Hei Fu guessed right. The Qin army surrounded Shouchun from all sides, with its troops in a neat formation and elite soldiers. It really scared King Chu of Chu.
He wanted to defend the country and die in Sheji, but Wang Jian expected that he might move the capital again and fled. He deliberately did not cross the Huaihe River to give him hope, but allowed Meng Wu, Li You and others to cut off his escape route, trapping the King of Chu to death in Shouguan.
spring.
Although he was hiding in a deep palace separated by a high wall from the residential area, even in his dream, he seemed to hear the sound of the Qin army cutting down trees on the mountain on the other side of the Fei River. Seeing that the siege equipment was being built day by day,
With the west and south positions open, ready to launch an attack at any time, Fu Chu felt more and more that his time was running out.
Sima, his right disciple and others also advised him: "Although Chu is in danger now, it is worse than Zhao Wuxie in Jinyang and Qitian guarding Jimo alone! There are still King Qin's troops in Huainan and Jiangdong. As long as we persist
In a few months, there may be a turn for the better..."
They hoped that the King of Chu would personally go to the city tower to encourage the soldiers to fight to the death, and that the palace ladies would be organized among the processions, and that all the treasures and food in the palace would be dispersed.
However, Fu Chu said with some despair: "The elite of Chu State has been buried in Huaibei by Xiang Yan, and Lord Changping has also delayed in attacking King Qin in Jiangdong. The total number of soldiers in the city is less than 50,000. How can we resist Qin?"
The country’s army of more than 100,000 people?”
Zuo Tu and others persuaded him to surrender, but considering that Han Wang'an, Zhao Wangqian, and Wei Wang who had surrendered to Qin before did not end well, Fuchu still hesitated.
Just when he was in a dilemma, the Witch Spirit, who had always been favored by the King of Chu, suddenly went crazy and ran out of the temple laughing. He prostrated himself in front of the King of Chu. When he raised his head, there was a trace of madness in his eyes.
.
"Your Majesty, Shouchun can be saved, and Chu State can be saved!"
The ministers and nobles looked at each other in confusion, but the King of Chu quickly walked to the wizarding spirit anxiously, helped him up, and asked expectantly: "Have the ghosts and gods responded?"
"Yes!"
Wu Ling took the King of Chu to the outside of the palace, pointed to the cloudy and thundering sky in the distance and said: "Please look at the sky, your Majesty, the spirit is among them! Its body is overflowing with light, and the death is far away!"
King Chu's eyes widened, but he could only see a bunch of ordinary dark clouds. How could there be any gods?
"Yun Zhongjun has left again." Wu Ling sighed with regret: "Your Majesty, you must bathe for three days, and then let a hundred witches perform rituals at the top of the city, so that Yunzhong Jun can come back..."
"Yunzhongjun... can really save Chu, but can he save Gu?" King Chu didn't know what to believe anymore. He was like a drowning man, and he could only try his best to grasp every straw.
"able!"
Wu Ling swore and said: "Although Lord Yunzhong often appears in human form, his form is that of a dragon. The dragon rides on the emperor's clothes and shines with the sun and the moon. As long as the sacrifice offered by the king is enough, I will summon Lord Yunzhong.
Let it rain down thunder and rain, and wipe out a hundred thousand Qin invaders outside the city!"
…
When the King of Chu placed his hope on ghosts and gods, at the gate of Shouchun City, the Chu people were still saving themselves. Their resistance was extremely tenacious, and they actually blocked several waves of attacks...
On the Qin army's side, in addition to the traditional moths who supported the enemy by holding up shields to rush through the gates, Heifu also saw almost all the siege methods of this idea: tens of thousands of people brought earth and rocks from afar and built five towers in the west of the city.
The earth mountain was even higher than the city wall, and then the crossbowmen were ordered to sit on it, release arrows and crossbows into the city, and cooperate with the attack.
However, the Chu people completely blocked all the gates. Even if they destroyed the city gates, it would be useless. They still had to move away the solid piles of earth and rocks inside. The Qin army would not be able to get in for a while.
Those who attacked the city wall were unable to gain a foothold and were repeatedly driven down by the Chu soldiers.
