"Your Highness, this rebel army is too daring. I have attacked my Qipanguan many times before, but now on the other hand, they have been cowering in the city, not daring to come out. ”

At this time, Li Ye was looking at the county seat of Xixian County under the mountain on the top of Dingjun Mountain, and Peng He next to him couldn't help but mock the rebels in the city below the mountain.

The Dingjun Mountain where Li Ye is located is naturally the place where Huang Zhong killed Xiahou Yuan in the first place, standing here, Li Ye can't help but think of the battle of Dingjun Mountain hundreds of years ago.

At that time, Liu Bei occupied the land of Shu, and even though he had united with Sun Quan and defeated Cao Cao at Chibi before, his strength was still the weakest of the three. Although Shu is in the land, the terrain is closed, and there is no forward position. And it was Huang Zhong who beheaded Xiahou Yuan and won the Battle of Dingjun Mountain, which allowed Liu Bei to occupy Hanzhong, and the situation of the Three Kingdoms was able to appear.

Huang Zhong could have won the crucial Battle of Dingjun Mountain here, but what about him? As long as he takes Xixian, Xingyuan Mansion is also in his pocket.

At this time, the coalition army led by Li Ye can be said to have surrounded the rebel regiments, the Tiandang Mountain in the north is the Dongchuan Army led by Zhang Shi'an 5,000 soldiers and horses, the Dingjun Mountain under his feet is the right wing of the Tiance Army stationed, and Yangping Pass is where his personal soldiers and logistics troops are stationed.

Therefore, at present, there is only one road in front of the rebels in Xixian County, and the commanding heights around Xixian County are occupied by Li Ye's troops.

The terrain of Xixian County, standing on Dingjun Mountain, can be seen clearly, is a bell mouth terrain, and the key is Yangping Pass, which can be said to guard the Golden Bull Road. Dingjun Mountain and Tiandang Mountain in the south are the commanding heights of the north and south of Xixian County, and they form horns with Yangping Pass.

Dingjun Mountain, Tiandang Mountain and Yangping Pass are the western gateway of the Hanzhong Basin, the west controls the Sichuan-Shaanxi key path, and the south entrance of the Chencang Ancient Road in the north, which is an important military barrier to control the Qin, Shu and Chencang Road south entrance in ancient times and ensure the safety of the Hanzhong Basin.

It's a pity that such an important place was given up by Pang Cong, and I don't know if he is really stupid or pretending to be stupid.

After giving up a few places, Pang Jun, who was trapped in Xixian, never chose to retreat, because he knew that if he retreated, he could only retreat to Xingyuan Fucheng. At that time, let alone defending Xingyuan Mansion, maybe even the road for Lu Yanhong and others to come back would have to be cut off, so Pang Congcai gritted his teeth and stuck to Xixian, waiting for Lu Yanhong to lead the army to help.

Deputy Commander Peng said the same, but at this time, the rebels did not dare to leave the city. If he stays here, we won't be able to go to Xingyuan Mansion; If he leaves the city, maybe he will not escape back to Xingyuanfu City, and he will be overtaken by our cavalry. Xu Shiren said with a smile.

The jurisdiction of Xingyuan Mansion is mainly the Hanzhong Plain, and in this kind of place, it is simply the world of cavalry. The rebels don't have much cavalry, especially the rebels in the city in front of them, the cavalry is even more pitiful, if they are caught up by the cavalry of the Tiance Army during the retreat, the outcome can be imagined.

Pang Cong may also be aware of this, so he would rather stick to Xixiang than go out of the city and retreat to Xingyuan Fufu.

"But the rebels only have a few thousand remnants, and we now have tens of thousands of troops in our hands, and we have the help of Tianhuo, can't we take this small county town?" Peng He was a little anxious.

"It's naturally no problem to take this county seat, but His Highness should have other plans." Li Yingxu pointed out.

Li Ye nodded, and said with a faint smile, "Li Senjun guessed quite right." If it's just a few thousand remnants of soldiers, why is this king spending it here? ”

"Does Your Highness want to wait for Lu Yanhong to come with reinforcements, and then annihilate them in one fell swoop?" Liu Qi on the side said tentatively.

"That's right."

As soon as Li Ye finished speaking, he found that Liu Qi, Zhang Shi'an, Peng He and others looked a little worried, after all, Lu Yanhong was the elite of the rebels, if he really waited for him to arrive, his side would be at a disadvantage, and the victory or defeat would be unknown at that time.

Li Ye didn't explain too much, but asked Qingyangzi on the side, "Yuwen Shaocheng, how is the preparation of the Ordnance Division?" ”

"Returning to Your Highness, it has been prepared, twenty trebuchets have been assembled, all of them can fire fire... Skyfire. The others are also well prepared, and they can be put into siege operations as soon as His Highness gives an order. Qingyangzi hurriedly replied.

The Yuwen Shaocheng in Li Ye's mouth is Qingyangzi, but for this Taoist priest, most of the royal mansion and Tiance army only know Qingyangzi's Taoist name, but they don't know Qingyangzi's own life. Qingyangzi's surname was a big surname in the late Sui and early Tang dynasties, but in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, it was relatively rare.

Qingyangzi's secular name is Yuwenqing, but not many people know his name.

"Assembled so quickly?" Hearing this news, Li Ye was a little surprised, "In that case, take some of it tomorrow and use it, urge Lu Yanhong to hurry up, and test the power of the trebuchet by the way." ”

Originally, he had only brought a trebuchet with him, because he didn't think he had much chance of using it. But if he wanted to annihilate Lu Yanhong's department, a trebuchet would definitely not work, so he ordered the Ordnance Department to dismantle the trebuchet and then transport it to Yangpingguan to assemble.

