Chapter 174 Cutting Walls and Hanging Towers

Before listening to Niu Youtian's introduction, Zhang Hu had a faint feeling in his heart: he had met a strong enemy, and the dog officials in Kaifeng Mansion were different from other places!

For a moment, Zhang Hu was a little wavering about whether to continue to fight with Kaifeng Mansion. However, on second thought, I still have to fight. First of all, most of their own people have not fought any hard battles - many veterans have died in Sichuan, if they encounter a strong city, they will dodge, only by plundering the countryside, the countryside has limited materials, and they can't afford to support so many people, and the troops will fall apart sooner or later, secondly, Gongchang Mansion is an example, if Kaifeng Mansion comes again, if the dog officials see that as long as they resist desperately, they can hold the city, and the future battle will definitely become more and more difficult to fight, third, the threat of reinforcements from the west has completely ceased to exist, the north is the surging Yellow River moat, and the southwest is swept by Fang Ge, Kaifeng Mansion has become a lonely city without foreign aid, if you don't even leave without a fight, not only your prestige will plummet, but it will be a problem to maintain morale! Fourth, there are cannon fodder in the battalion, although there will definitely be some losses if you want to put into the battle and the auxiliary troops will supervise the battle, but the vast majority of the dead must still be the people, and there is nothing to worry about. Well, not only to fight, but also to slaughter the city after the fight, so that all the dog officials widened their eyes and took a closer look at the end of resistance!

However, since there is no way to take advantage of it, there is no other way but to attack the city step by step.

Both Zhang Hu and Niu Youtian had heard from Mr. Storyteller that siege warfare should be "surrounded by three ques": leaving a way for the defenders to escape. Otherwise, the defenders will not be able to run anyway when they see that they are surrounded by iron walls on all sides, and they will be able to defend the city with one heart, which will greatly increase the difficulty of attacking the city. The north is the Yellow River, the focus of the attack is on the west gate, there are also large groups of men and horses stationed in the south, and there is Fang Ge in the distance, so the two still continue to attack in the west and south of the city according to the original plan, Zhang Hu even intends to withdraw some troops from the east of the city, hoping that the defenders can break through from there - as long as the dog officials escape, the city is just to explore the bag and get something. This arrangement made Zhang Hu regret it soon after.

At this point, this siege entered the typical offensive and defensive mode of that era. Thousands of displaced people outside the city were coerced by the soldiers to fill the trench with sacks, and the city was met with arrows and artillery, and every time a section of the trench was filled, a large group of men and horses rushed over with ladders and carts, and when they reached the wall, the defenders and the people who assisted in the defense poured stones and oil and splashed boiling gold juice...... Unlike in the past, Zhang Hu used a new technique: "cutting the wall".

The so-called cutting of the wall means that the attackers rush to the city with carts or door panels, erect them and build them under the city wall, forming a relatively safe triangular space below, and people hide in it and use pickaxes or iron brazing to plane the city bricks.

Like almost all the cities of the Ming Dynasty, the city walls of Kaifeng are made of blue bricks and rammed earth. The main reason for this method is the high efficiency and the speed of construction: Taizu began to build cities on a large scale in the early years of Hongwu, and it took only ten years for most of the strategically important cities in the vast territory of the empire to be completed.

This is done by first using solid boulders as the foundation of the wall, then rammed earth to build the main body of the wall, and finally a kiln is built nearby to burn bricks and wrap them around the outside of the rammed earth layer. Soil was taken around the outer ring of the outline of the planned city, and as the walls were raised, a circular moat gradually took shape, and in ancient times, forest vegetation was everywhere, and fuel for kilns was readily available. Therefore, to this day, we can often find kiln sites located near many ancient cities, or leave place names with the word "kiln".

