At the mouth of the lower reaches of the Yongjia River, there is an island in the middle of the river that is four to five miles away. It divides the Yongjia River waterway into two branches, the north and the south, into the sea. The narrowest point of the south branch is about 600 steps, and the narrowest point of the north branch is not even 300 steps.
Therefore, it was an important gateway to guard the Yongjia River.
In the early years, the three villages of Tianshui, Wucuo and Zhangdu were built on both sides of Yongjia Prefecture and on Jiangxin Island to prevent pirates from entering the Yongjia River and raiding the inland. In the early years, the three villages recruited local warriors, built warships, and transported huge rocks.
Drill a hole and thread it with iron chains to seal the river.
Normally, the iron chain is sunk into the river to allow ships to pass through the river mouth; when encountering bandits, the iron chain is pulled up from the bottom of the river to prevent pirates from entering the Yongjia River.
The iron chain locking the river, combined with the village soldiers who defended the village, could prevent small groups of pirates from invading, but when faced with the attack of the powerful Huaidong Water Camp, they appeared weak. When the Huaidong Water Camp attacked southern Zhejiang the year before last, the warships went against the current to meet them.
He used a giant ax to cut off the iron chain locking the river, entered the river channel, and attacked Yongjia City directly.
After that, the She family strengthened its defense in southern Zhejiang. She Feihu became the governor of southern Zhejiang, recaptured Yongjia City from the former southern Zhejiang resistance army, and then completely blocked the downstream river mouth.
In addition to sealing the river with iron chains, She Feihu also scuttled many fishing boats at the Yongjia River estuary, drove a large number of hidden piles into the river bottom, and vigorously strengthened the defenses of Tianshui and Wucuo villages on both sides of the river.
Both of these two fortresses are small cities with a circumference of less than two miles, but the walls are thick with bricks and stone and are extremely strong. There is an arrow tower at each corner. They are built high and dangerously. From a distance, they are densely packed with crenels for archery.
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Huaidong must capture one of the two villages, Tianshui and Wucuo, in order to calmly clear the obstacles blocking the river, and then Huaidong's warships can sail into the Yongjia River again and play their due role.
After the Battle of Wushanjian on the 9th, the main force of the New Zhejiang Southern Army directly crossed Wushanjian and reached the north bank of the Yongjia River upstream of Tianshui Village.
In order to prevent thousands of Zhejiang and Fujian troops from Tianshui, Wuhe and Zhangdu villages from escaping by water to Yongjia and Ouhai, Zhang Jiheng led his troops to land on the south bank in advance to block the land passage between Wuhe and Ouhai.
Zhou Tong also ordered thousands of trees with branches and leaves to be thrown into the Yongjia River from the north bank, and even collected hundreds of small black-capped boats from other places to sink them into the waterway of the Yongjia River.
At the same time, groups of civilians who had been recruited worked day and night to dig trenches and build walls outside Tianshui Village, build barracks, and use complex fortifications to completely block Tianshui Village and cut off the defenders before they came out of the village to fight back.
Or the possibility of breaking through by land.
By the 12th, the New Zhenan Camp was ready to take Tianshui Village by force.
Nearly ten thousand soldiers and horses were deployed, and the banners were unfolded like neon clouds; horns were blown in the camp, and the war horses screamed non-stop. The New Zhejiang Southern Army also built a sentry tower outside the north gate of Tianshui Village, which was more than ten feet high, so that Tianshui could be monitored at any time.
The situation in the village.
Instead of surrounding three groups, Tianshui Village was completely surrounded.
The distance from Tianshui Village to Wushanjian to Yongjia is very short. After the New Zhejiang Southern Army took control of Wushanjian, the road for Tianshui Village to escape to Yongjia by land was cut off. At this point, the defenders of Tianshui Village stood at the top of the wall.
You can see clearly, so there is no need to set up a suspicious formation to lure the defenders out of the stronghold to encircle and annihilate them.
After the siege of Tianshui Village was completed, Lin Fu rushed to the front line.
In the camp opposite the north gate of Tianshui Village, Lin Fu climbed up the wooden fence wall, stood next to the crenel, and looked at Tianshui Village in the distance. Zhou Tong, Tang Fuguan, Chen Dingbang, Zuo Guangying and other generals were beside him.
