Chapter 1,193 Old wisdom defeats the city, water and fire are ruthless
Early November.
With the hard work of 300,000 troops taking turns.
In less than three days, a trench was dug about 300 steps away from Lanzhou City.
The entire trench is about twenty years long, about one foot wide, and about one person deep. It diverts water from the Yellow River.
From the city wall, it looks like the Qing people helped the enemy dig a new moat.
The actions of Daqing's army amused the leaders of the Zhungeer tribe.
Great Khan Choros summoned his tribal leaders, pointed and said with a smile:
"These people from Daqing are really as stupid as pigs. They actually dug a new moat for us. Could it be that they want to trap us here?"
After everyone heard this, they burst out laughing.
Bolognidu, whose status was second only to Cholos, was the leader of the Hui tribe. He burst into laughter at this moment, almost to the point of being out of breath:
"We have nearly a million stones of food and grass in the city. Even if we eat it for a year, we won't be able to finish it all. I'm afraid Daqing is stupid!"
Bolognidu's younger brother Huo Jizhan was cunning and scheming. Seeing that no one took the Daqing army outside the city seriously, he quickly reminded him:
"Great Khan, the Han people have always been cunning, so be careful of deceit!"
As a result, Troroshun didn't care and still smiled and said:
"Brother Huo Jizhan, now, we are staying in a fortified city, but the Han people are living in tents in the freezing cold. No matter how cunning the Han people are, as long as we don't go out, what can they do to us?"
"This is what the Han people say, 'The way to be a general is to first treat the mind. If Mount Tai collapses in front but the color remains unchanged, the elk rises to the left but does not blink, then you can control your interests and wait for the enemy."
Although Huo Jizhan felt that Choros was right, he still felt that it was too weird for the Daqing people to not attack or fight after they arrived.
When everyone finished their inspection, Huo Jizhan immediately ordered people to pack their bags. If there was any disharmony, they would retreat immediately!
There are many tribal leaders as smart and wise as Huo Jizhan.
However, most people are still just like in the past, eating, drinking and having fun all day long.
On the fourth day.
When Choros and his men continued to inspect the city wall, they discovered that the trench dug by the Daqing people was actually protected by an earth wall.
The tribal leaders still couldn't guess why Daqing wanted to do this, but they didn't pay attention to it.
In fact, if these leaders looked carefully, they would find that these earthen walls were about a hundred steps closer to the city wall than the trenches dug before.
The fifth day.
After two days of hard work, the Qing army finally built the earth wall to a height of more than ten feet.
This height is much lower than Lanzhou City.
Therefore, the tribal leaders still did not take it seriously.
Day 6.
The Qing army built many bastions and towers inside the earthen walls.
Although the tribal leaders did not yet understand Qingren's plan, they had clearly felt that these bastion towers were only one hundred and fifty steps away from Lanzhou City.
Although at this distance, except for sharpshooters, ordinary people cannot kill the enemy with bows and arrows.
However, Daqing has artillery.
The leaders felt the pressure and quickly sent people out of the city to stop the Qing army's construction. However, Su Mingzhe, who had been prepared for it, drove them back with bows, arrows and artillery fire.
On the eighth day of the siege.
All the bastion towers have been built.
After everyone had dinner, it was freezing cold.
Su Mingzhe suddenly smiled and invited the generals to follow him up the earth wall to see how he could attack the city.
The generals didn't know why, but they all followed Su Mingzhe up the earth wall.
The earth wall is about one foot two feet high, which is four meters high.
All are constructed with one layer of soil and one layer of water.
If it's summer, a few holes can be made in this kind of earthen wall by pounding it with rafters.
But it is winter now, and the water and soil mix to form frozen soil. This earth wall is not as hard as the bricks and stones.
When everyone climbed onto the earthen wall, they discovered that Su Mingzhe had not placed artillery here, but had placed many water dragons.
These water dragons were originally used to prevent water leakage in the military camp (fire prevention).
Some clever generals saw these water dragons and had a flash of inspiration. They immediately guessed Su Mingzhe's plan and clapped their hands and cheered:
"General Qiaoqi is worthy of being the number one scholar. He actually has such a fantastic idea to conquer Lanzhou City today!"
Although other people are not very smart, when they see someone understand, they will be sensible enough not to ask, lest others find out that they are stupid.
When Su Mingzhe saw this, he didn't talk nonsense to everyone, and directly ordered people to push the water dragon into the bastion and spray water on the Lanzhou City wall.
At this moment, the outdoor temperature is already more than ten degrees below zero.
The water from the water dragon can indeed spray more than 150 steps under high pressure. However, even if it is boiling water, it will condense into ice mist after flying 150 steps in the air, and it will not rise at all.
To the effect of freezing into ice.
However, Su Mingzhe is such a thief!
