Grace Yue's Silent Strength: The Pillar of Henry Yuan's Guar Chapter 17

Zhuoletai was not in a hurry to attack the city. Instead, he ordered his fierce general Manghuaer to bring a group of Sheng army prisoners to the wall of Guangning every day to burn them alive. He let every soldier defending the city see and hear their own people's struggles and screams before death. He then hung up the charred corpses with wooden pestles and stuck them one by one in the snow. Finally, he led all the soldiers to shout "If you surrender, you will not be killed."

If we ignore it behind closed doors, it will take two or three hours to shout. If we go out of the city to pursue him, he will run away so fast that we will not be able to catch him.

This went on for three days. The soldiers defending the city who had witnessed such atrocities began to lose their morale and were filled with fear of the Jin people. There were even rumors in the city that Han Zhaoxing wanted to surrender to Zhuoletai.

Henry Yuan ordered his soldiers to pour water on the city walls day and night to freeze them to reinforce them, but he knew that even the strongest walls could not withstand collapse from within. Although he kept trying to stabilize the morale of the troops, he could clearly feel the impetuousness of the people around him. Zhuoletai was indeed a famous general of the Jin Dynasty. He attacked the hearts of the people before attacking the city. He was so vicious.

Han Zhaoxing discussed with them several plans to ambush Manghuaer, but they all felt that they were too risky. Manghuaer must be well prepared. If they rashly left the city, there might be further ambushes, which would be exactly what he wanted.