From mid-December, the confrontation between the scouts and tanma of the Xia Kingdom and Goguryeo became more and more intense, and this conflict gradually increased from three or five people at the beginning to a dozen or dozens of people, until a skirmish broke out the day before yesterday with the participation of 300 people.

However, in front of the scouts of the Xia Kingdom, with wolf teeth and poisonous snakes as the main members, even if the number of Goguryeo scouts has always been more than three times the number of scouts of the Xia Kingdom, the scouts and Tanma of Goguryeo are still defeated, and their losses are more than three or five times that of the Xia Kingdom.

Even the battle between the scouts has come to this point, and at this time both sides realize that the other is ready for war, and a super war begins!

In the face of the strong combat effectiveness of Wang Ze's army, Yuan Dazuo, who was quite under pressure, changed his original strategy to defend instead of attacking, and he relied on Pyongyang City as the central army with a main force of 150,000 troops, while the front army had 80,000 people out of Pyongyang City ten miles forward to establish a camp and defend on the spot.

In this way, the Goguryeo side relied on the camp in front and the Pyongyang city at the back, forming a strategic depth that stretched for more than 20 miles, even if the combat effectiveness of the Xia army was stronger than that of Goguryeo, but it was more tricky to fight.

The east side of Pyongyang City is a large mountainous area, because the terrain advantage is convenient for defense, Yuan Dazuo has deployed 50,000 troops here, and they will firmly guard the flank of this Goguryeo army, and the Goguryeo army on the west side of Pyongyang City is relatively easy to defend by the river because of the convenience of the Cheongchon River.

In the end, Yuan Dazuo also guarded the rear of the army with the remaining 30,000 people, in case Cao An and Meng Xian on the north bank of Sashui suddenly crossed Sashui for a sneak attack.

But in the face of these, how could Wang Ze be afraid, even in the past few years of the truce, he has been preparing for this big war that has been planned for a long time.

Because it was an attack on the opponent's camp, cavalry generals like Zhu Bofu, Pei Xiu, and Cheng Hu could only lead the cavalry under their command to watch from the sidelines, and the cavalry could only be used in the final pursuit on such a large-scale battlefield.

After all, the three of them were not reconciled to this, and soon they suggested to Wang Ze that they could gather more than 10,000 cavalry of the National Guard under Han Zigao and Zheng Kui to join them under their command, and they could lead the cavalry with a total of 30,000 to sweep away all the armed forces of Goguryeo within a hundred miles.

Of course, Wang Ze agreed to this request, but he only allowed Zhu Bofu and Pei Xiu to carry out this task, and Cheng Hu was finally left by Wang Ze because it was inconvenient for the armored cavalry led by him to move on a large scale.

Watching Cheng Hu enviously watching Zhu Bofu and Pei Xiu roll away with a large group of cavalry, and then looking at the thousand armored cavalry under his command with his head down, Wang Ze secretly felt funny, how many years has this second brother still been like this.

In the face of the turtle stream defense of Yuan Dazuo's heavy camp, Wang Ze attached great importance to it but was not afraid, he used Zheng Kui's department to deal with the right flank defenders of the western Goguryeo army, and Han Zi Gao's department to contain the Goguryeo defenders on the left flank of the east, and Wang Ze personally commanded the central guard army to attack the former army camp of Goguryeo.

The first battle between the two sides was not a battle between traditional arms, but a battle between the two sides at the same time, and the first battle became a large-scale battle between the two sides' stone throwing troops.

In the previous month, Yuan Dazuo had not been idle, he had obtained a large number of Han craftsmen from those Han tycoons who were closely related to the Goguryeo regime, and then worked day and night to build hundreds of large trebuchets, all of which could shoot 50 catties of boulders and shoot 200 steps (300 meters) away.

Although these trebuchets are pulled by manpower, the more people they pull, the longer the range, so the number of soldiers and physical strength are very high, but Yuan Dazuo doesn't care about all this, anyway, the army of Goguryeo is twice as large as the Xia army.

Yuan Dazuo tried to use his superiority in strength to defeat the first attack of the Xia army neatly, and such a beautiful battle could at least boost the morale of the Goguryeo soldiers, and may even frustrate the morale of the Xia army.

But what he didn't expect was that under the guidance of Wang Ze, the teachers and students of the School of Mechanical Engineering had already created a newer type of large-scale stone throwing machine as early as the year before last, that is, the famous return cannon in later generations, a large catapult that can throw one hundred and fifty catties of boulders.

The functional principle of this catapult not only allows it to save a lot of manpower, but also its delivery capacity far exceeds the old stone throwing machine used in Goguryeo, especially after adopting the new mechanical structure studied by the teachers and students of the Mechanical College organized by Cao Blacksmith and others, this new stone throwing machine can launch a 150-kilogram boulder to 300 steps (450 meters).

Compared with the Xia Jun's new stone throwing machines, the hundreds of new stone throwing machines made by Goguryeo can only be fired at a distance of 200 paces, and even with relatively light stone projectiles, they can only shoot at a distance of about 250 steps (more than 370 meters).

