"Rice wine, mare's milk, mixed with brown sugar and ginger slices, are all learned from Mongolians, drink a bowl in winter, and you will not be afraid of the cold!" Liu Cheng smiled: "There is still an egg in it, my lord or Vice General Cao should eat it quickly, otherwise I will freeze all the way, and don't leave any disease behind!" ”

Yang Sichang took a few bites, remembered what happened last night and couldn't help sighing, he said in a low voice: "Lord Liu, do you know? Last night, the attack on the city failed, and he fell into the trap of the Eastern Captives, and lost more than 200 people! ”

"Oh?" Liu Cheng raised his eyebrows: "I heard the sound of shouting and killing in the northwest corner of the city last night, but I can't tell the enemy from me when it's dark, and I don't know if it's a trick of the enemy army defending the city, so I can only stand still, please forgive me!" ”

Yang Sichang waved his hand and smiled bitterly: "Lord Liu, I don't mean to blame you, it's dark and moonless, and I don't distinguish between the enemy and me, even if I have to do this, but it seems that I have been with Lingle for seven or eight days, but I have no inch, the weather is cold but the soldiers are under the fortified city, and the veterans of the division are tired!" ”

"In fact, I have already said the method of attacking the city during the military discussion, the eastern captives defend the city with firearms, so we can only rely on firearms to break the city, not with the flesh and blood of the soldiers. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info" Liu Cheng smiled: "Actually, the last general thinks that it is unrealistic to rely on Neiying to break the city, at least not now." The internal response is already cornered by the defenders in the city, and it can only be used when the action is dangerous. Most of it is a fraud! ”

Regarding Liu Cheng's accusation, Yang Sichang smiled bitterly, Liu Cheng's outspoken style of speech is really not something that ordinary people can bear, but now is not the time to care, he pointed at Liu Cheng and said: "If you talk about firearms, no one in the armies can compare to you, then what do you say?" ”

"Wave the flag, you go and get the map!" Liu Cheng shouted, and Hao Shaoqi hurriedly took a scroll from the bookshelf next to the wall and spread it out on the kang table. Liu Cheng pointed to the map and explained: "Look, this and Lingle City look like a waist drum from the outside, with big ends and a small middle. The two gates are on either side of this 'waist' in the middle of this 'waist drum', and I have carefully observed these days that there should be two to three red-coated cannons and a number of other small cannons on each of the four corners of the enemy's cannon waist drum. No matter what we were attacking any of their gates, we would encounter enemy flank fire on both the left and right flanks, and we would suffer heavy casualties in each attack! ”

"Not bad, not bad!" Yang Sichang looked at the map and listened to Liu Cheng's explanation, which was confirmed by the memories of the defeat a few days ago, and it was really good, and he couldn't help but high-five and praised: "That's right, the situation in the past few days is like this, if you want to break the city, you must first seize the city gate, and seize the city gate will be attacked from both sides. “

"It's easy, dig a trench!" Liu Cheng tapped his palm twice, and Hao Shaoqi, who knew about it, took two pieces of white paper and a small piece of charcoal, and Liu Cheng spread the white paper on the map, and explained while drawing on it: "In ancient times, when besieging the city, it was common to use things such as rushing cars and large shields, which were nothing more than to block arrows and protect soldiers. But since the advent of the red-coated cannon, these have become waste, and no matter how strong the hand-made ones are, they can't withstand the thunderous blows. ”

"What Lord Liu said is very true!" Hearing this, Yang Sichang sighed: "I have also seen the power of this red-clothed cannon when I inspected the towns of Zunhua and Shanhaiguan before, and I already think that it is a rare militaristic weapon, but these days, looking at the artillery team of Dongyu, it seems to be better than my Ming artillery team, which is really worrying!" ”

"My lord doesn't know, according to the confession of the prisoner caught by the last general, the captive chief who commanded the artillery team in the city is Kong Youde, this person was originally a subordinate general of Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai in my Daming, Chongzhen five years This person raised an army to make a rebellion, and after the defeat of the army, he crossed the sea and went to the east. Master Sun was good at firearms, and he had a close relationship with the Portuguese, and this thief must have learned a lot of this fire attack technique when he was under his command! ”

"Damn it!" Hearing Liu Cheng's words, Yang Sichang's face couldn't help but turn blue with anger: "Lord Liu, this time I must not let go of this thief, in order to comfort Lord Sun's spirit in the sky!" ”

"Yes, Overseer!" Liu Cheng respectfully owes the body, Yue Tuo is still quite useful in his plan, and Kong Youde is useless, anyway, those Han generals under the command of Houjin are all talented and immoral, and they have the ability, and the loyalty and discipline are pitiful, as long as the Ming Kingdom has the advantage, these people will come closer without their own co-optation (even if they don't get close to Houjin, they don't dare to use it with confidence), if the advantage is on the Houjin side, no one will pay attention to how he makes a wish, and it doesn't matter if Yang Sichang takes it to cut it to vent his anger, However, if Yue Tuo, the eldest son of Dai Shan, catches it, he can play some tricks, and he can't simply cut things off.

