readx;

Fan Man attacked four times on the first day, without exception, he returned with a feather, losing more than a dozen war elephants and nearly a thousand soldiers, his morale was low, and the generals were also in a heavy mood. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

However, as soon as they saw Fan Man's calm face, the panic in their hearts was alleviated a lot, and they inexplicably gained confidence. These people have followed Fan Man to fight in the north and south for many years, and they are very confident in Fan Man, although they have encountered a lot of troublesome opponents before, but Fan Man has led them to win the final victory, as long as Fan Man is there, no matter how difficult it is, they will not despair.

At dusk, Fan Man ordered the troops to be collected, returned to the tent, looked at the gloomy faces of the generals and the eager eyes, Fan Man didn't even say a word of comfort, just waved his hand and said lightly: "Go back and have a good rest, and tell the soldiers that after the city is broken tomorrow, they will have a three-day holiday." ”

When the generals who were originally mournful heard this, the look of defeat on their faces was suddenly swept away, and their eyes showed a glint of ecstasy - if Fan Man could say this, it must be that he had already found a way to defeat the enemy, which was proved by countless experiences.

The generals are gone. Fan Man was a little tired, sitting in front of the marching couch and pondering. Fan Ru asked people to fetch water, helped him wash, and then helped him down on the couch, seeing that Fan Man had closed his eyes, he went out of the account lightly. As soon as he took a step, Fan Man suddenly said, "Aru, do you believe that you can break the city tomorrow?" ”

Fan Ru was taken aback, he turned around and glanced at Fan Man lying on the couch, Fan Man's eyes were closed, and his broad lion nose twitched slowly, looking like he had fallen asleep. However, Fan Ru has followed Fan Man for many years and knows that he must not have fallen asleep, and it is impossible that he heard it wrong just now. He turned around, stood respectfully in front of Fan Man, and replied without thinking: "If the king says yes, then he will definitely be able to." ”

Fan Man didn't say a word, and after a while, the fingers he caressed on his chest moved.

Fan Ru understood and immediately withdrew from the big tent. He stood at the door of the tent, his face calm as usual, but his eyes were a little flustered. Fan Man had never asked such a thing before, he only needed to give orders to the generals, no matter how ridiculous he said, the generals could accept it, and Fan Man would never come to ask him if he believed it after he had already announced that the city would be broken tomorrow.

Fan Ru felt a strangeness, he felt that Fan Man's mental state was very bad this time, since the failure of the ambush of Sun Shao, he was not only in poor health, but also obviously a little depressed, a few days of hard work made people feel that he was a lot older, inadvertently, the originally straight back was a little hunched.

The king is old, and I don't know why, Fan Ru suddenly had such an idea. As soon as this thought came to mind, Fan Ru was startled by himself, and looked around weakly, as if he had done something wrong, and as if he had suddenly discovered a major secret, and this secret could not be known to anyone. Fan Ru raised his head and looked at the not tall city wall in the twilight in the distance, and suddenly felt cold to the bone.

The next day, after the morning sun rose, the Funan army set up a position and attacked again. However, today's attack was different from yesterday's, Fan Man arranged 5,000 men and horses to attack at the same time at each of the four gates. When the generals began to hear this attack plan, they were still a little puzzled, there were enough men in the city, according to the length of the city wall, at least 10,000 people per gate had enough chance of winning, and now there were only 5,000 people, wouldn't it be another stalemate? But seeing that Fan Man was full of confidence, they didn't dare to say anything, and each went to carry out the order.

There were people arranged at the four city gates, but the number was small, not only the soldiers of the Yue Kingdom thought it was funny, but even King Jin Chen Wuyi laughed. The people of Funan are really lucky, and Fan Man, who has always been able to fight well, actually made this arrangement, which is really providential.

Wu blame organized the archers to attack the Funan soldiers who filled the moat, and then the Funan soldiers had already received the news of the break after the city was broken by the generals, and they were full of confidence, although many of their companions fell in front of the battle, but they still moved forward bravely, quickly filled a few earthen slopes for charging, and then dozens of war elephants rushed over with huge siege ladders.

