Although Yue Tuo was dissatisfied in his heart, the situation was stronger than people, and he had to smile on his face: "What the Great Khan said is that I will immediately go and prepare for the siege. ”

"Well, I heard that this city was newly built by Liu Cheng, and the shape is very different from the Ming Kingdom's city in Liaodong, so when things come to this, you and I will go together to see what is so powerful about this Liu Zongbing!"

"Yes, Great Khan!"

New Naturalization City, top floor of Oxhorn Castle.

"Damn it, come on, light the lamp, and, Mr. Thomas, please come to me!" Du Guoying slapped a few cases in annoyance, knocked down the water cup on the corner of the table, and the tea that flowed out immediately soaked the map, he hurriedly picked up the map and blew it hard to let it dry quickly.

Although it was daylight, the light inside the house was still dim, for the simple reason that all the windows were surprisingly small, only the size of an A4 piece of paper, while the outside was square, not so much a window as a perforation, and the walls nearly two meters thick blocked out all the sound and the sunlight, and it was cloudy and cold to make people feel as if they were in a grave. Damn Timber-legged Thomas, he designed this castle with no regard for the feelings of the occupants? Du Guoying cursed secretly.

At this moment the door was pushed open, and the soldiers came in with oil lamps, and at the same time there were all kinds of noises. Du Guoying sighed, walked out of the house, and took a deep breath. In the courtyard below the Bullhorn Castle, there was chaos. Standing on horse-drawn carriages, people unloaded barrels of wine, oil, asphalt, gunpowder, and sacks of grain, and loaded them into warehouses under the castle, which had just been transported to the docks not far from the city gates, and in order to secure this lifeline, Du Guoying had built two low walls about 300 steps long and two feet high, so that the docks could be connected. At the other end of the courtyard, dozens of prostitutes were busy gluing feathers to the arrows, and these poor women would have multiple identities of comforting men, handymen, cooks, and nurses in the coming siege, and there would be no mouth for idle food in the siege; To the right of the prostitutes, blacksmiths were busy putting horseshoes on horses and mules, mending armor and weapons, and forging more buckshot and cannonballs, while behind them, the apprentices put rusty armor into wooden barrels of sand, which they kicked and rolled in the uneven courtyard to remove the rust. Opposite the blacksmith's workshop, the soldiers were moving out the tables and chairs inside, where the higher-ranking officers of the castle's garrison ate and were to be temporarily converted into a wartime hospital. Once the war began, it would be covered with blood, wails, severed limbs, and death. Seeing this, Du Guoying looked back at his room, and suddenly the small windows, thick walls, and cold like a tomb are not a disadvantage, at least once the fight starts, those worse things can be kept out.

"General!" Hearing this somewhat strange accent, Du Guoying knew that Thomas was coming, and because he lost a leg, he got the nickname "wooden leg" in the army. Du Guoying nodded to Thomas, walked to the table, took out two glasses, and asked, "Wine or water?" ”

"Wine, of course!" Thomas cracked his mouth and laughed, revealing his yellow-brown teeth. Du Guoying sneered and poured him a glass of mare's milk wine, and sneered: "It's not good to drink early in the morning!" ”

"I'm just having a drink to quench my thirst!" Thomas poured half a glass of wine into his stomach, and his spirit suddenly rose, and he said with a smile: "Lord Du, you don't know. The priest once said that wine is the purest drink, and it is also spiritual with our souls, which can warm up our souls, shorten the distance with God, and save our souls, while water can only quench our thirst. He drank as he spoke, and when he finished speaking, he had already drunk the cup of mare's milk wine, so he stretched out the cup to Du Guoying, and said with a smile: "Add me another glass!" ”

"I still have something to tell you, what should I do if I'm drunk?"

"Mare's milk can't get drunk!" Like all drunkards, when Thomas saw the look of doubt on Du Guoying's face, he immediately puffed up his chest and swore a curse: "God testifies, the last glass, this is my last cup of the day!" ”

"Thomas, your god is probably an alcoholic like you!" Du Guoying snorted coldly, but he still poured half a glass into the other party's cup, and then put the wine jar at the farthest end of the table from Thomas, seeing Du Guoying's actions, Thomas laughed awkwardly, and took two more sips: "My lord, do you have anything to do with me?" ”

"It's still the same old problem, I hope you can make the walls a little taller, at least two feet taller!"

