I

Guangji County (Meichuan Town, Wuxue City).

Zhang Xianzhong and Sun Kewang commanded 100,000 troops, and also served as countless civilian husbands. They claimed that an army of 800,000 came to attack.

Pointing to the brand new city wall, Sun Kewang said: "The construction started in July last year. What kind of cement was used to lay the bricks, with rammed earth in the middle, and the foundation was not deep, so I think it will not be very strong."

"Is the main force of the enemy army in the city?" Zhang Xianzhong asked.

Sun Kewang replied: "I'm not sure. In Zhao Han's territory, he dare not ride a horse to inquire, otherwise he will be arrested as a spy. Recently, the enemy has frequently mobilized, and recruited peasants, soldiers and peasants on the spot. It doesn't count."

Zhang Xianzhong thought about it: "Spread out a group of cavalry, go east to investigate the enemy's real situation, and see if we can plunder the Wujia cave by the way."

Wujiaxue is on the bank of the Yangtze River. It was a commercial market town in the Ming Dynasty, which was later the urban area of ​​Wuxue City.

As for the county government of Guangji, no city was built in the Ming Dynasty.

After Zhao Han occupied this place, he quickly built the city wall in half a year. The stone and compound soil are used as the base of the wall, the rammed earth is used as the city wall, and the wall is made of cement bricks. There is no moat, only a Meichuan River blocks it.

The cement brick wall is very brittle, and it will fall off when it is hit by a cannon, it is purely to protect the earth wall inside from the wind and sun.

Strictly speaking, this is a traditional rammed earth city wall.

"Old Ma, this time you lead the cavalry as the vanguard. Be careful when you meet the enemy. Zhao Han's firecrackers are really powerful." Zhang Xianzhong instructed another person beside him.

This man was called Ma Shouying, nicknamed "Laohuihui".

In the fifth battalion of Gezuo, King Zuojin died in battle with the Ming army, while Geliyan, King Gaishi, and King Chaoshi were killed by Zhang Xianzhong and annexed their tribes.

Now only Ma Shouying, the old Hui Hui, is left, and Zhang Xianzhong's territory is assigned to Yunyang. This man was from the frontier army of the Ming Dynasty, and the cavalry under his command included not only Han Chinese and Muslims, but also Mongols.

Zhang Xianzhong's army camped near Guangji County, and sent out a team of 2,000 cavalry as spies, while Laohui led 5,000 elite cavalry and headed straight to Huangmei County.

All villages in Guangji County have been fortified and cleared.

The people either retreated into the mountains in the northwest, or retreated into Guangji County. Zhang Xianzhong led his troops all the way, some seedlings had already been planted along the way, and some paddy fields were too late to transplant.

At this moment, the people guarding the city looked at the enemy army outside, with hatred in their eyes.

Especially for those farmers who are too late to transplant rice seedlings, they have already sowed seeds to grow seedlings, plowed the fields to store water, and finished all the work, leaving only the crucial step of transplanting rice seedlings. Once Zhang Xianzhong came, he did nothing for nothing, and the farming season had already been delayed!

the next day.

Zhang Xianzhong took out a pair of civilian binoculars, which Xizuo bought in Jiangxi.

He sent out many spies, all of whom had their family members as hostages. But only half of them were able to come back, and they didn't know whether they were killed or stayed in Zhao Han's territory and refused to leave.

The city tower is densely packed, and the number of defenders is very large, but it seems that they are all miscellaneous soldiers.

Zhang Xianzhong put down the binoculars. He had an intuition that the Datong regular army was not here. The city should be full of common people, and those who guard the city are also local people. According to the detailed report, every village in Zhao Han's territory has farmers and soldiers, and the defenders who want to come to Guangji County are mainly farmers and soldiers.

This city is not easy to fight. Although there is no regular army stationed there, the preliminary preparations are too sufficient!

No matter how difficult it is to fight, Zhang Xianzhong must be defeated.

Due to the terrain, the Yangtze River is to the south and the Dabie Mountains are to the north. Zhang Xianzhong's passage for dispatching troops is very narrow. If he didn't take the city and drove straight in, his food road was very dangerous, and it was very likely that the defenders in the city would run out and cut off.

