readx; Zhu Youzhen, Xie Sheng, Zhou Yang and other generals quickly came to the head of the city and looked out into the wilderness outside the city. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoIt was two o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, and it was the thickest time of the night. As far as the eye could see, it was pitch black, and nothing could be seen from three or five feet outside the city wall.

But in addition to Zhu Youzhen, more than one of the defenders who were on high alert heard some kind of movement. Zhou Yang roared: "Throw torches outside the city!" ”

Immediately, several defenders threw the flaming torches with all their might. As the bright flames briefly pierced the night, the people at the head of the city saw it clearly: it turned out that a large area of Qing troops under the city had quietly touched up, and it was less than thirty steps away from the city wall!

These Qing troops originally crawled forward, because the visibility in the middle of the night was so poor, they really avoided the eyes of the Ming army sentries. But now that it has been discovered, there is no need to hide it anymore, and immediately let out a shout, got up and swooped down on the city wall. About 200 of them quickly crossed the earthen platform, attached to the wall, and then set up a long ladder and began to climb up.

However, they can be regarded as hitting the muzzle of the gun, because the Ming army has been prepared for a long time. Even when the Qing army attacked on a large scale during the day, Zhou Yang only arranged a part of the troops to defend, and the rest were used as reserves, as long as the battle situation was not extremely urgent, he would seize the time to rest. At night, the reserves replaced the defenders during the day, so the number of Ming troops at the head of the city was not small at all. When the Qing army was exposed outside the city, the Ming army immediately took its place and entered a combat state.

Because the number of Qing troops who came to sneak attack was not too large, the Ming army simply didn't bother to let go of bows and arrows and bird guns, and directly poured oil and set fire to the enemy below. This trick was so effective that as the flames rose, the city was illuminated as bright as day, and the Qing army had nothing to hide. Dozens of Qing troops were immediately engulfed in flames, and when the rest saw that the sneak attack could not succeed, how could they dare to continue to attack the city, and they were immediately defeated by rolling and crawling on the ground.

It was only then that the Ming army began to shoot with bows and arrows and bird guns. But the strange thing is that these defeated Qing troops ran and ran, and suddenly seemed to disappear into the field out of thin air, but few were killed and wounded.

Soon there was a dead silence outside the city. The defenders couldn't help but feel a little inexplicable, first, the Qing army seemed to have too few troops to sneak attack, which was really unreasonable; The second is how can they disappear into the air, can they not be demons?

Of course, Zhu Youzhen didn't believe that there was any demon method, and he stared at it for a moment before he suddenly woke up and said: "It is possible that the enemy army has dug a pit on the ground in advance, and now they are jumping into the pit to hide." ”

Sure enough, after another half an hour, as the sky gradually turned white, the Ming army was surprised to find that there were at least hundreds of newly dug soil pits scattered in the field dozens of steps away from the Taiping Gate! In some of the pits, there were Qing army probes looking at this side, and the Ming army immediately fired arrows at them, but the Qing army immediately shrank into the pit. Due to the angle problem, even if the Ming army had a condescending advantage, it was difficult to attack the enemy in the pit.

"It's so powerful, 'the emperor is not in a hurry, the eunuch is in a hurry'!" Zhu Youzhen couldn't help but gasp and said, "Damn it, I'm going to play a tunnel battle with me!" ”

At this time, although the Ming army could not attack the Qing army hiding in the pit for a while, the Qing army did not dare to show its head, and there were no reinforcements behind it, so the two sides were in a stalemate. Zhu Youzhen called all the officers over to study how to deal with this method of the Qing army.

Zhou Yang preemptively scolded and said, "What is this Tartar!" If you want to fight, you will fight, don't dare to attack the city, don't come to embarrass people, isn't it a turtle with a shrunken head like this! ”

The generals couldn't help but laugh when they heard this, but Zhu Youzhen said solemnly: "Don't underestimate this tactic, this is called tunnel warfare!" ”

"Please tell me what is 'tunnel warfare'?" Xie Sheng asked seriously.

Zhu Youzhen did not answer directly, but asked rhetorically: "I will test you first: if we switch positions with the Tartars, now the Tartars are defending the city, we are attacking the city, and they also have artillery and birds." In such a situation, how can we get close to the walls and avoid casualties? ”

Everyone was stunned, and some people said suspiciously: "But the Tartars don't have artillery!" ”

"Just because there are no Tartars now doesn't mean there won't be one in the future. What's more, there are more and more ferocious enemies in this world besides the Tartars! Zhu Youzhen said in a deep voice, "So don't think that you can sit back and relax with artillery, think about it!" ”

After being silent for a long time, Zhou Yang seemed to have an understanding and said: "If you say so, this trick of Tartar is really useful." They cowered in the dirt pit, and their bows and arrows and bird guns were not easy to hit, and the reason was similar to our fortifications. However, if it is the last general, he will dig a long trench directly from the main camp and lead to the battlefield. When attacking or retreating, go straight from the trench, which is safer. ”

Zhu Youzhen nodded with a smile and said, "Well said, this is the simplest tunnel battle." The so-called tunnel warfare is the tactic of using tunnel fortifications for defense or attack. These pits under the city are formations, which can not only hide themselves, but also attack us. As for the trench that Zhou Yang said, I call it a trench, in addition to transferring personnel, it can also transport food, ammunition and other supplies. With the trenches extending in all directions, the people inside could hold out in the tunnels for a long time without going back to the camp. Fortunately, the Tartars had only dug one pit after another, and had not yet connected them with trenches, otherwise it would have been even more difficult to deal with. ”

Xie Sheng said: "The Tartars may not want to dig, but digging trenches requires too much manpower and time, and the Tartars want to fight quickly, but they don't have time to dig." ”

"Yes." Zhu Youzhen said, "Our combat goal is to drag the Tartars here for as long as possible, so we don't rush to destroy the Tartars in the earthen pit, just let them stay inside." Without trenches, they couldn't stay in the pit for too long. When they really can't hold back and want to attack the city or retreat, it's not too late to fight hard. If they really want to dig trenches, let them dig them. ”

However, until the end of the day, the Qing army did not launch another large-scale offensive like yesterday, only the soldiers in those pits occasionally fired two arrows at the head of the city, and there was no threat to the Ming army at all.

By morning, the Qing army still had no movement. Sun Chengzong, Wang Zaijin, and Yuan Keli, who were responsible for guarding the other three city walls, also came to Taipingmen to report the battle situation to Zhu Youzhen. In the defense area they were responsible for, the Qing army adopted the strategy of "encircling but not fighting" and did not even make a tentative attack.

The three old ministers all believed that this was because the Qing army was afraid of casualties and did not dare to attack the city easily. Zhu Youzhen frowned, and said slowly after a while: "Tartars are not playing tricks, they are obviously surrounding the Beijing Division, but in fact, they are pulling out troops to go to other places, right?" ”