The plan to attack Fengzhou was quickly formulated. Meng Bochang personally led the four battalions of the Tiande Right Army of Yongfeng, 3,800 main forces of the new army, and 2,500 newly recruited. The new army was formed by Meng Bochang's recruitment of ghost soldiers after conquering the ghost towns in the north and south of Yinshan. Ninety percent of the ghost soldiers were originally Tang soldiers, who had been scattered in the border areas for many years, fighting against the sky and earth, and fighting with people. They were all brave soldiers who were refined into steel. In addition to the soldiers, Meng Bochang also obtained four generals from the ghost town: Park Enjun, Soe, Li Changlin, and Maheshang. The four of them are said to have the courage of ten thousand men, and Meng Di, the brother of the Meng Bochang clan, collectively known as the "Five Tigers of Yongfeng".

The main force of Feng'an was the two battalions of the Right Army led by Li Tong and the 1,500 new soldiers recruited by Yang Hao with six boxes of treasures brought by Qing'er. In addition, Zhuang Yunqing selected 1,200 people from the Jiuniang Pass guards and went out to fight with the army.

The real protagonist of the attack on Feng'an City was the thirteen coalition forces in the middle of the Uighur Forest, Xiao Qijin personally supervised the army. One of the major military advantages of the nomadic people over the farming people is their unique war mobilization system. It combines soldiers with the people and combines military and civilians. In these nomadic peoples, almost all adult men are warriors, and their life skills are war skills. Bowing, horse riding and shooting are a skill that requires hard training for farmers to master, while for them, it is a means of making a living.

There are 100,000 people in the middle of the forest, and 20,000 soldiers who can go to war. Among them, the 6,000 "Iron-faced Jile" led by Xiao Qijin is the most elite. The word "Jiele" is transliterated with the Uighur dialect, and the meaning of a horse. "Iron-faced Jile" means "a horse wearing an iron mask". People who speak of Wangwen often mistakenly believe that this is a cavalry unit with an iron mask on the face of a war horse, but the actual situation is that the iron mask is not worn on the face of a war horse, but on the face of a knight.

This is a heavy armored cavalry, and the horses used are Sanyang horses formed by hybridizing Uighur horses and Hexi horses. This horse has good endurance, can carry weights, and is easy to raise. The disadvantage is that it is not fast and cannot withstand heat. However, when fighting against the Tiande Army in Yinshan and Heshuo, the advantages of this horse are very obvious.

The Tiande Army is used in mixed ways, and its mobility is not high. When defending, it is mainly infantry, so its mobility is even worse. In this case, the degree of horses is often not the main factor that determines the situation on the battlefield. Instead, the characteristics of horses such as endurance and easy breeding are more valued by generals.

In addition to the six thousand "Iron-faced Jile", there are four thousand "slaves" under Xiao Qijin's tent. "slaves" is also a transliteration. The Uighur language means "slave army", which means an army composed of requisitions of Yongjian slaves. These slaves include Uighurs, Dangxiang people, Khitans, Tubo people, Shatu people and a few Tang people. "slaves" are mixed with infantry and cavalry, mainly infantry, and are good at siege cities.

In early August of the first year of Kaicheng, three large armies approached the city of Fengzhou. At this time, there were less than 5,000 defenders in the city.

According to the agreement with Meng Bochang in advance, Yang Hao surrounded but did not attack, and asked Xiao Qijin's Uighur army to take the lead. Before the siege, Meng Bochang held a joint meeting at the defense area in the south of the city, and all the two deputy generals and above were present.

Yang Hao met Xiao Qijin for the first time here. He was one year younger than Meng Bochang, but his face looked like a frosty look. At first glance, he seemed a few years older than Meng Bochang. The Uighurs in Yang Hao's imagination should be scattered and unkempt. They were wearing armor sewn with animal skin, and spoke roughly, generously and wildly. But the fact is that except for the shape, armor style and weapons, Xiao Qijin and several Uighur generals, there is no difference between them and the Han people.