A few days before the siege, craftsmen and civilians must be sent to build seven or eight pontoon bridges on the Meichuan River.

Zhang Xianzhong made people build bridges while cutting down trees to make siege equipment.

Some of the scattered cavalry headed southeast, and they tried to plunder the commercial market town of Wujiaxue.

Running to the outside of the town, I saw that two wide trenches had been dug around the town. The peasants from the villages along the way had already evacuated, and most of them retreated to Wujiaxue Town for defense.

The horse team rushed back to report the situation: "Your Majesty, there is a deep moat outside Wujiaxue Town, and only a few narrow roads are left to pass through. The farmers along the way are gone. I am afraid they have withdrawn to the town. There may be 20,000 to 30,000 people in the town. .”

Zhang Xianzhong frowned when he heard this. His original strategy was to rob food along the way and coerce the people to keep marching.

But in the current situation, food cannot be grabbed, and the people cannot be coerced, so they can only slowly attack the city one by one. This mother is still playing a ghost?

How much food and grass does Zhao Han have in his hand, so that he can play against the wall and clear the field!

Counties such as Guangji, Huangmei, and Susong were all occupied by Zhao Han last year, and many people immigrated for less than a year. There is not much staple food harvested at all, just replanting some miscellaneous grains, and half of the people live through the winter by gnawing on sweet potatoes.

The people in these counties are all cumbersome, hiding in the fortified walls and clear fields, most of the rations have to be provided by Zhao Han.

Zhang Xianzhong couldn't understand why Zhao Han used the precious food to evacuate the people? Isn't it good to stay in the countryside to fend for yourself?

Zhang Xianzhong felt that dividing land and property, and lightly paying taxes were a way to win people's hearts. At critical moments, we still have to rely on the army to fight. Now that a big war is about to be fought, what is the situation of using food to feed the people?

Soon, Zhang Xianzhong will understand!

After the pontoon bridge was built, only more than 20 artillery pieces were pushed to the other side of the river to attack the city.

Seeing the launch of the artillery, the defenders left the city wall one after another.

After several rounds of shelling, the effect was not very good, because Zhang Xianzhong did not have heavy siege artillery.

Don't look at the walls made of cement bricks, which were smashed to pieces by the artillery, but the rammed earth walls inside are very solid. How many meters of rammed earth would it take to collapse with inexplosible shells?

Before the city wall collapsed, Zhang Xianzhong already felt sorry for the gunpowder. He had to save enough gunpowder to fight in the field, and he couldn't waste all of it on the siege.

One hundred thousand troops crossed the pontoon bridge one after another, and it took half a day to surround Guangji County.

In the afternoon, besieged on three sides, leaving one side for the defenders to escape.

An Qigong, the magistrate of Guangji County, was born in Xinhua, Hunan. He himself was a scholar, and his elder brother An Qiwen was a juren. Although the An family was divided into thousands of acres of land, both brothers became officials. The younger brother became the county magistrate and the older brother became a judge.

An Qigong sat in the middle of the county government office and commanded, responsible for the logistics affairs of the whole city.

Officials kept coming in and out of the county office, batches of materials were drawn out from his pen, and groups of people were dispatched to various parts of the county.

Even the gentry and merchants in the city organized their families to guard the city, and some gentry and merchants even went to comfort the soldiers with meals and helped carry some supplies symbolically.

Guangji County was occupied by Sun Kewang for a whole year. No matter if they were ordinary people or gentry merchants, they all knew the virtues of enemies outside the city.

The gentry and merchants have been turned into commoners!

There is indeed a regular army in the city, but there are only a few dozen or so officers, all of whom are officers of the regular army, responsible for commanding the peasants, soldiers and common people to defend the city.

After Zhang Xianzhong stopped shelling, the officers quickly returned to the city wall with the peasants, soldiers and civilians.

Not long after, a large number of enemy troops rushed forward carrying ladders.

