A thousand-year-old family begins with one fighting against ten thousand.

The capital city of Yangcheng, the capital of the Great Xia Dynasty, has been besieged by Li Jing's million-strong army, but Zhai Hong inside the city has not given up hope.

Despite his repeated purges, the city still boasts a million-strong army, abundant food supplies, and a large supply of fresh water. Even with the capital under siege, it can still guarantee the daily needs of millions of soldiers and civilians within the city.

However, the Tang army was on a long and arduous expedition, and Xia Jie was watching them closely. He could stall, but the Tang army could not.

On the first day, Li Jing launched a tentative attack, but he didn't even climb the city wall once.

Yangcheng was the imperial city that the Great Xia had managed for hundreds of years. The height of the city and the thickness of the city walls were absolutely the greatest that Li Jing had ever seen in his entire life of fighting.

If a direct assault is desired, even someone as formidable as Li Jing, who has never lost a battle in his life, would not dare to make a guarantee.

As the art of war says, the best strategy is to attack the enemy's plans; the next best is to disrupt their alliances; the next best is to attack their army; and the worst is to attack their cities.

While Li Jing kept Yangcheng under tight siege, he tried every means to contact the powerful families within the city. At this time, these powerful families were the most likely to betray him.

It was obvious that Zhai Hong's empire was about to collapse, and these powerful families were absolutely unwilling to sink with him.

For this attack, he specifically brought a large number of people from powerful clans, so that they could use the methods of those clans to establish contact with the people inside the city. With the help of those powerful clans, he was sure he could break through the city walls with minimal losses.

Unfortunately, Li Jing miscalculated this time; despite their best efforts, they were unable to contact the people inside the city.

This was almost impossible, but it actually happened. There was only one possibility: the main line of the family in the city had been completely eradicated.

This might be the case for one family, but it's the case for all families. It's impossible that Zhai Hong was so ruthless as to wipe out all the powerful families in the city, right?

Cheng Yaojin was choked by his own guess, and a mouthful of saliva went down his throat, causing him to cough.

These people hadn't thought of it before, but after Cheng Yaojin said it, they felt it was very likely.

Besides this reason, they really couldn't think of any other possibility.

But would anyone really be that crazy?

This isn't just making enemies of the powerful families of the world; this is directly engaging in a life-or-death struggle with them.

They are locked in a life-or-death struggle with all the established families in the known world.

If we can't take him down and show the world the consequences of attacking powerful families, what will happen if others follow suit?

Therefore, for their own benefit, all the powerful families, whether inside or outside the Great Xia Dynasty, had only one attitude: Zhai Hong must die.

These powerful families were not to be trifled with; having obtained this clue, they still managed to learn about the events unfolding in the city through other channels.

The result made them extremely unhappy.

Because their main branches in the capital were all wiped out and slaughtered.

Only two or three cats and adult cats remain in the entire clan.

Some people's eyes flashed with a strange light. With the main branch of the family dead, they, the collateral branches, actually had a chance to take over.

Please accept my condolences.

Li Jing spoke insincerely, but inwardly he was overjoyed.

A cunning rabbit has three burrows; he didn't believe those people didn't have various trump cards and that they could never be completely crushed.

Given the current situation, they will absolutely spare no expense to support the Tang Dynasty and eliminate Zhai Hong.

With these powerful families serving as cannon fodder, the Tang Dynasty could even reap the benefits without lifting a finger.

"Zhai Hong is cruel and tyrannical, and his actions are an outrage to both gods and men!"

"The Grand Commander is a citizen of the Divine Continent Empire, acting on behalf of Heaven. His actions are righteous and legitimate. We beg the Grand Commander to avenge our poor people!"

A group of people knelt there, pleading with Li Jing.

Li Jing timely revealed a hint of difficulty, "It's not that I, the Commander, don't want to, but as you all have seen, this entire Yangcheng is high and thick-walled, and guarded by a large number of elite troops, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack."

"The art of war dictates that if you have ten times the enemy's strength, surround them; if you have five times their strength, attack them; if you have twice their strength, divide them; if you are equal in strength, fight them; if you are weaker, escape from them; if you are inferior, avoid them. Thus, the strength of a small enemy can lead to the capture of a large enemy."

"Now the enemy has fortified cities, abundant resources, and an army no less powerful than ours to defend them."

"This governor also wants to avenge you all, but we can't just throw away the lives of the men of the Tang Dynasty."

Representatives from many prominent families could also discern the underlying meaning in Li Jing's words: they were asking for money and people.

"We will absolutely not make things difficult for the Grand Commander."

After discussions among the representatives, different amounts of resources were allocated to each ethnic group based on their respective strengths.

"Our Wu family is willing to contribute 10,000 shi of grain and 10,000 taels of silver to support the Grand Commander."

"Our Wang family is willing to contribute 5,000 shi of grain and 5,000 taels of silver to support the Grand Commander."

"Our Zhang family is willing to pay..."

"Our Liu family is willing to pay..."

In just a short while, Li Jing suddenly gained an extra 500,000 shi of grain, 100,000 taels of gold, 670,000 taels of silver, and countless warhorses and weapons.

Li Jing was still somewhat dissatisfied with this figure, because he had also learned through some means from the aristocratic families who had completely submitted to him how much wealth Zhai Hong had amassed.

Compared to what they gave me, it was nothing, but it wasn't a serious blow either.

However, since they are so insincere, we shouldn't expect them to go through the trouble of attacking Yangcheng.

Let's just keep at it and see who can outlast whom.

Every minute Zhai Hong lives is another slap in the face to these people.

The more these people are ridiculed by the powerful families in various regions, the more their reputation will decline, and the more their status and interests will be reduced within the entire aristocratic class.

And didn't he see the strange looks in the eyes of this group of people?

I'm afraid some people are already eager to take over!

But if you want to rise to the top, you have to do something, right?

If you don't kill Zhai Hong and avenge your clan, how will you rise to power?

Li Jing knew what these people were thinking; they simply thought he also wanted to quickly conquer the city, so they didn't want to pay too high a price.

Next, it will be a test of endurance between the two sides, to see who can hold out the longest first.

The ensuing battle remained lukewarm, but on the surface, Li Jing seemed to have intensified his attacks.

As time passed day by day, the capital of the Great Xia Dynasty still showed no sign of being captured, and these people began to get anxious again.

They all blocked Li Jing's camp, trying to force him to break through the city quickly.

To his surprise, Li Jing completely ignored them and even sent people to drive them all out.

They were stunned, and only then did they realize that they were facing an army from the Tang Dynasty, who had come to conquer them.

They actually had no right to negotiate with Li Jing.

What frightened them even more was that Li Jing also expressed his dissatisfaction with the amount of resources they had contributed.

Could Li Jing, like Zhai Hong, have carried out a large-scale massacre of them?

Such a thing is not impossible. The two sides are hostile countries, and if Li Jing really went on a killing spree, the powerful families of the Tang Dynasty would not avenge them.