For five or six hours in a row, Zhou Tinggou stood quietly on the tower of the north gate of Hezhou City, motionless and motionless as he watched the people pouring out of the city from the hole in the city gate under his feet.

As the deputy commander of the Jiangnan Bandit Camp, Zhou Tinggou's mood at this time was complicated, how could he not know how difficult and miserable the escape road of these people would be after leaving Hezhou City, and how many floating corpses would appear again?

But he had to. All he could do was to stand on top of this tower and watch them leave Hezhou, while he himself would lead his troops and horses to stay here, and strive to defend the last gateway to the national capital, so that his sons could go to Jinling to reunite with their family safely after the war.

What a wise decision to retreat in time turned out.

In the early hours of the morning, after all the people had withdrawn from the north gate, the defenders at the head of the city saw the rebels closing the city wall from the northeast side.

As long as it slows down for half a day, the entire Hezhou city will be surrounded by rebels, and no one will be able to leave by then.

In the early morning of the first day of September, the horn of the rebel attack finally sounded through the mountains, and Li Jingsui could not wait to give the order to storm Hezhou.

At that time, more than 400 trebuchets seized from the state capitals of Jiangnan West Province were all in place and began to bombard the defenders at the head of the city. For a while, there was a rain of falling rocks on the city walls of the four cities of the state, the smoke and dust were flying, and the stones as big as a millstone and as small as a fist fell unscrupulously towards the city, and a yellow cloud of sand and dust rose from the head of the city, and the dust cloud shrouded the sky over the city for a long time.

Fortunately, the walls of Hezhou City were solid, the battlements were thick and tall, and there were arrow towers and urns built on the city walls every few dozen steps, which became a hiding place for the soldiers defending the city to hide from stone attacks. Although the rain of stones was fierce, it did not cause much damage to the defenders at the head of the city, and the only damage caused to them was psychological deterrence and intimidation.

You must know that most of the soldiers defending the city are recruits who have only joined the army for more than ten days, and they usually don't talk about fighting, even if they see a dead person, their hearts will beat in fear, and now, they not only want to see these big scenes that make people's souls fly, but also see the soldiers who were still standing next to them one moment ago were stoned to death by flying stones the next moment.

This change of mentality is so rapid that in this case, one will either be reborn as a qualified warrior and mature all at once, or one will quickly collapse.

Many people have collapsed in this situation.

In the smoke and dust, many people came out of their hiding places in a daze, no matter how much the officials and colleagues around them shouted, they did not look back, and then they were stoned to death by falling stones. Others rushed out shouting and jumping off the battlements several feet high, ending the nightmare by themselves.

The trebuchet's bombardment lasted for more than half an hour, and when the bombing was over, a thick layer of large and small stones was piled up on the walls of the four cities of Hezhou, as if it had experienced a major earthquake. Some of the battlements were destroyed, but most of the city's defenses remained.

At the moment when the trebuchet stopped bombing, Zhou Tinggou issued an order to immediately take up the position and defend the city. Because Zhou Tinggou knew that the trebuchet's bombardment was not to kill and injure the defenders at the head of the city, but to cover the approach of the besieging soldiers and horses, when the catapult stopped bombing, it was a sign that the rebel infantry had begun to attack the city.

The situation was not much different from what Zhou Tinggou had expected, and when the dust clouds at the head of the city cleared, the defenders on the city walls saw what made them dizzy. Under the city wall, the rebel siege soldiers who were densely packed like ants had already poured towards the city wall from all directions, and under the cover of the catapults, the leading rebels were less than fifty steps away from the city wall, and they were about to reach the side of the moat.

Zhou Tinggou gave an order, and the defenders at the head of the city and hundreds of arrow towers suddenly fired thousands of arrows. Although it is a new recruit, this kind of archery only needs to be shot out, and there is no need to aim at all, and the emphasis is on shooting in a large area to increase the chance of shooting. The rebel soldiers who rushed to the close distance below the city fell in pieces, wailing and screaming endlessly.

After a rain of arrows, the rebels suffered more than a thousand casualties, and it was like stomping on the ants all over the ground with the huge soles of their feet, and the arrows would always shoot at someone. However, the rebels did not back down because of this, and the rebel overseers were behind the battle with long knives in hand, and anyone who dared to take a step back would be slashed in half.

Advance or live, retreat or die, in this situation, the offensive of the rebels has not diminished in the slightest.

Soon, the rebel crossbowmen began to fire back at the head of the city, and although the power of shooting from the top of the city was not great, it still caused psychological distress to the new soldiers defending the city.

When I saw a dense number of arrows shooting towards the city, I didn't know if I could hit myself, but my first reaction was to shrink my head and dodge, which is the difference between a veteran and a new soldier.

At this time, the veteran will simply ignore the arrow fired from the back and shoot down on his own, because they know that the chance of being hit is very small, and there is no need to worry about it. And this subconscious little action of the recruits made them lose the opportunity to shoot one more arrow. The arrows at the head of the city were visibly sparsely scattered.

The rebel soldiers were well-trained and well-trained horses, and the siege was carried out in an orderly manner. As pontoon bridges were erected over the moat, the siege road leading to the city under the city walls finally became a thoroughfare. Countless soldiers and horses poured into the city and began to climb the city wall by ladder. And the vicinity of the gate of the southern urn city was also quickly broken by the rebels, and the gate of the urn city was not stronger than the inner city, and it was quickly breached.

It is not surprising that the gates of the city of Urn City were broken, and the gates of the city of Urn City did not need to be strong, because only if it was broken, it would attract enemy troops into the city and then be besieged by archers on the four walls.

However, as if they knew that the urn city was not allowed to trespass, the rebel soldiers did not rush into it until soon after, the rebel soldiers who carried a large shield on their heads and pushed a huge wooden with a thickness of several feet together braved the rain of arrows to approach the city gate. Several groups of rushing carts rushed into the urn city like ironclad centipedes, ignoring the rain of arrows shot down from the city, and rushed straight to the main gate.

A moment later, the sound of "boom boom" hitting the city gate suddenly resounded on the battlefield.

Zhou Tinggou's heart was cold, and less than an hour after the start of the war, the rebels had already begun to attack the city gate, which was caused by the disparity in strength. The combat effectiveness of the recruits is too weak, and they are still afraid of death by virtue of the benefits of the fortified city, and they dare not resist to the death.

The firepower of more than 60,000 soldiers and horses defending the city was not even as strong as the firepower of the 20,000 border troops he led, and he so easily let the rebels build countless pontoon bridges on the moat, and also let the rushing cars cross the river and attack the main gate.

"Don't you quickly fall down the boiling oil and stop the rushing car from attacking the city gate!" Zhou Tinggou shouted urgently.

Above the city gates, the scrambling defenders hurriedly poured several large pots of oil, which fell on the large iron shields and splashed everywhere. Zhou Tinggou thought that he could see these rebels crying and jumping into the moat to avoid the result of the hot oil dosing themselves, but what he didn't expect was that the boiling oil fell to no effect, and the rebels under those shields actually panicked for a moment and began to ram the city gate frantically.

"How so?" Zhou Tinggou asked in astonishment.

"it, these recruits forgot to light a fire to boil the oil, and poured a few large pots of cold oil on it!" One of the generals shouted in reply.

Good guy, Zhou Tinggou almost fainted, what kind of soldiers and horses are these, they have been completely frightened and lost their souls, they are so panicked that they can't do anything, how can this city be defended?