After those huge Xiangyang cannons were destroyed by the Ming army, the Qing army also abandoned other siege equipment and retreated to their own position, and it didn't even take long for Tian Xiong to withdraw his troops early, and did not continue to waste soldiers and time under the fortress. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The Qing army retreated, and the Ming army hurriedly cleaned up the mess on those fortresses, and even opened the gate of the fortress facing south, and the soldiers went around to the fort to burn the siege equipment left by the Qing army on the battlefield to prevent them from using it again in the next siege. As for the demolished wooden stakes and low walls, they were not repaired, after all, no one knew what the intensity of the Qing army's next attack would be, so it was naturally not good to spend too much energy on these defensive facilities that were originally used for consumption.

Out of the supreme commander of the fortress and the fear of the epidemic handed down from his ancestors, Yu Shizhong couldn't even take care of eating, and was busy supervising the auxiliary soldiers to clean up the filth, pulling these things away from the fortress and burning them in carts. At the same time, he had to consult with his subordinates on defensive strategies, pacify the non-commissioned officers with the supervising officers, maintain morale, and supervise the implementation of the regulations with the military judges.

However, Tian Xiong did not feel the slightest guilt for causing great trouble to others. A few days later, a new batch of Xiangyang cannons was forcibly created by carpenters and people, and the Qing army attacked again, trying to replicate the "brilliant record" of the last time almost all the blight barrels brought with it, and continue to use this "biological weapon" to attack the Ming army.

However, this time it was far from being as easy as he imagined. One of the wounded soldiers of the Ming army had already developed symptoms of fever, and although it was dealt with according to a few that could be used from the epidemic prevention regulations, the infected soldier still attracted the attention of Yu Shizhong and the other defenders in the fortress.

Tian Xiong brought in eight Xiangyang cannons this time, but before a third of the total number was projected, all of them were destroyed by the artillery of the Ming army, and the damage caused was almost zero, which can be said to be more than worth the loss.

In the history of world military development, the disappearance of catapults on the battlefield is due to the emergence of artillery - the manufacture needs professional carpenters to build on the battlefield, at least not too far from the battlefield, because of the inconvenience of transportation; It is too large to be a target for other ranged weapons, such as artillery; The firing range is too close, and the general range of the Xiangyang cannon is only two or three hundred meters; In addition, the shells had to be made nearby.

With so many drawbacks, once the artillery appeared, the catapults were quickly eliminated, and even the drawings were sent to the pile of old papers. In the Ming Dynasty, it can almost be said that there are very few records of the use of catapults, but more of them are the vigorous development of the diversification of firearms throughout the Ming Dynasty.

However, as a pioneer of bacteriological warfare in the 17th century, Tian Xiong had begun to take a great interest in this kind of engineering method that was outdated because the firearms in his hands could not shake the fortress in the slightest, and the artillery could not fire such biological and chemical weapons. Seeing that the Ming army could easily bombard his labor-intensive Xiangyang into a pile of large and small pieces of wood during the day, he simply turned to attack again at night.

At night, because the markings on the ground could not be observed, the distance was difficult to estimate, and even the test firing could not see the landing point, which all led to a sharp drop in the hit of the Ming gunners, so that although Tian Xiong did not know how effective it was, he could not only finish the blight barrels he brought each time, but even put some catapults back into the range of the Ming army.

Guarding the city, you may get infected with the epidemic and give up the defense of the city, who knows if the Qing army will steal the city at night. The lesser of the two phases, the Ming army can only arrange a small number of sentinels at night to keep an eye on it, and then clean up Tian Xiong's biological and chemical weapons after dawn, how can it be a passive.

While the two armies of the Ming and Qing dynasties used the fortress to fight against the bacteria in Anhua Town, the eastern front of the Qing army's four-way attack was a completely different scene.

The eastern front of the Qing army was the weakest line of troops, but relatively speaking, due to the low value of this direction, the Ming army used to defend the army was also very small, which just formed a certain degree of balance.

However, this balance is more due to the fact that the Ming army built a fortress on the left side of the capital city, so that no matter which one the Qing army attacked, it would be attacked by the other side. In between, one had more than 1,000 or nearly 2,000 soldiers and a large number of civilians to assist in the defense, while the other was simply built so that no matter which direction the Qing army attacked, it would be counterattacked by the Ming army from multiple directions.

The fortress appeared for the first time in front of the Qing army on the Eastern Front, and this Qing army did not fail to attack it. However, when the first hopeless offensive was completely repelled by the defenders, the Taizhou Green Battalion and the Wenzhou Green Battalion on the Eastern Front gave up the foolish act of continuing to hit their heads against the south wall, and instead retreated nearly half of the distance and began a sit-down confrontation with the Ming army.

Along the Oujiang River, the camps of the Qing army are dotted around the villages and towns in the lower half of the river between Chuzhou and Qingtian County. In the camp of the Qing army, not far from the county seat of Qingtian, which was already back to the starting point, Ma Xin and Hu Laijin sat down and drank freely, not at all as exhausted as they had written in the document reporting to Hong Chengchou.

"Brother Ma, you said this, what kind of fort is it called so easy to defend and difficult to attack, big, well, why hasn't anyone used it in the previous dynasty and the imperial court."

"Who knows." Taking a sip of water, Ma Xin thought for a while, and then said: "No matter how easy this fortress is to defend and difficult to attack, in the final analysis, someone still has to defend it, no one, what's the use of an empty shell?" ”

Speaking of which, the first thing Ma Xin thought of was not this fortress, but since the rise of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, these barbarians' siege techniques were extremely clumsy, but they were able to capture the fortified city again and again, but in the final analysis, it was just because the defenders were not resolute enough.

But who knows, hearing this, Hu Laijin's eyes couldn't help but light up. "Brother Ma, are you saying that you have to find a way to make that fortress an empty shell to have a chance of winning?"

This idea was not absent from Ma Xin before, and it was vaguely not that he had come up with any solution, but in the end, it was still too hurtful to the heavens and the peace, and even if he thought about it, he would feel terrible. And he had already made up his mind to be this green leaf in this battle, so naturally he didn't have the idea of using any means.

But for Hu Laijin, the temptation to capture the fortress is great, after all, the former Pingnan general Jin Li has been blocked by the fortress twice, and there is no way at all, if he can capture a fortress, even if it is smaller than the one in Anhua Town, it is indispensable to come here to be promoted and make a fortune.

It's just that after thinking about it, Hu Laijin's mind is also full of thoughts about how to lure the enemy. It wasn't until a long time later that he had a flash of inspiration.

"Do you want to ask Hong Jingluo to transfer the Taizhou water camp and bombard the state capital?"

This whim is not only Ma Xin's desire to explain it, but even Hu Laijin feels that it is purely a fool's dream after saying it. It's just that the only difference between the two men in the rejection of this proposal is that Hu Laijin is aware of the problem of river and range, while Ma Xin obviously knows more about the inside story.

"Even if the warships of the Taizhou Water Camp can reach the prefecture, even if the range and power are enough to pose a threat to the city walls of the prefecture capital, I am afraid that you and I are still not qualified to let Hong Jingluo transfer them." (To be continued.) )