After Pi Guangye left, Qian Biao looked at the generals under his command, and saw that most of them were determined, and they were not affected by Pi Guangye's words just now, and he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

If the most important thing in defending the city is of course, it is the determination of the generals, if these defenders have no determination to defend the city and want to surrender, then what is the use of the city no matter how strong it is?

"Ladies and gentlemen, you have all heard what Yang Wu's envoy said just now, the enemy army is now massively increasing its troops, claiming to be 100,000, although I don't know if it's true, but I don't think it's much worse. The next battle to defend the city will definitely not be easy, and everyone needs to work together to overcome the difficulties together. If any of you are cowardly and want to surrender, you can bring it up now, Lone will not blame, and he and his family will be let out of the city, leaving no difficulty, this point Lone said to do! ”

No one present spoke, and after a while, Cao Gui stood up and said loudly: "Great King, the last general is willing to lead the army to fight to the death and never surrender!" ”

"Yes, the last general is willing to fight to the death and will never surrender!"

……

Sima Fu, Bao Junfu and other generals also loudly agreed, and did not lose confidence in the slightest because of the enemy's large-scale reinforcements. Then, other officials and generals also stood up and said: "Fight to the death, never surrender!" ”

Qian Biao nodded with satisfaction and said, "Okay, you have this determination, and you are very relieved!" However, Lone also has to put his words in front, since you are unwilling to surrender, then if anyone secretly wants to contact the enemy army and put my Hangzhou City to death, then don't blame Lone for turning his face and not recognizing people! ”

Bao Junfu said with a smile: "The king can rest assured, everyone present is a person who has followed the king for many years, how could they betray the king and surrender?" However, the next process of defending the city needs to be well prepared, although the city of Hangzhou is strong, but after all, the Huainan army has a large number of troops, plus their siege methods are varied, especially Yang Wu, all kinds of novel and strange means are difficult to guard, and our army needs to deal with it. ”

"Yes, when the Huainan army attacked Suzhou, it succeeded with Suzhou artillery in one fell swoop, and later when it attacked Runzhou, it suddenly used gunpowder to blow up the city, if they used any new means to attack the city this time, it is difficult to guarantee that there will be no accidents, so the king must leave enough reserves in advance." Sima Fu bowed and said.

On the side, Cao Gui also nodded and said: "The Suzhou cannon is now used by me, but it is a defensive weapon of our army; Although the method of bombing the city with gunpowder seems to be magical, in fact, as long as our army is cautious, there is still a way to restrain it; However, if the enemy army resorts to other siege methods, that is the real trouble. ”

Seeing that everyone had already begun to discuss specific defensive tactics, and didn't pay any attention to the surrender, Qian Biao couldn't help but feel completely relieved, and began to join everyone's discussion.

Outside the city, in the camp of the Huainan Army.

Yang Wu had already prepared for the failure of persuasion, so after hearing the news, he just said "I know", so he didn't pay attention to it, and began to discuss with Li Shenfu how to attack the city.

There have always been so many siege methods, after Yang Wu came to this era, although he captured many cities in a row, but in general, they were captured by surprise, the siege cannon suddenly used when attacking Suzhou, and the bombing that Wang Maozhang suddenly used when attacking Runzhou. Medicine, etc., the common denominator of these examples is surprise.

Although it can't be said that the donkey's skills are exhausted now, it is impossible to capture the city as easily as before. The defenders in the city are not fools, and they will naturally prepare accordingly when they know that the Huainan army has these weapons.

Even, today's Suzhou cannon has become a weapon for the defenders to defend the city, and hundreds of Suzhou guns are mounted on the city wall, which has become a nightmare that must be faced when Huainan attacks the city.

Therefore, Yang Wu does not dare to underestimate the wisdom of people in this era, and he will not think that he can be invincible with gunpowder.

"Your Highness, doesn't our army have gunpowder, just blow up the city wall, so many cities have been broken by our army, can't we still break through this city of Hangzhou?" Seeing that Yang Wu and Li Shenfu were discussing and discussing, but they couldn't come up with a good solution, Fan Sicong asked directly.

Yang Wu sneered: "Do you treat the defenders as fools? If the enemy defenders already know that our army has these siege weapons, won't they take precautions? At least if Ben was going to defend, there was more than one way to restrain the gunpowder from blowing up the walls. ”

Fan Sicong was stunned and said: "This gunpowder blew up the city wall, and when it exploded, the city wall was blown down, and then as soon as our army swarmed in, the city was broken, is there any way to restrain it?" ”

Yang Wu smiled: "If only it was as simple as you said." But have you thought about it, the morale of the defenders is still very high now, and even if our army succeeds in blowing up the city wall, I am afraid that it may not be useful. Because the gap is relatively narrow, it is difficult for our army's superiority in strength to be brought into play, and when the time comes, it will be difficult for our army to attack in a short period of time if the gap is blocked. The enemy only needs to take advantage of this time to plug the blown gap, such as using a special door plug car to plug the gap. ”

At the beginning, Tian Yan's army had occupied the outer city, but the defenders still relied on narrow streets to resist, and they could not break through for three months, in the final analysis, it was the terrain that made Tian Yan's side of the strength advantage not come into play, and Qian Biao personally defended the city so that the morale of the defenders was high and they resolutely resisted.