What surprised Yang Hao even more was that almost all Uighur generals would speak a few Chinese words and knew a lot about the Han people's rituals and customs. However, the difference was also very obvious, and the Uighur people's way of thinking was obviously different from that of the Han people.

Given that Fengzhou's walls were tall and the trenches outside the city were deep and wide, Yang Hao suggested that Xiao Qijin first besiege Fengzhou for a period of time, use up food and grass in the city, and wait for civil strife to arise and then attack the city. As soon as this proposal came out, the Uighur generals sneered. In their opinion, victory and glory should be face to face with the enemy on the battlefield, fighting against guns, and using conspiracies to win, which is by no means the glory of a warrior.

The Uighur generals insisted that the best strategy to break through Fengzhou is to lure the enemy into battle and determine the world with one battle; the middle strategy is to forcibly attack the city and destroy the city and kill the enemy; the worst strategy is to trap the enemy's troops in the high and deep ditches, so that they can surrender without fighting.

Of course, this does not mean that the Uighurs are just stubborn and do not talk about strategies. In fact, some of the strategies they proposed surprised Yang Hao.

The main general of the "Slave Binding Army" Migutulei suggested building a dam on the water at the northeast corner of Fengzhou, and then digging a ditche to the city of Fengzhou, creating the illusion of letting the water flood into the city, forcing the defenders to take the initiative to fight, and then annihilate them outside the city. Yang Hao had to admit that the strategy of Migutulei was very clever.

Although the city walls of Fengzhou are tall and strong, they are also earth walls. The earth walls cannot withstand water soaking, which is a well-known truth. Moreover, since July, Fengzhou has been drought, and the rammed earth in the city wall has long been dry. If it is soaked by the river, it will be in danger of collapse immediately. Once the city wall collapses, Fengzhou will be defeated without any danger.

But the problem is how easy it is to build a river-blocking dam on the Jiao River? Fengzhou area is full of sand and soil. To build a dam, it is necessary to put sand and soil into straw bags. Where do so many straw bags come from? In addition, there is a stone beam between Jiao River and Fengzhou City. It is not impossible to dig this stone beam to lead the water to the city, but it is definitely time-consuming and labor-intensive.

Yang Hao raised his own question. Migutu Lei bluntly explained that he was playing a psychological war: if the dam is built, Fengzhou will be broken. No matter how unbelievable you don’t believe that I can build a dam, as long as I throw the first sandbag on the Jiaohe River, you will have to go out of the city to fight me.

Meng Bochang supported this strategy very much. He asked Yang Hao to assign 500 soldiers to help build dams. He recruited people from nearby villages to build straw bags. The dam project started soon and worked day and night. The dam was built on the Jiaohe River and was also built on the hearts of Fengzhou people. Rumors broke out in the city and the people rushed to flee. Xiao Qi Jin sent troops to block all the fleeing people, and threatened that if the city was not surrendered early, no one would stay.

The people of Fengzhou were all waiting in horror for the arrival of the doomsday.

In order to put more pressure on the Fengzhou garrison, while building a dam, the Mispotted Thunder also accelerated the progress of digging tunnels. In addition to the forced recruitment of civilians from the surrounding villages, the Mispotted Thunder also allowed thousands of slave soldiers to join in, and the excavation was amazing.

Everything was going very smoothly. The Fengzhou defenders shrouded in fear began to sink and kept sending scouts to the frontier to reconnaissance, as if they were looking for a battlefield where they could fight. Xiao Qijin and Migutulei were on this attitude that if you want to choose a battlefield, you should try to peek at the river dam project - there was no door!

Yang Hao set up Zhongjun camp on Xuewangling in the east of the city, and you can overlook the east gate of Fengzhou and the lively Jiaohe construction site in the distance without climbing a high place.

Didn’t Meng Bochang say that Liu Mian, a famous general who has experienced many battles, came to Fengzhou City? Fengzhou is already facing a catastrophe. Where is the famous general Liu Mian?

