In the early morning of Youzhou City, the air is very fresh, the green grass leaves are still hanging with the dew that has not dispersed last night, and the air is shrouded in a faint white mist. The sun hadn't risen yet, but it was already light and the sky was blue.

I don't know where there are a few occasional noises of sparrows.

Guo Shao strode over the artillery array with his entourage, and he had to feel that the Longxiao cannon cast in bronze was very beautiful, much better than the cast iron! After Huang Cancan's gun body is polished and smooth, the workmanship is very good and it looks new.

The rows of artillery muzzles were diagonally facing the sky, and when Guo Shao looked back, he could see rows of huge black hole muzzles.

The battle is very powerful! They are still just mortars that hit stones, and their actual effect cannot be bombed like the ** cannon that can destroy everything in the impression, and their power is very limited; But Guo Shao knows that as long as they are used properly, these things will have a great effect on siege!

"Deaf! ......Suddenly, there was a rooster's crow, Guo Shao looked at it and was stunned.

It turned out that several soldiers killed a rooster and dripped the blood of the chicken on the barrel of a cannon. The military generals beside him hurriedly said: "That cannon is the first to ignite, and everyone is trying to be auspicious." ”

Guo Shao left the artillery position after the inspection, and he didn't need to ask about all the specific tactics himself.

After a long time, there was a sudden "boom" on the ground, the ground trembled slightly, and the thunderous roar of the cannon tore through the silence of the sky. Thick white smoke rose into the air.

The neighing of horses and the noise of people increased, and the birds in the distance were so frightened that they flew away desperately.

However, after a single shot, it ceased for a while, and then the cannon fire on the camp stopped and stopped as if it were chaotic. The city walls in the distance were not affected much, but the Zhou army was filled with gunsmoke and noisy people.

Guo Shao didn't say anything, and of course he didn't blame it...... The cannon was designed by himself, of course he understands. The accuracy of this mortar is really limited, mainly because the casting technology and measuring tools are very rough; How do you hit the target? That's right, a one-shot trial! The elevation angle and charge were tried, and because the size of the gun was not completely standard, the firing parameters of each gun were slightly different. Rao is still not completely accurate, and he can probably hit the target.

The artillery array was pounding for more than half an hour, and then it stopped again.

The previous heaven and earth were like a pool of clear water, blue sky, green earth, fresh air with moist white mist; And now, it seems that a basin of sewage has been poured into heaven and earth!

The sky above the Zhou army camp was foggy, as if the sky was full of dust, and the smoke and fog of the artillery were mixed together. The camp was crowded with people.

At this moment, a caravan of horses slowly poured into the fortifications in front of them, and did not stop, and then spread through the wooden and earth camps, and slowly moved forward.

The cannon fire that had only been fired for more than half an hour did not cause much damage to the city wall, and most of them did not hit, but only tested the cannon, and now the cannon has not sounded again as soon as the cannon has stopped. In its place, there was a crowd of people on horseback.

The artillery bombardment alone cannot test the strength of the opponent's defense, and this horse soldier is a temptation; Moreover, luring the defenders to the city with the approach of soldiers and horses, the first round of salvo can surprise and expand the results!

Guo Shao and the ministers watched the scene, the inside and outside of the camp looked a little chaotic, but he could feel the order in the chaos, everything was going according to plan.

The light cavalry entered the front line like a charge, first in order, then in a gallop, and then on fast horses rushed towards the walls.

The horsemen were barely attacked from a distance, and reached the moat without incident, and quickly turned around in a roundabout way, and the horses fired a number of arrows from the side gates, which were thrown up the walls. The moat of Youzhou City is not wide, and it can be shot at the head of the city on horseback by the river.

Guo Shao was hundreds of paces away, and he couldn't see the counterattack in the city clearly. But looking at the condition of the Zhou army, the defenders hardly had a strong counterattack.

"Huh!" Wang Pu's mouth made a sound, and he stopped talking.

The others didn't react, just watched, tossing back and forth for more than half an hour, the rhythm of the battle was not intense, and everyone's expressions seemed to be a little sluggish.

Guo Shao and Wang Pu seem to have the same intuition: the start is very strange.

He smelled something unusual.

Of course, cavalry attacks could not attack the city, after all, horses could not carry people across the moat, let alone climb the three-zhang high city wall on foot. But it is common sense that if you get close to the city, you will be attacked by the defenders, after all, the distance is only twenty or thirty paces.

Why didn't the defenders fight back from afar? Most likely, there weren't many people on the city walls......

In the distance, the Zhou army's horse team moved outside the city wall in a roundabout way, and then the head of the army gradually turned back, and a horse team seemed to rush to the wall and flow back.

Wang Pu said in a deep voice: "The situation seems to be different from what we expected. ”

Guo Shao did not act rashly. The Zhou army was too large and the deployment was more complicated, like a huge ship, and the steering would be very slow...... You can't change your strategy just because of a little surprise.

The horse team ran very fast, and in a short time a row of triangular flags was planted fifty paces away from the city wall, and then swarmed back.

