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The sound of the city gate crashing sounded throughout the night sky. The rumbling sounds seemed to knock on the hearts of the people in the city, making their heartbeat beat with the rhythm of the rushing cars outside the city. △After the previous impact, their hearts also raised to their throats. After taking a deep breath, they held their breath until the moment the rushing cars hit the city gate again, they let out a long breath, and their hearts beat violently for a while. When the impact subsided, the heart that had just fallen was lifted up again.

This cycle is a torture, and it is really a worry. Life is worse than death. But the reason why they are worried is that they don’t want to die, because they are afraid that the army outside the city will rush into the city to kill and rob, which will harm their lives. Even ants are greedy for life, let alone people?

Just as they were worriedly paying attention to the impact outside the Xicheng Gate, a knocking sound came from outside the window, including their own doors and the doors of their neighbors around them, and the streets and alleys were filled with knocking sounds.

The moment they heard the knock on the door, all the people living in Ping'an Lane in Nancheng were shocked. Almost all the heads of the household (the men in charge) climbed to the window at the same time and peeked out from the hole as big as a walnut. Then they saw the prefect and the officials in the county government office. Then the old Zhang family on the street plucked up the courage to open the door. Seeing the prefect say a few words to him, Zhang Da turned around and returned home without saying a word. After a while, he carried a shovel and followed the prefect.

After seeing this scene, the people who were peeping at the window understood that it turned out that the prefect led the subordinates to recruit the city-guarding men. This situation was rare in recent years because Yingchuan County was under the jurisdiction of Jin. Since the third year of Jian'an, there has been no war in Yingchuan and even the entire Yuzhou. However, before this, it was not uncommon to knock on the door in the middle of the night to recruit young and strong men to defend the city. It can be encountered almost every few days. Therefore, the people of Yangdi City are not unfamiliar with this.

In the past, the people were not keen on such things. After all, wars would kill people. Once the men in their family were handed over to help defend the city, it would be fine if they were kept. If the city fell, everyone who participated in defending the city would die and no one was spared. In addition, they had nothing at that time, and their family was poor and had no overnight food. After eating the whole meal, they didn't know where tomorrow would be. Therefore, they did not care whether the city would fall. No matter who occupied the city, they would not live a good life, so it didn't matter who occupied the city. But tonight was different from the past, or today was different from the past.

Now, after four or five years of stable life, and they have been divided into land. Almost every household has built a new house and lived a good life without worries about food and clothing. The family also has savings. Even if they don’t farm for a year, they will not starve to death. Therefore, whether the city falls now is closely related to their wealth, lives, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is closely related to them.

After all, the good days are hard to come by, and the people cherish it very much. It can be said that they cherish it as much as their lives. At this time, someone attacks the city. It is equivalent to not wanting them to live a stable life and wanting to take away the food they have saved with great effort. How can they agree? For these civilians who have come through hard days, whoever wants to take away everything they have, they will fight with whom they will.

Therefore, when the people saw the prefect come to recruit the strong men in person, almost every household would open the door, let the strongest man in the family take the opportunity to go out and follow the prefect to defend the city. In this way, the prefect Chang Lin's task of recruiting the strong men was extremely smooth. He just knocked on the two rows of houses in Ping'an Lane and recruited hundreds of young and strong men. Then without him personally, these young and strong men could come forward on his behalf, contacting the young and strong men around him, and then like a snowball, the range was getting bigger and bigger, and more young and strong men were growing.

In less than half an hour, the whole city was mobilized. This was an extremely powerful force, with a large number of people far exceeding the defenders in the city. The enthusiasm and fighting spirit were no less than the defenders fighting on the city tower at this moment.

Compared with the enthusiastic civilians, the gentry, aristocratic families and powerful gentry families in the city seemed extremely quiet, and they closed their doors one after another, and there was almost no light around the huge courtyard. It is obvious that before the situation was unclear, they would rather stay out of the matter and sit on the wall to watch it, than act rashly. Although they had no favoritism for the Emperor of Jin, were not satisfied with the current situation, and did not fully recognize the rule of the Western Jin Dynasty, they also lacked interest in the unknown forces that attacked the city at this moment, and were extremely optimistic about them. Because the current situation has shown that the Western Jin Dynasty is the most powerful force among the three vassal states in the world, and its strength is far better than the Southern Han and Northern Wei countries.

Since Yingchuan County was included in the Western Jin Dynasty, although the major families and powerful gentry were suppressed to a certain extent, the land, entourages and maids were ordered to be reduced, causing them to suffer huge losses; but as the shops became more and more income and their business became better and better, their previous losses had been made up in a few years. However, the land turned into gold and silver, which made them less land in their hands, but the wealth they owned did not decrease at all. They still lived a wealthy life of luxury and wealth. As long as they did not violate the law and operated by law, they would not be suppressed again and would not suffer losses for no reason. Therefore, they had gradually accepted the rule of Li Li of the Western Jin Dynasty, got used to their current life, and experienced the superiority of the current law, which was both restrictive and protected, and was not just as rumored by the outside world.

