The water flows slowly southward, and countless freshly cut tree trunks float on the river, and while the boats shuttle, the boatmen use pennies to fetch the timber stranded on the shore back into the river, guiding the timber downstream like a shepherd.

A young boatman, looking at the timber that almost filled the river, was a little puzzled, and the boat boss shouted to pay attention to the boat, and at the same time, he explained to his nephew, who came out with him to make a living: "This is all the timber that the officers and soldiers want, and they are going to build camps and war equipment." ”

"Isn't there a tree over there? Why cut the wood upstream and send it over? ”

"You don't understand that, do you?" The boat boss smiled and looked downstream, "The one-legged bronze man has cut down all the trees around the hanging gourd. ”

"The one-legged bronze man is so ruthless?"

"If you fight, if you don't be ruthless, your own people will be unlucky."

Hearing this, the young man was a little nervous: "Uncle, will we be unlucky?" ”

"It's hard to say, if you are dragged by the official army to work as a coolie, it will be troublesome."

The young man became more and more nervous when he heard this, and the captain of the boat smiled when he saw this: "You have never seen the world, and you see everyone with their heads down, and they look like bullies, so when you arrive at the barracks in a while, if the officers and soldiers ask you to go ashore to help, don't respond." ”

"Silence? What if you annoy the officers and soldiers? ”

"You just pretend not to hear it, there will be a shortage of manpower to carry things on the dock for a while, and the officers and soldiers will shout when they see idlers, don't sit still, pretend to be busy, just don't be so conspicuous."

"That's... If you go ashore to help, can't you come back when you're done? ”

"Okay, then it's up to you to create, in case you are asked to carry wood to the camp, and you just want to leave when you get to the place, and you are asked to do something else, do you do it or not? Our ship can't stay at the dock for that long, and by the time you come back, the ship will be gone long ago! ”

The young man nodded, and the other boatmen also muttered when they saw that the two were talking energetically: "If you are really kept by the officers and soldiers and can't leave, then don't panic, do things honestly, always have a bite to eat and a place to sleep, just be smart, don't be dragged to fill the trench." ”

"Fill in the house? What is Filling? ”

"It is to fill the ditch, when fighting, the defenders of the city will definitely dig a trench outside the city, and divert water into a moat, and the besieger must first fill in the moat or trench, and those ladders and other war equipment can approach the city wall."

A boatman with a scar on his face came to say that in the past few years, there were many wars in Yuzhou, and the Sui army entrenched in the hanging gourd, and the Zhou army who came to attack the city, launched a bloody offensive and defensive battle around the hanging gourd city.

At that time, he was requisitioned by the Zhou army as a young man, and he was unlucky to go to the battlefield to fill in the trenches, and the battlefield was full of stray arrows, and many people fell to the ground with arrows and never woke up.

"I'll tell you, it's okay to be shot dead on the spot, if it's half dead, that's a crime, arrow wounds are not a joke, the body is shot, the internal organs are injured, and the fever and nonsense for several days in a row are simply sinful, and in the end they have to die."

The boatman talked about what he had seen and heard in the barracks, and he didn't know whether it was true or not, anyway, he could say whatever he wanted, and the young man's face turned pale when he heard it, and his hand holding the sword trembled a little.

He had never seen the world, and the village where he had lived for generations was by the Rushui River, and the water system in Yuzhou was very busy, so the people in the village relied on the water to draught and get ships to transport goods to make hard-earned money, and his uncle was one of them.

Because there are many people in the family and there is little land, young people want to run boats like many people, but it is not very safe to make a living on the water because there are water gangsters.

Where did the water cowards come from? In fact, it is the fishermen or the villagers along the river, and many times, it is not clear whether a rower on the river is a good citizen or a water coward.

Begging for life is to support the family, but you can't put your life on the line, so you have to be taken into this line, the young man's uncle has been sailing for many years, just bringing his relatives into the industry, and as a result, the official army wants to crusade against the "one-legged bronze man" who is entrenched in the hanging gourd, and the young man who has just entered the industry for a long time will follow his uncle and be requisitioned by the official army to transport materials.

How can a bronze man, or a one-legged man, walk as freely as a living man?

Young people, like everyone else, heard that it was the "one-legged bronze man" who occupied the hanging gourd, and wanted to make waves and harm the people, and everyone didn't understand how the bronze man could do bad things at first, and later learned that this was a nickname.

The one-legged bronze man or something, it has nothing to do with everyone, whether it is a farmer who was conscripted for military service, or a boatman who was conscripted to transport timber for the official army, everyone just wants to go home alive, so they all look forward to the official army quickly recovering the hanging gourd and ending the war.

During the chat, the river in front of me gradually became congested, and many large and small boats were lining up, waiting to dock at the docks on both sides of the river, while there were many young people on the banks of the river, using tools to pull the drifting logs ashore.

The number of people is so large, far more than the liveliness of the grass market on weekdays, the young people remember their uncle's instructions, and work hard to find things to do, even if they have nothing to do, so as not to be called by the officials and soldiers to help, and finally go to the battlefield to fill the trenches.