So Yang Wu didn't think that everything would be fine as long as he blew up the city wall.

Li Shenfu also smiled: "Yes, the enemy only needs to block our army at the gap for a while with a small number of troops, and then build a wall behind the gap to prevent our army from breaking into the city, as for the gap, you can slowly block it." ”

Fan Sicong blinked, obviously not expecting to be able to deal with it like this.

I saw Yang Wu then said: "This is still the situation that our army successfully blew up the city wall, in fact, if the defenders are prepared, whether our army can successfully blow up the city wall is a question." ”

"Like in the Battle of Runzhou, our army dug directly under the nose of the enemy, and then buried black powder to blow up the city wall, at that time, because An Renyi didn't know that our army had the means to directly blow up the city wall, so there was no defense at all; But now that the defenders of Hangzhou have known that our army has gunpowder, something that can blow down the city wall, will they still let us dig under the city wall so easily? I am afraid that by then, hundreds of Suzhou artillery pieces will be enough to cause great casualties to our army. ”

Fan Sicong said: "Then what if our army digs a tunnel? Just like in Gwangju, dig a tunnel directly under the city wall and blow it down. ”

Yang Wu smiled: "Since you are going to dig the tunnel, then let me ask you, with the excavation speed of our army, how long will it take to dig to the foot of the city wall?" ”

Fan Sicong thought for a moment in his heart and said: "With the speed of our army, if we go all out, it will take about half a month to fill in the moat first, and then it will take half a month to dig under the city wall." ”

Yang Wu said: "Yes! Not to mention the time to fill the moat, but only half a month to dig the tunnel, it seems to me that the enemy may only need half a day to make many of the arrangements of our army useless. ”

"They only need to determine the direction of the tunnel dug by our army through the ground hearing at the first time, and build an urn city in the corresponding section of the city wall, so that even if our army blows up the city wall, it is useless, because the enemy army only needs to hold the urn city. In this way, the tunnel that our army took half a month to dig out, and it only took half a day for our army to waste its efforts. ”

Li Shenfu also said with a smile: "In addition to building the urn city, the enemy army can also carry out reverse excavation in the corresponding place in the city, and after connecting with our army's tunnels, they can destroy our army's tunnels by irrigating or setting fire to them or even directly sending people into the tunnels." ”

"In short, black powder is just a siege weapon, but it is not invincible, it can be used to deal with unguarded enemy troops or enemy troops who do not have much experience in defending the city, but it is not easy to succeed when used against the defenders of Hangzhou."

At this time, Fan Sicong was a little dumbfounded, feeling that he had always thought that there were so many ways to deal with the unsolvable siege weapon, he couldn't help but scratch his hair and said: "Then what should our army do?" Isn't it said that there is no way to deal with them? ”

Yang Wu shook his head and said, "Don't you know how to attack the city without gunpowder?" How you attacked the city before, how you attack it now. The biggest weakness of the enemy army is that there are no reinforcements, trapped in a lonely city, our army can slowly consume the enemy army, constantly consume their living forces, and then launch a general attack when the time is ripe, and break the city in one fell swoop. In addition, these siege methods just mentioned may not be successful, perhaps the enemy army carelessly let our army succeed? So at least give it a try, no matter how bad it is, it can consume the enemy's troops, which is also good for our army's siege in the future. ”

Soon, after consulting with Li Shenfu, Yang Wu decided to put the main direction of attack in the east and north of the city, in which he personally led an army of 40,000 to attack the northern city wall, and Li Shenfu led the remaining 40,000 troops to attack the eastern city wall, in order to give full play to the military advantage of the Huainan side.

As for the west of the city, it is next to the West Lake, and the south of the city is along the Qiantang River, both of which are narrow terrain, and it is difficult to launch a large army to attack the city. Therefore, Yang Wu only sent a naval army to monitor these two sides to prevent the enemy from sneaking out of the city from here.

Different from the previous siege warfare, this time because of the 100,000 people requisitioned and issued, plus the people requisitioned around Hangzhou, the Huainan army had enough manpower to fill in the moat, build walls, towers, etc.

In just two days, the army built a series of barracks on the east and north sides of Hangzhou City, preparing for the siege, and the efficiency was several times higher than before.