It was not until this time that Wu Ji discovered the serious surname of the problem, they were not the soldiers of the Yue Kingdom, let alone Cui Qian, Cui Qian's south gate had a large number of thunderbolts and strong crossbows, which could restrain the war elephants of the Funan people, even if it was not the south gate, Cui Yanshou's east gate and Cui Wushou's west gate also had enough strong bows and crossbows, whether it was the distance of the range or the sharpness of the arrows, they had some advantages, and the north gate he guarded was not far from the Funan people, and even slightly inferior, and the attack formation of the Funan people with war elephants as the head, He could only order all his soldiers to go up to the city, and the crossbowmen fired arrows as fast as they could, attacking the war elephants and the Funan soldiers on their backs, while preparing for hand-to-hand combat.

The soldiers of Funan drove the war elephants, braved the dense rain of arrows of Jin Chen's soldiers almost crazy, rushed to the city, the two war elephants carried a huge wooden house, the soldiers bombarded the city gate with battering rams under the cover of the wooden house, and more soldiers directly followed the wooden ladder dragged by the war elephants and began to attach to the city, the city wall of one foot and five inches high could not stop their attack at all, it only took half an hour, the Funan soldiers attacked the city wall, and the Jin Chen soldiers were short soldiers, and launched a bloody and cruel battle for the city.

After receiving the news that the attack on Beicheng was going well, Fan Man immediately reacted and sent 10,000 well-trained soldiers to reinforce the North Gate, without giving Wu Cheng any respite, and he must take the North Gate.

10,000 Funan soldiers poured to the north gate like a tide, and the north gate was suddenly in a hurry.

In a big hurry, he sent Li Yuan to contact Fan Man and asked them not to break through from him, and on the other hand, he sent someone to tell Cui Qian about the emergency. Cui Qian's news arrived first, I also fought very hard here, Fan Man personally commanded the siege, and he couldn't draw manpower at all, the city wall was too short, and the Funan people directly climbed the city to attack, it seemed that the outer city could not be defended, and immediately retreated into the inner city to defend.

Wu Yi was so anxious that he jumped to his feet, he found that he had overestimated Cui Qian's ability, this pirate leader was okay to rob, but the defense of the city was too bad, how could he put so many thunderbolts and crossbows at the south gate? If some are placed in each gate, how can the war elephants of the Funan people play such a big role?

It's a pity that it's too late to jump now. No blame had to retreat into the inner city to defend according to Cui Qian's request. The walls of the inner city were as high as two zhang and five feet, and the circumference was only one mile and two hundred steps, so it was much more convenient to defend the city, but in this way, not only did the more than 1,000 people who were not to blame lose most of them when retreating, but also the outer city was lost and thrown to the Funan people. The Funan people immediately gave up their plan to attack the inner city when they failed to attack the inner city, and immediately launched an organized and planned robbery and massacre of the Jin Chen people and a large number of merchants from various countries in the outer city.

The cries rang out, and the originally peaceful and peaceful outer city of Dunsun became a hell, with cries and begs for mercy everywhere. Fortunately, the inner city was not overcome, and Fan Man did not dare to take it lightly, and let people restrain the soldiers in time, but only half an hour's killing was enough to make the outer city change its appearance.

No blame, no tears.

"King, the people of Yue have bad intentions." Li Yuan sneered and reminded: "Have you noticed, their retreat into the inner city was very fast, as if they had been prepared for a long time, and the merchants of the Great Han Kingdom who were stranded in the city were all brought to the inner city by them to protect them, while only some of the merchants from other countries entered the inner city, and most of them were in the outer city." ”

Wu Yi stared at Li Yuan, and only smiled bitterly for a long time: "General Li, Jin Chenguo is dead, and I can't do anything about it." You can do whatever you want, I just hope that after the military is completed, I can leave my family name alive. ”

Li Yuan smiled silently: "King, if you want to succeed, you can't do without the king's help." The king now recognizes the face of the Yue people, if he can help us assassinate the general surnamed Cui, the king of my family will be rewarded for his merits in the future, and the king will not be a matter of saving the life of his family, and there will be no shortage of glory and wealth. ”

Wuzhi nodded expressionlessly, he didn't dare to have such extravagant hopes anymore, whether it was the victory of the Funan people or the victory of the Yue people, he would no longer keep him, the king of Jin Chen, whether he could keep the surname of the family was between the two people, where could he talk about glory and wealth. If it weren't for the fact that his life was in Li Yuan's hands, he really wanted to throw away the crown and escape from the city with his family, even if he would be a farmer from now on. He can't care about how the Funan people and the Yue people fight.

