How Zhu Jin wants to unite the feudal towns against Zhu Wen, Zhang Yan doesn't know, now he has an idea in his heart, that is, to break through Shaanzhou City and kill Chang Xingru.

Of course, Zhang Yan did not go to the expedition in person, after all, there was still Zhu Wen, the ancestor of Luoyang, to serve, and the 30,000 army was taken by his most trusted generals.

In his opinion, these 30,000 troops, plus the remaining 7,000 remnants of the previous army, should be enough.

The general who commanded the 37,000-strong army was surnamed Liu, named Liu Fangning, who was thirty-eight years old this Chinese New Year's Eve, and was a subordinate of Zhang Yan in the early years, and won his trust.

Zhang Yan's ability to get to this day, in addition to his borrowing of external forces, also has a lot to do with the bloody battles fought by this subordinate with him.

"General Liu, why haven't you started the siege yet? The more it drags on, the more disadvantageous it will be for our army? ”

Seeing that General Liu had not yet started the siege, Zhang Jizuo was a little puzzled.

"Young marshal, don't worry, we need to make siege equipment, otherwise how to attack this Shaanzhou City?" General Liu stood on a hillside near the big camp and looked at the city of Shaanzhou not far away.

The city of Shaanzhou is surrounded by mountains to the south, the Yellow River to the north, and Qiuzhou to the west, so the Heyang army can only attack from the east if they want to attack Shaanzhou.

There is only one city gate in the east of Shaanzhou, and the official road passes through the city. However, at this time, there were no pedestrians on the official road, and the war was imminent, so even the business travelers chose to take ships from the Yellow River to bypass Shaanzhou. To the south are mountains, the roads are steep, and there are many strong people, so business travelers naturally do not go around from the south.

The nearly 40,000 troops in Heyang were stationed at the foot of a mountain ten miles east of Shaanzhou City, and the camp was built against the mountain. The scale of the camp of 30,000 people is still a bit large, and at a glance, the tents stretch endlessly, which is very spectacular.

"General Liu, there is a cavalry in this Shaanxi, which is quite powerful, and I am worried that the cavalry of the people of Shaanzhou will sneak attack our grain route." Zhang Jizuo, who suffered the loss of the Shaanzhou cavalry, had a shadow on the Shaanzhou cavalry.

Liu Fangning smiled, "The young marshal is too worried, our grain and grass are transported from Luoyang by boat, don't worry about the threat of cavalry in Shaanzhou, unless they can go into the water." ”

Saying that, Liu Fangning carefully observed the city defense of Shaanzhou, and found that there were many soldiers in the city, and the moat was obviously widened, which showed that Chang Xingru had long known that they would come to attack Shaanzhou.

Thinking that because of the personal grievances between Zhu Youwen and Shaanzhou, Heyang would make a big contribution, and General Liu was also thinking about whether it was worth it. TV debut

However, Liu Fangning didn't think about it so much, now that the army has arrived in Shaanzhou, if he retreats without a fight, then Heyang will completely become a joke in the Tang Dynasty.

After a few days of preparation, Liu Fangning finally gave the order to attack the city.

The heavy drums sounded, making the defenders in Shaanzhou City start to get nervous. At this time, most of the people in the city fled to the countryside, where did they dare to stay in this dangerous place.

However, this facilitated the defense of the defenders, and Chang Xingru directly asked people to demolish the house in an area not far behind the city wall, and built four big guys on the flat ground, which were the Tiance cannons provided by the imperial court.

However, it is not a boulder that is fired, after all, in defensive combat, the effect of firing a boulder is really good, and it is used to launch a gunpowder canister. But it won't be used for the time being, this is a big killer, how can it be exposed too early.

In the watchtower, which was much higher than the city wall, the sentinels were relaying the movements of the enemy forces outside the city from time to time.

"Three hundred and fifty steps!"

"Three hundred steps!"

"Two hundred and seventy steps!"

"Crossbowmen ready!"

"Put!"

