Lao Huihui climbed the watchtower, hugged his fists at Xiao Tianjian and said, "Handsome! The last general is willing to lead his subordinates to fight to cover these people! In this way, the casualties of the people will be smaller! ”

Xiao Tianjian was very happy to take the initiative to ask for help, but in the end he shook his head and said, "No need!" These people are not ordinary people, they have received a certain amount of training, the number of casualties is acceptable, don't worry, when the siege is time, the soldiers under your command have a stronger melee ability, and they are more suitable for street fighting! When the time comes, there will be your battles, and the credit will be indispensable! ”

Lao Huihui stood on the watchtower and also looked at the battle situation on three sides, and saw that the soldiers and generals of the Xingtian Army were very calm, on the one hand, they were continuing to build various attack tools, and on the other hand, they were scattered in some of the newly dug trenches and behind the breastwork to watch the battle from a distance.

Compared with the artillery fire of the defenders, although the artillery fire on the side of the Xingtian Army is not intensive, but there is a cannon that counts as a cannon, and the fight is very accurate, nearly half of the cannonballs hit the city wall, and even overturned the cannons of the two defenders, so that the officers and soldiers in the city are running on the city wall.

In addition, each battalion drew out some firecrackers, and began to fish into the battlefield, scattered among the people, with the cover of the big shield, in the way of cold guns, close to the city wall, and fired at the officers and soldiers who leaned down at the head of the city, and from time to time some brave officers and soldiers would be knocked over on their backs, or simply hit the city wall headlong and fell at the foot of the city wall.

After listening to Xiao Tianjian's words, Lao Huihui was very pleased, the reason why he came up to ask for war was also He Yilong, He Jin and Lin cultivated their idea, after all, they were new to Xiao Tianjian's command to listen to the order, on the one hand, they also wanted to show their enthusiasm, on the other hand, they also wanted to see how Xiao Tianjian was a person, whether they would use their subordinates as cannon fodder to fill in the battlefield.

Now it seems that they are a bit of a villain in the belly of a gentleman, Xiao Tianjian didn't think about using their subordinates as cannon fodder at all, but he knew very well where their strengths were, and they wanted to use their soldiers in the most suitable places, so that Lao Huihui was quite ashamed, so he nodded and said yes, saying that once the city wall was opened, they would definitely move forward desperately!

Xiao Tianjian put down the binoculars and said to Lao Hui a little teasingly: "Brother Ma, now that you and I are one, you don't have to think about many things, what kind of person I Xiao is, you will naturally know after a long time!" I have a request for you, that is, once you enter the city, you must have strict military discipline, not to kill innocents indiscriminately, and not to set up troops to loot, the reason why our Xingtian Army has today is because of strict military discipline, which is also the capital of our competition with the imperial court for the world, whoever wins the hearts of the people will be able to have the last laugh! I hope Brother Ma will pass these words on to a few of them! ”

After listening to Xiao Tianjian's words, he felt a little embarrassed, and he felt a little embarrassed, and he said that this Xiao Dashuai is really powerful, and it seems that he can penetrate people's hearts, and he can see their thoughts at once, and what Xiao Tianjian said is also very reasonable, those who win the hearts of the people win the world, everyone knows this sentence, but when they really do it, they often have a lot of concerns, so that military discipline has never been thoroughly implemented, so that for so many years, although the people have also taken refuge in them in large numbers, they have never been able to be like Xiao Tianjian, Gain a large area of territory, and think about it carefully, they often plunder every city, although mainly aimed at those rich and noble, but it is difficult to guarantee that it will harm the people, so that the common people also hate them and fear them, so it is difficult to gain a foothold in one place.

Looking at what he has seen in the Xingtian Army these days, the strict military discipline of the Xingtian Army can be said to be the only one they have seen in their lives, and the soldiers are also very strict in self-restraint, there are no soldiers and ruffians like other armies in the army, inside and outside are like a monolith, no wonder they can win the hearts of the people so much, raise their arms and shout, no need to send troops to force the capture, the people from all over the country immediately flocked to help the war, and even risked their lives to go to the Xingtian Army to clear these facilities outside Kaifeng City that hindered them.

"My old horse is teachable today! Don't worry! I'll go and tell a few of them, if anyone dares to enter the city and plunder the people, I don't need to be a big commander, I will be the first to cut him down! After saying that, Ma Shou hugged Xiao Tianjian's fist, turned around and strode down the watchtower.

Although the defenders of Kaifeng did their best to prevent the people outside the city from clearing the obstacles they had set up, on the one hand, the Xingtian army continued to suppress the officers and soldiers in the city with artillery fire, which caused a lot of pressure on the officers and soldiers, especially the cold guns of the firecrackers, and the psychological pressure on the officers and soldiers who put arrows in the city was very great. I didn't dare to lean out and fire arrows and crossbows at the city as unscrupulously as I did at the beginning, so that the casualties of those people who cleared the obstacles under the city were much smaller.

Moreover, these people have also been warned in advance, spread out as much as possible, reduce the damage to them by the artillery of the defenders in the city, and huddle together in the province, becoming a significant target, and killing many people with one shot.

