Zheng Yunming stroked the yellow gold medal with his hand, and smiled indifferently: "This is not a good thing for the Great Song Dynasty. ”

He handed the gold medal to Bai Yijie to put away, and said to Yang Luo: "When you rushed to the north bank of the Han River, what did you see in the direction of Fancheng? ”

"It seems that there are also military horses in Fancheng to carry out a night attack," Yang said, "but they are much faster than us, and they only started to raid after our team moved, but they have already ended the raid and returned to the city before we have collected our troops." But the effect of the raid was good, even on the south bank of the Han River, I could see that there was no movement along the north bank along the line of the Han River, and the Tartars were suddenly attacked, and they were busy riding horses and fleeing for their lives to the north, and after a battle tonight, they did not dare to take the defenders of Fancheng too lightly. ”

"That's good." Zheng Yunming said worriedly: "Tomorrow, the Hu people will definitely attack Xiangyang on a large scale, and when the time comes, we will not be able to rescue them with a single soldier, Qin Wu and Bi Zilun only have five thousand defenders, but they have to face the siege of tens of thousands of elite cavalry on the north bank of the Han River, and they can't help but pinch a cold sweat." ”

"Can't you still trust Qin Wu?" Bai Yijie's expression was pleasant: "In terms of bravery, General Qin can be called the first in our army, although the city of Fancheng is very small, the city walls are strong. After Xiao Zhao made the envoy take office, he urged the loyal and righteous army directly under the government office to build Fancheng day and night, and now Fancheng is no worse than Xiangyang to defend, what is needed is a brave man to defend the town, and there is no more suitable than Qin Wu as a defender of Fancheng in the entire Xiangyang City. Even if you go to guard it in person, the effect may not be better than Qin Wu's. ”

He added: "What's more, the main target of the Mongols is not Fancheng. ”

After he said this, he didn't speak, but even if he didn't have to say much, Zheng Yunming and Yang Luo understood what this sentence meant.

A large piece of flying stone crossed the head of Zhao Kui, the envoy of Jinghu Manufacturing, and smashed on the tower of the West Gate, smashing a wooden window lattice. Zhao Zhizhi sat at the head of the city without moving, as if there was no sea in front of the enemy army gathered at all, and there were no more than 100 densely erected seven-tip, ninth-tip, and eleventh slightly larger catapults constantly firing towards the head of Xiangyang City.

Zheng Yunming dodged and hid in the string of buildings, carefully observing every move of the artillery truck position opposite, the trebuchet of Lao Yashan bombarded, he had not experienced it, but listening to Yang Luo and Lu Xunzhi's description, he could also think of the tragic situation at that time, but today's battle situation is ten times that of the offensive and defensive battle at that time.

Qu out is obviously ready to face Xiangyang City, in the west of the city and the south of the city set up more than 100 stone throwing machines did not have a little less than five medium-sized artillery carts, all of them are large artillery trucks, the most majestic of which is set up in front of the west gate and two thirteen slightly bamboo cannons and set up in the southwest direction of two fifteen slightly bamboo cannons, all have a few zhang high foot pillars, long and slightly folded, a Mongolian sergeant can not hold it with his hands. The Mongol soldiers under their command shouted loudly and drove the servants brought from the Central Plains to pull the thick leather cords, and shot hundreds of pounds of large stones into the city at a gallop, but whenever a house was hit by a stone, they all immediately became powder.

Fortunately, Zheng Yunming thought to himself that he would rather dispatch manpower from the key task of repairing the fortifications in the outer city and devote himself to the construction of civil defense facilities in the city, and the hard work after several months finally paid off.

At that time, the countermeasures to prevent the attack of the bamboo cannon were also very simple and effective, that is, digging a hole in the ground. Although the bamboo cannon is powerful, after all, it is not a flowering grenade fired by gunpowder, and the collateral damage in the cannon is limited, and it cannot shake the cave hidden deep in the ground, so the whole city of Xiangyang mobilized the labor that can be used, and dug the anti-artillery hole under all the mansions, which is supported by large wood and reinforced with masonry. Of course, the artillery caves in ordinary people's homes are simple because of their ugliness, but under Lu Xunzhi's serious supervision, the civil defense projects of the entire Xiangyang City are carried out meticulously.

It is precisely because of this that in the face of the boulders falling like raindrops, except for the casualties of the soldiers stationed in the city, the civilians are hiding in the artillery holes, and in addition to the sergeants running back and forth in the streets, half of the people are not seen.

But now, the supreme commander of the entire Xiangyang City, and also the supreme commander of the entire Jinghu region, sat comfortably under the cool umbrella, calmly facing the enemy's fierce artillery attack.

Zheng Yunming sighed, made a gesture to the relatives around him, led everyone out of the string of buildings, lowered his body, and trotted all the way to the city gate tower.

"It's too conspicuous. Please take down the city first, let me wait to resist for a while, and then you will come up again at the critical moment. Looking at Zheng Yunming's serious appearance, Zhu Sheng beside him only felt funny, generally speaking, the commander of the artillery battle only needs to hide on the city tower or corner tower to issue orders, and the key to the artillery battle is the lookout at the head of the city and the set to let go. The purpose of Zhao Zhizhi to poke a cool umbrella in front of the city tower to watch the battle was just to boost the morale of the defenders.

