The Tatars are not good at attacking cities, not because they lack the courage to climb the city in hand-to-hand combat, but because of the lack of siege equipment.

Over the years, they have not tried to attack cities, and they have also fought some cities on the defense line of the Great Wall, but they have been able to take them almost every time.

That is, in recent months, in order to cut off the supply line of the Tang Army, they have gathered heavy troops to besiege some of the earthen fortresses on the supply line, and even so, they have paid a heavy price every time.

How the thousands of dead and wounded cavalry were killed and wounded, most of them were killed and wounded as a result of attacking these earthen fortresses.

However, what is more important is how those earthen fortresses can be compared to a big city like Dongsheng City.

Those earthen forts, the Tang Army generally only spent a few days to build, on the whole it was just a small field fortification, the garrison was only five or six hundred at the beginning, and later grew to nearly a thousand.

However, as for Dongsheng City, Altan Khan knew very well that those Southern Tang barbarians spent more than a month to build, and the garrison force was 20,000 people.

Although he has an army of sixty or seventy thousand, it is impossible to concentrate all the people to attack the city, and some people must be left to attack the supply line of the Southern Tang barbarians, although this cannot completely cut off the supply line of the Southern Tang barbarians, but it can bring them huge pressure and contain a large number of their troops, otherwise, they will be able to transport the supplies safely and steadily, and they will not need many troops to escort them.

If it weren't for the large number of troops that were contained in the supply line, the Southern Tang barbarians in Dongsheng City would not be 20,000 now, but 40,000 or even more.

A supply line has at least restrained more than 30,000 troops of the Tang Army, which is quite a large number.

Of course, Altan Khan invested a lot of troops, basically maintaining more than 10,000 cavalry in this area.

In addition, he also needs to maintain a certain number of troops in other directions to prevent accidents, because this is the same as the Tang Army still maintains a large number of troops in many places on the Great Wall defense line, Altan Khan also needs to maintain a certain number of troops in the corresponding places mentioned above, not to mention attacking, but at least not to let those Southern Tang barbarians kill out of the Great Wall from other places.

If calculated in this way, the number of troops he has on hand that can be used to besiege Dongsheng City will not exceed 50,000 people.

50,000 people want to break through Dongsheng City?

Altan Khan doesn't think it's reliable!

Even though he was a Tatar, he knew that siege operations required at least several times as many troops as the defenders, and sometimes even ten times as many troops.

Even if the troops are insufficient, he still lacks the means to siege the city.

Those Southern Tang barbarians on the opposite side, when they defended the city, they engaged in guns and grenades, and the firepower was quite terrifying.

If you want to fight such an enemy, the best way is to have the corresponding guns, especially artillery is the most important, but does Altan Khan have artillery in his hands?

Some!

But there are only more than 30 of them, and most of them are old-fashioned general cannons that were brought over from Qianming.

These old-fashioned artillery, all have common characteristics, they are all shotguns, short range, low power, usually used as a defensive weapon to hit the enemy's infantry, but if you want to use it as a siege weapon, blast through the enemy's walls, then don't count on it.

What is really useful is that through various chaotic means over the years, especially when those earthen fortresses were broken in the first few months, most of the artillery of the Southern Tang barbarians was captured, but the number was very small, not even ten.

However, just like this, these old cannons and captured Tang Army artillery were also treated as treasures by Altan Khan, and they were carried by their own descendants on weekdays, and they were never used by other side troops.

But does it work?

It's useless!

He didn't know how many artillery pieces there were in the Southern Tang barbarians on the other side, but he knew that there were at least hundreds of artillery pieces in Dongsheng City.

That's a real cannon, this cannon is not a name, but a literal meaning, large artillery, thousands of catties or even thousands of catties of artillery.

Compared with these cannons, all of them had to be thrown into the garbage heap, and only a few artillery pieces obtained from the Tang army could come in handy.

Altan Khan has been trying to obtain Tang artillery over the years, but the Tang Empire has always refused to export artillery, even if it is Fusang, the Tang Empire is at most selling some shotguns, but the cannons with long barrels, regardless of whether they are five-kilogram artillery or nine-kilogram artillery, are not allowed to be exported.

Altan Khan naturally couldn't buy these cannons directly, even if he was willing to buy them at a high price, the Tang Empire had never bought them.

Of course, the Tang Empire has been equipped with artillery for many years, and there will always be some artillery lost in the war, and there is also a major way that has caused a lot of artillery outflow, that is, the artillery equipped on various merchant ships.

