"What are the rebels going to do?"

A few days after the first unsuccessful assault by the rebels, the second assault arrived. This time, the rebels have changed their way of attacking, and it is no longer a brainless attack that is swarming all the people. Instead, they formed a neat formation, and then the vanguard advanced with bales of straw.

Although he couldn't understand what the rebels were trying to do, the generals defending the city could only respond to the changes with no change, and still ordered to snipe the enemy with arrows.

So the rain of arrows began to fall again on the head of the Jianmen Pass.

But what the generals defending the city didn't expect was that under this kind of attack with thousands of arrows, the rebels were still advancing steadily, and the generals defending the city were a little puzzled.

"No, last time they attacked easily and were blocked by arrows, how can they brave the rain of arrows and still advance steadily this time? Did any of you see what's going on down there? ”

"General, it seems that all our arrows have been planted in the straw that the rebels are holding on to. The casualties of the rebel soldiers under the straw were minimal. "A soldier with good eyes was the first to notice the anomaly of the rebels below.

The soldiers defending the city were right, this was the new method that the rebel generals had come up with, which was to use bundles of straw to absorb the damage of arrows, so that the army could advance smoothly to the city.

In fact, the vanguard army not only carried the straw, but also had a layer of wooden shield at the bottom of the straw, and the double protection made the rebels really approach the Jianmen Pass step by step.

"General, why don't we try the rocket and see if we can light the straw."

When the defending generals heard that this was a good idea, they ordered the soldiers at the head of the city to change their rockets and shoot at the straw below.

Although rockets began to be fired from the top of the city, the results were unexpected, because the rockets did not completely ignite the straw at all, and after the rockets were fired on the straw, the whole straw did not burn as expected, but the flames were extinguished, and then billowing black smoke began to rise.

"You have a good plan, I have a wall ladder. Do you think Lao Tzu didn't expect you to use fire, the straw used by Lao Tzu is trendy, I see how you burn it. After seeing that the rockets were extinguished on the straw, Zhang Yuzhi said proudly.

When preparing to attack the city with this method, Zhang Yu and Wang Cormorant had already thought about what to do in case the other party used fire, so when they were preparing the straw stack, they watered all the straw, although it would be much heavier than dry straw when lifting, but it was much better in terms of fire resistance.

Crucially, this has the added advantage of being that in the event of a fire, a large amount of black smoke rises from the straw stacks, which obstructs the view of the soldiers standing on the top of the city. In this way, the rebels could reach the city under the cover of smoke.

Things were as Zhang Yu expected, because of the large amount of smoke, the soldiers at the head of the city could not see the situation under the city at all.

The defenders, who had lost their sight, could only call out the rebels with arrows, but just as they had done at the beginning of the battle, the arrows were all stuck in the straw bales. The rebels advanced smoothly to the city.

"Smack."

For the first time since the Jianmen offensive and defensive battle, there was a cloud ladder on the wall of Jianmen Pass. Soon six or seven ladders were set up on the wall of Jianmen Pass one after another, and the rebels who arrived at the bottom of the city wall threw away the straw and began to climb the city with shields.

"Let's change the rolling wood."

After seeing that the rebels began to ascend the city, the generals defending the city were not so panicked, although they were caught off guard by the rebels' strange tricks, so that the rebels could smoothly advance to the city. However, after the rebels advanced to the city, they did not come up with any new tricks, and still attacked the city according to the customary ladder, which would be much easier.

Since you are using a traditional trick, then I have a way to deal with this trick here, and the rolling wood stone that has been stored for a long time is now in use.

As a large amount of rolling wood and rocks poured down, the number of rebel casualties began to increase suddenly, and the previously successful advance began to stall.

"Lao Wang, Lao Wang, it's not right, why can't you attack it?" After seeing that the whole team had stagnated after the attack reached the stage of ascending the city, and the casualties began to rise, the rebel generals began to sense that something was wrong.

In fact, the entire rebel army has very little experience in siege warfare, don't look at them almost captured the entire Shu land, but the most important reason why it can be so smooth is that every time the siege war begins, there are people in the city who respond to the uprising, open the city gate, and let the rebel army enter the city.

So far, the rebels have not had much experience in attacking cities. The reason why the straw shield can be thought of is because a large number of people were shot by arrows when they attacked Jianmen Pass for the first time. Therefore, for the second general Zhang Wang, the inherent impression is that the arrow rain can be successfully attacked if it advances smoothly to the city, but what he didn't expect is that the most difficult stage is to ascend the city.

"Lao Zhang, don't panic first, wait and see, we still have someone who can go up."

Yes, after all, rolling wood and stones are not all-powerful, there are always rebels who can take advantage of the interlude period of official and military throwing to successfully climb the tower, but there are too few such people, and those who successfully climb the city are basically the blades of the official army. For this kind of rebel army sent one by one, the officers and soldiers did not have any ambiguity, and they killed one by one.

