Xiying returned, not only was he not punished, but even went further on the basis of the original Chenyang County Order, and was able to serve as Chenzhou Sima, soldiers and horses, and recruit soldiers to form a battalion, but the price was to attack Yuanling City as the first batch of dead soldiers.

Xiying is also conscious of this, and he also knows in his heart that if Fanying does not take the lead in desperately attacking the city, how can Zheng Hui, Zhang Ping, and Han Qian believe that he is not surrendering by fraud?

On the morning of February 8, there was a light rain in the sky, but the siege plan drawn up by the Wuling army would not change because of this, and the six hundred-man team formed a conical array, clustered with a large number of side vans, cave house cars, shield cars, and iron spur cars from the south of the Tieyanpo camp to kill, crossed the river valley and fields south of Yuanling City, advanced to the south city wall, stopped at a distance of about 500 steps from the south wall of the city, and shrank up to form six dense formations to prevent the enemy from opening the city gate and fighting back.

A group of baggage soldiers, carrying shovels and shovels, then advanced a little further from the middle of the six defensive formations, and dug the battle wall in sections about four hundred paces from the city wall.

When the enemy went out of the city to attack and harass, the baggage soldiers quickly withdrew, and the six armor soldiers resisted the impact of the enemy army in front, repeated several times, dug out six trenches five feet deep and more than a foot wide in front of the city, and the excavated soil piled up a half-height rammed earth retaining wall on the outside of the trench, which not only suppressed the rapid counterattack of the enemy army, but also sheltered the soldiers in the front to block the enemy's arrows and crossbows.

After that, it is to push four building carts more than six feet high to the front, and the bed crossbow placed in the building carts can not only suppress the enemy troops at the head of the city, but also condescendingly see the defensive deployment in the city.

Han Qian was in charge of logistics and heavy loads, and he supervised the construction of these weapons, and at this time, he also stood on the front cliff of Tieyan Slope with Zheng Hui and Zhang Ping and looked at the battlefield ahead.

Han Qian looked through the mirror and saw that the scout on the building car was anxiously communicating with Tian Cheng, who was supervising the battle, he adjusted the length of the mirror tube, aimed at the head of the city, and saw from the gap in the battlement wall that there were several short end poles that protruded slightly from the back of the city wall.

Whirlwind Cannon!

The Whirlwind Cannon was the first to be created by Han Qian to popularize the Chu Army, and even if only a small corner of the Whirlwind Cannon was exposed between the cracks in the battlement wall, he could clearly recognize it.

The scouts standing on the building must have seen the enemy deploying cyclone cannons close to the city wall from a high place, so they were so anxious to report to Tian Cheng, who was in command of the battlefield in front.

"Ma Rong also has a whirlwind cannon in the city, and it is deployed behind the city wall, Tian Cheng should lead the front soldiers to retreat two hundred steps......" Han Qian said to Zheng Hui with a stern expression.

Seeing the retreat of the front soldiers of the Wuling army, the enemy of course realized that the whirlwind cannon they had built was clearly seen by the scouts in the building, "whirring and hooping", when even more than a dozen stone bullets were thrown from behind the city wall.

The projectile distance of the stone bullet was about 500 paces, but because the ground in front of the city was flat, the stone projectile of two or three hundred catties, the size of a stone millstone, rolled forward thirty or forty meters according to inertia after hitting the ground before stopping.

In this process, even if there were dozens of armor soldiers who couldn't dodge, they were hit and their limbs and bones were broken, and they were screaming in pain.

This is the brutal war.

The Wuling army adjusted its deployment, and the front soldiers withdrew to 600 paces to form a formation, and then made the baggage soldiers venture forward again, and dug a trench in sections at 500 paces south of the city wall.

Five hundred steps is almost the limit range of the large whirlwind cannon built by the Wuling Army, but there will be a certain distance of rolling after landing, at this time, digging trenches and piling up low parapets at this position, in addition to limiting the enemy's counterattack, is more focused on preventing the enemy from throwing large stone bullets from rolling and injuring people.

And no matter how cruel it is, their side must also push the whirlwind cannon to the front and smash the walls of the Yuanling army.

