"Journey to the West"

Author: Scarlet Polyp

Chapter 21: Seeking the Way to Restore the Country

The ancient road of the Western Regions, a hundred miles west of Gaochang City.

Alda and his party slowly headed east. After leaving Qiuzi, the leader Alda, Ardashir, should be said to say, chose the route west to the city of Gaochang.

After more than a year of travel, especially after the capture of Shule City, the Han Dynasty, a distant and mysterious eastern power, left a clearer and deeper impression on Alda's heart. Through the observation of the Han army in the Western Regions, he found that the national strength of the Han Dynasty was far superior to that of Kushan and Rest, and it was almost on par with the great enemy of the West, the Roman Empire, and perhaps stronger. Such a powerful and civilized Eastern empire aroused Alda's strong interest. Born into a noble family in Persia, Alda had a deep affection for the glorious history of his ancestors, and was extremely dissatisfied with the status quo of being ruled by foreign races: the once powerful Persian Empire was conquered by Alexander of Macedon, and after hundreds of years of Greek period, it was conquered by the Parthians, a nomadic people in the border areas of the empire, and became a slave of a foreign race. After 500 years of humiliating foreign rule, the national sentiment of the lower Persian people finally gathered to the brink of exploding, and the voices of the upper classes of society for the restoration of Persian glory grew day by day. Alda was such a staunch Persian Rectoist who had received a systematic Hellenistic education and embraced Zoroastrianism, silently accumulating the strength to resist under the oppressive rule of the Sabbatarian Empire.

"My lord, why don't we turn north and return home? It is said that the situation in the country is very turbulent now because Rome is preparing to invade, so there should be a lot of work to be done after returning. The pharmacist who had healed Sima Yi asked suspiciously.

"Don't be in a hurry, Bilius, whatever the situation in the country, we are not strong enough to seize this moment. The Vulcan God has given me guidance, and we may have unexpected gains from this eastward journey. Alda smiled and said, "Dahan, it will be the end of all answers." ”

"Harvest? I see, are you borrowing troops from the Han? "If we could have a legion as strong as that at Queuz, we would have much easier to restore Persia." ”

Alda shook his head lightly and said, "No, the fate of Persia must always be changed by us Persians ourselves, and we cannot rely on external forces. The answer I was looking for was how to build a strong army, how to build a strong Persian state. This is inconclusive in Greek books. Only the big man can give me the answer. Of course, we can still seek cooperation. ”

A group of Persians, with the desire to seek answers from the Great Han and some "arrogant" desire to seek cooperation, slowly but surely walked towards their end. In front of them is a difficult road to recovery that has lasted for more than ten years.

Qiuzi, he is under the city.

The Kushans did not abandon this tactic after the failure of the first excavation of the city. In the past half month, the excavation work in more than 30 places has continued amid continuous casualties. Because the Kushan army set up a huge trebuchet outside the west gate, it was very powerful and posed a great threat to the city. The Kushan army at the root of the city also used iron forks, which could fork away the burning cotton wool and firewood that were thrown down at any time, so the city could only cause casualties to the Kushan army by throwing bricks, stones, and rolling logs, but there was no effective way to stop the Kushan army from digging holes. The digging teams sent by the Kushan army were extremely brave, and no matter how dangerous it was, they desperately dug deep into the depths.

In the southern section of the Western Wall, near the corner, a large hole had been dug. Although the casualties were very heavy, they were the most successful after all. On the afternoon of the third day of the ninth month, in the hole a few feet wide, he had already dug more than two zhang wide to the left and right, dug more than one zhang deep inside, and dug more than one person high. Broken bricks and clods of earth dug out of the cave were piled up on the left and right sides of the mouth of the cave, along with the dead bodies, and were as tall as a man, like two hills.

Pound wanted to send the next group of people to snatch the big hole, but he thought again: there were already twenty or thirty Kushan troops in the cave, and the stones outside the city were very violent, and there were fewer people going down to the city, so it was useless; If there were too many people, he would be found before he hit the ground, and then he would be hit by a cannon stone or killed by an arrow, so he gave up on this plan.

