Chapter 258 Magic

According to the time, An Xiaoliang should have arrived a long time ago. But except for the two personal soldiers sent by the guy at the beginning to report that Leader An was moving closer to Wufeng Mountain while collecting the defeated troops, four days have passed, and he is still nowhere to be seen, and Yu Chongming and An Bangyan can't help but feel worried. However, neither of them could have imagined that An Xiaoliang would encounter the white that poured out of the nest and grab a life-saving straw, so they didn't think that he had descended to the Ming Kingdom, but just thought that he had encountered some trouble or accidents on the way. After getting the news that Qingyan Village was lost, and that Fei and Cai Zang had died in the chaos and that there were no bones left, the two kings were in a state of anxiety again, and they couldn't think about him anymore.

The "good news" that Qingyanzhai defeated An Yunao in the first battle did not cause any enthusiastic response among the coalition forces. It is true that some young people were in high spirits at first when they heard the news, but before the smile on their faces could be fully relaxed, they saw that the elderly next to them still had a worried look, and their smiles froze. When they revealed the fact that those people were just unarmored native soldiers, and there was no armored Han army among them, everyone's mood quickly fell again, and the most unconvinced people only argued a few words, "Even if it is a Han dog, he is not afraid of him" After they only shut up angrily - it is indeed no wonder that the two kings who intended to spread the news immediately also knew very well in their hearts that this kind of "victory" really did not account for much in the entire battle situation.

Immediately after, Qingyan Village, which was guarded by more than 5,000 warriors, collapsed in less than a morning in the face of the dimensionality reduction attack of the Han artillery, and the bad news came that the coalition army immediately fell into a huge panic. In addition to the two kings and the head of the village who had little left at this time, the vast majority of Miao soldiers had never heard of the big killing weapon of artillery, so rumors spread everywhere, and the discussion of what Ming Kingdom had invited to protect the country and the thunder god spread far and wide, and people were panicked. The Yongning Army of Luxury Chongming is okay here, after all, many people have followed King Lu to Chengdu Mansion, and they have some understanding of artillery directly or indirectly, but the Shuixi Army is completely different: most of the elite veterans who have been bombarded by Liu Chao in Yachi, Luguang and other places, most of them have died in a series of battles with Wu Mi A grasshopper, Liu Chao only has a few cannons, and the shock effect of the continuous bombardment like a mountain of incense is of course not the same, the echo of the valley and the desperate exaggerated description of the survivors, It greatly demonized Sun Jie, and every time it spread, it would be added to the oil and vinegar, and in the end, it simply became a ghost that flew sand and stones, and the sun and the moon were invulnerable, grabbing people with their bloody mouths open......

How can this battle be fought?

At first, the veterans of the Yongning Army tried to explain something, but with little success, and even they themselves were slowly affected, and began to doubt themselves - although they encountered cannons, they captured the ...... of Qingyan Village Maybe it was indeed the Han army that invited some gods and demons? The two kings killed several unlucky people who blatantly spread rumors in public, but the rumors were not curbed at all, but spread more and more, the morale of the army was weakened, and the morale plummeted. In desperation, he finally thought of a truth for Elder An: to defeat magic, you can only rely on magic.

Wizards with towering feathers on their heads and shiny metal ornaments poured out of their nests, solemnly summoning mountain gods to protect their bodies for the warriors of the villages, and the smoke of incense lit by herbs swirled around the defenders' strongholds, which were said to make the Han demons lose their powers. Although no one could see it at first, since someone shouted in a trance and saw some figures faintly floating through the hazy area, more and more people have "discovered" the clues of their ancestors' arrival, and the two kings and leaders have sworn that they have had the same dream at the same time, and in the dream the ancestors and gods have promised them a bright future...... Finally, confidence was slowly restored, the Miao voices in the villages gradually became louder again, and people's faces showed long-lost smiles again.

