Guangji County (Meichuan Town, Wuxue City).

Zhang Xianzhong and Sun Kewang commanded 100,000 troops, and there were countless people, claiming that an army of 800,000 was coming.

Sun Kewang pointed to the brand-new city wall and said: "It was built in July last year, and what kind of cement was used to lay bricks, and the rammed earth in the middle was solid, and the foundation was not deep, so it would not be very strong. ”

"Can the main enemy army be in the city?" Zhang Xianzhong asked.

Sun Kewang replied: "I don't know. In Zhao Han's territory, he didn't dare to explore on horseback, otherwise he would be arrested as a spy. In recent times, the enemy's troops have been frequently mobilized, and peasants and civilians have been conscripted on the spot. ”

Zhang Xianzhong pondered: "Spread out a group of cavalry, go east to explore the enemy's reality, and by the way, see if you can rob the Wujia Cave." ”

Wujiaxue is on the Yangtze River, and it was a commercial market town in the Ming Dynasty, which was later the location of Wuxue City.

And Guangji County, the Ming Dynasty has not built a city.

After Zhao Han occupied this place, he spent more than half a year quickly building the city wall. The stone and the triple soil are the foundation of the wall, the rammed earth is the city wall, and the wall is made of cement bricks. There is no moat, only a Meichuan River stands in the way.

The walls of the cement bricks are brittle and will fall off with a cannon bombardment, purely to protect the earthen walls inside from the wind and sun.

Strictly speaking, this is a traditional rammed-earth wall.

"Old horse, this time you lead the cavalry as the vanguard, you must be careful when encountering the enemy, Zhao Han's firecrackers are really powerful." Zhang Xianzhong instructed another person beside him.

This person's name is Ma Shouying, alias "Lao Huihui".

Among the five battalions of the left revolution, King Zuo Jin was killed in battle with the Ming army, and the king of Ge Liyan, the king of the reincarnation, and the king of the troubled times were killed by Zhang Xianzhong and annexed the people.

Now only the old Hui Ma Shouying remains, and the territory is divided by Zhang Xianzhong in Yunyang. This person was born in the border army of the Ming Dynasty, and the cavalry under his command not only included Han and Hui, but also Mongolians.

Zhang Xianzhong's army camped near Guangji County, and sent out a team of 2,000 horses as spies, and Lao Hui took 5,000 elite horsemen to Huangmei County.

The villages in Guangji County have been fortified and cleared.

The people either withdrew into the mountains in the northwest or into the county seat of Guangji. Zhang Xianzhong led his troops all the way over, and some seedlings had been planted along the way, and some paddy fields had not had time to plant seedlings.

At this moment, the people defending the city looked at the enemy army outside, and their eyes were full of hatred.

In particular, those farmers who have not had time to plant seedlings have already sown seedlings, ploughed the fields and stored water, and have completed all the work, leaving only the crucial step of rice planting. As soon as Zhang Xianzhong came, everything was done in vain, and the farming time had been delayed!

Following.

Zhang Xianzhong took out a civilian version of the clairvoyant, which was bought in Jiangxi by the fine work.

He sent many servants out, all of whom had family members as hostages. But only half of them were able to come back, and they didn't know if they were killed, or if they stayed in Zhao Han's territory and refused to leave.

The castle towers were densely packed, and the defenders were very numerous, but they seemed to be miscellaneous soldiers.

Zhang Xianzhong put down the clairvoyant mirror, he had an intuition that the regular army of Datong was not here. The city should be full of people, and the people of the city should be the people of the locals. Listening to the detailed work that came back, there were peasant soldiers in every village in Zhao Han's territory, and the defenders who wanted to come to Guangji County were mainly peasant soldiers.

This city is not easy to fight, although there is no regular army to garrison, but the preliminary preparation is too sufficient!

No matter how difficult it is, Zhang Xianzhong must also be defeated.

Due to the topography, the south is the Yangtze River, the north is the Dabie Mountain, Zhang Xianzhong's troop channel is very narrow. If he drove straight into the city without taking it, his food route would be very dangerous, and he would probably be cut off by the defenders of the city.