Zhang Hu's wall-cutting technique was still learned when Shaanxi Xingdu Si attacked those walled forts, but most of the fortresses to deal with there were only rammed earth walls, and here in Kaifeng Mansion, it was necessary to pry off the blue bricks wrapped in the outside of the rammed earth city wall, and then planed the rammed earth layer inside - there was no need to dig into the inner wall, and dozens of holes were cut along one side of the city wall, as long as it was dug deep enough, it was only a matter of time before this section of the city wall that lost the support of the wall foundation was crushed by its own weight.

It was the first time that Lu Shen, Yang Zhongguo and other civil and military forces on the wall had seen this kind of siege technique, and they were as anxious as ants on a hot pot. Sheltered by obstacles, traditional defenses such as throwing stones and gold juice are almost ineffective, and even if the asphalt is boiled and lit, the thieves will flee to the other side of the door and continue digging! Seeing that the defenders were helpless, the thieves brought more door panels, and the outside of the new door panels was coated with a thick layer of wet mud! The defenders on the wall desperately fired arrows, but there were too many thieves, and such a long wall could not be prevented after all, and if this continued, the foundation of the wall would be dug up by the thieves sooner or later.

No, you still have to throw stones, throw big stones! Jiang Shide's personal soldiers shouted and ordered Ding Zhuang, who assisted in the defense, to put down the stones that could be moved by one person, and two or three people worked together to lift a boulder of one or two hundred catties and smash it down...... However, there were heavy casualties. After being smashed in four or five places, the thieves brought in a lot of archers and hid behind the big shield to shoot at Ding Zhuang on the wall. Several people work together to lift the rock, and the action is naturally slow, and in order to ensure the accuracy of the falling rock, there are too many opportunities to do a probe attack. As soon as one person is wounded by an arrow and lets go, most of the partners are injured by the unbalanced stone. The fear spread quickly, Ding Zhuang's movements became more and more sluggish, and his eyes became nervous and hesitant.

Ji Shu, a profusely sweaty and charred pusher, was bending over and throwing asphalt blocks into the iron pot, and he didn't hear the greetings of "adults, adults", and then he saw the dirty two trouser legs through the stove fire, and looked up, and a person with a talented appearance stood opposite. Well, he was vaguely a showman - he was wearing a dirty blue gown, a cloth belt was tied around his waist, the hem of the gown was tucked into the cloth belt, the scribe's scarf on his head was skewed, and his face, body, and hands were stained with sweat and mud, and it was obvious that this one had been busy on the wall. Seeing Ji Shu looking over and hurriedly saluting, there was another "adult" in his mouth. Ji Shu is in a hurry, when is it, and he still talks about this: "What's the matter, say it quickly!" ”

The blue-shirted Xiucai bowed again: "My lord, student Zhang Jian, I have figured out a plan to break the enemy." ”

When Ji Shu heard this, he was even more angry: the two armies fought for morale, numbers, and equipment training. The so-called tricks in the book are all nonsense, isn't this reading books and looking at himself stupid? Ran Guochao has always respected scholars, and replied vaguely: "If you have any clever plans, please tell me quickly, this official is very busy." ”

Xiucai Zhang Jian said: "The oil is limited, there are many thieves, adults, students think we can build a 'hanging building' to break it." ”

Ji Shu was also anxious about the little asphalt block left, and when he heard this, his heart moved, and he asked suspiciously: "Hanging building?" What is a hanging building? ”

Zhang Jian explained it in a row, and seeing that Ji Shu couldn't understand it for a while, he simply picked up the blackened wooden strip and sketched it on the ground. Before Zhang Jian finished painting, Ji Shu was already overjoyed and praised loudly, and then called a few officials to order it like this. Soon, the officials found a few carpenters, and under Zhang Jian's explanation, the carpenters only took more than an hour to create a sample of the hanging building. A group of adults gathered around, and the soldiers practiced on the inner wall, and the effect was excellent! Soon, all the carpenters and apprentices in Kaifeng Prefecture were gathered together, and the stock of planks for coffin shops and furniture shops was requisitioned.

