I

  Chapter 371 369 [Persistence]

  Guangji County (Meichuan Town, Wuxue City).

   Zhang Xianzhong and Sun Kewang commanded 100,000 troops, and they also had countless civilian husbands. They claimed that an army of 800,000 came to attack.

  Sun Kewang pointed to the brand-new city wall and said: "The construction started in July last year. What kind of cement was used to lay the bricks, with rammed earth in the middle, and the foundation was not deep, so I think it will not be very strong."

   "Can the main force of the enemy army be in the city?" Zhang Xianzhong asked.

Sun Kewang replied: "I'm not sure. In Zhao Han's territory, he dare not ride a horse to inquire, otherwise he will be arrested as a spy. Recently, the enemy has frequently mobilized, and recruited peasants, soldiers and peasants on the spot. It doesn't count."

  Zhang Xianzhong thought about it: "Spread out a group of cavalry, go east to investigate the enemy's reality, and see if you can plunder Wujiaxue by the way."

  Wujiaxue is on the bank of the Yangtze River. It was a commercial market town in the Ming Dynasty, which was later the urban area of ​​Wuxue City.

   As for Guangji County, there was no fortification in Ming Dynasty.

  After Zhao Han occupied this place, he quickly built the city wall in half a year. The stone and compound soil are used as the base of the wall, the rammed earth is used as the city wall, and the wall is made of cement bricks. There is no moat, only a Meichuan River blocks it.

  The cement brick wall is very brittle, and it will fall off when it is bombarded with artillery. It is purely to protect the earth wall inside from the wind and sun.

  Strictly speaking, this is a traditional rammed earth city wall.

   "Old horse, this time you lead the cavalry as the vanguard. Be careful when you encounter the enemy. Zhao Han's firecrackers are really powerful." Zhang Xianzhong instructed another person beside him.

   This man is called Ma Shouying, nicknamed "Old Huihui".

  In the Fifth Battalion of Gezuo, King Zuojin was killed in battle with the Ming army.

  Now there is only old Huihui Ma Shouying left, and Zhang Xianzhong's territory is assigned to Yunyang. This man was from the frontier army of the Ming Dynasty, and the cavalry under his command included not only Han Chinese and Muslims, but also Mongols.

  Zhang Xianzhong's army camped near Guangji County, and sent out a team of 2,000 cavalry as spies, while Laohui brought 5,000 elite cavalry and went straight to Huangmei County.

  All villages in Guangji County have been fortified and cleared.

  The people either retreated into the mountains in the northwest, or retreated into Guangji County. Zhang Xianzhong led his troops all the way, some seedlings had already been planted along the way, and some paddy fields were too late to transplant.

  At this moment, the people defending the city looked at the enemy army outside, with hatred in their eyes.

  Especially those farmers who have no time to transplant rice seedlings. They have already sowed seeds to raise seedlings, plowed the fields to store water, and finished all the work, leaving only the crucial step of transplanting rice seedlings. Once Zhang Xianzhong came, he did nothing for nothing, and the farming season had already been delayed!

  The next day.

  Zhang Xianzhong took out a pair of civilian binoculars, which Xizuo bought in Jiangxi.

  He sent many spies out, and all of them had family members as hostages. But only half of them were able to come back, and they didn't know whether they were killed or stayed in Zhao Han's territory and refused to leave.

  The city tower is densely packed, and the number of defenders is very large, but it seems that they are all miscellaneous soldiers.

  Zhang Xianzhong put down the binoculars. He had an intuition that the regular army of Datong was not here. The city should be full of common people, and those who guard the city are also local people. According to the detailed report, every village in Zhao Han's territory has farmers and soldiers, and the defenders who want to come to Guangji County are mainly farmers and soldiers.

  This city is not easy to fight. Although there is no regular army stationed there, the preliminary preparations are too sufficient!

   No matter how difficult it is to fight, Zhang Xianzhong must be defeated.

  Due to terrain reasons, the Yangtze River is to the south and the Dabie Mountains are to the north. Zhang Xianzhong's passage for dispatching troops is very narrow. If he didn't take the city and drove straight in, his food road was very dangerous, and it was very likely that the defenders in the city would run out and cut off.