After a while, Yang Sichang's anger was vented for the most part, and he continued to ask, "Lord Liu, you only talked about the power of this red-clothed cannon, but you didn't say how to deal with it!" ”

"Yes, Overseer!" Liu Cheng smiled: "Although this red-clothed cannon has the power of thunder, it is invincible. But if you fall on the ground, you can also smash a small pit, if you dig a trench and go into it, with cannons against cannons, it will naturally work! ”

"Dig a trench to concoct a cannon!"

"Not bad!" Liu Cheng drew a circle on the white paper with charcoal, and then drew a large circle around this circle, pointed to the circle inside and said: "My lord, if Helinger City is the inner circle, then the outer circle is the threat range of the enemy's artillery, our army will first dig a horizontal trench here, and then dig from this trench to the direction of the enemy city to approach the trench——"

"Wait!" Yang Sichang interrupted Liu Cheng's explanation, pointed to the jagged thick line drawn by Liu Cheng on the paper representing the approach to the trench and asked, "Why are you digging so close to the trench into such twists and turns?" If you dig it into a straight one, wouldn't it save a lot of labor? ”

"Adults don't know!" Liu Cheng said with a smile: "If it is dug into a straight line, if the enemy's shells in the city hit the trench, wouldn't it kill dozens of people at once?" But if it was dug into such a shape, even if the Dongyu occasionally hit one shot, at most only one or two people, the shell would be blocked by the ditch wall, and the rest of the people would be safe. ”

"So this trench is still so wonderful?" Yang Sichang stroked his beard under his chin and nodded in praise: "Then why did you dig a horizontal trench outside the range of the garrison artillery in the city at the beginning, instead of digging close to the trench at the beginning?" Anyway, the enemy's shells in the city can't hit that far? ”

"My lord, although this trench can withstand artillery shells, if the eastern captives counterattack with assault horses, then the soldiers in the trench are in the trench and have no weapons in their hands, so they are not waiting to be killed? I can place the bird gunners and light cannons in the first horizontal trench, so that the city will not be able to see my reality, and if the enemy cavalry is attacking, the gunners can rely on this trench to attack with firearms! ”

"Good, good, good!" Hearing this, Yang Sichang couldn't help but praise repeatedly: "Lord Liu, your siege technique is really exquisite, do you plan to dig directly under the city wall like this?" ”

"Of course not!" Liu Cheng said with a smile: "This approach to the trench will be dug about one hundred and fifty steps away from the first trench and will stop, because it is too far away, and the bird gun will not be able to cover the people digging the trench!" Moreover, if they dug too close, the enemy in the city could use birds, bows and arrows, or throw firearms such as 'ten thousand enemies' directly into the trenches, which was too threatening for the soldiers. ”

"Oh? So what does Lord Liu plan to do next? Yang Sichang had been aroused by Liu Cheng, and asked with a smile.

"Dig a second trench!" Liu Cheng drew a thick line horizontally at the end of several jagged approaching trenches: "This trench is parallel to the first trench, and the width of this trench should be wider than the first trench, at least three steps wide." At the same time, others widened the previous approach trench so that the cannons could move through the trench to a second parallel trench, and these cannons were to fire at the defenders at the head of the city to eliminate the enemy's artillery and defenders, and then bombarded the enemy's gates to open the gap. ”

"Then the next step is to attack the city?"