"My lord, with all due respect, it's just a waste of manpower and time, and it's completely unnecessary!" Thomas retorted, "The New Naturalization is an all-Italian fortress, and this kind of fortress is only so high, and too high is harmful!" ”

"! Condescending, I have never heard of the city high but harmful, I don't care what you have a big or two big profit, now I want you to increase the city wall by two feet, do you understand? “

"My lord, times are different!" Thomas tried to persuade him: "In the past, soldiers fought with slings and crossbows, and the arrows and stones shot from high places were more powerful, and naturally the higher the walls, the better. But now there is artillery, and no matter how tall the walls are, they can't stop the artillery bombardment, but the target is bigger. Don't worry, my lord, although the walls of the new naturalized city I built are not high, even if the Tatars have many troops, they will not be able to attack it! ”

Seeing that the other party insisted on his own opinion, sparks had already appeared in Du Guoying's eyes, and Liu Cheng appointed Thomas as a master craftsman before going to Beijing, responsible for the construction of the new naturalization city. It's fair to say that this quirky castle is entirely the work of this lame red-haired man. As a disciple of the general, Du Guoying has just turned fourteen and joined the army, and he has seen all kinds of castles, not to mention two or three hundred, but it is the first time in his life that he has seen the new naturalized city: the whole castle looks like a huge starfish from the air, the central part is a four-story square walled building, and there is a tower at each of the four corners of the walled building, Du Guoying's cow corner tower is one of them, and the walled building is the barracks of the soldiers, the blacksmith shop, the grocery store, the hospital, the canteen, the brothel, and the basement is the granary and armory, There are four wells in the center of the walled tower, in addition, there is a water storage tank of more than 20 abbots on the right side of the walled tower, which is used to extinguish fires when defending the city, and can also be drunk when necessary, and in the outer circle of the walled tower is the barracks of the defenders; Surrounding the barracks was a wall about two feet high, built on a low embankment about one and a half feet above the ground, and on the periphery of the wall was a moat one and a half feet deep and four feet wide. The peculiarity of this castle is that its outer walls are not straight, but a huge pentagon, with a prominent pointed corner at each corner of the pentagon, the interior of which is solid, filled with tamped earth, with a casemate at the end; The entire fortress had two gates, each in the center of the two sides of the pentagonal shape, while each of the two gates was protected by a triangular fortress on the outside of the two gates, the extension of which was perpendicular to the side of the nearby sharp corners. The area of the entire newly naturalized city is only more than 30 acres in size, which can only accommodate one-third of the army that Du Guoying is going to use to defend the city, but the manpower and material resources consumed are more than three times that of building a square city of the same size.

Bang!

Du Guoying slapped the table and roared: "What kind of bird city have you built, it can only hold less than 2,000 people, but the city wall is only so high, you can climb up, but more than 20,000 people came to Dongyu this time, plus the Mongolian Tartars who followed, I am afraid that there are not 30,000 or 40,000 people, you say you must be able to hold it, what can you guard?" ”

"As long as there is enough gunpowder, shells, and food, even if there are 100,000 Tatars, I can hold for three months!" In the face of Du Guoying's shouting, Thomas was very calm: "As for you saying that the castle I built is too small to fit so many soldiers, I think this is the advantage of the Italian-style fortress - it can save troops, so that you have as many mobile troops as possible in your hands, and the time is so rushed, the number of artillery is also very limited, I can only build the new naturalized city so big!" ”

Du Guoying swept the wine jar on the table to the ground, pulled over the castle diagram on the side of the case, pointed to it and shouted: "Okay, how do you say to keep it?" ”

Thomas looked at the mare's milk wine on the ground painfully, and asked with a wry smile: "My lord, I think in Daming, the main attack point of the besieging side is also the city gate, right?" ”

"That's nature!" Du Guoying sneered: "Unless you dig a tunnel to make the city wall collapse, even if you climb the city wall, you still have to find a way to seize the city gate, otherwise you can't come down from the city wall?" However, if you build the city wall so low, you can climb it even if you get a few ladders, but you don't have to take the city gate. ”

"I built this wall low and thick to protect against the Tatar artillery, I heard that the Tatars have already obtained a lot of artillery from the rebels of the Empire, I don't know if it's true or not?"

