According to Guo Song's plan, a militia reserve army was first formed, consisting of men over the age of seventeen and under the age of forty from Jiuyuan and Feng'an counties. Some special characters could be excluded, such as county officials, etc.
According to the data provided by the county magistrate Wang Liao, more than 3,800 qualified men can be summoned.
Equipment is provided by the army, mainly leather armor, helmets, spears and swords, but their main task is to carry various armor and weapons to the city. If the situation is critical, they will also go into battle.
Then young women formed a logistics team, and their main tasks were to provide three meals a day and take care of wounded soldiers.
With the full help of the soldiers and the desperate harvesting of the people in the city, all men, women, old and children went into battle, and finally all the wheat outside the city was harvested on the night of the third day. At this time, the Tang Army scouts used the letter eagle to send the clearest intelligence.
Xue Yantuo's army has reached a hundred miles away, with about 20,000 people.
Jiuyuan County sounded an emergency alert.
At the fourth watch, the gates of Jiuyuan County were closed tightly, and all 5,500 soldiers were in place, ready to fight. However, at this time, the soldiers were all wrapped in blankets and leaning against the city wall and fell asleep. They were exhausted from days of harvesting wheat.
, they need to use deep sleep to restore their physical strength.
In the wilderness outside the city, more than a hundred figures were quietly busy. They were spreading thorns and digging holes to spread thorns. The Tang army and the people no longer left the city, leaving the dangers outside the city to the Xueyantuo people.
‘Woo woo’ the horn on the city head sounded for a long time.
The sky in the east has turned white, Jiuyuan County is beginning to wake up, and the soldiers and civilians who have just recovered from the fatigue of harvesting wheat are busy again.
Teams of civilians carried all kinds of combat materials on their shoulders and carried them on donkeys. They brought bundles of arrows and a large number of rolled logs and rocks. There was a large green mountain dozens of miles south of Jiuyuan County.
It is famous for being rich in bluestone. Most of the city walls and people's houses are repaired with bluestone from Daqingshan. There is a bluestone waste yard in the southwest corner of the county. These are stones discarded from building cities and houses, most of which are ten pounds each.
, stacked together like a hill.
Now these bluestone wastes have become the best weapons for defending the city. Ox carts and mule carts loaded with stones are sent to the east and west city walls.
Fifty or sixty kilograms of boulders had piled up into a mountain below the city head, and the militia soldiers were extremely busy. Liang Wu shouted in a hoarse voice: "Don't leave the distance too large, be steady, and be slow!"
On the corridors on the east and west sides, there were more than 200 young and strong militia groups standing on each side. They carried large stones up to the top of the city by passing them.
In the distance, dozens of women drove donkey carts to deliver hot breakfast.
Soldiers stand on the city head, especially the west city head, which is the focus of defense. Compared with the young and strong militia, combat soldiers need to conserve their physical strength more.
At present, there are 5,500 Tang Army soldiers in Jiuyuan County, plus 3,800 young and strong militiamen, and the number of soldiers who can go into battle is as high as more than 9,000. With the city as its support, the Tang Army is condescending, and the two armies are facing each other.
, although the number of people is less than half of the opponent, they are not at a disadvantage.
The three thousand soldiers brought from Lingzhou were all elite soldiers selected by Guo Song, and all the generals at the brigade commander level were replaced by Guo Song's confidants, that is, the seventy-five soldiers he brought back from Anxi.
After experiencing the test of life and death, the will to fight becomes stronger.
The young people of the militia are composed of young men from wealthy families in Lingzhou as low-level generals, such as Liang Wen, Liang Juer, Guo Liang, Lin Hui and others. Although most of them are highly skilled in martial arts, they have not experienced actual combat after all, so they cannot be placed in combat.
The front line.
There are mud bags stacked up on top of the city, and there are mud bags on the ground. Although it looks a bit dirty, the city's defense capability has been greatly improved.
In front of a pile of dirt, Guo Song and a dozen generals were looking at the invention of a soldier.
"I was thinking last night that if I could thrust a spear through the gap in the dirt bag, the enemy soldiers outside the city wall would be caught off guard and would be pierced by the spear, making them unable to defend themselves."
"But the gap is too small, and it's inconvenient to insert a spear into it!" Li Le said at the side.
Guo Song thought for a while and said with a smile: "There are two ways. One is to make the gap between the soil bags wider, which is the simplest and easiest way. The other way is to insert a wooden tube in the middle and hollow out the middle of the pine tree.