At each section of the city wall, there were missionaries holding tin trumpets and shouting to the enemy soldiers rushing towards the city wall: "Brothers outside the city, don't serve Zhang Xianzhong as a soldier again. Quickly put down your weapons and surrender to the King of Wu. The King of Wu loves the people like a son." , everyone here has land to plow, everyone has clothes to wear, and everyone has food to eat. You fought against Zhang Xianzhong, what if the family members died? They are still looking forward to your return. You are the pillars of the family, but You can't die! Put down your weapons and surrender, Zhang Xianzhong will definitely be defeated, and the Datong Army will take you back to your hometown to divide the fields..."

This kind of propaganda is definitely useless. They are attacking the city. Who dares to surrender?

Another missionary officer shouted: "Brothers and sisters, hold on to the city wall. Your family members are all in the city, and your land is outside the city. If the county seat is taken down, your family and land will be gone. The good times are gone..."

"The Great Harmony of the World!"

"Dress and eat!"

The slogan was temporarily changed, because many city defenders are residents of the city, and they usually don't farm.

A ladder was pushed over, these are very formal ladders. There are wooden boards to block the rain of arrows, winches for lifting and lowering, and grabbing hooks to firmly hold the city wall, and it is impossible to push it away when it is placed on the wall.

"Throw firewood!"

A large amount of dry firewood drenched with oil was thrown down the city one after another when the ladder approached, and then the torches were thrown down.

A section of the ground near the wall suddenly ignited a raging fire, baking the ladder and the siege enemy army.

Then the hot oil poured down again, scalding the half-climbed enemy soldiers and falling into the burning firewood pile below, the hot oil on their bodies quickly caught fire.

"ah!"

There were screams one after another, and the people guarding the city were also screaming, because there were archers throwing shots from below the city.

This can only be blamed on the fact that the city wall is too short. It took only half a year to build the city, and it was only over four meters high.

Zhang Xianzhong's first offensive was quickly repulsed, eight people were shot dead and more than 100 people were shot and wounded.

Soon there was a second wave of offensive, and this time the attack from all directions was to pile up the lives of cannon fodder and consume the defenders' supplies as much as possible.

Only when the supplies for defending the city were almost exhausted, Zhang Xianzhong would send elites to attack the city wall.

The ancient siege was so cruel.

At the same time, Zhang Xianzhong was still digging a tunnel, trying to transport gunpowder through the tunnel to blow down the city wall.

In addition, several Lügong vehicles are being manufactured, which are siege weapons.

Half a month later, Zhang Xianzhong's siege cannon fodder killed and injured nearly 10,000 people, and finally exhausted the firewood, hot oil, and gold juice in the city.

During this period, Lao Huihui sent people back to report that Huangmei County, Susong County, and Taihu County had all been fortified and cleared. He couldn't grab food, and he didn't bring much food and grass, and the main force of the enemy army never showed up, so he asked to return to the army temporarily to join.

The news brought by the old Huihui gave Zhang Xianzhong a bad feeling, this time he seemed to have stepped into a quagmire!

Zhang Xianzhong has never encountered Zhao Han's strong wall and clear field style of play, and Zhao Han is the only one in the world who is willing to do this, so how much money and food will be consumed!

If Zhao Han met Zhang Xianzhong at this moment, he would definitely yell at him: "Fortifying the walls and clearing the fields cost money and food? Do you fucking know how much money I spent on dividing the land and emigrating! I am immigrating a commoner, and it is countless times more expensive than raising a soldier!"

Now that the war has begun, there is no room for halfway.

Seeing that the supplies in the city were getting less and less, Zhang Xianzhong ordered to send out elite soldiers to attack the city, and pushed out those Lu Gong vehicles as well.

"Boom boom boom!"

This time, it wasn't firewood, hot oil, rolling logs, or golden juice, but it was smashed down one by one.

Zhang Xianzhong's face turned green.

So far, he has suffered nearly 10,000 casualties. Let alone a single earthen city, even the enemy's regular army could not be found.

"My lord, a tunnel is about to be dug through!"

"Okay, those who dig tunnels will be rewarded. The whole army stops attacking the city, and after nightfall, light the gunpowder, blow down the city wall and immediately attack in the chaos!"

(Ask for a monthly pass.)