Shen Chen sneered twice in his heart, but he didn't know that he had prepared too many things for today.
Looking at Cao Ren's figure below, Shen Chen sneered and said, "Who am I? It turns out to be the one-eared thief Cao Ren. The blood debt of hundreds of relatives gathered in Zhenyang will be settled with you today."
One-eared thief?
Cao Ren's eyes turned red instantly, he pointed to Qiong Long in the distance and said: "Kill him."
"General, there is no entrance to that archery tower."
A low-level officer who had followed Cao Yong in before quickly stepped forward and said, "We have nowhere to start."
"No entrance?"
Cao Ren said in astonishment: "How is that possible?"
Above, Shen Chen continued to hold the loudspeaker and said: "Cao Ren, do you want to find the entrance? Tell me, the entrance is underground. If you are able, you can dig in."
"General, there are traces of looseness in the land over there, and it is buried by some hay branches."
Just then a soldier discovered the hidden entrance.
Cao Ren was not stupid. He knew that since the other party dared to tell him that the entrance was underground, he would be safe. But at this moment, he was riding a tiger and was unable to get off. He came in the name of revenge and lost his clan brother Cao Yong. He would probably lose face if he went back in despair.
Therefore, he could only bite the bullet and said: "Let the army search for other entrances first, and then let the dead soldiers go in and have a look."
"only."
The officer selected the death squad.
Ancient bows, crossbows, arrows and armor were very important strategic reserve resources. Huangmenting's arrow stock was not large, so it was impossible to rely on bows and arrows to destroy Cao Ren's army.
Therefore, from the beginning, Shen Chen did not simply rely on Qiong Long to deal with Cao Renjun. The real trump card was still underground.
Cao Ren currently has more than 4,000 troops left. In addition to the 500 people who were waiting outside the valley, about 3,000 people came in and conducted a blanket search of the valley.
Soon, they finally found four entrances, located in the four directions of southeast, northwest and northwest.
The quartermaster prepared torches for them. When the army travels, fire sickles and a certain amount of fish paste are necessary, but the quantity is not very large. They are filled with water bladders, that is, pig bladders, which can be used for lighting and lighting at critical moments.
There were a large number of branches around to cover the entrance. There were also wooden boards at the entrance, which were cut down by the soldiers, split into sticks, sprinkled with a little grease, and lit with a fire sickle to turn them into torches.
The members of the death squad took torches and looked inside at the entrance. The inside was dark, like a bloody mouth of a giant beast, as if it wanted to devour them.
Many soldiers swallowed a mouthful of saliva. Everyone knew that if they went in, they would be close to death. However, Cao Jun's military law was strict, and most of them were Qingzhou Yellow Turbans that Cao Cao surrendered. Their families were controlled by Cao Cao and used as military households in the field.
If you resist the order, not only will you suffer, but your family will also be implicated. Therefore, even if they know that the road ahead is very dangerous, the members of the death squad can only bite the bullet and start walking down.
Soon everyone filed in, and the first batch was just to die. Not many people went in, there were only about thirty people, and they gathered about half a foot from front to back, each holding a torch to explore the road ahead.
After entering, there seemed to be no ambush as imagined. There was only a very long corridor, like an underground corridor, with solid rammed earth walls on both sides. The group walked almost forty or fifty feet, and the road ahead still had no end. .
"Strange, what is this hole used for?"
A soldier was walking and suddenly noticed a small hole in the wall on the right side. He was quite surprised.
"No, leave quickly!"
These thirty people were led by three commanders and a captain. Among them, the captain was well-informed and his expression changed with horror, and he quickly called the soldiers to retreat.
It turned out that this man had previously been a soldier in a secret army under Cao Cao. He followed a Faqiu Zhonglang general to dig a tomb in Mang Mountain. He had seen such holes in the wall in the underground palace.
More than 300 people went to the underground that time, but only about 80 people escaped unscathed with gold, silver and jewelry.
Moreover, the general Faqiu Zhonglang also died among them, leaving him without a leader. Since then, the team has been disbanded, and this soldier has been transferred to other posts, and now serves as the captain under Cao Ren.
Now that he saw this kind of corridor wall again, it immediately reminded him of that bad experience, and he quickly called on everyone to retreat.
But it's too late.
Shen Chen had actually read the Mohist Mechanisms and the Gongshu Jia Lu Ban's books. These things were not lost in the Han Dynasty. Zhuge Liang's wooden ox and flowing horse were also built with reference to these books.