As a senior general of the Ming army, Du Guoying naturally knew that the rebels in the Denglai Rebellion a few years ago had a large number of Western-style firearms, even the most powerful red-coated cannons, after the defeat of these rebels, they fled to southern Liaoning and took refuge in the Houjin, and were organized as the Tianyou Army, according to the intelligence of the spies, this time there was the existence of this Han army in the Houjin army, but he didn't think that this Hongmaoyi also knew, so he had to snort coldly: "What, if it is your red-clothed cannon on the city wall, it can't be opened?" ”

"Not bad!" Thomas smiled and gestured to Du Guoying on the map: "Your Excellency, if the Tatars want to bombard the inner wall, they must move their artillery to within the range of the sharp forts, so that they will be fired by the defender's artillery first. ”

"Joke, the Tartars are not stupid, they don't blast the walls of your sharp-horned batteries first, and then come and bombard the inner walls?"

"This is the beauty of this fortress, you see the city wall on both sides of the protruding sharp corners, the cannonballs of the thieves are flying from the side, most of them will be bounced off, and the inside of this fort is solid, and the outside is covered with a thick layer of earth embankment, how to blast it open?"

Du Guoying also saw some doorways at this time, as Thomas said, these outward protruding sharp corners are only about 40 degrees at most, if you bombard from the front, most of the cannonballs hit the city wall when they are obtuse angles, ten percent of the strength can implement three or four achievements are good, and those sharp horn forts he has also seen, and the urn city of the Ming Dynasty is different, the urn city is hollow, even if the city wall is thick, it is only three or five zhang, and those sharp corner forts are filled with rammed earth, and there is a slow downhill on the inside, The whole thing is a solid pimple, no matter how powerful the red-clothed cannon is, can it still penetrate dozens of feet deep?

"Thomas!" At this time, Du Guoying's tone softened a lot: "Even if the Tartar cannonballs can't blast your city wall, what if the enemy is attached to attack the city?" Your moat is one and a half zhang deep, the earthen embankment is also one and a half zhang high, and the city wall is two zhang high, adding up to five zhang high, even if you are a doll, you can climb up with a bamboo pole, how can you guard it with less than 2,000 people? "If the Tatars are stupid enough to climb the city walls, they will send the heads of the adults!" Thomas has been under Liu Cheng for almost a year, and he is already very familiar with the military discipline of the Ming army's beheading: "My lord, if you were a general of the Qing army, where would you choose the focus of the attack?" “

"Naturally, here, here, here!" Du Guoying did not hesitate to point out a few places on the map, he was an old man, and he was familiar with the internal structure of the new naturalized city, and his vision was very poisonous, these points were either the city gates, or the weak points near the reservoir and the walled tower, all of which were the key points that could kill the defenders once they were opened.

"Why didn't you choose this place?" Thomas asked, pointing to the top of a turret.

"I'm not a fool, how big is this, how can I show it? Even if there are 100,000 people, the maximum number of people who can be set aside is only thirty or fifty people, but it is just a matter of sending them to death" Du Guoying glanced at Thomas, and he also found that this fortress had many subtleties at this time, and it was not as useless as he thought at the beginning, and his tone had eased a lot, not as bitter and mean as at the beginning.

"My lord, in fact, these points you chose are also sent to death!" Without waiting for Du Guoying to refute, Thomas pointed to the map and said: "There is a twelve-pounder gun on each sharp horn battery, and six three-pounder guns, and a number of arquebus shooters. The wall between the two protruding corners was a hundred paces long, and even the arquebus could shoot so far, which meant that the Tatars who rushed into the moats outside the inner walls would be side-fired by the fire from the pointed walls on both sides, and those moats were straight, and if a single shell entered them, they would kill dozens or even hundreds! (To be continued.) )