"Go up to a shovel, didn't you see a few people going up, did they all go up and were killed directly? Withdraw first, so many people are still hairy. ”

Seeing that the situation was really wrong, Zhang Yu decisively gave the order to retreat.

After seeing the rebels retreating, the guards of Jianmen Pass breathed a sigh of relief, because in fact, Jianmen Pass has been on top for too long, and the rolling wood and stones are limited after all, if the rebels really continue to attack for two more hours at most, the rolling wood and stones stored in the pass will be exhausted, and there are not many arrows left, and then the officers and soldiers can only start a white-knuckle battle with the rebels in the city.

In this way, only the officers and soldiers will be killed in the end, after all, the number of rebels is too many.

Fortunately, the rebels couldn't stand it first, and the officers and soldiers finally got a little respite, but what worried the officers and soldiers was that if the rebels' attack preceded the arrival of reinforcements, Jianmen Pass would really not be able to withstand it.

"Send someone out as soon as possible, see if we can recover some arrows from the haystacks thrown by the rebels, and see if there are any rolling wood stones that can be used to get them back, we don't have much reserves now, we can save a little is a little."

It has been nearly forty years since the founding of the Great Song Dynasty, and it is estimated that the worst general defending the city is none other than the current Jianmen defenders.

The battle came to this point, in fact, even if the Sword Gate was lost, he did his best.

……

"General Li, there is news in Jianmen Pass again, the rebels launched a second attack two days ago, although they still have not been able to capture Jianmen Pass, but the defenders of Jianmen are almost unable to support it, I hope the general will quickly reinforce it."

Hearing the scout's report, Li Jiguang was also full of helplessness, not that he didn't want to be fast, but that he couldn't be fast. Five days ago, news also came from Hanzhong that Zhao Weiji's army had arrived in Hanzhong and was preparing to march in the direction of Jianmen, hoping that Li Jiguang could quickly give Jianmen support.

Both ends are urging Li Jiguang, but Li Jiguang has done his best at the moment, and there is really no way.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry, I want to be fast, the problem is that such a mountain road is really not fast. Lao Ding, how long will it take to get to the Sword Gate? ”

This Lao Ding is a veteran of Hanzhong who has been guiding Li Jiguang, and his answer is: "Soon, it will be able to reach Jianmen Pass in three days at most." ”

Three days is really not a long or short day, anything can happen within three days, and now Li Jiguang can only hope that the rebels will not launch any offensive within three days.

……

On the other hand, the rebel army also had a headache within the rebel army about how to attack Jianmen Pass.

When it really came time to fight a tough battle, the weaknesses of the rebel army began to be gradually exposed.

First of all, the family background is thin, and the lack of siege equipment has become the biggest problem of the rebel army, after all, they are all farmers, and they are good at farming, making siege equipment, and there are basically few people who know how to do it.

Besides, now that all the craftsmen in Shu have been transferred by Li Shun to build ships, how can anyone be able to make siege equipment for the rebel army here in a short time.

Then the difference between the peasants and the regular army began to be highlighted, because the Great Song Dynasty implemented a conscription system, and the army was basically professional, so the peasants no longer accepted the training of soldiers and peasants, and farmed the land full-time.

Therefore, the peasants at this time did not have extraordinary combat effectiveness like the previous generations, and at best they had more strength.

Although the previous battles were victorious, when faced with operations that required considerable military training to complete, the weakness of the peasantry's weak foundation was infinitely magnified, such as the two attacks on Jianmen Pass.

Coupled with the fact that the fear of massive casualties began to spread, the morale of the rebel army was declining at an alarming rate.

"Lao Zhang, we can't drag it out any longer, if it drags on any longer, it is estimated that the army sent by the imperial court to suppress it should also come, and when the soldiers look like this, they will still be hairy."

Although he didn't know the situation in the outside world, Wang Cormorant had already had a premonition that the reinforcements from the imperial court were estimated to be coming.

"I know, but as you saw the first two times, our people died so badly that they still couldn't be defeated. If there is no new way, attacking again will send the brothers to death. ”

One of the biggest reasons why Zhang Yu hesitated was that he didn't know that Jianmen Pass couldn't support it for too long, and in his eyes, the current price of attacking Jianmen Pass was too great, and he couldn't do this kind of behavior of letting his brother die in vain.

"Method, way, I want to have a way."

Just when the two of them were still struggling with the siege, an old man suddenly appeared at the door of the barracks where the rebels were stationed, saying that there was an important siege method that he wanted to offer to the two.

There was an old man who could be captured in the Sword Gate Pass, which made both of them extremely curious, so the old man was invited in.

And his method also gave the two of them new hope for the capture of Jianmen Pass.