Seeing that the Chu people in the city were desperate when the country was about to be subjugated, Wang Jian was not in a hurry. He just asked his soldiers to shoot fire arrows into the city at night. In the night sky, the smoke arrows were like fireworks all over the sky and fell into the city, but the people in the city were already dead.
The buildings close to the city wall were demolished, and the waterways in the city made it easy to put out fires, so they could only serve as a source of harassment.
But this is enough. Attacking the city requires physical strength and patience rather than brute force. If you are ten, you will be surrounded, and if you are twice as many, you will attack. The Qin soldiers outside the city are twice as many as the defenders on the city. As long as they take turns harassing them, they will be exhausted physically and mentally.
, morale dropped, and flaws would be revealed sooner or later. Wang Jian did not want to rush and cause heavy casualties to himself.
He asked the civilians to cut down a large amount of wood in the mountains and transport it to the other side of the Fei River. Qin Mo, such as Jun Sikong and Cheng Shang, led the craftsmen to make "flying stones", that is, trebuchets.
Flying stones were invented when Wu and Yue were fighting for hegemony. It is said that they were made by Fan Li. They placed the stones on big trees and used them to attack the enemy. The flying stones weighed twelve kilograms. When fully charged, they could hurt the enemy over two hundred steps! The disadvantage is that they are too large.
Too bulky and impressively accurate.
In fact, in Heifu's opinion, trebuchets are more effective against masonry walls in the west, but not so useful against integrated rammed earth walls. They are mainly used to destroy turrets and watchtowers. The stones that keep flying overhead are harmful to people.
It also has a certain psychological intimidation effect.
On this day, the trebuchet has been built. The throwing arm is made of the trunk of an old tree, with iron hoops to prevent breakage. There are wheels under the base frame, which can be pushed along the flat ground to adjust the attack distance and angle. The appearance is rough and rich.
The beauty of the wooden machinery, after Qin Mo's transformation, is also more powerful than the "flying stones" in the south more than two hundred years ago. It can throw stone bullets weighing twenty or thirty kilograms two hundred steps away!
After a while, the civilians would push it out from behind the mountain, and Heifu and the others were ordered to form a formation in front of it to guard it.
But at this moment, the sharp-eyed Xiao Tao came to report that there was a commotion at the top of the city!
"commotion?"
Heifu followed him to the front of the array, a stone's throw away from the city wall. Sure enough, he saw that there was some chaos at the top of the city. It was different from the solemn defense in the past, but a little noisy. Finally, the soldiers with blades and armor left the city wall.
, replaced by a group of people wearing colorful feathers and crowns...
"Witch Zhu!?"
Heifu rubbed his eyes and saw that he was right. He was indeed a wizard. He was very similar to the witch who danced on the boat during the Gangneung Sangsi Festival.
Is this to curse the Qin army? Heifu knew that when Qin and Chu turned against each other for the first time and went to war, the kings of Qin and Chu went to the ancestral temple, offered sacrifices, carved stones as curses, and asked the gods to curse them.
enemy.
But now, the people of Qin are all approaching the city, so there is no point in temporarily holding on to the gods, right?
After the group of witches blessed the city, they first knelt down solemnly towards the clouds in the sky and offered some sacrifices such as cattle, pigs, sheep, etc. They were all cooked food, cooked in a big cauldron, and the aroma was fragrant, not to mention too much.
The Chu soldiers who only drank gruel these days, even the Qin soldiers who were full, swallowed their saliva one after another.
After a while of blabbering words, the protagonist appeared on the stage. A wizard wearing sacrificial robes, lotus clothes, a sash, a crown, a robe, and a colorful face painted on his face walked to the edge of the city and spoke with contempt.
His eyes glanced at the dark Qin army under the city, then he struck the chime as a signal and began the sacrificial dance...
"The orchid bath is full of fragrance, and the flowers and clothes are like a young woman. The soul is still curled up, but the death is not yet young."
Hei Fu couldn't figure out what Chu Ren wanted to do for a while, so he said to Ji Ying, "Go and find Chen Ying."
When Heifu's guide Chen Ying arrived, the wizards at the top of the city just sang in unison: "The emperor of spirits has come down, and the biāo has been lifted up in the clouds."
