In the cool morning breeze, Zhu Hui climbed onto the tower of the east gate of Dongsheng City.
Standing high on the city wall, the cold wind chilled his body. He unconsciously wrapped his cloak around him and raised his telescope to look at the camp of the Tatar soldiers and horses below the city.
Two miles away from the city, the large camp of Tatar cavalry tents was overwhelming, extending to the distance of the snowy field. In the camp, groups of Tatar cavalry rode back and forth. On the side near the city, there were even large groups of cavalry in front of the camp.
Cruising on patrol. They galloped past, their horses' hooves kicked up the slush, and the stench of rotting turf beneath the snow drifted out, blowing straight into their nostrils along with the cold wind.
Zhu Hui frowned and moved the telescope around. There were also large Tatar camps to the south. Between the Tatar camps, there seemed to be a narrow passage of less than two miles. That was the passage between adjacent camps.
.
The Tatars were surrounded on all sides, but their strength was only about 60,000. If they were to fully spread out, it would be a bit reluctant to form an impenetrable encirclement. Therefore, they set up camps in the four cities, which inevitably left some weak gaps between the camps. This
Maybe this is a shortcut to break out of the encirclement.
However, these gaps are actually not far from each other. Once discovered, they will be encircled and blocked. Therefore, it will be extremely difficult to break out of the encirclement.
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Zhu Hui frowned and walked toward the east gate tower. In the tower, the bonfire raised by the soldiers on duty last night was still smoking. Zhu Hui smelled the smell of burnt feathers, and then he saw the top of the bonfire.
A black bird is carried on a bamboo stick, with many feathers scattered around.
"What is this?" Zhu Hui asked with a frown.
Several soldiers still had black dust on their mouths. They stood there in panic, speechless.
Zhu Hui frowned and bent down to pick up a few feathers. He also saw the small bamboo tube tied to the pigeon's leg among the pile of feathers. He suddenly became furious.
"You sons of bitches, this is the military pigeon that sent the message. You are so brave, you roasted and ate the pigeon that sent the message. You are a bunch of bitches, I will kill you."
Zhu Hui cursed loudly, reached out and took out the weapon from his waist, and wanted to kill someone.
Several soldiers, with pale faces, knelt down and shouted loudly: "Mr. Baoguo, please spare your life. These are dead pigeons. We saw that they were dead anyway, so it was a pity to throw them away, so we roasted them and ate them. They were all dead last night."
It fell from the sky and landed on the top of the city."
Zhu Hui scolded angrily: "What nonsense, did it fall from the sky and deliver it to your mouth for no reason?"
"Mr. Bao Guo, please spare your life. If we tell even half a lie, we will die without a hiding place. Not only did we pick it up, but the brothers below the city also picked it up. They all fell from the sky and were torn and bloody.
There are two more that we put in the snowdrift over there, ready to be roasted and eaten tonight. If you don’t believe me, we will show them to you." Several soldiers kowtowed and shouted.
"Where is it? Bring it here." Zhu Hui yelled.
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A soldier rushed out of the city tower, threw two messy feathers into the snowdrift at the base of the city wall, and carried them in. Zhu Hui frowned and took a closer look, and it turned out to be two pigeons. There were numbers on their legs, and they were from the army.
The two pigeons seemed to have been torn apart by something, their abdomens were torn open, their intestines and internal organs were hanging outside, and they were bloody and disgusting.
"What's going on? Why did these military pigeons fly out?" Zhu Hui shouted sharply.
Sun Dafu, the guerrilla general who was following the inspection, said hurriedly: "My lord, I heard from my humble position that Mr. Yang wanted to use pigeons to send a message to ask for help after the meeting last night. He released more than a dozen military pigeons from the scout team. These pigeons
I’m afraid it’s the dove that was released last night.”
Zhu Hui frowned, pulled off the bamboo tube on a pigeon's leg, and took out the parchment inside. It was indeed written by Yang Yiqing to state to Cao Yuan, the Minister of War, that the situation was critical and to request reinforcements. Previously, due to bad weather, the military pigeons could not
Release. It seems that Yang Yiqing wants to try whether he can use pigeons to send messages. If he can succeed, he will not take the risk of sending people to break out.
But now it seems that this has not been successful.
Zhu Hui reached out and grabbed the dirty and bloody dead pigeon and looked at it for a moment. Suddenly he quickly walked out of the city tower and came to the city wall and looked up to the sky. Everyone followed him to the city wall and followed his gaze.
Looking at the sky, I saw a dozen black spots in the sky spreading their wings and circling, making sharp chirping sounds from time to time. Those were a dozen falcons wandering over the city.
"Damn it, the Tatar eagles pecked all these military pigeons to death. Not a single pigeon flew out." Zhu Hui smashed the dead pigeons to the ground and cursed loudly.
Everyone around was stunned and speechless, and felt suffocated. The Tatars were so tightly besieged that even pigeons could not fly out of the city, which was simply unbelievable.
