But Hong Tao saw a major flaw in the plan of the fortress castle, which was that it had only one entrance. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

This arrangement was obviously intended to make the castle easy to defend and difficult to attack, and to make full use of the terrain of the high ground to improve the castle's defensive capabilities. However, it has a very big problem, that is, it cannot be deployed, and it isolates the enemy and traps itself to death.

Now he doesn't need to send people to besiege the entire high ground, he only needs to guard the main gate and the other party can't get out, and some scattered cavalry patrols in other places can prevent people from climbing down the cliff and escaping. As for how to capture this castle, Hong Tao has a way to try.

Five days, this is the time limit set by Hong Tao for this siege operation, whether it can be successful or not, as soon as the time comes, he will immediately get on the ship and leave. If enemy reinforcements come too quickly and too much, then be ready to board and leave at any time.

There was still half a day left on the first day, and Hong Tao did not take advantage of the victory to pursue, but began to prepare for the siege. More than 200 army troops were divided into two parts, and all the cavalry were scattered into scouts, and went to the east, southeast, and northeast directions of the high ground to guard and prevent anyone from climbing off the cliff from the castle to escape, and by the way to observe the situation of enemy reinforcements in the east. After a period of exploration just now, I found that this is not an entrance to the river at all, there is no river, just a slender strait, and there is no way to go. The only way to reinforce the castle is to come by land.

Most of the remaining army began to camp a kilometer away from the castle, trying to find a place on higher ground. And then don't be idle, in groups of thirty people, each with a marching shovel to dig a trench. This trench does not need to be too deep, squatting in it can defend against the enemy's artillery bombardment, tentatively one meter. The main entrance of the trench vertical castle was excavated, and when the enemy opened artillery to interfere, it was extended horizontally to both sides, and as long as it was not shelled, the main line was extended in the direction of the castle. It looks like a whole fish bone, and when to dig the trench within a hundred meters of the moat.

The sailors of the fleet should not be idle, leave the necessary personnel on duty, and the rest will go ashore and go to the nearby woods to cut wood, as much as possible, and after chopping, they will all be sent to the east, southeast, and northeast sides of the castle to be stacked.

The lowlands were fertile and the soil was soft, digging trenches was not too tiring, and the rotational construction was fast, and by the time we had dinner, the front of the trenches was less than four hundred meters from the moat. This is when the first wave of the enemy's counterattack began, not artillery but trebuchets. Four trebuchets placed on the walls of the city tossed clay pots larger than a man's head high, drew a parabola, and landed near the trenches.

"It should be crude whale oil, inform the soldiers to be aware of the enemy's fire, if the fire spreads into the trenches, don't panic, just cover it with mud." The clay pot fell to smithereens and splattered a lot of liquid from it. Soon the soldiers in front got some of these liquids back and showed them to Hong Tao, who smelled them and twisted them with his hands, probably knowing what the other party was going to do. They are still too tender to set fires, and they started by setting fires, and they can deal with this kind of pediatric-like tricks at hand.

Sure enough, the four trebuchets worked for more than an hour, throwing out dozens of cans of whale oil, and before the night was about to fall, they finally stopped throwing crockpots and replaced them with burning fireballs, which soon ignited the grease on the ground and burned near the trenches.

Now it is more convenient for the soldiers to dig the trenches, which means that the enemy has brought them lighting equipment, and then dig them. But what followed was not a crockpot, but a large iron ball. With the roar coming from the city wall, the cannon that Hong Tao had always feared finally began to speak. It turned out that the whale oil was not intended for fire attack, but to indicate the target to the artillery, and it could also be used as a night illumination, through which the enemy's movements could be observed.

"Record the frequency of enemy fire and continue digging as soon as the shelling stops." Solid bullets want to hit soldiers hiding in trenches, which is basically wishful thinking. It's not as threatening as a stone projectile thrown by a trebuchet, and if you're really lucky, you might be able to shoot someone on the head. As for whether the enemy will have this luck, Hong Tao doesn't care, he should eat, sleep, and sleep, and wait until dawn tomorrow.

Don't look at Hong Tao as a cowardly and death-scared guy, but he has a big heart. He can still eat and sleep on the battlefield with the sound of artillery and fire, and as long as he feels that there is no danger and there is hope of escape, he can force himself to forget what happened around him. Think about how to get something fun and fall asleep after a while.

"It seems that they kill a lot of whales, whale oil is very rich! Old man, these whales are drops from our country! Your conscience is broken! Give me the record of the night. In the early morning of the next day, Hong Tao got up from the piercing wake-up whistle and walked out of the tent to see that the fire was still burning. The people in the castle threw whale oil all night, and as for how long the cannon was fired, I really don't remember, I didn't hear it when I fell asleep.