Otherwise, the camp will go to attack the city at this time, and the number of lives will not be enough to fill it.

The cyclone cannon throws loose stone shells covering a large area, and the range is closer than 500 steps, so here the large cyclone cannon is pushed to 500 steps away from the city wall and arranged, so there is no need to worry about the enemy being able to cover it with loose stone shells, but in the face of the large stone bullets thrown by the enemy, it can only be carried hard.

Fortunately, the number of large stone projectiles thrown at one time is limited, the frequency of throwing is slow, and the personnel pay attention to dodging, and the casualties will not be too serious, after all, a great advantage of the cyclone cannon over the traditional trebuchet is that it is a large cyclone cannon, which can be operated quickly with only a few people.

The next ones that lost more were the whirlwind cannons, which were bulky and impossible to move at will when pushed into the front.

Of course, the brick-clad city wall of the Yuan city wall, which is more than three zhang high, is an easier target for the Wuling army's whirlwind cannons.

Seeing that the defenders led by Ma Rong had also mastered the manufacturing technology of the whirlwind cannon, Zheng Hui looked at Han Qian with emotion: "This battle still can't let Lord Han be idle!" ”

"It's just that the new whirlwind cannons are constantly being sent into the front line, and it can't be considered too hard!" Han Qian smiled slightly and said, "However, it is not enough to suppress the enemy army in the city with the whirlwind cannon, once the enemy army in the city is suppressed, you also need to send someone to push the scorpion cannon to the front of the city and attack the enemy artillery behind the city wall!" ”

At present, the scorpion cannon is mainly made by Takumaki, and it can only attack enemy troops 200 paces away by throwing stone bullets or fire oil cans, but Han Qian created a wheeled scorpion cannon that can be dragged by foot soldiers to move quickly in front of the enemy line.

Han Qian's tactic was to use a whirlwind cannon to attack the enemy, use the whirlwind cannon to drive the enemy soldiers down from the city wall, and then use the infantry to brave the attack of the enemy's cannon scattered stone shells, drag the wheeled scorpion cannon to the front of the city wall, and attack the whirlwind cannon deployed by the enemy behind the city wall, so as to take Yuanling City relatively quickly.

If you want to have fewer casualties, you can attack purely with a whirlwind cannon.

As long as they can first smash the wall south of Yuanling City, so that the enemy's whirlwind cannon loses the protection of the city wall, the loss will be greater than this side.

However, the walls of Yuanling City are built with rammed earth, and the outside is wrapped with glutinous rice mortar bricks, the walls are three or four zhang thick, and they are unusually strong, and it is not difficult to smash a few openings, but if you want to collapse the entire section, especially when Ma Rong is also preparing a large number of materials to repair the city wall in the city, Han Qian suspects that he may not be sure that he will be able to storm Yuanling City in three months.

Zheng Hui, as a first-hand witness of the defensive battle of Xichuan City, naturally knew the various tactics of the whirlwind cannon, and sent someone to invite Xiying over, so that he could draw troops from the camp to follow Han Qian's instructions and accept the training of operating the scorpion cannon.

For the time being, there is no need for the generals of the Fan Battalion to attack the city, but to prove the loyalty of the Fan Battalion first, they will first use them to drag the scorpion crossbow to risk the enemy's arrows and stones near the city to attack the enemy troops and whirlwind cannons hidden behind the wall!

Zheng Hui did not hide the danger of fighting near the city, and he also told Xiying that he would try his best to adjust the cave house car and the side car for the fan camp to use, so that the bombardment of scattered stone bullets could be blocked under the city wall.

Looking at Han Qian's gloomy face, Xiying learned that this idea was his idea, but he also knew in his heart that this was a sacrifice to be made by Fanying.

If he was still preserving his strength at this time, even if Zheng Hui and Han Qian could resist not doing anything to them at this time, after capturing Tanzhou, it was very likely that the imperial court would rebel and liquidate the forces of Yizhou.

Xiying promised the Fan Battalion to send troops to manipulate the scorpion cannon to attack the enemy in front of the city, Han Qian summoned all the generals of the Fan Battalion to explain the essentials of this tactic in detail, and sent engineers to send a few scorpion cannons to the Fan Battalion station first, and instructed the Fan soldiers to practice the operation first.

