Chastity Layman

Qin Lang was standing on the bell tower of Yacheng, the five-star fortress, which was the highest point of the fortress. Standing on the bell tower of more than ten feet, he immediately had the feeling of seeing all the small mountains.

Xi Junmai patted the big bronze bell, smiled and said to Qin Lang, "Standing on it, my legs feel a little weak."

The bell tower is the highest point of the five-star fortress. There is not only a big bronze bell cast in the Diezhou Copper Mine on it, but also four bronze drums.

The roof of the building is very wide, and it still looks very spacious after the bell and drum are placed.

This tall bell and drum tower is an important part of Qin Lang's design. The bell and drum tower is like a tower, and the bells and drums on it are used as warning signals, and the bells and drums are used to communicate. At the same time, there are command flags and command lamps upstairs. The flags are raised during the day and the lights are raised at night. These lights and flags are used to command and issue orders.

Of course, the Bell and Drum Tower itself is still a blockhouse tower, and there are nine ballistas erected on it, which is a nine-story 12-foot-high blockhouse. The last bastion.

Standing on the top of the bell tower, you can feel the whole picture of this peculiarly shaped fortress.

The entire fortress is actually not very big, it was designed and built entirely out of military needs, and it is not used for other purposes except for the military and civilians. The castle area of ​​the five-star fortress actually only covers an area of ​​50 acres.

The pentagonal castle is no more than a hundred paces long on one side. When the design drawings of this small fort were presented, Liang Jianfang, Xi Junmai and others felt that it was too small.

However, Qin Lang believed that as a frontline fortress, the fortress should be small and lean rather than large. A large city would be difficult to defend and more defenders would be needed. As for the entire Diezhou Governor's Mansion, there are only 3,000 Zhenxi troops, and it is impossible to guard them all in one castle. In addition, it protrudes from the border, so this castle may be under the threat of the Qiang people from time to time. Have sufficient self-protection ability.

It was precisely in combination with these requirements that Qin Lang personally designed this strange fortress that seemed weird to everyone.

The circumference of the castle is only a few hundred steps, and the main city covers an area of ​​only 50 mu. The main city is not square but pentagonal. This is not the most peculiar thing. The most peculiar thing is that this castle also uses curved walls Corner design, five protruding corners are designed. The corners are not like the horse-faced enemy towers of traditional cities, but a huge protruding fortress with corners.

This edge is connected to the city wall, but protrudes from the city wall, which is equivalent to an independent bastion. On the top of the fort, there is a female wall and a ballista, and it is two feet wide.

The base is five feet wide, and the bottom is actually a cave for hiding soldiers. There are barracks, medical rooms, armored warehouses, barracks, kitchens, toilets, grain depots, water cellars, etc. to meet the needs of the building.

Between the two corners is a triangular fortress independent of the castle.

This triangular fort is equivalent to a siege watchtower, tall and solid, up to five feet high, there are ballistas on the triangular fort, there are underground warehouses, barracks, water cellars, etc. in the fort, and there is a narrow underground passage leading to the main city.

There is a moat between the bottom of the triangular fort and the city, and it has to be connected by a suspension bridge.

The entire five-star fortress has a main city, a tooth city in the center of the main city, and a bell tower blockhouse in the center of the tooth city.

There are five prismatic forts on the five corners, and there is a triangular blockhouse independent of the castle between the two bastions.

There is a trench between the city and the triangular fort, and the trench is on the side of the city, and there is a sheep and horse wall.

The triangular fort is connected with the city pool by a suspension bridge.

In fact, several triangular forts are blocked in front of the city gate, which is equivalent to the urn city of the city gate.

Outside the first ditch, there were several triangular forts, and outside the outer triangular fort, several half-moon forts were built, which were also independent, and then there was a second ditch outside.

For the entire five-star fortress, Qin Lang selected a site on a high ground two miles west of Anhua County. The soil dug out from two trenches was piled up as the foundation of the city. Because of rushing time and saving manpower, Qin Lang did not choose to ram the earth for the city, or build the city with stones, but directly built a slope-style city wall.

This method is simple and fast, but compared with the vertical city wall, this sloped city wall is naturally weaker in defense, so Qin Lang dug a wide and deep trench in front of the city wall, and it was still on the side of the city. A wall of sheep and horses half a person's height was built beside the ditch.

On the slope of the city wall, a dense row of sharpened piles was erected, facing Haogou directly. These sharpened piles were so big and thick that they were called storm spikes by the soldiers, which greatly increased the defense of the city wall.

