Da Tang: Father, can I resign?

Chapter 299 Evenly matched opponents

On the banks of the Pae River (Taedong River), outside Pyongyang.

The Silla soldiers gathered like ants under the towering city walls and launched another attack.

No one showed their heads on the city wall. The Ming defenders were hiding behind the parapet, watching the attackers' crossbow arrows whizzing past their heads.

In this way, the invaders were put unhindered within the range of the bows and arrows.

"Closer—closer—shoot!"

Following the officer's order, the defenders immediately stuck their heads out from the shooting holes between the parapets and shot arrows at the enemy troops under the city wall from a high position.

Arrows and stones, with the help of gravity, hit the Silla army's heads like raindrops.

Almost in an instant, the Silla soldiers who were at the forefront fell down in large numbers like wheat after autumn, and their lives were ruthlessly harvested.

The Silla army's siege formation was so dense that the Ming troops on the city wall didn't even need to aim.

In just one stick of incense, a layer of Silla people's corpses accumulated under the city wall, like snow in winter.

By using their own skulls to consume the Ming army's arrows, the Silla people seemed to finally realize that this approach was not feasible.

The information from the Tang Dynasty was not wrong. It was true that the Ming Dynasty's guard force in the rear was relatively weak.

But that "emptiness" is also a contrast to the Central Plains front.

The number of Ming troops on the Korean Peninsula was indeed small, and they were indeed troops below the third line, otherwise the Silla people would not have been able to rush to the outskirts of Pyongyang safely.

However, the Ming Dynasty was so poor that it only had money left. Even in the empty city of Pyongyang, the defenders had enough arrows and food!

Compared with the material consumption of such an industrial behemoth, I really want to reopen it.

"Stop! Stop rushing!"

Kim Yu-sin, a general of the royal family of Silla, stopped his men from committing suicide and asked a young Confucian scholar who was traveling with him in standard Chinese with a flattering look on his face:

"Excuse me, Tang Angel, can we use the 'divine weapon' you sent from the Tang Dynasty?"

"…Now you're asking me if I need it?!"

The young man from the Tang Dynasty looked stunned:
I saw your men were crowding forward like crazy, and I thought the battering rams and catapults were destroyed! ... He opened his mouth, but in the end he did not say this extremely insulting remark in front of his "international friends".

"Yes, it's okay. Pei is only supervising the battle, and General Jin is the commander-in-chief. Please act according to the situation."

The Confucian scholars of the Tang Dynasty tactfully reminded the other side that they had to use their brains when fighting a war.

"As ordered!"

Jin Yuxin put away his charming smile and shouted at his men:
"Pull out the Tang Dynasty's city-breaking artifact and crush Goguryeo's city-breaking weapon!"

Hey, hey, hey - Silla had very few oxen for farming, so the laborers lined up in two rows, pulling the thick hemp ropes and pulling the heavy equipment to the front line.

There were several siege weapons such as catapults, battering rams, ladders, etc. that were common in the Tang Dynasty.

Hou Junji brought a large number of such machines to the snowy plateau and tried out imperial-era urbanization in Gaochang Kingdom. He used a large number of stone cannons to flatten the city walls of Gaochang, giving the people of the Western Regions a small shock of advanced productivity.

But in impoverished Silla, these imported luxury cars are gold nuggets. If one is destroyed, there will be one less, so they must be used with care.

As for human lives, they are worth only a few dollars. Just throw a handful out first to share the firepower with the gold nuggets.

Hey, hey, hey - under the "cover" of Silla's filling-line babies, the laborers dragged one machine after another to the wall of Pyongyang.

"Angel of Tang Dynasty, can you use it now?" Kim Yu-shin put on a flattering expression again.

The scholar was in a daze, and the question from his allies startled him:
"Huh? Ah, yes, yes, use it now!"

Your troops are melting like snowflakes, General Jin!
Finally, the rigid Silla people put the battering rams and ladders into place and set up the catapults, and finally had some ability to fight back and exchange stones with the defenders on the city wall.

"Alas, how did I end up in this damn place, mixed up with these savages..."

The Tang Dynasty Confucian scholar "Mr. Pei" observed the bleak war situation, smelled the blood everywhere on the battlefield, and couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

He was Pei Xingjian, the editor-in-chief of Chang'an Newspaper, the first newspaper founded by Li Ming in Chang'an.

As everyone knows, the Chang'an Newspaper is a front for the intelligence agency, and underneath it is the Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries Committee headed by Di Renjie and Lai Junchen.

