The defender of Lingwu was not hiding Anhuan, and at this time there were 15,000 people in Lingwu City. There are also a lot of bows and arrows for defending the city, rolling logs, and stones, and there are sixteen trebuchets in the city, and the strength to defend the city is not insufficient. But as soon as he saw the Song army attacking Lingwu in a big way, he didn't hide Anhuan and knew that this time it was the Song army that was going to do his best, so he didn't dare to hold it up, and while preparing to defend the city, he sent people to the high mountains of the Xiangqing army to ask for help.

After the Song army arrived in front of Lingwu City, Yang Yan first ordered the soldiers to set up a village to rest, and then personally went to the edge of Lingwu City to inspect the terrain. Lingwu has a total of four gates, of which the west gate faces the Yellow River, and the terrain outside the east, south and north gates is very flat, which can be used as the direction of attack. Moreover, the walls of Lingwu are not too tall, and most of them are no more than three zhang. Therefore, Yang Yan decided to let go of the west and take the east gate as the main offensive direction, and at the same time contain the north and south gates.

However, although the target of the attack was determined, the Song army did not launch a fierce attack as soon as it came up. Because although Lingwu is not a fortified city like Jiankang, after all, it is a city that the Western Xia army focuses on defending, with sufficient troops and very tightly guarded, which is by no means comparable to the capture of Xi'an. Therefore, if we attack rashly, we will inevitably lose our troops and dismantle our generals, and the gains outweigh the losses. First of all, you must prepare for the siege.

Therefore, after the Song army stopped fighting, it immediately launched a series of actions outside Lingwu City, digging ditches for trenches, digging earth for mountains, and erecting trees for fences, so that it was not like attacking the city, but building a large number of buildings.

Although Wuzang Anhuan couldn't fully understand Song Jun's intentions, he also knew that Song Jun did this, definitely not because he wanted to build a house outside the city, it must be related to the siege of the city. Therefore, the Song army's project could not be allowed to go on so smoothly, but the places where the Song army was building were all positions that were difficult to reach with bow and arrows, and An Huan had also sent two teams of men and horses out of the city to sneak attack, and they were also attacked by the Song army, which had been prepared, and was beaten back. Therefore, there is no way to take the Song army. I can only watch the Song army's earth mountains get higher and higher day by day, the ditches get longer day by day, and the wooden fence is more and more day by day.

And Lingwu is not a big city, there is no need for much action, and when the Song army sent troops, it recruited tens of thousands of people from Lingzhou City, so the people outside the city and the army totaled more than 100,000 people to work together, and it only took four or five days of effort to basically complete the project outside the city.

Wuzang Anhuan saw very clearly on the head of the city, only to see that within a distance of about two hundred steps outside the city, dozens of earth mountains were piled up side by side on the north, east and south sides, and the height of each earth mountain could reach three or four zhang high, a large section higher than the head of the city, and two bed crossbows were erected on it. At a distance of about thirty or forty steps in front of the dirt mountain, a trench was dug out, about one zhang wide, and from the angle of the city, the bottom of the ditch could not be seen, so it was not known how deep the ditch was, but a person who went down into the ditch could never see it. In front of the trench, rows of wooden fences were erected, distributed layer by layer, until they were about a hundred steps away from the Lingwu city wall.

At this time, Wuzang Anhuan also knew that it was not good, and it can be said that the project advanced layer by layer in the Song army was like a big net, trapping Lingwu City firmly. Unexpectedly, the Song army has not really begun to attack the city, so it occupies an absolute advantage with the scriptures, although Lingwu still has a city wall to defend, once the army really launches an offensive, Lingwu City will be lost within three or five days.

Thinking of this, Wuzang Anhuan couldn't help but look south on the city tower again. In fact, in the past few days, as long as he goes up to the city tower, he will look south and wait for reinforcements from Xiangqingjun's side. I couldn't help but be very anxious, Lingwu City was only twenty or thirty miles away from the Xiangqing Army, why hadn't there been reinforcements yet?

And at this time, I only heard the sound of the horn blowing in the Song army formation on the opposite side, but I saw that countless Song troops came out from behind the mountain, and at the same time quickly lined up the team, dozens of chariots of different forms were launched, and then crossed the trench, jumped over the wooden fence, and advanced towards the city wall of Lingwu City.

The Song army was about to officially start the offensive.

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In fact, Gao Shandu, who was sitting in the Xiangqing army, had already received Lingwu's emergency document, but the reason why he had delayed for several days and did not send out the rescue was really because he had no choice but to suffer.

Some time ago, the Song army had been using the tactics of the Lingzhou army to lure the enemy, and although the Western Xia army suffered defeats in a row, it found that the Song army did not take advantage of the victory to attack the Yellow River defense line. Gao Shan believed that this was precisely because the Song army was not sure enough to storm the Yellow River defense line, so he used this tactic of luring the enemy, just wanting to lure the Western Xia army out of the barrier and fight a decisive battle with the Song army in the field.