With these trebuchets, plus those rockets and earth-shaking thunder, in the later battles, he can use weapons to weaken the numerical advantage of the rebels, so that it is possible to defeat Lu Yanhongbu.

Seeing that Li Ye pinned his hopes on Tianhuo, everyone suddenly realized, but they were also a little worried. But Li Ye has already made a decision, and it is useless for them to persuade him.

Soon everyone followed Li Ye and walked forward, Li Ye did not come to this Dingjun Mountain to see Xixiang City, but to see the tomb of Marquis Wu. If you don't come here to Dingjun Mountain to see that legendary person, no matter how you come to see it, it's a bit unreasonable.

In the early morning, Pang Cong was still asleep when he was woken up by the deafening sound of drums, followed by a rapid knock on the door. Wearing armor, he came to the courtyard with a panicked expression, asked his panicked subordinates, and couldn't help asking, "What's the matter?" Where does the drum sound come from? ”

"General, is the enemy army outside the city assembling as if they are going to attack the city?"

"Siege?" Hearing this news, Pang Cong was immediately anxious, this Lu Yanhong's reinforcements had not yet arrived, and the Tiance army would attack the city, which was not good news, and immediately ordered, "Prepare horses for this general." ”

Just when Pang Cong hurriedly came to the city tower, Yang Shouzhong was already standing on the city tower, but when he saw Pang Cong coming in a hurry, he turned his head to the other side and didn't even say hello.

Not long ago, the two of them had a quarrel because of some problems, if it weren't for the Tiance Army occupying Tiandang Mountain and Dingjun Mountain one after another, so that Yang Shouzhong had some, otherwise he would have retreated a long time ago, and would he wait here to die?

"What the hell is going on?" Regarding Yang Shouzhong's attitude, Pang Cong couldn't take care of it at this time, and he was also a little puzzled when he saw the Tiance army sparsely pulled in the open space outside the city.

A few hundred paces in front of them, there were two huge trebuchets, which were not quite the same as the ones they had made before, but they could still be seen to be trebuchets. Compared to their previous trebuchets, this trebuchet was bigger and taller.

The reason why he was puzzled was because the imperial army did not look like a siege. Although there are trebuchets, there are only two of them, and there are no ladders to be seen, and even the army is very small. If it weren't for the cavalry watching from the side, he would have wanted to lead his army out of the city to destroy these trebuchets.

"I don't know, early in the morning, these trebuchets all appeared outside, and then they kept beating the drums, and there was no other movement." The guard next to him said, his face was also puzzled, and he didn't understand what the enemy army outside the city wanted to do.

Also puzzled are the other people around Li Ye behind the trebuchet, except for Li Ke and Qingyangzi, the others also don't understand Li Ye's thoughts. Is this a siege or no siege?

Li Ye didn't explain, but looked at the trebuchet that was being prepared in the distance.

Or the trebuchet, a bit off the grade, after all, this trebuchet has its own name, called 'Tiance Cannon', the name sounds weird, but this is the name Li Ye himself took, although he also thinks it doesn't sound good, but pay attention to using it.

It is said that it is called artillery, but in fact it has little to do with artillery, and it may be that the projection of gunpowder is the only thing in common between the two. Strictly speaking, the Tiance Cannon is a trebuchet, a trebuchet that can shoot gunpowder, and its production was made by Li Ye according to the Ordnance Department according to the return cannon.

The return cannon is actually not complicated, it is to use the principle of leverage to launch the boulder, of course, the Tiance cannon made by Li Ye can not only fire the boulder, but also fire a clay pot filled with gunpowder.

According to the range of the previous test, if you launch a boulder, you can launch a boulder of up to 100 catties, and of course the range is less than 60 steps. As for firing a gunpowder canister, the firing range of about 150 steps is about 30 catties, 20 catties can reach 220 to 250 steps, and firing a fifteen catties of gunpowder canisters is about 210 to 230 steps.

In terms of effect, it is undoubtedly the fifteen-pound and twenty-pound gunpowder canisters that are the best, both in terms of power and range. Therefore, the gunpowder canisters used by the Shenji Battalion for the firing of Tiance cannons are based on these two standards.

Of course, not all the cans were gunpowder, and there were also some ceramic pieces, rotten iron pieces, etc., but the final weight was fifteen or twenty catties per can.

For these gunpowder canisters, they are specially made, and they are packed in bamboo baskets when transported, so as to keep them dry and avoid breaking. The transportation is not the responsibility of the rear compartment, but the transportation of the Shenji Battalion's own transport troops, in addition to secrecy, but also to prevent accidents.

With Li Ye nodding, the order was quickly conveyed to the Shenji Battalion. Then the soldiers and people of the Shenji Battalion next to the two trebuchets quickly placed two boulders weighing dozens of catties next to the firing position of the Tiance cannon, which was used to correct the distance.

After the first round of launches, gunpowder canisters will be used in the second round. Although the power of the boulder is not small, it is still a little worse than gunpowder!

As Long Zhi, who was standing on the side of the Tiance cannon, waved a small red flag and gave the order, the loading and adjusting the firing angle were quickly completed.

"Ready!"

"Put!"

With Ryuji's order, the two boulders instantly rose into the air, rolling in the air and flying towards the target!

(End of chapter)