This dinner is actually an alternative small military meeting, since Shi Cundao and below, the banquet is full of senior generals in the Hong Lie Army, and the only civilian official who accompanies him is Shinshu Taishou, if he is definitely the protagonist in peacetime, but at this moment, he can't even interject half a sentence in the middle of a bunch of generals who are discussing the military situation, and he found an excuse to retire halfway through the meal.

Because of the urgency of the war, there was neither wine nor any fun on the table, and the generals got together to talk the most about how to defend the city against the enemy, and the herald soldiers flowed endlessly, and the 300,000 horses of the Chinese army were stationed in Shinshu, almost turning a city into a military city.

I fought all night physically and mentally exhausted, and after eating two bites of food, I said goodbye to the generals, among these people, except for Shi Cundao, I have the highest military rank, everyone stood up to send, I hurriedly waved my hand and said: "You are busy, leave me alone." ”

At this moment, an urgent report came from outside the city, saying that the 800,000 troops of Tangtailang had been camped 10 miles away from the city, and Qin Yiwu and Wu Sizhong also went to Lizhou and Fuzhou to see that the situation was about to attack the city.

This information immediately caused an uproar, and someone angrily said: "Hegis is pushing people too much, does he really treat my generation as if he is nothing?" ”

Shi Cundao waved his hand and said calmly: "It is reasonable that Hegis is pressing step by step, the 2 million people are not here to open our eyes, why should we be indignant?" The top priority is to withstand the first wave of the opponent's attack, their attack is so rapid, it must be a problem, as long as we hold them back, Haggis will be overwhelmed and will inevitably retreat. He turned his head and asked Li Jian: "How are the materials for defense prepared?" ”

Li Jian did not hesitate at all: "It is enough for three years." ”

Shi Cundao nodded with satisfaction, and said to the generals: "It won't take three years, at most a year and a half, Hegis will not be able to bear it, we have the advantage of the city wall and the soldiers of the whole country, can you be confident?" ”

A veteran in the seat stood up and said: "Marshal, it goes without saying that Xinzhou is strong, and the last general is worried about the ...... of Lizhou and Fuzhou."

Shi Cun said: "I have also thought about this, the last time the battle against the black was fought against the two states, the reason why the city was broken was because the black gis did not declare the war at that time, the total strength of these two states was only a few tens of thousands, and now it is not as good as the beginning, the left and right armies are divided into two states, we are waiting to attack, and if there is a loss, whoever is responsible will have to give the old man an explanation!" ”

I listened to them talk about the military situation, yawned and said, "Grandpa, I'll withdraw first, you can talk slowly, and wait for the results to be discussed...... You don't have to tell me. ”

Shi Cun said: "......"

At that moment, Li Jian arranged for someone to lead me to live in the Assassin's Mansion, since I arrived at the head of my family's land, I didn't have to worry about no one waiting, Zhang Shilei and the others went to the barracks to rest.

I slept from night to noon the next day, and I slept for a whole day and a night, and no one called me.

I opened my eyes again, my energy had fully recovered, my stomach was growling with hunger, I got out of bed and wanted to find something to eat, as soon as I pushed the door, I saw Zhang Shilei walking around in the yard with his head down like an ant on a hot pot, I wondered: "What are you doing here?" ”

When Zhang Shilei saw it, he immediately rubbed his hands and said: "Fifth Young Master, you can be regarded as awake, the marshal has instructed that no one is allowed to disturb you unless you wake up yourself." He said and brought me a plate of pancakes with meat and vegetables, "If you're hungry, eat first." ”

I took it and gobbled it up, then looked at him and said, "You've been waiting here for me all day just to bring me food, right?" What about my grandfather and Li Tingshi? ”

Zhang Shilei twisted his fists and said, "It's all in the city." ”

I sighed, lowered my head and ate violently, Zhang Shilei stood next to me, looking at the food, as if I couldn't wait for me to finish it quickly, I raised my head again and said, "What are they doing in the city?" Hasn't Haggis not yet begun to attack the city? ”

"It's already started this morning!" Zhang Shilei couldn't suppress his mood fluctuations, and said to me in a low voice, "I originally wanted to tell the fifth young master, but I didn't dare, so I waited until now." ”

I was surprised: "So fast? ”

"Yes, it's just that the two sides haven't officially taken over yet, and Hadgis has been preparing, and I think it's time to do it now."

I rolled the vegetables in the bowl into the pancakes, pulled my legs and ran: "Then let's go quickly, we must not miss the first battle." ”

Zhang Shilei said excitedly: "I think so too. ”

We got on the horses separately, and the other soldiers were waiting at the gate of the Assassin's Mansion, and we met together, and immediately rushed to the city gate, and I saw that there were soldiers patrolling everywhere on this road, and there were also people who were specially responsible for propaganda in the open terrain to preach the words of the Taishou and the marshal in order to stabilize the people's hearts, and some strong men formed a stretcher team and a transport team in case of emergency, but it seems that the people of Shinshu have long been familiar with this, everything is in order, even women and children are busy cutting cloth strips and boiling medicine, and everyone in Shinshu City is not idle for a while, The pre-war atmosphere was tense and oppressive.