A few days before the siege of the city, craftsmen and people must be sent to build seven or eight pontoon bridges on the Meichuan River.

Zhang Xianzhong asked people to build bridges while cutting down trees to make siege equipment.

Some of the horses that were scattered went southeast, and they tried to raid the commercial market town of Wujiaxue.

Running outside the town, he saw that two wide trenches had been dug around the town, and the peasants in the villages along the way had already withdrawn, and most of them had withdrawn to Wujiaxue Town for defense.

The horse team rushed back to report the situation: "King, there are deep trenches outside Wujiaxue Town, and only a few are narrow enough to pass through. The peasants along the way are gone, and I am afraid that they have already withdrawn to the town, and the town may have been crowded with 20,000 or 30,000 people. ”

Zhang Xianzhong frowned when he heard this, his original tactic was to rob grain along the way and coerce the people to continue to march.

But in this situation, food can't be grabbed, and the people can't be coerced, so they can only slowly attack the city one by one. What the is this?

How much grain and grass does Zhao Han have in his hands, he can actually play the strong wall and clear the wilderness!

Guangji, Huangmei, Susong and other counties were all occupied by Zhao Han last year, and many people emigrated for less than a year. Not much staple food was harvested at all, just some miscellaneous grains were planted, and half of the people survived the winter by eating sweet potatoes.

The people in these counties are all burdensome, and they are hiding in the wilderness, and most of the rations have to be provided by Zhao Han.

Zhang Xianzhong couldn't understand at all, why did Zhao Han use precious food to evacuate and transfer the people? Is it bad to stay in the countryside and fend for itself?

What kind of division of land and production, what kind of light and meager endowment, Zhang Xianzhong feels that it is a means to win people's hearts. At critical moments, we have to rely on the army to fight. Now that there is a big war, what is the situation of using food to feed the people?

Soon, Zhang Xianzhong will understand!

After the pontoon bridge was built, only more than 20 artillery pieces were pushed to the other side of the river to attack the city.

Seeing the artillery rollout, the defenders left the city walls one after another.

After a few rounds of shelling, the effect was not very good, because Zhang Xianzhong did not have heavy siege artillery.

Don't look at the walls made of cement and bricks, which were destroyed by artillery, but the rammed earth walls inside are very solid. How many meters of rammed earth are several meters thick, and with shells that cannot explode, how much does it take to collapse alive?

The city wall has not collapsed, Zhang Xianzhong is already distressed about gunpowder, he has to leave enough gunpowder for field battles, and he can't waste it all on the siege of the city.

The 100,000-strong army crossed the pontoon bridge one after another, and it took half a day to surround the city of Guangji County.

In the afternoon, siege was laid on three sides, leaving one side for the defenders to escape.

Guangji Zhixian is called An Qigong, a native of Xinhua, Hunan, he himself is a showman, and his brother An Qiwen is a lifter. Although the An family was divided into thousands of acres of land, the brothers both became officials, the younger brother was the magistrate, and the elder brother was the judge.

An Qigong sat in the middle of the county government and commanded, responsible for the logistics affairs of the whole city.

Officials kept going in and out of the county office, and a batch of materials was drawn out of his pen, and groups of people were distributed to various parts of the county.

Even the gentry and merchants in the city organized their families to defend the city, and even some gentry and merchants went to comfort the soldiers with food in person, symbolically carrying some supplies.

Guangji County was occupied by Sun Kewang for a whole year, and whether it was the common people or the gentry and merchants, they all knew what the enemy outside the city was.

The gentry and businessmen have been made to become commoners!

There were indeed regular troops in the city, but there were only a dozen or so, all of them regular army officers, who were responsible for commanding the peasants and civilians to defend the city.

After Zhang Xianzhong stopped the shelling, the officer quickly returned to the city wall with the peasants and civilians.

In a short time, a large number of enemy troops rushed with ladders.

