pounded his chest armor, "I, Liu Shirang, was born a subject of the Tang Dynasty, and I will die a ghost of the Tang Dynasty. A true man stands between heaven and earth, protecting his home and country. If I die, I die!"

"The more than ten thousand soldiers behind me will never kneel before the enemy, nor will they allow barbarians to invade our Han lands!"

"Zheng Yuanzhu, go back and tell Jieli that in Yanmen City, there is no Liu Shirang who will die, and no one who will surrender to Liu Shirang. If you want to take Yanmen, you will have to kill us all!"

Yanmen City Wall

Instantly, a deafening roar erupted, and countless Tang soldiers shouted, "Fight to the death!"

"Fight to the death! Fight to the death! Fight to the death!"

Zheng Yuanzhu's face was ashen. Liu Shirang's repeated rebukes felt like whips lashing his soul. He gazed at the tattered Tang banner and the iron-tower-like general beneath it.
He swayed, everything went black, and he fell off his horse!

On the walls of Yanmen, shouts of fighting to the death echoed endlessly, and the morale of the Tang soldiers continued to rise, their spirits soaring like a rainbow!
Looking down on 100,000 wolf riders!

(End of this chapter)