Chapter 171: Demolition (I)

Outside the city of Runzhou, in front of the Huainan army. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The fighting between the two sides has been going on for nearly a month, but they have not been able to breach the city.

The moat of Runzhou City is more than 80 steps wide, connected to the Yangtze River, and it is living water, which cannot be cut off at all. And An Renyi has been strengthening the city wall since he became the assassin of Runzhou. Today's city wall of Runzhou is not only very high but also very heavy, the city wall is built with stone bricks, extremely strong, the stone bricks are only glued together with sticky things such as glutinous rice juice and egg white, and between the gaps, even the steel needle can not drill into.

Such a city wall was bombarded continuously for more than 20 days with 30 Suzhou cannons, but with little effect. Coupled with the fact that the city is well armed, well stocked with food, and has a flowing water source, it is not easy to storm the city.

When Yang Wu led his army south, he left Wang Maozhang behind to attack Runzhou, and left him 15,000 troops, leaving him to attack Runzhou alone. However, although he defeated the Runzhou army when An Renyi took advantage of An Renyi's light enemy to go out of the city to engage him more than ten days ago, it was not enough to capture Runzhou alone before Yang Wu led the army back.

Three days ago, a young man named Ning Zhong came to his army, saying that he had come to help him break the city on the orders of Yang Wu. remembered that Yang Wu had said that he would leave some secret weapons to help him break the city, Wang Maozhang couldn't help but be interested.

But when he saw the secret weapon in Yang Wu's mouth with his own eyes, he couldn't help but be disappointed. In his mind, what can be used to siege the city is either a big guy like the Suzhou cannon, or some kind of siege ladder that can help him easily climb the city wall, or a ram that can help him break through the city gate.

However, what Ning Zhong showed him was something called "black powder", which looked black, granular, and inconspicuous. Ning Zhong told him that this thing could help him blow up the city walls and prepare him for the siege.

But Wang Maozhang was very skeptical, and felt that the person in front of him was talking nonsense, but Ning Zhong was introduced by Yang Wu after all, so Wang Maozhang, who was suspicious, had to prepare according to what Ning Zhong said.

"Mr. Ning, that black powder is really as powerful as you say, can it blow up the city wall of Runzhou?" Wang Maozhang was still a little skeptical.

"The general's rest assured is that as long as the thing is transported to the city as required, dig a hole under the city wall, put it in, and then ignite it, it will definitely not be a problem to blow up the city wall. If you are lucky, An Renyi and Zhang Hao happen to be on that section of the city wall, and they can even blow up these two people directly! Ning Zhong said with a smile.

"The only thing to worry about is how to transport this thing safely under the city walls, how to successfully dig a hole under the city walls and put this thing in, so that the enemy army can't destroy it in advance. In addition, the explosion will produce a huge shock, and people near the explosion point may be injured, so the soldiers of our army besieging the city must flee to a safe area within the specified time. ”

Wang Maozhang saw that he was full of confidence when he said it, and he didn't say anything more. After all the preparations were made, Wang Maozhang ordered the siege of the city as usual, trying not to arouse An Renyi's vigilance.

At the beginning, it was still the Suzhou cannon, and dozens of Suzhou cannons continued to roar, smashing boulders into the city of Runzhou. And the enemy troops in the city also continued to use Suzhou artillery to counterattack, and the two sides went back and forth, and the battle was not fierce.

Fortunately, after so many days, the Suzhou artillery of the Runzhou Army was destroyed a lot, and there was not much left, plus so many days of consumption, the boulders in the city were almost consumed, so the losses caused to the Huainan Army were not large.

After roaring for more than half an hour, the real siege began. Groups of Huainan troops formed a formation according to the battalion as a unit, pushing the huge siege ladder and began to advance. And the Suzhou artillery in the city also quickly adjusted its target and began to attack these siege ladders.

Because the siege ladder was too cumbersome, it was pushed forward at a slow speed, and when it entered the range of the Suzhou cannon, there were constantly cloud ladders destroyed by boulders, and the Huainan army hiding inside and behind them turned around and fled.

It's all the same as usual, and it doesn't seem to be any different. An Renyi and the others in the city were also very puzzled, and they didn't understand why Wang Maozhang put on a big battle before, but in the end it was thunder and rain, and most of the Huainan soldiers were still waiting in the rear, not joining the ranks of the siege, and the siege equipment was not much more than usual.

However, among the many huge siege ladders, there are dozens of siege equipment that are not very eye-catching. It was an eight-wheeled siege vehicle with some space for soldiers, wrapped in iron sheets and covered with sandbags to protect against arrows and fire, with the only thing to worry about was whether it would be hit by enemy trebuchets.

Fortunately, compared to those tall and large ladders, the siege vehicles are very inconspicuous, and the targets are small, so it is very difficult to hit them with Suzhou cannons, so the defenders in the city generally do not use Suzhou cannons to attack the siege vehicles, but leave them to the defenders on the city wall to deal with.

After all, according to the past siege experience, there are not a few people hidden in this kind of siege vehicle, and the threat to the defenders is much smaller than those huge siege ladders.

What's more, this kind of siege vehicle manufacturing is relatively simple, in many siege battles before, Huainan will dispatch many siege vehicles every time, and it is obviously difficult to deal with them with Suzhou artillery.

However, in today's siege battle, there is a siege vehicle in the dozens of siege vehicles that is very special, and what is hidden in the car is not a dozen soldiers, but a huge coffin, which is naturally filled with black powder, which is more than 2,000 catties.

The explosive power of black powder is naturally far less powerful than that of later generations. medicine, but if more than 2,000 catties of black powder explodes, as Ning Zhong said, it would be enough to blow up the city wall.

After these siege engines arrived under the city walls, they did not shoot arrows at the city to cover the besieging soldiers as usual, but desperately dug holes under the walls under the protection of the siege vehicles.

The rest of the soldiers, after pushing the ladder to the bottom of the city, did not start to climb the city wall as usual, but kept shooting arrows to suppress the defenders of the city.

"It seems that the enemy army is trying to dig a tunnel into the city!" An Renyi's heart froze, and he immediately reacted.

The method of digging tunnels into the city was not uncommon in this era, and there were many ways to deal with tunnels. However, it is very strange that the excavation of tunnels is usually carried out in secret, taking advantage of the enemy's knowledge to enter the city through the tunnels.

But in front of him, the Huainan Army did not hide the idea at all, and dug under the noses of the defenders in the city, not worrying about being discovered by the defenders at all.

"Is it going to dig up the walls?" An Renyi frowned. However, although he could not think of what the enemy was planning, this did not prevent him from giving the order to stop the enemy's movement.

Immediately, the rain of arrows from the defenders in the city became more and more cold, and they kept firing arrows towards the place where the tunnel was dug to prevent the Huainan army from digging holes.