Wei Xuezeng not only thought so, but also did so. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

One day of the truce, he sent a person in his staff who was more able to speak well to come to the city to lobby Liu Dongyang and Bibai, who knew that Liu Dongyang and Bibai were a little frantic because they were surrounded on all sides, and directly proposed to be the general army of Ningxia to defend Ningxia, the officers and soldiers were not allowed to enter, and the Ming court was not allowed to send people to replace their positions, which directly exposed the ambition of separating Ningxia to ensure security.

This made Wei Xuezeng furious.

But in order to have a glimmer of hope for a peaceful settlement, Wei Xuezeng ignored Ye Mengxiong's dissuasion, ordered people to enter the city again, and visited Bibai and Liu Dongyang respectively, trying to sow discord between the two, using the statement that Bibai was originally a Mongol and Liu Dongyang was a Han to encourage Liu Dongyang to kill Bibai and surrender to Kaicheng, but was brushed by Liu Dongyang and Bibai together, Bibai was actually in Liu Dongyang's mansion, and the poor lobbyist was pushed to the city and fried in front of Wei Xuezeng......

Wei Xuezeng was so angry that he almost turned his back on it, Ye Mengxiong ordered the Ming army to open artillery bombardment of the city, and bombed Liu Dongyang and Bibai back to the city, but the morale of the Ming army was frustrated because of this, and Wei Xuezeng was greatly annoyed.

Time passed slowly, no matter what strategy Wei Xue had used, he was never able to inflict any blow on the rebels, and the method of feints and strong attacks more or less reduced the losses of the Ming army, and more than 3,000 people died in the siege of the city for half a month.

Xiao Ruxun brought the doctors in Pingyu City and each castle to form an ambulance battalion, and all the soldiers who were lightly injured were disinfected with spirits and bandaged properly, the stability rate of injuries and diseases was very high, and the mortality rate was greatly reduced, which made Wei Xuezeng and Ye Mengxiong feel a little surprised in their depression.

At the beginning of April, the imperial court's holy decree arrived, and the emperor ordered the promotion of Xiao Ruxun, the former Ningxia staff general and the garrison of Pingyu City, to serve as the chief military officer of Ningxia with the governor of Tongzhi, control the soldiers and horses of all roads, obey Wei Xuezeng's dispatch to fight, and rewarded Xiao Ruxun with the title and money, and even specially asked the official to supervise the army Mei Guozhen with a message, saying that if he made great contributions to pacifying the war, there would be a heavy reward.

Mei Guozhen said with a smile that the emperor personally ordered to bring a message to the generals, Xiao Zongbing, this is the first time since Wanli!

Xiao Ruxun immediately expressed his loyalty, and his solemn expression was beyond doubt.

Ma Gui was promoted to the deputy chief soldier of Datong again because of his military merits, but there was not so much preferential treatment, Xiao Ruxun's Pingyu army was also required to inspect the head because of the capture of 9,000 people, and a reward of silver was issued according to the head, which was personally ordered by His Majesty the Emperor.

This can only be said that people are more popular than people, anyway, Ma Gui is envious, jealous and hateful, the second brother Xiao Ruhui is a little self-sorry for himself and is not reused, the younger brother became the chief military officer at the age of twenty-two, and became the head of all the big-headed soldiers and officers here, and will communicate with the civilian officials on behalf of the officers and big-headed soldiers here, but he was only promoted to a guerrilla general...... No more effort! is about to be completely surpassed by his younger brother!

Mei Guozhen also brought a Shangfang sword to Wei Xuezeng, Xu Wei Xuezeng had the right to cut first and then play, and all the generals were awe-inspiring.

In the next strategic meeting, Xiao Ruxun, the chief soldier of Ningxia, was allowed to participate, and the rest of the generals, even Li Yun, the deputy chief soldier, did not have this treatment...... It also made the generals dissatisfied, but they were helpless, and the records that people could get their hands on were very hard, especially the records of the 3,000 cavalry of the Rabbit Division, which was enough to make these officers shrink their heads.

"What? Burying gunpowder in the ground and blowing up the city walls? Those powder kegs you saw on the road were for this? ”

The first news that Mei Guozhen learned after he became the supervisor was actually like this! Feelings all the way over, seeing Wei Xuezeng from all over the country to requisition gunpowder, is this the reason?