"No!" Liu Cheng shook his head: "It's still too far from the city gate, and there is still the last and most dangerous step." While the artillery was firing at the defenders of the city, the attacking was that the soldiers would dig a second approach trench, still in a zigzag shape, and when it was about two hundred paces away from the enemy's gates, dig a third parallel trench, and after opening the gap, the soldiers would storm from there! “

After listening to Liu Cheng's explanation, Yang Sichang took the white paper full of lines and circles, his fingers trembled slightly, and it took him half a sound to control his emotions, and asked in a low voice: "Lord Liu, since you have such a clever plan, why didn't you say it earlier?" ”

"Because this method was also thought up by me in the past two days, and some of the necessary weapons have not yet arrived, and they have not been tested, so I dare not say it casually!" Liu Cheng smiled: "Inspector Yang, Xuanda Erzhen has always been the head of my Ming Dynasty's nine-sided town, the elite soldiers are like stars, I, Liu Cheng, am actually just a junior in the army, this method has not been used again, if you miss the military plane, I am afraid that I can't afford it!" ”

"You don't have to worry, I have approved this method, even if it doesn't work, I will have to deal with this supervisor!" Yang Sichang gently folded the white paper, like a treasure into his sleeve, no wonder he was so careful, these days besieged the city, and the weather is cold, tens of thousands of troops under the fortified city, the daily consumption of grain and straw has to be transported from hundreds of miles away, although the generals are afraid of his might, all kinds of gossip in the army that is not conducive to him has spread. Yang Sichang has his own ears and eyes in the army, and naturally he has heard a lot, he knows in his heart that although these generals have nothing to do with themselves, if they drag on, their political enemies above the court will not let go of the opportunity to attack him, and he doesn't dare to let Chongzhen's trust in him be tested too much. When he came to Liu Cheng this time, he had some thoughts to probe the other party's tone, but he didn't want Liu Cheng to not only attack the city, but also come up with such an effective method, so that even if he couldn't attack it, with this plan in hand, he could also justify it in front of the Son of Heaven, proving that the failure of the siege was not his own arbitrary behavior, but that the generals were not effective in implementation.

"Thank you, sir!" Liu Cheng owed his body and said with a smile: "The siege equipment will arrive in five or six days, and I plan to arrive tomorrow when the snow is smaller." My lord, in fact, there is no need for so many people to surround the city, I have inquired, the total number of defenders in the city is more than 2,000 people, and it is enough to have soldiers and horses under this general. ”

"It's good!" Yang Sichang nodded, he listened to Fang Cai's explanation, but he knew that it was not Liu Cheng who wanted to monopolize the merits alone. The trenches and fire cover are all under the enemy's artillery, and they all rely on the trenches to avoid bullets, even if the trenches are dug a little crookedly, they may die, and it is necessary to send the soldiers of Xuanda Town over. What's more, there are already 10,000 soldiers under Liu Cheng's command, and direct combat is enough.

"If Lord Liu has anything to lack, just say it, this inspector will definitely not embarrass you!"

"Thank you, sir!" Liu Cheng was also not polite: "Iron shovels, pickaxes, iron drills, I have prepared a lot of axes, but the shovel handles prepared in advance may not be enough, and 10,000 are needed; In addition, wooden stakes, wicker baskets, sacks, and planks are required. Gunpowder was also needed for the siege, and more iron and lead ingots for casting cannonballs, as well as cotton jackets and ginger for soup. If you can, give me 2,000 men to dig trenches and carry wasteland, and about 20,000 taels of silver for a reward. ”

"No problem!" Yang Sichang said with a smile: "Tomorrow I will go back to Datong and urge you to transport materials, if it is short, you will come to me." Thou shalt have two thousand men, and I will give thee four thousand, and the money will be sent to thy camp later. But let me ask you a question, how long will it take you to take this city? ”

"It took a day to dig the first parallel trench; Then six trenches were excavated at the same time, which took nine days; The second parallel trench takes four days; The second section of the trench takes ten days, and the last parallel trench takes three days. One plus nine plus four plus ten plus three, a total of twenty-seven days, make up a whole number, thirty days can be! ”

"So fast?" Although Yang Sichang had already been mentally prepared, he was still startled when he heard Liu Xiang give the answer to the arithmetic question, as a civilian official who commanded the army, he knew that someone was talking about him behind his back, but like Liu Cheng, who drew a picture on the paper and gave the time to break the city, not to mention that he hadn't even thought about it, did he think that the Dongyu in the city would obediently watch him dig and do nothing? At this time, Yang Sichang was worried about Liu Cheng, after all, his fate was already linked to Liu Cheng in a sense.

"Lord Liu, in fact, you don't have to rush the time, you can take more time, such as two months, three months is not impossible!"

"No need!" Liu Cheng waved his hand heartily and rejected Yang Sichang's kindness: "I already have a margin left, but the matter of guarding against reinforcements will bother other robes!" (To be continued.) )