The first thousand one hundred and fifty-five chapters disaster caused Xiao Qiang
Time passed by nearly two months, and gradually came autumn. As Guo Song judged, Zhu Si's attack on Songcheng County was obviously top-heavy. After the siege weapons arrived, Zhu Si's army immediately launched a violent and violent attack on Songcheng County.
.
However, the Feixiong Guard had the weapon of kerosene and the powerful defensive bow. These two weapons played a huge and important role. In the attack for more than ten days in a row, hundreds of siege ladders were burned down, and more than 100 soldiers were killed or injured.
Thirty thousand people were killed, but the city was still not captured.
Zhu Si's army began to obviously lack stamina and switched from large-scale siege to small-scale siege, but it still had no effect, which really made Zhu Si extremely frustrated.
At the third watch, an army of 3,000 men quietly approached the city. The leader of this army was Xiao Wanding's second son, Xiao Bai. Xiao Bai is currently serving as the general of the Huben Guard. His father, Xiao Wanding, is the commander-in-chief. He has been unable to capture Songcheng County and has lost many troops.
With nearly 30,000 people, the pressure is extremely high.
Xiao Bai saw this and wanted to help his father. Without his father's consent, he secretly led three thousand troops and prepared to attack Songcheng County at night.
Xiao Bai had always been a bow trainer in the Zhengzhou militia, responsible for training militia soldiers in archery. He had no experience in leading troops in battle, let alone siege experience. He thought he could capture the city at night, which was indeed a bit taken for granted.
It was very quiet on the top of the city. There were no soldiers patrolling back and forth. It was probably after half a month of continuous siege. The soldiers of the Flying Bear Guard were exhausted and were sleeping.
Xiao Bai was secretly happy, and he ordered in a low voice: "Three hundred forwards forward!"
Three hundred soldiers carried three siege ladders and quickly approached the city wall. This is the easternmost part of the north city wall. Around the corner is the east city wall. This is far away from the city gate and should be the weakest defense point.
Three siege ladders gently leaned against the city wall, and three hundred soldiers quickly climbed up the siege ladder. Xiao Bai finally couldn't hold back his excitement and rushed up with a spear. Several soldiers did not hold him back.
He was so anxious that he ran up after him.
At this moment, flames suddenly burst out from the top of the city, and countless soldiers appeared. They fired arrows downwards together, and the arrows shot like a storm at the soldiers on the three siege ladders. The soldiers were hit by arrows one after another and fell down screaming.
.
Immediately afterwards, more than a dozen barrels of kerosene were thrown at them, several rockets were fired, and the flames burst into flames. More than a hundred soldiers were ignited by the fire and fell into a sea of fire. They were burned until they howled like ghosts and ran away in all directions.
Xiao Bai was so angry that he waved his sword and shouted: "Don't retreat, charge forward!"
At this moment, a wolf-fang arrow came towards him with a "whoosh!", Xiao Bai couldn't dodge, and the arrow hit him right in the face. Xiao Bai screamed and fell on his back.
His soldiers shouted anxiously: "General! General!"
The general was hit by an arrow, and the soldiers retreated one after another. The three siege ladders were also swallowed up by the fire. In this night sneak attack, they lost more than 200 people, including the general Xiao Bai who was also seriously injured by an arrow.
At the gate of the camp, Xiao Wanding heard that his son had been seriously injured by an arrow. He was so shocked that he ran out barefoot without even wearing shoes.
"Where is my son?"
He pushed away the soldiers and rushed forward. Two military doctors were nervously fetching arrows from Xiao Bai. One military doctor raised his head and shook his head at Xiao Wanding, indicating that it was difficult to save him.
Looking at his son on the stretcher with his face covered in blood, Xiao Wanding's legs went weak and he fell to his knees and burst into tears.
At this time, the two military doctors stood up and sighed lowly. They really couldn't save him. The injury was too serious and Xiao Bai had already expired.
The generals tried to persuade Xiao Wanding, but Xiao Wanding wiped away his tears and saw the arrow at a glance. It turned out to be a fang arrow shot by a riding bow, not a defender's arrow or a crossbow arrow. It was obvious that someone was aiming at his son and shot this arrow.
"Who shot the arrow?" Xiao Wanding asked through gritted teeth.
"General, there are words on the arrow shaft!"
Xiao Wanding picked up the arrow and took a closer look. Under the firelight, there were two words engraved on the arrow shaft, "Qiu Pai".
"Who is Qiu Pai?" Xiao Wanding asked. He had not been the General of the Tiger Guard for a long time and did not know much about the Feixiong Guard.
But all the generals under his command knew it. General Huang An said: "This man is the third son of Qiu Jingzhong. He is brave and good at fighting and has excellent archery skills. It is said that Zhang Ting'an died under his arrow."
"It turns out to be him!"
Xiao Wanding narrowed his eyes, flashing with incomparable hatred, and said slowly: "Catch him, I will personally dig out his heart and liver as a memorial to my son!"
...........
The death of his son actually aroused Xiao Wanding's overwhelming anger, but he did not order a large-scale siege. It was not that he did not want to attack the city, but that their siege ladders had been exhausted and they had no siege weapons.
Zhu Si was not in good health and had already returned to the capital, leaving the important task of annihilating Qiu Jingzhong to Xiao Wanding and Li Ji. However, his aide Wei Feng found a corpse with severed hands that resembled Liu Sigu's in the outskirts of Chenliu County.
Most of the man was eaten by wild dogs and could not be seen by Zhu Si. After everyone proved that this person was the military advisor Liu Sigu, Wei Feng held a funeral for him, which was regarded as a job.
Zhu Si immediately appointed Wei Feng as the new military advisor to replace Liu Sigu, but Wei Feng's ability could not be compared with Liu Sigu. Liu Sigu built hundreds of siege aircraft in one month, while Wei Feng spent two months to continuously build them.