Although the Tang Empire was very strict in the management of the artillery on these merchant ships, strictly regulating how many ships to leave the port and how many to return, not every merchant ship could come back smoothly.

Some merchant ships were captured by pirate raids, or ran aground in some storm, and the ship's artillery would be scattered, although the number of each time was not large, but it added up to a lot.

At least, many pirates in the South Seas are equipped with artillery produced by Datang.

However, Altan Khan was unable to obtain the artillery of the Tang Dynasty in this way.

Because Altan Khan was in the north and the Tang Dynasty was in the south, a huge Great Wall defense line blocked the Tatars tightly, and they could not make contact with the Nanyang region at all, let alone transport something as conspicuous as artillery.

Most of the artillery in the hands of Altan Khan, whether it is the old general artillery of the Ming army or the new cannon of the Tang army, are captured, and these captured artillery have also given Altan Khan a lot of help in previous wars.

However, this artillery, compared with the artillery of the Southern Barbarians on Dongsheng City, is not enough.

What's more critical is that although they have captured artillery, they don't have enough ammunition, and most of their ammunition is also captured, as for wanting to buy it, I'm sorry, the Tang Empire also doesn't sell it.

It is also impossible to obtain it from other places.

And self-creation is even more nonsense, they are good at raising horses and grazing, but they are not good at these guns.

Altan Khan, who was calculating his own strength, was very pessimistic and found that if he wanted to take Dongsheng City, it was an almost impossible task.

What should I do if I can't take it? And the Southern Tang barbarians continue to be so deadlocked? But how long can there be a stalemate, a month? Two months?

Although they Tatars are quite comfortable in the steppe, the army also needs to consume a lot of materials outside, and it has been out for a few months, and Altan Khan has not seen it drag on like this.

But regardless of the words of these Southern Tang barbarians, the consequences are even worse, now Dongsheng City can only be regarded as a military fortress at best, but if the Tang Dynasty people are allowed to stay here, it will soon become a reclamation area, and then use Dongsheng City as a stronghold to build earthen fortresses everywhere.

Those earthen fortresses are quite a vice, they seem to be simple, and there are not many troops stationed in them, but if they don't die or wound several times the number of troops in a fight, they hope to be able to take them down, and more importantly, even if they are defeated, they can't defend it in the face of the counterattack of the Tang Army.

Altan Khan pondered what to do.

Deng Xide in Dongsheng City was quite comfortable, and after months of hard fighting, he finally gained a firm foothold in Dongsheng City.

In order to gain a foothold here, it was not easy, countless supplies were spent, and more than 10,000 soldiers were killed and wounded in order to maintain the supply line.

However, although he paid a heavy price, this Dongsheng City was finally repaired, and he had considerable confidence in the newly built Dongsheng City.

This Dongsheng City, but it is completely different from the ordinary city built in the Ming Army era, today's Dongsheng City, that is, a super large fortress, and the core buildings are all used from the domestic thousands of miles to transport cement, the protection is quite amazing.

Such a large fortress can accommodate at least 30,000 soldiers to fight.

Of course, the current Dongsheng City is still very simple, but it has the most basic military defense capabilities, to put it bluntly, it is actually a copy of the earthen fortress, but it is just bigger, and the supplies still need to be transported through the supply line.

If you want to garrison for a long time, then you need to reclaim here, after all, tens of thousands of people need to eat is not a small number, and it is too difficult to maintain the supply line.

However, even though there are many difficulties, Deng Xide feels that this is enough.

With this Dongsheng City as a support, then he will be able to carry out the next step of his plan, and when the time comes, he will see what these Tatars can do with him.

It didn't take long for him to gather the generals and start issuing relevant orders.

He ordered the troops to prepare and prepare to continue the construction of the earthen fortress, where to repair? To the north, what is the place to the north? Yin Mountain!

If the first one is cultivated, then continue to cultivate until Yinshan, what will happen when the time comes? If you look at the map, you can see that the entire Tumo River will be divided into two at that time, and at the same time, the connection between the Tumo River and the Hetao area will be completely severed.

But anyone with a little IQ will know what impact it will have on the Tatars once it is done by the Tang Army.

If Dongsheng City is a huge nail, then this earthen fortress defense line that Deng Xide is preparing to build, combined with the original fortress defense line and Dongsheng City, will form a huge chain!

Strangled the Tatars completely!