PS: There is one more chapter before 12 o'clock, ask for a recommendation vote

Zhao Wuxian asked the public loss team to bring the "secret weapon" made by the craftsmen, which was actually a trebuchet, also known as a catapult.

However, in this era, its name in China is "Feishi".

Probably during the slack time after the autumn harvest last year, Zhao Wuxian called the little gong to lose the class, and after making the ladder, he gave him another task.

"I heard Xu Cheng, the commander of the boat division, say that when Chu and Wu were at war, the Chu people made a kind of machinery in order to defend the city: put stones on top of the big wood, and the flying stones weigh ten catties, which can cross the city wall and attack the enemy in more than 100 steps......"

At that time, the public loser class was stunned: "It's really a whimsical idea, there is such a sharp weapon in this world?" ”

Sometimes Zhao Wuxian couldn't help but sigh that the Chu people in the south were indeed very smart, and the crossbow and trebuchet were both invented by the Chu craftsmen at the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, because they had only emerged in this era for a short time, so the northern craftsmen did not know anything about it.

It was probably not until the later Wu-Yue War, and later in the Mozi era, that trebuchets would spread among the nations, but Zhao Wuxian had to introduce this offensive and defensive weapon into the Central Plains in advance.

He had this idea before, because to conquer the world, it is indispensable to attack and defend the city, and even in the view of the great military strategist Sun Wu, the siege of the city is still an extremely difficult thing.

Coincidentally, Xu Cheng, who came from Wu Guo, also participated in the Wu-Chu War, and after conquering a recalcitrant Chu city, he saw this kind of offensive and defensive machinery with his own eyes.

"Build the trebuchet frame first. Then use manpower to pull the tips attached to the crossbar at a place far away from the trebuchet, and the tips are erected on the wooden frame. One end is tied with a rope to the holster that holds the stone projectile, and the other end is tied with a number of ropes for the force to pull and throw the stone projectile out of the ......"

"Isn't this the 'principle of leverage' that the general told me!"

Zhao Wuxian once used a scale to tell the public transport class about this kind of junior high school physics knowledge: "The distance from the fulcrum of the scale to the end of the heavy object is called 'Ben' (heavy arm). The distance from the fulcrum to the right end is called the 'mark' (force arm). When the weight and weight are equal and the weight is balanced by the scale, the weight is at one end of the scale, and the end of the weight must sag; If you add an object of equal weight to both ends of the scale of the short scale, then the end of the scale will sag, which is the principle of leverage. ”

Relying only on rough sketches and simple theoretical foundations, Gong Yiban relied on his talent to produce the fine parts of the trebuchet one by one, and finally accommodated the invention of the Chu people, and also made the finished product in Lu. It is said that the experiment worked very well.

But this is the first time it has been used in real combat......

For more than ten days, the Zhao army continued to shoot arrows and harass the city, making the guards in the city tired and frightened. The rear camp became a large construction site, and 5,000 laborers and 1,000 soldiers were assigned to the public brigade, and all the wagons were used by him.

The 2,000 men were sent to cut wood in the forest to the west, and the timber was transported along the Qishui to Chaoge, where it was dragged ashore and another group of laborers directed by craftsmen to dry and process.

To build a trebuchet. In addition to the huge wooden beams, a large number of various materials are required. A thousand people quarried in the quarry to the east, transported it back to the site in wagons pulled by oxen and men, and then another thousand people were responsible for handling the stones.

Furthermore. Cowhide and horse skins made of tanned or nitrate, ropes for carts, and metal parts for siege weapons were made in situ or transported from the treasury of the conquered Pham city.

What makes the public loss class strange is that. In addition, Zhao Wuxian also gave him a lot of bamboo, paper, and brocade cloth. Let him find time to make some high-flying kites......

The public loss class can't figure it out, this kind of thing is gradually becoming popular in Ludi. Can it also be used in attacking and defending cities?

He patted his head: "Could it be that you want to measure the direction and speed of the wind with a kite?" Easy aim? ”

Zhao Wuxian smiled mysteriously: "You'll know when the time comes." ”

……

Day after day, in early July, more than 50 trebuchets of three feet tall stood side by side in the field outside the construction site, like a group of giant beasts standing among the yellowing millet stalks.

Although Zhao Wuxian did not know much about carpentry and machinery, he had also heard that there were many kinds of trebuchets: there were torsion trebuchets in Greece, and what centrifugal trebuchets and counterweight trebuchets were in later generations, especially the counterweight trebuchet, also known as the Xiangyang cannon, which was the most terrible siege weapon before the birth of artillery.

However, even if the public loser class is a genius, it is impossible to make all the instruments that have taken more than a thousand years of human experience to perfection in half a year. Therefore, what was built this time was still a more primitive long-rod thrower, that is, a hairstone was pulled by manpower.

It is twice as tall as the "flying stones" used to defend the city in the south, Chu and Wu, and the throwing arm is made of the trunk of an old tree, with an iron hoop to prevent breakage, and there are wheels under the base frame that can be pushed along the flat ground to adjust the attack distance and angle. The appearance is rough and rich in the beauty of wooden machinery, and the power is also stronger than the "flying stone" in the south, which can throw a stone projectile weighing more than ten catties two hundred steps away!

Until the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao also bombarded Yuan Shao's military camp with a thunderbolt car with a similar structure, which is said to be a bullet into the rain, and the Yuan army could not be used overnight to deal with the guards of the Spring and Autumn Period, which was definitely enough.