In addition, he was a design dog before traveling through time. He had seen a lot of tunnel design and architectural design before, so he had some experience in designing underground passages.
The hole in the corridor is indeed a kind of mechanism, but it is not the kind of mechanism that detains crossbows as recorded in the mechanism technique, but a spear mechanism.
Almost as soon as Cao Jun's soldiers realized something was wrong, an iron gate gate suddenly opened up on the wall behind them, blocking their retreat.
This fence gate is a design that actually appeared in tunnel battles in history. Since there are no welding equipment, the gate is made of fired iron rods that are still hot and red.
Usually it is hidden in the cracks of the wall and covered with rammed earth. When necessary, people will push a fence gate behind the wall to block the road in front and behind.
As soon as the road was blocked, a large number of spears appeared in the holes and were thrust out.
Suddenly the screams could not be heard.
Sharp spears were stabbed into the body one after another, and the sound of squeaking into the flesh continued, and soon blood flowed like a profuse stream. There were corpses everywhere in the passage, and blood seeped out along the drainage channels on the rammed earth ground.
After about two or three minutes, as the Huangmenting soldiers on both sides of the wall kept poking back and forth with their spears, the sounds in the passage became weaker and weaker, and all Cao's soldiers died in the mechanism.
There was a second group at the rear. They watched helplessly as the iron gate separated them from the group in front and were massacred with spears. They were frightened for a moment and ran away in panic. They only regretted that their parents had given them two less children. leg.
"General."
The officer who escaped from inside ran to Cao Ren and said in horror: "There is a mechanism below."
Cao Ren said impatiently: "There must be an agency. Have you seen clearly what agency it is?"
The officer was still frightened, and said with a pale face: "There are holes in the wall. Once you step into the mechanism, an iron door will stick out from the wall and lock it, and spears will stick out of the holes to stab you randomly."
Iron gates blocking the road, holes for spears?
Cao Ren thought for a moment and asked, "Have you noted the location of the iron gate?"
"take note of it."
"Then this mechanism is easy to crack. You dig a pit at the iron gate, and then embed a long boulder into the pit. When the iron gate is pushed out, just leave two people to push it back, and the others use shields to block the wall. Either stab it in with a spear, or cut off the spear shaft with a knife, do you understand?"
"Understood."
"Go ahead."
"only."
After the officer received the order, he immediately began to follow Cao Ren's instructions.
It has to be said that although Cao Ren was angered by Shen Chen, he still retained his rationality, and he was very smart and good at thinking, and he quickly came up with a solution.
Since the iron gate is pushed out from the wall, they can just push it back. Spears protrude from the holes, and they can also use their spears to poke them.
Moreover, only the spear tip is made of iron and the spear shaft is made of wood. They can use shields to defend themselves and use a knife to cut off the spear shaft when the spear comes out, which can also damage the enemy's weapons.
Cao Ren didn't believe that he could possess a large number of weapons and equipment with just the strength of Huangmenting Township?
In fact Cao Ren is right.
In the final analysis, even if Shen Chen tries to find ways to strengthen Huangmenting, their size is destined to not have too many weapons and equipment.
More than 10,000 arrows were obtained by racking their brains and trying every means. Some were made by themselves, some were confiscated from the Yellow Turban Army, and some were secretly bought through big merchants like Zhou Lin and others. of.
You must know that being discovered was a capital crime. Both Liu Zhang and Liu Biao strictly prohibited the flow of such strategic materials, such as wooden shafts and feathers used for arrows, which were listed as contraband.
Therefore, there are very few arrows and armors in Huangmen Pavilion. It is not that there is no iron for making arrowheads, but that there is a lack of wooden shafts and feathers specially used for making arrows.
However, there are sufficient reserves of normal knives and spears. Because the Han Dynasty did not prohibit civilians from owning weapons, it was very common for common people to carry swords. In peacetime, you only need to spend 600 five bahts to buy one. Wrought iron sword.
After Cao Ren issued the order, the officer quickly followed his instructions and sent a new group of troops down to the cave. These soldiers followed Cao Ren's instructions and blocked the iron gate with stones and blocked the hole with shields.
The Huangmenting soldiers repeated their old tricks and continued to stab with their spears. As a result, their thrusts were either blocked by shields, or the wooden poles were cut off by Cao's soldiers, and they were even stabbed back, injuring several brothers.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Deng Zhao, who was in charge of the command, immediately issued an order: "Withdraw, go to the second pass."
