"What? Didn't Ben already remind Wang Twist? How could he still be attacked by the Chu army? Did he take the general's command as the wind in his ears? ”

Under the city of Tanzhou, after learning the news, Liu Xin was furious.

If it is said that the military order issued in the past only reminded Wang Tuan to be vigilant, then in the latest military order, he was specifically reminded not only to pay attention to the front, but also to pay attention to other directions, and not to give the enemy a chance to take advantage of it.

As a result, I didn't expect to be attacked by the enemy at night.

Fortunately, Wang Twist should not have completely relaxed his vigilance, so after being raided, the soldiers were not completely confused, and the enemy army organized the dead soldiers to bravely assault, and it took a night of fierce fighting to finally completely defeat the Chu army.

In terms of casualties, the casualties of the Chu army at the beginning were not less than those of the Wu army, but after the Wu army was defeated, many soldiers panicked when fleeing, and as a result, they fell into the ripple water and drowned, which made the casualties of the Wu army much greater than that of the Chu army.

"Dudu, it's too early to discuss the matter of Wang Twist, after all, Wang Twist doesn't know where he is now, let's talk about the situation of the battle that night." Li Chengding said with some concern.

"The battle situation is already clear, what else is there to say? Wang Twist didn't pay attention to the general's reminder at all, and as a result, the guard was relaxed, giving the enemy an opportunity. It's that simple, what else to discuss? Liu Xin asked disapplausively.

"Otherwise, in the opinion of the last general, judging from the battle situation that night, the Chu army should divide its troops!" Li Chengding shook his head.

"Division? Are you saying that the Chu army did not devote all its forces? Li Decheng frowned and asked.

"Well, what you said makes sense, if you hadn't reminded me, I would have almost ignored it!" Compared with Li Decheng, Liu Xin heard Li Chengding say this, and immediately woke up.

Indeed, the Chu army attacked secretly, and from the mouths of some of the routed soldiers who fled back, it can be known that the Chu army has always behaved more bravely during the battle, and even some soldiers attacked the Wu army like dead soldiers, regardless of life and death.

From this point of view, if the Chu army had invested all their forces, then they should not have fought so hard, let alone spent a night finally defeating Wang Tuo.

Although the combat strength of the Chu army is not as good as that of the Wu army, it is not far behind, if there is a double advantage in strength, coupled with the convenience of a sneak attack, I believe that as long as the enemy generals are not fools, it will definitely not take so long to achieve victory.

Since this is the case, there is only one possibility, the Chu army is divided, and the Chu army in Xiangxiang is just a part of it!

Of course, there is another possibility, that is, the Chu army did not divide its troops, but deliberately only partially invested some of its forces for certain purposes.

But this argument is obviously somewhat unreasonable, because even if the Chu army did that, it would not make sense, but would cause more casualties.

"The enemy army is divided into two routes, but only one is exposed at present, so where is the enemy army on the other side?" Liu Xin muttered to himself.

Then, everyone's eyes turned to Hengzhou.

"The target of the Chu army is Zhu Siqing!"

Wang Huan naturally didn't know that what he was most worried about had happened, and he failed to defeat Wang Twist cleanly, which was not a flaw.

However, he was very unlucky that Li Chengding saw it and found the loopholes, so it would be difficult for his plan to succeed.

Without saying a word, Liu Xin issued two orders, the first of which was to move the whole army's camp twenty miles to the south to avoid being attacked by the Chu army inside and outside.

This is also a necessary response to the loss of the Xiangxiang defense line.

Another order was to quickly send a messenger to Hengzhou to inform Zhu Siqing, telling him to be careful and not to slack off.

In order to ensure the safe arrival of the messengers, Liu Xin even sent three messengers in succession and sent many cavalry escorts.

As a result, they were intercepted by the Chu army in the middle of the way, two of the three messengers were killed, and one immediately hid in the mountains when the opportunity was not good.

However, it is unknown whether he will be able to deliver the news to Hengzhou in time.

In this regard, Liu Xin has no more options, so he can only hope that Zhu Siqing will not let down his vigilance.

……

Outside the city of Hengzhou.

Another siege battle ended, and the defenders in the city had reached the last moment, but unfortunately every time they saw that the city was about to be broken, the Chu army finally survived again.

This made Zhu Siqing almost can't help but use more troops to attack the city.

Although he and Yang Longyan and the other four mentioned that Hengzhou is just a small city, too many troops cannot be used, and there is no need; However, this does not mean that more troops will not be effective.

At a time like this, more troops means more pressure on the enemy, and it is easy to breach the city.

Fortunately, in the end, Zhu Siqing still held back.

Cautious and steady, this is what Yang Wu likes most about him.

It may be difficult for a steady general to become a famous general, and it is difficult to win exciting victories, but it is also difficult for the enemy to defeat him.

For today's Wu State, with the strength of the forbidden army, it is enough to crush most of the armies in the world without too much planning at all.

