"Wind, wind!"

In the bunker, the crossbowmen shouted loudly, and the four soldiers struggled to drag a thick hemp rope, which was drawn from the winding device, and with the help of the winder, the four soldiers were able to wind the three-bow bed crossbow with relative ease.

The three-bow bed crossbow, as the name suggests, is a large crossbow composed of three large bows, the crossbow arm is like a bed, and it can fire giant arrows similar to the size of the spear, and it is the first large crossbow in the Shannan army to put into actual combat.

A three-bow bed crossbow can easily reach more than 600 paces if it fires a large spear-like arrow, but without the help of a winder, it is very difficult to wind a three-bow bed crossbow.

At first, the three-bow bed crossbow had a very awkward name, called "Eight Ox Power Towed Three-Bow Winch Crossbow", and later referred to as "Three-bow Bed Crossbow" or "Eight Ox Crossbow".

Although it is not really necessary to use eight cows to wind it, it does require a lot of manpower for winding, but since there is a winding device, this is not a big problem, and the winding device has been improved several times in the past ten years, and it is becoming more and more labor-saving.

The structure of the winder is not very clear to ordinary people, and the crossbowmen who operate the three-bow bed crossbow know that the structure inside is called "pulley group", and these "pulley sets" can achieve twice the effort with half the effort.

With a piercing creak, the three-bow bed crossbow was wound, and a crossbowman carefully picked up a clay pot and was about to put it in the arrow trough, when a muffled sound came from outside the bunker, and then a loud bang followed, and the bunker began to tremble with a wave of air.

It was a thunderbolt that exploded near the bunker, and the crossbowman inside the bunker was unstable and about to knock over the crockpot, but the bystanders rushed forward to hold him up.

"Be careful! If this thing is rotten here, it can't be treated! ”

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Don't be verbose! Put it on! ”

The crossbowmen were busy but not chaotic, and completed the preparation for the launch of the three-bow bed crossbow according to the prescribed steps, and there was another explosion outside the bunker, and a little dirt fell from the roof, but they did not rush to fire, but checked again according to the process for any omissions.

After the inspection, the crossbowmen shook the handle, adjusted the direction of the bed crossbow, and pointed it at the target seen outside the bunker window, with the help of a simple ruler, they adjusted the angle of the bed crossbow, and then set it on fire.

The rope twist on the crockpot was ignited, and the crossbowmen moved the moot, only to hear a "bang", and the crockpot rushed out with flames, at first it was just a black dot so fast that it was almost invisible, and it didn't take long to turn into a fire.

Then hit a tall ladder truck two hundred paces away.

The clay pot broke, and the burning refined fire oil set the ladder car on fire, and several of the affected soldiers turned into burning men, wailing and falling to the ground, and the other soldiers on the car threw water bladders to extinguish the fire, but the refined fire oil was not afraid of fire after it burned.

As the fire grew, the soldiers on the ladder carts withdrew, and the tall ladder carts quickly turned into torches and fell apart after a few moments, but there were many more ladder trucks pushed by manpower to approach the hanging wall.

Not one, ten, but dozens.

The officers and soldiers attacked the hanging gourd city wall with trebuchets, day and night, which lasted for five days, and saw that the hanging gourd city wall was generally intact, and then launched a bloody siege battle, and countless ladder trucks approached from the east under the cover of the same number of trebuchets.

The Hanging Gourd Defenders used trebuchets and three-bow bed crossbows to constantly throw stones and fire bombs outward, but in the face of the tide of enemy troops, the stones and fire bombs were like throwing stones into the sea, and they couldn't make much of a wave.

There are trebuchets of the besieging side in all directions, and the ladder carts approaching the city are concentrated in one place from the east, and the hanging gourd is the left and right sides of the Rushui from north to south, and the moat formed by the tributaries of the Rushui on the east side has been filled in.

In addition to the sediment, the moat was filled with corpses.

The horn sounded at the head of the city, and the crossbowmen of the Anzhou army who were located in the sheep and horse wall under the city wall withdrew into the city through the city gate, and the sheep and horse wall had been mutilated after several days of bloody fighting, and there were corpses everywhere outside the wall, and the ground had been stained red with blood.