When the soldiers of the Goguryeo stone throwing unit were ready for battle, Yuan Dazuo was full of confidence and wanted to use his powerful stone throwing force to give the Xia army a dismount, but he did not know that he had entered the range of the Xia army's stone throwing army. terminal

Nearly 2,000 Xia soldiers surrounded hundreds of large stone throwers and walked out to 300 steps, then stopped in the eyes of the Goguryeo people, and the Goguryeo people were surprised to find that the Xia army was ready to launch, and the command of the Xia army's stone throwing machine troops was none other than Cao An's eldest brother Cao Lei.

As the founder of the foundation of the Xia Kingdom's military industry, Cao Blacksmith and his eldest son Cao Lei can be said to have a very high status in the Xia Kingdom.

In fact, it is not that Cao Lei wants to join the army, but because this new type of stone throwing machine is more troublesome to use, there are too many places that need to calculate data before launching, and some skills must be in place to ensure a certain degree of accuracy, Cao Lei, as one of the main developers of this new type of weapon, must lead the team to guide the soldiers on how to use these advanced weapons.

Because these stone throwing machines are seven or eight meters high, and the volume is not small, they were transported by sea after Wang Ze's army came to Pyongyang City, don't look at only a hundred zigzags, but it is enough to suppress the number of Goguryeo stone throwing machines that are twice as many.

In addition to Cao Lei, there are dozens of teachers and students from the School of Mechanical Engineering in the field practice, these people are divided into more than a dozen groups, step by step to check the performance of each stone throwing machine in all aspects, after collecting a large amount of data, they will further optimize the structure of the stone throwing machine.

"Ready, put!"

With Cao Lei's blacksmith's characteristic shout, hundreds of stone throwers fired one hundred and fifty pounds of boulders almost at the same time, and at this time, the Goguryeo soldiers didn't seem to understand what was going on, so hundreds of boulders flew over a distance of more than 400 meters and smashed into the camp of the Goguryeo people.

These boulders are specially made round stone projectiles, and although the surface is very rough, they are enough for them to roll on the ground.

In the crackling sound, dozens of Goguryeo stone throwers suddenly fell apart and disintegrated into a pile of broken wood, and the huge stones that made the achievements were not willing to rest, they rolled and continued to move forward, passing through a large crowd of Goguryeo soldiers, and crushing a road of flesh and blood.

The Goguryeo people also had more than 200 stone throwers, and after they were attacked, they quickly launched their own stone bullets in an attempt to return fire, but the nearest stone bullets they fired were also seventy or eighty meters away from the Xia army, and after rolling dozens of meters, they were helplessly blocked by a shallow ditch dug by the Xia army, which only provoked the Xia soldiers to laugh and mock.

Seeing that the projectile effect just now was excellent, the soldiers of the Xia army immediately launched the boulder with more morale, and hundreds of large stone throwing machines continued to throw the round boulder one after another, and the Goguryeo stone throwing machine troops with heavy casualties finally could not withstand the Xia army's fighting style, and they threw down the stone throwing machine and ran back.

Under the precise and intensive blows of the Xia army's stone throwing machines, the stone throwing machines that Yuan Dazuo ordered the craftsmen to work hard to build were soon all destroyed, so the Xia army's stone throwing machine troops converted their attack targets into the camp fence guarded by the Goguryeo army.

These fences were built by the Goguryeo people using sturdy tree trunks and branches, as well as mud and stones, which were originally used to protect ordinary soldiers from impacting with excellent impact, even if the war horses hit desperately, they would not be broken, but these could not stop the heavy blows of the boulders.

After seven or eight rounds of shooting, a strong camp that the Goguryeo people had worked so hard to build was torn open a gap as wide as 200 paces, and even the boulders that rolled forward tried to find out that there were two hidden ditches behind the fence.

These two dark ditches are clearly prepared for the Xia army, if you don't know how many dead and injured you will have to fall into, but when these dark ditches are tested by a stone thrower, they will be of little use.

The gap of 200 steps is 300 meters wide, which has already satisfied the charge of the army, under the order of Wang Ze, Fang Lei took the lead in leading the avant-garde army to attack, and he and his deputy Kuai Yue commanded the army of tens of thousands of people to stride forward.

The soldiers of the avant-garde at the front of the line were all holding heavy shields more than one person high, these shields were made of hardwood, and they were covered with a layer of iron plates, each of which weighed thirty or forty pounds.

Seeing that the Xia army began to charge, the Goguryeo defenders did not dare to slack off, and under the command of their general, tens of thousands of Goguryeo soldiers quickly gathered inside this gap, ready to give the attacking Xia army a head-on blow, in order to avenge the loss of the catapult troops just now.

It's just that Fang Lei and they advanced hundreds of steps, and after just surpassing the Xia Army's stone thrower troops by less than 100 steps, they actually stopped again!

This is to vomit blood from Goguryeo's popularity, Nima is not fighting or not!