So Huangmenting soldiers retreated one after another.
Cao Jun's soldiers finally passed this level. After everyone filed in, they found that there was still an iron door in front of them, but there was no one behind to push it. Now they pushed and pulled it away.
What appeared in front of them were two passages on the left and right, which led to the back of the left and right walls of the corridor they came from.
At that time, Huangmenting soldiers were stabbing them with spears behind these two passages.
The soldiers of Cao's army who came in sent troops to the left and right. After occupying the passage, they hesitated because they didn't know what dangers were ahead and sent someone to report the matter to Cao Ren.
Knowing that the entrance had been occupied, Cao Ren issued an order again, asking the soldiers to rush in from the four entrances at the same time and block all entrances. Then he sent a large group of troops to follow behind the dead soldiers and slowly explore forward.
The strength of the dead soldiers in front was replenished, and with the men and horses behind them, their confidence was greatly increased, and they once again moved forward through the left and right channels.
Then.
Then the tunnel collapsed.
It turns out that the tunnels leading in from the left and right passages were dug out, and wooden planks were laid before, and soil was spread on the wooden planks.
When Deng Zhao's Huangmenting soldiers walked across the plank, they initially planned to wait for the pursuers behind them to come over, then immediately remove the plank and let them fall into the trap in the pit.
Unexpectedly, the enemy did not pursue him, so Deng Zhao followed Shen Chen's plan. If the enemy did not pursue him, he would use a saw to cut off most of the board, leaving only the smaller half.
The dead soldiers of Cao's army did not pursue immediately, and the passage was very long, so they did not hear the sound of sawing wooden boards. When the reinforcements arrived from behind, they had already stepped on the wooden boards and rushed forward one by one. When the wooden boards could not bear the weight, they suddenly broke. , everyone fell into the pit.
The pit was full of sharp wooden stakes and barbs. In an instant, more than ten Cao soldiers died in the passages on both sides. Moreover, except for one of the passages specially used for Huangmenting Township elders to walk, the other two The same goes for channels.
After a while of panic, Cao Ren got the news that the second level was a trap. He asked the soldiers to carry the ladders originally intended to attack Huyang City, built ladders, and finally passed through the pit and cave.
However, the tunnel is winding and winding, and there are several checkpoints. Behind it are crossbow mechanisms, boulders rolling, and even poisonous smoke coming out.
Except for rice dumplings, almost all ancient tomb-robbery prevention techniques were used. It gave the few low-level officers who had participated in Cao Cao's activities of sending Qiu Zhonglang and touching gold captains a feeling of déjà vu.
After paying nearly 700 to 800 lives and leaving corpses scattered all over the tunnel, Cao Jun's soldiers finally despaired because the name of the last mechanism was called Broken Dragon Gate.
Usually, these huge rocks weighing more than 1,000 kilograms are locked with winches and iron chains. Once they are attacked, they are lowered to stop the enemy.
The only place without the Broken Dragon Gate is the entrance to the west.
This entrance has the fewest mechanisms, because it is the entrance where people of all ages usually go in and out of Huangmen Pavilion, so there is no pit, crossbow mechanism, or dragon-breaking stone.
No matter how stupid Cao Ren was, he understood that three of the four entrances were fake, and only the west entrance was real.
Moreover, Shen Chen's location is in Qionglong on Gaoling Mountain to the west.
Therefore, Cao Ren became ruthless and issued a death order, asking the soldiers to rush in from the west entrance.
However, although there is no dragon-breaking gate at this entrance, there is poisonous smoke.
This poisonous smoke was prepared by Shen Chen using poison and gunpowder, because he was not a chemical major. Although he had read online knowledge before, he knew that the formula of gunpowder was mononitrate, disulfide, and charcoal.
But he didn't know the specific formula proportions, and the resulting gunpowder had many impurities, and would produce a lot of smoke when burned, even more than fireworks.
So he simply mixed a certain amount of arsenic inside, and pasted it with mud on the outside. After lighting it and throwing it out, the mud would crack and produce a large amount of poisonous smoke. The smoke would fill the air and cause huge harm in a small space.
Of course Shen Chen didn't know that the thing he invented was called a poison smoke ball in the Song Dynasty, but theirs was more comprehensive, contained more poison, and produced greater power.
Fortunately, he was using it in the tunnel. Throwing it out here immediately sealed the tunnel, and the violent smoke extended outward along the passage.
Cao's soldiers choked to death and poisoned themselves to death, quickly causing hundreds more casualties.
