After two consecutive days of rain, the muddy road leading to the riverside trenches became even muddy after absorbing enough rainwater. People and animals stepped on it and dug holes in it.
The wheels of a baggage cart carrying war equipment sank deeply into the mud, and was tightly sucked by the thick mud that had been trampled on.
About a dozen people came forward to help, but they were unable to push out the heavy baggage cart. The chest of the cattle pulling the cart was deeply cut into the flesh by the harness, and the fur was worn to a bloody pulp, and it was "moo" miserable.
He screamed, but still couldn't pull the baggage truck out of the mud.
The military official in charge called more civil servants on the left and right to come over and help, shouting at the top of his lungs:
"Come on, use all your strength to suck milk! You are all such weaklings, how can you go home and suck your mother-in-law's milk with such strength! Then, you still have the nerve to blame your own mother-in-law for stealing a man?"
The two large camps built by the soldiers at the mouth of the Peishui River were more solidly defended than ordinary state and county cities, and they were guarded by elite soldiers, making it difficult to attack suddenly.
However, Xu Huai did not simply build a fort in front of the enemy camp and advance step by step. Instead, he built the trench and fort diagonally deep into the river bank.
Taking advantage of the fact that the main force of the Japanese Navy was being restrained by the Huaidong Water Camp and the Xinyang Water Camp from upstream and downstream and unable to escape, Xu Huai wanted to take advantage of the trapped prisoners.
Before the soldiers built a channel through the river beach, they built trenches and ramparts to the waterside to completely block the retreat route of the soldiers on the south bank.
The trapped soldiers also struggled hard. They not only organized more manpower to rush to repair the water channel through the river beach from the side of the camp facing the river, but also moved heavy trebuchets to the side of the river beach, or directly set them up.
On the river beach, they bombarded Dai Viet soldiers and civilians who were repairing trenches.
Although the swampy riverbank is an insurmountable chasm for the time being for both the enemy and ourselves, the Vietnamese soldiers and civilians can transport earth and rocks from many areas, and countless civilians carry them on their backs and shoulders, filling the riverbank bit by bit.
At the same time, tens of thousands of civilians were recruited from nearby villages, trees were cut down from nearby forests, fence walls and pallets were made, and they were laid directly on the muddy ground of the river beach to form a temporary passage for people, livestock, vehicles and horses to pass.
The soldiers on the south bank who were besieged in a narrow area did not have to worry about food problems at present, but they were greatly restricted in collecting soil and cutting down wood.
Even though the Dai Viet military and civilians had more abundant supplies of materials, they immediately built a temporary passage through the river beach. However, baggage trucks loaded with equipment, earth, rocks and wood often slipped into the mud.
Due to the mud, the baggage truck was pushed out and pushed towards the river beach with difficulty.
Occasionally, rocks would fall from a distance, and warning whistles would sound sharply. Soldiers and civilians approaching the enemy camp would look up and crawl in the muddy ground to avoid falling rocks.
Heavy trebuchets can throw stone projectiles weighing hundreds of kilograms three to four hundred paces away. Although humans and animals can avoid hearing the news, soldiers and civilians are still hit from time to time. Their flesh and blood bodies are hit hard, and there is no way to survive.
The flesh, flesh and bones were also smashed to pieces and mixed with the muddy mud.
Especially the soldiers and civilians who built forts from the front and approached the enemy camp suffered greater casualties.
But even so, it could not curb the fierce fighting spirit of the Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. They worked day and night to repair the trenches and extend them deep into the river beach, and gradually used company battalions to surround the prisoner camp from the front.
At the same time, the Xinyang Water Camp and the Huaidong Water Camp also suffered heavy casualties. They continued to launch offensives from upstream and downstream, trying to hold back the main force of the Japanese navy at all costs.
The soldiers did not have a navy to provide a large number of boats to assist, and they did not have a decent riverside plank road and dock to connect the camp.
With the river water, it is simply impossible to organize a large-scale withdrawal of troops from the south bank.
However, facing the active attacks of Xinyang Water Camp and Huaidong Water Camp, the Japanese navy did not divide their troops to intercept them, and sniping was not an option.