  A few days before the siege, craftsmen and peasants must be sent to build seven or eight pontoon bridges on the Meichuan River.

  Zhang Xianzhong made people build bridges while cutting down trees to make siege equipment.

   Some of the cavalry that had been thrown out headed southeast, and they tried to plunder the commercial market town of Wujiaxue.

  Running to the outside of the town, I saw that two wide ditches had been dug around the town. The farmers in the villages along the way had already evacuated, and most of them retreated to Wujiaxue Town for defense.

The horse team ran back to report the situation: "Your Majesty, there is a deep moat outside Wujiaxue Town, and only a few narrow roads are left to pass through. The farmers along the way are gone. I am afraid they have withdrawn to the town. There may be 20,000 to 30,000 people in the town. .”

   Zhang Xianzhong frowned when he heard this. His original tactic was to rob food along the way and coerce the people to keep marching.

   But in the current situation, the food cannot be grabbed, and the people cannot be coerced, so they can only slowly attack the cities one by one. This mother is still playing a ghost?

  How much food and grass Zhao Han has in his hand, he can actually play against the wall and clear the field!

  Guangji, Huangmei, Susong and other counties were all occupied by Zhao Han last year, and many people immigrated for less than a year. There is not much staple food harvested at all, just replanting some miscellaneous grains, and half of the people live through the winter by gnawing on sweet potatoes.

  The people in these counties are all cumbersome, hiding in the fortified walls and clear fields, most of the rations have to be provided by Zhao Han.

  Zhang Xianzhong couldn't understand why Zhao Han used the precious food to evacuate the people? Isn't it good to stay in the countryside to fend for yourself?

  Dividing land and analyzing property, and lightly paying taxes, Zhang Xianzhong felt that they were a means of winning people's hearts. At critical moments, we still have to rely on the army to fight. Now that a big war is about to be fought, what is the situation of using food to feed the people?

   Soon, Zhang Xianzhong will understand!

   After the pontoon bridge was built, the only twenty artillery pieces were pushed to the other side of the river to attack the city.

   Seeing the launch of the artillery, the defenders left the city wall one after another.

  After several rounds of shelling, the effect was not very good, because Zhang Xianzhong did not have heavy siege artillery.

  Don't look at the wall made of cement bricks, a large area was smashed by the artillery, but the rammed earth wall inside is very solid. How many meters of rammed earth would it take to collapse with inexplosible shells?

  Before the city wall collapsed, Zhang Xianzhong already felt sorry for the gunpowder. He had to save enough gunpowder to fight in the field, and he couldn't waste all of it on the siege.

  One hundred thousand troops crossed the pontoon bridge one after another, and it took half a day to surround Guangji County.

   In the afternoon, besieged on three sides, leaving one side for the defenders to escape.

  The magistrate of Guangji County is called An Qigong, a native of Xinhua, Hunan. He himself is a scholar, and his elder brother An Qiwen is a juren. Although the An family was divided into thousands of acres of land, both brothers became officials. The younger brother became the county magistrate and the older brother became a judge.

  An Qigong sat in the middle of the county government office and commanded, responsible for the logistics affairs of the whole city.

  Officials kept coming in and out of the county office, batches of materials were drawn out from his pen, and groups of people were dispatched to various parts of the county.

  Even the gentry and merchants in the city organized their families to defend the city. Some gentry and merchants even brought food to comfort the soldiers in person, and helped carry some supplies symbolically.

  Guangji County was occupied by Sun Kewang for a whole year. Whether they are ordinary people or gentry merchants, they all know the virtues of enemies outside the city.

  The gentry and merchants have been turned into commoners!

   There is indeed a regular army in the city, but there are only a dozen or so, all of whom are officers of the regular army, responsible for commanding the peasants, soldiers and common people to defend the city.

  After Zhang Xianzhong stopped shelling, the officers led the peasants, soldiers and civilians back to the city wall quickly.

   Not long after, a large number of enemy troops rushed forward carrying ladders.

