Chapter 70: Yang Muzhi’s Cunning Pacified Taiyuan

Shi Siming’s soldiers hurled fierce insults beneath the walls of Taiyuan, their voices brazen and relentless. Yang Muzhi turned to Que Qian’ge with quiet resolve. “The disciples of Gongshu Gate have accompanied me faithfully along the way. On the journey, I learned that among the skilled warriors you brought are three adept in the art of tunnel-digging. Let us summon these three to undermine the rebels’ morale—nothing dampens the spirit like the ground shifting beneath one’s feet.”Li Guangbi promptly summoned the three disciples of Gongshu Gate to tunnel beneath the city’s gates. As the rebel soldiers shouted their taunts below, these skilled men silently seized their ankles and dragged them into the earth’s shadowy veins, executing them by the city walls. Terror gripped the rebels, who now dared only to tread warily upon the ground.Shi Siming ordered his men to assault the city with ladders, battering rams, and earthen mounds. But the Gongshu disciples met these engines of war with their own subterranean craft; as the ladders and rams approached the walls, they sank helplessly into concealed pits below.Que Qian’ge then commanded the other disciples of Gongshu School to lead the soldiers in crafting stone-throwing engines—machines that hurled massive boulders at the enemy. With each volley, over twenty rebels fell; the death toll mounted so heavily that Shi Siming’s forces withdrew to encamp several dozen miles away.The two armies remained locked in stalemate for days, until Li Guangbi summoned Yang Muzhi to confer on their next move. Yang Muzhi spoke thoughtfully: “There are five kinds of spies: those drawn from the countryside, from within the ranks, double agents, those who feign death, and those who remain alive. Among our troops are many Nestorian Sogdians; we can have them masquerade as followers of the Zoroastrian faith and pretend to surrender to Shi S