Throughout the afternoon, from the southern section to the northern section, on the fifteen-mile-long city wall, the gunpowder smoke rose in bursts and slowly dispersed, and after many times the gunpowder smoke rose and dispersed, dusk gradually came. There was a grey hail of twilight flowing in the wild. At this time, Pang De stood behind the battlements and saw that the Kushan army was still building trebuchets, not to mention a dozen. He commanded the soldiers and the people of the city to keep half of them in the city, and half of them to go to their bunks to rest, but not to go away. He himself immediately went down to the city, returned to Kaye Temple, and gathered important generals and Qiuzi representatives to discuss secretly. It won't last long. After the meeting, they went to prepare for tomorrow's big war and hard fighting. In addition to him and more than a dozen generals, the nobles and monks of Qiuzi who assisted in defending the city had heavy faces on their faces when they left. Everyone is worried: the fate of his Qiancheng may be decided tomorrow.

The next day, on the fourth day of the ninth month, at dawn, Kushan began to move with the whole army. The drums of war began to beat until midnight. From the north and south sections of the western wall, and even one section of the north and south walls, the assault began on the whole line. First of all, in the northern section, the Kushan army used many catapults to bombard the city wall, and the soldiers shouted, but in fact, they confused the defenders and did not really attack.

In the large hole in the southern section, the Kushan army drove a large number of wooden stakes into the base of the wall before withdrawing yesterday. At the end of the day, they poured fire oil into the cave and set it on fire with rockets. Soon a fire broke out in the cave, and the flames raged so hard that it soon loosened the foundations of the wall, making it crumbling. Taking advantage of this opportunity, about fifteen giant trebuchets simultaneously bombarded the place where the big hole was about to collapse. Some artillery also hit the city, and the battlements were smashed one by one, and the enemy tower at the corner was also destroyed. Some of the soldiers and civilians defending the city died in the enemy towers, and some escaped. The wall above the big hole had already partially collapsed, and it collapsed one by one under heavy artillery fire, forming a gap.

As early as yesterday after dusk, the Guishan general Shaka had gathered 10,000 elite infantry and cavalry, and set up a new camp three miles away from the southern section of Xicheng, so that the soldiers could rest. After the fourth watch, they were all woken up and had a full meal. When they came to the outside of the city at the fifth watch, the cavalry and infantry set up their positions. By that time, the city wall had been blasted out by trebuchets with a gap a few feet wide. Suddenly, all the stone bullets stopped bombarding the gap and only went to both sides of the gap. Shaka waved the red flag, and the two infantry rushed straight towards the gap, preparing to take the wall from the gap. Immediately, the cavalry also came to the dry bank of the moat, ready to rush into the city through the gap once the infantry had captured the wall.

At this time, there were no soldiers and civilians defending the city in the place where the gap was directed. The soldiers and civilians defending the city were on both sides of the gap, several feet apart, and they were all beaten by artillery stones and could not raise their heads. The commander who was in charge of defending that section of the city wall personally supervised the battle, and forced the soldiers and civilians defending the city to raise their heads and throw arrows and stones at the Kushan army besieging the city. But almost as soon as the soldiers and civilians defending the city showed their heads, they were killed and wounded.

Seeing that the gap was soon to be occupied by the Kushan army, Yu Ban shouted:

"I, Yu Wenze, are here, everyone hurry up and kill the thief!"

He led his own soldiers, risking sand and gravel, to shoot arrows at the Kushan army that had entered the gap. These pro-soldiers of Yu Ban have been in the army for many years and are all excellent marksmen. A burst of arrows shot down the gap, which was very ferocious, killing and wounding the Kushan army that attacked the gap.

The other soldiers and civilians defending the city also became more courageous when they saw the main general risking their lives like this. The morale that was almost collapsed just now was restored by Yu Ban. Some people threw bricks and stones at the breach, and many more threw arrows at the bottom of the breach. The first batch of Kushan troops who had already attacked were killed and wounded one after another, and rolled down. Immediately the second batch came up, and they were killed and wounded one after another, and rolled down. Then a third group attacked. In times of tension, sometimes suddenly the battlefield becomes strangely silent, just desperate scuffle. Suddenly, the shouts and the sound of war drums shook the heavens and the earth. It turned out that it was the Kushan fierce general Ganijia who was angry, brandished a scimitar, mixed in the middle of the soldiers, and attacked the gap. At this moment, Yu Ban took the lead in leaning out again and shooting arrows fiercely with his own soldiers. Ganica was struck by arrows in his body and legs, and he fell. The people on the right and left also fell. This time the offensive was repulsed again. A group of heavy infantry then desperately attacked and rescued Ganigar.