Through these efforts, after paying hundreds of casualties, the people spent two days to clear the obstacles set up by the officials and troops in the east, west, and north directions outside the city of Kaifeng Prefecture, and successfully opened up the passage for the Xingtian Army to attack the city.

Just when they all thought that Xiao Tianjian was about to attack the city, Xiao Tianjian didn't seem to be in a hurry, and instead ordered to send people to send the injured Minzhuang to Zhongmu County they had just captured for treatment, where Xiao Tianjian had already ordered the logistics department to set up a large rear medical battalion in advance, whether it was personnel, wounded medicine or even the environment, the conditions of this large medical camp in Zhongmu County were far better than those of these field medical battalions on the Kaifeng front.

In order to open the seal, Xiao Tianjian has basically thought of all the problems that can be thought of, and he has already made all the preparations in advance, as for the people who died under Kaifeng City, someone specially gave them a registration list, and their bodies were buried on the spot, and a wooden plaque was also set up on each grave to record their names, in case their families came to clean up their bones in the future, and at the same time, the families of the deceased would also receive a pension of twenty taels of silver issued to them by the Xingtianjun.

Twenty taels of silver in the Central Plains of this era, but a lot of wealth, in many places to buy a flower season girl as a slave, but only need three or four taels of silver, and even two buckets of rice may be exchanged for a girl, after all, human life in this era is the most worthless thing, so the deceased's family can get such a pension, not only will not complain about the Xingtianjun, but on the contrary, they will be grateful to the Xingtianjun, which is also the main reason why the Xingtianjun came to help the war when the Xingtianjun summoned the people.

If you fight for financial resources, now with the reserves accumulated by the Xingtian Army for so many years of fighting, even if you add up the financial resources of the Zhou Wangfu in Kaifeng City and all the rich people in the city, it may not be able to withstand one percent of the Xingtian Army, so at this point, Xiao Tianjian will not be stingy.

Seeing Xiao Tianjian treating these people so kindly, Lao Huihui, He Yilong, and the generals of the Fifth Battalion of the Revolutionary Left Battalion were all straight-eyed, and they were all shocked and clicked, secretly calling Xiao Tianjian's strong financial resources and his generosity in buying people's hearts.

When many of the soldiers of the Fifth Battalion of the Revolutionary Left saw Xiao Tianjian doing this, they said in their hearts that if Xiao Tianjian could be so generous to the people who helped the war, then how could they be so bad? So suddenly one by one, just waiting for the siege of the city to fight hard, if you get the credit, there must be a reward, as for death, it will be dead! This life is not worth much anyway.

Therefore, the morale of the more than 20,000 troops of the Fifth Battalion of the Revolution was almost bursting at this time, but Xiao Tianjian still did not order to start the attack, but ordered the people who helped the war to start digging trenches outside the city according to a sketch he made. Quite a lot of traps were excavated, and a large number of thistles and other things were scattered at the same time, and camouflaged before dawn, on the surface, there was no abnormality in the south of the city, but in essence, if the officers and soldiers wanted to break through from here, it was estimated that they would be unlucky.

Tens of thousands of people were strong after the order, immediately copied the guy under the leadership of the Xingtian Army Engineer Battalion into the trench excavation project, tens of thousands of people at the same time, from a distance to start the work, the speed of the project progress is a little jaw-dropping, groups of people take turns to fight, tired to retire to rest, there are flatbread and bone broth for them to eat, dozing off there are ready-made ditches for them to shelter from the wind and rest, the people of the fifth battalion of the left are a little hot-eyed, have asked for help to do it together.

Originally, there were not many elite soldiers in the Fifth Battalion of the Left Battalion, and most of them were at best the people who took the guys, and doing these things of digging ditches was an old business for them, Xiao Tianjian approved the Fifth Battalion of the Left Revolution this time and put them into the battlefield.

These trenches are not disorganized, but there are enough passages reserved between the trenches for siege equipment, which can be used by the Heavenly Army to build ladders, cave houses, carts and other attack tools close to the foot of the city wall, while the rest of the trenches are trenches such as traffic trenches, some of which are quite deep diversion ditches that do not interfere with each other.

After all, Kaifeng Mansion as the seat of Henan political division, not only the city wall is tall and strong, but also make full use of the convenience of the water source of the Yellow River here, outside Kaifeng City, there is a moat three zhang wide, the moat is connected with the Bianhe River, through the Bianhe River can replenish water for the moat, and even sometimes the boats on the Bianhe River can take the moat to go around the city.

So attacking Kaifeng, the biggest problem is how to overcome this moat, Xiao Tianjian this time is determined to take Kaifeng in one fell swoop, so after arriving here, he first took a few subordinates who understand water conservancy to go around Kaifeng City, and finally decided to block the Bianhe River to dig a deep trench, divert the water of the moat, and drain the water of the moat, so as to facilitate the storming of the city wall.

This project is very large, but fortunately, there are enough people, and the Xingtian Army has also prepared a large number of pickaxes, shovels and other tools in advance, plus the tools brought by the people who came to help the battle, and tens of thousands of people are still making very fast progress in shifts.

(Chapter 4 arrives on the 16th!) Check it out, brethren! Hope to leave your precious flowers! ）