On the tenth day of the battle, the siege battle finally began.

Under the supervision of the Mongol army, 600 earthen forts were built higher than the city walls, and the 100 prisoners of war, who had been starved to the bones, were released on the spot by the Mongol army.

Whether they survive or not depends on their creation.

Some people tried to knock on the gate of Lin'an, but they were finally refused, because the Mongol archers had already moved into the earthen fort, and thousands of return cannons had been pushed to the front line.

Opening the city gate at this time is tantamount to luring a wolf into the house.

These people could have left the battlefield directly and returned to their respective homes without entering Lin'an City. Lin'an's food reserves were already stretched, and the entry of these prisoners of war into the city was not necessarily a good thing.

At about 9 o'clock in the morning, the flames of war ignited.

Although the boiler was destroyed, the Mongol siege tactics were still the same as before, with the earthen fort archers responsible for suppressing the long-range strike force at the head of the city, and the return artillery bombarded the city walls.

The defending troops followed and returned to the color.

Archers, trebuchets, and bed crossbows go into battle against the enemy.

The first day of fighting was limited to ranged units.

The tactics are hard, but the battlefield is brutal. The arrows fired by the archers on both sides weaved a web of intersecting arrows, taking hundreds of lives at any given moment.

The roar of trebuchets has not ceased since the beginning of the war.

Whether it is the camp of the Mongolian army outside the city, or the head of the city, or even near the city wall, there is dust and smoke billowing and fires everywhere. Although the return cannon is a trebuchet, it can also shoot gravel poured with corpse oil.

Under the first shot, the beacon smoke rose everywhere.

The defenders of the city were fighting in a rain of arrows, and the temporary labor under the city was not easy. At all times, the wounded were carried down from the city and taken to the nearest medical station.

All the doctors in Lin'an City, regardless of which department they treated, were recruited by the imperial court and stationed in medical stations to treat the wounded.

Each time you save one, you add one point to your combat power.

In addition, the military workshops in the city are also working day and night, producing bundles of arrows. The cost of arrows in a siege like this is staggering.

The whole city is united.

On the first day of the battle, the Mongol army returned in vain, not only with more than 10,000 dead and wounded, but also with more than 50 earthen forts destroyed by trebuchets and reduced to ruins.

The defending troops also lost tens of thousands of casualties.

The root cause of such a casualty ratio is still in the capture of the earthen fort. With earthen forts as cover, the Mongol archers were not at a disadvantage, and with their generally superb marksmanship, they naturally did not fall behind.

On the contrary, there were very few pure archers in the Inhuman Legion, and most of them were cavalry who were improvised into battle, apparently no match for the Mongol archers, and were fiercely suppressed by the enemy army.

In this battle, the two sides were evenly matched.

In the next two days, the war situation did not change, and the Mongol troops, with a million-strong army, were like a perpetual motion machine, constantly replenishing fresh blood and launching a non-stop attack on Lin'an City.

During this period, the Mongols resorted to another trick.

They threw the corpses of their warriors, whether they were enemies or their own, into the moat. For a while, the surface of the river was densely packed with corpses, which made people look creepy.

To make matters worse, the aqueducts in Lin'an City were connected to the moat, and the corpses soaked in the river rotted and smelled, polluting the water source, and then polluting the aqueducts in the city.

It became a problem for the people to use water.

The only source of water was groundwater, and Lu had to urgently organize officials from the Ministry of Industry to dig wells in the city to ensure the supply of water to the people.

Fortunately, the siege period was only one month, and if it was a long-term war, even the groundwater would be polluted, and the water supply in the city would be completely cut off.

This is a vicious plan.

The Mongol army bombarded for three days in a row, and except for the northern city wall, the other three sides were shaken to varying degrees. Especially the Great Song Forbidden Army in the south, the fear of Mongolian iron cavalry in their bones seems to have been awakened again, and there are many dangers. If this continues, I am afraid that if we do not wait for the return artillery to smash the city wall, the defenders will be in disarray.

In addition, the Inhuman Legion only defended but did not attack, and with the help of the secret agents in Inner Mongolia in the city, the saying of "Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals" gradually collapsed, and people's hearts fluctuated.

Everything is developing in a direction that is unfavorable to the Southern Song Dynasty camp.

The general of the Mongolian army, Bo Yan, was very satisfied with this, and said to Zhang Hongfan with a smile: "This Inhuman Legion is useless, and it is not our opponent at all." ”

Speaking of Boyan, he is also a not simple character.

Boyan grew up in the Ilkhanate, and in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, he was ordered by the Ilkhan Hulegu to enter the court, and was appreciated by Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan dynasty.

In the eleventh year of the Yuan Dynasty, he commanded the army to attack the Southern Song Dynasty.

After the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, he went out of the town and Lin, and the kings rebelled. After the death of Kublai Khan, he was ordered to support Yuan Chengzong Timur to ascend the throne, and added Taifu and recorded important military affairs.

To the 31st year of December died of illness, at the age of fifty-nine, he was given Xuanzhong Zuo ordered Kaiji Yi Dai Gongchen, Taishi, Kaifu Yi with the three divisions, posthumously crowned the King of Huai, and was nicknamed "Zhongwu".

Boyan is good at writing poems and essays, and is a famous politician and military strategist in the Yuan Dynasty, who commanded an army of 200,000 to defeat the Song Dynasty, such as unifying people. Success is still in the court, the mouth is not spoken, and the bag is only carried with the quilt.

This person is wise and ignorant of others, understands the righteousness, uses troops to strategize, and is superb, and has commendable points in leading troops, employing troops, and governing the army.

