Chapter 306: Seize the Military City
Yue Fei finally came to Western Xia, this time he did not go to the imperial capital to meet the king of Han, after all, his heart was a little empty, and he hoped to make contributions on the battlefield to repay the king of Han's trust in him.
From an obscure pawn, he finally walked step by step to the commander of an army of 10,000 people, which has Yue Fei's own ability, but more of it is the support of King Han. If Yue Fei stayed in the Song army, he would not be able to show his great ability.
When Yue Fei came to Western Xia, such a big war was about to break out, and this battle was a matter of life and death for the Western Liao army, because Yunzhou had already fallen, and if it could not take down Western Xia, then the Western Liao army's eastern crusade would be a complete failure.
Recently, Yelu Yilie has been under a lot of pressure, and he now understands why everyone objected to him leading the army into Western Xia to fight at the beginning, you must know that the party warriors are brave and good at fighting, and if they want to take this country, it is definitely not an overnight thing, and this war area is not fully prepared, and even quite bad.
But now it is difficult to ride a tiger, Yunzhou has been lost, there is no way to retreat at this time, and it has become a luxury to want to return to Xiliao, either fight hard, or choose to die on the spot, obviously Yelu Yilie finally chose to attack, attack, as long as he wins the military division of the right wing, then he can go straight to Xingqing Mansion, in that case, the whole game of chess will live.
In Yelu Yilie's view, Yelu Nanxian, the empress dowager of Western Xia, still has feelings for her father Yelu Dashi, but she is just unwilling to submit to Western Liao due to the situation. As long as the Western Liao army can reach the city of Xingqing Mansion, this woman will definitely surrender.
The military city of the Right Wing Dynasty Military Division is much more difficult to fight than the Vulture Sea City, and the defender Tuoba Jueqi is also a first-class fierce general, which is definitely not comparable to his straw bag brother. The defenders of the city are the most elite 50,000 Tuoba warriors, of course, this is also the last glory of the Tuoba Department, once it is destroyed, there are less than 10,000 cavalry left in the entire Tuoba Department, and the combat power is also very average.
Tuoba Qiqi did not take the Western Liao army of less than 60,000 in his eyes, but he was unwilling to go out of the city to fight, after all, the military city was tall, and it was difficult for the Western Liao cavalry to conquer the military city no matter how brave and good they were. As long as the military city is not conquered, then the Western Liao army will eventually choose to withdraw because of the lack of food.
This invasion of the Western Liao army feels a little weird, Tuoba Qiqi's intuition tells him that this is a trap, if once the army of the Tuoba Department is destroyed, then the entire Western Xia will no longer be able to balance the power of the Empress Dowager Yelu Nanxian, at that time, is the Western Xia still the Western Xia?
Tuoba was reluctant to take risks, so he chose to stick to the military city instead of going out of the city to fight a decisive battle with the Western Liao army.
The west side of the military city is close to the big river, and the east side is built by the mountain, so that for the Western Liao army from the north, it can only attack the north city gate, and the most tightly defended military city is the north city gate, the outside of the city gate is a long mile of land, the height difference is more than 30 meters of forehead slope, the attacking side wants to attack the city head is to pay a heavy price.
The most painful thing is that there is no way to send siege equipment to the mountain gate, so it is impossible to attack a military city with a height of more than three zhang.
When he came to the military city, Yelu Yilie was dumbfounded, and now in this case, it is impossible to conquer this military city without a few months of strong attack, but now he has only more than 56,000 soldiers left, if he attacks it, the military strength will be exhausted in a month, and what is even worse is that the remaining military food now lasts for seven days at most, most of this damn Western Xia is deserted, and it is not so simple to thresh.
What to do? Yeluielel was dumbfounded, no matter what, since he came, he couldn't turn back, and on the first day, Yeluielel ordered three thousand soldiers to launch a siege under the leadership of the thousand-commander Bazaar. You must know that the army of Western Liao is not a Liao army in the traditional sense, many of them are composed of young and strong people from some tribes in the Western Regions and even more northwest, and the centurions, thousands, and ten thousand commanders below are not necessarily Khitans. However, the ability of such a miscellaneous army to fight alone far exceeds that of the previous Liao army, and is on par with the Jin army, but when the army fights together, there is still a big gap with the Jin army, and even the Han army is inferior.