The sun is slightly westerly. Zhang Hu, Niu Youtian and others, who were watching the battle from a distance, found that there were more people on the wall, but there were significantly fewer bricks and stones cast, and they were wondering what was happening, only to see dozens of small wooden houses suddenly appear between the wall stacks, well, it is more appropriate to say that it is a big wooden box as big as a small house. Underneath the box is a long, thick plank that is pulled by a large group of people in the wall at one end, and connects the box at the other end and acts as a floor, walkway, and support at the same time, probably spanning three or so wall stacks. The defenders in the wall dragged together, and the wooden box leaned out of the wall little by little, and immediately after, the wooden box shot a dense number of feathered arrows at the brothers who were hiding under the wall and shooting the dead corner!

It takes a long time to pry the heavy cyan bricks, and after picking out five or six pieces, you can dig into it again. However, dealing with a solid rammed earth layer is not necessarily much easier than cutting the wall bricks - many key projects, the acceptance of the rammed earth wall is to "iron cone does not enter the inch" as the qualified standard, Kaifeng Mansion, is undoubtedly one of such key projects. At this time, most of the guys who cut the wall have only just pried off three or five wall bricks, and the fastest progress is only digging a hole more than a foot deep in the rammed earth layer. The support can only shield the attack from directly above, and both sides are exposed to the attack range of the archers in the hanging tower, a few feet away, and it is condescending, and in each wooden box, the hanging tower in Zhang Jian's mouth, the soldiers are shooting feather arrows to the guys who are cutting the wall in the left and right shooting boundaries, and there are miserable screams for a while!

Zhang Hu's archers, who were responsible for covering the shooting at the city's head, had nothing to do about the hanging tower: the half-inch-thick plank was enough to block all the feathered arrows and crossbow arrows, and unless they used a big guy like a bed crossbow or trebuchet, they could only watch the defenders inside carry out a unilateral slaughter in a hurry!

In addition to the feather arrows, Zhang Hu discovered that the defenders also used a new weapon: the canister. After a little observation, Zhang Hu glimpsed the mystery: it was just an ordinary clay pot, stuffed with gunpowder and gravel, sealed with mud and left a fuse outside, lit and thrown downward! Some fuses are left too long to be a threat if they fall to the ground, but those that explode in the air or near the ground can always hurt many people nearby.

Every time the dog officers and soldiers in the hanging tower shot someone, they would make a noise, and the guys pulling the other end of the planks on the wall would burst into a burst of cheers, and the cheers on the whole wall came and went. Zhang Hu and Niu Youtian watched hatefully, from time to time there were soldiers in the hanging tower who stepped on the wooden plank passage and ran out, took the whole bundle of feather arrows or cloth bags full of fried cans from the defenders on the wall and ran back, and when there were no living targets in this area, they would shout and point to another place, so the Ding Zhuang on the wall worked together to drag the hanging tower back, and then slowly pushed it out from another place...... What's even more annoying is that some small arguments broke out on the wall: some guys were dragging the archers who were about to step into the hanging tower, gesturing excitedly, although they couldn't hear what they were arguing about from a distance, looking at the action, they were undoubtedly scrambling to get in and attack below! "Damn, not only did you not run for your life, but you also fought to participate in the war! How can this battle be fought? Niu Youtian spat on the ground fiercely - if he knew, Zhang Jian, who came up with this idea, was the crazy guy he saw outside the city the day before, and he didn't know what kind of anger he would become.

One, two, five or six, a dozen places, a long black dot suddenly appeared under the wall, and it was the guys who cut the root of the wall running back. The archers who served as cover were also the overseers, and they couldn't shoot the defenders in the overhang, so they aimed their bows and arrows at them......

"Mingjin retreats." Zhang Hu commanded helplessly.

Most of the guys who cut the wall are ordinary people, and of course King Zhang will not spare the lives of these people, however, this tactic has failed, even if he shoots them all, what is the point of wasting feather arrows? It is better to keep them and let them continue their attack tomorrow and consume the supplies of the defenders.