At each section of the city wall, there were missionaries holding tin horns and shouting to the enemy troops rushing towards the city wall: "Brothers outside the city, don't serve Zhang Xianzhong as a soldier again. Quickly put down your weapons and surrender to the King of Wu. The King of Wu loves the people like his sons." , everyone here has land to plow, everyone has clothes to wear, and everyone has food to eat. You fought against Zhang Xianzhong, what if you died in the family? They still expect you to go back. You are the pillars of the family, but You can't die! Put down your weapons and surrender, Zhang Xianzhong will definitely be defeated, and the Datong Army will take you back to your hometown to divide the fields..."

  This kind of shouting is definitely useless. They are attacking the city. Who dares to surrender?

Another missionary officer shouted: "Brothers and sisters, guard the city wall. Your family members are all in the city, and your land is outside the city. If the county seat is taken down, your family and land will be gone. The good old days are gone..."

   "Under Heaven!"

   "Dress and eat!"

  The slogan was temporarily changed, because many city defenders are residents of the city, and they usually don't farm.

   A ladder was pushed over, these are very formal ladders. There are wooden boards to block the rain of arrows, winches for lifting and lowering, and grabbing hooks to firmly hold the city wall, and it is impossible to push it away when it is placed on the wall.

   "Throw firewood!"

  A large amount of dry firewood drenched with oil was thrown down the city one after another when the ladder approached, and then torches were thrown down.

  A portion of the ground next to the wall suddenly ignited a raging fire, baking the ladder and the siege enemy army.

  Then hot oil poured down again, scalding the enemy soldiers who had climbed halfway and fell into the burning firewood pile below. The hot oil on their bodies quickly caught fire.

"what!"

   There were screams one after another, and the people defending the city were also screaming, because there were archers throwing shots under the city.

   This can only be blamed for the fact that the city wall is too short. It took only half a year to build the city, and it was only over four meters high.

  Zhang Xianzhong's first offensive was quickly repulsed, eight people were shot dead and more than a hundred people were shot and wounded.

   Soon there will be a second wave of offensive, and this time the attack from all sides is completely using the lives of cannon fodder to pile up as much as possible to consume the defense materials of the defenders.

   Zhang Xianzhong will send elites to attack the city wall only when the supplies for defending the city are almost exhausted.

  The ancient siege was so cruel.

  At the same time, Zhang Xianzhong was still digging a tunnel, trying to transport gunpowder through the tunnel to blow down the city wall.

  In addition, several Lügong vehicles are being manufactured, which are classified as siege weapons.

   Half a month later, Zhang Xianzhong's siege cannon fodder killed and injured nearly 10,000 people, and finally exhausted the firewood, hot oil, and gold juice in the city.

  During the period, Laohui sent people back to report that Huangmei County, Susong County, and Taihu County had all been fortified and cleared. He couldn't grab food, and he didn't bring much food and grass, and the main force of the enemy army never showed up, so he asked to return to the army temporarily to join.

  The news brought back by the old man gave Zhang Xianzhong a bad feeling. This time he seemed to have stepped into a quagmire!

   Zhang Xianzhong has never encountered Zhao Han's strong wall and clear field style of play, and Zhao Han is the only one in the world who is willing to do this, so how much money and food will he consume!

  If Zhao Han met Zhang Xianzhong at this moment, he would definitely yell at him: "Fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness is a waste of money and food? Do you **** know how much money I spent on dividing the land and emigrating! I am immigrating a commoner, and it is countless times more expensive than raising a soldier!"

  Since the war has already begun, there is no room for halfway.

  Seeing that the supplies in the city were getting less and less, Zhang Xianzhong ordered to send elites to attack the city, and pushed out those Lugong vehicles.

   "Boom boom boom!"

  This time it wasn't firewood, hot oil, rolling logs, or golden juice, but it was smashed down one by one.

  Zhang Xianzhong's face turned green.

   He has suffered nearly 10,000 casualties so far. Let alone a single earth city, even the enemy's regular army cannot be found.

   "My lord, a tunnel is about to be dug through!"

   "Okay, those who dig the tunnel will be rewarded. The whole army stops attacking the city, and after nightfall, light the gunpowder, blow down the city wall and immediately attack in the chaos!"

   (Ask for a monthly pass.)

  (end of this chapter)