Facing the slope in front of the city gate, it was obvious that it was unrealistic to march forward on horseback, so the cavalry could only dismount and attack forward, and the three thousand soldiers were divided into three teams, each team opened a distance of 100 paces, and slowly approached the military city. These Western Liao soldiers all held huge shields, and for a while they defended against the arrows that fell from the city.
Because it is the first day of the tentative attack, so the speed of the Western Liao army's attack is not very fast, it can be said that it is very careful, after all, if you throw stones down from the city, it will cause great casualties to the soldiers below, in this case, Bazaar is very cautious, he knows that it is difficult to conquer this tall military city today, test the opponent's combat strength, prepare for the later attack, officially based on this psychology, so the Western Liao army is very slow.
Tuoba Jue at the head of the city was unmoved, as if he didn't see the Xiliao soldiers, after all, the distance is very far, at this time blind shooting, the effect is not good, and the bow and arrow are wasted, rolling wood and thunder stones, in this case, it is better to be careful.
The distance was getting closer and closer, and when it was less than a hundred steps away from the head of the city, Xi Liao's side began to sprint, and it was at this time that the rolling wood thunder stones began to be thrown from the head of the city, and dense arrows were shot overwhelmingly from top to bottom.
The bow and arrow can be blocked with a shield, but the rolling wood thunder stone can't resist it, and the Xiliao soldiers who were hit by the rolling wood were blurred on the spot, and this tragic situation made people tremble.
Xiliao is obviously not frightened, these soldiers are agile, holding shields to prevent being shot by flying arrows, and desperately dodging the rolling wood thunder stones, this is also a powerful Xiliao soldiers, if they are replaced by the Great Song Forbidden Army, they will definitely not be able to do it.
At the beginning, the soldiers of Xiliao had good physical strength, agility, and could dodge, but the hands became more and more dense with the rolling wood thunder stones, and the physical exertion was too great when dodging, and soon one by one they couldn't hold on, and they were constantly hit by the rolling wood thunder stones, and they were constantly shot by flying arrows.
After all, the soldiers of Western Liao were brave and good at fighting, and after sacrificing a thousand people in the first echelon, they finally attacked the city, because there were no siege equipment, they could only shoot arrows from below to suppress the archers at the head of the city.
This time there were no siege equipment, but when the front troops suppressed the archers at the head of the city, the Western Liao cavalry behind pressed on it and rushed to the front to suppress the head of the city with cavalry shooting, and then the infantry began to launch a siege battle with a simple climbing ladder.
Although it was a simple siege ladder, the Western Liao soldiers still attacked like a tide, like ants moving. Such an attack was originally difficult to threaten, but the Western Xia soldiers were not fully prepared, and they did not think that the Western Liao soldiers would be able to rush up at all. However, due to the limitation of the terrain, the space on the city wall is relatively narrow, and the defenders are relatively few, and in the face of the tidal attack of the Western Xia soldiers, the defensive pressure is very great.
Seeing that the first batch of soldiers rushed to the city, the Xiliao soldiers behind them rushed faster, and they couldn't wait to kill them into the city immediately. There was enough food, money, and beautiful women in the city, and these Western Liao soldiers rushed frantically as if they had been beaten with chicken blood.
There were more and more Western Liao soldiers on the city, and at this time, the soldiers of Western Xia began to pour up, after all, they had an advantage in numbers, and soon the Western Xia soldiers stabilized the situation and killed the Western Liao army and retreated.
Seeing that the number of Western Xia soldiers in the city continued to increase, and the casualties of Western Liao soldiers continued to increase, Yelu Yilie ordered the troops to be withdrawn under this situation. Although the first day of the attack did not take the military city in the end, and the loss of more than 2,000 soldiers, it was easy to kill the city, which also showed that the Western Xia soldiers lacked experience in defending the city, and there was no space at the head of the city, and this military city was not as difficult to conquer as imagined.
Although the first day almost conquered the military city, but Yelu Yilie knew that the difficulty coefficient of the siege on the second day would be much higher, and the first day was because of the lax defense of Western Xia, so there was an opportunity to take advantage of it, but on the second day, the defense of Western Xia would definitely be strengthened, and the casualties would increase.
However, on the first day of the siege, Yelu Yilie completely saw the fatal shortcomings of this military city, that is, the city wall on the north gate is narrow, and the soldiers on the city wall are limited, and the soldiers can only continue to come up from below to replenish, and although there are rolling wood thunder stones, but the bottom is very wide, and the attacking soldiers have the possibility of dodging, unless they throw down a large number of rolling wood thunder stones, otherwise the effect is very limited, and it is difficult to suppress the attacking side through rolling wood thunder stones.
