He said goodbye to Shile, led the troops to the city wall, and inspected the four cities.

At this time, Wang Yang guarded the west city, Tao Leopard guarded the east city, Zhixiong guarded the south city, Wu Yu guarded the north city, Kong Chang police guarded the city, Li Han guarded the palace, and President Jiao'an guarded the Quartet.

Sure enough, before he reached the city, he heard that the Chinese had pushed out the catapult again, as was customary......

In the past ten days, the Chinese army no longer attacked the city, but only sent people around to cut down trees, take stones, build trebuchets in the camp, and push dozens of corpses in front of a certain city wall every hour, bombarding endlessly, often waiting for twilight to be closed, during which there are also self-inflicted injuries, and most of them can be temporarily replaced.

Today, these trebuchets are said to come from the east base, so Xuan An rushed to the east city, and at the same time sent people to remind Wang Yang, who was guarding the west city, to be wary of the Chinese people's plans to attack the west.

The catapult came out of its own camp and had to be pushed about two hundred and ten paces from the city wall, because the hammer was heavy, and although it was six wheels down, it was still extremely slow. And when the transportation is in place, it is necessary to remove the wheels, drive piles and fix them, and be surrounded by several squads to protect them, so when they wait for Jiao'an to board the East City and meet with the peach leopard, the first round of stone bullets has not been smashed seriously.

The defenders of the city also had experience, and most of them held large shields in their hands, covered themselves, and spread their legs apart, slightly bent their knees, and were ready to run away at any time - the speed of the stone projectiles was much slower than that of the arrows, and as long as they looked at their landing point and avoided about ten steps in time, they would not be hurt under normal circumstances.

A little farther away from the city wall, wood and stone were piled up, and many soldiers were ready to carry materials and repair the city wall at any time.

When Xuan An arrived near the city wall, put his hand on the pergola, and looked at it from a distance, Tao Leopard hurriedly reminded him: "Brother Xuan's identity is precious, don't take risks, and guard against the secret arrows of Huakou." ”

When Zu Ti still had the strength to storm Xiangguo, he had roughly filled the moats and stripped the sheep and horses outside the city, so he could send sporadic elite archers to sneak to the wall at night, lie on the ground, and wait for the dawn to shoot the guards with hidden arrows from the bottom to the top. Although once the arrow is released, it will inevitably expose Xingzang, and even under the city wall, most of them will not be able to go back, but if they can really hurt the heavy generals of the Qiang army, they will definitely be able to severely demoralize them, and this risk is worth taking.

In the intervening months, six or seven generals were wounded by arrows – but not yet – including the general Wu Yu, who was hit in his left arm by an arrow. Therefore, today the peach leopard reminded Xuan An to beware of the hidden arrows of the Chinese.

Xuan An didn't care, waved his hand and smiled: "Just an archer, how can you hurt me?" Then his eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he said, "As the Heavenly King said, does Hua Kou really have the intention of setting fire to the city?" ”

It turned out that he saw that the trebuchets of the Chinese army were all in place, and a brazier would be placed next to almost every side...... But I didn't see a ladder or anything like that coming out, and I couldn't shoot a rocket at this distance. Could it be that trebuchets can also be used to set fires?

Although he was puzzled, he still cared for the peach leopard: "Remove all the things that may cause fire in the city to be in order to be safe." ”

As soon as the words fell, dozens of huge swinging arms began to move......

Pei Gai had already "invented" the counterweight trebuchet in Guanzhong, but because the requirements for the process were relatively high, and the calculation requirements for weight and range were more stringent, it had not yet been able to be popularized. What Zu Ti built in the army was a traditional man-powered trebuchet, with wood as a pillar, a single wooden as a swing arm, a long end tied to a leather pocket containing stone bullets, and a short end tied to forty or fifty ropes, one soldier and one rope, which had to be dragged by forty or fifty people at the same time before it could be launched. So theoretically speaking, the accuracy of the human trebuchet is much worse than that of the counterweight trebuchet - no matter how you obey the order and work together, after all, people have strength and weakness, and the strength has a slow disease, which affects the swing arm, not to mention wasting more work, and it will inevitably cause a lot of deviation.

It is said that as soon as the swing arm moves, the bullet will be thrown, but unlike in the past, today, these dozens of trebuchets throw out a ball of fire, and it is relatively more accurate, almost half of them come straight to the city—the rest will either fall under the wall, or will inevitably hit the city wall, or cross the city, and will be thrown into the city.

It doesn't matter if the ones hit the city wall, the soldiers are ready to repair it at any time; Xuan An is only worried that those who are thrown into the city can go as far as sixty or seventy steps beyond the city wall, so it is possible to hit those houses that have not yet been stripped naked, once the fire is caused, even if it is not difficult to rescue, it is easy to disturb the hearts of the defenders.

Therefore, he took care of the peach leopard: "You can be careful about the affairs of the city." "I hurried down to the city to arrange for the soldiers to draw water and soil, and prepare for the fire.