After some time, the ship docked, and the young man and his companion gathered the timber floating on the water, and then carried the grain bags in the cabin to the dock, and carried them back and forth several times before emptying the ship.

The captain of the ship went to the military officials to receive bamboo chips as a voucher for completing the task of transporting grain and wood, and the young man took advantage of the rest to look around.

The wharves on both sides of the Rushui are very busy, all kinds of supplies are piled up, and the shore is full of people, including ordinary people in cloth clothes and soldiers in military uniforms and armor.

Horses, donkeys, mules, and all kinds of livestock were carrying the supplies on the wharf to other places, and he looked into the distance, and saw that the tents were undulating, and there was no end in sight, and there were many flags waving in the wind, which was very spectacular.

Looking south along the river, I vaguely saw a city a few miles downstream, which I thought was the Hanging Fortress City, and there seemed to be many bare tree trunks outside the city.

Seeing this, the young man was a little puzzled: "Huh? How come there are woods outside the city? Didn't you say that the one-legged bronze man cut down all the trees outside the city? ”

"Hehe, there's something strange about it." The scarred boatman laughed, "Guess what. ”

"I don't know."

"Fool, that's not a tree, it's a trebuchet!"

"A chicken that throws stones?"

。。。。。。

The big tent of the Chinese army, the prime minister, the king of Shu Chi Dian is convening the generals to discuss, the official army has now surrounded the hanging gourd, and the next step is to attack the city, and strive to recover the hanging gourd as soon as possible, and stabilize the situation in Yuzhou.

Since the elephant two years, the hanging gourd has been in flames of war, the Zhou army and the Sui army around this important place in Henan, broke out many bloody battles, last year the Sui State was destroyed, the hanging gourd was able to recuperate for a year, and now, there is another war.

The situation of the city defense of the Hanging Gourd is not unfamiliar to the Zhou army led by Wei Chi Dun, in order to break through the Hanging Gourd over the years, the generals of the Zhou army are racking their brains to find a way, so this time to attack the Hanging Gourd again, as long as they learn lessons from the previous battles.

Quick attack, everyone wants to do it, but the Anzhou army dares to defend the hanging gourd, and wants to be fully prepared, so it is not possible to be anxious, so in order to minimize their own casualties, they must prepare carefully and weaken the city defense as much as possible.

The first thing to do is to cage the city, set up a large village in the four directions of the southeast, northwest and northwest of the hanging gourd, dig several heavy trenches between each other, and lock the hanging gourd in a cage to avoid a small group of enemy elite or cavalry from breaking through.

The eastern, southern, and western three villages also bear the heavy responsibility of intercepting enemy reinforcements, not only stationed soldiers, but also cavalry patrolling around the periphery, and beware of enemy reinforcements when they are attacking the city with all their might.

Nanzhai is located in the lower reaches of the Hanging Ru River, in addition to preventing the enemy from breaking through from the ground, but also set up a water gate to prevent the enemy in the city from swimming sneak attack or escape, similarly, located in the upper reaches of the Hanging Ru Water, the North Village also has to defend against the opponent's sneak attack in the water.

Beizhai is where the Chinese army is located, and it is also a transshipment terminal for grain, grass and various materials, which unloads a large number of baggage transported by waterway in the north and transports it to other camps to support the combat operations of the army.

The Anzhou army, which was entrenched in the hanging gourd, had cut down all the trees outside the city, so the timber for the official army to build the fortress and build the war equipment needed to be transported from the upper reaches of the Rushui River, which was not a problem, but the problem was that the trebuchet had to throw stones in addition to throwing thunder.

There were no more large stones on the outskirts of the city, so the stones used for trebuchets had to be brought from the upper states.

The official army is strong, and it is converging with the Bozhou army that is advancing westward, with no less than 120,000 troops, so it is divided into four large villages and is not afraid of being broken through by the hanging enemy army at a single point, so the next thing to consider is the siege strategy.

One of the strategies is to attack with water.

It takes several days to build a dam downstream of the Hanging Gourd and the backwater to irrigate the city, while at the same time, the Hanging Gourd can be destroyed with trebuchets before the dam is closed.

The trebuchet is equipped with wheels, the water level rises and can be retreated, after the dam is successfully built near the official army Nanzhai, the hanging gourd will be soaked for more than ten days or even a month, so that the foundation of the rammed earth city wall is unstable, and then the trebuchet is used to attack day and night, and the hanging gourd city wall can be broken relatively easily.

Strategy 2, attack the city through tunnels, dig tunnels to reach under the hanging gourd city wall, bury the thunder, and make a "coffin to make a fortune".

This strategy requires drainage, that is, to cut off one of the left and right sides of the Rushui that surrounds the Hanging Gourd, drain the river, and then attack the city with various war equipment on the ground, and at the same time send people to dig tunnels to approach the Hanging Gourd City.