He was immediately stunned on the spot, and he didn't slow down for a while--I feel that you haven't made progress for more than ten days, are you digging tunnels and preparing to blow up the city wall? Mei Guozhen seemed to have heard the Arabian Nights, and looked at Wei Xuezeng and Ye Mengxiong as if they were not fakes at all, only to know that this was indeed true, and also learned that this tactic was proposed by Xiao Ruxun.

"Mei Jian Jun, please see, this is the whole map of the Ningxia city wall, its four city gates, there is an urn city in front of the gate, and there are two city walls behind the gate, that is to say, counting the urn city, a city gate is guarded by four city walls, we will not count one to capture one, we must break four in a row, during which we must always guard against the thief army did not set up an ambush on the city, condescending to attack us, etc., the last general will break the rebels in Pingyu City The rebels rely on are two city walls, and Ningxia, there are four roads.

Our sergeant is not more than 40,000, the thief army has at least 20,000 soldiers, supplemented by Jiancheng, our army does not have an advantage in terms of strength at all, the previous time, our army attacked Ningxia City with a large army, and lost 1,000 soldiers within three days, but did not even take down an urn city, the loss of soldiers is too great, we really can't accept it, therefore, storming Ningxia City is the next policy. ”

"This supervising army also knows that the art of war cloud siege is the bottom, the attack heart is the top, and it is right not to storm such a strong city, but what kind of tactic is it to blow up the city wall with gunpowder? This supervising army is also familiar with the history of war, and there has never been such a tactic since the emergence of firearms in the Song Dynasty, who would have thought that gunpowder could overturn the city wall? So what's the point of the existence of the city wall? ”

Mei Guozhen was quite confused.

Xiao Ruxun said: "No one has used it before, it doesn't mean that it won't work, and the predecessors don't understand the power of gunpowder very well, maybe a single cannon is not very powerful, but hundreds of artillery platoons are quite terrifying, although artillery can't help the city, but gunpowder may not be impossible, we will blow it up with gunpowder from under the foundation of the city wall, the key point is to seal the entire space!"

The last general once studied firearms in depth, and found that the reason why gunpowder is so powerful is not that it can explode itself, in fact, if a pile of gunpowder is placed in an open field, the gunpowder will only burn and smoke, not explode. ”

Xiao Ruxun squatted down, poured a handful of gunpowder on the ground, and then lit it with a fire fold, and sure enough, the gunpowder just emitted a dazzling light, burned and smoked, and made a sound, and there was no explosion.

"But if gunpowder is placed in a confined space and completely enclosed with only a fuse, it becomes a firearm."

Xiao Ruxun took out a small bamboo tube, the bamboo tube is gunpowder and a lead, this is a special demonstration firearm, ignite the lead, put a wooden bowl on it, everyone is a little farther away, bang, the wooden bowl was blown up to the sky, and then fell again.

"This is the principle of the tactics that the last general thought of, if a large amount of gunpowder is placed in a confined space and ignited, the whole space will burst, and this space is directly under a city wall, so what about the city wall when it bursts?"

Mei Guozhen looked at the wooden bowl rolling on the ground and was stunned on the spot, Wei Xuezeng and Ye Mengxiong had already seen Xiao Ruxun's demonstration, so they were confident.

"So, is this really a viable way to go?" Mei Guozhen frowned and thought carefully: "But after all, this is a move that has never been taken before, Mr. Xiao, how sure do you think?" ”

Xiao Ruxun said categorically: "Eighty! ”

"Eighty percent ......" Mei Guozhen looked at the incomparably strong Ningxia City on the map, and slowly shook his head: "But I don't know how long it will take me to renovate the city wall after I blow it up?" The construction of the Ningxia city wall is not easy, once it is blown up, will there be great losses? ”

Xiao Ruxun shook his head.

"There will be losses, this is a war after all, there has been no war without losses since ancient times, it's just that the Mei Jian Army, the lesser of two evils, no matter how good the city wall is, but it is now in the hands of the rebels, it is an obstacle to my Ming Dynasty to quell the rebellion, as long as it is an obstacle, it must be removed! If the city wall is gone, it can be repaired again, if the soldiers are gone, it is really gone, and the soldiers are still there when the city wall is destroyed, but it can still deter the captives, and if the soldiers are gone, no matter how thick the city wall is, what is the use? ”