"ah?"
Li Jue's words stunned everyone in the tent; they had never actually considered this question.
After all, Goguryeo was too big; its size was not much weaker than that of the Tang Dynasty.
Therefore, from the very beginning, they only wanted to teach Goguryeo a lesson, and never thought they could destroy Goguryeo in one fell swoop.
"The eldest grandson, a war to destroy a nation is no small matter..."
"Although we have won consecutive victories since entering Goguryeo, the price to pay for destroying Goguryeo is far beyond our imagination..."
"Back in the day, when the King of Qin destroyed Chu, he mobilized an army of 600,000."
"We only brought tens of thousands of people with us this time; we can't possibly wage a war to destroy a nation!"
After Li Shiji finished speaking, Li Shimin, who had been hiding outside the tent, also crawled in.
"Li Jue, don't talk big!"
"Grandpa, I wasn't exaggerating!"
"We have already defeated the 150,000-strong allied army of Goguryeo. As long as we capture Ansi Fortress, there will be no force in Goguryeo that can stop us!"
Li Shimin pondered for a moment upon hearing this.
"That being said, but..."
Li Shimin felt a headache whenever he thought of the city walls of Anshi. Even though he knew that Li Jue possessed powerful weapons, he did not believe that the Tang army could break through them.
"Let's try fighting first. If we can successfully capture Anshi City, then we can figure out how to fight the rest of the battles."
"Even if we fail to win, the achievements we have made so far are enough to satisfy the world."
Li Shimin made the final decision, and all the generals in the tent stood up and agreed. Then, under Li Shimin's leadership, they discussed how to capture Anshi City.
"I think we can build an earthen hill next to Anshi City. Our soldiers can stand on the hill and fire at Anshi City, and we can naturally take Anshi City!"
"An earthen mound?"
Li Jue was shocked by Li Shimin's idea. Was his father-in-law so powerful? First he filled the moat, and now he wanted to build a mountain of earth.
However, to Li Jue's surprise, the others in the tent actually agreed.
"Your Majesty, given the layout of Anshi City, it seems that piling up earth to form a mountain is the only solution."
"After all, if we launch a direct attack, our numbers simply won't be enough to sustain the damage!"
"But building a mountain of earth takes a long time. Even if the entire army is mobilized, it will take at least ten days to half a month. What if the Goguryeo people send reinforcements again?"
Li Shimin replied nonchalantly upon hearing this.
"After this battle, the entire Goguryeo will be terrified, and they will neither dare nor be able to send reinforcements!"
"Since everyone agrees with my plan, let's begin the operation tomorrow!"
"promise!"
The next day, Li Shimin personally went to the outskirts of Anshi City early in the morning and selected a place where he could build an earthen mound.
After Li Shimin selected the location, the Tang Dynasty's 50,000-strong army began its operation.
They used various tools to continuously transport earth and gravel. Each time a layer of sand was laid, cavalrymen would trample it down to stabilize the foundation.
Seeing their clumsy actions, Li Jue immediately drew up some blueprints for the artisans accompanying the army, ordering them to build a batch of wheelbarrows, as well as stone rollers for rolling the ground.
With Li Jue's wheelbarrow, the earth-building project progressed rapidly, and a three-zhang-high earthen mound was built in just three days.
Although a three-zhang (approximately 10 meters) earthen mound is already quite high, it is still far from Li Shimin's goal.
He wanted to throw stones and shoot arrows at the city from the mountain, and the height of the stones and arrows had to be at least thirty zhang!
Fortunately, it gets narrower as you go up, making construction easier.
For Li Jue, the mountain served only one purpose: to draw the attention of the Anshi City garrison.
The real killer move wasn't this at all, but rather the tunnel he secretly ordered people to dig!
After ten days of digging, Xue Shisan finally led his men to the city gate of Anshi City.
However, he did not rush to attack the city. Instead, he continued to expand the tunnels near the city gate and, as instructed by his eldest grandson, dug pits at various designated locations and buried the prepared gunpowder packets inside.
Just when the Goguryeo people thought that the earthen mound of the Tang Dynasty would take a few more days to complete, a loud bang was heard, and the entire city of Anshi was shaken.
Then they were horrified to discover that the city gate, which had been blocked long ago, had somehow developed a huge gap!
This scene not only stunned the garrison of Anshi City, but also left the Tang army dumbfounded.
What's going on? Could it be that the eldest grandson really summoned a god for help?
They received orders from their eldest grandson early this morning, instructing them to be fully armed and await the command to attack the city.
At first, no one believed it, until someone said that the eldest grandson had consulted the gods in heaven, saying that a divine being would help them blow open the city gates, and only then did they put on their armor.
But no one could have imagined that the gods in heaven would actually listen to the eldest grandson and blow open the city gates of Anshi!
Seeing that his excavation team had succeeded, Li Jue immediately mounted his horse and charged ahead.
"Brothers, charge with me!"
Seeing this, Xue Shisan and Shan Daozhen followed closely behind, protecting Li Jue tightly in the middle from both sides, and then rushed towards the gap in Anshi City.
Li Shiji was the first to come to his senses, and he cursed at the group of soldiers around him who were still in a daze.
"What the hell are you standing there for? If you don't charge now, the credit for being the first to scale the walls will be stolen by the eldest grandson!"
The generals suddenly realized what was happening, immediately mounted their horses, and charged towards Anshi City!
With this, Anshi City fell!
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