"Attack..." With the order, Su Dingfang's third division launched an indiscriminate attack on Mocheng.

Because there are too many mountain roads in Lingnan, many Tang Dynasty siege weapons cannot be transported. You should know that there are already many siege weapons in the Tang Dynasty, such as a kind of chariot crossbow, which is a type of arrow, which has lower requirements for archers than archery and has greater lethality than arrows. Car crossbows are placed on chariots and fired at once.

Li Jing said in "The Art of War of the Duke of Wei", "After his teeth, all the arrows rose up at once, and 700 steps. All the cities and trunks in the city were destroyed, and the towers fell down. They were called chariots and crossbows."

The range of powerful crossbows can reach 600 meters, and the range of extra-large crossbows can reach 1,000 kilometers. Someone has made a theoretical assumption based on this: a powerful crossbow can shoot through 3-5 iron cavalry, and shoot tens of thousands of people in a row, which is estimated to kill 100,000 people. One round per round, and one million troops can be wiped out in 10 minutes. Although this assumption is joking, the lethality of the crossbows can also be seen.

But what we need to say here is that it is too big... and the cost is very high. It is okay to defend the city, but it seems very burdensome to use it to attack the city.

There is also a kind of car crash. There is often such a scene in film and television dramas: many soldiers are carrying a big wood to hit the city gate. In actual combat, there is a more advanced equipment than this method: a car crash.

A collision is a chariot that specializes in attacking city gates or walls. It puts a huge piece of wood on the car and destroys the city by the force of collision. The head of the wood is pointed and wrapped in iron to increase the strength of the collision.

"Old Book of Tang" records that in the war between the Tang Dynasty and Goguryeo, Li Ji used a car crash. "Pushing the car crashed and hit his pavilion, all of which fell into the sky."

In his "Weapon Arts", Li Jing also recorded other siege tools, such as rockets, fire apricots, pointed wooden donkeys, etc. The Tang army brought many craftsmen in each war, probably to make siege tools based on the terrain. It was with these advanced equipment that the Tang Dynasty did not build the Great Wall and resisted the nomadic peoples. This was the only one in Chinese history.

However, Li You couldn't bring these weapons in Lingnan. They were either bulky or slow. The siege weapon used by Su Dingfang now is called a stone throwing machine... This tactic was actually used by Hou Junji before.

It is Hou Junji's greatest contribution to the Battle of Destroy Gaochang. When Gaochang was in the Tang Dynasty, it was a country with an extremely important geographical location. It happened to be on the middle road of the Silk Road. To the south is the endless Takramakan Desert and to the north are the rolling Tianshan Mountains. Anyone who comes from the Western Regions must pass here.

The ancestors of Gaochang King Qu Wentai were also Han people and became officials of the Han Dynasty. However, they caused a great disaster and fled here to gain a foothold. Then they developed into a local clan and accidentally became king. By the time Qu Wentai was approaching, they were already the ninth king.

Since ancient times, from the West to the Central Plains, we have to follow the Silk Road. However, in the Western Regions, there is not only one Silk Road, but it is divided into three parts: North, Middle and South Road. The North Road is relatively far away, and the South Road has long been abandoned, so most people will follow the middle road where Gaochang is located. Gaochang has thus become the largest transit station on the Silk Road, monopolizing most international trade and rich oil.

People are popular and there are many troubles. Yanqi on the South Road of the Silk Road was jealous. King Yanqi simply reported to Li Shimin immediately: "Your Majesty, we want to build the South Road, so it will be convenient for you to see in the future."

When Li Shimin saw that he agreed, wasn’t it just a road? All roads lead to Rome and Chang'an, which is so wonderful.

But isn’t this going to cut off Gaochang’s wealth? Cutting off people’s wealth is as good as killing his parents. When Qu Wentai learned that Yanqi was going to steal his business, he was furious and immediately led his troops to defeat Yanqi, and even looted all the gold, silver and treasures in Yanqi.

Of course, he understood that the boss behind Yanqi was the Tang Dynasty, so he joined forces with the Western Turks to launch a strong attack on Yiwu, a vassal state of the Tang Dynasty, and was determined to cut off the Silk Road and occupy the Western Regions. Not only did he not pay tribute, he also did not allow other countries to pay tribute.

Li Shimin understood that Qu Wentai was making a tantrum, but he couldn't do anything. Besides, if you didn't come to pay tribute, why did you threaten others to come?

So, Li Shimin issued an order to ask Qu Wentai to go to Chang'an to meet the saint, but of course Qu Wentai would not listen, as it was obvious that he would go but never return. Therefore, Qu Wentai rejected Li Shimin's will on the grounds of being sick.

Li Shimin was unwilling to give up and could only invite Qu Wentai again and again. But at this time, Qu Wentai was like a wild horse that broke away from reins. He simply shook his head and said to the envoy of the Tang Dynasty: "From the future, we will go our own way, and I will not believe that I will not be able to survive without you."

Isn't this obviously a public challenge with Li Shimin? But this is not that Qu Wentai is crazy, but that Gaochang is too far away, and two thousand miles of it are deserts. If you walk from the snow and you are so hungry, you can eat snow, but if you walk in the desert, you can't eat sand, right?