Seeing that several attacks had been repulsed, Ki Bonada waved his hand and the gong sounded, and the attack stopped temporarily. He then ordered his men to turn the cannon around and fire again at the gap.

At this time, Pang De took Guo Huai and others to the gap to command. He didn't dare to go too far from the gap, so he crouched at the head of the city to avoid the stone bullets. Despite this, the soldiers on the left and right continued to be killed and wounded. Taking advantage of the fact that a stone bullet had just landed nearby, and the second stone bullet had not yet been issued, the eyes of the general Zhengxi, who was covered with gunsmoke and dust, flashed and whispered a few words to Guo Huai. Guo Huai nodded, got up from the hiding place, bent down and ran to the city to organize a few ballistas, and secretly looked at the terrain of the gap from the side, and ordered the gunner in a half-hoarse voice: Move secretly to the gap quickly and aim at the outside of the gap. At the same time, he ordered a team of crossbowmen to aim there.

At this moment, one of Sima Yi's personal soldiers climbed to the city and told him that the Lord of the Western Regions was going to the city to supervise the battle. Pang De hurriedly said: "Don't dissuade Lord Sima, don't go to the city, ask Lord Sima to supervise the battle under the city." With me Pang here, it will be difficult for the people of Guishan to enter the city! When the soldiers heard this, they hurried down to the city.

However, he said that Sima Yi was going to go to the city to supervise the battle, but when he heard that his soldiers had returned, he was persuaded by the officials, so he temporarily came to the bottom of a pagoda very close to the city and sat there. He refused to leave the city, and sat at the foot of the stupa for a while, and then ran to the root of the city, and kept asking, "Have the Kushan people ever climbed the city?" "The stone cannons from outside the city crossed the city many times and hit near the pagoda, and some flying fragments also fell on Sima Yi's left and right; Sometimes stone bullets from outside the city rumbled past the city and landed on the north side of the stupa, no more than twenty feet away from him. The place where he sat was safe because it was covered by the wall. However, most of the civil officials on the left and right had no experience in artillery warfare, and they did not understand that the place where they sat with the marshal was a "dead end" outside the city where stone bullets could not fall, so they were so frightened that they frequently advised the capital guards to quickly take refuge elsewhere. Sima Yi understood that the stone bullets in the outer city could only fly from a high place overhead, and second, he had been on the battlefield for a long time and was far calmer than ordinary civil officials, and when he was persuaded to leave, he ignored them. Later, he was persuaded in a hurry, and he scolded loudly:

"Bastard, this official is the protector of the Western Regions of the Han Dynasty, he has the responsibility to defend the land, and An Neng is greedy for life and afraid of death!" He threw off his sleeves and walked to the city alone, but everyone couldn't do it, so they could only hug him and go to the city.

Pang De stood in the city and watched, waiting for the next wave of Kushan attacks. Pound anxiously looked at the ballista position not far below, and saw Guo Huai personally directing the arrangement: his face had been blackened, and his armor was torn, but he was not wounded. He also saw many soldiers lying on the city, some of whom had been seriously wounded, but still insisted on shooting arrows, and was very excited, and ordered three more ballistae to be brought to the city, and they were bombarded violently, so that the attack under the city must be repulsed. Suddenly, a stone bullet was fired from under the city. A pro-soldier saw it clearly, and quickly pushed Pound to the side, followed by a cat, and the stone bullet rumbled over his head, shattering a corner of the tower.

