Chapter 1040 The Battle of Iron Gate Pass - Giving Water
After that, there was peace in front of the iron gate for two days. Boermu did not send anyone to attack the city, and Qin Shoushan would not organize a second night attack in a short time. Both sides just quietly guarded their territory, guarding against the enemy.
Launch an attack.
The calm situation even gave the Ming soldiers in the city a slight illusion, as if the Ming Dynasty was not at war with the Kingdom of Samarkand at this time, and the Xilu in front of them were also envoys who came to pay tribute.
But this illusion was quickly broken. Starting from the early morning of June 9th, the Xilu launched another siege on the city, and it was much more violent than before. Arrows seemed to be shooting for free at the top of the city, and the infantry also seemed to have no money.
Attack the city head desperately.
The Ming army was almost defeated, but fortunately Qin Shoushan remained vigilant at all times and calmly responded to the Xilu's attack, and finally defended the city with the help of the geographical advantage.
However, Boermu's real killer move was not a violent siege.
…
…
"It's so cool! It's easy to cut Xilu's head off." Wang Cheng shouted happily. He then took out a piece of cloth that was not very clean, wiped the blood on the knife, and glanced at Xilu who was retreating.
The soldiers ordered loudly: "Collect the corpses of our soldiers and bury them. The corpses of the Xilu will be kicked down and let them handle it by themselves."
The soldiers agreed and began to drag the corpse away.
Wang Cheng himself went down from the city to the military camp and told his attendants: "Go and fetch two basins of water. They are for bathing, not for drinking, so there is no need to heat them." The attendants agreed and turned around and left.
Wang Cheng walked into his tent, took off his armor, wiped the blood on it with a rag, took off his coat and hung it on the clothes rail, and sat by the bed to wait for the water.
But he was too tired today, and the water had not been brought for a long time, so he slowly lay on the bed and fell asleep.
He didn't know how long it had passed before he heard someone shouting in his ear: "Master Baihu, Master Baihu."
"Who?" Wang Cheng asked in a daze.
"It's me, sir. The one you sent out to fetch water."
"It's you." Wang Cheng opened his eyes and saw that it was indeed the attendant he sent to fetch water. He immediately scolded: "I just asked you to fetch water. Why did it take so long! Are you ready? I want it.
To take a bath!"
"My lord, please calm down. This is not a slight. Something unexpected has happened. The bath water has not been brought. My lord," he said hurriedly before Wang Cheng got angry: "The Kongque River has dried up! There is no water in the city.
!”
"What? The Kongque River has dried up? How could this happen!" Wang Cheng said in disbelief. Although this section of the Kongque River is not a big river, it is still one or two feet wide. How could it suddenly dry up?
"Sir, it is definitely not a villain who is deceiving you. The Kongque River has indeed dried up." The man said again.
"I'll go take a look." Wang Cheng said as he put on his coat and strode out of the military camp to the vicinity of the Kongque River.
When he walked to the river and took a closer look, he saw that there was no water flowing. He still didn't believe it, so he squatted down and reached out to scoop up water, but his hand came up empty.
"How could this happen?" Wang Cheng said in surprise.
He stood blankly by the river for a while, not knowing what to do. All water in the city relied on the Peacock River, and now the Peacock River suddenly dried up. He, an old man like him, could even imagine what the consequences would be.
Just as he was standing there, someone suddenly shouted: "Wang Baihu! Wang Baihu! Master Qianhu asked you to go to the meeting hall."
When he heard this, he suddenly felt like a backbone and murmured: "Yes, let Qianhu handle such matters. I just have to listen to his words." Then he set off for the meeting hall.
When he came to the meeting hall, the other nine hundred households had already come over and were chatting. Seeing him coming, someone immediately asked: "Old Wang, do you know that the water in the Kongque River has dried up?
"
"I know. I just came from Kongque River and saw the dry river surface with my own eyes."
"It's really strange. Why did the Kongque River dry up suddenly?"
"Why are you concerned about this now? The question is what to do next? You can survive for ten days without food, but you can't survive without water for three days!"
"I think we can only dig wells. This is right by the Kongque River. There should be some water underground. Drill a few wells to get water."
"It's hard to say. The Kongque River has dried up, and the underground water is not guaranteed."
While everyone was discussing, they heard Li Yuantong say: "Master Qianhu is here!"
During this period, Qin Shoushan led them to resist the attack of the Xilu, and achieved outstanding results. He had established a very high prestige in the minds of everyone, and everyone hurriedly stood up to greet them.
"Everyone, please sit down." Qin Shoushan walked in, sat down on the seat, and said to them.
After everyone sat down again, Qin Shoushan continued: "Brothers probably already know that the Kongque River has dried up. And this was probably done by people from Xilu."
"What? Did the Xilu people do it?" someone asked in surprise.
"It was probably the Xilu people who did it. A few days ago, someone with clairvoyance saw the Xilu sending people up the mountain against the Kongque River. At that time, they thought that the Xilu were going to send people to bypass the city and go to the south. I also specially arranged people to guard the south.