When he was a hundred steps away, suddenly a roar of shaking mountains resounded through the heavens and the earth. Guo Shao turned his head to look, a line of white smoke rose above the camp, and large stone bullets flew into the sky one after another.

Before the stone bullets fell on the city wall, after a while, the cannon sound of "boom boom boom ......boom" roared again, the fire shone brightly, and a row of white smoke rose up.

The earth and stones at the head of Youzhou City are splashed, and you can see the scene of the collapse of the female wall from a distance.

The artillery from far and near the Zhou army camp fired a salvo one after another, and the scene was very shocking. The muzzle of the cannon seemed to be spewing flames in unison, and smoke billowed from it. The sparse observation posts of the arrow towers between the artillery emplacements seemed to have been erected from the clouds.

The deafening sound of artillery was incessant, and the frenzied shelling showed no sign of stopping.

Outside the first fortification, a cluster of wheelbarrows had spread forward amid the smoke of gunfire. Countless soldiers pushed the earth close to the moat like a flood.

The real siege has just begun, and the siege of the Zhou army is to rudely fill the river in the front!

When the crowd of people approached the pennant placed earlier, the artillery on the artillery emplacements stopped one after another, and everything was in order and coordinated with each other.

The crowd filling the river only had to take the opportunity to advance twenty or thirty steps to reach the moat and pour the earth into it. The moat is not a living river, the water flow is very slow, almost stationary, and it is very easy to fill the river, it is just a matter of the amount of earth and rock!

Unexpectedly, at this moment, suddenly there was a black shadow over the city wall, and stones flew out like a hailstorm. The sappers of the Zhou army were very dense, and they immediately screamed everywhere, and from time to time wheelbarrows toppled and soldiers fell.

As soon as this situation appeared, the ministers and generals who were looking at the Chinese army suddenly began to talk in a low voice.

Wang Pu said: "The city defense of Youzhou has been prepared for a long time, and it seems that it is specifically aimed at our artillery!" The opposing garrison's ordnance is not on the walls, but inside the city. Our previous bombardment was mainly aimed at the city walls, and it failed to effectively destroy their equipment. ”

A military general said: "Our artillery will hit far away and bombard the equipment in the city again." ”

Wang Pu frowned and said, "We can't see the city, how do you know where they are?" Moreover, if the enemy army is constantly moving, we have no way of knowing. ”

Everyone paid attention to Guo Shao.

Guo Shao didn't say a word, stood on his horse with his sword, and looked at the situation ahead.

He still had no intention of changing his tactics...... One is to consider the first wave of siege, if it is immediately repulsed, it will affect morale. The opponent used catapults to smash people and horses, and the lethality was worse than that of mortars, and the proportion of battle losses of the Zhou army's engineers was not high, and it was far from being defeated. If you fight, you die! Even if there are casualties, we can't act rashly.

Second, he didn't think of a countermeasure now. Even if you withdraw it, how can you attack again? It is also not a good choice to stop the siege at the beginning.

Guo Shao's heart seemed to have 10,000 animals rushing through at this time, which was very blocked, but he still performed a calm appearance. The tactics formulated by yourself must be carried down even if you are frustrated.

He had to re-examine the "barbarians" of Liao.

Both artillery and tactics are new to this era, but those people do not seem to be so ignorant and dull, they can adapt and understand the new mode of warfare so quickly.

It can be guessed that Xiao Siwen and other Khitans understood Guo Shao's siege technique through the tactical details of the Battle of Jinyang, and it seems that they really understood the tactical logic.

Guo Shao carefully looked at the rocks that kept flying out of the air, it was a parabola...... In fact, by drawing a model diagram, you can roughly calculate the position of the opponent's stone throwing truck. However, the Liao army still had an easy way to deal with it.

Guo Shao immediately thought of two methods: first, as Wang Pu said, constantly moving positions, and the Zhou army outside the city had no way of knowing when they moved. The second is to bring the catapult closer to the city walls. The trajectory of the Zhou army's artillery shells is still a parabola, with angular limitations; There is an area on the inside of the wall that is a dead end.

At this moment, a military general asked, "How should we deal with it?" ”

Obviously, there is no perfect way, but no matter how bad the method is, you must take one out immediately, at least let the soldiers know what they should do!

Guo Shao immediately said: "Order, all the artillery in the artillery battalion immediately increase the elevation angle and let the shells be thrown into the city." ”

Wang Pu replied with a fist in his fist, and immediately asked the military officials to arrange for the herald to pass the military order.

Guo Shao pointed ahead again: "When the first batch of people and horses to fill the river return and the artillery array begins to shell, I ordered the sappers to reorganize the formation, and the two of them are at least a foot apart, and continue to fill the river with a sparse deployment." ”

"Yes."

After a long time, the crowd in the distance gradually receded from the moat. Hundreds of paces away, the Zhou army could also be seen to have paid the price, and the ground outside the moat was in a mess, many wheelbarrows were damaged and thrown there, and there were still many corpses on the ground. More people were brought back from injury.

The Liao army deployed a large number of catapults in the city, and it seemed that they were very well prepared. Maybe they didn't know when the Zhou army would attack Youzhou, but they had already guessed that they were wary of the Zhou army's northern expedition.