Outside the city of Beroea, the Western Qin army camp.
It was late at night, and the soldiers patrolled frequently in the camp.
There were many sentries and strict defenses.
The entire camp was brightly lit.
However, in addition to the sounds of these uninterrupted patrols and walking, there was one after another snoring in the entire camp.
There were sounds in every tent.
There were snores of different sizes, which echoed each other and played a unique sleep song in the military camp.
The butter in the oil lamp hanging on the wall of the Chinese army tent was crackling.
Zhao Ziliang stood in front of the map with his arms folded and one hand touching his chin.
This posture has become a habit of his, even if this image does not Very good habits can also show an extraordinary temperament in him.
This is probably the unique temperament of someone who is in a superior position.
At this time, laughter and voices were heard not far outside the big tent.
This was the return of the generals who had just inspected defense and security affairs in the camp.
They had the task of inspecting the camp at night until all the soldiers fell asleep.
Some of them are done, but the other generals still need to stay on duty overnight.
After completing their inspection, they all have to go to the Chinese army's big tent to report on their inspection.
After a while, these generals all approached the Chinese army's tent one by one, and then reported the inspection situation to Zhao Ziliang one by one.
Zhao Ziliang listened carefully to everyone's report.
Although the situation was the same, he did not show any signs of it.
Impatience is an attitude.
If he is perfunctory, the people below will probably be perfunctory as well.
If he is serious and meticulous, the generals and generals below will not dare to be lazy and perfunctory when inspecting.
After everyone had finished reporting, Zhao Ziliang said: "Okay, according to the arrangement, Chen Qing and Wei Gao will stay on duty tonight, and everyone else should go back and rest."
"Your Majesty, please retire."
The generals and officials withdrew from the tent one after another.
Only Chen Qing and Wei Gao were left.
Zhao Ziliang asked: "Chen Qing, can we attack the city tomorrow?"
Chen Qing cupped his fists and said: "Back to your Majesty, on this recent march route, the baggage trains and siege battalions are moving with the main army.
They can fight at any time.
The siege equipment only takes an hour to assemble, and the parts They are all ready-made, but siege equipment that needs to fire stone bombs and kerosene bombs, such as trebuchets, cannot yet be put into use.
Because it is necessary to organize manpower to make stone bombs and kerosene bombs, because there is a trench ten feet wide and six feet deep under the castle, and there is a smooth slope from the bottom of the ditch to the bottom of the castle.
Our siege vehicles and well railings are Several siege equipment cannot be used, and even the siege ladder cannot be lifted to the castle.
Your Majesty, this Beroea Castle is a hard bone and it is not easy to fight."
Syria has experienced many civilizations and kingdoms.
All civilizations and kingdoms in the past have built and expanded this castle, so that the entire hill has been built into a castle.
The castle is located on the hill, and the angle from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the trench is as high as The fifty-degree smooth stone slope makes it very difficult for people to climb up, let alone attack the city.
Most of the siege equipment is useless.
Such a castle is unique in the world and has a unique terrain as a basis. , conventional siege methods are simply not applicable here.
But one thing is that the castle is not large and can accommodate not many defenders and defensive materials.
Zhao Ziliang asked: "How many defenders are there in this castle?"
Chen Qing said: "I'm afraid I have to ask General Wang Can."
Zhao Ziliang pointed to a guard next to him and said: "Go and call Wang Can over."
"promise" Wang Can rushed over quickly.
After Zhao Ziliang asked, he replied: "According to the prior investigation by Dongchang's spies, this castle has 5,000 defenders, including 1,000 Eastern Roman troops, and 4,000 strong slaves."
People, according to the size of this castle, a thousand defenders are enough.
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During the day, the king also saw that the terrain of this castle is unique and it is very dangerous.
It is not easy to attack it.
Easy.
But this castle also has a weakness, and that is the water source.
There is no water source on the top of the mountain.
Although there is a water reservoir, it will not last long for five thousand people.
However, according to spies, the Eastern Romans wanted to use it.
Guard this place, arm the four thousand strong slaves in the castle, and distribute weapons to them.
So what we want to attack now is not one thousand Eastern Roman troops, but five thousand."
Zhao Ziliang frowned, "This castle is indeed a tough one.
Although it has the weakness of insufficient drinking water, we can't wait here for them to run out of water and food.
Let's go, Chen Qing, let the supply camp organize the slaves to make stone bombs and kerosene tomorrow.
Bomb, prepare for the siege.
If that doesn't work, capture all the nearby civilians and let them fill up the trench for me, as long as it is convenient for the siege."
Chen Qing agreed: "Yes, Your Majesty."
There will be running water in later generations.
Of course there will be no shortage of water in the castle, but there is no running water in this era.
Although there is a reservoir on the top of the castle mountain, the water storage is limited after all.
A thousand people can still use it for a while.
If it doesn't rain for a long time , was besieged again, and four thousand more people were used.
This small amount of water storage The style will definitely not last long.
This only weakness has always been a fatal weakness.
Otherwise, this castle would not have been so well preserved in these thousands of years.