Now that I think about it, maybe they killed two birds with one stone. They not only sent people to detour to the south, but also cut off the water of Kongque River."
"Qianhu, what should we do?" Wang Cheng asked.
"Now it seems that we can only dig wells to find water. But digging wells cannot be completed in a day. Send me an order. From today on, you are not allowed to throw away horse dung, cow dung, etc., and squeeze the juice from these dung to drink.
"
"What? This," everyone was shocked. Drinking the juice squeezed from the dung of cows and horses?
"If you don't want to die, drink it!" Qin Shoushan glanced at them with sharp eyes: "From tomorrow on, I will take the lead in drinking the juice squeezed from horse manure! Anyone who refuses to drink it will be dismissed from office!"
Although everyone was still unwilling, seeing that he had made up his mind, they did not dare to refute anymore and could only stand up and agree.
On the next day, June 11, except for those who defended the city, hundreds of other households got up before dawn and urged their soldiers to dig wells under the command of the craftsmen. None of them were willing to drink the juice squeezed from the horse dung. As soon as possible
If you dig a well with water, you can drink the juice less once, so they all work very hard to dig a well.
But what made them sad was that after a day of digging wells and more than a dozen caves, none of them had water. They could only go back and drink the juice extracted from the horse dung.
The next day, the well was drilled for another day, reaching a depth of thirty feet, but there was still not a drop of water.
They panicked. If they still couldn't get water, even if they didn't care about drinking the juice squeezed from the horse dung, the juice squeezed out would still not be enough to drink for a thousand people in the city. Before the Xilu invaded the city, they would
will die of thirst.
On June 13, all the soldiers tried their best to dig wells under the command of the craftsmen, trying to get water out. The deepest well had been dug to a depth of forty feet, but still no water came out.
"Go out of the city and fight with the Xilu!" Seeing that he still couldn't get any water, Wang Cheng said angrily: "If you continue like this, you will die of thirst sooner or later. I don't want to die like this, I would rather be hacked to death by the Xilu!"
"Let's go, let the soldiers dress up and go out of the city to fight against the invaders!" Someone immediately echoed. All the real water was drank on the twelfth day, and the juice squeezed out of the horse dung was drunk all day today, and
The supply was also limited. Many people couldn't bear it for a long time, and they still held on to the hope of getting water. But seeing that this hope was shattered, they planned to go crazy before they died.
As they were talking, they suddenly heard someone say: "Wait a little longer, if you still don't get out of the water, I will personally lead you out of the city to fight!"
Everyone turned their heads and saw Qin Shoushan walking over neatly dressed.
"Qianhu, what are you waiting for?" someone asked.
Qin Shoushan did not answer this question, but walked to the deepest well, knelt down, looked up at the sky, and prayed loudly: "All the gods and Buddhas in the sky, if it is God's will to destroy the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, then everyone only wants to die. If
If God still wants to leave us a way to survive, please pray to the gods and Buddhas to give us water sources to survive." After that, he bowed three times. The followers behind him also imitated his actions.
"Can this be useful?" Wang Cheng said with great disbelief. He didn't believe in anything and felt that these gods and Buddhas were all lies. When he finished worshiping Qin Shoushan and there was still no water in the well, he asked
Step forward and pull him up.
But at this moment, a sweet spring suddenly surged up in the well. Hearing the clear sound of water, countless people rushed to the wellhead to take a look. After seeing the water with their own eyes, they immediately knelt down and shouted: "Thank you God and Buddha for the water!"
"Thank you God and Buddha for the water!" Countless people shouted again.
Then everyone stood up and threw the barrel into the well. After filling it with water, they pulled the barrel up and drank.
"Stop!" Qin Shoushan suddenly stood up and shouted loudly.
Everyone was stunned. The water has been brought, but you are still not allowed to drink it?
"Li Yuan, please fetch a few more buckets of water and bring it to the top of the city to mix with mud to repair the city wall!" Qin Shoushan continued to give instructions.
Ordinary soldiers did not react, but several hundred households present already understood Qin Shoushan's intention: Xilu sent people to cut off the water source, naturally with the intention of killing them to death from thirst, but if they suddenly found that they had enough water, they could
If you use it to mix mud, it will definitely be very frustrating and even affect the morale of the army. So you must do this first.
Li Yuan didn't understand it either, but his greatest advantage was that he never thought about the purpose of his master's orders, he just carried them out, so he agreed and started fetching water.
The ordinary soldiers present were very puzzled. They were also very thirsty and wanted to drink water. However, Qin Shoushan was able to calm down because of his prestige. Although everyone looked at the bucket eagerly, no one made a fuss.
After Li Yuan took away the first ten buckets of water, Qin Shoushan ordered to fetch water for the soldiers to drink. In order to prevent chaos from robbing water sources, he called all the hundreds of households over and organized the soldiers of his own hundred households to line up to drink.
water.
Looking at the soldiers lined up in a neat queue waiting to drink water, Qin Shoushan, who was standing aside, wiped his sweat and said in a low voice: "With this matter, the city can hold on for at least a month. I hope that within a month, the army will