At least Zhao Wuxian can guarantee that the ignorant Fan and Bank of China guards in the city have definitely seen this kind of offensive and defensive weapon for the first time in their lives. It is more difficult to break through the city walls, but the siege is largely a morale fight, and in the panic moment when they are suddenly attacked, it is a good opportunity to break the city!

……

"This is all the Di people in the city?"

At the same time, Liu Xiang, the Chaoge Sima, was looking at the eight hundred Bai Di soldiers in front of him, these Di people had always been capricious and untrustworthy, and their compatriots had sold Gongcheng and surrendered to the Zhao clan.

But to Liu Xiang's helplessness, Chaoge's defense had to continue to rely on the Di people, and he unloaded their weapons and arranged for them to do the work of carrying stones and bricks to the city wall.

The soldiers of the Fan clan and the Zhongxing clan were also unreliable, thanks to the Zhao clan, the soldiers who fled into Chaoge were only 6,000 people, which was completely insufficient, so they could only temporarily recruit men over the age of fifteen to help defend the city, and they actually made up 30,000, but no more than a quarter of them could be relied on.

Chaoge is a rich city, with convenient transportation, good economy, large population, and a lot of equipment stored in the government treasury, so the training situation of the Chinese people is not optimistic. Liu Xiang also regretted that the intensity and density of the training of the people of Chaoge were far inferior to that of the Zhongxing clan, and the people under the rule of Zhongxing Yin were trained once a month, and the Chaoge people were trained once a quarter.

It's usually nothing, but when something happens, it inevitably shows its drawbacks.

Zhang Liushuo warned him, "The soldiers who have trained more times have been recruited by the lord to fight, and they have been lost outside, and the remaining people in the city, those who have fled from outside, are more tender than the grass in spring." They joined the defense of the city, not only to get rations for their stomachs, but also because the Zhongxing Bo preached that the Zhao family liked to massacre after the war. ”

"When the battle began, when the horns shook the sky and the flags fluttered outside the city, they might have fought bravely to survive at first, but as long as the momentum was not good, they would immediately collapse and flee. One man throws down his spear, and a thousand will follow suit. ”

Of course, there are also experienced backbones among the guards: the two thousand Dongyang soldiers around Zhongxingbo are divided into two, guarding the southwest and southeast corners, and the five hundred Fan clan soldiers around Liu Xiang follow him to inspect the city walls.

So far, he only hopes that there is a sentence in the art of war that can be verified: standing high in a fortified city, one is worth ten.

……

The attack and defense of the city wall in the past ten days seems to have verified this sentence.

The Zhao soldiers have been besieging the city for almost twenty days, and in Liu Xiang's opinion, the Zhao soldiers, who are good at field warfare, do not seem to be good at attacking cities, and their attacks are not fierce.

They first filled in the moat to the south, and at the same time piled up several earthen hills as high as the city walls. However, it was not for the archers to stand on it and shoot arrows, but to block the perspective of the guards in Chaoge City, so that the defenders could not see what was being done at the construction site behind the Zhao camp, and could only see the laborers and craftsmen coming in and out, and the huge beams, stones, and leathers were transported in wagons.

In Liu Xiang's mind, what Zhao Bing built was nothing more than some siege equipment, such as rushing cars, shield cars, and the strange ladders used by the Zhao family when they attacked the city.

Sure enough, ten days ago, Zhao Bing's offensive gradually began to accelerate.

At first, the soldiers hid behind the shield cart created, pushed the siege vehicle against the arrows and stones in the city, and tried to forcibly break through the city gate, but there were too many people in the city, Liu Xiang led his troops to defend it, and the Zhao soldiers could not approach at all, and the attack car was burned by torches and grease thrown down from the city.

Then the Zhao army was divided into two parts, one feint to attack the two city walls in the southeast, after the transfer of the guards, the main force stormed the west city wall, relying on the ladder, Zhao soldiers climbed the head of Chaoge City for the first time, but they were driven down by hundreds of daredevils led by Zhongxing Yin.

Immediately, the ladder was pushed down by the guards in the city, and the warrior Tian Ben fell, but fortunately, there were soldiers below who caught him desperately, so he was spared from falling to his death, but he was also slightly injured.

After that, the Zhao soldiers attacked with fire, and they gathered the whole army of crossbowmen, got thousands of people, and took advantage of the night to approach and launch rockets into the city. Rockets shoot into the night sky like meteors falling into the city. However, Zhang Liushuo had already taken precautions, and had already demolished all the houses near the walls in the city, so although the smoke rocket with insufficient range caused a small fire, the soldiers in the city quickly diverted water to extinguish it.

After this night, the Zhao army no longer stormed, but no matter day or night, there were people outside beating drums and feints.

In this way, after more than ten days of siege, although the Zhao army made no progress, there were not many casualties. On the contrary, the guards are harassed every day without knowing whether it is true or false, and it is difficult to sleep peacefully, and they are all a little tired.

Exhausted, they also breathed a sigh of relief: "Is Zhao Jun discouraged?" I haven't sent troops to attack the city for a few days......"

Just as the defenders of the city were getting used to this kind of life, and their tense nerves began to relax, on a clear morning in mid-July, a guard of the Bank of China, who was dozing off with a spear, opened his eyes under the push of his companion and saw such a scene.

From behind the dirt mountains that had been piled up for many days, dozens of rough wooden instruments were slowly opened, and under the push of more than 1,000 people, they began to slowly march towards the outside of Chaoge City...... (To be continued.) )