Zhu Hui cursed a few words angrily, but had no choice. As he patrolled along the city wall, he saw soldiers starting to dig soil to reinforce the battlements of the city wall. A large group of soldiers also lifted the Franco cannons up to the city with ropes and began to install them. He felt a little bit in his heart.
There is consolation. At least it is impossible for the Tatars to attack the city. The Tatars charge on horseback on the grassland with great force, so don't even think about attacking the city.
Just when Zhu Hui was about to leave the city of Dongcheng, the general following him suddenly pointed to the north side of the Tatar camp in the east and shouted: "What are the Tatars doing? Why are there so many big cars?"
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Zhu Hui hurriedly looked in the direction he was pointing, and saw a large and dense group of convoys slowly arriving from the snowfield on the north to the outside of the Tatar Dongying Camp. Those vehicles were loaded with materials such as logs.
The convoy slowly drove to the snowfield in front of the camp and unloaded the load. Sure enough, it was a truckload of logs.
"What are the Tatars doing? Why did they bring so much wood? Is it to light a fire to keep warm?" Sun Dafu muttered from the side.
Zhu Hui frowned and shook his head: "You don't need logs like this to keep yourself warm. These are thick logs and are obviously not used for burning fires. Could it be that..."
Soon after, a large group of people came out of the Tatar camp and began to be busy carrying logs in the open space. Zhu Hui observed carefully through the telescope, his face became more and more solemn. He could see that the Tatars
Transporting so much material can
Instead of making fires or building camps, they were assembling trebuchets for siege. Those logs were not logs, but disassembled parts of the trebuchet. Just assemble them all to create a complete siege machine.
.
Zhu Hui was stunned with shock. It was not that the Tatars did not have the means to attack the city. They were well prepared and even had a large number of siege equipment. These equipment could not keep up with the speed of the army, so they had only arrived now.
Zhu Hui's heart sank. The situation has changed and become even worse. Now it is impossible for military pigeons to ask for help. The Tatars have begun to assemble siege equipment again. They must make up their mind to seize the time and send people to break out and ask for help.
It's time. There can't be any delay.
Zhu Hui immediately went down to the city, found Yang Yiqing, and told Yang Yiqing that none of the military pigeons had flown out, and all of them had been killed by Tatar hawks. He also told Yang Yiqing everything he had seen just now.
Yang Yiqing was shocked when he heard this. Last night, he held out hope and released all the military pigeons to convey the message for help to Cao Yuan. Unexpectedly, the pigeons could not fly out of the city. The Tatars began to build siege equipment again, which meant that they
They won't wait, they want to attack the city.
A small city like Dongsheng City, with a radius of only two or three miles and a wall no more than two feet high, is actually very fragile. If there is the cooperation of siege equipment, it may not be able to defend it. The situation has become even more critical.
"Master Yang, we must send someone to break out of the city to ask for help. We can't wait any longer. I'm going to talk to Qiu Yue and see if he has any plans to break out. What do you think?" Zhu Hui said.
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Yang Yiqing frowned and said, "Do we have to let him go? Can someone else go?"
Zhu Hui frowned and said: "Mr. Yang, at last night's meeting, Qiu Yue took the initiative to ask for help, but you vetoed it. I know you are dissatisfied with him, but I thought about it. If you have the desire to accept the order and the ability to do it, I'm afraid
He is the only one I know about Qiu Yue. This man has some reputation for leading armies in battles. Among the nine generals guarding the border, he is considered the best."
Yang Yiqing frowned and said nothing. After Qiu Yue recommended himself last night, Yang Yiqing vetoed on the spot that he should lead the army to break out. It wasn't that Yang Yiqing didn't believe in his ability, he was worried that after Qiu Yue broke through, he would report the mistakes of the army's attack and lie about the victory.
All things are told to one person. It's okay if the outer court knows these things, they will block the news. But if that person knows, it will cause an uproar.
This is what Yang Yiqing is worried about. Even in his current situation, he still has illusions.
"Mr. Yang, I know what you are thinking. However, there is no need to think about anything now. There is no time to think about other things. We are extremely urgent and the fire has already reached our eyebrows. If there are any other worries, we will be finished.
If we can keep these hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, we still have room for maneuver.
The worst thing is that we have failed to recapture the Loop. If the whole army is destroyed here, you and I... and even the outer court will be the sinners of the Ming Dynasty, and we will never be able to wash away our guilt. There are some things that we can't hide even if we want to.
We can only accept the reality." Zhu Hui said solemnly.
Yang Yiqing pondered for a long time and sighed, knowing in his heart that what Zhu Hui said was true. Until now, it was ridiculous that he was still making small calculations and worrying about some things.
Those worries and worries can no longer be taken into account now. A defeat is a defeat, and this time it is a failure. What we have to do now is to reduce losses and not let hundreds of thousands of troops be destroyed here.
As for the candidate to break through, as Zhu Hui said, Qiu Yue is the best candidate. In terms of military combat capabilities, Yang Yiqing still believes in Qiu Yue.
"Okay, then let's invite Qiu Yue to discuss how to break out of the encirclement." Yang Yiqing said softly.