Chapter 31: Repairing the City

"When, when, when." Yuan Shizhong gave the order to retreat.

The whole army began to retreat. Countless soldiers retreated from under Kaifeng City as if the tide was receding.

It's not that Yuan Shizhong is afraid of accidental injury, but he knows that in this battle, the people in the city have been exhausted.

The siege began in the morning and lasted until the afternoon, without even eating lunch, although this siege battle was easier than face-to-face fighting. However, in a dangerous environment, people tighten their nerves, and the consumption of the body is not small.

Therefore, unless a new group of people continues to attack, the results of the attack will not be too great, and Hu Quede's retreat has also boosted morale, and most of them are forced by the warlords. Seeing that Hu Quede could retreat, why couldn't they retreat?

Therefore, Yuan Shizhong simply let all these people retreat.

He also wanted to see if Zhang Xuan's new method was useful.

Seeing that the rebels retreated like a tide, Chen Yongfu silently breathed a sigh of relief. At this moment, there was a sudden loud noise, and Chen Yongfu even felt a strong force hit his leg from the ground, and for a while he had a feeling of unsteady standing.

"What's going on?" Chen Yongfu shouted.

The soldiers, who were originally a little panicked, calmed down when they heard Chen Yongfu's shouting.

"My lord, the thieves put gunpowder under the city and blew a big hole in the city wall." Someone reported to Chen Yongfu.

Chen Yongfu was taken aback, and then risked being shot and killed, and had him fall from the top of the city to see the extent of the destruction of the city walls. He was shocked when he saw it.

This section of the city wall, originally above the head of the city, fell a lot of ground because of artillery bombardment. But at this moment, at the foot of the city wall, a big hole was opened, and this big hole was actually several zhang wide, more than one zhang deep, and more than one zhang high. It can even be said that in this section of the city wall, one or two zhang underground have been hollowed out, and the upper one or so zhang has fallen, and only one or two zhang in the middle is still preserved.

"How can this be?" Chen Yongfu's face was gloomy and he couldn't stop thinking.

He didn't care about this section of the wall.

The solidity of the Kaifeng city wall is definitely not in vain. The city wall is several feet thick, and such a small destruction cannot shake the foundation at all. But what he feared was this new means of siege. Once it proves to be effective, I am afraid that the thieves will use this siege method on a large scale.

But the Kaifeng city wall can withstand several blasts.

Once, twice, three times?

Chen Yongfu didn't know, but he knew that if he didn't think about it, this city wall would not last for ten days.

But is the solution so easy to think of?

Just when Chen Yongfu felt that the matter was extremely urgent, he wanted to rise immediately

When the name is reported.

In Xiao Yuan's camp, Zhang Xuan is also summing up experience.

Yuan Shizhong, sitting on the head, Zhang Xuan on the side, and Hu Quede standing in the middle. The details of the placement of gunpowder will be explained one by one.

Zhang Xuan said: "I will reward you with a hundred taels of silver." Promoted to 100 households. ”

Hu Quede was overjoyed and said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." "Hu Quede is in the camp, and he does not have any official position, although he is favored because he has a skill in his hand, but he still does not have an official title on his body, don't underestimate - the degree of official obsession of the Chinese. Even if he can become a civil servant now, he still thinks it is a great thing in many places, not to mention that Hu Quede is a tomb robber and a real ninth-rate character.

Zhang Xuan said: "You immediately select people from the whole army, and what you do is to study how to blow up the city with the least amount of gunpowder, and how to blow up the city with gunpowder, and teach the people below." ”

Hu Quede hesitated slightly and said, "Yes." ”

Zhang Xuan said: "You go." ”

"Yes." Hu Quede said, and immediately bowed down and retreated.

"Brother Xian can think of using this method of collapse to attack." Yuan Shizhong said.

Zhang Xuan said: "Exactly, there is enough gunpowder, I don't believe it, I can't open this Kaifeng City." ”

Yuan Shizhong said: "The problem is enough gunpowder? This method of collapse is too gunpowder-intensive, and it costs a thousand catties at a time. Coupled with the gunpowder that supports the artillery, I am afraid that the one or two thousand catties needed for a siege will not be able to go down, but the gunpowder in the camp may not be able to support it for that long. ”

Zhang Xuan was stunned for a while.