The other party must guard against their own tunnel siege, so the attack and defense around the tunnel will cause a lot of casualties, if the tunnel siege does not work, then directly attack, as long as you can take the hanging gourd, it doesn't matter if the casualties are larger.

These two strategies are in conflict with each other, so it is necessary to choose one or the other, and Wei Chidun planned to make a decision after the troops came to the city and surveyed the city defense situation on the spot, and now after he walked around the city, he found that the situation was different from what he imagined.

At this time, the hanging gourd is no longer the hanging gourd of the past.

After the fall of the Sui State, after many years of war, the city was rebuilt last year, focusing on repairing the city wall, and the officials who were in charge of the repair project later went to Beijing to take up their posts.

Last year, when the government repaired the hanging gourd city wall, the dilapidated urn city of the three main gates of the east, south and west had been demolished, and it had not had time to rebuild, because it was not necessary for the time being, so the hanging gourd city was roughly the same as many state cities, the shape was like a rectangle, but now it has changed.

There is an earthen rampart in front of each city gate, which is about the same height as the city wall, blocking the city gate behind the rampart, similar to the effect of an urn city, to prevent the enemy from directly attacking the city gate.

In front of the relatively straight city wall, there are also more such earthen ramparts, and each of the southeast, northwest, and northwest city walls has several earthen ramparts shielded in front, and the first day of the first month looks similar to a horse face, but if you look closely, it is different.

The horse face is a section of the city wall that protrudes outside the city wall, square and square, and the enemy is met on three sides, and the defenders can shoot arrows to the left and right sides on the horse face, and shoot the enemy who climbs the straight section of the city wall by taking a ladder.

Nowadays, the earthen ram outside the hanging gourd city wall seems to have a similar function to the horse face, but it is a sharp rampart, and the outward side is the tip of the ram, I don't know what the purpose is.

Wei Chidun felt that it was because the Anzhou army wanted to complete the construction of the fortress in a short period of time, so in order to rush the work, the amount of earthwork was reduced, the fortress was built into a sharp fortress, and then the fortress was used to protect the city, which increased the difficulty and casualties of the official army when attacking the city.

In addition to the earthen ramparts built by the assault, the facilities at the head of the city were also a little strange, and Wei Chi and his generals observed with a clairvoyant mirror and found that the war sheds on the city head covered a wide area, and they did not know how the other side had the confidence and means to ensure that these war sheds survived the attack of the trebuchet.

The tents, the wooden huts built at the top of the walls, kept the defenders safe from arrows, but they were vulnerable to the stones, thunderbolts, and fireballs thrown by the trebuchet.

The war tents at the head of the hanging city are different from the common ones before, not like houses, more like low wooden sheds, and I feel that if the officers and soldiers do their best to use trebuchets to fire cannons, these war sheds will not last for a few days.

If it is an army elsewhere, Wei Chidun only said that the other party does not know the power of trebuchets, so there is such a ridiculous move, but it is the Anzhou army that defends the city, and it is the army that first uses trebuchets and thunderbolts.

The abnormal hanging gourd city wall, with no obvious crossbow platform, seems to be hidden in the war shed at the head of the city, and the style of the arrow tower (enemy tower) is a little strange, as if it is only a little higher than the head of the city.

Of course, the scene inside the city could not be seen, and Wei Chi Tang noticed that there were trenches dug in front of the earthen ramparts outside the city and behind the tributaries of Rushui, which was not surprising, but there was a low wall under the city wall, which seemed to be given to the archers of the city as a female wall.

The inexplicable low wall, the inexplicable city defense, Wei Chidun felt useless, because all of this was made in a hurry in just over a month after Yuwenwen's sneak attack on the hanging gourd was successful, so it was certain that the foundation was not strong.

"The enemy army hastily built a fortress and strengthened the city wall, and its foundation is not solid, so our army must attack it with water first!"

"Tomorrow, Nanzhai will organize people to build a dam to intercept Rushui, and the backwater will be filled with hanging gourds!"

"The water level is rising, the trebuchets that have been built are retreating, and the military camps are paying attention to avoiding the water!"

Wei Chi said categorically, all the generals present agreed, the main body of the city wall of the hanging city is rammed earth, the Anzhou army hurriedly built a fortress outside the city, the main body must also be rammed earth, in such a short period of time, the rammed earth is definitely not strong, as long as it is soaked in water for more than ten days, the wall foundation and the foundation will naturally be soft.

What to do next, try to take down the hanging gourd as soon as possible.

"The Hanging Gourd is just a bag for the widow, but if the official army attacks the city indiscriminately, it will only make the soldiers and civilians in the center of the Hanging Gourd City to the imperial court innocent."

Wei Chi Xuan paused and continued: "Shoot a letter of persuasion to the city, let the soldiers and civilians in the city who are coerced by the traitors know that those who sacrifice the city, the head of the traitor who impostors the king of Yi, seal the county duke, and the thousands of households!" There are traitors who capture the impostor King alive, and seal the country and the ten thousand households! ”