In this case, a general who is cautious and calm and rarely makes mistakes is an excellent general; If he can still occasionally flash his mind and make excellent performances, then he can be regarded as a famous general.

Zhu Siqing is almost such a general, so Yang Wu reuses him not only because of his loyalty, but also because he has the ability to serve as the governor.

"That's it, anyway, it's not in a hurry, even if Hengzhou is broken a few days late, it's nothing, the general trend is on my side, as long as you don't make mistakes, with our army's upright division, it is enough to defeat any enemy!" Zhu Siqing thought in his heart.

The enemy is dark and I am clear, so he must leave enough strength behind; The situation in Hengzhou happened to give him the opportunity to do so.

Otherwise, if the situation in Hengzhou is tense and more troops need to be invested, he will not be the way he plays now, and sometimes he has to take a certain risk.

"General, I heard Teacher Gu Quanwu say that our Wu army has gunpowder and can blow up the city wall. It was used when attacking Runzhou, Hangzhou and other places, and Brother Wang also used it to blow up Tian Hao when he pacified the Tian Bao Rebellion. At this time, Yang Longyan suddenly asked.

"You are right, our army does have gunpowder that can be used to attack the city, I heard that this is the first method that the king came up with back then, so that Wang Maozhang took the lead in using it in Runzhou." Zhu Siqing nodded.

"So why not now? And I don't seem to have heard of it in the past few years? Yang Longyan's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly asked.

This is also the doubt in the hearts of the other three, since the Wu army has better siege weapons, then why not use it? Why do you have to use the most primitive methods to attack the city?

"There are two main reasons why it is not used, the first reason is that gunpowder to blow up the city wall is not omnipotent, it has many restrictions, for example, before the morale of the enemy army collapses, even if the city wall is blown up, the enemy army can resolutely resist, and even plug the gap again!" Zhu Siqing explained.

"When attacking Hangzhou that year, our army successfully blew up the city wall, but the two Zhejiang armies resisted stubbornly and finally blocked the gap."

Yes, blowing up the walls doesn't mean the city will fall.

The armies of this era are all conscription systems, especially those of the big forces, the morale is generally relatively high, and because of the frequent battles, the soldiers are usually more elite, and the generals' ability to command the troops is not bad, so it is impossible to blow up the city walls and conquer the city.

In later generations, Hong Xiuquan's Taiping army did use this method to capture many cities at the beginning, but it was in the early days, when the enemies faced were rotten green battalion soldiers.

After the Hunan army, Huai army and other landlord armies arose, it was difficult for them to seize the city so easily.

And those landlords' armed forces, after all, are only temporarily formed, and their combat power should not be comparable to those armies of the war-torn powers today.

This can be seen from what happened to the Jin army when they attacked Jinju a few months ago.

Zhu Siqing then explained: "In addition to the fact that the enemy army can plug the gap, another disadvantage of using gunpowder to blow up the city wall is that there are too many preparation conditions, such as gunpowder moisture, such as groundwater problems, etc., these are all problems that need to be considered, not every place is suitable for using gunpowder to blow up the city wall!" ”

Yang Longyan and the four of them nodded thoughtfully, but then Liu Renzhen asked again: "General, although you said two reasons, the student still thinks that this is still not the reason for not using gunpowder, right?" Even if there are many drawbacks, it's better to use than not to use them, right? ”

Zhu Siqing was stunned for a moment, and then smiled: "You said it well, it's better to use it than not to use it!" But the reason why it is not used is that this is an order given by the king himself. ”

"Brother Wang's order?" Yang Longyan was a little surprised.

"Yes, that's the king's order. As for the reason, then you have to think for yourself, or you can ask the king for yourself! Zhu Siqing shook his head and smiled.

In his heart, he secretly thought: "It's not that I don't tell you, even I don't know the true purpose of the king, so I can only make a guess in my heart!" ”

At the beginning, Yang Wu ordered the prohibition of the use of gunpowder when launching an attack on Hunan and other places, which was questioned by the generals as soon as it was raised, but Yang Wu was resolute and did not give an explanation, which made the generals extremely confused.

In Zhu Siqing's heart, he naturally had some guesses about this.

In his opinion, there are no more than two reasons, the first reason is the problem of money.

Every time the city wall is blown up, it is not said whether it can play a role, but every time you need to use thousands of catties of gunpowder, or even more gunpowder, even if the Wu country has a great cause, where can it withstand this kind of consumption?

As for the second reason, and the more important reason, that is, military training.

In the past few years, the Wu army has rapidly expanded in size, and a large number of recruits need to be tempered in battle to become the elite of a hundred battles.

If we don't vigorously train our troops while we are dealing with the weaker southern forces now, will we have to wait until the Northern Expedition in the future to train our troops?

Without gunpowder, let the soldiers be tempered in normal siege bloody battles, although this is very bloody and cruel, but the effect must be very good.