Shen Bing waved his hand, and the Qin army stepped forward according to the prepared plan and surrounded Loulan City.
The force distribution of the Qin army is as follows: the east side, that is, the front, has 4,000 troops, and the remaining sides have 2,000 troops.
Two thousand men were deployed on the north, west and south sides not to attack the city, but to prevent the enemy from escaping.
To do this is very simple. The Qin army only needs to set up a formation two hundred steps away: set up horse guns in the front and deploy pikemen to prevent the enemy cavalry from charging into the formation, and rows of strong crossbowmen in the rear. , one after another, crossbow arrows were held high and aimed at the city gate.
Loulan City is not big, one wall is only more than 300 meters, which is more than 200 steps.
Of course, there is only one gate on each side of such a small city wall.
And the city gate is not big... This may be due to the small population of Loulan or the underdeveloped construction technology.
Therefore, it can be said that it is more than enough to block the city gate with two thousand Qin crossbows.
As for the front, it goes without saying.
One thousand artillery troops were in the middle, two thousand infantry were arranged on both sides, and Yan led a thousand Pu Lei troops to support the rear.
The Xiongnu stationed in Loulan City was an Ersiwei captain of ten thousand men.
As Shen Bing guessed, he had fought against Shen Bing in the Battle of Wuyuan.
However, he was not in the city at the time, but instead besieged Shen Bing's troops together with Maodun Chanyu.
Before the Battle of Wuyuan, Ersiwei always thought that the Central Plains people's garrison in the city was a sign of fear of death... Most of the Huns thought this way, and they also believed that the city was useless because it could only protect the inside of the city. of people.
As for outside the city, the Qin army could only watch helplessly as the Xiongnu burned, killed and looted without doing anything.
However, after the First World War in Wuyuan, Ersiwei changed his mind about the city.
Because Ersiwei could not imagine how the Qin army could turn defeat into victory despite being at an absolute disadvantage.
After thinking about it, Ersiwei believed that there was only one reason: the Qin people knew how to attack and defend the city, but the Xiongnu did not.
The consequences of Wuyuan's defeat were disastrous, and the Xiongnu had to withdraw from the entire Hexi area.
It was then that Ethvi realized the importance of the city.
The situation in the Western Regions can be said to be somewhere between the grasslands and the Central Plains.
It is said to be between the two because the Western Region is not like the Central Plains, which is full of mountains and rivers, and occupying an important city can block an entire area, but unlike the grassland, where a city cannot block any area.
The reason is that although transportation in the desert areas of the Western Regions is as accessible as the grasslands, there is a lack of water.
Cities are often built in oases with water.
Therefore, if you want to occupy water sources, you must occupy a certain place for a long time, and you cannot survive anywhere by hitting and running like you can in the grassland.
Therefore, if the Xiongnu wanted to march into the Central Plains or the Western Regions, they had to learn the tactics of defending and attacking cities.
Esvi is one of them.
He thought he was fully confident in the Loulan battle.
This is because there are no trees outside the city that can be used to make siege equipment, and these trees have long been chopped down by the Huns.
The second reason is because there is no water source outside the city.
The third reason is that Xiongnu reinforcements will arrive within two days.
In other words, the Qin army must capture Loulan within two days.
However……
Ersiwei stood at the top of the city and looked back at the piles of trebuchets in the city. He had mobilized all the labor during this period, including the people of Loulan, to make them as slaves.
Ersvi could almost imagine launching an attack:
At two hundred paces, the trebuchets fired stone bullets in pieces, injuring the Qin army.
The bow and arrow in the hands of the Huns can be effective at a hundred steps.
At the foot of the city wall...it was time for the Qin army to taste the power of their own "sky-shaking thunder".
The Qin army didn't even have wooden ladders.
Esiwei could not imagine how the Qin army could defeat Loulan.
He even thought that he could easily handle it even without reinforcements.
At this time, Esiwe saw the Qin army pushing out more than a dozen things... Actually, there were twenty in total, and Esiwe could not count them clearly.
These things are somewhat like hollow tree trunks, with the opening facing the city wall. Because they are outside the range of the trebuchet, Ersiwei can only watch the Qin army struggle for a while.
"What is that?" Esiwe asked, suddenly feeling an ominous premonition in his heart.
The guard replied with a confused look:
"I don't know."
"I've never seen it before, why don't I go check it out?"
Ersiwei only frowned and shook his head to reject the plan.
He believed that there was no need to investigate at all, and he would know what they were or what they were used for later.
Ersiwei was right. The Qin army's artillery on the other side was ready to launch.
Although all the guns were ready to fire, only one of the first guns was allowed to fire.
This is what artillery calls a "test firing".
The principle is that the cannons are all cast in clay molds of the same size, so there is not much difference.
The projectiles are also the same size and weight... Although Qin Shi's casting technology is backward and cannot be very accurate, the error can be controlled within the range of five grams.
The medicine packs are strictly weighed and have the same medicine content.
Therefore, if one cannon can hit the city wall at a certain angle, other artillery can also hit it.
"Test firing" can progressively reduce the risk of projectiles deviating from the target.
Following Shen Bing's order, the gunner lit the fuse.
Then there was just a "boom" sound, and a projectile flew out.
It was obviously a little higher, and the projectile passed over the city wall and hit something unknown behind it, making a sound of pieces of wood collapsing.
So the other gunners adjusted the muzzle angle downwards.
While the Qin army was busy, Esiwei, who was standing on the top of the city, was startled by this scene. He was shocked and asked again:
"What is that?"
"It is so powerful that it can destroy a trebuchet from two hundred steps away!"
It turned out that the projectile just hit the trebuchet inside the city wall.
The trebuchet is equipped with a heavy trebuchet, and the stone bullets are loaded and ready to go.
The solid projectiles fired from the artillery were made of iron. The trebuchet could not withstand the momentum of the high-speed flying. With just a "click", the main beam of the trebuchet was broken, and the counterweight lost its support and fell heavily. At that moment, the entire trebuchet
The machine became a pile of scrap wood.
The Hun soldiers who were preparing to control the trebuchet nearby were naturally screamed when they were hit.
But of course, no one could answer Esvi's question.
Just when Ersiwei and his bodyguards were looking at each other, they heard another "boom", followed by a puff of smoke from the opposite side and another shot of projectiles flying towards them.
This time the projectile accurately hit the city wall.
Ersiwei also felt it, because there was a dull and powerful vibration coming from under his feet.
Before Esiwe could react, there was a "boom" sound from the direction of the Qin army.
Then more than ten projectiles hit the city wall one after another and embedded deeply into the earth wall.
If it was like a horse's hooves giving the city wall a hard kick before, now it's like thousands of troops and horses trampling on the city wall.
Ethvi soon understood what would happen...the city wall was no longer in existence.