By the afternoon, the Liang army had pushed more than 20 trebuchets to the simple trench outside the east city and formed a 300-step trebuchet position, and transported the collected stones one after another.

Although the defenders were still able to attack from the other three gates, the Liang army had arranged elite infantry on both flanks of the trebuchet position, and there were still large groups of elite cavalry in the rear, waiting for the defenders to leave the city and they could outflank them.

If the defenders go out of the city at this time, they really have no chance of winning except for increasing attrition.

In the trebuchet position of the Liang army, more than 2,000 people were divided into more than 20 groups, almost every 100 people operated a trebuchet, and soon began to attack Xichuan City.

This group of civilians recruited auxiliary soldiers from the hinterland of the Liang State to operate trebuchets more accurately than imagined, and for every four or five stone bullets thrown, one could hit the city wall.

Stone bullets whistled overhead, or smashed into the shallow trench in front of the city wall, but every time he hit the city wall from the front, Han Qian could feel the city wall shaking under his feet when he stood under the two rows of wooden fences.

And once it was smashed into the wall, the thin battlement wall collapsed as soon as it was smashed, and the bricks and stones splashed everywhere, and "bang" smashed on the low fence wall in front of the barracks, which made people tremble when they heard it.

Occasionally, stone bullets would be smashed directly on the barracks at the head of the city.

Although Han Qian had built these arsenals as strong as possible, the whole stone bullet weighing two or three hundred catties was thrown from a distance of four hundred paces, and the momentum was terrifying.

When the barracks are hit, you can hear the sound of the wooden fence breaking overhead, and then most of them will collapse with it. The only fortunate thing was that the momentum of the stone bullets was removed by the relatively sturdy wooden roof of the fence, and even if the barracks built mainly of fence wood collapsed, it would not hurt many people.

Fearful and frightened in the barn, he hid for a long time, and when twilight was approaching, the Liang army stopped its offensive for a day.

Han Qian took the telescope and looked out of the city, and Liang Jun began to replace the pole of the trebuchet.

Although it was not yet dark at such a close distance, and the others could even faintly see the faces of the Liang army generals four hundred paces away, Han Qian was more interested in observing the cracking degree of these catapult poles as they continued to fire fifty or sixty times.

Hundreds of people suddenly pulled one end, and then threw the stone projectile tied to the rod at the longer end through the action of the force arm; In this process, the pins are bound to withstand great impact forces.

Although the rod is made thicker to withstand greater impact, the rod is thick and clumsy, in addition to poor elasticity, unfavorable power accumulation, which will limit the range, and at the same time requires more manpower to operate, which is a big taboo.

The trebuchet structure is not complicated, but the creation of lighter, tougher and more resilient poles is the key to technology.

Obviously, the Liang army has been fighting in the south and north over the years, and the manufacturing technology of the catapult is stronger than that of the Chu army.

Han Qian looked out from the mouth of the broken battlement wall again, and saw that the front of the city wall had been smashed out of shallow pits and shocking cracks, and the rammed earth had fallen on the root of the city wall in large swaths. Walking down the city wall, after the front of the city wall was bombarded for a small half a day, there were also cobweb-like cracks on the back......

At this time, Yang En also brought more than 100 craftsmen and workers, carrying hundreds of long wooden stakes more than two feet high.

There were no testing instruments in the world, and only after the city wall was attacked, the vulnerable parts were clearly exposed.

Yang En commanded the craftsmen and people, braved the occasional stone bullets that crossed the city wall, and drove rows of long wooden stakes into the ground against the fragile and easy to collapse city wall to form a fence wall, which on the one hand could give the wall a certain amount of support and delay the time of the wall collapse, and on the other hand, after the wall collapsed, there was a fence wall to block it, so that the Liang army would not rush in through the gap immediately.

Seeing that Han Qian was also patrolling the city, Yang En walked over and said, "The city wall in the east is considered thick, and if you look like this, you may not be able to carry it for more than ten days." ”

"What we can do and what we should do has already been done, and now we can see how fast the Jinling reinforcements are advancing." Han Qian arched his hand towards Yang En and said.

Before Shen He and Yang En entered the city, the Xichuan city fortifications were mainly presided over by Han Qian and Shen Yang.

