Xiying surrendered, not only was he not punished, but he even went a step further on the basis of the original Chenyang County Magistrate, and was able to serve as Chenzhou Sima, Soldier and Horse Envoy, recruit additional soldiers to form an additional camp, but the price was to be the first group of dead soldiers to attack Yuanling.
city.
Xiying was also conscious of this, and he knew in his heart that if Fanying had not taken the lead in attacking the city desperately, why would Zheng Hui, Zhang Ping, and Han Qian believe that he was not faking a surrender?
On the morning of February 8th, there was light rain in the sky, but the siege plan drawn up by the Wuling Army would not change. Six hundred-man troops formed a conical array, surrounded by a large number of side carriages, cave houses, and shields.
Cars and iron-barbed chariots came out from the Tieyanpo camp in the south, crossed the valley fields south of Yuanling City, pushed towards the south city wall, stopped about five hundred steps away from the south wall of the city, and huddled up to form six
Form a dense formation to prevent the enemy from opening the city gate and coming out.
Groups of heavy troops then carried shovels and shovels and pushed forward from the center of the six defensive formations, excavating trenches in sections about 400 steps away from the city wall.
When the enemy troops came out of the city to harass, the heavy troops were quickly withdrawn. Six formations of armored soldiers stood in front to resist the enemy's attack. They repeated several times and dug six sections of trenches five feet deep and more than ten feet wide in front of the city. The dug soil
A half-height rammed earth protective wall was piled outside the trench, which not only suppressed the enemy's rapid counterattack, but also protected the soldiers in the front line from the enemy's arrows and crossbows.
After that, four tower carts with a height of more than six feet were pushed forward. The crossbows placed on the carts could not only suppress the enemy troops at the top of the city, but also allow them to clearly see the defensive deployment of the city from a high position.
Han Qian was in charge of the logistics and equipment, and he supervised the construction of these weapons. At this time, he, along with Zheng Hui and Zhang Ping, stood on the front cliff of Tieyanpo and looked at the battlefield ahead.
Through the looking glass, Han Qian saw that the scouts on the building car were anxiously communicating with Tian Cheng, who was supervising the battle in front of him. He adjusted the length of the lens barrel and pointed it at the city head. Through the gaps in the wall, he saw several micro-guns behind the wall.
Probe a short section of the tip rod.
Tornado Cannon!
The cyclone cannon was the first created by Han Qian to popularize the Chu army. Even if only a small corner of the cyclone cannon was exposed between the gaps in the wall, he could clearly recognize it.
The scouts who stood on the carriage must have seen the enemy troops deploying cyclone cannons from a high place behind the city wall, so they anxiously reported to Tian Cheng, who was in command of the front battlefield.
"Ma Rong also built a cyclone cannon in the city and deployed it behind the city wall. Tian Cheng should lead the front soldiers to retreat two hundred steps..." Han Qian said to Zheng Hui with a serious expression.
Seeing the Wuling Army's armored soldiers retreating in a noisy manner, the enemy army certainly realized that the cyclone cannon they had built was clearly visible to the scouts in the building, "whooshing", even if there were more than ten stones.
The bullet was ejected from behind the city wall.
The projectile distance of the stone projectile was about five hundred steps, but because the ground in front of the city was flat, the stone projectile, which weighed two to three hundred kilograms and was the size of a stone millstone, rolled forward thirty or forty meters according to its inertia after landing on the ground before stopping.
During this process, even a dozen armored soldiers were unable to escape and were hit with broken limbs and bones, and they were hoarse in pain.
This is a cruel war.
The Wuling Army adjusted its deployment, and the soldiers in the front line withdrew to form a formation at 600 paces, and then sent the heavy troops to venture forward again, and dug trenches in sections at 500 paces on the south side of the city wall.
Five hundred steps is almost the ultimate range of the large cyclone cannon built by the Wuling Army, but it will roll for a certain distance after landing. At this time, trenches are dug at this position and low protective walls are built. In addition to limiting the enemy's counterattack, it also
The main purpose is to prevent the enemy from throwing large stone bullets from rolling and injuring people.
No matter how cruel it is, they still have to push the cyclone cannon to the front line and blast the walls of the Yuanling Army.
Otherwise, if Fanying goes to attack the city at this time, no matter how many lives he has, it won't be enough to fill it.
