The rebel army at the head of the city now basically relies on boiling water, bows and crossbows, and hand-to-hand combat.

In the past, Zhu Gaoxu used rolling stones to defend the city, and there was a lot of hot oil.

But when he did use it to defend the city, he found that it was completely insufficient.

Baling guarded for three days, the stones and rolling wood consumed a lot, and the oil was almost gone, Zhu Gaoxu decisively stopped the rolling wood and let the boiling water boil, and now in this weather, it is good to use boiling water.

The wood was sawn and used as firewood.

In fact, when the log is thrown down from the city, it is more likely to smash people under the ladder, and many people will not die if they fall, and they will not even be seriously injured.

Especially in a siege like this, there are too many dead and wounded, and there are people below.

Baling City is not very high, and the chance of people being seriously injured by wooden smashing down is very small.

Using wood is wasteful, and you can only use stones, or pour boiling water and hot oil.

Just as Zhu Gaoxu was watching the situation below, swish, several arrows broke through the air and were thrown upward, and immediately someone screamed not far away, it should have been unlucky to be shot.

"Where?"

"There." Someone screamed, and then a team of archers appeared, pointing in the direction they had just shot.

There was a crackling, two waves were shot, and screams were soon heard from the city.

Zhu Gaoxu smiled.

This is the advantage of the rebel army, the rebel army has more bows and arrows, and there are many archers, and Zhu Gaoxu ordered to shoot the opponent's archers first, so the archers under the official army and the city dare not show their heads now.

If you don't have enough bows and arrows, you will definitely suffer.

When Zhu Gaoxu attacked Jingzhou, because there were many arrows, the defenders of the city could not raise their heads, and Zhu Zhi had no choice but to work overtime to make arrow battlements to defend, otherwise the city would not be able to stand.

Now Zhu Gaoxu still has a lot of arrows, and the officials and soldiers under the city who shoot can't raise their heads, and they don't dare to raise their arrows easily.

Without the support of arrows and artillery support, it is more difficult for ants to attach.

I saw a cloud ladder within ten steps of Zhu Gaoxu.

An officer in front of him bit a long knife in his mouth and climbed up desperately.

When he was halfway up, his head suddenly appeared on it, and a rebel grinned at him, first retracted his head, and then stretched out his hand.

With a bang, a large basin of boiling water was poured down in the direction of his head.

The officer and soldier reacted a little slowly, and when he came back to his senses, he had a lot of water splashed on his face.

"Ah" The officer screamed in pain on the spot, the long knife in his mouth also fell, his body shook sharply in place, his right hand wiped his face a few times, and then the whole person was unstable, swished, and fell from mid-air.

The officers and soldiers behind him stubbornly continued to climb up.

At this moment, a rebel suddenly appeared on the side, holding a crossbow arrow in his hand.

Horn, gently pull the trigger.

Flutter, shoot in the waist of this officer.

The officers and soldiers screamed again and fell down the ladder.

The officers and soldiers behind him continued to move forward, accelerating wildly.

Seeing that it was almost at the battlement, two rebel armies appeared on both sides of the battlement at the same time.

The two rebels held spears in their backhands, as if they were spearing fish in the river, and they were facing the bottom, swishing and stabbing continuously.

The officer and soldier held the ladder with his right hand, and copied it with his left hand.

The rebel army pulled hard, but did not pull it back.

The officers and soldiers were overjoyed and wanted to climb up, but another spear, fluttering, stabbed him in the shoulder.

"Hmm" he screamed in a muffled voice, but he still didn't let go, and he still had a knife in his mouth, afraid that the knife would fall, so he continued to climb up.

The other party quickly put away the gun and stabbed again.

The officers and soldiers didn't care about holding the ladder, grabbed the knife in their mouths with their right hands, and fired their spears in one fell swoop.

The officer was very fierce, was stabbed, and struggled forward, with the help of the spear, swished, and took another step, and saw that he was under the battlement.

"Get down." The rebel army, who had just been grabbed by him with a spear, took out a short knife from behind, swooped, and threw it in his face.

"Ahh

Another officer and soldier in the line behind him carefully avoided his falling figure, and just wanted to look up to take a closer look, but a basin of boiling water was poured on his face.

This officer and soldier were more flexible, and when they saw the boiling water, they quickly lowered their heads, shrunk their necks, and at the same time hid their bodies to the side.

Half of the boiling water was poured on the helmet, and then flowed down the helmet into his collar and into his neck.

Hey, his whole body trembled with pain, and there were a lot of stains on his hands.

Fortunately, his face was not seriously injured, and he did not dare to raise his head again, and continued to climb up despite the pain.

"Hey" suddenly came from the top of his head.

The officers and soldiers subconsciously raised their heads.

I saw a rebel holding a stone the size of a pig's head and smiling at him.

Then let go, whoosh, and the stones fell from the city.

Special mother, this officer didn't think about it, and jumped to the right.

The city was full of fallen corpses and wounded of officers and soldiers, and he also estimated that he could not die if he fell at a height, so he simply jumped down.

But the people behind him were miserable.

The stone plunged down the ladder.

None of the officers and soldiers behind him reacted, and thud, they were slammed between their helmets and shoulders.

He didn't even scream, he snorted, plopped, and flew out of the ladder.

The rebel turned around, searched the ground behind him, and found a fist-sized stone, which he weighed in his hand, smiled, and came to the edge of the battlement, and put it on the battlement.

Obviously, some close-range face smashes do not have to be done with short knives, fist-sized stones are enough to smash people down the ladder.

There was only one person left on this cloud ladder at this time, and the officers and soldiers stood in the middle, wanting to go up but not daring to go up, looking back at the bottom, the colleagues below did not dare to come up, and they were suddenly shocked and afraid.