I showed my identity all the way to the foot of the city, on the city wall, Shi Cundao and Li Jian were standing in the wind and pointing outside the city, the soldiers were already bows and knives out of their sheaths, and countless people carried bundles of arrows and crossbows and rolling stones to the city.

I greeted the two old men, and looked in the direction of their fingers, and saw that two arrows away from the opposite city, the Hegis army moved slowly like an ant colony, but it never advanced, but continued to gather tens of thousands of people to pass some huge siege equipment to the front of the battle, and it seemed that they were still preparing. In addition to the opposite side of the castle, the two wings of the Hegis Army have also extended to both sides of the Shinshu Castle wall, and as far as the eye can see the castle is densely packed with all kinds of towering siege tools, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a forest full of branches.

When we were looking, Leng Ding threw out countless boulders in the opposite array, these stones were as big as sitting on a pier, and the small ones were the size of watermelons, thrown into the sky by thousands of trebuchets, and fell to the head of Xinzhou City in an arc, Shi Cundao shouted: "Pay attention to concealment!" ”

Needless to say, the soldiers naturally know how to dodge, those stones are huge, and they are parabolas, falling from a distance of nearly 300 meters, to be honest, it is not difficult for people to dodge, and even if the stones are smashed on the city wall, they will not cause much damage, so the trebuchet seems to be infinitely powerful, but it is not used much in actual combat, so that it slowly withdrew from the weapon stage, so I can't figure it out, how could Haggis think of using it, we are neither stupid pigs nor stealing their eggs...... But I was wrong, I wrongly ignored the role of quantity, one or two stones may not be intimidating, when countless stones are laid down like stars in the sky, people really don't know which one to hide, and sometimes even if you know where to hide, you want to go that way, the people around you just want to go this way, and the two sides are smashed when they are squeezed.

This rain of stones brought a lot of confusion to the defenders on the city wall, once they were hit by this thing, they were killed and not injured, and it was futile to resist with shields and swords, so although the losses of the Honglie army were not large, everyone was in danger, and this may be the purpose of Haggis - to suppress the enemy's momentum in order to strengthen his own prestige, and from this point of view, there is nothing more powerful than to smash it all over the sky with thousands of large stones and eggs.

After the first wave of stone attacks, the Haggis soldiers began to carry new ammunition into the trebuchet's skins, and then the second wave of stone attacks arrived, and the two armies were far apart, but the terrain was flat, and thousands of trebuchets were launched together, and the squeak of the wooden shaft pierced the eardrums.

I hid under the pheasant moat with the soldiers, and I listened to the sound of stones constantly hitting the outside of the wall, debris and stone powder splashed, and I couldn't open my eyes, Zhang Shilei half-squatted beside me, and said loudly: "Fifth young master, what should I do?" ”

"Keep your head down!"

Zhang Shilei was speechless and said: "What about this? ”

I leaned my back against the wall and said, "Wait." "From what I've observed, the stones are polished, which means that the other side doesn't have enough "ammunition", and they certainly don't think that they can take a city with just a few rounds of stone bullets, so I'd like to see what Hegis will do next.

I looked out along the mouth of the pheasant battlement, and sure enough, there was movement on the other side, and the Hegis soldiers were in groups of 12, carrying thick siege ladders on their shoulders, and began to slowly march towards the city wall.

Shi Cundao sneered: "Tai Lang is good at attacking cities, as can be seen from the equipment he carries, even if he brings all kinds of parts, it is commendable to be able to assemble so many overnight, we have to deal with it carefully, don't lose people on the first day." He said to the herald, "Tell the archers to prepare, and hear the drums to return fire." ”

At this time, I heard the shouts of "ho ho" from the city, as if many people were shouting trumpets at the same time, I looked back, and I was startled - I saw hundreds of huge behemoths in the army formation of Haggis, these things are nearly three zhang high, about three meters thick, the appearance is made of thick wooden planks, there are probably pillars in the middle, and it looks like a right-angled trapezoid, Hegis soldiers are a team of every 100 people, and some people push in the back and some people pull in front. The people on the side kept bending down to move the rolling log from under this monster and then to the front, it turned out that this thing was too cumbersome to install wheels, so the soldiers replaced it with rolling wood, these people held this big guy slowly towards the city, I couldn't help but ask Shi Cun: "Grandpa, what is that?" ”

Shi Cun said: "That's the siege tower invented by Hajis. ”

"Siege towers?"

"That's right, look at that guy, there is a big slope on one side and the other side, it is the same height as our wall, and the enemy only needs to support the corner of the wall on the square side, and there are steps on the slope on the other side, and they can rush to the top of the city like a staircase."

I looked at the so-called siege tower, and suddenly it dawned, it turned out that this is a huge movable staircase, the reason why the right-angled trapezoidal shape is to stabilize, this thing to the head of the city, can neither pry open nor move, but a big trouble, Hegis in order to siege the city to create this kind of strange thing, it can really be described as painstaking and lonely.

This is last night's chapter. Another big chapter today. The siege tower is a thing that has only been seen in movies, but it must be very difficult to make this thing, and the theoretical support of technical materials and mechanics is difficult to achieve in ancient times......

(To be continued)