Fifty siege ladders were not built.
In fact, Wei Feng cannot be completely blamed for his incompetence. A clever woman cannot make a meal without rice. All the craftsmen in the Ordnance Supervision were transferred back to Luoyang by Zhu Si to build large-scale trebuchets and stone cannons for defense. Chen Liu only had a dozen craftsmen left.
There was no money and materials, so of course he couldn't build a siege ladder. In fact, there was another subjective reason. The casualties during the siege were too high, and Zhu Si didn't really want to attack the city.
Without siege weapons, the offensive and defensive sides will begin to enter a stalemate stage. This is also the last move in the siege war. Both sides are fighting for food and morale. They will surrender only when the food in the city is exhausted and they can eat each other.
.
Since ancient times, this has been the most brutal method of siege, trapping the opponent to death.
It was early October again, and this morning, a fleet of more than a hundred tank boats was sailing slowly in the Bian River. This was a fleet transporting supplies to the soldiers besieging the city.
Hundreds of trackers on the shore pulled on the ropes and walked forward with difficulty.
The commander escorting the fleet was named Miao Changxiu, who was Xiao Wanding's nephew. After Xiao Bai died in battle, Miao Changxiu, who was originally the Zhonglang General, took over the post of General Huben Guard and served as the rear army commander in charge of logistics.
Miao Changxiu also belongs to the category of "one person achieves enlightenment, and chickens and dogs ascend to heaven". He was originally a young proprietor of a wine shop in Zhengzhou. He didn't know a single word, and he hung out with a group of scoundrels all day long. His cousin became a queen, and he naturally followed suit and ascended to heaven.
He was granted the title of General of the Lieutenant Colonel of the Huben Guards. This was because he was illiterate. If he had been literate, he would have been granted the title of General a long time ago.
Miao Changxiu stood on the bow of the main ship, looking at the situation around him, feeling really unhappy.
Songzhou, which was originally prosperous, is now ruined and desolate. There is no common people within three hundred miles around Songcheng County. All those who could escape to Yanzhou have fled. If they can't leave, they must either enter Songcheng County or stay far away.
leave.
There were no people, no houses, no trees, as if all life was cut off. This depressing feeling made Miao Changxiu curse all the way.
"What's there to fight for in this place where birds don't poop? Even the wild dogs have escaped. I don't understand why the emperor insists on this Songzhou. Let Qiu Jingzhong occupy it and see how they starve to death!"
Several boatmen next to him laughed bitterly. The general didn't know where he came from so much resentment, and he kept scolding him along the way.
At this time, a soldier ran over and said: "General, those two deserters are dead!"
They caught more than twenty deserters the day before yesterday. These deserters could not find anything to eat and were unbearably hungry. They ran to the river to catch fish, but were caught by Miao Changxiu's men.
Miao Changxiu was about to take them back and kill them in public, but unexpectedly, two of them fell ill, had a fever and had diarrhea because they drank unclean water from the puddle.
Miao Changxiu frowned and said unhappily: "Why do you ask me for such a thing? Throw away the body and flush the cabin with water."
"Follow the order!" the soldier turned and ran away.
The fleet walked for another two hours, and saw the military camp ahead. Miao Changxiu finally breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn't see any people along the way, but it frightened him.
The fleet sailed into the army along the artificially dug trench. When they heard that the supplies were coming, the soldiers ran out to check the supplies like it was a festival. They were all looking forward to wine and meat, and it would be best to bring another boatload of women.
Xiao Wanding also came out. His son had been killed in battle for nearly a month. He seemed to have not yet gotten over the pain of his son's death. His face was sullen all day long, and there was no trace of a smile.
"General, I humbly come here to give orders!"
Miao Changxiu was really a little afraid of his uncle, but since he was the main grain transporter, he couldn't hide away, so he had to bite the bullet and move forward.
"This is the food transportation list!" Miao Changxiu handed a list to Xiao Wanding.
Xiao Wanding looked at the list and suddenly said dissatisfied: "Why are there only 20,000 shi of grain? I have an army of 100,000 people. Only two dou of grain per person is enough to feed the soldiers for how many days? How did Wei Feng become a military advisor?"
He originally didn't like military advisor Wei Feng, but now he was full of anger, "I don't want this food, you can transport it all back!"
Miao Changxiu said with a look of embarrassment: "Military Wei said that he will arrange for another batch of food to arrive soon. The main reason is that the emperor returned to Beijing and took many ships with him. There are not enough ships, so we can only transport so much."
"Nonsense!"
Xiao Wanding said angrily: "He actually pushed the responsibility to the emperor. It has been two months since the emperor returned to Beijing. Does it mean that it takes two months to go from Chenliu to Luoyang? It was obviously because he didn't think carefully. He had to transport food before he realized that there were not enough ships.
This kind of person is worthy of being called a military advisor, I want to impeach him!"
Miao Changxiu was helpless and said: "There is another matter. The last general caught more than twenty deserters on the road. I took them all back and asked the general to deal with them!"
Xiao Wanding hated deserters the most, so he immediately ordered: "Behead all the deserters and hang them in front of the camp for public display!"
More than twenty deserters were dragged out of the cabin by wolf-like military law soldiers, taken down and beheaded.
Xiao Wanding's expression softened slightly and he said to his nephew Miao Changxiu: "You have worked hard along the way. Let's go down and rest first while another group of soldiers go to guard the food!"
"I resign from my humble position!"
Miao Changxiu led his men back to the camp to rest.
The sergeants began to carry food supplies, and the trackers and boatmen were also arranged to rest in several large tents, preparing to set out again the next day to transport food to Chenliu.