Although manpower was sometimes poor, Han Qian did not have enough time, and he did not have much manpower, money and food, so he demolished all the walls of Xichuan City with a circumference of about six or seven miles and rebuilt them, but he still borrowed some measures that Yang En might not be able to do better to strengthen the city walls.

For example, at the junction of the old and new city walls, as much glutinous rice, lime slurry and grass wool as possible should be stumbled into to strengthen the structure.

For example, large barracks were built on all sides of the city wall, and the top of the barracket was covered with two layers of solid wooden fence walls, mainly to prevent the defenders at the head of the city from hiding in the bars when the enemy threw stone bullets.

Even though many of the barracks on the east city wall were directly smashed by stone bullets this afternoon, the barracks withstood the first wave of stone bullets, and the subsequent collapse did not do much harm to the soldiers hiding in the barracks.

More importantly, the barracks effectively reduced the number of injuries from the defenders at the head of the city from being smashed by scattered stone bullets.

Before Xichuan City was completely besieged, Han Qian also collected a large amount of wood from outside the city to store it.

When defending the city, whether it is to build a fence wall to plug the gap in the city wall, build a barracks, etc., or use it as rolling wood and rolling wood, the consumption of wood is very great.

Before Yang En came over, Han Qian also built more than a dozen traction trebuchets from local materials.

Of course, in Yang En's opinion, limited by the materials used to make the poles, the trebuchet built by Han Qian was more cumbersome, and the training of the auxiliary soldiers was insufficient, so it was difficult to pull at the same time, and the firing range was only developed to 300 steps, which was 100 steps shorter than Liang Jun, and there was no way to directly bombard.

Yang En, although he knew more materials and processing methods for the poles, but the conditions in Xichuan City were too limited, and it was difficult for him to transform the existing trebuchets, seeing that Han Qian did not place these bulky trebuchets directly controlled by the Zuo Si craftsman camp behind the east city wall, but placed them more than two hundred steps away from the city wall, presumably knowing that he could not fight against the Liang army's trebuchet in terms of range, so he simply let it go farther, as long as the stone bullets could fall in front of the city wall, then when the Liang army attached to the city to attack, It can play a more or less suppressive role.

However, the Liang army had an absolute advantage in terms of troops, and it was obvious that they would not attack Xichuan Castle only from the east.

After the trebuchet position outside the east city was stabilized, the next day the Liang army divided two groups of soldiers and horses, from the north and south flanks to force under the city of Xichuan, the same is to block the front of the north and south city gates with cave house cars and partial vans, dig trenches, pile up low walls, and use thousands of foot soldiers to cluster more than a dozen trebuchets each, and bombard the city walls on both sides of the city gate.

Perhaps the doomed Xichuan siege battle was launched from three sides at the same time.

Although the Liang army's water camp had controlled the Xichuan River in the west, due to the limited depth from Xicheng to the riverbank, it was not conducive to the Liang army's foothold on the bank, and Xicheng was not directly attacked by the Liang army......

…………

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In early March, the Liang army officially launched a strong attack on Xichuan City, at this time Jinling had just passed the valley rain season, and the two banks of the Qiupu River were already full of greenery.

Emperor Tianyou's personal expedition had to be delayed for two days before he officially set off from outside the Shenghua Gate in Dongcheng.

Although many generals and ministers of the imperial court were afraid, for the ordinary people of Jinling who were far away from the battlefield, it was quite lively, and thousands of people walked out of their homes and flocked to the banks of the Qiupu River to watch the liveliness of the guards and the forbidden camp army.

There are even many people who put on new clothes and see today as an important day.

Although Jinling was sure of the Liang army's strategic intentions in the Jingxiang area in late January, Jinling ostensibly had 12 guards in the south and 6 armies in the north, totaling more than 240,000 standing elites.

For example, the Left Guards stationed in Xiangzhou under the control of Du Chongtao, the Right Guards stationed in Jingzhou under the control of Zhang Peng, and the left and right Wei Guards stationed in Shouzhou under the control of Xu Mingzhen, and the left and right Xiao Guards stationed in Chuzhou under the control of Yang Yuanyan, the trusted king, and so on.

This time, the northern front was tight, and Jinling further dispatched soldiers and horses to Xiangcheng, Shouzhou, and Chuzhou to strengthen the defense.

In fact, by the beginning of the year, there were less than 100,000 standing garrisons near Jinling City.