At the command of the general, a thousand crossbowmen in the city pulled the crossbow machine, and a thousand sharp arrows were fired in a volley.

These thousand crossbows were naturally provided by the imperial court, in order to allow Chang Xingru to hold Shaanzhou.

In normal combat, crossbows are actually a little unsuitable.

The reason is very simple, the rate of fire is too slow, maybe a crossbow shoots only one arrow, and an ordinary bow has already shot three or four, which should be the biggest disadvantage of the crossbow.

The second is the weight, after all, the weight of a crossbow is much larger than that of a normal bow.

However, crossbows are not useless, otherwise even the Tang Army, which despises bows and crossbows, still maintains a certain proportion of crossbowmen.

The reason why the Tang Dynasty did not attach importance to bows and crossbows was that the generals of the Tang Dynasty often pinned their hopes of victory on short-handed decisive battles, and did not seem to have much hope for the use of long-range weapons to restrain the cavalry rush.

Of course, this is talking about the situation of the regular troops directly under the Tang Dynasty, and it is the early Tang Dynasty and the prosperous Tang Dynasty.

In large-scale siege and defensive battles, the superiority of the crossbowman is manifested.

Not to mention the siege, it is powerful and has wide coverage.

And defense, because it is easy to operate, does not require a strong man, even a woman to operate.

This is also the reason why after the Anshi Rebellion, the status of Jianghuai crossbowmen rose sharply, which directly aroused the jealousy of the imperial court.

And the thousand crossbowmen here are not regular Shaanzhou soldiers, but unity soldiers.

Although the speed of the bow and crossbow is slow, each salvo is extremely powerful, and it can evenly cover a considerable area, causing no small amount of damage.

For a while, the Heyang soldiers who were besieging the city were overturned on their backs by the rain of arrows that appeared from time to time, and they fell to the ground one after another.

"What's going on? Why are there so many bows and crossbows in Shaanzhou? ”

Seeing that his soldiers were shot on their backs, Liu Fangning was also a little uncalm, which was a bit unexpected to him.

"General Liu, what now?" Zhang Jizuo asked. TV updates the fastest //

"Keep attacking!"

Today's attack is to test the strength of Shaanzhou, but I didn't expect to try out such a big killer weapon at the beginning.

I didn't expect that there were so many crossbows in Shaanzhou City, if this was the case, the attack behind would be carefully guarded.

Don't look at the Ha Duong army, which suffered thousands of casualties at the beginning, but the offensive of the Ha Duong army continued.

Although this is just a temptation, the soldiers below don't think so, if they can attack Shaanzhou City, the credit is enough for them to be promoted several levels in a row and change their fate. Therefore, the siege battle on the first day was fierce.

The battle lasted from morning to noon, and on several occasions in between, the Heyang soldiers attacked the tower. The anxious Li Fan asked for support several times, but Chang Xingru had no choice but to ask another forbidden general to let the Tiance cannon or the heaven-shaking thunder counterattack, but he was refused.

The reason is that the Heyang army is only trying to attack the city, and it can't expose all the hole cards at the beginning.

Chang Xingru also knew this, but he couldn't stand the annoyance below, so he could only come over and ask tentatively.

Chang Xingru, who asked for help to no avail, asked Chang Xingyong to go with 2,000 united soldiers to reinforce the defense of the city wall, and the battle between the two sides lasted until noon, and many corpses were piled up inside and outside the city wall.

Seeing that Liu Fangning, who could not break through Shaanzhou in one go, decisively ordered the troops to be withdrawn.

Although the loss of more than 3,000 troops on the first day of siege was this, Liu Fangning tested a lot of hole cards in Shaanzhou, and he gained a lot.

So on the third day, another 10,000 Heyang troops pushed the carts blocked by wooden planks and began to attack the city wall of Shaanzhou.

() I want to talk about "Rebirth of Tang Zhongxing" with more like-minded people, and pay attention to "excellent reading literature" on WeChat, talk about life, and find confidants~