With this plan, Zhu Jiu sent out six adult men to buy grain and grass, Zhu Jiu knew that rabbits do not eat the grass by the nest, and he had never committed any crime against the people of his hometown, but at the moment he was forced to be anxious and couldn't take care of that much, the people of the ministry plundered the township, forcibly requisitioned and bought, and the people who attached the thieves knew that Zhu Jiulang originally ate meat.

Zhu Mazi was captured, and the news of Youdashan's self-defeat reached Ye Shuodu, and Zhu Jiuda, who was actively preparing for the war, panicked, and hurriedly went out of Zhuang to recall the ministries, and he himself hung on the Zhuang wall, and led the subordinates in Zhuang to guard the palace all night, and was frightened three times overnight, tossing for a day and a night, but he didn't even see the shadow of the official army. Zhu Jiu wiped the sweat on his head, smiled and said, "If Yu Hualong is still in Gushan Town, I'm afraid my head will be gone." ”

Li Mao did not send surprise troops to raid Ye Shuodu, not because he didn't know the reality in the village, but because he considered that Ye Shuodu's village wall was tall and the trench was deep, and the surprise attack of light soldiers would inevitably cause heavy casualties, which Li Yu, Chen Wanchun and other veterans agreed with in their hearts, but everyone's views were different from Li Mao's. As the old saying goes, 'Compassion is not in charge of the army, righteousness is not in charge of wealth', it is really unwise to take too much care of the lives of soldiers and miss the opportunity, so it seems that Li Mao still needs years of tempering if he wants to become a qualified general of the unified army.

However, although Li Mao refused to surprise the attack, he did not stop and delayed for months, in fact, he has been urging the brigade to march, but it is only because he carries too many siege equipment that he has slowed down the speed of the march. These siege equipment included six artillery carts, eight wooden donkeys, a nest cart, a watchtower, and thirty ladders. The nest car and the ladder were both built when Hua Long was in charge of the army, and they have been stored in the warehouse and have never been used.

The artillery cart and wooden donkey were specially purchased by Li Mao from the Caozhou garrison for this anti-bandit operation, and there was no workshop to manufacture ordnance in Caozhou, these things were dragged from Yunzhou by the Pinglu army in order to attack Gushan Town, and after Yu Hualong sacrificed himself to avoid this bloody battle, the Pinglu army threw these bulky weapons to the Caozhou state army. The duty of the state army is defense, and they are not interested in these siege equipment, so they discard them in the warehouse at will, and when they heard that Li Mao wanted to buy them, they hurriedly sold them at a low price.

Li Mao didn't know anything about how to use these weapons, and he had never seen their power, so he took the opportunity to familiarize himself with the nature of these siege equipment in order to exterminate a few bandits who had no climate. In the face of high walls and deep ditches, human flesh and blood are not as good as instruments, and Li Mao will not exchange the lives of soldiers for the victory that can be fought for with instruments.

The road from Youdashan to Ye Shuodu has long been destroyed by Zhu Jiu, carrying such heavy siege equipment, the speed of the march is like a snail, Li Mao is very troubled by this, but there is nothing to be done, there are many ways to improve the transportation machinery in his mind, but it cannot be realized due to the limitations of the times. He thus came up with the idea of creating a mechanical bureau, according to which he would spend a lot of money to recruit the best craftsmen of this era and turn his "genius design" into reality, so as to promote the development of Datang's machinery industry as much as possible.

As for how to turn this idea into reality, it should be a problem to be considered after the war, and the first task at the moment is to break through Ye Shuodu and annihilate the nine divisions. It's going to be an uphill battle.

The Qing navy camped two miles away from Yeshuoduzhuang, and pushed the battle line forward for one and a half miles, dug trenches, built ring roads, laid horseback horses, and sowed thistles at a distance of only half a mile from Yeshuoduzhuang. When the officers and troops were busy, Zhu Jiu launched two tentative attacks, their equipment was far inferior to the elite of the officers and troops, and the training was also greatly inferior, and the two attacks ended in complete defeat, with more than 20 bandits killed and wounded, and more than 10 captured. Only two people were slightly injured on the Qing navy, and one of them was still hung because he accidentally stepped on the thistle terrestris he had sprinkled.

After two successive failures, Zhu Jiugui retreated in the village and could not hold out, which gave the Qing navy great convenience, the trench and the circular road were quickly completed, and Chen Lan commanded the soldiers to set up artillery carts outside the village overnight, erected watchtowers, and pushed the nest cart along the circular road to reconnoiter the enemy situation in the village day and night.

After all, Zhu Jiu was born in a reckless manner, and he didn't understand what the officials and soldiers wanted to toss these equipment, but with his intuition, he could also see that it would definitely not be good for the nest car that was higher than the village wall to circle around Zhuang Zi all day long, and Zhu Jiu was preparing to launch a surprise attack.

On a drizzly night, Zhu Jiuqin led fifty healthy soldiers to slip down from the village wall, took advantage of the darkness to touch the artillery position, killed two guards, captured a small colonel, and when he moved back, he was discovered by the secret sentry in front of the army, and the golden gong sounded crisply for a while, and the guards behind the low wall were like rain, Zhu Jiu saw that his whereabouts were exposed, jumped up, and personally covered the retreat of the people behind the palace.

