Chapter 46: When Will the Reinforcements Arrive?

  "Report to Deputy Commander, the Tang army's defense is very stubborn, our army has suffered heavy losses!" A school lieutenant quickly ran to the front of Cui Qianyou, who was still standing on the hillside watching the battle, and loudly reported the situation.

  Cui Qianyou silently waved his hand for the young school lieutenant to withdraw, indicating that he understood.

  The progress of the war was all in his eyes, he was fully aware that nearly two thousand people had already paid the price, but still not a single soldier could enter Tongguan City. The limited cloud ladders were erected on the head of Tongguan City and immediately pushed down. Those soldiers who prepared to climb the cloud ladder finally ended up with a miserable death or serious injury.

  Liubao's attack was in vain, although he also saw that such an attack had already caused the defenders on the city wall to consume a lot of physical strength, and the number of arrows shot down into the city was very large, but it was still early for the Tang army to exhaust its strength and run out of arrows.

  If so many sacrifices had been made before the great victory of Lingbao, but no progress had been made, he could only order a halt to the attack.

  But now everyone knows that the defenders in Tongguan City are seriously short of troops, with at most only 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers, while the attackers have nearly 150,000. In a situation where they have a serious advantage in troop strength, they must continue to attack the city and cannot give up. Otherwise, when the Tang army's follow-up reinforcements arrive, the situation will return to the state before the Battle of Lingbao, and the two armies can only be in a stalemate.

  This includes Cui Jianyu, An Qingxu and also An Lushan of Luoyang.

  Before the Battle of Lingbao, the situation was unfavorable to them, and Cui Qianyou also knew this. An Lushan had planned to retreat to his hometown in Fanyang. Most of the troops were tied up in front of Tongguan City, while the Tang army generals led by Guo Ziyi, Li Guangbi, Yan Zhenqing, Cheng Qianli, and Li Siye attacked from behind without regard for their lives and gained the upper hand. An Lushan and his generals, including Cui Qianyou, were worried that the passage between Luoyang and Fanyang would be cut off, and all the troops would be divided and annihilated by the Tang army one by one, so they wanted to retreat back to their old nest in Fanyang.

  But after the victory of Lingbao, Geshu Han's 200,000 troops were almost completely destroyed, and Tongguan was almost left without any soldiers to defend it. If they didn't seize this opportunity to capture Tongguan City and open the gate to Chang'an, there would never be another chance to take control of Chang'an again.

  An Lushan, upon receiving the news of Lingbao's great victory, also gave a death order to take advantage of the situation and capture Tongguan, and he himself led supporting troops to quickly march towards Tongguan.

  Whether it was An Qingxu or Cui Qianyou, they both understood that at this point, they could only take Guanzhong at all costs, even if the bodies piled up to the height of the city walls.

  To capture the entire Tongguan, and open the gateway to Chang'an, the city of Hantonguan in front is a must-conquer, otherwise there will be no chance to station troops under the city of Su Tongguan. Cui Qianyou also ordered again, continuing to adopt the tactics just now, wave after wave attacking the city of Hantonguan.

  Under the command of Cui Qianyou, the rebel army continued to attack under the command of various generals, and the scale of the attack was slightly larger. The shields in the hands of the soldiers were more tightly covered, and they formed a large shield wall that quickly pushed towards Tongguan City.

  They knew that in this case, covering their bodies more tightly would reduce the chance of injury.

  But the terrain in front of Tongguan City was not flat, with great undulations. The shields held by the soldiers attacking the city could be raised high, but it was impossible to always cover their bodies. As long as they were slightly careless, the fatal arrows would shoot into their bodies.

  The arrows shot down from the head of Tongguan City are still very dense, and the attacking rebel soldiers fall one after another under the city.

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  Another wave of attack was repelled! On the gate tower of the east gate of Wei Tong's city, Yang Hui, who was watching the battle, saw that the rebels had launched another wave of attacks, but still suffered heavy casualties and retreated in defeat. He couldn't help but sigh. At this time, he was even more indifferent to the corpses left by the rebels, hoping only that Pang Zhong and Li Fude on the city gate could hold on a little longer and not give the rebels a chance to climb up.

  Even if the rebels have a chance to climb the city wall, they must be killed before climbing to the top of the city wall, and not let any soldier climb up to the city building.

  According to his observation, the rebels had already lost at least two or three thousand men under the city, while the defenders on the wall had casualties of no more than a few dozen. The rebel's subsequent attacks were almost made by stepping on the bodies of their companions.

  The reason for such a huge disparity in casualties is mainly due to the terrain around Tongguan. If it weren't for the rugged terrain outside the east and southeast gates of Tongguan City, which was high and low, undulating and uneven, making it impossible to deploy large-scale forces, and also because of the terrain, the rebel army attacking the city could not gather soldiers to launch a large-scale arrow shooting against the defending troops on the city wall, almost all of them were forced to rush forward and take the beating, rushing into the rain of arrows shot down from the city wall.

  This situation also led to such a disparity in casualties, and the soldiers wounded on the city wall were only injured by the limited number of arrows shot onto the city wall, which did not cause great damage to the combat effectiveness of the defending Tang army.

  Just as Yang Guo was feeling sentimental, Gao Zhan rushed to the top of the city gate tower and loudly asked for orders to lead his troops to urgently rescue Tongguan City ahead.

  The defenders of Tongguan Pass almost saw the intense battle at Hulao Pass, a scene that had been seen many times in the past few months, but today it was completely different. With only over 2,000 troops left to defend Hulao Pass, it would be difficult to withstand the rebels' continuous attacks. Today's rebel attack intensity and frequency far exceeded those of the past. If this situation continues, how long can the 2,000 defenders hold on?

  Gao Shi, whose blood was boiling with indignation, again requested Yang Hui to let him lead troops to reinforce the city of Han Tongguan.

  Because he received Geshu Han's order to return to the capital and request the emperor not to go out of the pass for battle, Gao Shi missed the opportunity to go out of the pass with Geshu Han, which also allowed him to avoid experiencing the defeat at Lingbao, and his heart had no too many dark shadows, showing more passion than other generals.

  However, his request was rejected by Yang Jie again.

  Yang Kai told him that unless the subsequent reinforcements arrived, it would be impossible to dispatch troops to support the Han Tongguan City which was preparing to abandon. What the soldiers had to do now was to hold on to the Su Tongguan City as much as possible and not let this gate of Chang'an fall into the hands of the rebels.

  Even if the Hantangguan city falls into the hands of the rebels, as long as the Suizhouguan city is still in our hands, it doesn't matter. Our army guards the Suizhouguan city, and the rebels occupy the Hantangguan city, just a few miles apart, facing each other, that's also an acceptable thing, Yang Hui is not afraid of any confrontation!

  After listening to Yang Jie's explanation, Gao Shi had no choice but to reluctantly accept the order and prepare to receive Pang Zhong and Li Fude's troops after nightfall.

  Yang Jie once again sent an urgent military report to Chang'an through the relay station's fast horse, requesting Emperor Li Longji to send reinforcements as soon as possible.

  While continuing to stand by and watch, Yang Kai was also pondering when the reinforcements would arrive at the earliest.