Ma Rong is a veteran, and he is extremely stable in his use of soldiers, and it is difficult to use tactics, so he can only pull out this nail one by one.

Han Qian directly transferred materials, engineers, and craftsmen to continuously build new whirlwind cannons to replace the smashed whirlwind cannons; Hundreds of masonry workers were transferred to quarry directly in the south of the camp, chiseling round stone bullets, or demolishing houses and destroying walls in nearby stone villages, or collecting nearby stone monuments and stone mills, and smashing them into the south wall of the Yuanling Wall.

Although at such a distance, you can only use large stone projectiles that are thrown slowly and in one shot, there are still people who dodge.

And being hit by a stone bullet weighing hundreds of catties or even two or three hundred catties, there is basically no hope of survival.

The siege battle began, and within four or five days, nearly 200 people in the baggage battalion were brutally stoned to death on the whirlwind cannon battlefield, and nearly 100 whirlwind cannons were smashed open.

Sufficient material reserves are always the most intuitive embodiment of military strength.

Even if nearly 100 whirlwind cannons were smashed in four or five days, the whirlwind cannons displayed in front of Yuanling City increased to thirty, and the solid southern wall of Yuanling, the outer city bricks were almost smashed down, revealing the rammed wall inside, full of terrible cracks, but the gap has not been opened for the time being, but the battlements on the city have almost been destroyed.

At this time, after four or five days of drills, once they saw that the enemy army at the head of the city was suppressed, they pushed the wheeled scorpion cannon to approach the city wall, and threw the fire oil canisters that were lit after being filled with tung oil to the enemy formation behind the city wall.

In the face of the scattered stone bullets thrown by the enemy from behind the city wall, even if the soldiers were covered by cave houses and side vans, they were almost still extremely heavy.

In particular, the enemy could not throw large stone projectiles farther, but they were able to smash heavier stone projectiles closer two or three hundred paces away.

Once the cave house car was hit by a stone bullet weighing three or four hundred catties, it would be smashed apart at once, and the soldiers hiding inside would cry wolf, and there would be casualties.

At this time, the battle was really fierce, and the daily casualties of the camp were above 200.

Xiying took three sons to fight this time, they took turns to lead their troops to fight near the city, and every time they suffered great casualties or the scorpion cannon was destroyed by scattered stone shells, they retreated to regroup in formation, in the face of such tragic casualties, they felt pain and hatred in their hearts, staring at Han Qian and Zheng Hui's fierce eyes, eager to eat them alive and eat them.

Although Tanzhou also mastered the manufacturing technology of whirlwind cannons, there were few mature craftsmen who entered Yuanling City with Ma Rong, after all, the defense of Tanzhou was focused on Yuezhou, and even the defense of Jingzhou in the north of Langzhou, and the defense of Yuanzhou in the north of Hengzhou were more important than in the southwest.

After the first batch of whirlwind cannons were destroyed behind the city, the enemy could only build three or five new whirlwind cannons every day to fill them, and the intensity of the bombardment dropped sharply.

At the same time as the Fanying was fighting near the city, Zheng Hui also ordered the soldiers of the first and second battalions to try to annex the city of Yuanling from both flanks, attack the dilapidated city wall south of Yuanling, and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Tanzhou soldiers.

The enemy was then forced to deploy the newly built Tornado Cannon behind the newly dug trench in the city in order to lure the Wuling soldiers to the southern wall for a suppressive attack.

Zheng Hui was extremely decisive in using the first and second battalions and the armor of the fan battalion to defend the city wall, and ordered more than 30 whirlwind cannons to move forward, directly close to the root of the city wall, and suppressed the whirlwind cannons in the city.

Ma Rong, as one of the few veterans in Tanzhou, led 5,000 soldiers to hold on until the end of February, but he could not support it, and only led less than 2,000 remnants of soldiers to hurriedly board the water camp warship anchored at the mouth of the Baihe River from the Beicheng Gate, which had not fallen in the end, and fled to the territory of Wuling County, Langzhou.