Zhu Jiu is tall, both arms have the strength of a thousand jun, although he does not know any martial arts, but a pair of iron paddle boards dance like a god descending to earth, brave. The striker Yin's repeated attacks were repelled by him, and Yin was hit by an iron oar on his buttocks, and he couldn't get up when he was lying on the ground, thanks to the dark and rain, and the scene was chaotic, so that Yin Zhi lay in the pile of dead people and pretended to be dead and escaped, otherwise he would have died tragically under Zhu Jiu's hands.

Li Mao was reading in the camp, heard about the Nine Tribulations Camp, hurriedly raised his knife and stepped forward to check, by the faint light of the torch, he saw a strong man dancing double iron oars in the wind and rain, awe-inspiring like a god descending to earth, very powerful, unconsciously praised: "It's a hero." ”

Qingmo shouted: "Bullshit hero, eat me and turn into a bear with one arrow." He raised the crossbow and aimed at Zhu Jiu, and was about to pull the trigger, but was pressed by Li Mao. Li Mao shouted: "Whoever captures this person alive will be rewarded with 100,000 yuan." As soon as the words fell, I heard Mao Taigong's strange scream, and the green dragon glaive knife jumped out of the waves, and his body was vigorous, like a nocturnal leopard. Zhu Jiuzheng was on the rise, and suddenly saw a red-eyed and white-haired old man with a knife to kill, stunned for a moment, and laughed: "The officials and soldiers don't care about your food, you are thin like this." ”

Mrs. Mao sneered: "The master is short of money to spend, and your head is worth 100,000 yuan, so I will pay tribute to my grandfather." "A knife slashed, Zhu Jiu didn't dodge, raised the iron oar to block, and with a bang, sparks burst out. Zhu Jiu's face was red, his chest was troubled, and the severe pain in the tiger's mouth was unbearable, so he abandoned the iron oar in horror and turned around and left.

Mao Taigong failed to cut Zhu Jiu's iron oar with a knife, he felt very faceless, turned the knife and split again, but Zhu Jiu had already abandoned the weapon and fled, Mao Taigong turned the knife on the top of his head and spun a flower, and shouted: "100,000 yuan, don't go!" 100,000 dollars, come back! ”

Before he could catch up, the opponent's arrows came like rain, and Mao Taigong's broadsword flew like the wind, crackling the arrows and falling to the ground. Li Mao was dumbfounded, he couldn't imagine that such a thin old man would scare Zhu Jiu face to face with an eight-pound knife, this old man is either a god or a ghost! At this moment, seeing that Mao Taigong was in distress, he urgently ordered the left and right rescues, Qingmo stepped forward bravely with a wooden card in his hand, covering Mao Taigong, and the archers here fired arrows to counterattack, and the thieves and crossbowmen fell to death.

Everyone wanted to take advantage of the victory to pursue, Li Mao shouted: "The night is too dark, be careful, Mingjin retreats." ”

Tianming cleaned the battlefield, Qingmo took Zhu Jiu's sculls and dedicated them to Li Mao, Li Mao tried it with his hands, wrought iron was made, each weighing forty catties, and carefully inspected, there was a gap in the edges and corners of an iron oar, three inches deep. Li Mao cried out in a lost voice: "What means did this old man use to be like this? When Qingmo raised the wooden card to save Mao Taigong, he saw that the thieves and arrows were like rain, and they couldn't hurt their hair, so they had already worshiped it as a god, and at this moment they heard Li Mao scream, so he said: "I secretly tried his knife, only eight catties, this old man is indeed not an ordinary person." After a pause, Qingmo said: "I plan to switch to his disciple to learn art, and I will inform you in advance." "Half of Qingmo's martial arts were taught by Li Mao, and in private he regarded himself as Li Mao's disciple, but after seeing the magic of Mao Taigong, he moved the idea of changing the court.

Li Mao said repeatedly: "Make, make, prepare a big gift, you and the supernatural power go to worship him." ”

Mao Taigong didn't look down on Qingmo, he didn't have a wisdom root, he couldn't learn his skills, and he was blue-eyed to Mo Qi's supernatural powers, so Qingmo encouraged Mo Qi's supernatural powers to advance and retreat with him, and Mao Taigong reluctantly agreed to accept him when he saw Mo Qi's magical powers.

After experiencing this fiasco, Zhu Jiu cowered in the village and did not dare to show his head. After the artillery carts were properly commissioned, Li Mao used a horsewhip to point out three points at random on the village wall, asking the artillery soldiers to fire artillery bombardment day and night, and these artillery carts of the Qing Navy had just been purchased, and the artillery players had just changed careers, and their hands were very raw, and only five or six guns of ten artillery pieces could succeed, and less than one-fifth of them hit the target.

Ye Shuodu's Zhuang wall was originally a thin earthen wall, Zhu Jiu occupied Zhuangzi after demolishing the houses of the large families in the village, and added a new wall along the old wall, limited by human and financial resources, less than the city wall, but much taller and thicker than the general Zhuang wall. There is only one point, the means of building the city wall are fundamentally different from the means of building the courtyard wall of the people's houses, the little Ye Shuodu no one knows how to build the city wall, and the craftsmen hired by Zhu Jiu can only build this wall according to the means of building the courtyard wall of the people's houses, so this seemingly mighty high wall is actually a golden jade outside, and it is not vulnerable at all.

The artillery of the Qing Navy is rotten, and this wall is even worse, and it is judged by rottenness, but after a day's work, this wall is full of holes and is crumbling.