The bed crossbow in the northwest corner also fired an arrow, but this time the accuracy was not good, and the rocket flew a few feet from the watchtower.

But it was impossible for the lookout on the watchtower to rest easy.

The original accurate stone bullet shooting gradually began to lose its accuracy. And the Song army in the walled city is getting higher and higher.

The fence that had been built in front of the Mongolian artillery was almost completely swept away by stone bullets, and the curtain had been burned clean by the fire. The whirlwind cannon could suppress some of the exposed defenders, and the three-pound mud pellet was nothing to do with the high war tent on the wall. The Lookout of the Earth Dragon Army can safely hide inside and continue to observe until the commander of his artillery cart completely destroys the target.

The Mongol artillery army hurriedly began to divert the fire, trying to concentrate their fire on the two turret platforms and destroy the bed crossbows. However, the accuracy of the catapult is not as good as that of a ballista, not to mention the fact that there are war sheds built above the two bows, so even if it is hit by a stone bullet, it will not matter.

In the melee, four three-bow crossbow rockets were fired one after another, and soon hit the remaining two watchtowers.

The scales of victory began to tilt in favor of the defenders.

"Come on, let's see what Shi Tianze, the famous town in the world, has real skills." Yang Wei muttered, and waved his hand to let the servants under the city start to pull the strings.

Unexpectedly, a tight gong sound came from the direction of the Mongolian camp.

Hearing the drums and marching and retreating when hearing the gold is the traditional order of the Central Plains warfare, there was no such set in the grassland, but most of the heroes and powers in the Central Plains and Liaodong are in accordance with the old rules. And this effective signaling system was introduced into the real Mongolian army, and the standard Mongolian light cavalry team also began to have drummers and gong players.

"The enemy wants to retreat?" Ma Xiang poked his head out from behind the horse card in surprise and watched the Mongolian soldiers on the catapult position begin to retreat one after another.

He turned his head to Lu Xunzhi on the seat and asked, "Commander, are they really unable to hold on?" ”

Lu Xunzhi shook his head and did not speak. Just silently looked at the orderly retreating team in the distance.

When Lu Xunzhi came down from the horse road, he happened to meet Yang Lu, holding a jar of fine wine, and was excitedly joking with a group of bed crossbowmen.

"Domination!" Seeing Lu Xunzhi coming over, Yang Luo hurriedly poured a bowl of wine and brought it forward: "Today's command of the First World War has worked hard, so I hurriedly came to drink this bowl of yellow mandarins, which is made from Dongting mandarin oranges, a unique wine in Jinghu." ”

Lu Xunzhi stretched out his hand to block the bowl of wine.

"Don't you think there's any difference between winning today and the day before?"

Yang Luo lowered his head and thought about it, and said, "Except for the normal casualties, the cheers after the end are a little quieter. ”

"Exactly," Lu Xunzhi pointed to the wall and said, "This is the reason why Shi Tianze gave up so easily today." ”

Only then did Yang Luo realize that under the city wall were tired and weak faces.

Many sat on the ground panting, while others simply lay on the ground. The people standing were also sweating profusely, and their hands and feet were trembling slightly.

The strength of the whole army has reached the point of exhaustion.

"They haven't really decided to retreat, they're preparing to regroup." Lu Xunzhi said calmly: "Shi Tianze has exhausted the physical strength of our army, and the next thing is a really fierce blow." ”

"They will send siege troops to annihilate our weary army in one fell swoop."

Only then did Yang Xun react, for what reason, before the war, Lu Xunzhi had always insisted on requisitioning the strong men in the cottage to use them as artillery players for pulling ropes, precisely in order to save the army's physical strength to the greatest extent.

But the strong men were not trained, and each artillery cart still had to arrange some soldiers to take the lead in pulling the rope, otherwise it would not have been able to compete with the Mongolian artillery for so long.

In this way, the physical strength of a thousand soldiers was completely exhausted. And that's not even counting the archers who had just fought against the Mongols.

The strength of the two thousand defenders is indeed too small!

Yang Luo smashed the wine urn to the ground: "I didn't even notice this at all!" ”

"On the contrary, Shi Tianze understands this very clearly." He gritted his teeth and said: "He has an absolute advantage in terms of troops, but he has always used only a part of the people to fight with our army, because he deeply understands that behind every artillery cart is manpower, a few dozens, a few hundreds, and he only uses one or two thousand soldiers and a sufficient number of people, he can force us to use the same number of manpower to wrestle with him, no matter whether it succeeds or fails, our army's physical strength will inevitably be exhausted." ”

"And he still has enough fresh military horses in his hands!"

"It's useless to talk too much." Lu Xunzhi shook his head and said: "Transfer out the last five hundred fresh troops prepared in the camp, and organize the strong men to go to the city to replace the soldiers who have exhausted their physical strength to fill the façade, so that the soldiers can seize the time to recover their strength." ”

"The rest is left to the Mandate of Heaven."

Without a stick of incense, the horn of the Mongolian military camp sounded repeatedly, and the leading abduction horse team rushed out first and occupied the periphery of the three walled gates, which was to prevent the soldiers and civilians from escaping from other directions after the city was broken.

