When news arrived that the first wall was breached everyone assumed it was the beginning of the end with this and been clear that he would be victorious the men at the court declared Niu Sian as emperor Gaozu the first emperor of the new Qi dynasty as he kept focusing on the internal reforms, while in Xiangyang with the first wall taken there was debate whether to destroy the walls or keep them and the latter was decided, but they destroyed any building to make flat ground to the men and siege engines, still some days of rest were given and the men celebrated their victory, but soon the siege would continue but the Qi had a new approach to breach the city walls.
The area of the inner wall were smaller and the troops had concentrated to conserve their strength and Maximize their damage as they could rebuff their attacks, the Qi numbers were not a massive advantage, the Qi also knew that assaults would result in a massive bloodbath, so the Qi commander ordered that they began to dig, as he ordered divisionary assaults to the city these were met by nearly innumerable arrows, bolts, and stones with this firepower the Qi had to use their own stone-throwers and had to upgrade their defenses to the rams, this meant that the tang sent sorties to try to destroy them, while in the back and later in the day the men began to dig, as the days went on every day the men dig and progressed on making their tunnels, due to the numbers men took turns to dig, in other fought or rested but there were cases of men who went from fighting to digging hoping that the this could be the end of the siege.
After 23 days of desperate work their job was nearly done, but unknown to them the tang had dug a counter tunnel with weak foundations, when the tang send another assault they burned the last part of their foundations due to this the ground gave way as a chasm opened swallowing the rams and siege towers the Qi quickly moved to put out the fires but then tang sallied out to burn the immobilized siege engines, the Qi soldiers resisted but were pushed back and set alight the siege engines, seeing their work been burned the Qi rushed in to fight and save what they could, but more tang soldiers sallied out and a battle commenced, with more tang soldiers coming out they managed to destroy most of the siege engines were destroyed, seeing this the demoralized Qi soldiers retreated the tang quickly attack as an attempt to end the siege, but the Qi countered attacked and beat them back to the chasm and walls.
Few soldiers got to sleep that night as the fire that burned down their progress and hope continued to shine in the darkness that surrounded them, the morale of the soldiers were low while the tang one surged and they need it as the city was starting to run out of food, In order to keep his soldiers busy and recover the lost morale told the navy to gather materials and force the men to construct new siege engines, he inspired his troops to not give up that they could still win and the men continued on, as January came and went with minor attacks from the Qi as they began to notice that the city was running out food, so now they need it to wait.
By late February their emperor had sent 5000 reinforcements to the city with more building material and siege engines, as march arrived the city was starving and the citizens began to kill the animals including pets to sustain themselves, the assaults on the city began again concentrating on their weak points that the tang had barely fixed due to the lack of materials, but yet the tang still managed to repel their attacks, this continued by early April the soldiers and civilians began to eat the dead at first, each assault was repelled which more difficulty, some still had the vain idea that the tang emperor would send reinforcements or like last time they would win, but many knew that this was not the case and the best they tried to do is hold out as long as possible to inflict as many casualties as possible and give time to the tang to prepare.
By May only 4000 men of the original 20 000 were still alive and by now the soldiers began to eat the civilians who at first tried to protest , but those who did were killed and eaten , most accepted their fate , the commander himself killed his father and used gave his corpse to feed his soldiers , some of them even cut their own fingers to eat something , they knew that they could not flee as many did not have the strength to run and all awaited their deaths , despite this the city held by June only 1000 men remained with some 8000 starving civilians , but it the weather that had saved them before came to condemn them , most surviving soldiers and stone throwers were concentrated on few parts but as the June heavy rains came with the tunnel and the weight undermining it the front part of the wall crumbled, the tang had anticipated this some weeks ago and had already made a wall to cover the breach but it was made of wood , in the nigh the Qi soldiers attacked the tang resisted but by some men where to weak to even shot a bow or lift their weapons .
The Qi broke in some of the soldiers attempted to fight in the streets but to no avail, the fire began as the Qi at the end gave way to their instincts of frustration and rage, the starving civilians, whether it be women, men, the children, old, could not flee the lucky ones where trampled as the other where tortured by bloodthirsty Qi soldiers who were so bloodthirsty to find anyone to kill that they trampled their own comrades, the commanders did little to stop them and the only thing that matched their bloodthirst was their greed as anyone looked for treasure and the love of flames to clear and kill anyone in the city, not a single tang soul survived the massacre as the flames continued for days, the city was reduced to a smoking ruin, despite their success 40 000 Qi soldiers had died to take the city.
Despite the casualties the victory was absolute and the path to the south was now opened the fall of the tang was inevitable and a fire had burned down the rock that stood between them and new china.