The cyclone cannon throws loose stone bullets that cover a large area. The range is shorter than 500 steps, so the large cyclone cannon is pushed to 500 steps away from the city wall. There is no need to worry about the enemy being able to cover it with loose stone bullets.
But facing the large stone bombs thrown by the enemy, we can only bear them forcefully.
Fortunately, the number of large stone bombs thrown at one time is limited, and the frequency of throwing is relatively slow. If personnel pay attention to avoidance, the casualties will not be too serious. After all, a great advantage of the cyclone cannon compared to the traditional trebuchet is that a large cyclone cannon can only use
A few people can operate it quickly.
The next thing that suffered more losses were those heavy tornado cannons that were impossible to move at will when pushed to the front.
Of course, the Yuan City Wall, which was more than three feet high and covered with bricks, was an easier target for the Wuling Army's tornado cannons.
Seeing that the defenders led by Ma Rong had also mastered the manufacturing technology of cyclone cannon, Zheng Hui looked at Han Qian with emotion: "Master Han still can't let Han Qian take any time off in this battle!"
"It's just a matter of constantly sending new cyclone cannons into the front line. It's not a lot of hard work!" Han Qian smiled slightly and said, "However, it is not enough to suppress the enemy forces on the city with cyclone cannons. Once the enemy forces on the city are suppressed,
, you also need to send someone to push the scorpion cannon to the front of the city to attack the enemy cannon behind the city wall!"
At present, the Scorpion Cannon is mainly made of wooden bow arms. It can only attack enemies two hundred steps away by throwing stone projectiles or fire oil cans. However, Han Qian made a wheeled Scorpion Cannon that can be dragged quickly in front of the enemy's formation by infantry.
move.
The tactics Han Qian seemed to have decided were to use the cyclone cannon to attack the enemy, use the cyclone cannon to drive the enemy soldiers off the city wall, and then use the infantry to brave the enemy cannon and stone bullets to drag the wheeled scorpion cannon.
Go to the city wall and attack the enemy's cyclone cannon deployed behind the city wall, so that Yuanling City can be captured quickly.
If you want to reduce casualties, you can simply use the cyclone cannon to attack.
As long as they can knock down the southern wall of Yuanling City first, so that the enemy's cyclone cannon will lose the protection of the city wall, the losses will be greater than here.
However, the walls of Yuanling city are made of rammed earth, and the outside is wrapped with glutinous rice mortar city bricks. The wall is three to four feet thick and extremely strong. It is not difficult to break a few holes, but it is very difficult to smash the entire section.
With Ma Rong preparing a large amount of materials to repair the city wall in the city, Han Qian doubted that he might be able to storm Yuanling City in three months.
As a witness to the defense battle of Xichuan City, Zheng Hui was naturally familiar with the various tactics of the Tornado Cannon. He sent someone to invite Xiying over and asked him to recruit generals from the camp to obey Han Qian's instructions and receive training in operating the Scorpion Cannon.
There is no need for the generals of the generals to attack the city for the time being, but to prove that the loyalty of the generals is available, use them to drag the scorpion crossbows and brave the enemy's arrow stones to attack the enemy troops and whirlwind cannons hidden behind the wall!
Zheng Hui also did not hide the dangers of fighting near the city. He also told Xiying that he would try his best to transfer cave houses and side cars to the fan camp, so that they could shield the city walls from the impact of scattered stone bullets.
Looking at Han Qian's gloomy expression, Xiying knew that this idea was his, but he also knew in his heart that this was a sacrifice that Fanying had to make.
If he is still conserving his strength at this time, even if Zheng Hui and Han Qian can resist not taking action against them at this time, after capturing Tanzhou, the imperial court will most likely go against his promise and liquidate the various forces in Yizhou.
Xiying promised Fanying to send troops to control the Scorpion Cannon to attack the enemy in front of the city. Han Qian summoned all the generals of Fanying to explain the essentials of this tactic in detail, and sent engineers to send several Scorpion Cannons to Fanying's garrison first.
, instruct the soldiers to practice their operations first. Here, they will first advance a dozen cyclone cannons into the front formation and start a confrontation with the enemy.
Ma Rong is a veteran general. He is very stable in his troops and cannot use tactics, so he can only pull out this nail in a determined manner.