As soon as he stepped down the steps with one foot, more than a dozen fireballs fell on the city wall, and with an immediate "bang", they splattered out, collapsing all over the ground with sparks, and causing an endless stream of exclamations.

The peach leopard was inevitably surprised at first, but then he relieved himself - most of the things in the city that could be used to ignite fire had been removed, and the rest were covered with felt, and that little spark might not be able to cause flames. The reason why the soldier exclaimed was just that he was panicking, in fact, the spark was extinguished when it was stained with armor, and the stained clothes were only a hole, even if it touched the flesh, it was a slight injury.

It's just that those don't seem to be stone bullets, because they don't vibrate when they land, and when the sparks are splashed, they jump and roll...... If a stone bullet hits an earthen wall, it will definitely not jump so high.

The peach leopard was about to venture closer to check, when he suddenly saw smoke coming out of the shell in front of him—was there anything in it that caused a fire? He quickly ordered the soldiers to carry water to extinguish it, but before the water arrived, the smoke became thicker, and in a moment, the city wall was covered with thick smoke, and within five steps, it was difficult to distinguish human faces.

The peach leopard covered his mouth and nose with his hands, but there was still smoke rushing into his mouth—the smoke seemed to be more choking than the usual smoke of burning wood and charcoal, and he couldn't help coughing loudly at first, and then he felt black in front of his eyes and weak limbs......

Although I have never seen this strange thing, after all, it is an old fight, and the peach leopard immediately reacted - no, this smoke is poisonous!

——————————

In the fourth year of the Qingli period of the Northern Song Dynasty, the official book "Wujing General Essentials" was written, which recorded three gunpowder formulas, one of which was: poison smoke ball gunpowder method - it may be the world's earliest standard chemical weapon.

Pei Gai naturally didn't remember the specific formula of this poison smoke ball, but this did not prevent him from proposing a direction and ordering Xu Yu, Peng Xiao and others to test and prepare. This time, Sun Zhen brought so many medicinal materials, such as wolf poison, arsenic, etc., which were used to match gunpowder to make poison smoke balls.

This kind of poison smoke ball is made of bark and hay thick into a hollow ball, stuffed with medicine, applied with grease outside, ignited with fire when facing war, put out, after the outer layer is burned out, the gunpowder in the inside burns rapidly, roasts the medicine, and naturally smokes - it is very simple to say, but there are no less than 300 times before and after testing, and it is made.

Sun Zhen also brought more than a dozen craftsmen this time, some of whom helped to transform the catapult - since the fireball was thrown, the bag containing the bullet could no longer be simply made of leather and rope, and must be treated with fireproofing - and some of them rushed to work overnight to make poison smoke balls. As for changing the manpower catapult to a counterweight catapult, the workload is too great and not worth it.

It's just that today's wind is strong, and Zu Ti is worried about whether the poisonous smoke will disperse with the wind, so Sun Zhen also consulted an experienced craftsman about it, and the answer was: "You can use it, it doesn't matter." The craftsman explained that if there is too little medicine in the smoke ball, I am afraid that the effect will not be good, and if there is too much medicine, if the poisonous smoke does not disperse for a long time, it will also cause hindrance to our own army-a little windy, as long as it does not blow to our camp.

The wind came from the southeast, so the trebuchet was set up in the east of the city, and dozens of poisonous smoke balls were thrown in one round, and more than a dozen of them were in the middle of the city—because of their light weight, only twenty people were used to drag the ropes, and the head was slightly stronger—and immediately thick smoke rose and covered the city walls. When the trebuchet fired the second round of projectiles, more than 1,000 soldiers in the Chinese army had already jumped out, each wrapped their mouth and nose with wet wipes, carried a ladder with a knife, and rushed towards the city.

This time the city climbing was extremely easy, and there was no Zhao Bing showing his head to resist at all. And when the Chinese soldiers climbed up to the top of the city one after another, the wind cleared up, and the vision gradually became clearer - I saw Zhao soldiers and Zhao generals, most of them lying on their backs, standing on the ground, and the sound of violent coughing came and went......

According to the test, it is not easy for these poisonous fumes to really poison people, but if you smell some of them, you will choke, smell too much, your limbs will be weak, and even after the smoke is gone, you will get seriously ill. Of course, if someone is so weak that they faint in the poisonous smoke, then it is possible that they will not wake up after breathing for a long time without defense.

There had been a distribution in advance, so the Chinese soldiers who had climbed the city wall at the beginning had their own weapons, and first mended the nearby Zhao soldiers who were still rolling and struggling one by one to clear a safe area; Later, the Chinese soldiers who landed in the city ordered an orderly order to kill the city in order to capture and open the city gates.