"General, the poisonous smoke down there is too strong and the casualties are too high."
The officer who retreated turned pale. He also smelled a bit of smoke. Now he felt dizzy and shaky. He had to hold on hard to avoid fainting.
"hateful."
Cao Ren was furious. He had not killed an enemy so far, but he had lost more than a thousand troops. Adding the troops that Cao Yong had lost before, the 5,000 men he had brought this time had been lost by nearly three thirds. one.
"General, withdraw."
Chunyu advised: "Since the enemy dares to place poisonous smoke, it means that they have another exit outside the valley. If they can find the exit, they may be trapped to death."
"Shen Chen, this beast is really abominable!"
Cao Ren also knew that a strong attack was no longer realistic, so he could only say with hatred: "Let's go!"
After giving the order, the soldiers were relieved and fled towards the exit.
At this moment, Shen Chen's face on the Qiong cage has become serious. He only regrets that he has no fish paste.
If so, pouring a large amount of grease from the Qiong cage onto the mountain path and lighting a fire would definitely trap Cao Ren's army and be unable to get out.
Once Gan Ning's army arrives, it's time to catch a turtle in a jar.
It is a pity that fish paste and oil were not only a very important strategic material like arrows and armor in ancient times, but also a necessity in people's lives.
The source of fish paste oil is very rare and can only be obtained by refining oil from livestock breeding or hunting prey.
It is inherently scarce and the price is extremely expensive in the market. Even if Huangmenting is slightly wealthy, it can only barely guarantee people's daily needs and cannot hoard it at all.
So he could only watch Cao Ren retreat.
But it was impossible to escape unscathed. Shen Chen shouted: "Let me shoot them with arrows!"
"Kill!"
Hundreds of archers on the surrounding cages once again bent their bows and set arrows.
This time I plan to shoot it all at once, almost without reservation.
"Boohoo!"
The arrows began to rain down like free money, and soon the arrows were consumed at an alarming rate.
After some soldiers had no arrows to use, they immediately picked up the arrows, drilled into the cave through the passage under the cage, and then followed the maze-like tunnel toward the exit.
There is actually more than one exit to the tunnel, but at this moment, at the exit near Shahe River in the north, the floor was opened, and countless Huangmenting soldiers filed out.
At the beginning of this year, Huangmenting's soldiers only had 1,200 soldiers. Later Gan Ning added 300 soldiers to serve as the main force.
These three hundred people were Jinfan thieves and were very brave.
There were a total of 1,500 people, and about 300 people were serving as archers on the cages in all directions. There were more than 1,000 people hiding in the tunnels below, fighting with Cao's army in various tunnels.
After using the tunnels to kill a large number of Cao's troops, they had to face the fact that Cao's army was planning to retreat.
Without fish paste and oil to seal the road, human lives would have to be used to fill it.
So Deng Zhao and Shen Zhen each led more than a thousand soldiers, got out from the north and south exits, and rushed towards Cao Jun.
There were hundreds of troops left behind by Cao Ren outside the valley. When they saw the enemy rushing towards them, they immediately formed formations and prepared to fight without hesitation.
Deng Zhao charged forward, with the tragic scene of the Huangmenting Township gathering vividly in his mind. His hatred filled him with fighting spirit. He broke into the crowd like a jackal, fought hard, and hacked to death one of Cao's soldiers.
Just after he killed his opponent, he slashed at him with swords from both sides.
Seeing that Deng Zhao was about to die on the spot, several tribesmen around him immediately rushed over to help him block and protect him in the fight.
In the final analysis, only powerful generals like Lu Bu, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun can charge into battle alone. Ordinary lower-level soldiers and officers need to cooperate more.
This kind of cooperation is especially important when there are fewer people fighting against more people.
Fortunately, this time they had more people than others, and they cooperated closely. Each time, they attacked one or two Cao soldiers in small groups, killing the 500 Cao soldiers who stayed outside the valley and retreated steadily.
However, Cao Jun in the valley was still breaking out of the encirclement. Stones, arrows, and logs from above were constantly smashing into the mountain road. Cao Jun was trapped in the Qiong Cage, and it was impossible to jump from the top of the mountain. He could only choose to brave the narrow mountain road. Arrows rained outward.
Shen Chen stood on the Qiong Cage, staring at Cao Ren's position. Since the Qiong Cage was fully fired, Cao Ren did not dare to risk his life and could only continue to let the soldiers consume their reserves, so at this moment he was still there later.
