Ao Canghai organized his troops at the front base and pushed the front line of the confrontation to the city wall where the Zhejiang and Fujian troops crossed the river to make final preparations for a direct attack on the city fortress. There was no trickery.
By the 17th, long trench walls were built on the front of the east and west fortresses where the Zhejiang and Fujian troops joined the river, and the Shanxi River, which was more than 300 paces wide, was blocked with iron cables and wooden stakes.
More than ten bed crossbows and stone-throwing crossbows were set up to prevent the warships of the Zhejiang and Fujian naval forces from rushing up to break the iron cables of the Kaifeng River. A pontoon bridge was set up slightly upstream to connect the two banks and completely cut off the river blockage between the Zhejiang and Fujian naval forces.
The fortress defenders entered the channel upstream of the valley.
As the fighting became more intense and the drums beat louder, the Zhejiang and Fujian armies also nervously strengthened the fortifications at the two forts along the Jiahe River. Behind the fortification walls, they built more solid towers with hard oak wood close to the city wall.
The string tower is made of hardwood. Both the roof and the side wings are made of double-layer logs directly nailed together. It is several times stronger than ordinary brick and wood watch towers. Under the impact of heavy catapult crossbows, the traditional brick
If a stone bullet weighing more than forty or fifty kilograms is hit on the front of a wooden watchtower, it is very likely to collapse in one fell swoop. However, the new string tower can be hit four or five times in a row without collapsing.
The construction method of stringing buildings was first used in the Battle of Jinhai. After the fall of Jinhai, many of the city defense techniques used by the Huaidong Army in Jinhai spread.
War is always the direct driving force to promote the technological progress of both the enemy and ourselves.
The Zhejiang-Fujian Army and the Huaidong Army have been entangled for many years. Many of the tactics adopted were directly learned from Huaidong. In the battles of Yongjia, Jin'an, Dongyang and other battles, Huaidong intensively used the tactics of stone-throwing crossbows and fire oil cans.
It also forced the Zhejiang and Fujian armies to come up with more countermeasures. But no matter what, the intensive use of stone-throwing crossbows in this era was still an effective method.
In order to prevent the city wall from being knocked down by the heavy catapult crossbows of the Huaidong Army during the brutal siege battle, She Feixiong built a large number of wooden palisade walls in the city so that they could be used to stop the wall at any time after it collapsed.
The mouth was sealed to prevent the Huaidong Army from flooding in through the mouth on a large scale.
Including on the inside of the city wall, She Feixiong drove the civilians to dig out the inner trench and build the inner trench wall. He also learned Lin Fu's tactics in Shouyang Xinli and left secret doors on the inside of the city wall so that he could launch a surprise counterattack...
She Fei Xiong is famous for his ability to attack cities and plunder territory, but this does not mean that he has weaknesses in his tactics of defending cities.
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Going south from the front line of the two armies' confrontation, in a mountain col, the Huaidong Army was organizing hundreds of craftsmen to chop large bamboo cages. The bamboo cages were filled with gravel. Each cage weighed more than a thousand kilograms and were transported to the col by horse-drawn carriages.
Reserve on the river beach at the mouth.
Boulders are hard to cut, but gravel is easy to get.
If firewood is laid on the stone, if it is thoroughly burned and exposed to rain, the mountain stone will crack. If you apply a heavy hammer, you can get a large basket of gravel. Previously, the Huaidong Army dug Guanxi Ridge Road and accumulated countless gravel.
As long as it is transported across the ridge, it can be used to build dams.
When the spring water rises, heavy objects are needed to build the dam. The gravel sinks into the river and is easily washed away by the water flow, making it difficult to form a stable foundation. It needs to be restrained by bamboo cages to form a whole body weighing more than 1,000 kilograms before it can be sunk.
Don't let it be washed away in the river.
At the pass Ge Siyu chose to build the dam, the river with water at this time was less than 200 paces wide, but the river beaches on both sides extended for more than three miles each before they could connect to the slopes on both sides. When building the dam to intercept the water,
To build up a large lake that can impact the downstream blockage, the entire pass must be filled in.
Ao Canghai mobilized nearly 20,000 supply soldiers and civilians at the front base to dig trenches and build walls in front of the Zhejiang and Fujian Army's Jiahe River fortification. The number of supply soldiers and civilians gathered in Taowu Ao was as high as 30,000, almost 20,000.
All the manpower gathered in Guanxiling was used.
The river was dammed by falling rocks and earth was piled on the river beach to form embankments. The Huaidong Army began to build a river dam on the upper reaches of Shanxi River in mid-March.