Because of this, in recent years, many big families and powerful people in the city have received olive branches from the Southern Han and Northern Wei countries, but they have not accepted the favor and have always slandered the scattered scammers and stormed the city. Take tonight's sneak attack to the city for example. Some of their families received a message from the Southern Han side in advance, promising to benefit, hoping that they would send their servants to protect the courtyard to cooperate with the Jingzhou army infiltrating the city gate to capture the city gate. But now the battle for the city gate has begun, but they are not there.

The "bang bang" collision continued, and the battle outside the city gate became more and more intense, and the fierce battle was in full swing.

The city car hit the city gate again and again, hundreds of ladders were laid on the city wall, and thousands of Jingzhou soldiers went up the ladders one after another, trying to climb the city to fight with the defenders in close combat. However, the space under the city wall was limited, and there was a moat not far behind him, which made more than 20,000 Jingzhou troops unable to invest in the siege at the same time, so they had to go up to attack the city in batches, which gave the defenders a chance to breathe, thus increasing the difficulty of siege.

The most important thing is that in order to hide their whereabouts, the army led by Xu Shu did not carry heavy siege weapons. The strongest long-range strike weapons were simple crossbow chariots and two temporary city rushers. In addition, all the weapons were ordinary weapons, knives, guns, shields, bows and arrows, etc. All their expectations were placed on the sneak attack on the city gate, trying to capture the city gate in one fell swoop, and then the army rushed forward to capture the entire city.

But now a quarter of an hour has passed, and the city gate is still closed. The garrison on the city tower originally had only 500 people, but when Jiang Qin led two thousand troops to hit the city gate, two thousand archers suddenly appeared on the top of the city. With two rounds of arrows, they shot more than half of Jiang Qin's troops, which was really a wake-up call and made Jiang Qin dizzy. As the number of defenders on the city gate increased to more than 2,000 people, the pressure of Xu Shu's army in siege increased dramatically, so that Xu Shu thought that he could capture the city gate with one move, but now a quarter of an hour has passed, and the city gate is still as stable as a rock and still unmoved.

Fortunately, the defenders at the city also suffered huge casualties during this period. The 2,500 defenders have fought to this day, and there are only less than a thousand people left. In contrast, the Jingzhou army suffered three times the casualties than the defenders, and 5,000 troops were lost in just a quarter of an hour. The heavy casualties were the first of all siege battles.

Time passed little by little, and Xu Shu stopped by the moat, looked up at the battle on the top of the city, his mind was very nervous, his left hand tightly clenched the reins, his fists clattered, his right hand tightly clenched the hilt of the sword, and his right hand tightly pulled out half of the sword.

"Where is Wei Yan?" Wei Yan stepped out after hearing the sound and came to Xu Shu.

At this time, when Xu Shu pulled out his sword, he said in a deep voice: "Following this situation, Zhou Tai had already failed, but we had to shoot the arrow on the string. Now that things have come to this point, there is no other good deeds, so we can only attack the city gate with all our might. I personally led the army to attack the city, and I led the army to follow up and knocked open the city gate at all costs!"

Wei Yan looked at Xu Shu with surprise, but unexpectedly, he met Xu Shu's cold and sharp eyes in the air, and his eyes immediately met. Wei Yan's eyes flashed, and he felt a sense of heart, and he responded: "No, I will take the order!" He immediately stopped his horse and turned around, leading the five thousand soldiers under the tent to head straight for the city gate.

After riding his horse for more than ten steps, Wei Yan turned around, looked at Xu Shu again, and thought to himself: "No wonder the military advisor (Pang Tong) jokingly called him Xu crazy. A scholar had such a fierce murderous aura. This time he had gained insight! Judging from this posture, he seemed to want to lead the army to attack the city himself. With me, Wei Yan, here, can you, a literati, charge into the battle?"

As soon as he thought of this, Wei Yan jumped his horse and raised his sword. While riding his horse, he rushed towards the city gate, shouting: "There are only a few hundred defenders left on the city, which is no longer a concern. The soldiers followed me to attack the city gate. The first person to enter the city gate will recommend him to be promoted to the third level, and give him a hundred taels of gold, ten jars of fine wine, and a beauty!"

"Kill into the city! Kill it——" Wei Yan's loud reward attracted the positive response of the soldiers, but when he saw five thousand soldiers running wildly, his running speed was comparable to that of Wei Yan's sprinting horses. There must be a brave man under the heavy reward. Wei Yan always kept his word and was deeply supported by the soldiers. Since he made a public promise, the soldiers under his tent naturally believed it and rushed to the city gate with all his strength.

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ps: [Heartly thanks: "Plandian takes a break from busy" book friends for their monthly ticket support, thank you!]
Chapter completed!