Attacking the city with trebuchets, since ancient times, but the range of ordinary trebuchets is only 30 zhang, in the face of Xiangyang, Xiangfan such a male city, there is a moat barrier, its range is not enough to threaten the city wall, but after Elena's improvement, the range of the trebuchet named by Xiao Yu as the Zhongdu cannon has nearly doubled, and it can directly bombard the city wall, known as "sonic shock heaven and earth, all the hits are destroyed, and it is seven feet into the ground." This is also the biggest reliance of Wei Ban for daring to storm Xiangyang.

According to Wei Ban's arrangement, the Northwest Army was divided into two routes, one was personally led by Wei Ban, and built earthen walls and forts in Lumen Mountain in the southeast of Xiangfan and Baihe City in the northeast. The other road was led by Zhuge Gong, who built a long siege on Baizhang Mountain in the west of Xiangfan, and at the same time built a city on Hutou Mountain in the south.

Xiangyang guard general Du Mingyu, like most Jiangnan men, has a moderate figure, a fair face, more like a Confucian than a general, of course, if he has enough military exploits, he will also get a special title, Confucian general.

On the gatehouse of the east gate of Xiangyang City, Du Mingyu, who had never been armoured, had gloomy eyes and looked at the Northwest Army that was raging on Lumen Mountain.

One of the henchmen beside him all said softly: "Wei Ban is going to fight a protracted war with us?"

Du Mingyu clenched his hands behind him into fists, and said in a low voice: "Wei Ban's move is very evil, and he is also very arrogant, he built a fortress on the first line of Lumen Mountain and Baihe City, which is to cut off the reinforcements of my Xiangfan Second City, and from Baizhang Mountain to Hutou Mountain, it is to make the two cities completely isolated cities." ”

Du Tong, who was born in the Jiangnan Shi clan, sneered: "Wei Ban is famous, but he is too much to see, they all say that ten are besieged, and now that the enemy and our forces are similar, where does he have the confidence to besiege the city, isn't he afraid that we will cut off one of his fingers first?"

Du Mingyu sighed and said with a little worry: "If the person who leads the army on the other side is Lin Han, I can still say that it is actually difficult to deserve under the fame, but it can be replaced by Wei Ban, then it is really a no-void man under the fame, this person has a long feud with Xiao Yu, but he can lead an army alone, which shows that his ability to use troops is enough to make Xiao Yu abandon his prejudices." Looking at his achievements, whether it is a sneak over Yinping or a surprise attack on Xilingkou, it also shows that this person is a person who is good at using strange dangers, so I am afraid that his move is to lure our army out of the city. ”

They were all stunned, and then suddenly said: "If we go out of the city, we will face the Northwest Army, if we don't go out of the city, we will be completely surrounded by the Northwest Army and become a lonely city. ”

Du Mingyu laughed at himself, "When people attack the city, they have the advantage of being the first to attack. ”

In fact, there is another point that Du Mingyu did not say, that is, the strength and disadvantage of the troops on paper, in fact, they are all false, there has always been no shortage of battles in the history books to win more with less, and even the first southern expedition of the Northwest Army not long ago, with 200,000 troops swept through the south of the Yangtze River, which also proved this.

It can be said that the first southern expedition of the Northwest Army woke up the entire Jiangnan Shi clan, and the Jiangnan Shi clan was immersed in the huge advantage of paper troops, but in this battle, Xiao Yu slapped the so-called million army to smithereens, waking up the Jiangnan Shi clan who were immersed in a dream, and the Jiangnan Shi clan, who had the right to speak, began to re-evaluate their real combat power, which also indirectly contributed to Lu Qian's reorganization of the army later.

Du Mingyu said to himself: "If you can fight head-on, do you still need to defend the city?"

Completely different from Du Mingyu, who was dressed in the official uniform of a military attaché, Wei Ban was draped all over, only revealing his face under the helmet, and when Du Mingyu stood at the head of Xiangyang City and looked at Lumen Mountain, Wei Ban on Lumen Mountain was also looking at Xiangyang.

