Chapter XXIV: The Siege

Lu Xun and Zhou Tai's siege of Guo Youzhi's blocking position lasted until the news of Liu Hou's defeat of Ding Feng's troops came to an end. When Liu Houbu finished cleaning the battlefield and escorted the captives to join Guo Youzhi's troops, Lu Xun and Zhou Tai had already led their subordinates to retreat to Changsha City.

Liu Hou then led a large army to chase all the way to the city. The Shu army set up camp at the south gate, it was still a strategy to encircle one and lack three, the number of Shu troops was small, Liu Hou really didn't want to divide the troops again, and gave Lu Xun a chance to break them one by one.

Surrounding a city with a small number of troops is indeed a big problem. There are almost 140,000 Eastern Wu soldiers in the city, while the Shu army is less than 40,000, more than three times the difference in strength, if it is the other way around, 40,000 side is to defend the city, and 140,000 side is to siege the city.

But the Shu army is not an ordinary army, and its attack power has exceeded this era by too much. Therefore, the Shu army attacked the city with a small number of people, and the Eastern Wu army defended the city with a large number of people, not only everyone in the Shu army felt that it was normal, but even the knowledgeable people in the Eastern Wu army were not surprised by this result.

Especially Lu Xun, not only can be described with three words of knowledge, he can be regarded as one of the most intelligent people in the entire Soochow Group now, and he is also one of the most prestigious wise people in the entire world in this era.

Of course, he would not underestimate this strange Shu army, it can be said that he had never attached so much importance to an opponent, and he even thought that this pro-army of the Prince of Western Shu was even more terrifying and difficult to defeat than Cao Cao's hundreds of thousands of troops during the Chibi War.

Of course, this was his inner thought, and this thought was well buried in his heart and not revealed. In the face of his subordinates, he also expressed that he attached great importance to the Shu army, but he never showed the slightest worry, but always showed that he was full of confidence and would definitely defeat the opponent.

This is the so-called tight inside and loose outside, it's good to be nervous in your heart, and you still feel very relaxed to outsiders. It is also called strategic contempt for the enemy and tactical attention to the enemy. It can be said that Lu Xun's mentality towards war is very good, and he has the style of a general.

Liu Hou is very worried, and his worries are expressed on the outside, he is not a very urban person, and his joy and anger are expressed. His identity and status are different from Lu Xun, he is still a teenager, surrounded by people close to him, and he doesn't need to hide his joys, sorrows, and sorrows at all.

In addition to the fact that his status as a young man allows him to be willful, his status as a prince can be said to be above ten thousand people under one person, and he has the capital to show his personality and temperament at will.

The reason for his worry was naturally because this Changsha city was very difficult to attack. Changsha City is a big city, the city wall is thick, the circumference of Changsha city wall is 18 miles, there are 13 city gates, respectively, the north gate (Xiangchun gate), Xinghan gate, Jingwu gate, Xiaowu gate, Liuyang gate, Huangdao gate (south gate), Xuegong gate, Xiaoxi gate, Taiping gate, big west gate, Fuxing gate, Chaozong gate, Tongtai gate. (Note 1)

Changsha City was already a strategic place of Chu as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, and after Qin destroyed Chu, in the twenty-fourth year of Qin Shi Huang (223 BC), Changsha County was placed in the southeast of Qianzhong County of the original Chu State.

In the fifth year of Gaozu of the Han Dynasty (202 BC), Wu Rui was named the king of Changsha and established the Changsha Kingdom, and in the fourth year of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty (176 BC), Jia Yi was demoted to the prince of Changsha.

Jia Yi recorded for the first time the number of household registrations of "Changsha is 25,000 households", and deduced that Changsha was already a feudal capital of about 100,000 people in the Western Han Dynasty. After more than 300 years of development, the population of Changsha City during the Three Kingdoms period has reached hundreds of thousands. Therefore, the scale of Changsha City is very large, and it is no better than the governance of a state.

However, these histories are not important, and even Zhang Zhongjing was not important for Changsha Taishou, the important thing is that before and after the formation of the Three Kingdoms, Changsha was the birthplace of the Sun clan of Eastern Wu, Sun Jian was too punctual in Changsha, Dong Zhuo stole the authority of the country, and the princes of the world raised troops to conscript. Sun Jian raised troops in Changsha to defeat Dong Zhuo.

That is to say, Changsha is the land of Longxing of Soochow, Changsha is the revolutionary base of Soochow, Changsha is the Wuchang of Soochow, and it is Jinggang Mountain, so Changsha is really important to Soochow.

Very important city, the city defense facilities are naturally in place, what female wall, battlements, arrow towers, corner platforms, corner towers, horse faces, moats, suspension bridges, urn cities, beacon towers, watchtowers, enemy platforms, enemy towers and other facilities are readily available.

Bed crossbows, crossbows, trebuchets, sassers, rolling stones, flying stones, oil oil, wolf tooth rackets, poison smoke balls, thunderbolt fireballs, urn listening, forks, fire hooks, fire sickles, iron cats, felts, urns, willow pots, willow sprinklers, shovels, shovels, axes, cowhides and other equipment are fully prepared.

Not only that, but a wide variety of defense lines were built outside the city wall, counting from the city wall to the outside, in order: sheep and horse walls, moats, fire ditches, horse rejection guns, horse traps, staghorn wood, and thistle terrestris. If the Shu army wants to attack the city, it must first clear these obstacles.

And in the process of clearing these obstacles, it is completely exposed to the striking range of long-range weapons on the walls. Although it is said that the Shu army has invulnerable rattan armor, there are many things that the Eastern Wu army can deal with rattan armor.