The most important design is the combination of bastion, triangular fort and half-moon fort. These fortresses are coordinated like canine teeth, basically realizing the saturated coverage attack of multi-level dense firepower, and there is no dead spot for attack at all.

Especially in the face of the main enemy Qiang people, it has a great effect of restraining cavalry.

The entire castle is very small, with only fifty acres of land, but the five bastions, ten triangular forts, five half-moon forts, two ditches, and three embankments outside can make this small fortress fully armed. teeth.

If the Qiang wanted to capture the city, their cavalry was completely useless. They could only dismount and break through trenches, embankments, and fortresses. But the problem is, under the multi-level defense network designed by Qin Lang, even Breaking through and capturing one or two fortresses is useless. He also has to face multiple dense firepower coverage around him, especially all these fortresses are actually very small.

This is conducive to defense with a small number of troops.

This kind of design combines the ancient Chinese curved city design and knuckle design, integrates some ancient Chinese wavy city walls, enemy tower horse face design, etc., and is compatible with the western bastions and multilateral castle designs, forming a small area. A front-line fortress with amazing defenses.

The city can usually store sufficient food, grass and equipment, and there are wells and cellars in the city. Such a fortress can normally station 800 people and can fight against thousands of people without fear. It can accommodate up to 5,000 people to defend the city and fight for a year.

"Is it really so amazing?"

Xi Junmai didn't believe it. This kind of castle looks like a show of teeth and claws, but it's just too small.

In particular, he didn't quite understand why those triangular forts and half-moon forts were set up outside the city.

"Of course, the three-dimensional intersection, multi-layered and deep defense is not a bit stronger than the defense of ordinary cities. Even if the city is tall and strong, it is actually a linear defense, with only a thin layer. , if you concentrate your forces on a single point of breakthrough, it is easy to break through. Once a gap is opened, the entire defense may be difficult to save. Therefore, in the defense of a large city, it is generally necessary to station camps outside, or guard the surrounding walls to help each other. It is difficult to defend an isolated city. , It’s hard to be alone.”

"You know the Luoyang City in the former Sui Dynasty. Back then, Yang Jian asked the architect Yu Wenkai to build Luoyang City. The design and planning of the entire Luoyang City were extremely good, but Luoyang City not only had a good layout in the city, but also its defense was amazing. The defense of Luoyang City designed by Yu Wenkai back then was a large-scale defense in depth, which was multi-layered. Wang Shichong of the Sui Dynasty defended Luoyang City, and Li Mi of Wagang was so strong and strong. He gathered heroes from all over the world. There is a shortage of soldiers, but after fighting for several years, it is hard to take down Luoyang, because Luoyang's defense in depth was effective at that time."

Everything is the same, if you play well, you can play to the extreme.

A small fortress, if you play it well, it will be impossible for anyone to open it.

"What advantage does my Tang army have over the Qiang people? First of all, it lies in equipment. Our armor is strong and our bows are strong. Our armor equipment rate is high, and our bow and crossbow equipment rate is higher. So in view of these advantages, I built this five-star fortress. It can exert the strength of armor and bow to the extreme."

Qin Lang patted the chariot crossbows on the watchtower. These are three-bow and eight-ox crossbows. With the power of three bows, seven crossbow guns as thick as spears can be loaded at one time, and the killing range can reach hundreds of steps. Far away, a crossbow spear can shoot a person in half.

As for such chariot crossbows, Qin Lang deployed many on the five-star fort, several of them were deployed on each bastion, triangular fort, and half-moon fort.

Relying on these tall and strong fortress platforms, the power of the crossbow can be brought into full play.

Not to mention, these Bastion platforms are also excellent shooting platforms for crossbowmen.

When the Qiang people came to attack, they first had to face the design of the castle that lived on the hillside with layers of elevation, and they had to be attacked by the Tang army from a high position.

Not to mention that there are so many ditches and embankments, and there are sheep and horse walls behind each ditch, and there are storm pickets on the embankments, and spikes are also buried at the bottom of the ditches.

To cross these ditches and embankments, one has to bear the crossbow on the fortress.

The Tang army can even send infantry to resist the enemy behind the walls of sheep and horses on the slopes of the ditches.

"It's like we usually face each other. If we fight one-on-one, killing one thousand enemies may cost us eight hundred. But now we are defending this five-star fortress, which is actually equivalent to fighting with three people in a small specific battlefield. One-on-one or even five-on-one, ten-on-one."