The Anzhou army, which was guarding the hanging fortress, stubbornly held back the enemy for several days with the moat, the moat and the sheep and horse wall between the forts, so that it could not directly climb the city and attack.

Until yesterday, the enemy army filled the moat, at all costs to break through to the sheep and horse wall, after the white-knuckle battle, most of the sheep and horse wall was destroyed, only the moat fortress still stands, not a single point was completely destroyed under the continuous stone rain attack.

They are like cracked but mostly intact reefs, facing the coming waves.

The manpower-propelled ladder cart quickly crossed the filled moat, and after withstanding the attack of the flame bomb, the unignited ladder cart suddenly accelerated and rushed towards the sharp barricades in front of it.

Countless fire arrows were shot at the head of the city, and the sword and shield men gathered around the ladder car raised their shields to block the arrows, and the young men gritted their teeth and pushed the cart hard, and the ladder car rushed to the flank of the fortress, put down the upper end of the movable ladder and set it on the base, and the first climbers immediately climbed to the fortress with the help of the ladder.

The high fortress built by the Anzhou army outside the hanging fortress wall is different from the common city defense facility "horse face", the shape is triangular and the tip is outward, so the enemy army who wants to climb the fortress to attack must build ladders on both sides of the fortress.

This meant that their flanks were guarded by archers at the head of the city, and their backs were exposed to the defenders of the forts on the other side, and the moat outside the city was built for this purpose.

The fortress that should not exist in this era appeared in the hanging gourd through time and space, and the "bamboo reinforced concrete fortress" composed of soil cement and bamboo strips was not completely destroyed by trebuchets and black powder thunder in a short period of time.

In the era when there is no complete siege system, the fortress with artillery can become a tenacious hedgehog, which is enough to make the invading enemy break the big teeth, although the artillery did not appear in this era, the degree of "fortressization" of the hanging gourd is not high, but it is still enough to make the siege thinking limited to the army in the era of cold weapons feel tricky.

At the head of the city, countless crossbowmen are bending down to turn the winch to wind the iron arm winch crossbow, with the help of the protection of the cover, they can be able to wind and aim while the enemy crossbowmen are frantically releasing arrows.

Enemy soldiers climbing ladders to climb the pinnacles, their flanks exposed to the crossbowmen, who take aim with their hunting flat-ended winch crossbows and pull the trigger.

The moment the arrow left the string, the strong recoil force made the crossbowman's body lean back slightly, and the crossbow arrow hit the enemy soldier seventy paces away, and the iron arrow easily pierced the opponent's iron armor and directly sank into his left rib.

A little blood spilled out of the breach, and the warrior who was about to take the lead in the top base, his whole body strength seemed to be drained, his legs fell downwards as soon as he became weak, and several companions behind him were hit by arrows one after another, falling to the ground one after another.

On the sharp base, an Anzhou soldier in heavy armor turned out of the bunker with a long axe and struggled to cut off the iron hook of the ladder hooked on the wall, and just when he changed to an iron fork and wanted to push the ladder away, a rain of arrows struck.

Although he was heavily armoured, he couldn't block the armor-piercing arrows fired by the archers under the base at close range, the Anzhou soldiers spat blood from their mouths, their bodies shook, and the comrades who rushed over didn't have time to grab his hand, only to see him lean forward and fall down the base.

This situation and this scene are constantly staged outside the city wall on the east side of the hanging gourd, and there are constantly ladder carts leaning towards the sharp fortress outside the city, and there are constantly crossbowmen who fall to the ground with arrows in the confrontation between the enemy and us.

The art of war has a cloud of "ten rules to encircle", attacking the hanging imperial army, with more than 100,000 troops, and the Anzhou army defending the city with follow-up reinforcements, plus the surrendered Yuzhou army and the people who were requisitioned to defend the city, the number of people can not exceed 10,000.

This is also the reason why the imperial army still had to fight to attack the city even though it suffered heavy casualties, and the horn sounded again, and a new group of siege troops entered the battle, regardless of the stones and fire oil bombs thrown in the city, pushing all kinds of siege equipment towards the city walls and fortifications.

