Speaking of which, after all these years of fighting, it was the first time that the Taixing army carried out a forcible siege. In the original battle experience, the city occupied by the Taixing army either relied on surprise attacks or relied on Neiying to break through the city gates.

It's just that Zhang Qi also knows that as the territory of the Tai Marching Army becomes larger and larger in the future, there will definitely be no shortage of situations where the city needs to be attacked from the front. Now don't take advantage of the fact that the enemy defending the city is not strong, and once you face the real fortified city in the future, I am afraid that you will be bumped into and broken blood.

Therefore, under Pingtao City, Zhang Qiang decided to let as many of his subordinates as possible participate in this siege battle, feel the difficulty of the siege, and accumulate some siege experience. I think that the strength of the Pingtao defenders has been significantly weakened in the previous battles, and most of them are not enough to inflict too many casualties and losses on their own side.

This is the origin of the siege order!

Under the arrogant order, tens of thousands of people in the whole army, including the people, immediately mobilized with all their might. When the sun rose in the east, what appeared in front of the Pingtao defenders was a huge convoy of siege equipment including fifty chariots, forty shield chariots, twenty siege ladders, and six wells. Seeing such a huge team of siege equipment, it was hard for Du Feng to imagine that in less than ten days, the Taixing army, who was born as a thief, was able to produce so many siege equipment!

On the contrary, the discharge of so many siege equipment at once made the morale of the Taixing army more and more high. When these siege equipment were nested in the camp, there was no momentum to be seen. But once these huge guys were lined up in front of the formation, everyone felt that the walls of Pingtao City, which were not very tall in the first place, were now becoming more and more short.

"In this siege battle, Zhong Rong can be the first contribution!"

Zhang Mad sat on the command platform built of earth, in front of the generals around him. opened his mouth to praise Shen Fudao. Although Shen Fu, the smiling baggage officer, thanked him repeatedly, anyone could see the pride in his heart.

Shen Fu was one of the earliest veterans to follow the arrogance. In terms of qualifications, except for a few people such as Zhou Cang and Dian Wei, no one can compare. Moreover, he has now transferred from a military position to a civilian position, specializing in the supply of baggage for the Taixing Army. This year can be described as a hard work. Not to mention how many casualties can be reduced by this batch of siege equipment supervised by Shen Fu, just with his qualifications, no one will intentionally dismantle his platform.

Shen Fu's talent in martial arts is limited, even after being insolent, he is just an ordinary "hundred people slash". However, in management and arithmetic, Shen Fu has an extremely surprising talent.

A few years ago, in order to improve the management level of the army and craftsmen. He specially gave a management knowledge lecture to his subordinate officials to teach the knowledge of "assembly line operation" and "standardized management" in later generations. Since most of the insolence itself is half-aware of this knowledge, most officials are even more confused when they learn it.

Only a few people, such as Shen Fu, were inspired and guided by the knowledge taught by Zhang Qiang, and they studied themselves and perfected a feasible management system. This set of artisan production system, which imitates the "standardized production" and "assembly line division of labor" in later generations, has doubled the production efficiency of craftsmen.

With this merit. Shen Fu became the most relied on baggage manager of insolence. And those siege equipment placed under Pingtao City are Shen Fu urging the craftsmen of the army. Thousands of people were mobilized, and after a few days of hard work, the results were created.

"Zhongrong's first contribution has been decided. Now there is only one first merit left, but I don't know which one intends to take it? ”

After praising Shen Fu's merits, Zhang Yan spoke again. This time, the arrogant voice did not fall. Immediately, there were people scrambling to jump out for the glory of being the first.

"Who else can there be but a certain Dianwei?"

"Guan Mou is not talented, he is willing to go first for the general!"

"Xu Huang is under the command of the lord, and he has not made any decent contributions. Dian Qianchang, Guan Qianchang. This siege, you don't have to bother the two talents, just have a few presence! ”

As soon as Dian Wei, Guan Yu, and Xu Huang stood up, the rest of the generals such as Zhou Cang and Xie Xun were eager to try, but they did not stand up again. Not to mention anything else, these three are all strong people at the level of "ten thousand enemies"! In terms of being firm and persistent, and besieging the city, the power of the "10,000 enemies" is far greater than that of the "1,000 people broken".

As for those who have not even reached the standard of force of "1,000 people broken", are you embarrassed to speak in front of the "10,000 enemies"?

Seeing that all the generals under him were enthusiastically asking to fight, Zhang Qiang was quite happy in his heart. He slowly glanced at the three of them, got up from his seat, and laughed loudly:

"Hahaha! How can a small county town withstand the strategy of our army's fierce generals? Ziren, Yun Chang, and Gongming, since the three of you are interested in using this small county town to practice, you might as well gamble on the game. If anyone achieves the first place, the other two will give him a glass of wine at the post-war celebration banquet. What do you think of this idea? ”

Hearing Zhang Qiang's words, the three "10,000 enemies" generals glanced at each other, and agreed in unison without hesitation:

"No!"

