Tang Dynasty: Taking the Empress Dowager to a brothel, Father Emperor, what a coincidence!

The 100,000-strong army did not set up camp or build fortifications, but simply marched to the walls of Xuantu City, a key border town of Goguryeo.

Xuantu City is built against the mountain, in a strategically important location.

The city wall was built by mixing glutinous rice juice with clay and other materials, and was covered with a thick layer of blue bricks.

On the city wall, the Goguryeo garrison stood in a dense row.

Kim Tae-chang, the Goguryeo general in charge of defense, stood on the city wall and looked at the Tang army outside the city, who hadn't even prepared siege ladders, and laughed wildly.

"You bastards from the Tang Dynasty, are you here to die?"

"You don't even have engineering equipment. Do you think you can gnaw the walls of Xuantu City down with your teeth?"

Several Goguryeo soldiers even unbuckled their belts and urinated down towards the city walls.

This caused a burst of laughter from the city walls.

Before the Tang army's lines, Li Jing frowned as he looked at the city walls and said:

"Your Highness, although Xuantu City is a small border town, its defenses are extremely strong."

When Emperor Yang of Sui launched three campaigns against Goguryeo, he lost tens of thousands of corpses at the foot of Xuantu City but still failed to gain any advantage.

If we launch a direct assault, our casualties will be considerable.

The old minister suggested that we first retreat ten miles to set up camp, build siege ladders and battering rams, and then gradually advance.

Li Chengqian didn't even glance at the city wall.

"Uncle Li, times have changed."

After he finished speaking, he waved to the person behind him.

"Changsun Chong! Bring your demolition team up here."

"Alright."

An excited roar came from the rear camp.

Changsun Chong charged out wearing an iron pot as a helmet, which he had somehow acquired, and waving a red flag.

Behind him, three thousand soldiers temporarily assigned to the artillery battalion pushed fifty giant catapults and lined up in front of the battle line.

When Li Jing saw these enormous creatures, his eyes twitched.

"Is Battalion Commander Changsun ready?"

Li Chengqian yawned and asked.

"Your Highness! All fifteen cannons are fully loaded."

Changsun Chong replied loudly.

Upon seeing the row of strange wooden frames below the city wall, Jin Taichang was first taken aback, then burst into laughter:

"You bastards! What are you doing with this pile of broken wood? Are you trying to use it as firewood for us?"

Li Chengqian didn't say anything, but simply raised his hand and swung it down sharply.

"Shut them up."

Fifty fuses were lit simultaneously.

The counterweights of fifty catapults crashed down.

Fifty extra-large palm-sized thunderbolts rained down on the city walls of Xuantu City.

The smile on Jin Taichang's face on the city wall froze.

He looked up at the growing black lump, his mind blank.

"What is that?"

Before he could finish speaking...

"boom."

The first palm-sized grenade struck right at Kim Tae-chang's feet and exploded with a deafening roar.

The flames instantly engulfed the city tower.

Then came the second one, the third one...

Explosions rang out one after another.

The supposedly indestructible glutinous rice juice and rammed earth city wall began to collapse in large sections under the continuous bombardment of the extra-large palm-sized grenades.

A section of the city wall, several dozen feet long, was blown up in half, and the falling bricks and stones completely filled the moat.

The Goguryeo soldiers who were just urinating and mocking each other on the city wall are now nowhere to be found, not even a single intact part of them.

The Tang Dynasty camp was completely silent.

Everyone stared in shock at the scene unfolding before them.

Li Jing's hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold onto the reins.

Is this over?

The Sui army spent months risking lives to capture Xuantu City, but just one volley of fire destroyed the city walls.

Is this how a war can be fought?

"Damn it! Stop blowing it up. If you keep blowing it up, we won't even have a chance to get a kill."

Cheng Yaojin brandished his Xuanhua axe and roared angrily.

"Chu Mo! Take your men and charge in with me to grab the military credits. If you're late, you won't even get a sip of soup."

Upon hearing this, Cheng Chumo quickly led a group of second-generation rich kids and several thousand cavalrymen, howling and running after Cheng Yaojin toward the breach in the city gate that had been blown open.

Li Chengqian didn't stop them; he simply waved his hand, signaling the army to follow.

After Cheng Yaojin rushed into the city, he found that the scene inside was even more horrific.

Houses collapsed, and thick smoke billowed everywhere.

