At first, Pang Nuan only thought that deserters were spreading the news... How could this city gate be lost so quickly?
No wonder Pang Nuan didn't believe it. The most difficult thing to attack in a city attack is the city gate.
The gates on real battlefields are not as simple as those shown in movies and TV, just two doors and a bolt.
A city gate like this only requires a few bundles of pine trees to be thrown over and burned for a few hours before it is burned through.
In ancient times, the gates of cities, especially capitals like Handan, were often made into urns.
The so-called Wengcheng is to change the city gate into two front and back gates and connect them end to end in a circle surrounded by city walls.
Viewed from above, it looks like the mouth of an urn, so it is called the urn city.
In addition to making the city gate more difficult to breach, this will also transform the static defense of the city gate into dynamic defense:
The enemy breached a city gate?
It doesn't matter.
They will soon enter the barbican city and be blocked by another gate.
At the same time, these enemies who entered the urn were like turtles in an urn, surrounded by the city wall.
The crossbowmen at the top of the city opened their bows and nocked arrows to shoot down, striking from all directions and angles.
Occasionally, you can also throw down rolling stones and hammers... it's so refreshing.
Therefore, even if Wengcheng deliberately opened the first gate wide, the enemy would not dare to enter easily.
On the other hand, Wengcheng is also conducive to counterattack.
If there is only one city gate, the defenders in the city will face a problem if they want to go out to fight the enemy: as soon as the city gate is opened, the enemy will take advantage of the situation and fight back through the city gate.
There is no such worry in Wengcheng.
If you want to counterattack, first place your troops in the urn city.
The operation steps are like a watertight compartment. This door is closed and that door is opened, and then this door is opened and that door is closed.
Then the troops moved out to cover up the enemy...the enemy either counterattacked or entered the barbican and was surrounded.
Handan is the capital of the Zhao Kingdom, and its four city gates are all barbicans, especially the north gate barbican, which has a solid wall and is extremely difficult to break through.
Therefore, it was hard for Pang Nuan to believe that it had been lost in the blink of an eye, and that it was the city gate that had been lost.
Although Pang Nuan was hesitant, his men did not dare to neglect him. He immediately took a thousand personal guards and rushed to the north gate to reinforce him.
Pang Nuan thought to himself that even if the North Gate was lost, it would only be a small gap created by the Qin army.
As long as these thousand personal guards can make up for it in time and recapture the city gate, there will be no serious problem.
However, the facts hit Pang Nuan hard:
When Pang Nuan led his troops to the north gate, he found that the Qin army had completely captured the city wall and spread into the city...
It was just a small gap, but the Qin army was already rushing towards them like a flood after a dike burst. Pang Nuan was instantly shocked and stood on the spot.
Needless to say why the North Gate was breached in a short period of time, it was of course because of the squid.
To be precise, they are poisonous bombs made from the soft-shelled turtle.
Soon after the war started, Shen Bing ordered poison bombs to be set alight and fired into the city, and all of them were fired near the city gate.
Since the Qin army had seen this kind of linen fire bombs thrown by the Qin army many times before, the Zhao army did not care.
How could they have imagined that this linen fire bomb was not the other linen fire bomb.
In addition to burning, these linen fire bombs also released thick smoke outwards. After a while, the area around the city gate became blurry, like fog.
Occasionally, Zhao Bing coughed.
In addition, some poison bombs were thrown onto the city wall by the soldiers of the Qin army who were attacking the city...
This is because it is difficult to accurately throw the poisonous bombs from the trebuchet to the Zhao soldiers who are paralyzing the city walls.
So Shen Bing thought of a way to tie the poison bombs with hemp ropes and carry them with the siege soldiers.
When the soldiers climbed up the siege ladder and were not far from the city head, they used torches to light poison bombs and threw them towards the city head...
It's kind of like a primitive grenade.
So not long after, everyone on the Zhao army on the city wall was breathing quickly and their limbs were weak.
At first, Zhao Jun only thought that he was nervous about defending against the enemy and something was wrong with him, but by the time he realized something was wrong, it was already too late...
At this time, Yang Duan and Ling Qi waved their orders to attack the formation team.
The five hundred men who trapped the team were all wearing brown clothes without armor.
Most of them were only equipped with a bronze sword and covered their mouth and nose with a healing cloth to protect themselves from poison.
Only a few soldiers responsible for the defense at the top of the city carried leather shields.
This light armor allowed them to quickly jump up the wooden ladder and attack the city with lightning speed.
At this time, Zhao Jun at the top of the city was completely powerless and unable to resist.
Therefore, the shields blocked the Zhao troops coming for reinforcements from both sides. Those who killed people killed people, and those who grabbed the city gates grabbed the city gates...
In just one stick of incense, the originally impregnable North Gate Urn City was breached.
As soon as the two city gates opened, the Qin army shouted and poured into the city like a tide.
When Pang Nuan brought troops to help, it was already too late. He could only watch this scene helplessly and helplessly.
The guards immediately stepped forward to withstand the Qin army's attack without waiting for orders, and protected Pang Nuan as they retreated.
Who would have thought that Pang Nuan would be disheartened by now.
He sighed deeply and said:
"It's a shame that I, Pang Nuan, didn't die a few days earlier."
"Otherwise, there is no need to sit back and watch Zhao fall at the hands of Qin Man!"
After saying that, he suddenly took out the bronze sword from his waist and wiped it on his neck...
The guards exclaimed and rushed forward to stop him, but they were too late.
A stream of blood spurted out from Pang Nuan's neck. After a while, he fell to the ground as the bronze sword fell from his hand.
As soon as Pang Nuan died, Zhao Jun lost their will to resist and abandoned their weapons and surrendered.
The nobles of Zhao State fought and fled into the imperial city...
The Imperial City is the inner city of Handan. It also has city walls that are not even lower than those of the outer city.
However, everyone knew that the situation was over at this time, and hiding in the inner city was just for a moment of psychological comfort.
As long as the Qin army sets up their trebuchets outside the city and throws linen fire bombs in, the inner city will soon turn into a city of fire.
This is indeed the case.
However, Wang Jian was not in a hurry to attack the inner city. He ordered to control the surrendering troops first and then pacify the people.
This is one of Wang Jian's strengths. He is good at developing things steadily rather than rushing for quick success.
It wasn't until that night that everything was settled, before Wang Jian transported the trebuchets one by one to the outside of the imperial city and set them up.
A messenger galloped to the city gate and shouted:
"General Wang Jian has an order."
"If you leave the city and surrender within half an hour, I will spare your life."
"Otherwise, the general will burn down the imperial city!"
…
Shen Bing was standing behind the trebuchet, looking at the Imperial City of Handan under the torch.
Waves of crying came from inside...At this time, the nobles of the Zhao Kingdom had nothing else to do but hold their heads and cry.
Perhaps King Zhao believed Wang Jian's words, so it didn't take long for the city gate to open slowly from the inside. Zhao Wangqian, followed by a group of soldiers, led the civil and military officials out of the city in a procession.
Shen Bing looked at the leader of Zhao Wangqian who was trembling out of the city, and he didn't know what he felt in his heart.
If you commit suicide, who will blame you?
It is precisely "poor people must be miserable".
Although it is said that King Zhao fell into the trap of alienation, if he hadn't been thinking about getting rid of Li Mu, how could he have ended up in such a situation?
The soldiers of the Qin army raised their weapons and cheered.
However, the nobles of the Zhao Kingdom were all so frightened that their faces turned pale and their whole bodies were trembling, and they could not even stand firm.
So far...
This was the end of the Zhao State, the only one among the Six Kingdoms that could directly defend Qin militarily.