"How far are they from the city gates......"

Before he finished speaking, he heard the sound of dense artillery fire coming from the direction of Xicheng.

"I didn't come to capture Hanyang before, but I ...... this time"

When the political envoy heard this, he shouted: "It's bad, the rogues are trying to attack the west, and we have been tricked." ”

After that, he was about to transfer troops in the direction of Xicheng, when the commander hurriedly came out to stop him:

"My lord, outside of the two gates of Zhonghe and the security gate, looking at its scale, the rogue is at least the master of all people, I am afraid that it is not just a feint to support ......"

Another humanitarian: "There are more and more rogues crossing the river outside the north gate of the city, and we are surrounded!" ”

"I can't care about it so much, first relieve my urgency, pass on my order, send 3,000 troops to support the thieves crossing the river at the West City Gate, and hit their boats with rockets and firearms, and don't let them dock."

The general took the order and left.

The commander's face became more and more pale, and after seeing the people walking away, he came to the side of the political envoy and said in a low voice:

"The city defense is weak, there are soldiers without pay, people are panicking, now the thieves are surrounded by three sides, I'm afraid we can't hold it, my lord, why don't we escape?!"

……

Wuchang city and outside the gate.

Listening to the golden drum in the army, it seems to have a spirit.

Striking can shock the enemy's mind and strengthen one's own courage.

The soldiers who have experienced several large-scale siege battles, not to mention being reborn, at least they are no longer afraid of the towering city walls, and they also have the confidence to face the city defense, and this kind of battle can be completely adapted.

"Flying Earth, Hide!"

In the sound of drums, a group of soldiers shouted loudly, and went forward one after another, the dusty chariot was pushed to the position of the Chinese army, and the trench chariot broke through the billowing smoke and rushed out under the cover of the trebuchet throwing stone bombs and overturning the boat, and was pushed to the city river one after another.

Just for the siege of the city, they did not need to completely fill in the moat outside the city, but only needed to fill in a few zhang wide for the soldiers to easily push the ladder to the top of the city.

The trench-filling chariots and ladders that were built in a hurry by the De'an side were all used to assist in climbing the city. It's just that the former is spreading forward, and the latter is stretching upward.

After calculating the depth, and then arranging the trench-filling chariots on each road together, the width can reach several zhang, or even more than ten zhang.

As long as the trench-filled chariot is pushed into the river, and the three and two overlap are like erecting at the ends of the moat, like a bridge, and your soldiers can rush through the moat from above with a ladder to reach the bottom of the city.

Because he had seen the width of the moat in Wuchang City, Yin Zuochan specially instructed the craftsmen to strengthen the position of the giant wood connection, and make the length of the trench chariot more than ten zhang.

In this way, when Cao Mang attacked the city, he did not need to spend manpower and material resources to dig and fill the river, and he could directly use the moat to cross the moat.

The enemy towers and war sheds at the foot of the city collapsed into piles after several rounds of artillery and trebuchet.

Those who rushed out of the hidden soldier cave at the foot of the city and wanted to destroy the enemy to build a "bridge" were still crowded when they first came out, and dozens of soldiers were killed and wounded in the blink of an eye, and the rest had nowhere to stay, so they had to go back to the city from the hidden soldier cave.

At the head of the city, the garrison of the garrison appeared. Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, has been sentenced to death, and the general is not in the lake now, and they have been discussing in the city for several days, and they have not guessed the number of the incoming army holding the banner high.

He asked in a loud voice: "Why don't you come to answer the army?" ”

Cao Mang ordered Chen Yuzhu to go up and fight with him, and then Wei 13 and Zhang Gui'er asked for battle.

Zhang Gui'er was originally a good hand that Yang Kai wanted to come from the old man, and most of the people he brought were rogue people, all of them were born as thieves, swords, guns, bows, and crossbows, and they knew everything.

Before that, he had no heavy responsibilities, and he mostly did some work to clean up the battlefield, which was very aggrieved. Wei Shisan even saw that Cai Qian, who was promoted to a thousand households with him, won the title of Red Tiger, and he was unwilling.