But Pei Xingjian really did not participate in Li Ming's despicable activities. He was really just an editor who was exhausted from revising manuscripts.

When Li Ming was still superintendent in Chang'an and planning to escape, he invited this young man who was not his direct descendant to Liaodong to conspire for great things in the spirit of "both killing and burying".

But after considering his increasingly thinning hair on his head, Xiao Pei politely declined the Regent's kindness.

"I'm really stupid. I only knew that working under the Regent would be very busy, but I didn't know that it would be even worse under the new emperor..."

Pei Xingjian wanted to shed tears of regret but had nowhere to shed them, so his tears could only roll in his stomach.

After Li Ming announced that the Ming Dynasty was in rebellion and had completely drawn a line between itself and the Tang Dynasty, the Chang'an Newspaper Company was shut down by the government.

This is normal. The officials of the Tang Dynasty are just technologically backward and have not seen the ways of playing in the new era, but they are not stupid.

After starting a propaganda war, they naturally would not allow the enemy's megaphone to continue shouting in their own ruling core, and they banned the newspapers immediately.

This did not cause any impact on Li Ming's intelligence network, because Di Renjie, Lai Junchen and others had already gone underground.

However, the newspaper editors who were in the open were in big trouble.

For example, Pei Xingjian, as the editor-in-chief and top mouthpiece of the newspaper, was directly accused of "aiding and abetting civil strife."

If he hadn't been born into the Hedong Pei family and hadn't had a backer, he would have been thrown into jail long ago.

You can escape punishment for a crime, but you cannot escape exile.

He, a weak scholar, was given the military officer position of "Cangcao Canjun" and boarded an ocean-going warship, embarking on the journey to land in Silla.

Then, as expected, an accident occurred during the journey. His fleet encountered a typhoon head-on, and he was only lucky enough to set foot on the peninsula.

However, most of the large number of siege equipment carried on the ship were lost, and only these few machines were left. They had to be used with caution and sparingly.

Because the typhoon disrupted shipping, there is no definite news on when the next batch of seaborne reinforcements will arrive.

"'Take advantage of the emptiness of the Ming's rear and attack them', this is the order issued by your majesty... But the ruler of the Ming, Li Ming, is my predecessor. Am I being disloyal by stabbing him in the back?

"Then again, if I help Li Ming spread information, isn't that also disloyal to the Tang Dynasty?
"Am I a traitor?!"

Just when Pei Xingjian felt that he could not have both loyalty and loyalty, the Silla people had already begun a new round of attacks.

The catapults threw huge stones, which hit the walls of Pyongyang, but did not move at all.

Because this city wall was newly built by the Ming Dynasty.

After Li Ming fully promoted the "new energy" of coal, the cost of burning bricks was greatly reduced and overcapacity occurred.

Excessive bricks filled every corner of the Ming Dynasty, and Pyongyang was naturally no exception. A layer of bricks was built outside the original rammed earth wall.

The thick rammed earth wall, combined with the sturdy and durable bricks, produced a wonderful chemical reaction, greatly enhancing the defensive capabilities of the city wall.

It is impossible to break the hole with just a few second-hand catapults.

Instead, the catapults on the walls of Pyongyang threw stones from top to bottom, destroying one of the Silla army's catapults on the spot, damaging two, and knocking down a large number of civilian soldiers.

However, Silla's offensive was not without effect. In order to avoid the stones, the density of the arrows shot by the defenders became sparse.

"Alas, incompetence!"

The few precious cars he had were smashed, and Jin Yuxin's heart was bleeding. He could not help but get furious and roared:
"What are the others standing there for? Take this opportunity to charge forward!"

With the command flags waving, the Silla people pushed forward with battering rams and ladders.

Boom!Boom!
The battering ram crashed into the gate of Pyongyang, making a dull sound.

The copper-clad city gate remained motionless.

"It's now!"

The Ming army commander waved his hand, and the soldiers on the wall pushed out a pot of boiling "golden soup" - that is, manure water, and poured it on the battering ram, knocking down a large number of Silla people who were operating the battering ram.

They were drenched from head to toe in the scalding and disgusting golden soup, and twisted in agony on the ground.

The golden soup will cause serious secondary infection and they will not live long.

Even if this copper gate is broken, there is still an iron fence gate behind it.

After passing the fence gate, there are layers of defense such as the city wall.