In each section of the city wall, there were missionaries holding iron trumpets and shouting to the enemy soldiers who rushed to the city wall: "Brothers outside the city, don't be a soldier for Zhang Xianzhong anymore." Quickly lay down his arms and surrender to King Wu, King Wu loves the people like a son, everyone here has a field to cultivate, everyone has clothes to wear, and everyone has food to eat. You fight for Zhang Xianzhong, what if you die in the family? They are still looking forward to your return, you are all the pillars of the family, but you can't die! Put down your arms and surrender, Zhang Xianzhong will definitely be defeated, and the Datong army will take you back to your hometown to divide the fields......"

This kind of shouting is definitely useless, they are all attacking the city, who dares to surrender?

Another missionary shouted, "Brothers and sisters, hold the wall." Your family members are all in the city, and your land and property are outside the city, and if the county seat is defeated, your family will be gone, your land will be gone, and the good days in the future will be gone......"

"The world is the same!"

"Dress and eat!"

The slogan was temporarily changed because many of the defenders of the city were residents of the city, and they did not usually farm.

Ladders were pushed over, and these were very regular ladders. There are planks to block the rain of arrows, there are winches to lift and lower, and there are grappling hooks to firmly fasten the city walls, and it is impossible to push them away when they are put on the wall.

"Throw firewood and grass!"

A large amount of dried firewood and grass, which had been drenched with oil, was thrown under the city as the ladder approached, and then the torches were thrown down.

A section of the ground against the wall suddenly burst into flames, baking the ladders and the besieging enemy.

Then the hot oil poured down, scalding the enemy soldiers who had climbed halfway to the ground, and fell into the burning firewood and grass pile below, and the hot oil on their bodies quickly caught fire.

"Ahh

Screams rang out one after another, and so did the people defending the city, for archers were shooting from under the city.

This can only be blamed on the city wall being too short, and the city was built for only half a year, and it was built more than four meters high.

Zhang Xianzhong's first attack was quickly repulsed, and the defenders of the city were shot dead eight and wounded more than 100.

Soon it was the second offensive, and this time the attack on all sides was completely piled up with cannon fodder's human lives, trying to consume the defenders' materials for defending the city.

Only when the materials for defending the city are almost exhausted, Zhang Xianzhong will send elites to attack the city wall.

The ancient siege of the city was so cruel.

At the same time, Zhang Xianzhong was still digging tunnels, trying to transport gunpowder from the tunnels to blow up the city walls.

In addition, several Lu buses are being manufactured, which are siege weapons.

Half a month later, Zhang Xianzhong's siege cannon fodder suffered nearly 10,000 casualties, and finally exhausted the firewood, grass, hot oil, and gold juice in the city.

During this period, Lao Hui sent someone back to report that Huangmei County, Susong County, and Taihu County had all been cleared. He could not grab food, he did not have much food and grass with him, and the main force of the enemy army never appeared, so he asked to return to the side of the army for the time being.

The news brought by Lao Huihui made Zhang Xianzhong have a bad premonition, and this time he seemed to have stepped into the quagmire!

Zhang Xianzhong has never encountered Zhao Han's strong wall and clear field style of play, and only Zhao Han is willing to do this in the whole world, so how much silver and food do you have to consume!

If Zhao Han met Zhang Xianzhong at this moment, he would definitely scold: "The strong wall and the wilderness cost money and food? Do you know how much grain Lao Tzu consumed by the immigrants who divided the fields! Lao Tzu immigrating to a common people is countless times more expensive than raising a soldier! ”

Now that the war has begun, there is no room for giving up halfway.

Seeing that the supplies in the city were getting less and less, Zhang Xianzhong ordered to send an elite siege to the city and push out the few Lu buses.

"Boom, boom!"

This time it was not firewood and grass, not hot oil, rolling wood, and gold juice, but ten thousand enemies smashed down one by one.

Zhang Xianzhong's face turned green.

So far, he has suffered nearly 10,000 casualties. Not to mention not being able to take a single earthen city, not even the enemy's regular army could be found.

"King, there's a tunnel that's about to be dug through!"

"Well, there is a reward for those who dig the tunnels. The whole army stopped the siege of the city, ignited the gunpowder after nightfall, blew up the city wall, and immediately took advantage of the chaos to attack it! ”

(Ask for a commuter pass.) ）