There was a Chinese pawn who saw the peach leopard standing on the ground, and seeing that the color of the suit was not an ordinary soldier, he immediately held a knife to strike his head. After all, the peach leopard is a general of Zhao Su, and his physical fitness is relatively good-mainly because of the abundant daily nutritional intake--he actually covered his mouth and nose with one hand, and pulled out a knife from his waist with the other, and when he saw that Hua Bing was approaching, he immediately tried his best to sit up, and stabbed the opponent in the lower abdomen with a knife.

The Chinese soldier was caught off guard, and with a "yah", he fell down with a knife. However, his fall attracted more Chinese soldiers, and when several spears stabbed over, the peach leopard was weak and difficult to parry, so he was pierced through the chest and abdomen and died......

As for the return to the city, there is nothing good.

A number of poisonous smoke balls had already crossed the walls and been thrown into the city—theoretically not planned, but an inevitable error—and still rose into the smoke. The area under the city is vast, and the medicine balls are scattered, resulting in the smoke is not very thick, but because of the shelter of the city wall, the wind is also small, so that the poisonous smoke will not disperse for a long time.

As soon as he went down to the city, he inhaled poisonous smoke, and couldn't help coughing violently, and several personal soldiers hurriedly came up to support and guard, but they were also poisoned and collapsed, so they pulled each other and fell to the ground.

Immediately, the Chinese soldiers entered the city and came down to the city to seize the gates. Several of them saw that Zhao General had fallen to the ground, so they ran over from the team, first hacked all of Xuan An's personal soldiers to death, held down Xuan An, and took out a rope from his waist to tie it.

Xuan An knew that he couldn't help it, so he mustered up the last bit of strength, screamed, and bit off his tongue.

Hua Bing hurriedly reached out to break his teeth, but he couldn't break them......

Although the so-called tongue-biting suicide is purely a rural fallacy, theoretically it will not kill people; It's just that Xuan An was poisoned by tobacco first, and he lost a lot of blood, and even the blood flowed into his lungs through the trachea...... So after suffering for almost a meal, I still got what I wanted.

The Chinese soldiers successively overthrew dozens of soldiers who still had some combat effectiveness, and rushed to the door, but it was difficult to open the city gate for a while-in order to prevent the enemy from breaking the door by crashing into the car, the soldiers had already used carts to hold wood and stones, and almost all of the city gate holes were firmly blocked. Just when he was feeling helpless, there was a sound of people shouting and neighing horses in the distance......

After all, the area covered by the poisonous smoke was limited, and Zhao Bing, who was a little farther away from the city wall, was not poisoned, but heard the noise in the direction of the city gate, and rushed to the rescue.

So the two sides fought fiercely in front of the city gates. Although he stepped into the area of the poisonous smoke without warning, Zhao Bing was soft, and it was difficult to exert any strength, but Hua Bing was gradually also affected by the poisonous smoke - after all, he covered his mouth and nose with wet wipes, this kind of protection was too crude, and after fighting for a long time, the water vapor gradually evaporated, and the face towels dried one after another......

Fortunately, the general Liu Yao immediately climbed to the top of the city, seeing this scene, on the one hand, he ordered the soldiers to search the water bladder on the corpse of Zhao Bing, re-moisten his mouth and nose, and on the other hand, let people go down to the city, and ask the marshal to add new troops. He then organized defenses on the upper and lower ramps, and fought head-on with the reinforcements.

Not long after, Zhao also went to the city, assigned people, and hacked all the Chinese soldiers who went down to the city in advance; Immediately imitated the situation, also drew water to wet the hand towel, used it to wrap his face, and commanded the soldiers to climb the road, trying to force the Chinese army back to the city.

It's just that the ramp is narrow, and Liu Yao uses spearmen to line up the phalanx for defense, and Zhao Bing is difficult to succeed for a while.

As more and more Chinese soldiers landed in the city, and even rumbling outside the city, it was estimated that Zu Ti took the opportunity to push out the ladder and other large equipment...... Kong Chang judged the situation, the defeat was a foregone conclusion, so he asked the deputy general to take over the command, and he rode his horse to the forbidden center and went to warn Shile.

Kong Chang pondered, in the current situation, I can only protect the Heavenly King to break through and leave - the other three city gates are still in my hands, taking advantage of the opportunity that the Chinese are focusing on the east city, there is hope to stand out from the west gate. As for where to run after going out, let's talk about it when the time comes—burn your eyebrows, and take care of the present.

Soon after Kong Chang went, the poisonous smoke on and off the city had been dissipated, and Liu Yao used his steady stream of new troops to climb the city, and pressed Zhao Bing under the ramp step by step, and then divided his troops to recapture the city gate and began to remove the wood and stone blocking the gate.

Outside the city, Zu Ti also made Fan Ya push out the crash, slammed the city gate hard, and after about half a meal, he finally broke the door bolt and knocked the wooden city gate open a big gap. When the road was clear and Feng Tie led the cavalry to gallop in, the soldiers who were still fighting hard to protect finally completely collapsed......

。