Cui Qian held his knife and paced back and forth on the walls of the inner city, stopping from time to time to move around with the soldiers who installed crossbows and thunderbolts. Although they lost the battle, the morale of the soldiers of the Yue Kingdom was not affected, on the contrary, they straightened their waists one by one, and their voices were much louder than in Pingyue, and their movements were clean and meticulous. The reason is simple, dozens of merchants, mainly Han Chinese, are looking up at them and the weapons they are planting under the city with their heads tilted in awe. Most of them had heard that the Vietnamese had killed more than a dozen war elephants of the Funan people with these weapons yesterday, and now they had to rely on these weapons to ensure their own safety, so of course they did not dare to slack off on those soldiers. Especially those Yi merchants who had a good relationship with the Han merchants and could only retreat into the inner city in time after being notified in advance, the smiles on their faces were even more respectful. They accompanied the cautious, followed behind the high-spirited Han merchants, and greeted the busy Yue soldiers in broken and stiff Chinese. Working in such an atmosphere, which Yue soldier does not raise the spirit of twelve.

Not only did the soldiers feel proud, but even Cui Qian felt very proud, he looked at those merchants condescendingly, waved his hand very majestically, and said without blushing at all: "Don't panic, the inner city is not only high, but also shorter than half, and it will not be broken because of the lack of weapons like the outer city, I can assure you that if there are 100,000 more people from Funan, he will not be able to capture the inner city, and your life safety is absolutely fine." ”

"The general is mighty!"

"It's all up to the general......"

"We are all thanks to the general, so that we can save our lives in such a war."

"Hahaha, you're wrong." Cui Qian laughed: "You should thank the king, he let us protect you." You must also know that I, Cui, was originally a pirate, if it weren't for the king asking me to change my ways, maybe I would be even more robbing than the Funan people, and I would have killed more people. ”

Everyone's faces changed, and they were all a little worried. Cui Qian's words reminded them of what was happening in the outer city, because the Han merchants had already received the news and were prepared, there was basically no loss, and the Yi merchants thought that there were compatriots outside who were being slaughtered by the Funan people, and at the same time they couldn't help but feel a little unbearable. After a moment of silence, they sang the praises of virtue again, but this time it became Sun Shao, the king of Yue, Cui Qian was right, if it weren't for Sun Shao, Cui Qian, the pirate leader, might be even more ferocious than the Funan people.

"King Yue is really a rare saint in ancient times." A Yishang said with emotion and envy.

"That is, our king is young and promising, invincible, invincible, and now he is on the way, as long as he arrives, where will Fan Man's old man have any way to live." A merchant patted his chest and said loudly.

"With a famous general like General Cui and such a sharp weapon, we will definitely be able to wait for His Royal Highness King Yue to come to the rescue." Another Han businessman from Xuzhou said not to be left behind.

"That is, with our Yue country's sailors here to defend the inner city, how can the Funan people be able to attack it?" A Yue merchant glanced at the Xuzhou Han merchant proudly, and suddenly felt that what he said was a little inappropriate, as if Cui Qian had just lost the outer city, and hurriedly added: "If it weren't for the fact that the number of weapons was too small, the people of Funan wouldn't even be able to get the outer city." ”

Everyone, you say a word, I express my own high opinions, some praise Cui Qian's high level, some praise the weapons of Yue Guo, Cui Qian listened with a smile, his eyes swept over the faces of the merchants, and slowly walked aside. After a while, a personal guard came over, bowed his hand to a merchant in the crowd, and said politely: "Dare to ask if you have time to go, my general wants to talk to you." ”

The Yishang was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly returned the salute politely, and said in a not very proficient Chinese dialect: "It's an honor." Then he followed the guards, and the others were a little surprised, they didn't know what point of this Daqin businessman who was mixed in the crowd and didn't talk much caught Cui Qian's attention, and he actually had such an honor.