It stands to reason that such a famous general should not underestimate the enemy, but it was the gap between the front and back of the Inhuman Legion that made Boyan very surprised, so that he miscalculated.

"Order, starting tomorrow, intensify the onslaught, and strive to blast out Lin'an City within three days."

Now that he has figured out the details of the enemy's army, Boyan is not ready to go on any longer, and is ready to launch the strongest attack on Lin'an with a thunderous momentum.

That is, after the archers, Boyan was ready to send infantry to attack the city wall.

Although the Mongol army was mainly cavalry, during the attack on the Southern Song Dynasty, the Han army was also constantly resurrected, and it was collectively called the puppet army by the Mongols. This group of puppet troops is mainly infantry.

"It's time for them to play their worth."

In Boyan's eyes, the puppet army is a group of cannon fodder, and whether they die or not has nothing to do with the overall situation. The only role of the puppet army is to be thrown into the battlefield at the right time by him, shining and hot.

"No!"

Zhang Hongfan got the order and went down to arrange it very competently.

Boyan looked at Zhang Hongfan's back, his eyes fluctuated a little, and then turned calm. Speaking of which, as the vanguard officer of the Southern Song Dynasty, most of these puppet troops were recruited by Zhang Hongfan.

No matter what purpose Zhang Hongfan used to surrender the Song army, Boyan would not allow this hidden danger to remain in the army, and he just took this opportunity to wipe it out.

Zhang Hongfan's impassivity made Boyan pay more attention.

"A truly remarkable figure, no wonder Your Majesty thinks so highly of him." Boyan's eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn't get rid of Zhang Hongfan's thoughts.

The reason is simple.

No matter how much His Majesty the Emperor trusts Zhang Hongfan, a Han Chinese, his trust level cannot exceed that of a Mongolian general like Boyan, who has served the Genghis Khan family for generations.

"If it is not of my race, its heart will be different!"

Although His Majesty the Emperor was broad-minded and accepted a large number of Han ministers, he even admired Confucianism and wanted to rule the world with Confucianism. But in the end, it's all just an imperial measure.

The real pillars of the empire were still the Mongols.

Even if Han Chen is valued by His Majesty the Emperor, he will still be inferior after all. Don't look at Zhang Hongfan's great achievements, back in Yanjing, any Mongolian nobleman can trample Zhang Hongfan under his feet.

This is why, Boyan never sees Zhang Hongfan as a threat.

In history, Zhang Rou, Zhang Hongfan and Zhang Qi, ancestor, father, and grandson were all generals in the Yuan Dynasty, and they all made great achievements, but the fate of their descendants was very miserable, which seemed to confirm Boyan's judgment.

After the collapse of Emperor Taiding, the brothers of Yuan Mingzong and Yuan Wenzong competed for the throne with Emperor Tianshun, and the supporters of the two factions fought, and the kings of Shangdu defeated the army of the kings of Dadu at Bauhinia Pass.

When the army of the kings of Dadu retreated, wanton plunder, Zhang Jingwu, the son of Zhang Qi, was the Wuchang Wanhu of Baoding Road, relying on his confidence that he was the local hero and strong for several generations and the third generation of loyalty to the Great Yuan, and led his militia to hold a big stick, killing hundreds of Dadu Yuan soldiers who robbed and plundered when they retreated, and protected the family as the township.

As a result, the royal faction of Dadu finally won, and the prince Esente led a large army to pass through Baoding, rushed into the Zhang family compound, and arrested all the five grandsons of Zhang Hongfan, including Zhang Jingwu, tortured and executed, and all the family property was snatched up.

Then all the daughters of the Zhang family were handed over to the Yuan army ** and killed, the only living mouth left by the Zhang family, a granddaughter of Zhang Hongfan, Esente saw her beautiful, and accepted her as a concubine after rape.

The Zhang family worked hard for the Mongols for several generations as traitors, and finally got this fate, sad, lamentable!

The practice of ordering troops to rape and kill the daughters of the Zhang family was not new, and it happened from time to time in the Yuan Dynasty and even earlier in the Great Mongolia, and sometimes the targets of rape and murder were even Mongolians.

The most famous is a tragic incident during the Ögedei period.

In June 1237, there was a rumor among the tribe that there was an edict to marry the girls of the tribe, and the people were busy marrying their daughters in the clan, and some of them were sent directly to the men's homes.

When Ogedai heard the news, he was furious, and ordered all the girls over the age of seven to be gathered together, and the married ones were recovered from her husband's house, and then four thousand girls were gathered together, and the soldiers were ordered to trample them in public.

Two of the maidens were killed on the spot, and the rest were sent to the harem, some to be rewarded to slaves, some to be sent to brothels and embassy houses to wait for travelers, and some to be led by those present.

Their fathers, brothers, and relatives had to stand and watch, without complaining or weeping.

Unlike the nomadic herders, who grew up slaughtering cattle and sheep and taking pleasure in killing living beings, the farmers rarely saw blood, and Buddhism was also prevalent in the Song Dynasty, and the civilization of the Southern Song Dynasty kept the Han people away from killing.

It was precisely because of this that the psychological warfare of the Mongol army, such as slaughtering cities, refining corpse oil, and throwing corpses in rivers, easily caused the people of the Southern Song Dynasty to fall into extreme fear, and many people set themselves on fire before the Mongol army reached its strength.

…………

Lin'an, Military Aircraft Department.

"It's not going to work like this, we have to make a change!"

Ouyang Shuo realized that they were caught up in the rhythm of the Mongol army.