Traveling through Du He, Li Chengqian's rebellion begins

"what!"

Everyone in the hall stood up in surprise.

Li Ji asked solemnly, "How are the brothers stationed on the tower?"

There are a total of 30 towers on the south city wall, which is about ten miles long, and there is a tower next to the collapsed section of the wall.

Moreover, the soldiers stationed there are all elite troops under Li Ji.

The soldier wiped the rain off his face and said in a trembling voice: "Not long after the city wall collapsed, the tower next to it also collapsed. The six brothers stationed in the tower were unfortunately buried!"

"Fortunately, the rescue came in time and four brothers were saved, while the other two brothers died due to their serious injuries!"

Upon hearing the bad news, the hall fell silent.

Li Ji shouted in a deep voice: "Bring me the raincoat, I want to take a look!"

It is such a pity that the soldiers did not die on the battlefield, but died in natural disasters and man-made calamities.

Li Chengqian also stood up with a frown and said, "I'll go and take a look too."

He then shouted to his guards, "Come here, prepare a raincoat for me!"

The life of every Tang army soldier represents a family, and these soldiers may be the few young men in their families.

After all, after the transition from Sui to Tang dynasties, there had been decades of war, and many families had only one male adult, or even no male adult at all.

Seeing Li Chengqian trying to go out while dragging his lame leg, Du He hurriedly tried to dissuade him.

"Your Highness, it's too dangerous outside due to the storm. Please wait in the City Lord's Mansion."

"I will follow General Li Ji to check the situation now, and report back to you as soon as I have the result."

Li Ji, Hou Junji and Li Daozon also persuaded Li Chengqian to stay in the City Lord's Mansion.

"Du He is right. Your Highness, please wait here."

Li Chengqian's legs and feet were already inconvenient, and now it was easy for him to get wet if he rode in a sedan chair in a windy and rainy day, and there were other unknown dangers.

If anything happens to him, all the people in the lobby will be doomed.

Seeing that everyone was trying to dissuade him, Li Chengqian no longer insisted.

He put his hands together and said sternly, "You must investigate thoroughly. If it involves man-made disasters, you will be severely punished!"

"promise!"

Everyone clasped their fists and saluted in response.

After putting on a straw hat and a raincoat, Du He and several generals, escorted by their personal guards, walked quickly towards the south city gate.

The heavy rain soaked their bodies, but they didn't care.

Half a quarter of an hour later.

Led by the messenger, several people quickly came to a huge house near the south gate.

Under the eaves outside the gate stood dozens of soldiers who were responsible for guarding the city walls.

"Greetings, generals!"

When the soldiers saw the generals coming over, they bowed and saluted immediately.

Li Ji waved at them, then he and Du He and others quickly walked into the house.

They first took a look at the two dead soldiers, and then Li Ji began to question the other four soldiers who had escaped death.

"Tell me what happened!"

A middle-aged soldier with less serious injuries and wrapped in white cloth replied: "Reporting to the general manager, when the six of us were on duty in the tower, we suddenly heard a loud noise that shook the sky and the earth."

"We quickly ran to the gate of the tower to investigate the situation and found that the wall that had just been repaired yesterday had collapsed. Moreover, the collapse of the wall did not stop and continued to spread rapidly to both sides."

"The six of us were just about to leave the tower, but we didn't expect it to collapse as well."

Li Ji and others nodded solemnly, comforted the four injured soldiers, and then rushed to the collapsed city wall without stopping.

Next to the south city wall.

Du He, Li Ji, Hou Junji and Li Daozon all looked very ugly when they saw that a large section of the city wall had collapsed.

"Someone, go down and investigate the cause of the wall's collapse!"

Now that the city wall has completely collapsed, there is no need to worry about further collapse.

Under Li Ji's order, more than fifty soldiers began to investigate.

Du He also followed the soldiers and walked down. Seeing that the soil under his feet was mixed with a lot of black lumps of earth, he squatted down and grabbed a handful.

Smelling the burnt black soil fragments, Du He's eyes immediately flashed with murderous intent.

"This old fellow Yan Lide actually reused the cracked soil from the old city wall just to save trouble!"

“No wonder it collapsed so easily!”

An hour later.

Ma Wenju, the brave captain, ran back and reported: "Generals, the stones used to repair this section of the city wall were too few, and the soil inside was not compacted, so it collapsed when it encountered heavy rain."

"I also discovered that there was no fence outside the repaired wall to hold the soil in place, which caused the soft soil wall to collapse easily."

The purpose of repairing the city wall was to leave a small number of people to guard the city after the army continued to march south to prevent the Goguryeo army from easily taking it back.

Therefore, in order to save trouble, Yan Lide did not use a lot of stones when directing the construction of the city wall, and did not take any protective measures.

Because he didn't think about it. It was only the end of March and it couldn't possibly rain too heavily.

Unexpectedly, this spring rain was even worse than the summer thunderstorm.

Du He also took out the black soil in his hand and said: "Most of the soil used to fill the city wall is old soil that has been burned and cracked. It can't bear the heavy stone slabs on the city wall at all."

Upon learning that it was a human-caused cause, Li Ji, Hou Junji and Li Daozon's faces became extremely solemn.

Hou Junji gritted his teeth and cursed: "Yan Lide deserves death! He swore last night that there was no problem with the city wall, but he actually cut corners!"

"It's been less than half a day and the repaired wall has collapsed. This is simply a disregard for human life!"

When they thought about how they had entertained Yan Lide and a group of craftsmen with good wine and delicious food last night, all the generals showed angry looks on their faces.

Just then, Yan Lide, wearing a straw raincoat and looking panicked, ran over.

"Greetings...Greetings to all the generals."

Yan Lide saluted with a trembling voice.

"Humph!"

Hou Junji and Li Daozon both snorted and ignored him.

Li Ji directly ordered his personal soldiers: "Come here, detain Yan Lide, and hand him over to the prince for conviction after the cause is found out!"

Now we are only conducting a preliminary investigation into the cause of the collapse of the city wall. After the rain stops, we will need to excavate the collapsed city wall, and only after multiple rounds of discussion can we make a conviction.

Two bodyguards rushed forward and detained Yan Lide.

Yan Lide's face changed, and he quickly said loudly: "Li Da Zongguan, how can the collapse of the city wall be blamed on me?"

"This is obviously because of the heavy rain!"

Li Ji ignored him and waved his hand, saying, "Take him away!"

"promise!"

The two bodyguards responded in unison, and then carried the frantically struggling Yan Lide away.

three days later.

The heavy rain finally stopped.

Li Ji immediately sent soldiers to dig the collapsed city wall. After some investigation, it was confirmed that it was a man-made problem.

After the cause of the accident was reported to Li Chengqian, he cursed angrily.

"Damn it! It turned out that Yan Lide was negligent in his duties!"

"Immediately take Yan Lide back to Chang'an to face trial at the Dali Temple!"

The generals did not think that the punishment of Yan Lide was inappropriate, so no one stood up to plead for him.