Chapter 194 Witch Attack

An army, as long as it is willing to shed blood, will eventually be able to advance. After paying the price of five or six hundred lives and more than 1,000 light and serious wounded, by the time the sun hung on the west side and was crumbling, the trench outside the Chengdu wall had been filled in a large section of eighty or ninety zhang wide, and the field behind it had been repaired to be almost as flat as an official road.

After the battle, the sound of bamboo bangs sounded, and the Yi soldiers did not retreat as before, but continued to brave the fire of the defenders to drag or hold the dead and wounded comrades away, and even the wreckage of the slightly larger cart was cleared to the side, far away from the passage - of course, these extraneous measures cost them dozens of additional casualties.

The Yi soldiers gradually withdrew from range, the adrenaline effect subsided, and the defenders on the wall, who had already rotated two rounds, slowly calmed down from their euphoria and looked up out of the city. Only then did they realize that there were chaotic thieves, lying corpses, rolling and wailing wounded, broken wreckage, and scattered earth, stones, and sacks...... And at this moment, on the battlefield, except for the blood stains all over the ground and the arrows stuck in the soil, in the blink of an eye, it was as empty as the school field! The shouts, curses, screams, and shootings of Fang Cai...... It still seemed to be deafening in my ears, but when I listened closely, the surroundings were eerily quiet, and everything in front of me was as illusory as a bizarre and bloody dream.

Against the backdrop of the huge emptiness, everyone seemed very small, and a heavy sense of oppression came to their faces, and in an instant, the noise of the city wall that had just reached the sky was almost inaudible, and even the wounded stopped moaning. In addition to the emptiness, there was more fear, the fear of the inexplicable and unknown: the Miao thieves paid such a terrible price to make all this, apparently to clear the way - what kind of hideous beasts will be about to enter the battlefield?

The sound of chaotic footsteps and shouts was faint again, and the soldiers pressed forward, stopping a mile away from the city wall, and the view of the city was full of black crows and thieves.

"Why, does that extravagant thief want to raise fire and attack at night?" Zhu Xieyuan was a little nervous.

"My lord, they are on guard, in case our army goes out of the city at night to destroy the trenches that have been filled. There must be a big guy coming up tomorrow, otherwise the extravagant thief wouldn't have bothered so much. Sun Jie replied calmly, and then turned to Lao Shun: "General Lao, please arrange the brothers on duty at night, prepare more torches, and throw a few under the wall every once in a while." It is estimated that the luxury thieves will not make any moves tonight, but they must also guard against the sneak attack and harassment of small groups of thieves at night, so that the brothers can see clearly, as long as they don't bring a ladder, they don't bother with him, and they will take turns every hour on duty, and the drowsy ones on duty will be engaged in military law! ”

"The last will be ordered!" Lao Shun responded loudly.

"Then ......" Zhu Xieyuan was a little speechless and stopped.

"My lord, no." Sun Jie guessed Zhu Xieyuan's thoughts, and immediately shook his head and said, "This move is unstoppable, the extravagant thief is waiting for us to open the door at night to clear the trench." Such a wide section of trench, to say the least, also need to use thousands of people, and those who are blind in the black light can only raise the fire if they can't see anything clearly, that is, to report to the extravagant thief. Then the thieves rushed over, and thousands of people rushed to the city, and the gates could not be closed. ”

"Well, Gordon has a point. How to listen to you, the old man will never interfere, the old man can trust you! Zhu Xieyuan immediately understood that Sun Jie was right, and after a deep sigh, he asked again, "Guodong, if you think about it, what kind of powerful thing will that luxury thief make tomorrow?" ”

Sun Jie smiled bitterly: "My lord, the kid is ashamed. Although I have been thinking about it, but what kind of attack tool is so big, the kid has thought about the military books at home and the ancestors told it but he has never heard of it, and he can't guess it. Then the conversation changed, and he clenched his fists and said, "But don't worry, my lord." Since ancient times, evil does not suppress the good, there is a kid, Chengdu City will be impregnable! ”

"A good evil does not suppress the good, Guodong said it well! The old man didn't misread you! ”

The next morning, not long after the sky dawned, there was a faint burst of mournful singing outside the city. In the morning mist, more than a dozen ghostly figures danced on the ground, appearing and disappearing. When they get closer, you'll see that they're not young. The bronze thin and naked upper body was tattooed with all kinds of strange patterns, some indigo, some scarlet. The emaciated faces had resolute expressions, some wearing cloaks woven of burlap, others tucking their worn-out sheepskin cloaks around their waists; Some wore messy black hair, others tied it with batik homespun cloth, and all wore hair ornaments woven with feathers and herbs on their heads, which served as a medium for communication with the gods and ancestors. The metal amulets hanging around their necks reflected and jingled in the morning sun, and they walked slowly but surely, walking and singing, with their staff in their hands and beating their leather drums. It's not so much moving forward as dancing, not so much singing, but the singing voice is like crying, and the end of each sentence is sharp and straight into the sky. At the end of each song, all the Yi people would echo in unison, and the huge echoes reverberated in the mountains, repeatedly hitting the eardrums and hearts of the defenders.