The east and west sides of this military city are obviously unable to enter the city, so the defense is weak, and there is almost no defense on the south side, all the defenses are at the north gate, as long as the north gate is conquered, then you can kill into the city. Although the shortcomings of this military city were discovered, it was not easy to attack on such a long slope to conquer the north gate.
Due to the slope, it is destined not to push the siege equipment up, because as long as the opponent throws down the rolling wood thunder stone, then the siege equipment is the target of the attack, and there is no use. However, without siege equipment, it would be impossible to conquer the city gates.
What to do? How to siege the city? You can't attack every day to cause unwarranted casualties among soldiers. Moreover, the rations of Xiliao are limited, and in this case they cannot afford to consume it, and it does not consume energy.
The pressure was not only on the attacking side of the Western Liao, but also on the defending side of the Western Xia Tuoba tribe, and on the first day of the attack, the strong combat effectiveness of the Western Liao army was fully displayed. The attackers suffered more than 2,000 casualties, but the defenders seemed to suffer even more. After the Western Liao soldiers rushed to the city, the defending Tuoba warriors suddenly lost their former edge and fell into a situation of passive beating. Fortunately, only one side was attacked, and if this was a city that could be fought on all sides, it was estimated that it would have been conquered on the first day.
What to do, the threat of bows and arrows does not seem to be great, after all, the space is limited, and when the soldiers of the Western Liao attack with shields, the lethality of bows and arrows is very small. If the defenders on the city could be doubled, or even tripled, they could be covered with bows and arrows to suppress the enemy's attack, but unfortunately there were no ifs on the battlefield.
The lethality of the bow and arrow is small, but the lethality of the Rolling Wood Thunder Stone is still very large, and that night Tuoba Qiqi strengthened the defense of the military city and transported more Rolling Wood Thunder Stone to the head of the city to suppress the enemy's attack. Tuoba Jueqi saw that although the Western Liao army was brave in battle, there would not be a lot of grain and grass, as long as he closed his door, even if Yelu Yilie was powerful, he would not want to kill him.
The idea of the attack on the first day was correct, although the city was not broken, but it was already remarkable to be able to kill the city without the help of siege equipment. At this time, Yelu Yilie seemed to have an idea, and he saw that the Western Xia soldiers defending the city did not have too many defensive tools, and the defensive means were also very simple. If you want to break through this military city, it seems that there is still a way. Yelu Yilie's thinking gradually became clearer, and he also began to actively deploy. He believed that as long as it was favored by God, this plan would definitely be able to take this military city.
The next day, the Xiliao soldiers charged again, this time with a more fierce momentum, faster attack, and more agile when the soldiers dodged the rolling wood and thunder stones. However, the Rolling Wood Thunder Stone was much denser than on the first day, so that the Western Liao soldiers suffered heavy casualties during the attack. Although the casualties were increasing, the Western Liao army still climbed to the top of the city again, this time the attack was faster and lasted longer.
The siege, which lasted more than two hours, ended with the withdrawal of the Western Liao army, and it seemed that today's battle was faster than the first day, but the death toll was now decreasing. In this kind of siege warfare, for the defending side, as long as the city is not lost, the fewer people who die, the better.
But I don't know why, Tuoba Qiqi always felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't figure it out himself, so he could only strengthen his defense.
The mystery was finally revealed on the fifth day, the Western Liao army actually used the rolling wood thunder stone thrown down from the city wall as a cover, and killed the city head in all directions, this time it was the whole army of the Western Liao army dispatched, and the speed of the attack was very fast, so that the Western Xia soldiers at the head of the city had no way to use the invincible rolling wood thunder stone to defend.
When the Western Liao army rushed to the head of the city, unlike the previous four times, this time it was an all-out attack, and the cavalry below used cavalry to cover the Western Xia soldiers at the head of the city and cover the siege of the Western Liao army. Due to the lack of the cover of the archers at the head of the city, the city gate was finally exposed, and the Western Liao army had no way to use the battering ram, which did not mean that gunpowder could not be used.
When the city gate was lit, Tuoba knew that the final decisive moment had come, this battle was either you die or I died, and it was impossible to retreat with his whole body, so he ordered to stick to the city and fight to the death with the Western Liao army.
In the small military city, the cavalry is useless, and the two armies that are good at riding and archery get off their horses and fight each other, and this battle is dark and difficult to solve.