Yelu Chongyuan didn't expect that the earth-filling tactics he had worked so hard to think of would cause such heavy casualties. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoEven if the Han army died the most on this day, the soldiers of other tribes also lost a lot. On the contrary, the horse bows of the Khitan cavalry rarely caused damage to the border troops on the city wall. Because they didn't transport the siege weapon - catapult over this time, this bridge and ladder alone is really not enough. In addition, the border army had experience, and erected wooden standing signs, grate fences, leather bamboo fences, city protection shields and other blocking equipment early to prevent arrows from being shot by the Khitan cavalry. Therefore, even if the Khitan cavalry fired ten thousand arrows, the damage to the border troops on the city wall was very small.

Consuming soldiers like this, not to mention putting the mound on top of the Youzhou City that is as high as three zhang, even if you rush back and forth to the city wall, you will lose a large number of soldiers and horses. Although Yelu Chongyuan is not good at leading troops, he can still see this obvious problem.

In desperation, Yelu Chongyuan began to adjust his tactics, and he didn't plan to use that stupid method, if he fought like this, it would be equivalent to sending the soldiers to the feather arrows of the border army. Sending him to death like this, Yelu Chongyuan will never do it no matter how stupid he is.

While ordering people to return to Liao and transport more siege equipment, he asked the Han army to cut down trees and make ladders hundreds of miles away to prepare for the next wave of siege. At this time, Xiao Feng saw the problem, that is, the food and grass of the Khitan army were a little insufficient.

Eating and drinking for an army of 100,000 is not a simple matter. Even if the Khitan army has never had any logistical pressure, it is based on the wartime means of replenishing military supplies by "fighting grass valleys". Originally, Khitan soldiers were both warriors and herdsmen, and generally did not need special military supplies. But that was a few decades ago, and the current Khitan cavalry is still the same? No, the current Khitan army, military supplies have gradually increased, although it only accounts for two or three out of ten, but it should not be underestimated.

This time, Yelu Chongyuan was in a hurry to make contributions, and he didn't even ask for supplies, so he hurriedly gathered his troops and set off. Even if the Khitan cavalry could drink mare's milk and eat cheese (i.e., cheese) to maintain food sources, there were not many horses in the army, and it was only a drop in the bucket.

Although the Khitan cavalry prepared its own military food, they did not bring much. There were too many things they had to bring with them when they went out on the expedition: four bows, four hundred arrows, long and short spears, bones, axes, small flags, hammer and awl, flamshell stones, horse bowls, fried buckets, one sandbag, one hook and felt umbrella, and two hundred feet of horse rope...... With so many things, they have to be put on top of the horses, even if there are almost three or four horses per person, the consumption of horsepower is very large. Bring another month or so of food, and the burden will be even greater. In addition, although there are aquatic plants outside Youzhou City, they are not abundant, and the horsepower decreases quickly.

Coupled with the strategy of clearing the wilderness with strong walls used by Dashun, and the principle of resolutely not letting the Khitan people get a grain of grain, the Khitans even had to go deep into the boundary of Youzhou to fight the grass valley, I am afraid that they are not interested in this work in the face of the steep mountains.

Xiao Feng noticed this problem, but he didn't think it was a big deal. The Khitans are accustomed to preparing their own military food, and they generally bring enough for a month, as long as they capture Youzhou City within a month. No matter how bad it is, when it is about twenty days, and then retreat, the remaining grain can be squeezed out, and you can insist on returning to the border of Liao. If you hunt or something along the way, you can always find something to eat. They have never been worried about the problem of food and grass.

This is also one of the fundamental reasons why the Han people have not been able to defeat the nomads. I don't know how many war examples there are in the book of war, but it talks about how to cut off the grain route and force the enemy army to mess up. But the Khitan people did not have a special grain team to transport grain, so how could they cut off his grain route and destroy his grain and grass? Without this big killing weapon, the Han people would fall into a bitter battle, and it was a difficult battle to defend the city, and they did not dare to attack easily.

In the early morning of the next day, the Khitans launched another siege. This time it was not the Han army, because the Han army was almost completely lost, and Yelu Chongyuan ordered them to cut down trees to make siege equipment, and did not enter the battle again.

And most of these siege soldiers are composed of soldiers from the Bohai, Xi, Murowei, Jurchen and other tribes, of course, there are also many Khitans, whose role is to be at the back of the team and to be overseers.

I have to say that the bravery of these nomads is many times more fierce than the Han army in the past few days. One by one, they were not afraid of death, and even the border troops were shocked. Especially when I saw a Jurchen soldier with no less than seven or eight arrow feathers stuck in his body, he rushed up the ladder without his life, and finally bled too much and died of exhaustion. But his bravery greatly boosted the morale of the besieging army, and the momentum of the border army decreased for a while.

There are not many ladders left in the Khitan army, and there are only more than a dozen. Zhu Daguang didn't dare to hide it, so he ordered someone to push out the fierce fire oil tank and burn the ladder with fire.

The fierce fire oil tank is indeed a big killing weapon, and the clever Han people applied the principle of fireworks to the siege equipment. It uses fierce fire oil (i.e. oil) as fuel, uses wrought copper as a cabinet, has four feet under it, and has 4 or four copper pipes on it, and the pipe is horizontally placed on the pump, which communicates with the oil tank, and is filled with about three liters of oil each time. The front part of the pump is equipped with a "fire tower", which contains the ignition powder. When firing, the ignition powder in the "fire tower" is ignited with a red-hot cone, and then the pump is pulled vigorously to compress air into the oil tank, so that when the fierce fire hole is sprayed out through the "fire tower", it ignites when it is heated and becomes a flame, which is used to burn the enemy and burn the fighting equipment. The fierce fire oil tanks used by Zhu Daguang are small flamethrowers, and copper hoists are used instead of oil cabinets to facilitate carrying and moving.

The Chinese discovered oil very early, and its unquenchable properties in the face of fire have made the Chinese very interested. The clever Chinese soon combined the principle of pyrotechnics and used oil as a weapon, creating a "fierce fire oil tank" with a principle very similar to today's flamethrowers.

As soon as this big killing weapon came out, it turned the situation on the battlefield on the spot, and the Khitan army was angry, while the border army greatly boosted morale. In particular, some of the siege soldiers who were stained with oil could not be extinguished, and fell to the ground screaming, rolling around in pain until they were burned to ashes. Seeing this tragedy, the besieging soldiers could no longer gather their morale and retreated. More than a dozen ladders were also burned, seven or eight were burned, and only three or four were left to retreat.

Even if the Khitan overseers slashed and killed many frightened soldiers of other tribes, they couldn't stop the defeated soldiers like a tide, and Yelu was so angry that he was about to attack the city wall, but he was destroyed by fire.

But the defeat was like a mountain, and he had to collect his troops, gather the defeated soldiers, and rest for a while.

This battle was only fought for one morning, and Youzhou City was in danger, and Zhu Daguang had a little palpitations. If it weren't for the fact that the Khitans hadn't seen the fierce fire oil tank, I am afraid it would not be easy to repel such a brave soldier.

He inspected the border troops on the city wall, ordered a change of defense, replaced the reserves, and replaced the exhausted border troops to rest. With many years of combat experience, he knew that the offensive of the Khitans would be more fierce in the afternoon.

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