Behind Wei Ban was a walled city that had already taken a slightly rudimentary shape.

As soon as the battle between the two Xiangs began, the entire Jiangnan region became nervous, Lu Qian, the governor of Jiangdu, Fu Chen, the leader of the White Lotus Sect, and Zhang Chuanting, the governor of Jiangnan, all shifted their attention to this place where soldiers must fight, and the Jiangling garrison, Xiangzhou garrison, and even the Jiangdu cavalry army had begun to move closer to the direction of Liangxiang.

This siege of Liangxiang, whether Wei Ban can break through Xiangyang, known as the iron city, in a short period of time is the key, if it falls into a fierce battle, the Northwest Army with a siege posture is bound to fall into the situation of being surrounded by the Jiangnan army. So in the final analysis, although Wei Ban put on a posture of protracted war, it was fundamentally necessary to fight a quick battle, give full play to the destruction of the Northwest Army, and completely disperse the morale of the Jiangnan army that had been accumulated with great difficulty while conquering the two Xiang.

I have to say that this is another dangerous move.

Victory, Wei Ban is enough to go down in history, become a soldier-like existence, and be admired by future generations

Defeated, in addition to death, there is also a ruined reputation.

Wei Ban clasped the black tiger head on his waist with one hand, and pressed it on the handle of the knife with the other, his face sinking like water.

――

Compared with the cautiousness of Du Mingyu, the left governor of Jiangdu, Wei Huang, the right governor of Jiangdu, is more daring, in fact, he and Wei Ban are the same kind of people, and they have never been stingy with dangerous moves, emphasizing utilitarianism and ignoring life and death.

Both of them can be regarded as famous generals in the world, this time Lu Qian let Du Mingyu and Wei Huang garrison the two Xiang respectively, it is enough to pay attention to it, but there is also an extremely fatal point, that is, it is difficult for the two to distinguish between the main and secondary, because whether it is Du Mingyu or Wei Huang, they are all banners within the Jiangnan Army, and they are self-contained, so they will naturally not succumb to each other, so it has become a situation that the Northwest Army likes to see.

That is, Xiangyang wants to hold on, and Xiangfan wants to take advantage of the scattered Northwest Army to build a city and fight a battle against encirclement.

On the third day of the second month of the fifth year of Jianwen, the Xiangfan guard general Wei Huang personally led an army of 50,000 to attack Wanshan Fort.

And sitting in Wanshan Fort is Zhuge Gong, who has been ranked as one of the governors of the five armies.

Zhuge Gong was the earliest old man who followed Xiao Yu, and when he was still a thousand households with less than 1,000 soldiers, he surrendered to Xiao Yu, who was also poor and white at that time, and Xiao Yu at that time also relied on the four departments of Huang Hanji, Shen Dongzan and others, but as Xiao Yu reached the top step by step, Zhuge Gong also rose. First thousands of households, then ten thousand households, then the commander of the Khan's personal guard, the short-lived commander of the Ming Guard, and later the Jiangling General Military Officer, the commander of the Tiger Battalion, the right governor, until now he has reached the top of the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion and is among the six people with real power in the Northwest Army.

In this whole process, Zhuge Gong's performance has always been tepid, and there will be no great achievements like Wei Ban, nor will there be such a big mistake as Min Xing.

Xiao Yu once commented on the use of troops by the generals under his command, and he naturally couldn't do without the words strange and dangerous for Wei Ban, Min Xing got a straight word, Lin Han got the word fierce, and Zhuge Gong got a comment of "only cautious".

When Zhuge Gong learned about Wei Huang's movements from the scout's mouth, he was very calm, and then one military order after another was constantly conveyed, and the northwest army of Wanshan Fort was ready to fight.

Zhuge Gong put on his armor, personally climbed the city wall, looked at the enemy army covering the land, and said softly: "The first strike may not be controlled, and the second strike may not be controlled by others." ”