Shortage of gunpowder? Zhang Xuan really didn't think about this question.

He subconsciously thought, is the black fire-medicine a precious material? But think about it carefully, this is the result of his thinking in later generations, in later generations, this gunpowder can only be used to set off firecrackers, not even firecrackers, it is really useless, the raw materials are also simple, not to mention thousands of catties, ten thousand catties, it is dozens of tons, it is not too difficult.

But in this era of material scarcity.

That's really the problem.

Zhang Xuan has been coming to this era for a while. In modern people's minds, gunpowder is nothing more than a mixture of charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur. But after Zhang Xuan came to this era, he found that gunpowder had a lot of knocks on the door. Not to mention how to supply the most saltpeter among the gunpowder, just this charcoal, the high-quality gunpowder is made of willow charcoal.

Although Zhang Xuan didn't know, what was the difference between this willow charcoal and other charcoal. But these difficulties are only on the raw materials.

Not to mention that there are all kinds of exquisiteness in the production, especially in the military gunpowder, which is even more exquisite, and it is purely artificial, and the efficiency can be imagined.

It's not surprising that gunpowder will be in short supply. On the contrary, it is an extremely normal thing.

Zhang Xuan thought for a while and said: "The army has just broken through Zuo Liangyu and seized a lot of things, thinking that there should be a lot of gunpowder, I will write to ask if I can transfer some of it." However, the production of gunpowder cannot be stopped, after all, we cannot rely on seizures to get by. ”

Yuan Shizhong said: "I will supervise the following to speed up the production of gunpowder, but in the camp Cao Ying, I am afraid that I will still have the face of the virtuous brother." ”

"Report, the city head is moving." A herald said.

"What's going on?" Yuan Shizhong asked.

"The officers and troops went out to repair the city walls."

Yuan Shizhong and Zhang Xuan glanced at each other and decided to send someone to take a look, but this was the beginning of June, almost dim and moonless, and the visibility at night was quite low.

In the night, rows of torches swayed in the darkness, and hundreds of torches kept jumping in the darkness.

"Phew." Luo Dai stationed his horse in the place where the day sun stood in the formation, and he could see clearly from this distance, what was going on in Kaifeng City.

It's repairing the walls.

There was something like a wheel on the top of the city wall, which lowered the clumps of mud and was used by craftsmen to fill the gaps in the city walls, and there were hundreds of soldiers outside these craftsmen, who seemed to have antlers to resist horses or something, and there were also campfires not far away, illuminating a large space under the city.

Luo Dai looked at it for a while and said, "Let's go." ”

"Brother Luo." Yuan Shimin said: "Aren't we going to fight? Yuan Shimin was a little strange, this Luo Dai has always been fierce and rushing, and when he saw the enemy, he never said anything about letting go, how did he change his personality today.

Luo Dai pointed to the opposite firelight with his horsewhip and said, "We can only see the antlers in the place where the fire shines, and reject the horse." But where there is no campfire to illuminate, if a few tripwires are arranged, we will be miserable, and besides, I dare say, all the artillery at the head of the city is now ready for fire. rushed forward and didn't know how to die. ”

"If you rush up again, will you be able to stop them from repairing the city?" Luo Dai said: "The camp is not close to here, as soon as we rush them back, when we go back, they will go down to the city, will we run back and forth?" Since you can't stop it, you just have to go up and report back. ”

"Is it up to them to build the city like this?" Yuan Shimin said with some resentment.

"Is this city repaired when he says it's repaired?" Luo Dai snorted coldly and said: "When Kaifeng City was built on the Avenue, this soil was steamed three times and boiled, and then it was tamped with layers of rammed, and then the outer bread bricks were not as hard as iron and stone, but it was not much worse. It was hollowed out in a few moments, and if they wanted to fix it, let them fix it. ”

Yuan Shimin suddenly realized how this temporarily repaired city wall could be compared with the previous city wall.

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