All around were wounded soldiers and dead soldiers, besieging the city for more than ten days, without an inch of progress, not to mention countless casualties.

Suddenly, when the bell was dang, the sound of gold sounded behind the official army.

The officer and soldier hurriedly jumped down from the ladder, and without saying a word, he picked up the ladder and left.

Suddenly there was a cheer at the head of the city, and the officers and soldiers retreated like a tide.

"Quick." Zhu Gaoxu waved his hand, and everyone understood and ran everywhere.

"Carry the wounded down."

"Tell the doctors to pour boiling water on it."

"Count casualties."

One after another, orders were transmitted to all parts of Baling, and the city was running in an orderly manner.

Half an hour later, a large number of wounded were transported to Xicheng Wharf, from where most of the wounded would be transported by ship to Changsha.

If 500 wounded are taken away, 500 new forces will soon be recruited from all parts of Dongting Lake to make up for it, so as to ensure that the battle of Baling will not be reduced.

In addition, every five days or so, thousands of people from Changsha and Changde will come over to replace a group of Baling's defenders and maintain the combat strength of the Baling defenders.

Zhu Gaoxu relied on Dongting Lake and could get a steady stream of support from the surrounding states.

Of course, in the middle, there were often officers and soldiers, and the officers and soldiers really led the cavalry to run around along the water post road, and when they saw a ship passing by, they would shoot rockets.

However, Dongting Lake extends in all directions, and there are six places around Xiangyin County, Yuanjiang County, Longyang County, Anxiang County, Huarong County, and Jianli County.

Because you don't know when Baling will have ships coming in and out, it depends entirely on luck to collide, and he still has to prevent the rebel army from coming out to surround him, so Huo Zhen's cavalry is quite mobile, running around, all day long.

Wu Dabu, another official army, fought Jianli today, Huarong tomorrow, and Anxiang the day after tomorrow, wandering around, every time the momentum was huge, but there was no effect, and the main thing was to involve the rebel army and reinforcements.

After the officers and soldiers retreated, Zhu Gaoxu slowly stood up, and looked down to see that there were lying officers and soldiers lying everywhere under the city, and a large number of wounded people had not been taken away, usually seriously injured.

As usual, after about half an hour, the officers and soldiers would send people to clean up, take away the wounded, and drag away the corpses, and of course the rebels at the head of the city would not stop them.

During the Battle of Jinan, Zhu Di besieged Tie Xuan.

It's not because of the Ming Civil War that everyone has such a tacit understanding, because if the corpses are piled up below for a long time, Zhu Di himself will not dare to attack again, once the corpses under the city are rotten, and the soldiers are close, it is easy to bring the plague and disease back to the barracks.

So usually the offensive and defensive sides will have a tacit understanding, and after the fight, both sides will clean up.

Of course, there are also those who do not pay attention to martial virtues, for example, the Mongols attacked Xiangyang that year, but did not fight for several years, and then used trebuchets to throw the corpses of dead chickens, pigs, and even soldiers into Xiangyang City after they decomposed, hoping to make plague and disease occur in the city.

Therefore, as long as you are shameless and do not talk about martial virtues in a war, the victory rate will usually be relatively high.

——

Zhu Di's camp.

Jiang Shan, Jing Fifteen, Wang Xu'er and other commanders all stood in front of him.

These people all participated in the offensive and defensive battles of the southern city wall, and they were all listless and reporting for several days without success.

Zhu Di listened with a dark face, and after a while, he turned his head and asked, "How many Hongwu cannons are still usable?" ”

He brought more than 200 cannons, which took more than ten days, and he had already lost a lot.

This will not yet set up the famous Divine Machine Battalion in history.

A firearms battalion was formed on an improvised basis.

The commander of the firearms battalion said: "There are still thirty percent that can be used, but it won't last long, and the cannon body is about to fall apart." ”

The spliced cannon is so fragile, and if it hits too much, it will fall apart, which is beyond the help of the officials and craftsmen.

"Why does the artillery of the rebels at the head of the city keep ringing?" Zhu Di said: "Won't their cannons fall apart?" ”

The commander of the firearms battalion lowered his head and didn't dare to snort, thinking to himself that maybe it really wouldn't fall apart, and the rebels were fighting quite slowly, obviously holding back.

Zhu Di's mind is in Fujian, of course he will not really punish him.

Sure enough, the next day there was news from Xiangyang that the rebels had captured Xunyang, and the official army retreated to Nanyang, Henan.

Zhu Di is not panicking, Xiangyang is in his hands, so there is no need to be afraid.

"I have a heavy army stationed in De'an (in fact, he has been transferred to Fujian)" He still plays tricks, and even deceives his own people.

"Nanyang, Xiangyang, and De'an are in a horn position, and the rebels want to use partial divisions to come in, unless they conquer these cities one by one."

Zhu Di is really not afraid, Sheng Yong of Xunyang dares to come over, he dares to take 50,000 cavalry to the west to attack Sheng Yong overnight.

The rest of the soldiers and horses are here to surround Baling.

Sheng Yong also knew that Zhu Di would do this, so after he considered the meeting in Xunyang, he did not enter Nanyang.

At this time, Sheng Yong was already far away from Zhu Gaoxu's territory, and if he left Xunyang and entered Henan, he would become a lonely army, and if there were not enough supplies and reliable information, he would not easily enter Henan.

Although it was said that the imperial court concentrated a large army to fight a decisive battle in Huguang and Henan had few troops, Sheng Yong was not in a hurry to attack Henan.

He can't afford to lose now, so everything has to be steady.

His gaze was cast in the northwest direction.

(End of chapter)