As a result, Gao Shan ordered all the defenders not to fight, but he was still quite confident in the defensive ability of the Yellow River defense line, so he slowly relaxed a little. Unexpectedly, this time the Song army suddenly concentrated more than 100,000 troops to attack Lingwu. Although the Xiangqing army and Lingwu are close at hand, the defenders in the Xiangqing army are less than 40,000, even if they are all brought to rescue Lingwu, I am afraid that they are not the opponent of the Song army.

Originally, Lingwu was located at the middle end of the Yellow River defense line, and both the north and south could send troops to rescue at the same time, but Huaizhou, Yongzhou, and Jingzhou in the north were pinned down by the Lingzhou army. Therefore, it was only possible to rely on the strongholds in the south to send troops to rescue Lingwu. As a result, the number of troops is insufficient.

In the past few days, Gao Shan had to transfer troops everywhere, and it took a lot of effort to finally gather nearly 80,000 horses, although he still felt that it was not enough, but at this time, Lingwu's urgency was one after another, and even Xingqing Mansion also issued an order to urge Gao Shan to hurry up and rescue Lingwu.

Therefore, Gao Shan also knew that he couldn't wait any longer, so he had to bite the bullet and take all the horses gathered in the Xiangqing Army with the generals Dong Mingzhao, Ye Likui and other generals to rescue Lingwu. At the same time, he was afraid of encountering an attack by the Song army on the way, so the route of the march was chosen to go north along the Yellow River, so that the left side was the Yellow River.

The men and horses walked for more than 20 miles, and they were safe and sound all the way, and at this time they could even vaguely see the earth mountains built by the Song army. Gao Shan instinctively breathed a sigh of relief, and finally arrived near Lingwu safely, so the next step was how to defeat the Song army and rescue Lingwu.

But at this time, the Song army had already waited in front of Lingwu City. It turned out that when the Song army built the siege fortifications, it not only dug trenches and erected wooden fences on the periphery, just to prevent the arrival of Western Xia reinforcements. Therefore, seeing that the Western Xia reinforcements arrived at this time, the Song army did not panic, but relied on the strong fortifications, lined up a tight formation, and waited for the Western Xia army to attack.

Because the Song army had built fortifications with scriptures, Gao Shandu also knew that it was not a wise choice for the Western Xia army to attack rashly. Therefore, the Song army did not take the initiative to attack, and Gao Shan did not dare to order an attack easily, so he had to order the Western Xia soldiers and horses to stop on the spot and wait and see what happened for the time being, and the two sides held each other like this.

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At the same time that the Song army and the Western Xia army were engaged in a fierce battle on the bank of the Yellow River, at this time, in a forest on the west bank of the Yellow River, Temuzhen led his Mongol generals to pay close attention to the battle on the other side.

Since Temujin led the Mongol army to the village near Xingqing Mansion, the Western Xia also tried to send troops to attack the Mongol army, but they were defeated by the Mongol army and fled back to the city. After trying twice, the Western Xia also knew that the Mongolian army was fighting in the field, and the Yellow River defense line of the Western Xia was on the east bank of the Yellow River, and the Mongolian army could not cross the Yellow River, and there was no need to fear that the Mongolian army and the Song army would form a front and rear attack on the Yellow River defense line, so they closed the city gate and stopped fighting.

In the face of the fortified city of Xingqing Province, the Mongol army also had no good way but to plunder the villages outside the city, and at the same time pay close attention to the progress of the Song army on the other side of the Yellow River. Although Mongolia did not establish a complete system of planning and reporting in the territory of Western Xia like the Great Song Dynasty, before attacking Western Xia, it also sent a large number of spies to Western Xia to inquire about various news of Western Xia, and the spy system presided over by Lai Wenzheng also constantly informed the Mongol army of the situation of the Song army, so Temujin was still basically able to grasp the progress of the Song army.

After learning that Yang Yan had concentrated a large army at this time, attacked Lingwu, and prepared to break through the Yellow River defense line. Temujin also moved the Mongol army's Dazhai to the lower village on the other side of the Yellow River in Lingwu, and led the Mongol generals to watch the Song army's siege battle across the Yellow River in the woods on the west bank every day.

Because it is only separated by a river, the surface of the Yellow River is not too wide, so everything on the other side can be seen very clearly. It's just that the main direction of attack of the Song army is the east gate of Lingwu, and from the other side of the Yellow River, you can only see the west gate of Lingwu and the side of the north and south gates.

As for the use of these fortifications built by the Song army, the Mongolian generals also had their own opinions, and they did not agree with each other. Even the two brothers, Yelu Ahai and Yelu Tuhua, were only familiar with the tactics of the Jin Kingdom, after all, they rarely had direct contact with the Song army, and they did not understand some of the tactics of the Song army, which was the use of siege tactics. Therefore, it is not possible to fully understand the intention of these fortifications built by the Song army.

But early this morning, the situation changed. The reinforcements of Western Xia rushed to the southern city of Lingwu, and the Song army also deployed a large number of troops in the southern city, preparing to block the reinforcements of Western Xia, and even Yang Yan's banner of "handsome" was erected on the soil mountain of Nancheng. Temujin and the Mongol generals knew that a big battle was about to start between the two sides, and they immediately came to their senses, and although they admired Yang Yan's military talent very much, it was the first time they had seen the large-scale battle of the Song army. Therefore, this time I want to see how the Song army faced the Western Xia army.