This was followed by a large group of ironclad cavalry with strict formations and bright armor, arranged in a neat line under the banner, and marched towards the north gate of Dazhai with a slow but solid pace.

They were followed by a large group of siege soldiers. At the head of the queue were the armoured warriors, who had fought brilliantly with the defenders of the Jin Kingdom in countless siege battles in the north. They are Shi Tianze's most trusted guards in Hejian.

Although most of the ordinary infantry who followed behind could only cover themselves with a simple piece of iron or leather armor, they were numerous and experienced in combat, and when the first troops opened the breach, they would rush up to the defenders in street battles, and win with their numbers and superb martial arts.

But none of this was enough to surprise Yang Luo, who was surprised by the six goose carts with ladders raised in front of the siege team.

In the earliest siege battles, soldiers rushed to the bottom of the city, climbed the city wall with human ladders, and later invented ladders that could overcome the city walls.

However, the archers who shot indiscriminately in the city were still a big threat, so some people came up with a way to build a frame with wood, covering one or two layers of cowhide, or iron sheet, as a cover, and installing wheels underneath, and the soldiers hid in the cart and pushed forward, which was the siege weapon often used in the Central Plains.

In the Central Plains, the use of cave cars is not uncommon, and the manufacturing process is also simple and easy to understand, not only in the Central Plains when the heroes compete for a large number of people, but also widely used by Nanzhao, Tubo, Silla, Khitan and other foreign ethnic groups, Liaojin is used to attack the strong city walls of the Song Dynasty. After the Mongols went south, they captured the craftsmen of the Jin Kingdom and made a large number of these dongzi cars to attack Bianliang, the capital of the Jin Kingdom, and since then the dongzi cars have become a regular weapon for the Mongols to attack the city.

However, there is only one way to attack the city, which is to rush to the enemy city wall to dig a cave and make a way under the thick wall. However, China's cities have a reputation for being impregnable, and Helian built ten thousand cities to test the strength of the walls with iron cone guns. This level of city is actually not uncommon in the Central Plains, just a few hoes are like opening holes in the city wall at will, isn't it a child's play to attack the city? In fact, even if a soldier toiled under the walls for a whole day, he would not necessarily be able to dig a cave where people could hide, let alone dig through the walls. And in the fierce offensive and defensive battles, it is difficult for the cave car not to be destroyed by the defenders for a whole day.

So some craftsmen thought, can the ladder and the cave car be combined into one? Most of the risk of using the ladder also comes from the distance from the starting position to the city wall, if there is the protection of the cave car, it becomes safer to carry the ladder under the city wall, on the other hand, the soldiers rush to the city without digging against the enemy's rolling wood and stones, and directly use the ladder to climb the city.

The ladder is placed on the cave cart, and the upper end of the ladder is tilted forward, and its shape is similar to that of a goose, so it is called the goose cart.

Shi Tianze wanted to use six goose carts to attack the troops first, so that he could seize the city wall in the shortest possible time and win the opportunity for the Mongol army's numerical advantage to be brought into play as soon as possible.

Prior to this, although Shi Tianze had fought with Peng Yibin, a Shandong hero known as the general of the Song Dynasty, and Li Quanzhao, the commander of the Shandong Soldiers and Horses of the Song Dynasty, these two were actually the remnants of the Shandong Red Jacket Army, and they were not the regular troops of the Southern Dynasty.

He didn't know that in the Great War of Song and Jin, the soldiers and civilians of the Song Dynasty suffered a lot in front of this siege equipment invented by the Han people themselves, and they had already summed up a set of ways to deal with it.

After the infantry cleared the way forward with regimental signs and leather cards, and filled the ravines with firegrass, dozens of people pushed the goose carts with variegated flags slowly towards the north wall of Lao Yashan Dazhai under each car.

As the Kawama guards followed the goose cart to General Ki's range, they were greeted by a loud roar and a burst of lead and stone projectiles.

Also the first time he was attacked by gunpowder weapons, Shi Tianze's elite soldiers performed much better than the Han army under King Tath, and although there was confusion and shock, and some people tried to escape, most of them still firmly followed the goose cart.

How could the men in the river who crisscrossed North China be intimidated by these fire-breathing bamboo tubes casually!

The archers on the city wall also began to release arrows, but as Shi Tianze expected, most of their physical strength had been consumed, and the arrows they shot were weak and weak, and they were not at all able to pose a real threat to the armored vanguard troops.

By the time the army was ready to shoot a second time, the goose cart was only twenty or thirty paces away from the wall.

"Leave the cart alone!" Wang Bao, the commander of the Wooden General's army, shouted: "The more infantry you follow, the better!" ”

There was another thunderous artillery bombardment, and many of the armored pioneers who followed the goose cart fell to the ground.

At this moment, the ladder of the goose cart had already set up the city wall, and the soldiers of Hejian who were hiding in the cart broke out into an angry roar, lifted the cover of the goose cart, and climbed up to the top of the city. Quickly entered hand-to-hand combat with the defenders of the castle.