The tactic of using battering rams to forcefully charge the city gates also did not work.

"Climb the ladder! The first one to climb up the city wall will be rewarded with a title!" Kim Yu-shin was furious.

It was a similar tactic again. Another group of Silla people used their Tianlinggai to consume the defenders' arrows and cover the ladder vehicles approaching the city wall.

But this time it worked. The battering rams and catapults did attract a large part of the Ming army's firepower and caused considerable trouble.

Ladders are fixed on heavy vehicles, and once the ladder is placed on the wall, it cannot be pushed down.

Therefore, the city defense forces could only engage in brutal hand-to-hand combat with the Silla people who climbed up.

A smile of victory finally appeared on General Jin's face:

"As long as we can break through the city wall, the battle will be won and Pyongyang will be mine!"

His optimism was not without reason, because the number of Pyongyang's defenders was too small and their quality was average, after all, they were a third-line force.

What they had to face were tens of thousands of Silla soldiers.

Even though the Ming army had an equipment advantage, the Silla people were also equipped with armor that the Tang army had transported from thousands of miles away, so they would not be at a disadvantage in close combat.

There was no difference in equipment, and no tactics could be used on the city walls, it was simply a matter of numbers.

"Angel, how about it? Let's win this battle beautifully!"

Jin Yuxin boasted proudly to Pei Xingjian.

Pei Xingjian looked at the corpses lying around and estimated that Silla had lost at least tens of thousands of people this time. After thinking for a while, he finally found a point that could be praised:
"The Silla warriors were fearless and brave, and they fought one after another. It was really moving."

I have to admit that although the tactics of the people of the peninsula were poorly executed, they were really not afraid of death when fighting. They actually achieved your majesty's strategic goal by piling up heads.

Advance northward as quickly as possible, create a big fuss among the Pseudo-Ming, distract their attention as much as possible, and force the Pseudo-Ming to divide its forces.

And the first major obstacle to this goal - the city of Pyongyang - was about to be captured.

As long as they could break through this fortress mountain city that they could not avoid and cross the Peishui River, they could march straight in...

"Capture the city and plunder for three days!"

Jin Yuxin suddenly roared, frightening Pei Xingjian so much that his body trembled.

"Long live!" The morale of the Silla people was greatly boosted.

Pei Xingjian understood a few words and immediately asked back:
"How can you waste precious marching time and waste it on looting Chinese cities!"

Just now, he had to ask me for permission to use a catapult. How come he was talking to me about such an important matter as looting and delaying the march for three days? !
Jin Yuxin was stunned and said with a wry smile:
"Your Excellency Angel, you have also seen that in order to carry out the orders of His Majesty the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, our army suffered heavy losses in this battle. Is it not too much to ask for some compensation?"

Are you sure the loss was not caused by your own incompetent command... Pei Xingjian complained in his heart.

"Besides," Jin Yuxin argued again:

"Pyongyang is the former site of Goguryeo. How can those Buyeo people be Chinese people?"

What he said made a lot of sense, and Pei Xingjian had no way of refutation.

Moreover, looting a city is a traditional skill of the Tang army. If you do it on the first day, you should naturally let your younger brothers do it on the fifteenth.

But Master Pei was kind-hearted. Facing the other party's greedy eyes, he gritted his teeth and argued:

"No, speed is of the essence. We can stay for one day at most."

Kim Yu-shin frowned and was about to bargain.

Suddenly, there was a sound of fierce fighting behind me.

"What's the noise?"

Pei Xingjian and Jin Yuxin turned their heads at the same time.

Are there ambushes?
The messenger ran over in a panic:
"Report, Baekje... It's Baekje!"

Jin Yuxin's heart skipped a beat.

"Baekje has conquered our capital and is killing their way here!" the messenger cried.

"What?!" Pei Xingjian almost fell off his horse.

"Is this true?" Kim Yu-shin roared.

"Really? I just came from the capital!" The messenger almost cried.

The peninsula is such a small place that it only takes a short drive to get from the capital of Silla to Pyongyang.

Kim Yu-shin was trembling all over.

Pei Xingjian's face was ashen, and his lips twitched:

"Li Ming... is this His Highness Li Ming's backup..."

Just as they were stunned, the army holding the Baekje flag appeared on the southern horizon.

While the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind it, the morale of the Silla army was greatly reduced.

And on the city wall of Pyongyang, flags were suddenly waving and drums were beating loudly.