When Chen Ying saw this posture, his face froze, and he said with some disbelief: "They... are inviting Lord Yun Zhong Pingyi (yi) to come, probably to ask Lord Yun to help."
"Yun Zhongjun, isn't that asking for rain?" Hei Fu was confused. The Chu people wanted to borrow the power of ghosts and gods, but they must have mistaken the gods. Why didn't they ask Da Siming to collect all the Qin people outside the city?
Chen Ying explained: "In Huainan, Yun Zhongjun is not only the god of clouds and rain, but also the god of thunder and lightning. Maybe he wants to trigger thunder and defeat the Qin army..."
"Thunder?"
Heifu couldn't help but burst into laughter. Over the years, he had become convinced that he was not in the fantasy fairy plane, but in real history. Except for the unbelievable thing about time travel, everything else was normal.
But the Chu witch in this city thinks that he is the monster Zhuge Liang in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, who can use the east wind to set up the Bagua array, and he also wants to light a seven-star lantern to liberate the Chu Kingdom?
At first I thought it was ridiculous, but as I smiled, I felt sad again.
He looked at Chen Ying with a complex expression: "Do you believe it?"
"I don't believe it..." Chen Ying lowered his head. He greatly admired his mother's foresight. The king in the city was so confused that he would rather let the soldiers at the head of the city starve than let Wu Zhu general sacrifice the best meat.
Ghosts and gods are indeed not worth dying for.
Smart people naturally don't believe it, but this posture still makes many people think it is serious.
Heifu found that many Chu people at the city gate were kneeling respectfully and seemed to be pinning their hopes on the wizards' actions. Indeed, when people fall into despair, isn't it normal for people to place their hope in supernatural powers?
If I remember correctly, when the Jin army came to the city, the emperors and ministers of the Song Dynasty also wanted to rely on the tricks of charlatans and charlatans to defeat the enemy. The result was a joke for the ages. But look at the tragic scene of the Jingkang Disgrace.
It makes people laugh...
"Sure enough, when a country is about to perish, there must be monsters!"
It is not a real evildoer, but the fear in people's hearts, which allows evildoers to take advantage of the situation and deceive them.
There were also many honest and superstitious Qin people below the city who raised their heads worriedly, looking at whether the clouds in the sky had really gathered and turned black. There was silence for a while, but the wizards at the top of the city thought that their method had worked, and they danced and sang.
More energetic.
"East Gate Leopard!"
Heifu shouted loudly to his second battalion commander.
"Let Zhang Sikong and Cheng Shang pull up all the trebuchets they have made!"
He drew his sword and pointed it at the dancing demons at the top of the city.
"Aim at this group of witches! Fire a few shots and you will know whether they are real gods or false gods, whether they are humans or demons!"
…
Half a moment later, just as the shamans were about to complete the sacrifice, the thunder they had been waiting for really came!
Accompanied by a burst of dense and dull collisions! Those tall and rough trebuchets under the city, relying on the power of the civilians' pull and rebound, threw stones all over the sky. After passing over, they fell rapidly, and dozens of black dots streaked across the sky and fell towards Shouchun City.
Come!
According to Heifu's request, they all aimed at the city wall where the sorcerers were gathered. Although the accuracy was too bad, some fell into the moat without reaching the position, or fell over the wall into the city, but there were still a few.
A lucky flying stone fell directly into Wu Zhu who couldn't interrupt the long dance to trance...
These stones weighing more than ten or twenty kilograms are not comparable to arrows. But in an instant, the muffled sound of the stones hitting the city wall and the screams of the people were heard. The altar in the center was hit.
Then it suddenly collapsed. The lucky ones suffered broken bones and tendons, while the unlucky ones suffered brain damage!
After several people died, the shamans no longer bothered to show off their skills. Regardless of the shaman's restraint, they all fled away with their heads in their hands, just like a bunch of buzzing flies that were swatted away by a fly swatter...
On that day, there was a sound like thunder outside the city, rocks fell from the sky, the monsters were silent, the gods retreated, and the city was raging, everyone was shocked!
The Qin army also took advantage of this opportunity to launch a full-scale attack on the Chu capital, and Shouchun Waiguo fell!