The huge surface lethality of the Han artillery, especially the incomparable shock effect, is a big problem that cannot be avoided after all. The two kings, Xuan Chongming and An Bangyan, knew very well in their hearts that although this pretending to be a ghost had temporarily calmed people's hearts, once Sun Jie forced up, those artillery pieces only needed to fire again, and they didn't even have to wait for how many casualties were inflicted on the troops, and the morale that had finally recovered would collapse instantly, and everything would no longer be able to be cleaned up. Therefore, Yu Chongming changed the deployment in time, and formulated the defense policy of "the death squad continues to consume and delay the Han army, and the main force is desperate to defend the natural danger and stand by for the emergency", while greatly increasing the grain and water reserves, and selecting hundreds of elite dead soldiers who have a blood feud with the Han army to enrich the defense of more than 20 watchtowers, and at the same time categorically abandoning those Miao villages that are similar to the environment of Qingyan Village, and concentrating the whole army in Taohongba, Jidouzhai and Gooseneck Ridge in the southwest.

"Jidou" means "eagle's back" in the Miao language. As the name suggests, it is known as "Miao Village on the back of the eagle", Jidou Village is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the geographical environment is extremely dangerous. To the east and south, the mountains are upside down, the cliffs are towering, and the peaks and forests overlap, naturally forming many cliffs, stone walls, and peak forests. The last section of the road near the stockade is a bluestone staircase so narrow that only two or three people can walk in parallel, with a steep mountain wall on one side and an abyss on the other, with a total length of more than 300 steps, and there are two elbow-like corners along the mountain in the middle, and the Han artillery cannot pose any threat to the defenders even if the elevation angle is adjusted vertically. On the contrary, a large number of thunder stones were hoarded at every corner, and it was impossible for flesh and blood to stop them if they were pushed down - fighting in this terrain, even with the blessing of today's hot weapons, the attacking troops would have to pay an unbearable price.

The Taohong Dam on the northwest back of Jidou Village is a completely different scene: a large plain stretches out, and the snow water of the distant mountains turns into streams and rivers, infiltrating this fertile land, and the altitude of more than 1,000 meters and the appropriate latitude make the climate here spring all year round. In addition to the endless fertile fields are full of peach blossoms, every April, the eyes are full of colorful red and pink flowers blooming, and in the middle are the intoxicating green crops, which is like a paradise on earth. Due to the extremely high terrain, the clouds under the mountain are churning white mist here, which quietly arrives every morning and evening, and the entire Taohongba small plain and Jidou Village are like hidden in the fairyland.

The further north of the Taohong Dam is also a steep downhill road, although it is not as dangerous as Jidouzhai Yifu Dangguan Wanfu Mo Kai, and it is difficult for the Han army coming from the direction of Yongning to take a step beyond the Lei Chi: the hoarding of rolling stones and 5,000 defenders in several key places is enough to make any attacker hit his head and bleed!

As for the Gooseneck Ridge, it was a narrow path about three miles long between the two mountains, and it was impossible for the Han army to launch a large-scale surprise attack from here. Blocking the valley mouth to prevent a small group of Han troops sneaking over to create chaos, Maude's more than 1,000 men and horses are enough. It is normal for Maude to report that there has been no trace of the Han army in the secret sentry outside the valley mouth so far: there are still mountains outside the valley, and beyond the mountains is the prestige division of Zhenxiong Mansion - there are also continuous mountains, and there are almost no decent roads, and it is difficult for the Han army troops carrying a large number of baggage to go around such a large circle through the mountains to touch the entrance of the Gooseneck Ridge.

I tossed extremely nervously for two days, always worried that Sun Jie would take advantage of the chaos to launch an attack at this moment, but until the defense was re-completed, the Han army did not move there, but there was a faint sound of explosions from time to time, and I don't know what they were doing. Fortunately, An Xiaoliang sent someone to deliver the letter again - he gathered nearly 3,000 people, so he changed his mind: all the elites that Zhenxiong could fight were taken by An Yunao, and now the prestige division and even Zhenxiong's mansion are very empty, and he is ready to go to a sneak attack to open a way out for the army in advance. As a last resort, the army can abandon Wufeng Mountain, pass through Zhenxiong, and then go south to Usa. He has quite a surplus party in Wusa, and An Qijue, who nominally received the Wusa Xuanfu Division, is a doll, and he can't convince the public, and the old boss comes back with tens of thousands of horses, which is a different situation!

