Sakura Bao finished eating a few noodles. I looked around again, but I didn't see what I needed.

Later, when he went to the stonemason shop, Sakura saw a huge stone statue standing in front of the shop.

This stone statue is a statue of a woman, with a high bun, wide sleeves and ribbons, and a patch of peony flowers at her feet, as if she is about to fly into the sky.

"Master, old uncle, is this stone statue for sale?" Sakura asked.

The stonemason waved his big rough hand: "The stone statue is set by someone else, and it will not be sold." ”

Sakura was curious: "Who decided it?" Is it from Zaoshu Village? ”

The stonemason nodded and asked rhetorically, "How does the little lady know that it was set by Zaoshu Village?" ”

"I can't hide it, I'm from the Impermanence Taoist Temple of Zaoshu Village." Sakura said.

"Oh?" The stonemason glanced at Sakuraho: "No wonder. It turns out that the little lady is a Taoist temple, I heard people say, the incense of the Taoist temple of impermanence can be vigorous, there are already more than a dozen Taoist priests in the Taoist temple, and they are about to catch up with the Wuji Temple. ”

Sakuraho: ······

The Taoist Temple of Impermanence is already so thriving?

I don't know where the Taoist priests in the temple came from, could it be the villagers of Zaoshu Village?

Seeing the stonemason's non-stop carving, Yingbao didn't want to continue to disturb, and walked to Zhang's mansion with his younger brother Huzi.

After entering Zhang's mansion, Yingbao asked her younger brother and Huzi to rest first, and she went to talk to Mrs. Zhang.

I'm a ten-year-old kid, not a local yet, and no one cares if I want to do something.

Mrs. Zhang is different, as long as she comes forward, no one in the city will dare to say anything.

"Let the people of the city take turns guarding the river?" Mrs. Zhang listened to Yingbao's plan and pondered.

Sakuraho: "Yes, if the barbarians sneak in at night, wouldn't it be dangerous if there is no one to guard the river?" ”

Mrs. Zhang hesitated for a while, and finally nodded: "Okay, I'll let people go door-to-door to notify, and those who refuse to go on duty will be fined five taels of silver." ”

Seeing that Mrs. Zhang was willing to come forward, Ying Bao breathed a sigh of relief and said goodbye and went back to the house to rest.

In the middle of the night, the bandits suddenly began to attack the city.

They carried huge tree stumps and slammed them into the city gate again and again.

Zhang Min and his eldest brother led the soldiers to throw stones and bricks under the city, and some also poured lit tung oil down.

There are also thieves on the other side of the river.

As soon as the dozens of barbarians landed on the shore, they were surrounded by hundreds of people, who were holding sticks, hoes, chisels, etc., and smashed them at the thieves with all their might.

In this battle, the barbarians suffered heavy casualties, and finally left thirty or forty corpses and jumped into the river to escape for their lives.

When Yingbao got up the next day, she heard Zhang Xuehua tell her about last night.

"The bandits attacked the city last night, thanks to your idea, so that those bad guys who sneaked up on the attack didn't succeed."

The girl took Sakura's hand, asked her to sit down in front of the mirror, and said with a smile: "I'll help you comb your hair, A-Niang invites you to come over and talk." ”

Yingbao sat obediently and let Zhang Xuehua comb her hair and tie her braids.

Looking at the girl from the mirror, Ying Bao suddenly asked, "Sister Zhang, if the city can't be defended, will you and your aunt leave with me?" ”

Zhang Xuehua was stunned, and the hand holding the comb not only trembled. "Why can't you hold it?"

"Because there are more and more bandits outside, they will gather a lot of teams to fight Jingzhou." Only by taking Jingzhou can the bandits go all the way south.

If Jingzhou has no foreign aid and can only defend, the barbarians will definitely not withdraw their troops, even if it takes a month or two, or even half a year, they will still not stop attacking the city.

But can Jingzhou really last that long?

The smile on Zhang Xuehua's face gradually faded.

Her father is too shou, and she and her mother, including the eldest brother and sister-in-law and the two sisters-in-law, will not leave Jingzhou one step ahead of the people.

If the city is really broken, where should my family go?

Ying Bao looked at Zhang Xuehua in the mirror and said, "I promised the second senior brother that if there is an accident, I will take you away." ”

"No, no... I can't leave. Zhang Xuehua calmed down and slowly combed Yingbao's braids.

Ying Bao touched his braids, turned his head to Zhang Xuehua and said, "Sister Zhang, don't be afraid, I'll just talk about it." ”

She just wanted them to be mentally prepared first.

Jingzhou has been besieged, and those comforting words are meaningless.

If there is a way to live, who wants to die?

But when Mrs. Zhang heard the situation that Yingbao gave her, she was no less shocked than her daughter.

She thought that as long as she held on to the city, the imperial court would soon send troops to the rescue.

But what if they don't come?

Mrs. Zhang looked at Yingbao and said solemnly: "Yingbao, now we have a glimmer of hope to defend the city, as for the rest, don't mention it in the future, we can't let the soldiers defending the city lose their morale, and the people can't be chaotic." ”

"Well, I've only analyzed it for you, and I haven't told anyone outside." Of course, Sakura knew that she couldn't talk nonsense to outsiders at this time.

Soon three days passed.

The fighting is becoming more and more tense.

The barbarians came to attack the city every day, but they returned in vain.

In the end, they did not crash on the gates, but went to the woods and cut down a lot of timber and piled them at the gates, trying to burn them.

At the same time, they also made rafts out of trees and wanted to enter the city by water.

Zhang Taishou and his two sons couldn't sleep at night, and they led a team of people to intercept the bandits.

Gradually, the people of the city became frightened, and many of them tried to flee for their lives by water.

But at this time, the waterway had been blocked by bandits, and many rafts were blocked in the outer river.

A few families did not listen to the advice and secretly went out in small boats, only to be caught by the barbarians.

The barbarians used these people as shields, supported the raft and came over, and were directly shot to death by the soldiers guarding the road.

Zhang Min guarded a waterway with a team of dozens of people, and a guard of more than a hundred city people, who took turns guarding the riverside day and night.

In one case, the brute took a reed in his mouth and tried to dive into the city.

Just when they thought they were going to succeed, they were stopped by fishing nets.

When they cut through the nets with their daggers, they alarmed the guards who were guarding the area.

As a result, it can be imagined that dozens of barbarians were all exterminated.

But this time it also completely angered the barbarian commander Wanyan Hashi.

A few days later, Wanyan Hashi ordered a general attack, starting with a fierce attack from two waterways and the city gates.

In the city, the family and the people were also summoned by Mrs. Zhang to prepare to resist the enemy.

She listened to Sakura's suggestion, and ordered someone to build a long corridor on both sides of the inner city gate, and built a doorless courtyard at the back.

The whole shape of the tunnel resembles a long-beaked gourd, and a deep trap has been dug in the belly of the gourd, and rows of wooden thorns are placed in the trap.

The trap was covered with a layer of bamboo strips, and some thin branches and floating soil were sprinkled on it.

Once the bandits break through the city gate, they will inevitably follow the road into the gourd's belly and finally fall into the trap.

When the time comes, some soldiers will be arranged to shoot arrows or throw stones at the walls on both sides to ensure that they will die as many as they come in.

In order to build this road, they brought all the stones from the stonemasons' houses, and the stone courtyard walls of many people's houses were also demolished.

Today, Ying Bao took Huzi and Jiang Wu to follow Mrs. Zhang and Zhang Xuehua, standing on the wall of the corridor behind the city gate, quietly listening to the shouts and killings outside the city, as well as the fierce crashing sounds.