Sure enough, Zhao Kui waved his hand impatiently to Zheng Yunming and said, "No need!" A few cannonballs, you can't hurt me! He was determined to be here to watch the enemy's formation, and he did not pay any attention to the fierce artillery attacks of the Mongols.

Zheng Yunming smiled bitterly and shouted, "Please send me the envoy down!" Although he said the word please, but a few soldiers rushed forward like wolves, set up Zhao Kui and rushed to the city, although Zhao Kui is also known as a famous general, when he charged the battlefield, he made a name for himself in the battle with the Jin people, but after all, he could not defeat these burly men, and he struggled desperately and said: "Bastard, I am the commander of Jinghu, how can I be scared to retreat from the city by just a few flying stones!" Let go of me! ”

The guards and staff members standing beside Zhao Kui all breathed a sigh of relief, the city gate tower was the concentrated attack of the Mongol artillery, and it was quite painful to see the flying stones cutting in front of him, especially the scene of the bloody and blurred scene of the artillery beating the officers and soldiers defending the city in front of them, which stimulated their uneasy nerves even more. And they also know that the only person who is qualified to put Zhao Zhi down with a tough attitude is only the son of the former Xiangmen who can do it.

Everyone hurriedly walked down the city tower along the slow track with Zhao Kui, and before they reached half the distance of the slow track, they suddenly heard a loud bang behind them. A flying stone with dozens of catties directly hit the position where Zhao Kui was still sitting safely just now, smashing the cool umbrella that he didn't have time to take back and the two servants who were collecting the umbrella to pieces.

The artillery men of the Mongol army shouted in unison when they saw that they had knocked off the umbrellas at the head of the other city, whether they had hit the enemy general or not.

Zhao Kui glanced back and shouted at Zheng Yunming, "Where is our catapult? For what not to fight back! ”

Before Zheng Yunming could answer, a few flying stones suddenly flew out from the side on the inner side of the city wall, and threw them at the head of the city with a thunderous thunderbolt to the Mongolian nine-tip artillery cart that hit the cannon stone at the head of the city just now, the artillery of the Song army in the city was extremely accurate, and under the bombardment of several stone throwers, the artillery cart that was still cheering for victory just now was knocked down by the flying stones of the Song army's artillery cart in an instant, and the huge frame fell down, and hundreds of servants fled in the wilderness.

The artillery battle of the entire Xiangyang City is still a copy of the artillery battle of Lao Yashan Mountain, although the strength of the Mongols is far from being comparable to last year, but in the most critical aspect, they have not taken advantage of the slightest advantage.

The tall city wall of Xiangyang is far from the low city wall of Lao Ya Cottage, the height of the city wall directly determines the height of the field of vision of the lookout hand and the fixed hand squatting behind the pheasant, on the tall city wall of Xiangyang, they can aim in detail, calculate, and then notify the catapult under the city to eject. After a few months of rigorous retraining, the veteran gunners became more proficient in the proven system, and the newly recruited gunners were able to master the basic artillery combat procedures.

The stone throwing machine position set up in Xiangyang City also learned from the experience of the battle of Lao Ya Mountain, and a curtain of cowhide or multi-layered linen cloth was hung near the position, which could slightly block the broken stone chips and small pieces of flying stones splashed by the flying stones. The gunners commanded the soldiers and civilians in Xiangyang City to pull the ropes so hard that the cannons crossed the city wall and hit the Mongol stone throwers on the opposite side.

They continued to use the same method as last year, using artillery wagons to test fire during the truce, and calibrating the position of each strike point in detail, and when the Mongols began to set up artillery in these areas, they were immediately met with extremely accurate artillery counterattacks. The Mongols still had no tricks up their sleeve at this pre-calibrated shot, and it was still the attackers outside the city who were defeated by the catapults. Although they could build watchtowers to spy on the situation in the city, and even these watchtowers were taller and stronger than those built by Shi Tianze in a hurry, they were also afraid of the power of the Song army's bed crossbow on the fort at the head of the city wall, and they did not dare to approach the city head too much, but the blind spots in the field of vision also increased when they were far away, and they could hardly see the specific location of the artillery carts in the city.

And Zheng Yunming, who had re-ascended the city wall, also found an obvious signal, he said to Bai Yijie beside him: "The Mongols put the cannon cart farther away, and the five small cannons almost couldn't reach the city wall. They're scared. ”

Bai Yijie said with a smile: "Exactly, the most taboo thing for the enemy is not to be unable to see the situation in the city, what they are most afraid of is the copper general on the head of the city." ”

They were not prepared for the appearance of this new metal barreled firearm, and what was the range of General Copper? How fast can you click? What kind of projectiles can be fired? The Mongol artillery army, who knew nothing about this, had to set up a catapult position according to their own conjectures, but the effect of this could only be that most of the shorter-range catapults would not work at all.