The tunnel of Mispectus Tule continued to extend to Fengzhou, and the lake-blocking dam on the Jiaohe seemed to have a shadow. Liu Mian did not show up, but Fengzhou City suddenly became quiet and did not send scouts out of the city for several days to reconnaissance. Is this the tranquility before the war? Mispectus Tuleus Tule was full of confidence and the opportunity to show its skills finally came!

But the Secret Spectrum ignored a common sense that opportunities always collided with risks and followed each other. In some cases, the two were actually just different names.

August 16th, the twelfth day of the siege.

Migutulei went to Xiao Qijin's den early in the morning to report on the recent progress. After returning, he did not enter the Central Army tent, but rushed to the Qianying Observatory. He stood here to overlook half of Fengzhou City. However, the distance was a little far away. People with bad weather or bad eyes actually could not see anything valuable. On August 16th, the weather was gloomy, and Migutulei did not sleep well last night because of the patrol, and his eyes were a little blurred.

Hundreds of civil servants were queuing in a row in the open space east of the front camp, and the same number of soldiers were holding whips to act as supervisors. This was a rule set by secret maps. Before the start of work every day, civil servants would gather in line like this, shouting a slogan before starting work. The purpose was to make a little noise to put pressure on the defenders of Fengzhou City.

Migutu Tulei was in great interest today, so he decided to wait for the villagers to line up and then scold them for a few words.

Suddenly, the gate of Fengzhou North City suddenly opened, and an iron cavalry roared out and headed straight for the front camp of the slave-binding army.

This is a cavalry with more than 300 people. According to the organization of the Tiande Left Army, this is a regiment's force. The leader should be a lieutenant. The lieutenant's military flag would be embroidered with his surname "Shi", and the lieutenant who left the city was a lieutenant with his surname Shi. Before the siege, Meng Bochang informed Xiao Qijin of the names, military positions and appearance characteristics of all officers above the lieutenant in Fengzhou City.

"This lieutenant with the surname Shi should be..." Migutulei patted his head, and he really couldn't remember which lieutenant in the city had the surname Shi. The Tang army left the city quickly broke the cordon line set up by the slave army outside the city, and the horses rolled towards the tent of the front camp. The general of the former camp who accompanied the patrol advised Migutulei to avoid it for a while. Migutulei shook his hand and smiled, "No nameless, don't be afraid of him." Gerhebi dared not persuade him again. After all, there were only three hundred cavalry coming to the enemy, and he was alone in the army. If he paniced because of this, wouldn't he let the general laugh at him?

The two 100-man teams of slave-bound troops rushed out of the camp to welcome the Tang army, and the battle in Fengzhou finally began.

A hundred-man team of the slave-bound army had 125 soldiers, and two hundred-man teams had 250 people, which was 50 or 60 fewer than the Tang army. However, their camp was built on a slope and attacked from a high point, which had a great advantage in the terrain. Moreover, the enemy was alone and fought with the large army, with confidence and psychological advantages. Compared with the two, the two hundred-man teams of the slave-bound army had the upper hand.

As soon as the north gate of Fengzhou opened, Yang Hao received a report. He climbed up to look out of the distance and could see the dust flying outside the north gate from afar. What he heard was the long neighing sound of war horses.

"The battle is finally going to start..." Yang Hao sighed silently. He immediately ordered the battalions to be highly vigilant and sent scouts to the north city to spy on the battle situation.

"The left army left the city about 300 cavalry."

"The left army has broken through the cordon.

"The Left Army is fighting the slave-binding army."

...

Yang Hao was a little confused. What was the purpose of sending three hundred cavalry out of the city? Is it going to stop the slave-bound army from building a dam? It was a foolish dream. There were more than 4,000 slave-bound army, and there were 1,200 cavalry alone. What could a mere 300 people go deep into the army? Should I not think about my mistakes, Liu Mian was confused, or was it already out of control in Feng'an City? This attack was just a rash move by some of the captains?

Yang Hao looked at the gray Fengzhou City and scratched his head, but he couldn't find the answer.

———————
Chapter completed!