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The siege of the city became increasingly intense, and on March 23, the Huaidong Army began to place heavy catapult crossbows into the front line. For two consecutive days, they calibrated the firing range, and various stone bullets began to hit the front city wall sandwiched between the river defenses.
The accuracy of the first shot was not calibrated, and most of them were small and medium-sized burning clay bombs. Occasionally they landed on the war shed, causing the roof to tremble and ash to fly down, but for the time being they were unable to cause effective damage to the defenders at the top of the city.
Even so, it is still difficult to guard the troops. The Huaidong Army is in the jaws. In the direction of Litang, they are just digging trenches and building forts for confrontation. The real bloody battle that is going to start must be in the direction of Hengshan. Moreover, the Huaidong Army has been preparing for so long.
The thunder will not be loud and the raindrops will be light.
Currently, almost one-third of the Fujian soldiers stationed at the Hengshan defense line have experience fighting the Huaidong Army. In their minds, the impression that the Huaidong Army is invincible is already quite deep.
Shefei Xiong was also under great pressure and could not sleep at night.
The news that Lin Fu went to Quzhou to supervise the battle is not a secret. Since the battle in Jiyang, She Feixiong has never had a direct battle with Lin Fu.
Although Feihu was defeated by the Huaidong Army on the Eastern Front and was ultimately unable to escape and died on the banks of the Yiyang River, it was not Feihu who was not good at fighting; Qin Zitan, who assisted Feihu in his early years, was also regarded as a leader among the younger generation in Eastern Fujian.
Although they are outstanding, they cannot escape the fate of death.
Lin Fu's proficiency in fighting was not a fluke, nor was it just a matter of cleverness. The Huaidong Army's current advantages were all-round. It was precisely because of this that She Feixiong felt that the pressure on his body was airtight.
The cage made it difficult for him to struggle.
Deng Yu, Wang Hui and other generals are in Hengshan, and they bear a lot of pressure on their shoulders. If they make any mistakes, they will be wiped out and their clan will be destroyed.
Military news came from Fuliang. Wang Hui could not see She Fei Xiong at the top of the city. After asking his guards, he found out that She Fei Xiong and Deng Yu had gone to the river beach.
The defensive blockade stands across the river. The south side is tightly blocked by the Huaidong Army, but the river beach on the inside is still under control here. After all, it is only a stone's throw away from the west wall on the embankment and the river, and there are still garrison troops in the river.
The warships of the Zhejiang and Fujian naval forces were moored, and the east and west bases were usually connected by pontoons.
Seeing that the Huaidong Army showed no sign of a large-scale attack today, Wang Hui personally went out to the riverbank to find She Fei Xiong and Deng Yu. As soon as they left the west gate, they saw She Fei Xiong and Deng Yu walking back surrounded by the cavalry.
Wang Hui greeted him and said, "There is military news coming from Fuliang..."
"Oh..." She Feixiong didn't answer the letter and only listened to Wang Hui's dictation.
"Han Li was surrounded in the east of Qimen and retreated to Changhe to form a defensive formation along the river. He had no worries for the time being. However, he discovered an ambush in Huaidong between the Beidai Mountains in Fuliang. There were about a thousand people and they were lying across Fuliang.
, between Qimen to prevent Fuliang from going overland to aid Han Li. Su Tingzhan wants to go up the Changhe River and bring Han Li back!" Wang Hui said.
"That's it!" She Feixiong sighed. If it's not good news, it's bad news.
Although Han Li was able to keep his remaining troops from being eaten up by Huaidong's soldiers and horses sneaking into eastern Jiangxi, Su Tingzhan and Han Li were unable to prevent the situation in eastern Jiangxi from deteriorating in Fuliang, which meant that the She family could only give up their last hope.
It is hoped that Beiyan troops and horses can penetrate the western front and move south within this year!
In order to maintain Shangrao and Jiangzhou's war readiness, the Zhejiang and Fujian armies requisitioned various materials in Jiangxi without considering the people's ability to bear them, and they have long since lost their hearts.
More importantly, with the raging civil unrest in various places, it has become difficult for the Zhejiang and Fujian armies to recruit supplies from the Jiangxi border. Even if they can repulse the Huaidong Army's offensive and then lead their troops to suppress the civil unrest in the hinterland, Jiangxi Shao said it will be
Half disabled, it would be difficult for them to recuperate here.