The ground was littered with Goguryeo soldiers who had been stunned or maimed by the bombs.

Cheng Yaojin, holding his axe, looked around excitedly, searching for a target to chop down.

"You grandsons of Goguryeo! Your grandfather has come; come out and face your death!"

He shouted for a long time, but not a single hair jumped out.

Cheng Yaojin rushed along the main street for a while longer and finally saw a large group of people in front of the county government office.

Several hundred Goguryeo soldiers, still relatively intact, were huddled together, trembling.

The deputy general in charge had no idea where his helmet had flown off to.

Cheng Yaojin's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly roared:

"Hey! That scoundrel, take this axe from me, Old Cheng!"

He swung his axe and charged straight at them.

Before he could even reach him, the lieutenant suddenly knelt down on the ground.

Immediately afterwards, the hundreds of Goguryeo soldiers behind him threw down their weapons and knelt on the ground, not daring to raise their heads.

"Heavenly soldiers, spare our lives! We surrender!"

The lieutenant cried out loudly in broken Mandarin.

Cheng Yaojin's warhorse came to an abrupt stop less than three steps away from his deputy general.

Xuanhua's great axe was raised in mid-air, but he couldn't bring himself to chop it down or put it back down.

Cheng Yaojin was completely dumbfounded.

"It's gone down?"

He turned to look at Cheng Chumo, who had just run over, and asked:

"They said they surrendered?"

Cheng Chumo nodded and sheathed his sword.

"Father, they've all thrown away their weapons and are kneeling."

Cheng Yaojin was so angry that a surge of anger rushed to his head.

He dismounted, walked a few steps to the lieutenant, grabbed him by the collar, and lifted him up by force.

"Who the hell told you to surrender?"

The lieutenant was so frightened that he wet his pants.

"General...the city walls are gone...our commander has been blown to pieces...are we just supposed to surrender and wait to die?"

The lieutenant stammered and cried out.

"fart."

Cheng Yaojin roared and shoved the axe in his hand into the hand of his deputy.

"I, Lao Cheng, haven't even laid a hand on you yet. What about my military merits? What about my head? Grab your axe and stand up!"

The lieutenant was so frightened that he quickly dropped the axe in his hand and knelt down again, hugging Cheng Yaojin's leg.

"Grandpa, spare me! I wouldn't dare! I'd rather die than fight the heavenly soldiers!"

Cheng Yaojin, enraged, slammed his axe against his deputy's shoulder with a loud thud.

"Resist! Try resisting! If you don't resist, how am I supposed to chop you up? How am I supposed to use you to earn military merit?"

"Aren't you Goguryeo people known for your toughness? Stand up and fight me one-on-one!"

The lieutenant clung tightly to Cheng Yaojin's leg, weeping loudly:

"I won't resist. I'd rather die than resist. Just ignore me."

Cheng Chumo, who was standing nearby, couldn't stand it any longer and stepped forward to grab Cheng Yaojin's arm.

"Dad, I think we should just let it go. Look, he's already wet his pants. It would be too embarrassing to kill such a coward if word got out."

Cheng Yaojin, frustrated, kicked his deputy to the ground and sighed to the heavens:

"What a disaster! What kind of war is this? They don't even give people a chance to kill."

The other Tang generals who charged forward also had constipated expressions.

In the past, every siege was a bloodbath.

Today is quite something; they rushed in to take prisoners, without even giving us a chance to draw our swords.

Li Jing rode his horse behind Li Chengqian and slowly entered Xuantu City.

He looked at the ruins and rubble, at the horribly mangled corpses, and at the Goguryeo soldiers kneeling in the streets.

Li Jing dismounted and walked to a section of the city wall that had been bombed.

He picked up a charred brick from the city wall, ran his fingers over it, and his eyes were filled with complex emotions.

"Your Highness, will all siege battles be fought this way from now on?"

Li Chengqian, mounted on his horse, chuckled lightly:

"Why sacrifice the lives of Tang Dynasty soldiers when gunpowder could solve the problem?"

Li Jing threw the burnt brick in his hand onto the ground.

"This old minister has learned a great deal. Your Highness possesses such divine weapons and weapons, which are enough to ensure the eternal peace of the Tang Dynasty."

As he spoke, Li Jing knelt down on the ground.

Li Jing knelt down not for himself.

He did it for the millions of ordinary soldiers of the Tang Dynasty, and for the millions of families of the Tang Dynasty.