The torsion springs made of horsehair can provide far less power than the counterweights of catapults, but their short projection distances can sometimes be used for large purposes.

The thunderbolts weighing dozens of catties were put into the trebuchet shot, and just as they were about to be launched, countless stones outside the city flew in a roar, covering the city.

Many catapults were smashed directly, and even some thunderbolts were detonated by Mars, stirring up bursts of dust, but the surviving torsion catapults still stubbornly entered the launch process, and the soldiers ignited the fire twist of the thunderbolts.

With an order, after moving the engine, with a "bang", the ignited thunder was thrown dozens of steps away, and landed right on the ground in the dense group of enemy soldiers.

Xiyang Wang Yuwen Wenwen, with the elite of the Anzhou army sneak attack Yuzhou Hanging Gourd, in addition to relieving the siege of Fangcheng, but also to attract the enemy to attack as much as possible, and gain time for Shannan to prepare for war, so after occupying the Hanging Gourd, not only reinforcements continued, but all kinds of materials were also continuous.

In order to support the Hanging Gourd, the Shannan side has exerted its transportation capacity to the limit, from taking Shenzhou to open the road, and ending Wei Chi Dun leading the army to approach the Hanging Gourd, Shannan has done its best to send all the materials that can be transported to the Hanging Gourd, including the thunder.

However, even so, compared with the powerful imperial army, the stock of thunderbolts of the Hanging Gourd defenders was still insufficient, and in the face of the enemy army coming in waves, the torsion trebuchet only threw two rounds of thunderbolts, and then changed the "ammunition".

Barrels of quicklime, instead of thunder in the catapult shot, there are many lime kilns in Anzhou and Huangzhou, Shannan, so you can make up more quicklime than thunder in a short time.

Fresh quicklime, which was supposed to be thrown into water to destroy snails, was packed in wooden barrels sealed with thick paper on the inner wall, transported from Huangzhou to the hanging gourd, and thrown out as weapons.

The quicklime bucket with the lid open spun in mid-air, and countless snow-white quicklime powder sprayed out and fell to the ground like snow.

Fall on the body of the enemy soldier.

Under the scorching sun, they set out from the camp, dressed in armor and holding shields, and trotted all the way to the city of Hanging Gourd, a mile away, where many soldiers were already sweating profusely, and the dry quicklime fell on their bodies, absorbing the sweat and releasing a huge amount of heat.

Such heat is enough to burn people's skin.

A little burn could not scare the soldiers who fought bloodily, but when these quicklime powder fell into the eyes, or was inhaled into the nose and mouth, not many people could endure such burns.

In the white lime mist, screams came one after another, many soldiers covered their eyes and mouths and fell to the ground, and a lot of water fell from the city, mixing with the layer of quicklime on the ground, and the originally cool water instantly became scorching.

The ground was full of milky puddles, and many soldiers had no boots to wear, and their feet in straw sandals would be so hot that they could not stand on them.

Then came the beginning of a new offensive.

The imperial army is abundant, and a large number of young and strong soldiers have been recruited, so there is no shortage of people at all, the rear of the previous round of siege teams, the next round of siege teams is about to be filled, this gap period, Rulin's trebuchet continues to throw stones, fire oil bombs and thunder.

It was now past noon, and the soldiers who continued to attack the city had eaten lunch in advance, and the defenders at the head of the city were under heavy pressure, and if they were not wounded and incapacitated, they had to hold their posts.

Baskets of hot cooking cakes were carried up to the city, along with countless bamboo tubes filled with warm and light salt water, and distributed to the soldiers who fought bloodily, and those who fought on the front line could each get a salted egg.

The city has been rationed in kind, from top to bottom, whether it is a general, a soldier or an ordinary person, the daily ration has been strictly limited, every meal, either queue up to eat, or have a special person to distribute.

At the same time, in order to save firewood, the system of centralized fire lighting was strictly enforced, and public stoves were set up to boil water for cooking, and no one was allowed to light a fire without permission.