They were the sorcerers of the various tribes under the command of Hao Chongming.

Behind them, a behemoth appeared: that large group, dragged by hundreds of colorful monsters, turned out to be a city!

It's really a city. The front is more than 50 zhang wide*, and the height is even higher than the city wall of Chengdu. Around the slowly moving castle are thousands of Yi people with colorful faces and bodies, each holding a fire stick with wet thatch tied to their heads, and the white smoke coming out of it is thick or faint, and the lower part of the castle looms.

"Didn't the thieves sacrifice the ghost town in the deep mountains?"

"What, ghost town? Visible during the day? ”

"You haven't seen a wizard cast a spell, those smoke obscured the sun!"

"Ah, ghost town? Then the city was full of ghosts......"

The defenders and Ding Zhuang were terrified, muttering to each other. In this era, everyone, including Zhu Xieyuan and Sun Jie, is convinced of the gods, Buddhas, ghosts, and monsters, the only difference is that the readers don't talk about it openly - "Zi Bu is silent, strange and confused". However, in the heart, everyone believes (otherwise, ordinary people are illiterate, where did so many gods and monsters come from). Seeing this battle, Zhu Xieyuan and Sun Jie were shocked, but the ordinary city guards were even more uproar, and many people began to retreat step by step involuntarily with "Amitabha Buddha" in their mouths.

"Where is the commander of Chengdu Zhongwei Lao Shun?" Sun Jie pressed the handle of the knife with his hand, and suddenly burst out with a loud shout.

"The end, the end, the end will be here." Lao Shun's voice trembled a little.

"Tell your guards to supervise the battle, and those who retreat from the enemy will correct the law on the spot! Also, concentrate all the artillery here, three feet apart, and arrange them at intervals! Sun Jie roared violently. However, it will take a lot of effort to drag such a heavy cannon, along with the gun carriage, projectiles, and gunpowder, and I don't know if it will be in time, and even if it is moved, the thieves have already cast a magic spell, and I don't know if it will be able to hit it...... Sun Jie secretly thought in his heart, but his face sank like water, and he did not show any uneasiness.

"The last will be ordered!" Sun Jie's broken drink made Lao Shun sober up a lot in shock, anyway, he couldn't hide, let's fight! Thinking about this layer, Lao Shun also spoke neatly: "Babies, give Lao Tzu a good look, which turtle son dares to take a step back, and kill him on the spot!" The cannons are all dragged over by Lao Tzu, and the immortals don't go quickly! ”

"Sheng Degong!" Sun Jie roared again.

"Obey orders, big handsome." As Sun Jie's personal guard captain, Sheng Qian has always been by his side.

"You bring four capable brothers to escort Lord Zhu back to the Yaya." Sun Jie said softly.

"The old man is not leaving!" Without waiting for Sheng Degong to answer, Zhu Xieyuan also roared, "The old man will see you thief from this city tower!" ”

"My lord......" Sun Jie was about to be persuaded, Zhu Xieyuan shook his head, looked directly at Sun Jie, and lowered his tone a little, but his tone was extremely firm: "Guodong doesn't need to say much. ”

"Yes. My lord. Sun Jie said and bowed to Zhu Xieyuan, and when he got up, he glanced at Sheng Degong, who replied with a knowing look, and with a wave of his hand, the four guards leaned over and faintly protected Lord Zhu in the middle.

At this moment, the ghost-like fortress was slowly approaching about half a mile from the city. Sun Jie looked left and right, several cannons were still halfway, and he calculated in his heart that the two or three that were close would take more than a stick of incense to be in place...... No, buy time!

"Bed crossbow, fire!"

"Smack, swish."

"Smack, swish."

The soldier in charge of firing picked up the mallet and slammed down the frame, and the iron spear shot out.

"Smack, smack!"

At such a distance, the target was so large that five or six iron spears all hit the target one after another.

However......

Hardly any effect!

Dealing with a car, or even a heavy crash, the bed crossbow can be said to be indestructible. However, the target of this shot was a city - relatively speaking, the energy of the iron spear was completely insignificant in the face of such a huge mass, and the advancing castle only trembled slightly with almost imperceptible to the naked eye, and continued to press over without hindrance!

"Wind up, keep firing!"

There were dozens of soldiers on each bed crossbow turning the winch desperately, but they all knew that at the fastest speed, there would only be one more chance to fire when the ghost town approached the edge of the trench - would it work?

