Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties

Chapter 424 Sanwei Emperor City

Other emperors would think it was a shameful thing to leave Luoyang, but Yuan Ziyou thought it was an opportunity.

The reason is very simple. If Yuan Ziyou stayed in Luoyang, he would be trapped in the cage arranged by Erzhu Rong and there would be no possibility of escape.

But as long as he left Luoyang, there would be chaos, and in the chaos he would have the opportunity to contact other court ministers and escape from Erzhu Rong's control.

Especially Xi Yi in front of him!

After thinking this through, Yuan Ziyou almost decisively asked to leave Luoyang.

Xi Yi also breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that Yuan Ziyou agreed to leave Luoyang.

Ever since Erzhu Rong massacred the princes and nobles in Heyin, Luoyang was actually no longer that important. The task Erzhu Rong gave himself to stay in Luoyang was to keep an eye on Yuan Ziyou, and as long as the emperor was fine, he would consider his mission accomplished.

At this time, Yuan Tianmu led his troops to fight against Xing Gao in Ji County. As long as Yuan Tianmu could defeat Xing Gao, he could protect the emperor's safety.

If it doesn't work, just take the emperor to Jinyang.

Xi Yi immediately said:

"Your Majesty, we will immediately cross the Yellow River to Hanoi."

Yuan Ziyou nodded and said:
"I will entrust it to Lord Xi."

Xi Yi was somewhat moved. Yuan Ziyou took his hand and said:
"The country is in turmoil. If it weren't for loyal ministers like Lord Xi who are working hard for the country, our Wei would have perished long ago. Lord Xi, please accept my greetings."

Xi Yi quickly pulled Yuan Ziyu up, his eyes a little red.

Erzhu Rong was not bad to Xi Yi. He kept him in Luoyang, appointed him as the Duke of Pingyuan County, and assisted Yuan Ziyou in handling government affairs. Xi Yi had already become a front-line figure in Erzhu Rong's group, and could even be ranked among the top three in politics.

But Xi Yi also had a major problem: he had no military merits.

The Erzhu Rong Group was also a military merit group, and status within the group was determined by military merit. No matter how high your political status was, you had to stand aside when facing this group of rebellious generals from the Erzhu family.

One of the important reasons why Yuan Tianmu could become the second-in-command of the Erzhu Rong Group with the surname Yuan was that Yuan Tianmu himself was very good at fighting.

Xi Yi had no military merits, and even Erzhu Shilon could not punish him. He was also not sure he could hold on to Luoyang, so he could only flee Luoyang with the emperor and join Yuan Tianmu who was fighting in Xiangzhou.

The people of Luoyang are already numb.

Only three months after the New Year this year, Luoyang experienced several major dramas, including the escape of Emperor Yuan Xu, the entry of Erzhu Rong to Luoyang from the south, the ascension of the new emperor to the throne and the killing of ministers to add to the fun, and the escape of the new emperor Yuan Ziyou.

Now it is heard that Yuan Hao, the emperor enthroned by Southern Liang, is about to invade Luoyang again, and the people of Luoyang are about to welcome their third emperor.

The people of Luoyang were so lucky that one city had to serve three emperors!
The last time Erzhu Rong entered Luoyang, he had already burned, killed and looted in Luoyang. Now that the Southern Liang army has entered Luoyang, I'm afraid they will loot again.

Now the people of Luoyang were really panicked. As the new emperor Yuan Ziyou left the city, the people of Luoyang also began to flee Luoyang.

But where to go?

To the east is the war zone, and the Hanoi area to the north is not safe either. Moreover, ordinary people are fleeing famine, and Hanoi simply cannot accommodate such a large population.

After thinking about it, I remembered that when Yuan Xu fled westward, he called on the people to go west from the city wall. Now the people have reacted and are heading west one after another!
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Yanmen Pass.

Su Ze sent troops several times, hoping to force Erzhu Zhao, who was defending Yanmen Pass, to come out of the city to fight, but Erzhu Zhao was not fooled and refused to leave the city no matter what.

Su Ze personally led his troops to the outside of Yanmen Pass. Looking at the pass on the mountain, he could only sigh deeply.

Yanmen Pass is difficult to attack.

The pre-Qin "Lüshi Chunqiu" once said, "Among the nine barriers in the world, Yanmen is the first." Since King Wuling of Zhao set up Yanmen Pass, it has been an important barrier for Central Plains civilization to resist the north.

It can be said that as long as Yanmen Pass is in the hands of the Central Plains dynasty, the northern border is safe. If it is lost, the north will be like a torn bag with holes, allowing the northern grassland empire to move southward.

The collapse of the Northern Song Dynasty's northern defense line began when Yang Ye defended Yanmen Pass to the death but received no support from the Song army. Finally, Yanmen Pass was breached and the initiative was lost from then on.

"Is there any way to break into the city?"

Su Ze asked the city-building expert Su Tong beside him, who looked at Yanmen Pass and said:
"The mountain is steep and rugged, with a pass at the top. This is a great pass bestowed by heaven. It is very difficult!"

The location of Yanmen Pass was too tricky. On the top of a rugged mountain, the army would be attacked by the defenders inside Yanmen Pass if they went up along the winding mountain road.

Even if they were lucky enough to reach the top of the mountain, there was no place to climb to attack the city, and large siege equipment could not be transported up there.

Digging tunnels and water attacks are useless against the fortresses on the mountains.

Su Ze finally understood why such a fortress could only be destroyed at the cost of human lives, because there was really no other way.

As long as there are no problems within the enemy, it would be a pipe dream for Su Ze to capture Yanmen Pass with the troops he has.

Moreover, the Sizhou area, which is backed by Yanmen Pass, is also controlled by the Erzhu family. Although Su Ze has transferred Murong Shaozong here, he can only do small tricks behind the scenes.