On top of the enemy's stronghold, there were all well-dressed and handsome armored soldiers standing there. They must be elite soldiers from the Eighth Fujian Province who were loyal to the She family. They were rarely seen recruiting brave men at the head of the enemy's stronghold.
Tang Fuguan spat and rubbed his hands, saying: "Although the Fujian thieves took the families and children of the local soldiers and generals to Yongjia as hostages, they still dare not use the local soldiers to defend the stronghold. The battle at Wushanjian severely damaged their morale..."
This is a good thing.
Lin Fu turned around and said: "The soldiers from the eight Fujian warriors, especially the clan members, came from Fujian and attacked Zhejiang, and received a lot of favors. If we surround the city here, they will never surrender lightly, and Tianshui Village is small and strong."
, it is easy to defend, so they want to stick to the city and make us suffer. This battle must be fought hard, and the time cannot be prolonged, and more scheming must be used..."
When it comes to attacking the city and seizing the stronghold, there are only a few methods. A dozen counterweighted stone-throwing crossbows gathered together and targeted the northeastern corner of Tianshui Village. The first thing fired at Tianshui Village was not a stone bullet.
, but a clay pellet with a large number of leaflets wrapped in the middle.
Clay pellets are lighter than stone bullets and can be thrown farther, hitting Tianshui Village directly. Regardless of whether they hit the ground or not, the clay pellets will instantly smash into pieces, revealing surrender letters and leaflets wrapped in oil paper.
There are a dazzling array of leaflets, some promoting Huaidong's new policies in southern Zhejiang, some offering silver rewards to lure the defenders to surrender, some accusing the She family of their misdeeds in occupying Zhejiang County for the past three years, and some promoting Huaidong's army to be invincible and invincible.
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The children of the generals of the rural soldiers were taken to Yongjia as hostages. Most of the children of ordinary rural soldiers evacuated to the stockade before the war. The Huaidong Army taught them in leaflets how to avoid the spies of the Zhejiang and Fujian troops, and how to avoid them.
Passive resistance teaches them how to protect themselves and their families in a fierce attack.
The Huaidong Army also mobilized people who were close to the defenders to write hundreds of targeted letters and shoot them into the village.
The children from poor families in southern Zhejiang are also literate and well-read. As long as a large number of leaflets can be scattered into the village, they will not worry about muddying the waters.
In addition to the propaganda leaflets, Zhou Tong also organized generals with pure southern Zhejiang accents and loud voices to go under the wall of the village with big shields to shout every day. The content of the propaganda was similar to the propaganda leaflets, but it had a miraculous effect on breaking down the will of the defenders to resist.
After this hard work, the stone-throwing crossbow was pushed closer, and the stone bullets, which weighed more than thirty or forty kilograms, hit the northeast corner wall of Tianshui Village like falling stars.
There are also stone-throwing crossbows in Tianshui Village, but the Huaidong Army's stone-throwing crossbows do not hit the face, only the corners. The Zhejiang-Fujian Army's stone-throwing crossbows hit the inside of the village wall. Because the angle inside the wall is narrow, no matter how many people there are,
Even the stone-throwing crossbow cannot be put in.
And because the catapult crossbows of the Zhejiang and Fujian Army were pulled and fired by people, a heavy catapult crossbow required dozens or even hundreds of civilians to work together to launch the stone projectiles. Hundreds of people huddled together under the Walled City, creating chaos.
, further limiting the defenders’ counterattack efforts.
Often when the Huaidong Army fired seven or eight bombs, only one bomb came out of the village to counterattack.
The range of the trebuchet crossbow is related to the crossbow tip. In terms of the crossbow tip material, there is no distinction between the Huaidong crossbow and the Zhejiang-Fujian crossbow. However, the Huaidong crossbow uses falling heavy objects as its firing force, while the Zhejiang-Fujian crossbow uses people or
Livestock drag launch.
When there are many people, it is difficult to mobilize all the strength, and they need to go through repeated training. But in the battle of flying stones and bullets, no matter how skilled the crossbow operators are in training, it is difficult to overcome the panic. If three or five people are killed by falling rocks, their hands will not be able to fight.
He was weak, his legs were paralyzed, and he was unable to work together to operate the catapult, making him even more at a disadvantage.
