Jinzhou, a place where there is a long battle. Shi Yanchao also fought bloody battles here, and now the city is standing on Xiang Gong.

Xiang Gong raised his head and raised his chest, pressed his sword with his left hand, and took a deep breath in the wind. The breath of war seemed to be heard in the wind, but now there is nothing to see or hear.

"Will Murong Yanzhao open the city quietly to surrender? All the Jinzhou army is in his hands." Zhang Jianxiong said softly.

The atmosphere was already very tense, and Li Jixun's vanguard was less than 200 miles away from Jinzhou; Xiang Gong had military power and was granted the title of "Hedong and Hebei frontiers" to control all border troops from Hedong to Hebei, but he only had two thousand Zhen'an troops in his hands to be his own.

After a long time, Xiang Gong turned his head and said, "No, I believe anyone Murong Yanzhao surrenders; but he is just unwilling to surrender to Li Jixun... because Zhao Kuangyin may be in Li Jixun's army."

Zhang Jianxiong may not know much about the broken things in the circle of generals, but Xiang Gong knows them very well. Xiang Gong has never been in the imperial guards, and he was the local governor at the highest level. However, since Wang Pu recommended to participate in the Battle of Shu, he entered the Tokyo power circle and learned a lot of things.

After Zhao Kuangyin took office, his attitude towards Gao Huaide and Murong Yanzhao was similar. Gao Huaide was kicked from the Palace Front Office to the Guard Office, and Murong Yanzhao went from the Palace Front Office to the local military governor. Xiang Gong was not very clear about the gap between the two, but from the actual results, we can guess the process.

Zhang Jianxiong was worried and said, "This battle is difficult! The lord only has two thousand cavalry in his hand, and Murong Yanzhao may only have seven or eight thousand soldiers. I still don't know what he was thinking... Li Jixun was at the gate of the city immediately, and Li Chongjin also came to the Northern Han territory. It must be for us. There must be 60,000 troops attacking Jinzhou together?"

Xiang Gong said: "Although Li Jixun has three cities, all the troops are at most 20,000. His big battle may have temporarily swept up some messy people; Li Chongjin had only seven or eight thousand soldiers in his hand, mainly the Gange army, which was recruited by the Huainan surrendered troops. The Huainan army has good combat power and a little loyalty. Li Chongjin's strength is slightly greater than Li Jixun."

"No matter how you calculate it, it is five or six times our troops." Zhang Jianxiong sighed.

Xiang Gong said in a very affirmative tone: "Guo Shao will come to save me."

"It's possible, but Guo Du's inspection team just took office and Tokyo couldn't take care of himself, just because he didn't know when he would come." Zhang Jianxiong said.

"No! You don't understand him, Guo Shao will definitely provide reinforcements in time." Xiang Gong shook his head and said thoughtfully, "Guo Du is a person who is good at seizing the opportunity. Xinkou saved Shi Yanchao and told me a deep impression. He is also a person who is very good at cooperating with his companions... At that time, Xinkou was in danger and surrounded by enemies, so his brother could not be taken by his side, but if Guo Shao had not been on the side, he would have died thousands of times!"

Xiang Gong seemed to be convincing himself and murmured: "I believe that he can see the situation in Jinzhou and will cooperate with me tacitly!"

Zhang Jianxiong still stubbornly said: "If Guo Du fails to come, we will be completely finished."

...A few days later, Li Jixun's troops came to the city. Xiang Gong and Murong Yanzhao defended themselves behind closed doors and refused to leave. Li Jixun set up camp and deployed ten miles west of the city, neither approaching nor besieging the city, and the siege was slightly insufficient.

Except for the scouts who occasionally had skirmishes in the wilderness, the two armies showed no signs of war.

At this time, Zhao Kuangyin had already arrived at Li Jixun's central army. The two sighed and sighed, only telling the vicissitudes of the world.

After a while, Zhao Kuangyin stopped talking and asked, "Brother Li, I will give you that prescription and ask you to prepare gunpowder, but is it done?"

Li Jixun said: "It has been completed and filled with twelve coffins. Charcoal is easy, but it is a little difficult to get too much sulfur. The worst thing to get is saltpeter. Fortunately, it is not too far from Guanzhong. I sent someone to Guanzhong to contact the dealer for a lot of money more than two months ago. The dealer transported some from Hanzhong and Longyou one after another, and several trips back and forth were finally enough."

"In the Battle of Shouzhou, Guo Shao issued a military order to break the city within one month, all depends on this thing." Zhao Kuangyin said, "Jinzhou is strong, and Brother Li's troops are insufficient, and siege is the worst strategy. You can try to send a small job to contact Murong Yanzhao to try to get apart, while preparing to use gunpowder to blow up the city. If Brother Li's troops rush in, he will have more than twice the advantage."

Li Jixun said: "If the attack is not broken, I have to wait for Li Chong to come."

Zhao Kuangyin nodded and said, "That's right. If Li Chong advances and attacks together, he can occupy half of Jinzhou, and thinks it's a way out; if Brother Li captures Jinzhou alone, you occupy Jinzhou and ask Li Chong to enter Jiangzhou in the south... But it's better to capture Jinzhou quickly to avoid Tokyo's support; after capturing Jinzhou, immediately divide the troops to the southeast to strengthen Zezhou's defense. If there is a place that depends on Taiyue, it will be easy to take a few months if it is properly defended."

