Chapter 63: The Rebel Army Attacks the City

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  The Sui Tongguan City was built much higher and more magnificent than the Han Tongguan City, and its terrain was even more dangerous. The main thing that added to the majesty and danger of the Sui Tongguan City was the Jin Gou in the southeast direction.

  Jin Gou is actually a wide and large mountain valley, or it can be said that the river channel between mountains. It usually has very little accumulated water or flowing water unless there is heavy rain. When there is heavy rain, Jin Gou becomes a river channel. The average width of Jin Gou is about 6-7 zhang (a unit of length), and its shallowest part is also about one zhang deep. Sui Tongguan City was built on the west side of Jin Gou. To launch an attack on Sui Tongguan City, the rebel army gathered on the southeast side of Jin Gou must cross over it to reach under the city wall.

  The city wall of Guan City in Suizhou is about 3 to 4 zhang high, and with the depth of the moat, it is about 6 or 7 zhang, which is about 20 meters high. There is not much space under the city wall, and there are not many places where a cloud ladder can be set up. On the western ridge of the moat, there are beacon towers built on the protruding mountains outside the city wall, which can strike at the waist of the attacking troops who have crossed the moat.

  But now there are still many corpses that have rotted due to the heat and have not been cleaned up in the moat, emitting a nauseating stench. These corpses have accumulated to a certain height, reducing the defensive capabilities of several sections of the moat. In some areas, the height is less than one zhang (about 3.3 meters), and two people can climb over it by supporting each other. The rebels will definitely take advantage of this situation and concentrate their forces to attack the south gate tower of the moat.

  The east gate of Guanzhong City is some distance away from Jingou, and there are some treacherous mountains between the city wall and Jingou. The rebels wanted to climb these mountains to attack the city head-on, which was as difficult as ascending to heaven. In other words, the only way for the rebels to launch an attack was through the winding road that led out of the city gate. However, the section of Jingou about 500-600 paces away from the city wall, which was not clearly visible from the top of the city wall, and the banks of the Yellow River connected to it, had a very flat terrain, where a large number of troops could be gathered. The defenders on the city wall, whether using bed crossbows or other weapons, were unable to reach them.

  The flat area by the Yellow River outside the East Gate will be a place where the rebels gather their forces on a large scale.

  The rebels will definitely launch a large-scale attack on Tongguan City from the direction of the east gate, but the troops that can reach the city head are not many.

  The north gate of Sui Tong Pass was built along the Yellow River, just like the north gate of Han Tong Pass. The nearby terrain is also treacherous, making it impossible for the rebels to gather a large number of troops below, and at most they can only attack with a scale of hundreds of people, which basically cannot pose a threat to the defenders on the city wall, unless the defenders on the city wall are all asleep or have withdrawn. It is also impossible to organize troops under the city to shoot arrows at the defenders on the city wall.

  Xi Men was facing away from the direction of the rebel army, and people and horses were entering and exiting Tongguan City from the Chang'an direction, unless the rebel army came from the Chang'an direction.

  No matter who commanded the attack on Tongguan, as long as they came from Luoyang, they would definitely launch an attack from the east and south gates of Tongguan City. Cui Qianyou, the deputy commander of the rebel army commanding the battle to capture Tongguan, also made this decision. After Li Qian and Cheng Wei led their remaining 3,000 troops to arrive at the east and south gates, he immediately issued the order to attack the city. Cheng Wei attacked the east gate of Tongguan, while Li Qian attacked the south gate.

  Li Qian and Cheng Wei, having received the order, did not dare to delay and immediately ordered the troops that had just gathered to launch a rotating attack on the city head.

  The two of them were both filled with a sense of tragic heroism at the thought that these several thousand vanguard troops would inevitably die in battle beneath Tongguan Castle.

  Li's order was given before Cheng Wei's, and with his order, the first team of hundreds of soldiers carrying cloud ladders rushed into the Forbidden Ditch very quickly.

  The eastern slope of the ditch is not a straight up and down mountain wall, the slope is relatively gentle, the attacking side can rush to the bottom of the ditch without much effort, but the western slope of the ditch is very steep, unless using ropes or ladders, it's hard to climb to the top of the ditch, climbing with bare hands may fall from the middle of the slope and suffer serious injury or death.

  The first function of the cloud ladder in the hands of the rebels who rushed into the low ditch was to help their own side climb up to the west bank of the moat, and then use the cloud ladder to ascend the city.

  Just as Li Qian's troops were charging down to the bottom of the moat with shields and cloud ladders, and were about to climb up the west bank of the moat, another contingent led by Cheng Wei also began their attack on the east gate of Tongguan.

  Hundreds of rebel soldiers held shields in their hands and howled along the winding road into the city, starting an attack on Tongguan City.

  Cui Gan's personally commanded follow-up troops are rapidly approaching, with the vanguard being led by Li Qian and Cheng Wei arriving at Tongguan City. Cui Gan is preparing to adopt the same method of attacking the city as he did when attacking Hantongguan City, that is, continuous and uninterrupted charges, regardless of the cost in lives, using a wheel war tactic to consume the strength and arrows of the Tang army on the city wall. He does not hope to capture Tongguan City while the Tang army still has the ability to resist, but rather hopes that when the Tang army is exhausted from shooting arrows and fighting, he can attack the city with more troops and take it in one swift motion.

  This morning, they spent too much time in Hantangguan City. As for whether they can take down the last pass of Tongguan Tianxian, neither Cui Qianyou nor An Qingxu had much confidence. But An Qingxu had already given a desperate order, no matter how great the cost, to take Tongguan City at all costs. He vowed not to rest his troops until he had occupied Tongguan City.

  Chui Kien-yu also ordered the soldiers to take turns attacking the Tang army on the city wall, without any pause.

  They will start fighting from now on, without stopping until nightfall, and continue to do so, no matter what defensive measures the Tang army takes, even if it's a large-scale fire attack. They won't stop unless they capture the entire Tongguan Pass.

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  Yang Hui stood on the top of the East Gate, coldly gazing at the rebel army gathering in the distance, and then launched an attack with hundreds of people towards the East Gate and South Gate.

  Seeing that the rebel troops had not yet assembled, they launched an attack in two directions, east gate and south gate. Yang Hui immediately understood the meaning of the rebel commander, which was to continue attacking the city of Hantanguan in a way that would consume the energy of the defending troops on the city wall, as well as the arrows on the city wall, at the cost of certain casualties.

  The arrows in the city are not what he is worried about, as there have been replenishments of arrows transported into the city over the past two days. What he is worried about is the strength of the soldiers.

  Most of the soldiers were retreating from Lingbao, and the three thousand soldiers he brought from Chang'an were also exhausted. The best physical condition should be the three thousand horses that Geshu Han did not bring out of the city. Overall, the defending troops on the city wall were all exhausted, although the rebel army attacking the city was also very tired, but they had enough troops to attack in shifts. If there is no follow-up reinforcements, the strength of the defenders on the city wall cannot be supplemented, Yang Hui knew that the final fate may be the fall of the city and the death of the people!

  However, Yang Jie still believed that his troops of over 10,000 men were fully capable of repelling the rebel attack until reinforcements arrived.

  With a cold gaze, Yang Hui saw that the hundreds of rebel soldiers who had led the charge on the city had already entered the range of the bed crossbows. He immediately gave the order himself, "Bed crossbows, start firing!"