In fact, Qu Wentai was a little distrustful of the Tang Dynasty. After all, when he visited the Tang Dynasty ten years ago, he saw that the northern part of Qinlong was sparsely populated, so Qu Wentai judged that the Tang Dynasty was too poor, so he turned around and hugged the Western Turks. They were neighboring countries, and if they united, the Tang Dynasty might not be able to defeat it.

So, Qu Wentai carried out infrastructure construction in China, built city walls, and created fortifications. He relied on the people to unite and prepare to welcome any invading enemy.

At this time, Qu Wentai seemed to be preparing to go all the way to the black, preparing to fight for Xue Yantuo, and immediately sent an envoy to use the method of provoking. But Xue Yantuo Khan did not take this trick, but immediately told Li Shimin: "If Your Majesty attacks Gaochang, remember to bring me with you."

Li Shimin finally couldn't bear it anymore, so he immediately ordered Hou Junji to be the chief manager of Jiaohedao and lead the army to Gaochang. Hou Junji cherished this opportunity to go out very much, and he confidently led the army to Gaochang.

A few months later, when Gaochang learned about the Tang Dynasty's troops, people were panicked for a while. But Qu Wentai calmly analyzed his advantages. After all, the sky was high and the road was far away, and supply was a big problem.

Just when Qu Wentai was immersed in his dream, Hou Junji had already brought the Tang army to Jikou. "Qi" is the desert, and "Qikou" is the entrance to the desert. At this time, the Tang army was already at the entrance to Gaochang from the desert, which means that the Tang army was close to each other.

After learning the news, Qu Wentai couldn't believe his ears. He was anxious for a moment, shy and angry, and he was bedridden. Then he kicked his eyes and kicked his legs to death. He should have been scared to death.

At this time, Gaochang was suddenly in chaos. The Tang army also learned the news and was preparing to take action on the day of his burial so as to capture all civil and military officials in one go.

However, at this time, Hou Junji was extremely calm and frowned and said, "We are here to fight against injustice, not to be robbers." When everyone thought about it, it was really not kind to do this.

So, the Tang army soldiers beat the war drums and launched an attack. In less than half a day, they captured a nearby city, and soon they arrived at Gaochang City.

However, before the fight started, Hou Junji first wrote a letter of persuasion to Qu Zhisheng, the son of the new Gaochang king Qu Wentai, to explain it to the truth and move it to the emotion.

Although Qu Zhisheng was young, he had very experienced experience in dealing with things. He wanted to negotiate instead of surrendering, but just told Hou Junji in a Tai Chi style: "The one who offended you was the former king, and he had the ability to find him."

Hou Junji gave up writing a letter, but sent the soldiers to cut down trees and build high platforms and wooden buildings. Standing on it, you can overlook their capital, and there was also the most terrifying siege weapon stone throwing machine at that time.

Now, the Gaochang people finally couldn't resist it. Even the Western Turks were so scared that they fled westward for more than a thousand miles overnight. A few days later, Qu Zhisheng had to surrender obediently. Hou Junji established the Anxi Protectorate here according to Li Shimin's instructions.

Su Dingfang's stone throwing machine was actually learned from Hou Junji. He shot about 150 meters from a distance, and the weight of the stone was thirty kilograms, fifty kilograms... There were 50 stone throwing machines in total, even Gaochang Palace could not withstand this small Mocheng.

"Boom...!" "Boom...!" "Boom...!" "Boom...!"

The sound of stones hitting the city was endless. When did the tiger clan members experience such a crazy attack? The attack was simply irresistible. When a big rock hits it, you will turn it into meat sauce.

This should be the most dangerous siege encountered by the tiger clan. You should know that the Tang Dynasty officers and soldiers also attacked the city, but because they restrained the conflicts between the two sides, they did not dare to take any action. After all, if you killed the Liao people too ruthlessly, it might cause greater rebellion, because the Tang Dynasty's policy towards Lingnan was mainly to appease.

So such a stone throwing machine with extremely lethality is basically impossible to use, but no one expected that Li You would have a murderous intention to fight the tiger clan this time, because Li You wanted to establish his authority, and the most important thing was that the tiger clan did too much and killed too many people from Mocheng.

"The patriarch... the offensive outside is too strong, we must fight back. I suggest taking a thousand people out and destroying all the rock-throwing weapons so that we can be safe."

A warrior from the Tiger clan said his advice loudly, and beside the tiger clan warrior, the roar of stones smashing the house was not far away.

Because there was really no other way, the leader of the Tiger Clan had to agree. Although there was a great safety hazard when opening the city gate, if he kept hiding now, he had no good idea and could only wait for death. It was all death, so he might as well take a try.

After a thousand tiger warriors assembled, they opened the gate of Mocheng and followed a leading tiger tribe and killed them. The target was those stone throwers less than two hundred meters away.

But these tiger people would never dream of the fact that these stone casters were the main weapons for siege and had another use, which was for fishing. Around the stone casters, there was a regiment led by Zhou Likai, who had been waiting with bows and arrows not far away.

As long as these tiger tribesmen just arrived around the stone thrower, they would bow and arrow endlessly. Su Dingfang was absolutely powerful in using troops.

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Chapter completed!