Basa looked at the newly renovated Changshu city, although it was difficult to get a full picture because it was dark for a while, but he already secretly sighed in his heart, knowing that when he was running for hundreds of miles, people were sleepy and horses were lacking, and there was a lack of siege equipment, it was impossible to capture a well-prepared and well-fortified city, but he might be counterattacked by the garrison in the city. Therefore, it is the right thing to set up camp and rest quickly, rather than blindly attacking the city overnight.

Because they were lightly armed, all the camp tents and baggage were left in Jiangbei, and the individuals only carried dry food for ten days. And they have lived in the Central Plains for a long time, they have long given up the nomadic way of life, and changed to Tuntian as a business, cattle have become an important production tool, as in the past, it was impossible to use cattle and sheep as the staple food, and they could only learn from the Han army to prepare grain and grass.

Therefore, when setting off, each person carries two buckets of fried yellow rice, one bucket is crushed into minced pieces, and one bucket is wrapped separately; There is also a bucket of Wuhe flour, of which Wuhe is made into sesame oil steamed cakes, Wuhe is made of fried noodles with soju, and Wuhe is made of fried noodles with salt and vinegar, each wrapped and carried with him in case of emergency. Although the war horse can eat grass to maintain, but the physical strength will be greatly reduced, so each person also carried five buckets of black beans and fifty catties of hay as horse feed.

At present, Changshu City can't be captured for a while, and there is no way to eat in the city, so they can only temporarily choose a place to camp, one is to rest and recuperate; The second is to guard against night attacks by enemy troops. Soon a scout arrived to report that a small town had been found five miles from the city, and its inhabitants had long since fled and could be used as a campsite. Thinking that entering the town would allow him to set up camp according to this, and he would also be able to avoid the pain of camping, so he agreed.

"Ten thousand households, the lower officials have already led people to search, and the population in the town has already fled, and no one has been found!" When he came to the outside of the village, all the troops were on guard outside, and Bald came forward to pray.

"Well, order the 1,000-strong team to camp two miles outside the town, and the rest enter in turn, repair the walled city, and prevent the enemy from attacking at night!" Basa took a look at the moonlight, this town is located in the north of Changshu City, built by the water, with a radius of about five or six miles, and there is an earthen wall outside the town to prevent bandits. In his experience, the town was large enough to accommodate the headquarters. However, he still ordered the 1,000-man team under the command of his eldest son, Hesar, to be stationed outside the town, because if there was an enemy attack, the visibility at night was low, and he could not go out of the village to meet the battle in case he was broken by each one, so he could only defend passively.

As for the whole army waiting outside the town, it was also stipulated by military regulations, and when the army entered the civilian camp, it must first send scouts to search and clear out possible resistance forces, and the whole army could enter only after everything was in order. At this time, the team is camped as a unit, and each team lives in the same family, so that the captain is not allowed to separate. If it is a wealthy family and government institution with a large area, then a few teams will be placed in each section until the end of the stay.

If a soldier does not want to live with the team or leaves secretly, the captain has the right to deal with it on the spot. After the arrangement is completed, the generals of each department lead each team to the prescribed dwelling, and the soldiers stand at the door, and only after the Chinese army can each team enter the dwelling to rest, if they enter the dwelling without receiving the order, they will be arrested and placed in military law, and the people in the same team will also sit together.

After the sound of the trumpet, the troops entered, and the various departments also began to strengthen the earthen fence according to the divided area, cut down trees and build fences, sent troops to set up guards, lit fires for cooking, and herded horses to feed, but they were worried that the villagers would poison the well when they evacuated, so they chose to drink horses in the river outside the town, instead of using the well water in the town. Because the river water is flowing living water, even if it is poisoned, it will be diluted, and the toxicity will be greatly reduced, and if you want to put down so many people, the poison will be massive, and no one can do it.

Basa's tent was housed in a separate courtyard in the middle of the town, and when he entered, he found that although it had been cleaned up, it was still in disarray, the furniture in the house was basically still in its original state, and there was still a small amount left in the granary. But there were not a few valuable things left, apparently the owner left in a hurry, and in the panic only took the easy-to-carry gold and silver with him, and even the clothes in the cabinet were not taken away, and even two guard dogs were still chained to the kennel next to the door.

Seeing this situation, Basa was a little relieved. It was only a hundred miles away from the river bank, and they walked in such a hurry, obviously they didn't get the news of their southward crossing in advance. And when the news reached here, it was at least early afternoon, and it was not even at first concluded that the army was killing Changshu. So the owner of the house didn't have time to put everything in place and fled in a hurry. In this way, he can deduce that it will definitely not be too early to get the news from the city, and even if he sends a message to Pingjiang for help nearby, it will take a few days for him to mobilize troops to come to reinforcements, and he will at least win a few days......

Although Basa was ready to deal with the night attack of the Song army, the night was uneventful, and the Song army in the city did not take advantage of their unstable foothold to launch an attack, which made him more sure that there were not many troops in the city and could not launch a night attack, so he could only barely hold the city, otherwise he would not let go of this great opportunity. But he still did not dare to relax his vigilance, and sent scouts to search the city in all directions to find out if there was any enemy reinforcement coming; On the other side, the book was sent to the Chinese army who was still on the way, and briefly informed the current situation.