In front of this kind of fortress, even if the enemy came to 100,000 people, he would not be able to swarm him, and once he got close to the fortress, everyone would face layer upon layer of multi-level fire coverage.

"According to Duke Wei, wouldn't this five-star fortress never fall?"

"Normally, this fortress can resist ten times or even twenty times the enemy. The fortress can accommodate up to five thousand defenders, which means that we can defend against one hundred thousand enemies. The fortress has enough food and equipment to support it for a year. "

Hearing what Qin Lang said, Xi Jun felt it was a bit exaggerated to buy such a titan.

Can such a small fortress resist the siege of a hundred thousand troops for a year?

Liang Jianfang also smiled and said, "Mr. Wei, your Chang'an Pingkangfang mansion has a total of more than 200 mu of land. This fortress is less than 30% the size of your mansion. Even a city as powerful as Chang'an dare not say Prevent 100,000 people for a year, right?"

"Chang'an is a strong city, but Chang'an is a big city, and there are many troops to defend. If there are not enough troops, small horses and large carts will not be able to pull it. But there are many people, and the consumption of money and food is also high. Therefore, a city like Chang'an is generally It is said that if there are sufficient defenders, a strong attack cannot be attacked, just like Luoyang City could not be attacked several times in the Central Plains War in the Sui Dynasty. However, the fatal weakness of such a fortified city is food and grass. And the food and grass consumption of the people in the city will make the army and the people in the city self-defeating."

On the contrary, a purely military fortress like the five-star fortress has no people at all inside, and the city is small and easy to defend, easy to defend and difficult to attack, in fact, it is like a closed city.

The five-star fortress designed by Qin Lang is far inferior to Diezhou Mountain City in terms of natural dangers alone, but it is not weaker than Diezhou City in terms of defensive power.

Last time Qin Lang was in Diezhou City, thousands of people were not afraid of facing 60,000 enemy troops, and the same is true for this five-star fortress now.

Diezhou City is as dangerous as it is, not everywhere, but the five-star fortress can be built anywhere, regardless of the danger, just find a high ground, even if it is on flat ground, even swampy ground can be built, time is fast .

No bricks, no wood, no rammed earth, just like building a river embankment, it is very simple, that is, building watchtowers is a bit more complicated, but the watchtowers are small and independent, so that the five-star fortress can be quickly replicated, this is Diezhou, The incomparable advantages of Yanmen Pass and Tongguan.

Liang Jianfang and others always felt that this small castle was unlikely to be so powerful, after all, it had not withstood the test of war.

"The five-star fortress was basically completed in less than two months. It is estimated that the party members still don't know that we have quickly built such a strong fortress in this valley." Qin Lang smiled. He said, this is another important advantage of this kind of fortress, the cost is low, and the construction is fast, so fast that sometimes the other party may not even know it, and you have already completed it.

"Weigong's fortress is good, but there is still a shortcoming." Liang Jianfang pointed out that the inadequacy of this fortress lies in the inability to achieve military-civilian integration.

Anhua County can only choose another place to build a city, and because a lot of manpower and material resources are used in this fortress, Anhua County can only become more and more rudimentary.

The entire city of Anhua County is only a two-foot-high earthen wall, without even digging a trench, and the real enemy is coming. This kind of extremely simple city has no city defense at all.

In fact, Qin Lang didn't waste his troops in Anhua City, and the city's security was handed over to the Anhua regiment trainers and yamen servants.

If the real enemy comes, Anhua City can only let the people evacuate.

Usually, Anhua City is to prevent thieves and thieves, and it cannot prevent enemy invasion.

"There are gains and losses. As a border fortress, we must strengthen its core role, rather than thinking about high-quality. What I want is a five-star fortress that can first be based on being able to defend and not lose, and then be able to fight back. As for other shortcomings Here, it’s impossible.”

Of course, as long as the five-star fortress that is less than two miles away is not lost, the garrison here will be able to threaten the enemy very powerfully. Unless the opponent really has thousands of troops, otherwise the existence of the five-star fortress has to be considered.

"After the construction here is completed, we will start to reclaim wasteland in the attached army, graze and raise sheep. While stationing and training, we will farm and graze at the same time. If we can be self-sufficient, we will be even more invincible."

In the west of Diezhou, there is such a fortress. Not to mention other things, Diezhou has sufficient warning time, and its significance and function are unquestionable. It is precisely because of this that Qin Lang spent a lot of money to rush to build a fort here. Five-star fortress, this fortress is to prevent Qiang people from raiding and guarding the gate of Diezhou.

If the party is attacked in the future, this will also be an offensive base.