Although Erzhu Zhao, the defender of Yanmen Pass, had no strategic acumen, he was also a fierce general.

After walking around the mountain for a while, Su Tong pointed to a place about ten miles northeast of Yanmen Pass and said:
"My lord, this place is more strategic than Yanmen Pass. We can build a city here to fight back."

Wei Xiaokuan, who was following behind Su Ze, also understood the art of building a city. He took a closer look and found that this place was indeed more dangerous than Yanmen Pass.

Su Ze remembered that before he traveled through time, he had also traveled to Yanmen Pass. He carefully examined the terrain here and matched it with the scenic spots in his impression. He suddenly realized that the Yanmen Pass in the Northern Wei Dynasty was not the same place as the Yanmen Pass scenic area that Su Ze had visited.

The Yanmen Pass Scenic Area that Su Ze went to was a new pass established during the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is the place that Su Tong referred to, and is located ten miles northeast of the old Yanmen Pass.

The Yanmen Pass guarded by Erzhu Zhao was the ancient Yanmen Pass, which was built by King Wuling of Zhao. Yes, if I want to stop the Erzhu family, I don’t have to attack Yanmen. I just need to build another pass outside Yanmen Pass to stop the Erzhu family, right?

At that time, let Murong Shaozong take care of it slowly, infiltrate Sizhou, and find a way to subvert Yanmen from the rear.

"How long will it take to build a city?"

Su Tong said:

"That depends on what kind of city the Lord needs."

"How to say?"

"If you want an impregnable city, my lord, please give me 20,000 men, and it will be done in half a year."

"It's too long. Building a city in the mountains requires soldiers to protect it. If there are another 10,000 people building the city, I'm afraid I can't hold on."

"Then it will take 10,000 people and three months, but this city can only defend against an enemy ten times its size."

Su Ze thought about it, but still felt it was not enough. He shook his head and said:
“It’s still too long.”

Su Tong said:

"Then please find another way, my lord."

Su Ze suddenly said:

“Can we build a city with bricks and stones?”

After saying this, even Wei Xiaokuan was shocked.

There were stone cities in this era. For example, Jiankang Taicheng was built with stones. This kind of city wall is stronger than earth wall and is the best way to build a city.

However, the reason why it was not used was because productivity was underdeveloped, building a city with stone was too costly, and the number of laborers required was simply too large.

Hearing this, Su Tong said excitedly:

"If you allow me to build a stone city, I will definitely build a city that will last forever! But I will need to mobilize all the workers in Hengzhou and 100,000 civilians!"

Wei Xiaokuan said quickly:
"My Lord, Hengzhou has just been settled. If you impose heavy labor on people to build a stone city, I'm afraid Hengzhou will be in turmoil."

Su Ze waved his hand and said:
“The city is not built with stones, but with bricks.”

"brick?"

Bricks have been used for a long time. The city walls of the Ming and Qing dynasties before Su Ze traveled through time were all built with bricks and stones, but bricks have rarely been seen since he traveled through time.

The houses of Luoyang residents were either made of wood or earth.

The same goes for city walls, which are either made of stone or earth.

This also made Su Ze very confused. Later he found out that the reason why bricks were not used to build city walls and houses was actually because of custom!

It’s not that there were no bricks in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, but bricks were basically used to build tombs.

People at that time believed that bricks belonged to the earth element and had a stronger earth energy, making them suitable for paving roads and building underground mausoleums. Therefore, it was considered unlucky to use bricks to build houses, and naturally no one used bricks to build city walls.

This concept was not reversed until after the Song Dynasty, because the engineering construction technology developed greatly in the Song Dynasty. The use of civil engineering could no longer meet the construction needs, and stone was too difficult to cut and transport. Finally, bricks began to be used on a large scale.

By the Ming and Qing dynasties, bricks were widely used in imperial palaces, residential buildings, and city walls.

Su Tong thought for a while and said:

"You can use bricks. You can either bake the bricks at the foot of the mountain and transport them up with livestock, or you can build a brick kiln directly on the mountain."

Wei Xiaokuan asked:
“Is it really reliable to build a city with bricks?”

Su Tong was an expert in building fortifications. He immediately said:

"It is certainly feasible to build a city with bricks. Fired bricks are as hard as stones, but they are lighter than stones, so they can be transported up the mountain multiple times with less manpower. It also saves more manpower when building the city."

Wei Xiaokuan nodded. Moving large stones would consume a huge amount of manpower. If they were really turned into small bricks, it would indeed save manpower than directly moving the stones, and the project would also be smaller and more flexible and convenient.

Su Ze said to Su Tong:

"We set up brick kilns in Hengzhou and used Hengzhou coal to burn bricks to build the city."

Coal is coal. There are abundant coal resources in Hengzhou area. Su Ze originally wanted to mine coal to smelt iron, but he found that the sulfur content of these coals was too high and the ironware made from them was too easy to break.

However, coal will produce carbon poison when used for heating, so people rarely use coal for heating and cooking, but prefer to burn firewood or charcoal.

Using coal to make bricks can make use of the coal. Su Tong also thought it was very feasible and excitedly studied the use of bricks and stones to build cities.

Of course, Su Ze also had his own "little tricks as a time traveler", such as making honeycomb coal and waiting for the coal mine to open, and then slowly promoting coal as a heating fuel.

Sizhou and Bingzhou are territories that have been managed by the Erzhu family for generations, and they are surrounded by mountains and rivers.

However, fighting for the world is just like playing chess. After gaining a foothold in Hengzhou, Su Ze will have the tentacles to expand to You and Ding.

The northeast corner has been revitalized.

(End of this chapter)