When Yishang came to Cui Qian's face, Cui Qian was talking to Wu Ji, and he was guilty of Wu Ji again and again, and he was so guilty that he was embarrassed to say it again. He apologized repeatedly, saying that he didn't read the military book well, and he only knew how to do it bluntly, thinking that Fan Man would not attack from all sides at the same time, and he made a mistake in judgment, resulting in the loss of the outer city. Wu Qi, who came with an attitude of reproach, was speechless in the face of such a sincere Cui Qian, after all, it was his own north city gate that was lost first, not the city gate guarded by the Yue people, and he could only blame himself for his incompetence.

"King, although the outer city is lost, fortunately, the inner city is still in my hands." Cui Qian comforted: "The inner city wall is tall, and it is much smaller than the outer city, our weapons can take care of it, and this time we will never let Fan Man's old thief take advantage of it again." The king can rest assured in the city, and this city defense will be handed over to my Yueguo Sailor. I, Cui Qian, promised the king that as long as I was a soldier of the Yue Kingdom, even if there was only one person left, I would never let the Funan people enter the city. ”

"Then entrust it to the general." Wu Ji looked at Cui Qian, who was confident, and suddenly understood. Where is Cui Qian's defeat, he did it on purpose, he guarded against Cui Qian, Cui Qian was also wary of him, he deliberately threw the outer city to the Funan people, and the Funan people burned and robbed it, in this way, the Funan people were the culprits who destroyed the Jin Chen Kingdom, and the Yue people were the saviors who saved Jin Chen. After this battle, Jin Chenguo's vitality was greatly damaged, and it was not the meat in Yue Guo's mouth?

He knew, but what if he knew? He had no other choice now but to cooperate with Li Yuan's arrangement to kill Cui Qian, otherwise his family would have to die in Li Yuan's hands. However, if he kills Cui Qian, he will become the enemy of the Yue Kingdom, and there will be no good end, let it be fate, everything will be arranged by the great god Brahma.

This is the sorrow of a small country, he knows that he doesn't have much choice, so he has to pay attention to the situation around Cui Qian, and then quit with a sigh. Cui Qian politely sent him to the door and watched him go away, then he turned around and said to Yishang who was standing aside and waiting: "Dare to ask the name of the honorable surname?" ”

"My name is Quintus? Severu. Yi Shang saluted respectfully, and then smiled again: "I also have a Chinese name, called Qin Lun." ”

"Do you still have a Chinese name?" Cui Qian laughed, and while motioning for Qin Lun to take a seat, he said with a smile: "However, it is really convenient to have a Chinese name, I am stupid, I really can't remember your name, and I don't have many bird calls, and I can't remember it." ”

Seeing Cui Qian's humorous self-deprecation, Qin Yan couldn't help laughing, so he explained: "Actually, my name is easy to remember, Quintus means fifth, according to your Han Dynasty, it is about the same as Uncle Ji You. ”

Although Qin Yan's Chinese is not very good, he speaks very slowly, and Cui Qian can still hear it clearly. He couldn't help but laugh when he saw that Qin Lun also knew how to use the naming habits of the Han people as a metaphor, he put his fist on his temple, looked at Qin Lun with interest, said a few gossips, and inquired about some customs of Great Qin, and then mentioned the main topic without a trace and asked about Great Qin's weapons. The reason why he called Qin Lun to chat was not because he was interested in Great Qin, but because when Qin Lun was praising the strong crossbows and thunderbolts of the Yue Kingdom, he happened to see Qin Lun shaking his head, although the movement was very slight, but he saw it very clearly.

So far, the armament of the Yue country has always been ahead of all opponents, which is also one of the reasons why the Yue national naval division has been able to win more with less, and win consecutive battles.

Qin Yan understood what Cui Qian meant, he smiled, first briefly introduced Daqin's weapons, and finally said: "Our Daqin's weapons are not as many as your Han Dynasty's, and many weapons are also inferior, but our Daqin also has some weapons that are very good, such as throwing spears and ballista cannons......"