At the same time, Basa ordered all departments to prepare equipment and prepare for the siege of the city, and he led a group of subordinate officers to inspect the city defense of Changshu. He circled the city from north to east, and his heart was full of worries. The current Changshu city is not the small earthen city that was almost razed to the ground in the past, now the city wall is rebuilt and increased to two zhang two feet, the width is one zhang and two feet, it is built with rammed earth, there are five city gates, and there are water gates, but only the city gate has been treated with bricks, and even the city tower has not been built.

On the surface, Changshu City is not a solid city, but a slightly thin county. However, after the reconstruction, Changshu City has expanded to more than 2,400 steps, and Yushan Mountain is a natural barrier, and Changshu City is embraced in a large arc. And the accompanying moat also expands around the city and stretches for more than 3,000 steps, is more than six zhang wide, and is estimated to be more than one zhang deep, which is magnificent and enough to sail. It can be used as a defense facility, and it also connects the inland rivers in the city and communicates with the rivers to facilitate the transfer of materials.

Basa also discovered the difference between Changshu City and other cities. The main role of the city is to defend against foreign enemies, so the construction of the city is based on this, and the moat as the first line of defense is built close to the city wall, and the distance between the two is about zhangyu. In this way, even if the enemy army crossed the moat, because of the narrow foothold, it was difficult to deploy the troops, and it was difficult to erect siege equipment.

However, Basa found that the moat of Changshu City was at least five zhang away from the city wall, and repaired it, and built a low stone wall on the side of the river, like a ring road, and there was a wharf near the water gate. At first, he thought that this was because Changshu City was currently used to hoard supplies, because of the need for defense, the Water Gate would not be built tall and spacious, in case the enemy army would ram the Water Gate with ships or use the ship tower to directly enter the city. Therefore, the roads and wharves were built because the large ships that came from the outer river to transport supplies could not pass through the short water gate, so they could be transferred directly to the small boats or transferred by vehicles on the wharf outside the city.

At the beginning, the Song people who were still feeling were stupid, knowing that it was convenient to transfer materials, but they forgot the fundamentals of city defense. But it soon became clear that it was ingenious. The low wall built on the outside of the ring road under the city can not only prevent pedestrians and vehicles from rushing into the moat, but also become a sheep and horse wall as long as it is slightly heightened. At present, some areas have been raised with straw bags of sediment and mud, and war tents have been erected to form a perimeter defense line, so that there can be no dead ends to form a shelter for the city. and the cost of building horses, and towers, and towers was saved.

Basa also thought that the Song army had fully replaced its firearms at the moment, and although he had not yet confronted it head-on, he had already learned a lot from previous battle examples. The power of artillery can break through the stone wall, and the men and horses are shattered when they are hit, which cannot be stopped by iron armor and large shields. What's even more powerful is that the range of guns far exceeds that of bows and crossbows, and heavy artillery can be as far as three or four miles. If the Song army had placed artillery and musketeers behind this low wall, and there were deep trenches as barriers, it would have been a fortification. If you cooperate with the defenders of the city, you will not only be killed and injured when crossing the river, but you will also be killed and injured in the process of rushing to the edge of the trench.

At present, they came on fast horses, that is, they could not carry long-range heavy weapons such as stone throwers, and siege equipment had to be made from local materials. Moreover, the Song army had already demolished the long bridge leading to the city gate, leaving only a wide water surface, and it was not easy for them to force their way across this wide moat without boats crossing the river, and the casualties must have been heavy. Therefore, if the cardinal marshal's plan wants to capture the city in a short time, Yasa feels that he is not completely sure.

Basa felt heavy and continued to walk around the city, and suddenly found the river in the moat in the west of the city disappearing after entering the West Water Gate, which made him feel very strange. But after thinking about it, I understood that in the past, the shape of the city was narrow, and there was a moat in the west of the city. However, after the expansion of the city to the west, most of the Yu Mountains were wrapped into the city, and the former moat became an inner moat. The re-excavation of the new outer moat was not only a large project, but also the natural barrier of Yushan Mountain in the northwest direction was unnecessary, and the moat came to an abrupt end here.

Basa looked at the west city in front of him, although the pain of building bridges and filling trenches was exempted here, it was not easy to attack from here. As a barrier, Yu Mountain lies in the northwest of the mature city, borders the Yangtze River in the north, borders Shanghu Lake in the south, the mountain spreads from the northwest to the southeast, the peaks are undulating, the north and south are about six miles wide, the east and west are about fourteen miles long, the foot of the mountain is forty miles in a circle, the shape is like a lying cow, although the mountain is not high, but it is also the only commanding height point in the surroundings. The Song army built a long wall on the mountain, on which the beacon tower, battlements, arrow towers and other city defense facilities are readily available, like a long snake hovering in the mountain, taking the city into its arms......