Han Qian directly transferred materials, engineers, and craftsmen to continuously build new cyclone cannons to replace the destroyed ones; he transferred hundreds of masonry workers to quarry stones directly to the south of the camp.
Chise out round stone bullets, or demolish the houses and walls of nearby stone villages, or collect nearby stone tablets and stone mills, and smash them together against the south wall of the Yuanling Wall.
Although in such a far place, you can only use large stone bombs with a slow throwing frequency and a large number of throws at a time, but there will still be people avoiding them.
And if you are hit by a stone bullet weighing hundreds of kilograms or even two to three hundred kilograms, there is basically no hope of survival.
The siege battle kicked off. After four or five days, nearly two hundred people in the supply camp were brutally smashed to death on the cyclone cannon battlefield, and nearly a hundred cyclone cannons were smashed open.
Adequate material reserves are always the most intuitive reflection of military strength.
Even though nearly a hundred cyclone cannons were destroyed in four or five days, the number of cyclone cannons displayed in front of Yuanling City increased to 30. Almost all the outer bricks of the solid Yuanling South City Wall were smashed down, exposing the inner ones.
The rammed wall is full of terrible cracks, but the gap has not been opened yet, but the battlements on the city have been almost completely destroyed.
At this time, after four or five days of training, once the generals of the Fanying camp saw that the enemy troops at the top of the city were suppressed, they pushed the wheeled scorpion cannon towards the city wall, fired the pyrotechnics canisters filled with tung oil and ignited.
When we arrived at the enemy formation behind the city wall, there were fierce and kind-hearted soldiers, and some even held fire oil cans, rushed directly to the base of the city wall, and threw the fire oil cans over the city wall.
Faced with the scattered stone bombs thrown by the enemy from behind the city wall, even if the enemy soldiers had cave cars and sidecars to block them, they were still extremely heavy.
In particular, the enemy cannot throw large stone projectiles farther away, but can hurl heavier stone projectiles closer to two to three hundred paces away.
Once the cave house car is hit by a stone bullet weighing three to four hundred kilograms, it will be smashed to pieces in an instant, and the soldiers hiding inside will cry like ghosts and howl, causing death and injury.
It was at this time that the war became really fierce, with Fanying's casualties exceeding 200 people every day.
Xiying brought his three sons to the battle this time. They took turns leading their troops to fight close to the city. Each time they suffered heavy casualties or the Scorpion Cannon was destroyed by shotguns before they retreated to reorganize their formation. Faced with such tragic casualties, they
With pain and hatred in his heart, he stared at Han Qian and Zheng Hui with such fierce eyes that he wanted to eat them alive.
Although Tanzhou also masters the manufacturing technology of cyclone cannons, there are few mature craftsmen who followed Ma Rong into Yuanling City. After all, Tanzhou's defense focus is on Yuezhou, and even the defense of Jingzhou in the north of Langzhou and the defense of Hengzhou in the north.
Yuanzhou's defense is more important than the southwest. How can it be possible to send a large number of mature craftsmen who can make tornado cannons to Yuanling in large numbers?
After the first batch of cyclone cannons behind the city were destroyed, the enemy could only build three or five new cyclone cannons every day to replace them. At this time, the intensity of the bombardment suddenly dropped.
While the Fan camp was fighting close to the city, Zheng Hui also ordered the soldiers of the first and second battalions to successively try to carry out annex operations to Yuanling from both wings, attack the dilapidated city wall south of Yuanling, and fight with Tanzhou
The soldiers fought hand to hand.
The enemy army was then forced to deploy the newly built cyclone cannon behind the newly dug trench in the city in order to lure the Wuling Army soldiers to the south wall and carry out a suppressive strike.
Zheng Hui very decisively used the soldiers of the first, second and second battalions to guard the city wall, and ordered more than thirty cyclone cannons to be moved forward and deployed directly close to the roots of the city wall to suppress the cyclone cannons in the city.
The south wall of Lingcheng served as the front line of the Wuling Army, advancing the offensive and defensive battle to the second stage.
As one of the few veteran generals in Tanzhou, Ma Rong led 5,000 soldiers to hold on until the end of February. However, he could no longer hold on. He led only less than 2,000 remnant soldiers and hurriedly boarded the moored place from the northern city gate that had not fallen in the end.
The Shuiying warships at Baihekou fled fearfully to Wuling County, Langzhou.