Especially for the Xinyang Water Camp, if there is no interception, it only takes one day to go down the river from the upper reaches to the mouth of the Peishui River - the barricades set up by the Japanese soldiers in Huoqiu and other places do not have naval warships.
Assisting in the defense cannot stop the Xinyang Water Camp from flowing down the river.
These barrage iron cables seem to be much stronger than hemp ropes, but without interference, even if a boat approaches and chops with a sharp axe, they cannot hold up even a stick of incense.
On October 15th, accompanied by Dong Cheng, Zhu Tong, Zheng Tu and others, Left Prime Minister Zhou He, Privy Councilor Wang Boqian and Wuwei County Prince Zhao Yi, on behalf of the imperial court, arrived at the mouth of the Pishui River to reward the three armies and met with Xu Huai
.
Also on the same day, the main force of the Jingzhou Navy, six thousand generals, led by Wang Zhang, entered Hongzepu to join forces at the Huaidong Water Camp.
Facing the menacing formation of armored warships, the Japanese soldiers finally gave up organizing resistance at the mouth of the Huaihe River into the Hongzepu River, and withdrew the remaining main force of the navy into the Yinghe River channel on the north bank to avoid the battle; at the same time, Xin???
??????????????? Yangshui Battalion, under the leadership of the capital commander Xu Ling, after suffering nearly half of the casualties, finally broke the blockade of the Huaihe River north of Huoqiu and opened up the river.
A channel that flows straight into the mouth of the Pishui River.
This also means that after paying a lot of sacrifices, the Huaidong Water Camp and the Xinyang Water Camp completely blocked the Huaihe River and completely cut off the channels for the prisoners on the south bank to escape north.
At this time, the trebuchet positions outside the two enemy camps were also ready...
Zhou He, Wang Boqian, and Zhao Yi were invited to board the enemy-watching platform made of earth. Looking up, they saw barracks, docks, trenches, and rammed-earth retaining walls, forming a three-layered wave-like enemy line.
, approaching two enemy camps from the east and south, and there is a huge triangular camp in the middle, wedged between the two enemy camps.
The trebuchet position is located between the first and second defense lines of the camp. A large counterweighted trebuchet four to five feet above the camp is like sixty or seventy giant beasts squatting among thousands of soldiers.
Waiting to choose someone to devour.
"There are also large trebuchets in the prison barracks. Will there be too many casualties at such a close distance?" Zhou He, as the leader of the Dai Viet military officials, naturally knew a little about military affairs. He saw that his trebuchet position was far away from the prison camp.
The small camp was less than 200 steps away, and it was less than 400 steps away from the main camp of the Japanese soldiers. I couldn't help but wonder, they already had a great victory, there was no need to risk such heavy casualties and confront the Japanese soldiers with trebuchets.
boom.
Wang Boqian frowned. Although he suppressed his silence, he still doubted in his heart whether Xu Huai's move was intended to consume all the troops and the tens of thousands of Shouchun troops who eventually came out of the city to accept the restraint.
As the battlefield commander, Fan Zongqi patiently explained to Zhou He, Wang Boqian and the Prince of Wuwei as the Minister of Patrol: "The prisoner camp does not have much reserve of stone bullets. At present, it mainly throws clay pellets at us. The clay pellets cannot be burned.
We can't make it bigger. We build a large number of war tents on the front base, and the soldiers take shelter in them. They can withstand the bombardment of mud pellets to a limited extent. There will be casualties, but they won't be too big. As for whether there will be a lot of stone throwing
Opportunities were destroyed during the bombardment, and we also mobilized a large number of craftsmen to build and replenish them in time if they were damaged. This is also the most time-saving and labor-saving way to annihilate all the prisoners at the lowest cost, and it can also control casualties..."
"The soldiers on the south bank must have realized that they are at the end of their rope, why don't they persuade them to surrender?" Zhao Yi, the king of Wuwei County, asked in confusion.