It would have been destroyed by the enemy troops besieging the city long ago.
It is because of this lack of water. , forcing the defenders stationed there to surrender in previous siege battles.
Early the next morning, Zhao Ziliang and his guards rode to the main entrance of the castle again to observe the defense situation of the castle.
He spent the whole morning walking around the trench outside the castle, and then returned to the main entrance of the castle to inspect the guards.
He ordered: "Go and call Li Muchen."
Soon Li Muchen came over on horseback and said, "Your Majesty, your name is Wei Chen."
Zhao Ziliang waved to Li Muchen, "Li Qing, I have one thing for you to do.
You write a letter of surrender and send it to the defenders, urging them to surrender.
Although they may not really surrender, God has good virtues. , our attitude still has to be done. , lest anyone criticize me for killing innocent people again in the future, I wrote a letter to persuade them to surrender.
If they don't surrender, it is because they are stubborn, not because I am cruel and murderous.
Those defenders will have no excuse to attack me.
Do you think this is true?"
Li Muchen cupped his hands and said: "Your Majesty is wise, I will write immediately."
Zhao Ziliang did not expect the Eastern Roman Army in the city to surrender.
He returned to the military camp after giving orders to Li Muchen.
The siege camp organized the slaves to make stone bombs and kerosene bombs in an orderly manner.
The two thousand elite cavalry led by Xuan Shisan had been hanging behind the army of Nicerus, the governor of Syria, and they often harassed, sneak attacked, and assaulted.
Nicerus was troubled and suffered heavy losses.
Nicerus had to send one thousand of his light cavalry to fight, but Xuan Shisan suddenly led his troops to withdraw at this time.
Nicerus's one thousand light cavalry had to return, but within a day, Xuan Shisan's two thousand light cavalry There appeared again and carried out a large-scale sneak attack, so that most of Nicerus's slaves escaped.
Nicerus was so angry that he jumped on his feet and cursed his mother.
This time he became fierce and vowed to destroy the Western Qin cavalry who could only attack by surprise this time.
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He once again sent one thousand of his cavalry to fight against Xuan Shisan's cavalry. people and horses, but Xuan Shisan once again led his army to escape far away.
The Roman light cavalry did not return this time, but pursued bravely.
This played into Xuan Shisan's plan.
They were deceived into a canyon and were completely annihilated.
Xuan Shisan destroyed the thousand Eastern Roman light cavalry and then headed south again.
The men pursuing Nicerus.
Nicerus' army was soon attacked again, and its morale was already very unstable.
After being attacked twice in a row, his direct troops had been completely lost, with only more than a thousand men left, and only the cavalry.
Less than a hundred people, these are his guards, and the other slaves There were less than 2,000 people left.
One night, the slaves fled one after another.
Nicerus could not control the pressure and was unable to pursue the escaped slaves.
He had to lead the remaining 1,000 people quickly towards Damascus retreated, but Xuan Shisan was still pursuing his troops.
Nicerus knew that more than 90% of his men were infantry.
At this marching speed, he was afraid that he would be completely annihilated by the Western Qin cavalry before he could retreat to Damascus.
He had to order the infantry to stay and garrison in a In a small town called Talbesa, he pretended to be ready to defend this small fortress, while he secretly fled south to Damascus in the night with a hundred guard light cavalry.
It was late at night on the twenty-fifth day of the first month of the year 777 AD.
Zhao Ziliang is processing the memorials sent from Xinjing.
These are memorials that Zhao Lei cannot make a decision, so he sent someone here.
Zhang Bi, the commander of the scout battalion, rushed to the door of the tent and saw that the lights were still on inside.
He asked the guard on guard: "Is the king asleep?"
The guard replied: "Not yet" If it is daytime, there will be other officials and generals working with Zhao Ziliang in the big tent, and there will also be many guards standing guard.
The generals and officials who come to perform can enter at will, but at night there is no one else in the big tent except Zhao Ziliang.
Officials and military generals who want to come to perform an event cannot enter casually.
They need to be notified and given permission before they can enter.
Zhang Bi immediately shouted: "Your Majesty, I have something important to report to Zhang Bi."
"Come in" Before Zhang Bi walked into the tent, two of the four guards at the door immediately approached the tent and quickly stood in front of Zhao Ziliang, facing outside the tent.
Zhao Ziliang put down his ink pen and raised his head and said, "What's the matter with coming so late?"
Zhang Bi clasped his fists and said: "Your Majesty, the spies that Weichen arranged to monitor and investigate near the castle just now reported that there were a lot of shouts of killing coming from the castle, and the fire was soaring into the sky, and large-scale fighting was taking place in the archery towers and walls of the entire castle.
I even went over to see it myself, and it was indeed as reported by the spies."
When Zhao Ziliang heard this, he couldn't sit still and immediately said to the guard: "Get your horses ready."
"yes" When Zhao Ziliang and others arrived at the castle, they saw fighting happening everywhere in the castle on the top of the mountain.
The fires burning everywhere in the castle illuminated the entire castle.
Li Muchen, who came with the news, was surprised and said: "Is this an internal strife?"
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