"After breakfast, let the gunners take their positions, six hundred meters, and first scrap the littering and noisy things on the city wall. Inform our patrolmen to light the fire from tonight to prevent the enemy from slipping away. While brushing his teeth and washing his face, I read the record of last night's battle, and the location and number of trebuchets and artillery on the city wall were all available. The other party is tossing at night, and he will attack during the day, anyway, don't be idle.

When the five mortars were in place, three rounds of test firing began, one shot was slightly closer, one was cross-fired, and another round was fine-tuned, and through the distance and angle tests, the exact angle of the gun body could be found.

The people in the city were obviously a little overwhelmed by the cannonballs that could still explode from the sky, especially the defenders at the head of the city, who had all shrunk behind the battlements, looking out through the arrow holes, trying to find the location of the cannons. Unfortunately, the whale oil that was thrown down last night was still burning, and the smoke was blown in the direction of the castle by the west wind, reducing visibility. In fact, even without this smoke, mortars firing from the trenches would be difficult to detect.

The effective range of the 60-millimeter mortar is more than one kilometer, which is not necessarily longer than the enemy's condescending artillery, but it is much more accurate than the front-loading smoothbore that fires a large iron ball. After the test firing, the gunners quickly calculated the pitch angle and found the impact point. After adjusting the angle of the barrel, the cannonballs were fired again, and most of the shells landed near the city walls, and most of them landed accurately on the city walls.

With a sound of explosions, all kinds of weapons, defenses, and garrison soldiers arranged on the city wall were seriously damaged. When a shell explodes, everything within a radius of about three meters will be affected. Although the cast iron shrapnel and black powder charge at this time were not enough to explode hundreds of shrapnel, the iron sand contained in the shells was not vegetarian, and anyone who bit it would see blood. If you get close, the shock wave from the explosion can also make people dizzy and deaf.

If this thing were used against the trained armies of later generations, the effect might not be obvious, but it was still very terrible for the soldiers of the thirteenth century. Because people don't know what this thing is, the unknown sometimes makes people fearless, and sometimes it makes people feel frightened.

In less than ten rounds of shelling, there were no human figures on the city wall, and some soldiers even jumped directly from the wall more than ten meters high, preferring to fall to their deaths rather than stay on it and be tortured. The four trebuchets had collapsed, and it was not clear whether the dozen or so guns had been blown up, but the gunners must have run out, and those who did not run should have been lying on the city wall covered in blood, and never had a chance to run again.

"Extend the shot, get the snipers in position, don't let anyone show their head on the wall, and start filling the river." Seeing that there was no one on the city wall, Hong Tao gave a new order.

The sniper, carrying rifled rifles on his back, began to run forward along the trenches, cats on their waists. They would advance to a distance of about 300 meters from the city walls, hide in the trenches and aim at the head of the city, and whoever showed their head would be shot. At this distance, these specially selected shooters fed with bullets still have a high hit rate, as long as they ensure their own safety, the effect is better than that of artillery shells.

At the same time, the range of the mortar was advanced a little, and the landing point was selected within 100 meters of the inner wall of the city wall. The shells were not intended to kill or injure the enemy, but to cause chaos in the city, covering other soldiers to throw sacks full of dirt into the moat.

Hong Tao wanted to fill in a passage through the moat first, so he used the dirt and sacks he had dug the trenches yesterday. As long as this passage is built, the city will be broken. No city gate or wall can resist the power of explosives, even black powder, as long as the quantity is sufficient, it can be blown up twice without collapsing at one time. There were quite a few of them on the cargo ship, and Carl's sailors would bring in more from Karlburg.

Five mortars and more than twenty snipers definitely could not block the three or four hundred meters long city wall to the ground, and soon the enemy sentries discovered that someone was filling the moat, which meant that the defenders of the city also knew very well, so a battle for the city wall began.

The Flemish Hanseatic soldiers braved the shells to desperately reinforce the city, trying to prevent those outside the city from throwing sacks into the moat with muskets and bows and arrows. Hong Tao's soldiers used cannonballs and rifle bullets to pull out a large net of death on the city wall near the city gate, and it was okay to go up the city wall, but they could not get close to the 200-meter-long section of the city wall, and if they dared to come over, they had to brave the cannonballs, dare to stand up and shoot with their heads exposed, even if they hid behind the arrow holes, they would also attract rifle bullets.

But the defenders were very desperate, they rushed up wave after wave, even if they could only shoot one arrow or shoot a shot, they also went forward and piled up one after another, desperately not letting the people outside the city fill the moat. So Hong Tao's soldiers began to suffer casualties, and then Hong Tao's ferocity was also stimulated, and he took out his housekeeping skills and set fire!

(To be continued.) )