Sheng Yong's ultimate goal was to force down a large number of official troops and ensure that the official army was used by the Han king, so he tried to avoid storming the cities and reduce casualties on both sides.

Because this was the Ming Civil War, the same was true in the Jingjing, and the surrender of the losing side on both sides was easy, ensuring the least casualties.

When he came back safely, it was close to more than eight o'clock in the evening, and the camp of Sheng Yong's Chinese army was brightly lit.

Wang Bin, Sun Lin, Yang Yun, Si Renfa and other generals gathered here.

Before the people of Ping An arrived at the big tent of the Chinese army, the laughter had already come in from afar: "Hahaha, it's really happy." ”

He opened the tent and strode in, taking off his armor as he went.

There were a lot of blood stains on his armor, and he should have killed many Ming soldiers in pursuit.

Even in the Jingjing, Ping'an did not fight so easily and casually, chasing and killing officials and soldiers for dozens of miles all the way.

Sheng Yong's face was also full of joy, looking at the sand table in the middle of the camp.

The sand table is a map near Pingbawei, the war is not over, and there are still a large number of officers and troops in Guiyang, so they are discussing the future of the war.

"There is news from Guiyang." Sheng Yong saw the peace, and immediately said: "The soldiers and horses supported by the imperial court from Huguang will soon enter Guiyang, if this force of soldiers and horses is broken again, there will be no problem in Guizhou." ”

"Will Gu Cheng send it over?" Ping An also stood in front of the sand table.

Sheng Yong thought for a while: "Then it depends on Gu Xingguo's ability." ”

After saying that, he stretched out his hand to greet him, and a sergeant not far behind him stepped forward: "There will be about 100,000 to 200,000 soldiers and horses gathering in the direction of Huguang, and 50,000 pioneers have entered the territory of Guizhou, and they will arrive in Guiyang in a few days." ”

"If Gu Cheng waits any longer, he can wait for 100,000 soldiers and horses."

Ping An asked: "Brother Sheng plans to destroy Xue Lu first, or surround the point to send reinforcements?" Break the reinforcements first? ”

Sheng Yong immediately said: "We have too few soldiers, so we can prepare with both hands." ”

"Gu Cheng is slow, so he will destroy Xue Lu first, and if he comes quickly, he will surround the point and send reinforcements first."

Gu Cheng came quickly, then he must only bring 50,000 soldiers and horses, if he was timid, if he had to wait, he would have to wait for several days, and he would come slowly.

So Sheng Yong made two preparations.

"Then do it." At the moment, Sheng Yong and the generals agreed to make preparations with both hands.

Early tomorrow morning, Yang Yun will take three thousand horsemen to the front line of Weiqingwei, responsible for investigating the military situation in Guiyang, as long as he finds that Gu Cheng's army is coming, he will come back immediately to report it.

The rest of the soldiers and horses were mainly to defeat Xue Lu first.

This side is discussing the destruction of Xue Lu, and in Pingba Weili, Xue Lu is also anxious.

Today's sudden fiasco, Xue Lu was in a hurry, and fled back to Pingbawei first, when the soldiers were in a panic, Xue Lu also thought about running directly to Guiyang.

But he has seen too many such pictures in Jingjing, once the main general also runs like this, the whole army may run like this, and then he will be chased and killed along the way, and the corpses will stretch for hundreds of miles.

In order to save his soldiers and horses, Xue Lu finally chose to return to Pingbawei.

However, when he returned, he sent someone to count it, and almost vomited blood and died.

He brought out more than 80,000 soldiers and horses in Guiyang, and after a battle during the day, the most mobile cavalry was almost lost (because most of them were scattered), only more than 1,000 horsemen fled back to Pingbawei, and there were more than 40,000 infantry battalions left.

That is, in today's battle, he lost almost half of his troops.

In fact, more than 10,000 officers and soldiers were killed and wounded in the battle today, more than 10,000 were captured, and another 10,000 or 20,000 were disrupted and scattered in all directions, some of them would eventually flee back to Guiyang and Weiqingwei, and some of them might have fled to other places in Guizhou.

But the real casualties don't matter, just look at the current paper figures. Xue Lu suffered a crushing defeat and was seriously damaged.

The point is that, judging from the daytime battle, the rebel casualties were very light.

Because most of the time, the rebels were using bows and arrows and firearms, and there were only a few hand-to-hand combat.

This result was absolutely unacceptable to Xue Lu.

Pingbawei was originally just a small guard house of more than 5,000 people, but now it is suddenly crowded with more than 40,000 people.

Fortunately, there are few cavalry, otherwise there would not be so many people living at all.

Even now, even the city walls are full of people, and at night, many people sleep on the walls in their clothes, because there is really no place to stay.

Fortunately, it's summer now, and this will be replaced by winter, so there is no need to fight the rebel army, and most of the people will freeze to death.

But Sheng Yong only gave Xue Lu a good night.

On the first night, because the rebel army had to contain prisoners of war, count and treat the wounded, and dig fortifications, they didn't have time to manage Xue Lu.

At dawn the next day, Xue Lu came to the city wall, and when he looked at it, he gasped.

The rebels were almost unsighted, and began to build a wall a hundred paces away, and in the evening, there was already a low earth wall on the periphery surrounding the entire Pingba Guard, and the second wall had already begun to be dug.

At this time, the outside of the city was densely packed with Tusi soldiers, and ditches and walls were being dug everywhere.