An Xiaoliang is An Bangyan's subordinate, and this kind of thing is extravagant and has no way to put his beak, but An Bangyan thinks it is feasible. However, after not seeing anyone for such a long time, although he knew the personal soldiers of Leader An, Elder An still muttered a little in his heart, so he wanted to call him over. However, according to the messenger, the leader of An had already led a team to the prestige division, saying that he would bring people back to meet him after taking the city, and maybe he had already beaten it down, and it would be a matter of two or three days...... I had to give up.

Sun Jie is not idle these days. An Yunao returned to the old business of advancing reconnaissance to explore the way for the army, and the two of them took the initiative to give up a few villages, and shrank all their forces to Taohongba and Jidou Zhai to put on a posture of defending to the end, and the military information has been transmitted back to the Chinese army. However, the two dozen watchtowers on the road ahead were still obstacles that had to be overcome—it was one thing for one or two scouts to sneak through at night, and the mighty army could not hide it, and if the nails were not removed, the troops, especially the baggage troops, would inevitably suffer considerable losses. So this time, Sun Jie has been competing with the watchtower that was captured by An Yunao with hundreds of lives, and asked dozens of personal soldiers to use clusters of feather arrows and wooden sticks tied to charcoal bags at the front to play the defenders, and each battalion took turns to simulate the attack.

There are only a few windows that can output long-range strike firepower, so it is not very difficult to rush to the front, and with a large shield as protection, the casualty rate of the attacking force must be within a bearable range. The real question is what to do after rushing under the wall. For two whole days, all kinds of methods were tried, but no effective restraint was found, and the soldiers of several battalions were either covered with black ash that represented the poke, or they were scratching their ears and cheeks in the face of the two or three feet thick wall base, and they were in a hurry to use their strength.

The plan to bombard the defenders on the roof of the building with artillery and then storm from the top was rejected at the first time. The watchtower in front of you is only of medium size, and its height is less than six zhang, but even at this height, ordinary ladders are powerless - imagine nailing a ladder with a height of six or seven stories with wood, each rungboard must be able to withstand the weight of two hundred catties of armor soldiers to continue to trample, and the bottom must be enough to support at least five or six people, together with the pressure of shield weapons and superstructure, a total of nearly two thousand catties, and its own weight is almost an unsolvable problem: the difficulty of making it is put aside, even if it is made, It is not easy to carry it to the target, such a heavy and long ladder requires at least a dozen people to work together to carry it, the mountains are different from the plains, there may not even be a place to put your feet, not to mention that you must continue to bear the fire blows of the defenders on the way! The height of five or six zhang is actually not unusual, and the walls of many big cities will even be higher, but at that time, the equipment used to attack the fortification will not be ladders, but taller and more massive towers, or simply use cave attacks - no matter how thick the wall bricks are, it is also rammed earth, and if it is replaced with bluestone a few feet thick, you can plane the pickaxe flat!

It's useless to pile up firewood and attack. The auxiliaries piled up the firewood around the watchtower to a circle more than a person high and then lit the fire, and the fire did look magnificent, and the flames that jumped up wrapped most of the tower like torches, but the few pigs that were placed in it to replace the defenders screamed until the fire was extinguished—obviously, if they were a living person, such a large fire would not be able to help them.

Such an inconspicuous watchtower actually caused huge casualties to himself, and An Yunao couldn't help but run over to see the excitement when Sun Jie simulated the drill, but he didn't expect that he really found a way to crack it!

"Great commander, the last general thinks that he can try the fire attack - make a ladder or two feet to lean on, and throw the oil tank into it along the window hole! Keep throwing, burn all the thieves inside, and then tell the sons and daughters to climb in and open the door! It's just that...... We have to wait for the fire inside to go out and the smoke to disperse before we can drill through the window hole, and then the thieves above may take the opportunity to come down, and our people have to watch the windows, and when the thieves come, they will continue to throw oil tanks, and if the thieves do not come, they will get in...... It's going to take a while. ”

Sun Jie understood these words as if he had been empowered, and laughed and praised: "General An has a clever plan!" What could be better than an oil tank...... Su Yinghui, send some fried cans over! ”