In addition to the heavy weighted trebuchet crossbows, the New Zhejiang Southern Army also has more than a dozen light and easy-to-move Scorpion crossbows that can be carried near the village wall at any time to fire small stone projectiles. Although they are small stone projectiles, they still weigh twenty kilograms.
People were hit and their bones were broken and they died.
The stone bullets fired by the heavy-duty catapult crossbow were even mixed with huge stone bullets weighing 100 kilograms. The arrow tower and the war tent collapsed completely after one hit. It was bound to collapse the northeast corner wall of Tianshui Village and create a gap.
Let the soldiers of the New Zhejiang Southern Army rush in directly and engage the defenders with bloody swords.
The northeastern corner of the walled city was focused on stone-throwing crossbow attacks; the New Zhejiang Southern Army was not to be outdone in the northwest, driving groups of civilians to risk arrows, stones and wood, carry earth to the wall and dump it in front of the wall, and build a siege road.
The walls of Tianshui Village are thick and high, and the defenders are also elite. However, the walled city is small and easy to defend but difficult to attack.
The New Zhejiang Southern Army used ladders directly attached to the wall to force their way in. They were attacked by arrows, rocks and wood from the wall. Not only did they suffer heavy casualties, they were not sure of victory.
Both the enemy and ourselves are elite soldiers, and their will to fight is not weak. The simpler the method adopted, the harder it will be for the enemy to resolve it.
Building a siege road actually means building a ramp that extends directly to the top of the Tianshui Walled Wall. Although it is time-consuming and labor-intensive, a cloud ladder is much easier to use. First, after building the city, there is no need to worry about being broken by the defenders like a cloud ladder.
The second is to attack the city by taking a ramp, which is more convenient and faster than climbing a ladder, and the soldiers can protect themselves more effectively. The third is that the ladder is attached to the wall, and there is one person per ladder, so it is difficult to cooperate with each other. The siege road is wider and can be counted.
More than a dozen people can advance and retreat together, and they can also gather nearby stone-throwing crossbowmen and nest chariot crossbowmen to suppress the city head and cooperate in the battle.
Tianshui Village is small, so the New Zhejiang Southern Army only built one road in the northwest corner. Instead, it was possible to build several or even a dozen roads in other Dazhai Xiongcheng for the convenience of attacking the city.
It took a long time to build the road, and Tianshui Village was not completely without counterattack strategies. In addition to gathering catapult crossbows in the northeast to fire stone projectiles day and night, to the north of Tianshui Village, the New Zhejiang Southern Army also sent armored soldiers in turns.
A swarm of giant charging vehicles approached, hitting the village gate and the weak points of the wall; there were dozens of nest vehicles even higher than the top of the wall, carrying crossbowmen, approaching the wall, and shooting at the defenders...
No matter how resolute and strong the Bamin soldiers who were loyal to the She family were in the Tianshui Village defenders, there were only a few thousand of them.
The New Zhejiang Southern Army, with the intention of expending their strength, took turns attacking the stronghold for several days without stopping for a moment.
In the early days, the guards of Tianshui Village were on alert for the local soldiers, who were on guard and did not come to defend the village. However, the offensive and defensive battles continued for several days, and the Bamin soldiers accumulated heavy casualties. The generals were exhausted, and finally had to drive the local soldiers up the wall again.
Defend the stronghold.
After a large gap collapsed in the northeastern corner of the village wall, the rural soldiers had no intention of participating in the counterattack and were the first to be defeated.
Facing the defeated rural soldiers and the continuous influx of new southern Zhejiang army soldiers, no matter how elite the Bamin soldiers loyal to the She family were, it was difficult to save the defeat. Tang Fuguan led his troops to completely capture Tianshui Village on the 17th, and annihilated them in this battle.
There were 500 enemies, and more than 1,400 of them were captured, and more than 1,600 people of Tianshui Village were captured...
The New Zhejiang Southern Army lost more than 800 troops in this battle, and the total number of casualties even exceeded that of the defenders. However, the New Zhejiang Southern Army was able to continuously receive reinforcements in terms of strength, and its will to fight became increasingly strong.
That night, Zuo Guangying was ordered to lead his troops to take a boat to the south bank, join Zhang Jiheng's troops who had landed on the south bank earlier, advance behind the wall of Wukuo Village, and on the 18th, form a siege from the land to Wukuo Village on the south bank.