Seeing his own words, he successfully aroused the competition of the three of them, and Zhang Qiang was quite satisfied in his heart.

The so-called "there is no first in literature, and there is no second in martial arts". The three of them are all "10,000 enemies", and the officers and men in the army have always had their own opinions on which of the three of them is the strongest among them.

Among them, Dian Wei has the most achievements, the oldest qualifications, and the most prestigious in the army; Guan Yu is arrogant by nature and never wants to be subordinated to others; Xu Huangxin has become a "10,000 enemies" and a "newborn calf is not afraid of tigers". In this way, the three of them naturally disagree with each other.

Due to the usual suppression of Zhang Qi, Dian Wei and the others did not have much opportunity to compete with all their strength. Now that Zhang Qiang has set up rules on the battlefield, he can let the three of them take the opportunity to compete, and of course Dian Wei, Guan Yu, and Xu Huang will be ready to compete with each other. No matter who wins in the end, arrogance can get satisfactory consequences.

"Knock Knock Knock ......"

With a low drum beat, the siege finally began.

The first thing the Taixing army dispatched was fifty chariots. From the Taixing army camp to the city of Pingtao, there is a moat more than one zhang wide across it. Without filling this moat first, the siege equipment would not be able to rely on the walls of Pingtao City.

The so-called chariot is a small wooden house with a steeple roof on wheels. Covered by planks overhead and on both sides, it was possible to protect soldiers from reaching the enemy's firing range safely and carrying out various civil engineering operations. In order to prevent the enemy from using hot oil to carry out fire attacks, Shen Fu also specially asked the people to coat the wooden planks of the carts that rushed out.

Seeing the chariot rushing up, Du Feng, the Pingtao County Ling who was sitting at the head of the city, couldn't help frowning. Faced with the protection of the thick planks on the chariot, ordinary bows and crossbows could not shoot through at all. To deal with such a small, heavily armored cart, it is best to use a large yellow crossbow with a force of more than ten stones, or a catapult capable of firing heavy stones.

However, the rhubarb crossbow is a weapon of the country, and the process is complex and difficult to manufacture, and only a border county like Jinyang is qualified to install it. Although the catapult was a siege weapon that appeared as early as the Warring States period hundreds of years ago, since the establishment of the Han Dynasty, the enemy has basically been dominated by barbarians from all directions. To deal with those barbarians who don't know how to build a city, you don't need to use a siege weapon like a catapult.

In this way, the Han Dynasty has been used for hundreds of years, and no catapult has been used on a large scale. In addition to the arsenal of Luoyang, there are still a small number of catapults made a hundred years ago, and it is difficult to find any traces of its existence. As a scholar who reads poetry and books, Du Feng is only a little familiar with military affairs, but he is not a military expert. He had never even heard of such a weapon as a catapult.

"Shoot! Aim at the enemy's crevices and shoot! ”

After thinking about it, Du Feng had to let the county soldiers aim and shoot with bows and crossbows, and maintain a certain amount of pressure on the chariot. If these ugly carts dared to push all the way to the bottom of the city wall, Du Feng would use the wooden boulders piled up at the head of the city to smash all these things that looked a little like toads!

The cart reached the moat and immediately stopped. The soldiers hiding in the car took advantage of the shelter of the car body to throw the prepared straw bags into the moat. Each straw bag was filled with forty or fifty pounds of dry soil. Fifty wagons were divided into six groups of five each. The wheels of the same group are connected end to end, forming a safety corridor more than 30 steps long.

In this way, the people in the rear, under the cover of a group of shield-wielding soldiers, could safely transport the straw bags to a distance of almost fifty paces from the enemy city. Then, these straw bags containing dry soil were thrown into the moat one by one under the relay of the soldiers hiding in the car, and slowly filled the moat.

The moat of Pingtao was originally in disrepair and has long been silted up. In the days before the war, although Du Feng organized the people in the county to carry out re-excavation, after all, the time was limited, and only eighty percent of the original water surface width was restored. In this way, the workload of the Taixing army to fill the moat has been reduced a lot.

At the same time, in order to cover the transportation of the people in the rear of the chariot array, there were forty shield carts, which were pushed by the Taixing army to a place only thirty or forty paces away from the city. These shield carts are actually small carts with a large shield erected in the front. Although it seems rudimentary, it effectively covers the crossbowmen who are responsible for firing at the enemy forces at the head of the city. Although the enemy archers at the head of the city stood on the city wall and had a height bonus, with the cover of the shield cart, the Taixing archers did not suffer a loss in this confrontation.

Moreover, the purpose of the attack of the Taixing archers was not to kill or injure many enemies, but only to make the enemies at the head of the city unable to shoot the people who were transporting straw bags under the city with all their might. With the effective suppression of the crossbowmen, when the soldiers in the chariot filled in the moat, the Taixing army only killed and wounded more than 60 people.

As for the shooting record of the crossbowmen on both sides, it was roughly maintained at the level of one to one. Such a result is naturally quite beneficial to the Taixing side of the siege. (To be continued......)