Emperor Tianyou personally conquered, leaving the crown prince Yang Yuanwu in Jinling to supervise the country, to take into account the direction of Shouzhou and Chuzhou, to take into account whether there were any changes in Minyue and the Southern Han Dynasty, and the garrison in Jinling City could not be less than 100,000, then it was necessary to re-recruit 100,000 to 150,000 elite generals from the military government of the Zhuwei Army, and then march west after arming, which is not a simple matter.

Being able to collect the first batch of 80,000 reinforcements and 300 thousand-stone sailing ships in early March, and directly lead the westward march by Emperor Tianyou, can already be said to be a manifestation of the strength of the empire.

Feng Yi and Kong Xirong all changed into armor, and there were nearly 2,000 officials and eunuchs in Jinling City with them this time, who were recruited and acted as guards in the army, and went to Jingxiang with the royal car to fight.

Although these children of the official eunuchs mainly act as the guards around Emperor Tianyou, to a certain extent, they can even be said to be hostages to restrain the remaining officials, except that the other soldiers and horses are exhausted, it will be their turn to fight, but Feng Yi and Kong Xirong boarded the warship, and there was still a sense of panic and sadness in their hearts.

Many people don't think that the three princes can hold Xichuan City, nor do they think that Du Chongtao can hold Xiangzhou, so the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses who have entered Jingxiang this time are likely to usher in a head-on attack from the main force of the Liang army that has just won a great victory.

What's more, at the level of Feng Yi and Kong Xirong, they all know that the DPRK and China are deeply worried about Tanzhou, and they don't think that His Majesty can really stabilize Tanzhou by urgently giving Tanzhou the title of envoy Ma Yin to the military department and urgently sending 10,000 soldiers and horses to Ezhou.

This expedition to the west can really be said to have an uncertain future.

Seeing that Li Pu, Marquis of Xinchang, who was one of the deputy generals of the recruitment army this time, boarded their warship, Feng Yi pulled Kong Xirong over and asked in a low voice: "Marquis Li, there is news about the three princes recently, and Xichuan City is still in our hands, right?" ”

"Why isn't it? What are you asking nonsense? Li Pu glared at Feng Yi angrily and ordered them to stand back in the queue.

The Dragon Bird Army entered Jingxiang with the third prince Yang Yuanpu in the main force, and originally left only one elite in Jinling, but this time it was an additional more than 3,000 trained Ding Zhuang, and the soldiers and horses were arranged to more than 5,000 people to participate in this western expedition.

Xinchang Marquis Li Pu was unable to directly touch the command of the Dragon Bird Army before, but this time he was in power, as one of the deputy generals of Emperor Tianyou, he was mainly responsible for the command of this part of the Dragon Bird Army, and Zhou Yuan, Zhang Qian and others also accompanied the expedition.

Although Li Pu, Marquis of Xinchang, saw the messenger sent back by Xichuan in the palace yesterday - Xiangzhou City was completely besieged by the main force of the Liang army led by Zhu Yu himself, and Du Chongtao had no way to send someone to break through the siege to deliver the letter - but the messenger set off from Xichuan City more than ten days ago, and it was the night after Shen He, the young eunuch of the Inner Servant Province, and Yang En, the official of the right school, arrived in Xichuan City.

At that time, Xichuan City was still in the hands of the Dragon Bird Army, and Shen He and Yang En wrote their own sparse notes, and they had quite optimistic assessments of the situation in Xichuan City, but the Jingxiang battlefield was changing instantly, and eleven or twelve days had passed at this time, who knew if Xichuan City was still in the hands of the Dragon Bird Army?

On the one hand, to strengthen the defense of Yingzhou, it is obvious that they are preparing to organize troops and horses in Yingzhou to resist Jinling reinforcements along the east bank of the Han River, and on the other hand, they send reinforcements from the west flank to reinforce troops and horses, obviously to give priority to maintaining the passage of the Danjiang River.

The focus of the Liang army's operations at this stage has shifted to the west, and it should be in the next two days to launch a strong attack on Xichuan City, and before the reinforcements can arrive in a month at the earliest, how much can Xichuan hold on?

The Late Red Mansion and the Marquis of Xinchang Mansion have been operating for nearly twenty years, including hundreds of elite disciples who have been secretly cultivated, all of them are among the main forces of the Dragon Bird Army that entered Xiangzhou with the three princes.