The ice and rain in the early spring stopped, and the Han Dynasty's Chinese army set off. When they arrived in Guizhou City, it was the Lantern Festival, and after everyone ate the "floating yuanzi" made of glutinous rice, the New Year was over.

The city of Guizhou is surrounded by mountains and forests. So Zhu Gaoxu ordered to hide part of his troops in the mountains and forests, so that the enemy army could not figure out how many soldiers and horses he had to besiege the city; Then he mobilized the left and right armies to march eastward with great fanfare, moving closer to Liu Ying's department.

After the deployment is completed, only the generals of the Han Dynasty's central army know that the strength of Liu Ying's army will reach more than 40,000 people; There are more than 80,000 people around Guizhou City.

…… After the army arrived in Guizhou City, it was only the third day, but the siege fortifications on all sides had begun to take shape.

The circumference of the city wall of Guizhou is about eight or nine miles, but the siege fortifications are seven hundred steps away from the city wall, so it is more than ten miles long.

The structure of the fortifications is not complicated, a trench, rammed earth into a waist wall, and then now people are building a fence, using bamboo and wood to build on the earthen waist wall; Every hundred paces, a camp gate, an arrow tower, and a watchtower were to be built.

In the distance, craftsmen assembling return cannons and catapults are busy, and progress is underway in the process of cutting wood and building ladders.

Before coming to Guizhou, Zhu Gaoxu knew that he was going to attack the city. The siege required a large number of arrows, ammunition, and tools, so it was not possible to bring heavy artillery to avoid slowing down the march. It will be a while before Qu Neng will transport heavy artillery from Chongqing Prefecture.

"Boom!" A loud cannon fire was heard in the distance, and some of the sergeants straightened up and turned their heads to look into the distance. Soon the general's shouting and scolding came: "Hurry up and work!" ”

While running his horse, Zhu Gaoxu also looked in the direction where the sound of artillery came from. There was white smoke in one place on the city wall, and it was supposed to be there that the cannon was fired. However, it had little effect, and even the Hongwu cannon, which had the longest range, could not pose much threat to targets a mile and a half away.

The fortifications of the Han army were dusty everywhere. In a trance, Zhu Gaoxu felt that people were building a river dam or building the foundation of a palace city. And the sporadic cannon sounds did not add much to the atmosphere of the battlefield, after all, in Zhu Gaoxu's experience, the construction site would also bomb the mountain.

Zhu Gaoxu reined in his horse and when he retracted his gaze, he saw that many soldiers nearby were looking sideways at him; With the supervision of the generals, the brothers did not stop their work.

However, there was also a man who looked at a wooden stake in front of him very intently, and didn't notice Zhu Gaoxu at all. "Huh......" the man opened his mouth and shouted, swinging his hammer and smashing it on the stake with a "clang". Anyone who does this kind of work screams, and it is said to alleviate internal injuries caused by some huge shocks.

It was a cold spring, but the man's shirt was open, sweat flowing on his black and yellow chest muscles, glistening in the bright sun.

Zhu Gaoxu looked at the faces one by one, thinking that many of them would die in the next few days, and he felt faintly uncomfortable while thinking about which people would die. The ancients Yun Ci did not command the army, which is probably the reason.

He not only had to think about how many people would die in the siege, but also how much time Liu Ying and Sheng Yong could drag on on their respective battlefields! On the battlefield, whether time or human life is important is a difficult problem to solve.

Zhu Gaoxu raised his head again and squinted at the dazzling sun above his head.

A small bird is in the sky, flying towards Guizhou City. The gray-blue sky is too vast and the eyes are too dazzling, and if you are not careful, the bird is really difficult to see.

At this moment, a horse bark was heard ...... neigh. In the sound of horses' hooves, a knight grabbed his mount, flipped off his horse, and he stepped forward and hugged his fists and said: "Lord Wang, the tunbao within a radius of twenty miles has been sent to take a look, and almost all the enemy soldiers have withdrawn!" ”

Zhu Gaoxu nodded lightly, and said in his heart: The defenders of Guizhou City are insufficient, and they are trying to shrink the defense line as much as possible.

The knight said, "But only the Qingyan Tun in the south has not been withdrawn, and it has been fortified behind closed doors and fired arrows at our scouts. ”

"Got it." Zhu Gaoxu waved his hand.

The knight bowed and returned to his mount.

Zhu Gaoxu looked at the almost invisible bird in the sky above the city, and his imagination was stimulated: maybe the bird was a pigeon, raised in the city of Guizhou; The news from the outside was sent to Qingyantun, and then the news was tied to the pigeon's leg, and when it was released, the pigeon would return to Guizhou City automatically as if it had been programmed.

This is not surprising, even people, as long as they are instilled with the process of loyalty and filial piety, it is difficult for people to resist. Therefore, as long as there is still a little way to live, even if they are forced to flee to the mountains and forests to be savages, they are rarely willing to take up righteousness.

Zhu Gaoxu immediately turned his head, and when he saw Zhao Ping riding a horse on the side, he said: "Zhao Ping, you transfer the people of the headquarters and pull out Qingyantun!" ”

Zhao Ping didn't ask the reason at all, hugged his fists and said: "The last general will be ordered!" ”

He has been promoted to the left deputy general of the Han Dynasty's army, this young man who failed the imperial examination and worked as a horseman for Zhu Gaoxu at first, his status has climbed very quickly. However, even Liu Ying, the official of the hundred households who was captured in the "Battle of Jingyan", can be the governor, and there is nothing wrong with the groom being the deputy general.