The ghost town is only a hundred steps away from the city wall. Behind him were Lao Shun and Sun Jie's personal guards carrying swords to supervise the formation, except for the soldiers and civilians who operated the bed crossbows and carried the artillery, most of the defenders were invincible and had no way to escape, they were all stunned and frightened, and some archers shot feather arrows in despair and in vain...... Suddenly, a terrible ghostly whistling bamboo whistle sounded, and hundreds of ghosts with blood-smeared faces suddenly appeared between the battlements, squeaking and screaming in their mouths, and shooting arrows at the head of the city, and in a blink of an eye, more than 100 soldiers were shot and fell to the ground!

There was an uproar in the city!

"Fight back! Fight back! Sun Jie, Lao Shun and the officers yelled in unison. It doesn't matter if he's a human or a ghost, if you have a goal, you can fight it!

The performance of the soldiers of the Changjie Battalion is not much stronger than that of Chengdu Wei. The heart is also seized by great fear, but the repeated training day after day is to engrave in the bones the absolute obedience to military law through various tortures such as military sticks, leather whips, piercing arrows, beheadings, and even chopping alive, and to make the soldiers respond to the commander's orders in various extreme situations.

However, the shooting effect is poor.

The ghost city is two or three feet higher than the city walls, and this height difference makes the effective range of the ghost pawns much better than the defenders - it's like shooting down from the top of the city, but now the advantage is on the side of the ghost town.

Sun Jie blocked Zhu Xieyuan behind him and carefully observed the opposite side. Five guns were almost set up, and the other two were about to be ready, but they didn't shoot immediately - the gunners were worried that the opponent's witchcraft would blow up the cannons, and Sun Jie also had this concern in his heart, so he did not rush to order the cannons, but calmly looked for the flaws in the other side. Zhu Xieyuan had already made up his mind to die in the city, and stepped forward from behind Sun Jie, and was about to stand side by side with Ai Jiang, when he suddenly found that a trace of the familiar smile line appeared on the corner of Sun Jie's mouth. I saw Sun Jie whispering to a hand beside him: "Bow here." ”

One of the guards quickly took off the bow on his back, pulled out an arrow from the quiver, and handed it over. Sun Jie used an iron spine bow - the back of the bow was inlaid with a piece of iron almost a cent thick, and the bowstring was also wrapped with a few thin copper wires. The arrows are iron-piercing arrows with triple barbs, each costing more than a tael of silver! In front of this kind of arrow, even the mountain-patterned armor of the military generals of the imperial court is no different from rice paper - iron bow and iron bone arrows, this combination is a weapon designed for long-range hunting of high-ranking enemy generals!

Who is Sun Shuai going to shoot?

Sun Jie reached out to the leather bag around his waist, and a stainless steel wrench appeared on his big finger, slowly pulling the bow full, and then leading the bow downward...... Zhu Xieyuan's gaze followed the cluster of arrows......

Sun Jie is not aiming at the ghost pawn opposite, but the monster on the trailer!

Shoot a man first and shoot a horse first, and capture a thief first and capture the king first!

Seeing this situation, Lord Zhu immediately remembered these two sentences - yes! Why didn't anyone think of it just now?

Of course, the GIs hadn't read Du Fu's "Going Out of the Stopper", but they didn't shoot the monster out of fear. Seeing that the occasional drop of the feathered arrows did not hurt them, the archers did not think of the two factors of distance and occlusion, but because they had never seen these strange and colorful monsters, they were a little afraid at first, lest they provoke them and cause more trouble for themselves—what if one of them flew up to the city with a roar and opened its bloody mouth to bite him?

"Whoosh!"

Iron-boned arrows shot out with a sound of breaking through the air!

There was a scream of "moo", and a monster was shot squarely, and the iron arrow went straight to the feather! The monster fell to the ground and struggled violently to kick its limbs, its belly exposed, and the red, green, and green cloth wrapped around its body was torn open - now everyone could see clearly, it was just a cow covered in a quilt!

"Artillery one, three, five, seven, aim at the head of the city, fight the Miao ghosts! Guns No. 2, 4, and 6, down to the bulls! All change to small iron bullets, hit! ”

At the same time that Sun Jie gave a clear order, Yu Chongming blew the horn behind the battle, and thousands of Yi soldiers rushed to the city wall with shouts, and today's tragic battle began again.

* In real history, I don't know if Chongming didn't know whether he didn't know the Ming army's artillery and trebuchets (unlikely), or because he believed too much in his own strength, he did build the largest siege bus in history: more than 50 zhang long, that is, 1560 meters! Imagine a wooden castle the size of a football field and a half...... The soldiers defending the city were indeed panicked, and the people who assisted in defending Chengdu were so frightened that they "ran and shouted". Of course, Zhu Xieyuan used trebuchets and artillery to smash cattle on the top and on the bottom, and the offensive collapsed with the fragmentation of Lü's chariot.