"The Red Husband invaded the south
Since then, there have been only 34 out of 10 common people in the Central Plains. Whether they are the Red Husbands or the Han troops who have surrendered to the Red Husbands, their hands are stained with the blood of our Han people - kill 60 to 70 percent of the enemy soldiers first, and then persuade them to surrender." Xu Huai said.
Said lightly.
Wang Boqian and Zhou He could all feel the murderous intent in Xu Huai's plain tone, and they all closed their mouths knowingly and did not say anything more about persuading surrender.
"I have been supervising the battle for days without a day's rest. I am extremely tired today - I will not accompany you here to watch the battle." Xu Huai said to Fan Zongqi, Liu Shiwang, Zhang Xiongshan, Dong Cheng and others, "You should accompany Zhou well."
Prime Minister, Prime Minister Wang, Prince Zhao, and Wei Youcheng are here to watch the battle, and they will wake me up when the night banquet is held!"
Xu Huai bowed his hands to Zhou He, Wang Boqian and others, and then, surrounded by guards, he and Xiao Yanhan went back to the tent to rest.
There was also a war tent on the enemy's platform. In order to welcome Zhou He, Wang Boqian and others to visit the battlefield, tables and chairs were specially placed in the war tent so that they could slowly watch dozens of heavy trebuchets being launched together.
Zhou He and Wang Boqian could not accuse Xu Huai of being negligent at this time, so they could only stand patiently and watch the battle from the battle tent on the enemy's stand.
The more than 60 trebuchets currently deployed are only preliminary, and more counterweight trebuchets are still under emergency construction.
For several days, Xu Huai excused himself because he was physically exhausted, so he only asked Dong Cheng, Liu Shiwang, Zheng Tu, and Zhu Tong to accompany Zhou He, Wang Boqian, and Wei Chujun to the enemy viewing platform to watch the trebuchets smashing into the enemy camp.
Although the prisoner camp was strong, it was too small in size, especially since the surrounding small camp was only a hundred paces square. How could it withstand the continuous bombardment of a large number of trebuchets as they approached?
At the beginning, the prisoner camp also used trebuchets for bombardment. The trebuchets with mainly wooden structures would cause varying degrees of damage even if they were continuously hit by mud pellets weighing more than ten kilograms. However, they could continue to
Keep building new ones to add to them.
The clay pellets thrown by Jingsheng's army were also fired. Not only were they heavier, larger, and harder, most of them would break after hitting the enemy camp, making it difficult for the soldiers to reuse them.
In this case, the enemy's trebuchet counterattack was completely suppressed, and the number of trebuchets was reduced every day.
Three days later, the captive soldiers had to abandon the small outer camps and shrink their troops into the large camp as solid as a city. Fan Zongqi organized the soldiers and militiamen to continue to push the front base forward, and then doubled the number.
Large and small trebuchets were deployed in the area between one hundred and three hundred steps away from the city wall of the prison camp, and they continued to bombard the prison camp day and night.
The enemy watch tower is only a thousand steps away from the south camp of the Lu soldiers. On a clear day, Zhou He, Wang Boqian, and Wei Chujun can clearly see the spider web-like cracks in the walls of the Lu camp, and small collapses occur from time to time. Standing on the wall
The captive soldiers were hit by stone bullets and mud pellets, and their bones and limbs were broken. They were all shocked when they saw it.
During this period, the Lu soldiers also tried to organize a counterattack, but the soldiers of the Jingsheng Army relied on the camp to carry out resolute snipers, and the Lu soldiers' counterattacks were ruthlessly disintegrated time and time again.
Seven or eight days later, the walls of the prison camp collapsed in large areas, and almost no soldiers dared to stand on the wall to defend. At this time, Fan Zongqi organized hundreds of catapults and catapults into the front line, almost clinging to the broken walls of the prison camp.
One by one, lit fire oil cans were thrown into the prison camp, and wet wood that was emitting billowing black smoke was thrown into the prison camp to smoke the enemy; elite archers and crossbowmen were organized to snipe with strong bows and powerful crossbows.
Shooting soldiers...
During this period, there were also soldiers and Han troops in Xiongzhou who tried to surrender, but Xu Huai's orders were ignored.