Zhu Gaoxu thought of Zhao Ping's background and current official position, and couldn't help but say again: "By the way, I asked you to destroy Qingyantun, because Qingyantun is very likely to be the enemy's stronghold for delivering news. So many tunforts within a radius of twenty miles have been withdrawn, but Qingyantun is the only one left, which may not be accidental. ”

Zhao Ping bowed, made a sound of "driving", turned the horse's head and left.

The city tower and city wall in the distance, with flags fluttering and swords and guns standing on it. Zhu Gaoxu estimated that the defenders were only 20,000 to 30,000 people, which is not obvious...... There are several military households in Guizhou, and excluding Gu Chengbu, who besieged Kunming, the number of defenders can be roughly estimated.

…… Gu Cheng, the marquis of Zhenyuan, who is in his seventies, has a total of eight sons. When Gu Cheng surrendered to the Yan Mansion in Beiping, Emperor Jianwen killed four of his sons, including the eldest son. The remaining four sons were all officials on the side of the Guizhou Dusi, and after the punishment of the Jianwen court at that time, they couldn't take care of the people who were so far away, so they survived.

Therefore, Zhu Gaoxu speculated that the main general of the defenders of Guizhou City may be Gu Cheng's second son Gu Yong.

Zhu Gaoxu didn't know anything about Gu Cheng's son, and he wasn't even sure whether Gu Yong was a Guizhou defender.

Gu Cheng had guarded Guizhou for many years before the "Battle of Jingyan", and Yongle Chu continued to preside over the military administration of Guizhou. This kind of nobleman who has always been a feudal official in the same place, and it is easy for local soldiers to become personally dependent on him. So before Gao Chi ascended the throne last year, Gu Chengcheng dared to openly intercept the guards of the Han Palace.

Even if the fine work of the Han Wangfu has to pass through Guizhou, it is also very careful, and it will be detoured if it can be detoured.

So Zhu Gaoxu had no way to start in advance and found the internal response in Guizhou City; I don't even have much information about Guizhou. There are no more people like Huayang Junwang and Wan Quan in Guizhou City...... Some strategies are indeed unattainable, and can only be done by chance, and have little to do with the manager's resourcefulness.

How to attack Guizhou City now? Zhu Gaoxu has been planning for a long time, and he has thought of many ways.

The city gate is a relatively easy place to break, but the defenders of Guizhou are clearly defending it, and the city gate may be blocked by stones; Even if it broke the gate of the Moon City, it was not easy for the army to cross the stone and enter, and it had to become a turtle in the urn in the Moon City, and was besieged by the enemy troops on the four walls.

Digging tunnels to seal gunpowder inside and blowing up the city walls, Zhu Gaoxu also considered it. But is the foundation of Guizhou City dirt or rock? He didn't know. It's dirt, and it takes a long time to dig the tunnel.

After the city wall was blown up, the black fire powder was not explosives after all, and the countless stones and a large amount of rammed earth at the bottom of the Guizhou city wall would definitely be piled up in the gap. The Ming army, which had long been accustomed to gunpowder, also knew what was going on, and then the two sides would continue to consume troops in the impassable gap...... If the defenders of Guizhou City were not twenty or thirty thousand, but two or three hundred thousand, Zhu Gaoxu might try to blow up the city wall.

The important town of the Ming Dynasty, the rammed earth city wall, usually as thick as 20 meters at the bottom, holding a black fire medicine weapon, what can I do?

The only way Zhu Gaoxu can think of at present is to consume the defenders!

It's not that he is not in a hurry, but he only thinks of this way, which makes him feel more aware of current affairs.

As soon as he came up, he climbed and attacked the city, which Zhu Gaoxu thought was an unwise method. Luck may work, but most of the time it's a waste of troops.

Zhu Gaoxu can easily think that at the beginning of the battle, the organization, physical strength, and weapon preparation of the defenders were very sufficient; And the defenders have a buffer of a wall more than two feet high, and there will be no danger of the collapse of the field queue.

However, any strong fortification must also be defended by men; Otherwise, the two-zhang high city wall can't be stopped at all, even if it is twenty zhang high, there is a way to climb it!

I am afraid that only when the defenders are exhausted, under-manned, and demoralized will the time come for a deadly assault!

The circumference of the city wall in Guizhou is about eight or nine miles, which is about more than 4,000 meters.

On an average distance of five meters on the city wall, if one enemy soldier can be killed or one enemy soldier incapacitated in one day; That would consume about a thousand defenders per day.

If this can be achieved. Ten days later, the strength of the 20,000 or 30,000 defenders will be consumed, and they will be physically exhausted; At this time, the possibility of weakness and omission in a certain place on the nearly 10-mile-long city defense line increases. The Han army seized the fighter and attacked the city, and it was very likely to find a breakthrough.

The key point is, what method is used to consume it? How many lives to exchange for the enemy's strength! It also includes the depletion of morale and confidence on both sides.

…… However, now Gu Cheng under Kunming City will also face the same problem, and the opponent who wants to die is Sheng Yong.

Even Gu Cheng didn't come back to rescue Guizhou, obviously wanting to play ruthlessly. Zhu Gaoxu has no reason to admit it, he has to bet with Gu Cheng! Everything is possible, and if you are willing to gamble and lose, it depends on who can't bear it first.