The bed crossbow is so powerful that it can completely break through the rattan armor; The stone thrower can throw a large stone of dozens of catties at a time, or a dozen stones weighing a few catties, and be hit by these stones, not to mention rattan armor, even if you are wearing a steel helmet, you will be opened; Fire ditches, fire oil, etc. can also cause damage to rattan armor.

Although the rattan armor is said to be fireproof and not easy to ignite, if the rattan armor soldiers are taken to the fire to burn, the high temperature can still penetrate through the cracks of the rattan armor and roast the people inside. Because rattan armor is not asbestos after all, its fire prevention does not mean that it can insulate from high temperatures.

Listening to the hot air balloon scouts come back to report on the city defense situation in Changsha City, Liu Hou felt a big head for a while. How is this city attacked? Not to mention the others, it is difficult to deal with these obstacles outside the city. Unless you fly over, you have to take human lives to clear these obstacles.

Even if Liu Hou has hundreds of thousands of people, he is really willing to fill in with human lives, and he doesn't know how many lives will have to be filled in.

Because some obstacles need to be used for civil engineering, such as horse pits, fire ditches, and staghorn wood, which are actually deep and wide trenches dug in the ground, and then different lethal objects are placed in the trenches. For example, a horse trap is to place bamboo and wood nails at the bottom of the pit, a fire ditch is to put flammable materials such as fire oil and firewood in the trench, and antler wood is to put thorny thorns in the trench.

In order to get to guò, you have to fill in these trenches or build bridges with wooden planks. And I don't know how many people will be shot and killed in this process.

The number of Shu troops is small, and the most reluctant thing is to damage human lives. But you don't need human lives to fill it, how can you capture this majestic city?

Even if you want to use muskets, cannons, and thunderbolts to suppress the long-range weapons on the city wall, you can't do it, because there are many arrow towers, corner towers and other buildings built on this city wall. This kind of construction is equivalent to a bunker, with only a small shooting hole and aiming hole exposed, and other places can effectively resist firearm attacks.

After all, the firearms of the Shu army are still black powder, not high explosives, and the explosive performance of these black powders is still very poor, and they cannot blow up thick walls.

With such a complete city defense set up and so many city defense equipment, of course, it is impossible for Lu Xun to be ready in a short period of time here, the only possibility is that this is something that Changsha City has accumulated over the years.

Taking his own precious army to consume the city defense facilities accumulated in Changsha City for decades or even hundreds of years, Liu Hou certainly wouldn't be so stupid. So, he summoned all the generals and planned to hold a military meeting to discuss how to attack the city of Changsha. This time, even the vulture bones were not pulled down, and all the generals and officials above the regimental commander in the army were summoned for a meeting to discuss.

"This is the only Xiongcheng I have seen in my life, and it is even better and more complete than the city defense facilities of Jingzhou City. If there is a frontal attack, our army will inevitably suffer heavy losses. This is inconsistent with my philosophy of cherishing the lives of soldiers. Do you have any good idea to take this fortified city at the lowest possible cost? Liu Hou first said an opening remark, and let everyone express their opinions.

Everyone stared at each other, you look at me, I look at you, but no one could come up with a good idea. In the end, it was Guo Yuzhi who spoke first:

"Changsha City is different from the small city in the wilderness that we attacked before, and there are many facilities such as arrow towers, corner towers, corner platforms, horse faces, watchtowers, enemy platforms, and enemy towers on the city wall. The enemy can hide in these facilities and shoot with bed crossbows and crossbows, while our muskets, artillery and even thunderbolts dropped from hot air balloons cannot damage these facilities.

This also means that we cannot use the usual siege method to suppress the city with firepower first, and then attack head-on with the vine armor army. Because of the existence of these facilities, we cannot suppress their firepower, but it is very likely that we will be suppressed by their firepower.

In addition, these obstacles outside the city are also a big problem, and they will inevitably be heavy losses when they are cleaned up. By all indications, an attack from the ground is not advisable. Then we have only two paths: from the earth and from the heavens. ”

It seems that Guo Youzhi now has some experience in three-dimensional operations. He put forward the concept of "underground, ground, and air" three-dimensional operations, which can be regarded as a great progress in military history.

"It takes a long time to dig a tunnel into Changsha City, and it is not easy to pass under the moat. Besides, with Lu Xun's shrewdness, it is impossible not to take precautions in advance.

I don't know how many urns he has set up in the city now. If we dig a tunnel and go in, we will inevitably be monitored by his urn. When the time comes, not only will he do useless work, but he will bite him back, and sacrifice the soldiers who entered the tunnel in vain. Liu Hou frowned and retorted.

As for the air route, he knew that there was no need to refute it at all, everyone knew that because the capacity of the hot air balloon was limited, it could only transport a small number of people at a time, so it was impossible to take the air route. Air power can only be used for reconnaissance and to assist in the bombing of some important targets.

It can only be used in a small area to airdrop airborne troops, just like the last time 28 people were airdropped to the Dingbong camp to rescue the fallen pilots. However, for a city like Changsha City, what is the use of 28 people airdropped into it? 28 people, like 28 pebbles thrown into a large lake, will only make a few ripples on the surface of the water, and it will soon be calm.

After Liu Hou said these words, everyone fell silent again, and everyone had no idea.

Note 1: This is the number of modern times, and it is estimated that Changsha City during the Three Kingdoms period could not have been so brilliant and had such a large scale. However, a male city is conducive to the development of the later plot, so it is written here according to this modern number jù.