In the blink of an eye, the gunfire of the Kushan people stopped again. The Kushan general Shakadu led the infantry, in groups, and rushed towards the gap. Everywhere there were shouts and shouts, and the drums of war rang out violently. Many people shouted excitedly while rushing:

"Get in! Attack in! Kill! Kill! ”

Seeing that thousands of infantry rushed to the gap, the subsequent cavalry was also ready to rush towards the gap. Everyone in the Kushan army thought that the gap was about to be grabbed. Ki Bodha said in a loud voice:

"Good! Soon, soon! ”

Suddenly, the ballistas in the city rang out, and a cloud of dust rose from the clouds. Those Kushan soldiers who were about to climb into the gap were pierced by the huge crossbow arrows and flew upside down, and those who continued to climb up were also shot by the crossbows, killing and wounding. Others continued to rush towards the gap with large shields, but were finally hit by falling stone feather arrows on the walls on both sides and rolled down. I rushed like this several times, but I didn't succeed. In the middle of the stalemate, Ma Dai was wearing heavy armor, dancing a big gun more than two people long to shoot the horse, even picking up several people, and hundreds of Xiliang iron cavalry behind him followed out of the gap, and quickly dispersed the Guishan cavalry under the city, beheaded the Guishan general Shaka, and took the opportunity to burn several trebuchets close to the city wall. Seeing that the momentum of the Guishan people had been lost, Pang De asked Sima Yi, who had already walked up to the city, "Zhongda, what do you think of the battle situation?" ”

Sima Yi also saw that there was Pang De personally supervising the battle in the city, and the defense was strong, and today the Guishan army was greatly defeated, and it was impossible to attack the city, so he made up his mind. But he didn't answer immediately and looked up at the sky. Pound knew that he was looking at the air, and he followed to look up at the sky. At this time, the sun was bleak, and the city was filled with gunsmoke, but there was a puffy cloud on the smoke that was affected by the war, slightly red, and there was a thin cloud in the sky, very white, moving slowly southward. Sima Yi first watched from a high altitude, and then looked at the clouds at a low altitude, his face was serious, and he nodded silently, as if he had gained something. Pound asked, "How's the cloud?" ”

Sima Yi said with a smile: "The Han Book says: 'Those who are white in the clouds will be fierce and timid. Although the defenders of the city were already frightened and could not support it, Wen was a fierce general, and tried his best to save the defeat, resulting in the defeat of the Kushan people and the inability to attack the city. He pointed to a floating cloud not far from the city, and then said: "Behold, the cloud that covers the city is as it is written: 'He who is naked before him will not be victorious.' That's what happened to the heavens. Looking at the retreat of the Kushan army and abandoning the battle flag and ignoring it, it can be seen that the morale has been lost, the losses are huge, and our army should have a few days to breathe, and can take the opportunity to strengthen the city wall. ”

Pang De couldn't see whether the floating clouds in the near city were up, and he didn't have time to look closely, but he trusted Sima Yi's judgment very much, and immediately said to the ban:

"Wen Ze, wait a minute, tell me to go down, raise more wood, masonry, and prepare to repair the city wall." He said to Sima Yi again: "Zhongda, I will let Wen Ze stay here and help you strengthen the city." You are just recovering from a serious illness, don't be too tired. ”

With a heavy heart, he walked down the city to learn about the casualties and losses.

Ji Bonada blushed and asked his soldiers to wave a blue flag, and the sound of the cannon immediately stopped. Some of the infantry preparing for the siege half a mile of the trench remained, and some slowly retreated. The cavalry all retreated to a distance of three miles. The sappers pulled the large trebuchets and retreated to the main battalion, and some of the smaller ones stayed behind to cover the soldiers who were digging the city. The excavation of the city continues, so there are still shouts of killing from time to time from Caomen to the north gate. It wasn't until Ma Chao led a large group of cavalry out of the city through the gap and swept across the entire city wall that the battlefield finally calmed down.

In this siege battle, which was much larger than the first one, the Kushan army suffered heavy losses, with nearly 3,000 casualties outside the main attack on the outside of the big cave, and the main general Shaka was killed in battle.

Chang'an, Weiyang Palace, Xuanshu Palace.

Liu Shuo, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, sat on the couch, read the seal jointly presented by Prime Minister Li Wei and General Zhao Yun twice, took a deep breath, and then put down and asked: "Li Qing, Zhao Qing, is this discussion really appropriate?" ”

Zhao Yun replied: "Your Majesty, the ministers all think so. The imperial court has been in business for many years, the warehouses are full, and the soldiers are full of food. Unifying the four seas and sweeping away the small ones is at this time.