The valley is either big or small. The Qionglong is located above the surrounding mountains. Even with the blessing of a high tower, it cannot shoot that far, so it is still very safe near the center of the valley.
The sound of fighting came from outside, and Shen Chen shouted: "One-eared thief, your death is coming!"
"Chen Chen, one day I will kill you!"
Cao Ren roared angrily.
"There is no other time, you must die today!"
Shen Chen disturbed his mentality.
Cao Ren gritted his teeth, veins twitching on his face. He admitted that he had underestimated Shen Chen, but he didn't expect that he would actually build such a terrible trap.
But he thinks that even Shen Chen, with his few troops, wants to stop him? It's a fool's errand. When he escapes, he must ask his eldest brother to send tens of thousands of elites over to level the entire valley.
"General, look at the smoke!"
Zhai Yuan, who was beside him, suddenly pointed at Qiong Cong in the distance and said.
Cao Ren hurriedly looked up, and he didn't know when he saw the smoke rising from the Qiong cage.
"Oops, it's a trap."
He immediately woke up and found out that Gan Ning was not not coming to rescue Huangmenting, but was waiting for a signal from them.
At that moment, he immediately shouted with red eyes: "Kill, kill out, quickly!"
"The general has orders, rush out!"
The soldiers immediately gave orders for Chunyu, who was leading the way to break out of the encirclement as soon as possible.
However, although the mountain path is not too narrow, with a width of more than ten meters from left to right, it is already densely covered with corpses, rolling stones, oak trees, and even lime falling from the sky.
There were too many obstacles, and the mountain road, which was less than a hundred meters short, became a Shura field, with countless things falling from the cage above.
All the young and strong men in Huangmen Pavilion went out to fight, but the old and weak women and children were still there. These old men and women, women and children went into battle. Even Shen Chen’s mother, Deng, remembered the hatred of her neighbor Shen Min’s family and threw them down. The stone came out.
Soon the rolling stone wood bows and arrows were used up, and the ceramic pots, bowls, plates, furniture and wooden utensils, as long as they could be thrown, were all thrown down. At this time, the power of the clan fully exploded, just for revenge.
"General, they have gone crazy and are throwing everything down. There are ceramic shards everywhere on the ground, as well as caltrops and nails."
Director Chunyu was hit with a bloody head and came back crying to Cao Ren, covering his wounds.
Nails have been around since the Western Han Dynasty, but generally only the coffins of nobles were made with iron nails, while ordinary families used mortise and tenon structures.
Mainly because the output of iron tools was too low and the cost of iron nails was high, large-scale mass production was not possible. It was not until the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties that iron smelting technology was greatly improved and it was widely used.
However, Huangmenting's iron smelting technology was an epoch-making technology, and the amount of iron produced was very large, so iron nails were manufactured in large quantities just for this time.
A large number of nails were thrown into the mountain road, along with porcelain fragments and iron caltrops, causing great damage to Cao's soldiers.
Although soldiers in the Han Dynasty wore a variety of shoes, including round-toe cloth shoes, wing-tip shoes, duck tongue shoes, straw sandals, etc.
But in the final analysis, they are all single-soled flat shoes, and many of them even have no sole, just ordinary straw sandals. Stepping on nails can directly pierce the instep.
In this case, the soldiers could not rush out at all.
"Hold the shield above your head and step on the corpse." Cao Ren's face turned dark, and he had a bad feeling.
Soon the soldiers followed Cao Ren's orders and finally rushed out after suffering thousands of casualties.
Cao Ren was the last to leave. At this time, Huangmenting's reserves had been exhausted, and he could only watch him go down the mountain. When he turned back, he sneered and shouted: "Chen Chen, I will not let you go."
However, Shen Chen was not too sad. Instead, he shouted through a loudspeaker: "One-eared thief, look outside. Do you think you can escape today?"
Cao Ren went down the mountain, and there was still fighting outside the valley. At this moment, more than 3,000 people came in, and only 2,000 people left. Outside, there were 1,500 people and 500 people fighting. It was nearing the end, and the remaining army was not there. to two hundred people.
Seeing this scene, Cao Ren remained calm and composed. He was confident that in a head-on fight, he had more than 2,000 troops and could easily defeat his opponent.
But the next second, his face froze.
Dust and smoke billowed in the distance, and Gan Ning's army finally arrived at this time.
I originally wanted to write it all in one go, but I found that this location is very suitable for breaking chapters.