Deng Yu was speechless about Fuliang's military situation. Su Tingzhan also tried his best in Fuliang. The situation is like this. Not everyone can stand up and turn the tide!
Wang Hui saw the river mud on the boots of She Feixiong and Deng Yu and asked: "Young Marshal is still worried that the Huaidong Army will swim in the fir water?"
She Feixiong nodded and said: "Today, the soldiers guarding the river beach found that the stream water had become turbid for a while, which is worrying..."
Impounding water to siege a city is not a clever idea. When Liu An'er besieged Xuzhou, he also dug embankments to release floodwaters to flood Xuzhou. Yue Lengqiu almost failed to survive.
When She Feixiong built a defense line in the lower reaches of Shanxi River, he also considered that the Huaidong Army might take advantage of occupying the upper reaches of Shanxi River to launch a water attack; if he had not noticed this, he would not be a battle-hardened veteran.
However, in the face of the superior strength of the Huaidong Army, Shefei Xiong's options were very limited.
Before She Feixiong came to Shangrao to supervise the battle, the leader here was Deng Yu.
At that time, Deng Yu's main purpose was to prevent the Huaidong Army from approaching Shangrao from the two passes of Jiankou and Litang. In the early stage, he focused on concentrating manpower and material resources to strengthen the Changshan defense line and overhaul the defenses at Jiankou and Litang, so as to become impregnable.
Deng Yu also considered that the mountain in Guanxiling was relatively thin and not difficult for birds to cross. However, due to the limited resources at hand, he could only occupy a civilian village outside Hengshan to station troops and horses to strengthen the attack on Shanxi.
To control the river valley, at that time Guanxiling only had the ability to build three simple beacon piers.
The troops sent by Tang Fuguan attacked Guanxiling, and then gathered troops to dig a large-scale troop dispatch channel from Fenglinbu to Guanxiling. She Feixiong had just arrived in Shangrao to supervise the battle at this time. Seeing that it was too difficult to recapture Guanxiling, he decided to
They were forced to build a defensive line on the front of Hengshan and at the pass at the mouth of Shanxi River.
Even considering that building fortifications in the Linshui Valley downstream of the Xihe River was a taboo for military strategists, Shefei Xiong had no other choice.
First, when he was building the Hengshan defense line, the south was already threatened by the Huaidong Army's garrison at Guanxiling; on the other hand, time was extremely limited, and She Feixiong had to rush a large number of troops before the Huaidong Army could break through Guanxiling.
Before the horses passed through Guanxi, a defense line was built on the front of Hengshan. They could only use the Shanyuan Village that had been requisitioned and strengthened earlier to build a river defense blockade.
More importantly, in the face of the superior strength of the Huaidong Army, in the Shanxi River Valley, which is open and easy for the superior strength of the Huaidong Army to divide and encircle, She Feixiong could only use the Shanxi River waterway to block the Jiahe River behind it.
Hengshan City was connected as a whole to prevent the Huaidong Army from dividing and encircling the three main fortresses of the Hengshan defense line.
However, after the construction of the Jiahe River defense fortification, there was a possibility that Huaidong would build a dam and store water in the upper reaches of the river to directly impact the fortification, which was always a sharp sword hanging in She Feixiong's heart, making him sleepless at night.
With the advance of Huaidong soldiers and horses, the Zhejiang and Fujian army's scouts were no longer able to penetrate into the upper source of Shanxi River. She Feixiong could only send his trusted followers to keep an eye on the changes in the water of Shanxi River. Today, the water of Shanxi River suddenly changed for a period of time.
It was so turbid that She Feixiong almost burst into tears. He couldn't wait to notify Wang Hui, so he went to see the water conditions with Deng Yu who was by his side at the time.
Wang Hui was somewhat disapproving of She Feixiong's concerns and said: "The Huaidong Army spent a lot of manpower and materials to build the front trenches under the city. In front of the Jiahe River defense fortress, the terrain is open and is a place for water storage. Huaidong
The army really wants to build a dam upstream to store water and create a suspended lake. Once the lake is released, the front base position in Huaidong will be affected first. If it were me leading the troops in Huaidong, there would be no need to spend so much effort. All we need to do is defend the front base position.
, wantonly building a dam behind, and then we will have no other good strategy except to bite the bullet and fight..."
Deng Yu shook his head and said: "Is it easy to defeat the Huaidong Army's front base in the south? If we can't defeat the front base, we can't talk about sabotaging its dam construction - if that's the case, it's easy for us to have a choice..."
"Is it possible to abandon the Hengshan defense line?" Wang Hui asked in surprise.