Cao Mang gave them thirty capsized boats, and after the soldiers of the Red Tiger Army, he drew his bow and fired his crossbow to counterattack the archers in the city. He also personally commanded the musketeers and slingers to line up in the rear and fire at the head of the city in the direction where the river was beginning to be filled.

The range of the firebolts is farther than the arrows, and they can shoot into the city, but the city cannot shoot them. The enemy's artillery was too busy dealing with the enemy at the foot of the city to pay attention to them. For a while, they took advantage of it, one after another, and shot so that the defenders could not stand on the battlements of the city wall.

Two or three of them shot accurately, but they did not work as a cannon and killed the enemy's gunners. Soon, however, a new gunner took over. There were a dozen enemy soldiers, holding shields, and they were surrounded by them.

The first battle is a process of mutual testing between the two sides, and at this time, most of the elites are used in the city.

Combined with the advice provided to them by Yang Kai's continuous reception of the intelligence from the front in the rear, the artillerymen studied the city wall of Wuchang and chose it as a thin security guard, and the middle of the two gates as a breakthrough.

In addition to the frontal gate to launch a fierce attack, the two cannons and firearms were all transferred to concentrate firepower and attack one point. For a moment, the stones flew violently, and the city shook and the pool shook. The soldiers on the walls of the city were unsteady and scurryed away.

When the day was about to dawn, he unfolded the shelf with all his hands and feet, and fell heavily on the opposite side, raising a cloud of dust, and the moat was filled with four zhang long and ten zhang wide.

Cao Mang gave the order, and the commanding soldiers on the temporarily erected general platform waved the banner and sounded the golden gong, and the big man who came back to the camp under his battalion, Li Qinghui led his subordinates to snatch back the corpses of the soldiers who died in battle when filling in the trenches, and retreated together.

Next, it was Su Fuan's turn and Zhao Hubu to come out. Still holding the last of the overturned boats on top, several hundred-man teams lifted the ladder and rushed to the bottom of the city with guns and arrows.

General Wuchangwei personally went to the head of the city, and the garrison under his command stood beside him.

A few people didn't know what to say, and the soldiers of the city tower stirred the wheel, put down the gange board in front of the city gate, and smashed it to the ground. The board was wrapped with iron nails, thick and solid, enough to prevent the enemy from attacking the city gates.

The garrison held the command flag, waved it a few times, and a large group of archers gathered, and the ignited rockets rose into the sky and fell densely on the trench-filling frame board.

The trench-filling chariots and overturned boats were all drenched with water, and they had already thought of a step to the effect.

Su Fuan shouted and shouted, driving his subordinates to brave the rain of fire and rush across the moat. Zhao Hu left two teams of 100 households to jump into the river, and then took water to pour the cart and extinguish the rocket, so as to ensure that the frame of the trench filling chariot was not lost.

Wei 13 and Zhang Gui'er, who were shooting arrows in front, rose up, and when they heard a shout, more than 30 ladders were slapped on the city.

Zhang Gui'er's subordinates have many tattoos on their faces, or tiger beasts, or eagles, or a branch of flowers, coiling their bodies, with the muscles tense and the green tendons bulging, and stained with the enemy's blood, or their faces are covered with blood, or their heads are scattered, looking hideous and terrifying.

According to the law of the Ming Dynasty, the thief will not have wealth, the rod will be 100, and the flow will be 3,000 li, and the person who gets the wealth will be beheaded regardless of the head. It can be seen that those who dare to be thieves are not afraid of death, and these people get together to increase the barbaric atmosphere. All of them are people who eat meat and die lightly.

At this time, at the edge of the city, Zhao Hu led the left army and began to set up a ladder. In the real sense, the ladder is not simply a ladder, but a folding ladder with a carriage under it and six wheels.

The design of the carriage was completely enclosed, and the horse skins and cowhides from the dead horses were shone on the top.

Ladder soldiers who have been pushed down the city can temporarily hide inside to avoid enemy bows and arrows. Moreover, the foot of the ladder is wrapped in felt leather on all sides, which is impenetrable and impenetrable.

However, there is only one shortcoming of complete ordnance, which is complicated to build and takes a lot of time. Compared with the overturned ships and trench-filling chariots of simple workmanship, the ladder requires a larger number, so not every one of them can be made so well, and there are some simpler ones.