The defenders repelled the swarming enemy troops, poured hot oil on the ladders on the city walls, and set them on fire.

There was immediate chaos in the Silla camp.

Then, the city gate that they had been longing for and had been unable to be broken through slowly opened.

Inside the city gate, Pyongyang’s cavalry were ready to go.

Pei Xingjian's mouth twitched, and he felt that this was probably where he would end his life today.

…………

A great battle ended with the Pyongyang Army and the Baekje Army defeating the Silla Army with two cheese sandwiches and winning a great victory.

"Oh, what a crap fight this is!"

The acting commander of the Baekje army, senior police officer Su Dingfang, was almost irritated by his temporary subordinates.

It is true that Su Dingfang was very powerful, but the Ming Dynasty was also not short of ruthless characters.

Therefore, he was only assigned the role of "vassal army instructor" and took a boat directly from Dengzhou to Baekje to provide military advice to the Baekje people.

According to his idea, they should take advantage of this excellent opportunity to defeat Silla, completely annihilate the main force of the enemy, and eliminate future troubles.

In this way, he can complete the task ahead of schedule and return to the main battlefield of Qilu.

However, the Baekje people were not the Red Turban Army, and they were unable to encircle the Silla people, allowing most of them to slip away from the encirclement.

"This is troublesome. Silla's troubles cannot be solved in a short time. Do we have to stay in Baekje and waste time with our fellow disciples?"

Su Dingfang was worried when the Baekje people brought a prisoner over.

The prisoner was dressed in a scholar's robe and looked like a high-value target.

"General, this man wants to see you." The Baekje man said in broken Chinese.

"Hmm?" Su Dingfang frowned and looked up and down at the Confucian scholar.

It may feel a little familiar, but it is unlikely to be a little familiar.

"Do I know you?" Su Dingfang asked in a muffled voice.

"General Su!" The captured Confucian scholar - Pei Xingjian - suddenly became excited.

Because the Baekje people were so weak at fighting, they managed to escape the encirclement, but they got separated from the Silla people in the dense forests in the mountains.

He was a weak scholar, and going into the mountains and forests alone would mean death. He had no choice but to surrender to the Baekje army and use his few remaining words to ask for an audience with the Baekje commander.

He felt that since the Tang Dynasty would rule Silla, the Ming Dynasty would naturally rule Baekje as well.

At least they are all Chinese, maybe they will spare his life.

Unexpectedly, I actually ran into an acquaintance!
"Do you know me?" Su Dingfang was even more confused. He looked at Xiao Pei carefully, and finally slapped his head after a long while:
"You are that guy from Chang'an Newspaper!"

As the chief of the local police in Beijing, Su Dingfang inevitably had some interactions with newspaper reporters. As a result, even the editor-in-chief became familiar with him.

"Yes, yes! I am the editor-in-chief Pei Xingjian!" Little Pei was about to cry and quickly stated his position:

"I was exiled here because I offended the court in Chang'an by editing a newspaper for His Highness Li Ming. I didn't mean to be an enemy of the army! Please forgive me, General Su!"

Su Dingfang had the urge to hold his forehead and observe a second of silence for this unfortunate guy.

It is not surprising at all that the newspaper editor was purged.

But in other words, this guy is also one of us, and he is trustworthy...

"Follow me." Su Dingfang pointed sympathetically at a horse behind him, signaling the Baekje people to help him mount the horse.

"Thank you, General Su!" Pei Xingjian felt as if he had been pardoned. He thanked Su Dingfang profusely, got on his horse, and followed Su Dingfang closely.

"If I remember correctly, you are from the Pei family, right? How many years of education have you had?" Su Dingfang was talking about family matters.

Pei Xingjian raised his chest slightly:
"I am not talented, but I am from the middle branch of the Pei family in Hedong, and I passed the imperial examination for the Mingjing exam."

"Yes, he is a scholar, very good." Su Dingfang nodded and asked:
"You must be a quick learner of new things, right?"

"Of course!" Pei Xingjian patted his chest subconsciously.

However, given the tragic memory of being exploited for free by Li Ming and his "evil party", he was cautious:
"Why does General Su ask this?"

Su Dingfang: "I have a set of military tactics that I can pass on to you."

"Huh?" The topic jumped so much that Pei Xingjian was stunned.

Su Dingfang: "When you finish your studies, you will guard the peninsula for me, and I will return to the front line of Qi and Lu."

Pei Xingjian: ???

(End of this chapter)