It’s ready to use.”
The town general Ma Wei said: "It's not easy to hollow out a tree trunk. I guess I won't be able to do that much in a while. I have a way. I use two round tiles to buckle them up and down, and there will be a round hole in the middle.
The round tiles are relatively long, strong and not afraid of pressure, and I see them on every roof in the city."
Guo Song was overjoyed that this method was good, more convenient and reliable than the method he thought of. He immediately said to Xue Changshou: "Go to Magistrate Xie and collect a batch of round tiles."
Guo Song also ordered to reward the soldier who invented the spear hole with ten taels of silver and a merit score.
At the same moment when the Tang army was actively defending, Xue Yantuo's army of 20,000 also reached 20 miles away from Jiuyuan City. Just as Guo Song had guessed, Shuofang's army recovered to nearly 30,000, which made Xue Yantuo fearful and did not dare to go south easily.
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At this time, their attention turned to Fengzhou, which is far away from Lingzhou. Although Fengzhou is mostly a deserted land, there are two counties here with nearly 15,000 residents and 4,000 to 5,000 young women.
, and the wealth accumulated by every household.
Although they looked down on Fengzhou in the past, good things are no longer available in Fengzhou. Although there is little meat in Fengzhou, the two ounces of meat on the bones can still be gnawed. They cannot wait until next spring. It is estimated that the wheat in Fengzhou
When it was ready, Xue Yantuo's 20,000 plundering army set off.
According to the practice of the Xueyantuo people, the chief general must be a noble of the Xue tribe, and the deputy general is a noble of the Yantuo tribe. This Xue Yantuo army also adopted the convention without exception. The chief general is named Xue Chake, and the deputy general is named Yantuo Manshan.
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Xue Chake is about thirty years old. He is extremely tall and majestic. He is nearly two meters tall and carries a mace weighing sixty kilograms. He is known as Xue Yantuo's number one warrior and has the official title of Captain of Ten Thousands.
Xue Chake had a violent personality, so Chief Xue Yantuo sent a steady character Captain Ten Thousands to serve as his deputy. Yantuo Manshan was much calmer than him in times of trouble.
"General Yantuo, I feel something is wrong!"
Xue Chake pointed at the wheat fields on both sides with his riding crop and said: "Look, the wheat has been harvested. Will the other party know that we are coming to kill them?"
Yantuo Manshan got off his horse and found an ear of wheat in a wheat field on the roadside. He observed it carefully for a moment and said to Xue Chake: "The general is right, the other party probably knows our arrival."
"How can you tell?"
Yantuo Manshan stepped forward and handed the wheat ears to Xue Chake, "The wheat is not fully mature yet, probably only nine. The farmers here will never do such a thing. There are still wheat ears all over the ground."
He pointed to the wheat fields on both sides and said: "It shows how hastily they harvested the wheat. They must have discovered that we have arrived."
Xue Chake snorted coldly, "I'm very grateful that they harvested all the wheat for me."
At this moment, a cavalryman rushed from the front and reported with clasped fists: "General Qi, there are many soldiers of the Tang Army found at the top of the city, about several thousand people."
Xue Chake was stunned for a moment. He and Yantuo Manshan looked at each other, "How could it be possible? Didn't it mean that Fengzhou didn't have any defenders?"
Yantuo Manshan was also surprised, and said after a while: "It should be that the Tang army has just increased its troops. Lingzhou's military strength has increased greatly. Fengzhou cannot continue to be undefended."
"I don't care when they increase their troops, but now we are in trouble. We have obviously misjudged our opponent. We did not bring siege weapons or enough food. How should we fight this battle?"
Xue Chake's tone was full of dissatisfaction and anger. Obviously, the old guys from the Xueyantuo Presbyterian Church had misjudged the situation. They just wanted to plunder Fengzhou's population, property and food to the Xueyantuo tribe, but they never thought that the Tang army was already in Fengzhou.
The state has increased its troops.
Yantuo Manshan sighed and said, "We still think of the problem too simply."
Xue Chake said extremely angrily: "Then what should we do now? We have fought so hard to get here, and are we going back like this?"
Yantuo Manshan thought for a while and said: "It is unrealistic to go back now. I suggest you go and see first how strong the opponent is? If it is easy to attack the city, we will attack the city. If the casualties are too great,
Then we will withdraw our troops and go back!"
Xue Chake also knew that this was a better suggestion, so he could only nod his head, "Then let's decide! Take a look first before talking."