The next day, Li Jixun and Zhao Kuangyin began to deploy siege fortifications in an orderly manner. There were more than 40,000 people in total, but only 20,000 of them were soldiers; more than 10,000 were rural brave men and prisoners brought from all over the country. The rural brave men still lacked weapons, each with almost only a long spear or a wooden shield with a short sword, and there were no armor at all. The rest were all men who forced to recruit and recruit, and even women who transported food to work.

Li Jixun's troops did not plan to surround the city. They first divided the main force into three battalions, and stationed one battalion on each side of the west side of the city; 3,000 cavalrymen five miles southeast of the city were stationed.

Then he drove the prisoners to build fences and trenches on the front of the west gate, and gradually advanced to the city, with three layers of fortifications; heavy troops were located on the west side. Some craftsmen were busy working in the camp to build various tools such as thieves, ladders, etc.

(Jinzhou has been looted for dozens of miles in a radius of tens of miles; Li Jixun first plundered the three cities in Heyang, and then took Jiangzhou, which had empty troops as a guard, and then robbed Jinzhou and Jiangzhou outside because they had no reliable sources of supply.)

For a time, on the empty ground outside Jinzhou City, it seemed like the construction site where the main hall was built. The sound of sawing wood, the sound of jingling and knocking, and the sound of people carrying wood and pounding rammed earth... It sounded like a scene of busy work.

On both sides were flags like clouds, a group of men and horses lined up, and the soldiers were still pressing. Looking at the city tower, several generals walked around the wall, and many soldiers stood on the wall, but the defenders did not fire a single arrow, because no matter what weapon was, they could not reach the "construction site" outside the city.

Behind the barriers, eight authentic tunnels were quietly excavated, using houses, tents and trenches as covers, so that people in the city would not see where the authentic tunnels were.

Zhao Kuangyin rode his horse to a tunnel entrance and looked at it. He turned around and saw Li Jixun. He stepped forward and said, "When you dig the front fence, you will open holes upwards, one for breathable, and the other for determining the location. Then, there is only more than a hundred steps to dig the city below, and then find a hidden place to make a small hole in the middle, so you don't have to worry about the direction being too far. At night, I secretly find someone to use a rope to measure the distance of the city wall, and just dig the tunnel under the wall."

Li Jixun said: "During the Battle of Huainan, Brother Zhao was in Yangzhou, and he was so clear about the tactics of the Battle of Shouzhou, which is really admirable."

"I don't know how Guo Shao dug it, but it should be similar." Zhao Kuangyin said, "Digging the tunnel to hide gunpowder. Just like the previous 'Caps attack' method, the caves attack must be dug into the city and digging further... There are many generals in the army who understand caves attack, and there are other requirements, such as wood support to prevent collapse. If you know how to dig, you can't get it out."

Li Jixun said: "Brother Zhao will take charge of the city bombing."

"Then I will take the order." Zhao Kuangyin bowed.

...On a sunny afternoon, the autumn air was clear and the sky was very clear, but the ground below the city was filled with dust. Xiang Gong stood on the city tower and carefully observed the fortifications below. He was not planning to take the initiative yet.

"The deployment was very rigorous, not like Li Jixun's style." Xiang Gong said without looking back, "When Li Jixun was in Huainan, he wanted to catch Chai Kehong's reinforcements. Because he was careless, he was ambushed by the weak soldiers of Chai Kehong's anti-China soldiers. He was defeated. He was not a careful person at all... Zhao Kuangyin should have been in Li Jixun's army."

The man next to him with a round-eyed and round-eyed look was Murong Yanzhao, the governor of Jianxiong Army. When Murong Yanzhao heard Zhao Kuangyin's name, his expression changed slightly.

Xiang Gong grew much whiter, his cheeks were flat, his facial features were straight, and his beard was light. Xiang Gong was silent, and his eyes were already full of Murong Yanzhao's expression.

"Shishuai Murong Jie looked over there..." Xiang Gong pointed ahead.

Murong Yanzhao said: "The dust is too big and you can't see anything."

"Look at the new soil behind the fence carefully." Xiang Gong said, "Zhao Kuangyin is digging a crypt."

"Attack?" Murong Yanzhao frowned.

Xiang Gong said: "It's too difficult to attack the acupoint. I think Zhao Kuangyin wants to use gunpowder to explode the city according to his example. In the world-famous Battle of Shouzhou, Guodu ordered the inspection to use gunpowder to explode the city wall. Zhao Kuangyin may have already obtained the method... So Zhao Sanlang used gunpowder at the Datong Temple Inn to assassinate Guodu at the Datong Temple Inn."

"Hey, General Xiang knows a lot! I have heard about the story of my Zhao family Sanlang, but I heard the first thing I did about the assassination." Murong Yanzhao said.

Xiang Gong said: "More than 2,000 cavalry of Zhen'an army under my command will be deployed on the west road of the city. If the gap is blown open, Zhen'an army will be the first to quickly block the gap; then Murong Jieshuai will reinforce me when he sees the opportunity."

Murong Yanzhao bowed and said, "Abide by the orders of the capital's deployment!"

Xiang Gong said again: "In this way, defending the city depends entirely on building a great army. Once the city is destroyed, the creatures will be ruined, and you and I will die without a place to bury you and I! I hope Murong Jieshuai will defend and never retreat."

"Get orders!" Murong Yanzhao's expression narrowed, "I will take a step back and come to see you."

After hearing this, Xiang Gong turned around and said, "Zhang Jianxiong, immediately send someone to cross the street in the west of the city, the main roads in the east and west, and issue a notice that these two roads will no longer be passed. Those who block the route of dispatching troops will rectify the Dharma on the spot!"

Zhang Jianxiong clasped his fists and said, "The last one will be ordered!"

...
Chapter completed!