Cui Qian listened in detail, and from time to time interrupted Qin to ask for some details. He was not too interested in the throwing gun that Qin Lun said, because although the lethality of the throwing gun is strong, the range is limited, and it is a consumable surname, which does not conform to the comprehensive calculation habit of the power and cost of the Yue Kingdom, but the ballista mentioned by Qin Lun made Cui Qian very concerned.

The ballista mentioned by Qin is a torsion spring ballista. Since its inception, the torsion spring ballista has been an outstanding achievement in the era of cold weapons, and compared with the thunderbolt that Cui Qian and the others are now using, the surname can be surpassed. The energy storage method used by this torsion spring ballista is different from the lever principle of the thunderbolt and the curved elastic energy storage of the strong crossbow, which uses the torsion energy storage of animal tendons. This kind of ballista can throw a stone projectile of a tower (an ancient Greek unit of weight, about 26 kilograms, 100 catties) 300 yards (about 270 meters, nearly 200 steps) away, and the range of the giant ballista can even reach about 400 yards.

It should be said that in terms of range and strike accuracy, the ballista has the advantages of both a strong crossbow and a thunderbolt, and the way to use torsion energy storage is also a direction that the skilled craftsmen of the Yue Kingdom did not expect, although Cui Qian did not believe that the ballista cannon said by Qin Yan was really so powerful, but he still attached great importance to this information, he immediately invited Qin Lun to Zhu Ya and his party, and promised to recommend him to Sun Shao, the king of Yue.

Qin Yan was very happy to accept Cui Qian's invitation, and his deep eyes showed a look of expectation. Cui Qian noticed this hint of brilliance, muttered for a moment, and didn't say anything, asking Qin Yan to go down and rest.

Fan Man looked at the unfinished generals and understood their thoughts very well. The generals were very dissatisfied with the sealing of the sword after only killing for one hour, and hoped to have more time, but Fan Man had not yet broken through the inner city, and he could not let the soldiers vent, and he had to guard against the assault in the city as an excuse, so he categorically ordered the sword to be sealed and ordered all armies to be on alert.

Although the generals were reluctant, they didn't have the courage to go wild in front of Fan Man, and went out one after another, only Fan Ru and a few other cronies and generals stayed. Fan Man let out a long sigh, arched his straight waist, propped his hands on his legs, lowered his head weakly, and bursts of cold sweat dripped down his forehead.

"King, drink saliva." Fan Ru cautiously handed over a glass of water and comforted: "The outer city has been breached, the Yue people have no way to escape, and defeat is already a foregone conclusion." If you take Jin Chen, you will inevitably look forward to the wind, and the king can be relieved. ”

"Relieved?" Fan Man shook his head in frustration, took a sip of water, raised his head to look at Fan Ru and a few cronies, and said with a helpless wry smile: "Do you really believe that we can break through the inner city soon?" ”

Fan Ru and the others looked at each other, and they heard Fan Man's worries. Especially Fan Ru, he felt that Fan Man was not very confident yesterday, but it was just a little unconfident, and now, he heard a very serious worry.

"King, we ...... Today, I broke through the outer city so smoothly, and the inner city ...... What's so hard about it? ”

"Smooth? It's because it's so smooth that I'm worried. Fan Man slowly leaned back on the couch, with a little pain and remorse in his eyes: "Think about it, which door did we break through?" ”

Fan Ru's heart moved, thoughtful.

"Do you know why I issued a sword seal order as soon as the city was broken?" Fan Man seemed to be talking to himself, "You think that if you break through the outer city, you won't be able to escape from the inner city, but you forget, there are Yue people in the inner city, they have enough strength to defend the inner city, we kill the Jin Chen people at this time, kill the merchants of various countries, and just push these Jin Chen people and merchants to the side of the Yue people." If there are no Yue people, we will kill them, anyway, we don't plan to keep Jin Chen this time, and when the time comes, they will forget about it. But now it's different, we are not sure to defeat the Yue people at all, and if we kill people again, wouldn't we add more opponents to ourselves? Fan Man gasped for a long time, and finally sighed: "We have been used by the hateful Yue people. ”

(To be continued)