He ordered people to dig many holes along the water dragon's jet route and pour kerosene into them.
With the help of these kerosene, the water sprayed by the water dragon splashed onto the Lanzhou city wall, and then began to condense into ice.
After a night.
The ninth day of the siege.
When Cholos led the tribal leaders to patrol the city again, they found that a thick layer of ice had been poured on the wall of his city.
Thousands of tribal warriors who guarded the city yesterday were frozen into blocks of ice.
Huo Jizhan tried to order people to open the city gate, but found that there was also about a foot of solid ice outside the city.
The tribal leaders finally realized that they were afraid, and they urgently begged Choros:
"Great Khan, I'm afraid this Lanzhou City can't be defended anymore. Let's retreat quickly!"
Choros walked around the smooth city wall and found that the Qing army was still spraying water dragons. He finally began to know fear.
It's just that he just inspected for a week and found that the entire Lanzhou City was covered in ice. At this moment, he was confused:
"Now that the four city gates are sealed by ice, how can we retreat?"
"Great Khan, the Han people can seal the city with ice, and we can also use ice to open the way!"
Huo Jizhan was a ruthless, cunning and scheming man, so he immediately thought of a plan.
Choros was also a hero. After hearing what Huo Jizhan said, he immediately said with joy:
"Huo Jizhan, you are a smart man. If we can rush out, you will be the prime minister of the Khanate!"
Huo Jizhan was not polite and thanked him immediately. Then he led his people to imitate the Qing army and sprayed water dragons outside the city to pave the way.
The news quickly spread to Qingjun.
After hearing this, the Prince of Nan'an County quickly summoned Su Mingzhe to ask for countermeasures:
"My nephew, now the enemy troops in the city are using water to pave the road. What should we do?"
"Shibo, since ancient times, the siege of a city has always been to 'besiege three buildings and one'! Now that the enemy wants to escape, we should let them escape!"
Su Mingzhe had already achieved his first success, so he no longer expected to destroy the enemy in one battle, so he immediately offered another plan:
"Now, why don't we order someone to open a hole and let the other party escape..."
After hearing Su Mingzhe's plan, all the generals present broke out in cold sweat:
"This champion is really cruel. He just used the poisonous trick of 'flooding the whole city', and now he is going to use 'burning the whole camp' again. I am afraid that the Zhungeer tribe will not die this time, and not many people will survive!"
The Prince of Nan'an County could not control that much. After hearing Su Mingzhe's plan, he immediately ordered his deputy commander Wei Hui to lead one hundred thousand soldiers and horses to implement the "Fire Company Camp" strategy.
The other soldiers and horses continued to stay on the earth wall, trying to surround and kill the effective forces of the Jungar Khanate as much as possible.
The tenth day of the siege.
The armies of the Jungar Khanate broke out in all directions.
Although the Daqing army tried their best to intercept, the height of the earth wall had long been leveled by the water dragons of the Jungar tribe.
At this moment, 200,000 troops poured out, and the Qing army was unable to stop them.
Fortunately, Nan'an County Prince and Su Mingzhe had already issued strict orders to surround three towers. They only needed to shoot the enemy's living strength, and there was no need to fight to the death to intercept them.
As a result, the army of the Jungar Khanate saw that there was no way to escape, and they lost the courage to fight to the death.
After one day.
The Qing people cleaned up the battlefield and collected more than 50,000 enemy corpses, more than 20,000 prisoners, and more than 700,000 loads of grain and grass that the enemy had no time to burn. They also rescued more than 30,000 captured Han people.
Three days later.
Wei Hui, who was in charge of the "Fire Company" project, returned with good news.
At the predicted ambush site, he burned to death more than 50,000 enemy troops and captured more than 20,000 people.
The Jungar Khanate came out with an army of 200,000. After this battle, nearly 110,000 were wiped out and more than 40,000 were captured. In addition to the more than 30,000 who were wiped out by Su Mingzhe before, there were definitely less than 20,000 who escaped.
.
Daqing's 300,000-strong army suffered almost zero casualties.
The Prince of Nan'an County quickly sent someone to bring the good news back to Chang'an City, and also asked for instructions whether to continue the pursuit.
At this time, it was already mid-November, and the roads to the west of Lanzhou were already blocked by heavy snow, making it impossible to pursue them.
If the emperor insists on ordering a pursuit, the Prince of Nan'an County can only send a small force of a few thousand people to pursue it, and it is impossible to let the 300,000 troops out of the border together.
When the good news came back to Chang'an, Emperor Longqing was overjoyed at first, and then saw the request from Prince Nan'an.
After learning that the snow outside the pass was thick enough for one person, Emperor Longqing did not put Nan'an County Prince in trouble and directly asked him to return to the court. At the same time, he ordered Wei Hui to lead an army of 50,000 to guard the border pass.