Each stove has a special iron pot, which saves firewood, and can also steam the rice while boiling water, and at the same time, the salted eggs placed in the water are also heated through.

All kinds of military supplies from Huangzhou, Shannan, strongly support the combat effectiveness of the Hanging Gourd Defenders, whether it is for the defenders of the city head or the defenders in the tunnel.

Digging tunnels to siege the city is a common siege tactic that has existed in ancient times, and the defenders of the hanging gourd have naturally made preparations to deal with the enemy's tunnel siege tactics.

The soldiers who are guarding the "ground listening" and listening to the movement in the tunnels take turns to go to the ground to breathe and eat and drink water by the way, and it is autumn now, although the tunnels are generally cooler than the outside, but they are stuffy.

The Anzhou army dug a tunnel around the city wall in the hanging city, and set up the ground at intervals, because it was in the city, the tunnel was equipped with ventilation holes at intervals, so as not to suffocate the soldiers underground.

At this moment, in the tunnels in the east of the city, the soldiers who were listening everywhere had already heard the sound of "rustling", this was someone digging tunnels, more than one, and it was already very close to the Hanging Gourd City.

It was the enemy army besieging the city digging tunnels, and the other side not only launched a large-scale attack on the ground, but also mobilized manpower and material resources to dig several tunnels to reach the Hanging Fortress City, and when it was time to dig under the city wall, a large number of thunderbolts were piled up and then detonated, and the city wall was finished...... Is it?

While the Anzhou soldiers were listening in the tunnel, to the east of "not far away", there were also many people busy in the tunnel, bare-chested, digging with hoes in the dim candlelight, and then picking them out.

Above the tunnel of more than ten steps behind him, the earth wall is quite damp, and some water droplets fall, and the ground above it is the moat in the eastern suburbs of the hanging gourd city.

The official army attacked the Hanging Gourd, and the moat in its eastern suburbs had been cut off and filled, so even if there was some leakage in the tunnel at this time, it would not be a big problem, and the young men had been digging day and night for many days, and the tunnel was finally about to approach the Hanging Gourd City Wall.

The enemy army should have dug the tunnel to prevent the officers and soldiers from digging the tunnel to approach the city wall, but the young man who dug the tunnel and the soldiers who oversaw the work were careful for a long time, but they did not find that there was any danger of digging the opponent's tunnel.

Maybe the other party has another trick that can crack the tunnel siege?

Seeing that they were about to dig to the foot of the city wall, many people couldn't help but work harder, the one-mile-long tunnel was too stuffy, and once it collapsed, no one could escape, so it was best to end the battle quickly.

When the hoe went down, some sand suddenly slipped down from the earthen wall, and the man thought that the soil was like this, but when the others went down with a hoe, there was sand flowing out of the earthen wall.

A few young people still couldn't figure out what was going on, and the old craftsman in the lead changed his face when he saw this: "It's not good, there is quicksand in front, and they dig a deep ditch in front to store sand!" ”

As soon as he finished speaking, the earth wall cracked, and a large amount of sand poured like water, submerging the end of the tunnel, and the people digging the tunnel had no time to escape, and all disappeared into the sand.

On the ground, a soldier stumbled on his feet when the ground suddenly sunken down, and he struggled to get up, and was about to take off the war bow on the ground, but he was shot down by an arrow from the archers at the head of the city, and blood spilled out, staining the ground in front of him.

One by one, the soldiers stepped over the fallen comrades, pushing the ladder and the pointed wooden donkey towards the hanging gourd city wall and the sharp fortress in front of them, and the soldiers braved the arrows to launch a new round of attack on the hanging gourd city.

The tenfold superiority of troops allowed the imperial army to withstand heavy casualties, carry out wheel warfare, and attack the city day and night, so the city where the enemy army was entrenched was in their pocket.

Amid the sound of the earth-shattering horn, there were still groups of ready soldiers on the periphery, waiting to be engaged in the siege battle.

The isolated Hanging Gourd City is like a lonely boat floating on the sea of storms, facing a thousand huge waves, and there is no room to retreat.