The lightning and thunder that illuminated the night sky by chance was heavy rain, but it could not suppress the sound of shouts and killing, and there was also the scene of flesh and blood flying around the barricades; while Cui Anqian, who was sitting in the Chengtianmen Tower in the imperial city outside the imperial city, was also staring at Chang'an City in the misty wind and rain.

The flashing campfires that represented the Taiping thief formation and the street strongholds were extinguished one after another; and the roar of firearms that had brought great obstacles and trouble to the counterattack and capture of the government army could never resound. However, his thoughts returned to the day before yesterday.

If there were some days in the morning, Cui Anqian would definitely not easily launch this obviously hasty and risky counterattack. He would continue to observe for a while with the barrier and delay of this rain, and use more careful preparation and assassination to find out the flaws on the thief's front and give a more accurate and powerful key strike.

However, now he was already on the verge of the arrow and had to fire. The reason was very simple. The situation he had to face was much worse than he thought. In fact, since the Taiping Thief appeared in Chang'an City, everything began to go wrong. The various offensives and countermeasures organized by the camp were repeatedly frustrated in the face of these particularly stable firearm battle formations of the enemy, and they never got much advantage.

Therefore, when he discovered that the various departments of the government army had consumed and lost too much power in these fragmented local offensives and defenses; he finally made up his mind to no longer be entangled in various parts of the city, and after the entire line was shrinking its forces and turning to the defensive, he stabilized the vaguely shaky and dispersed situation. However, the destruction of the Tiande Army in the south sounded the alarm bell for him again.

Although in order to temporarily settle the tent, he executed Chen Anping, the official of Confucius who came out to sue and belittle him without hesitation, he secretly sent his confidant family generals to investigate the remaining military orders for the reasons of rewarding and losing the army. The result also made him disappointed and unable to become optimistic at all.

Because except for the Hedong Army he directly led, the other soldiers and horses of the subordinates basically had false reports to varying degrees, concealing and fabricating facts; the difference was only the degree of seriousness. The worst thing was that they both concealed and greatly reduced their casualties, escapes and injuries, and arrested the citizens nearby to fill the army, making a situation where they still had a lineup;

He also exaggerated the corresponding loss of material use as a way to self-fertilize, and bought and colluded with stakeholders in the camp to cover up and beat them up; the result was that the camp was too optimistic about the actual military strength and had a lenient assessment. This would have been fine if it was in the past, and it could be fully rectified and clarified in the following days, but on the enemy's front, it was a way to cause disaster and seek death.

After all, the thief army would not be merciless in the battle between life and death because of his fooling methods; so the unsatisfactory results and unfavorable situations achieved by the official army on various fronts and in various wars during this period are the best portrayal and proof.

But if this is the case, at least there is room for a shortage of shrinking troops to defend the three major cities of the North City, but at this time, more unfavorable news came to report. The epidemic began to occur in the Imperial City. The initial sign was vomiting and diarrhea. I thought it was the current weather that caused sha symptom of heatstroke, but the officers and soldiers who were established had diarrhea and continued to develop dysentery.

Afterwards, I realized that because there were too many people killed in the Great Wall, the bodies were abandoned by the soldiers who had no time to properly bury and burn them. In addition, a large number of loyal and righteous people who fled in increased the consumption and pollution of water sources, which led to a plague breaking out in a short period of hot summer.

Although he quickly took decisive measures to block the news from the outside, closed and isolated the corresponding areas inside, took away those who had already started to suffer, and locked up and waited for self-destruction; he strictly ordered all troops not to use the water from the canals in the imperial city, and could only uniformly collect water from the Taiye Pond and Kunming Pond in the imperial city; but this kind of thing could only be suppressed for a period of time.

Then, Cui Anqian decided to recall and concentrate all the scattered forces; however, he welcomed the envoy of Tuoba Sigong, the chief of the Dangxiang army stationed in Xianyang, east of the city, and the governor of Yinxia Suijie. He still remembered the day before yesterday, Tuoba Sigong, the messenger of the Dangxiang army, who was kneeling on the ground, the day before yesterday, the stern call for advice from Tuoba Sigong:

"After staying, please ask me to inform our formation, and try to avoid direct confrontation between cavalry and Taiping thieves. The thieves' weapons are really powerful, and they are often killed by dozens of steps away. In addition, they have never seen this object on the mounts and war horses. The first formation is likely to be loud and shocked by fire. The so-called momentum of rushing forward is often collapsed on the spot."

On the other hand, the messenger sent to the west of the city to summon Shatuo Army was also lost. Although it was the Taiping thieves who attached great importance to Shatuo Army that made him determined to send it out and exclude it from the sequence of Chang'an sect; but now, it is also because of the thief army that he is determined to return the Shatuo Army again.

However, when he needed this war-going brigade the most, these Shatuo troops seemed to have disappeared out of thin air, and gave the huge eastern suburbs to groups of thieves to groups of thieves. So Cui An's hidden uneasiness and indescribable doubts seemed to have gathered at a peak all at once.

After all, as one of the four major military troops who were defeated by the expedition, the Helian clan's Guihun tribe was confirmed to be destroyed in the south of the city; the Dangxiang army led by Tuoba Sigong clan was also difficult to gain a foothold under the attack of the bandit army outside the city, and retreated all the way; while the Zhu Xieyi Sheng and his Shatuofei Cavalry, who had given high expectations, disappeared at a critical moment.

Although there is also an Uighur soldiers affiliated with Qi Zizhang, the governor of Zhenwu Jiewu. There are about eight or nine thousand cavalry and more than ten thousand troops, but it can only ensure a last resort and a limited rear radius. However, if used as other places, it also means recruiting camps within the pass, and thus abandoning the guarantee of the rear grain transport.

Therefore, after weighing many pros and cons and learning from the pain, Cui Anqian could only make up his mind by taking advantage of this sudden rain; before the situation of the camp continued to slide towards further weakness and collapse, he seized this possible fleeting opportunity and devoted all his strength to all his strength.

At least he had already bet on this beginning in a short time. Although after sending these men and horses out, it means that he completely lost control and command of these soldiers under the barrier of wind, rain and night, and could only hope that the soldiers of each army would perform their own way and deal with the situation in the face of battle were cut off; but wouldn't it be even more unfavorable and unprepared for the thief who was also blocked by wind, rain and night and were caught off guard?

"Report"

At this time, another urgent sound penetrated the rain curtain and suddenly sounded in Cui Anqian's ears.

"I was urgently informed by the North Inner that a thief army suddenly appeared under the Danfeng Sect of the North Inner; the Zhaoyi Army battalions, which were waiting for the middle road, were killed and scattered, and Wu (Quanxu) and the Junyuan Sect were killed on the spot;"

"...So, Zhaoyi Meng (Fang Li) commander personally led the soldiers to resist the bandit army, and then fought in chaos at the gate, so he asked the camp to send troops to respond..."
Chapter completed!