The light drum advances, and the heavy drum hits. The sound of war drums in the camp became heavier, and Zhao Hu swept away the arrows that came from him, urging the soldiers to climb the ladder to the city. The first soldiers lifted their one-man tall shields and surrounded him, front and back, left and right.

The military order, where the attacking generals personally took the lead, more than a dozen hundred households, ten commanders, with the back of the knife to drive out their subordinates, with a shield, one after another on the ladder in chaos.

In the face of this scene of ants attached to the reins, both the generals and the garrison on the city head panicked, screaming and shouting, and more than a dozen iron forks poked out of the battlements of the city wall, aimed at the ladder, and pushed hard.

The soldiers who fixed the ladder under the city shouted encouragement, and confronted each other in the city and shouted and wrestled, one side pushed hard, and the other side struggled to stabilize the ladder so that the ladder would not fall.

A dozen or so climbed fast to the middle of the ladder. The guards of the city flew arrows and fell on their shields with a thud, but they did not hurt anyone, and they were shot down several on the ladder by the archers who came out to the side of the horses[1].

The soldier who fell from the height, screaming, crashed into the crowd under the dense ladder. Most of them fell to death on the spot, their brains burst, and their flesh and blood flew sideways.

This kind of death is much more terrible than dying on flat ground. Can't stand the visual impact, a few timid, take a few steps back.

Zhao Hu jumped up with his horse, and the horse lance picked up one of the helmets and flew away, shouting angrily: "The general's order, everyone in the city will be rewarded, take a step back to frustrate the prestige of our army, and behead the public!" ”

The armies remembered Zhao Hu's iron-blooded methods when attacking Yunmeng and Xiaogan, and they were a little more courageous, and continued to climb in line. But he saw Zhao Hu's horse lance stuck in the ground, swept past a soldier with a bow and arrow, shot the enemy on the horse's face and the city tower, and protected the ladder soldier to climb the tower.

The guards of the city didn't notice it for a while, and they were shot down by him several times one after another. The one who fell off was cut off by a thousand households with a knife, grabbed his hair and held it in his hand. The soldiers gathered around cheered in unison, and their morale was greatly boosted.

Seeing that the iron fork was eager to work, the city sergeant changed the order again. He brought over a few wooden sticks and smashed them sideways onto the ladder, the front of which was inlaid with large nails, as sharp as a wolf's teeth.

Two or three soldiers who were about to reach the battlement were bitten by the wolf's fangs that were stabbed indiscriminately in an instant, and the iron nails penetrated their bodies, and the blood flew away, pouring the soldiers all over their bodies, and the people also fell left and right, fell down, and hit the piles of people, and the guns and halberds could not dodge, and pierced through.

At this moment, a stone projectile flew through the air and hit the left side of the ladder, causing the city wall to tremble.

Then, the rubble at the battlement of the city wall, the defenders, and the weapons were splashed with broken flesh and blood, and the ladder was shaken and fell to the side.

Zhang Gui'er, who was clinging to the halfway waist of the ladder, screamed and fell from mid-air. Seeing that he was about to fall to the ground, several soldiers put away their guns and halberds, rushed up desperately, and used their bodies as cushions to catch him.

Fortunately, Zhang Guier was wearing cloth armor, and she was lean and thin, and the impact was not great. Rao is like this, the two of them can't stand it, and they spit out a mouthful of blood together.

There were ten ladders they carried, one broken, and another. Zhang Gui'er jumped up from the ground suddenly, didn't care about the wounds on her body, brandished her knife, and wanted to rush to another cloud ladder.

The more the general at the head of the city looked at it, the more frightened he felt, and exclaimed: "I can't hold it soon, have the reinforcements arrived?!" ”

"General, a large number of rogue boats have also been found in the west of the city, and the commander has no soldiers to send help, let us figure out our own way."

[1] Ma Mian: Also known as the hard building, the straight city wall is built here, protruding a few meters outward, and after walking a few meters horizontally, it falls back again, keeping the original straight. Soldiers can stand on this raised platform, cross fire, and cover the walls.