Facing the two gates of Pingbawei, there is a swarm of bees every five steps.

Xue Lu didn't even have to think about it, he knew that on the ground in these places, there must have been a kicking of Ma Dan now.

"The rebels want to trap us, knowing that we have too many people and little food." Xue Lu said angrily.

The generals around him looked at each other.

Of course, there was a lot of food in Pingbawei, which they had brought with the army before, but more than 40,000 people stayed here, and they couldn't hold out for long, after all, they didn't plan to fight a protracted war at that time.

A subordinate general immediately said: "Yang Wuhou, our grain can only be eaten for five days. ”

Xue Lu remained silent and said slowly: "Five days is enough, Gu Cheng will send troops to rescue us." ”

"The rebels are only 60,000 or 70,000 people, and they also suffered heavy losses yesterday, and the imperial court gathered 300,000 troops in Huguang, and as soon as the army arrived, the rebels were immediately wiped out."

He learned from Zhu Di's strength, pretending to be calm and appeasing everyone.

The congregations were noncommittal.

Xue Lu saw that the rebel army was desperately digging a ditch, and he also thought that the rebel army would not attack.

Unexpectedly, just around noon, there was a commotion in front of me.

Xue Lu was called to the city wall again by his subordinates.

I saw that in the four directions of Pingbawei, southeast, northwest and northwest, a large number of natives appeared, carrying various things.

And then these natives began to build something.

Xue Lu glared at them, the other party was not far from them, only more than a hundred paces, but their bows and arrows could not be shot, and there was no artillery on the Pingba Acropolis.

The Ming army is in Guizhou, and only Guiyang City has artillery, and now it can't reach it.

"They're building towers?" At first, some people thought that the rebel army was making towers, arrow towers or something.

After looking at it for a while, I realized that it was not.

"Back to the gun? It seems to be a return cannon? Someone screamed.

What Sheng Yong is assembling here is the Yuanshi Huihui Cannon built by the Shen brothers based on the experience in Mengxi's pen talk.

However, this thing has been improved, and in Zhu's words, it is now more appropriate to call it a counterweight trebuchet.

When the Mongols fought Xiangyang, they could throw hundreds of catties of stones and adult corpses into Xiangyang City, so the power of this counterweight trebuchet was still quite strong.

Now Sheng Yong relied on the fact that there was no artillery in the other party's city, and he was openly and honestly assembled more than a hundred steps away.

There are four directions in the southeast, northwest, and four in each direction.

Ping An had nothing to do at this time, and was looking at this thing up close.

He felt quite strange, because at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, it seemed that it was rarely seen, and siege warfare was rarely used.

I didn't expect King Han to use this thing again.

Can this thing be more useful than artillery?

The most inconvenient part of trebuchets is that they have to prepare a large number of stone bullets.

If you have to prepare it in advance and then transport it, it will be very troublesome.

But Ping An now finds out how they use it.

First of all, all the large stones that could be used in the vicinity were directly brought over and used, and then last night's troops were sent to demolish the Puding Acropolis.

The large bluestones that built the acropolis were also directly moved over as cannonballs.

There is also a part of the stone that was demolished from the old site of Anshun City.

The terrain conditions here in Guizhou have prepared a large number of stones for Sheng Yong.

Trebuchet stone projectiles do not need to be polished into a round shape like artillery shells, and can be placed directly into them regardless of shape and size.

Some stones are so small that you can put multiple pieces together at once.

Ping'an saw that after the trebuchet in front of him was installed, the earth soldiers carried three large stones and put them inside.

Ping An estimated that each piece weighed dozens of pounds, and couldn't help shouting: "Is there a bigger one?" How can you enjoy such a small smash? ”

The native soldier shouldn't have understood, but there is a Han army flag on the side.

Immediately said: "It's all made of local materials, and the small ones are thrown first." ”

Ping An turned around, and there was a steady stream of people pushing all kinds of stones up behind him.

Those heavy ones are unlucky, so the small stones come first, and they use the small ones first.

He lowered his mouth: "Show me how powerful, can't you?" ”

Zongqi smiled, bowed his head and said something to the soldiers, a moment later.

A native soldier picked up a sledgehammer and waved his hand violently, bang.

Boom, the heavy weight box hit the ground with a bang.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, those three big rocks flew straight out.

The Pingba Guardhouse City Wall was full of people, and suddenly saw the stone flying over, and the scene was chaotic, but fortunately, the stone flew far enough, and directly swept over the city wall, plopped, and smashed into the city.

But the city was also full of people, and someone inside immediately let out a scream, and it should have been smashed.

Then the officers and soldiers were unlucky, and four sixteen trebuchets swished and threw stones into it continuously.

The stone is small at the beginning, and it is getting bigger and bigger later.

The rebels had stones of varying sizes, so they did not adjust their distances and threw them wherever they were, resulting in no safe place in the city.

You will be smashed if you stand at the top of the city, and you can be smashed if you stand in the middle of the city.

Many people hide in their rooms, and disaster will also fall from the sky, and suddenly a large rock will fall.

It was only half an hour after throwing it away, and the officers and soldiers couldn't stand it anymore.

Even Xue Lu was almost hit several times, but he quickly found a safe place, carried the city wall closely, and hid under the corner of the wall, so that he could feel safe.

However, the location in the city was limited, and many people could not hide under the corner, and seeing that the city was becoming more and more chaotic and morale was weakened, someone proposed to rush out of the city and destroy the rebel trebuchet.

(End of chapter)