Chapter 232 Construction site

The fires were shining under the night sky, and it was so lively. Piles of bonfires and little torches complemented each other, as if a vibrant downtown suddenly rose up in the border area. People were divided into two shifts, and they didn't stop at night, and started to build three earthen mountains.

Xue Chongxun stood on a hillside and looked down at the lively scene, feeling that the lively scene seemed to be full of poetry and painting. If you look at it with the poet's eyes, it is indeed the case, and the world is so magnificent; but in fact, everything now has no poeticity, it is just a life-and-death battle between two civilizations for the survival space.

Without pity and emotion, the creation of brilliant night colors is just because Xue Chongxun and others think it is more practical to try to use long-range attacks. If you change the method and use human life to fill it up, the flesh and blood will flow into a river, which may be more likely to show the essence of this game.

At this moment, a figure was coming up from the bottom of the hillside. The guards standing there did not stop him at all. They must be an acquaintance. As soon as they got closer, Xue Chongxun saw clearly that the person coming was Wang Changling.

"The vision here is quite open." Xue Chongxun said casually. However, Wang Changling held his fists calmly and bowed, which was very polite.

Wang Changling's physical strength was not as good as Xue Chongxun, and he was a little tired when climbing up. He exclaimed and said, "It's difficult to attack this place, and the difficulty is that it cannot be expanded. No matter how many people there are, it's useless. Thirty miles away, the terrain is dangerous... Whoever controls this place can control the Hehuang and even the Longyou area in the middle of applause."

Xue Chongxun smiled bitterly and said, "So if such a big city can be famous in the court and the country, if we capture Shibao City this time, we will definitely be famous in the world."

Wang Changling said: "This city is called the iron blade. One man should be a pass and ten thousand men cannot open it. It is like hundreds of troops guarding the city, and no one can get involved without casualties... If the lord's tactics can be effective, it should be a masterpiece."

Hearing this, Xue Chongxun felt better, with a smile on his face, and he looked at him with anticipation, and his heart was full of expectations. He hoped that those gunpowder balls could work and successfully win the Shibao City. In this way, without consuming too much national strength, he would gain an extremely important strategic location for the Tang Dynasty. It would be more glorious to return to Chang'an!

The dozens of miles from Xishixia to Yaoshuigou were busy. The war had begun, but it did not start to fight. The people from the Tang Dynasty only focused on building mountains day and night. The main force of the coalition forces stationed on the Huangshui Line to the east and did not squeeze in. Their role was to prevent the Tubo reinforcements from coming from Shibao City to the end of the city and the entire army was wiped out.

However, Tubo was defeated in Jishishan a few months ago. It is estimated that he has not recovered yet and has not mobilized his army to compete in Shibao City again.

The construction site of the three artificial earth mountains is less than 200 feet away from the stone fort. The Tang people had already calculated clearly that as long as the height drop was reduced, the distance would be within the range of the heavy catapult. However, the Tubo people were condescending but had no choice but to take the construction site. Their skills were really limited. Although they learned some craftsman skills from the Han people and could also make equipment such as crossbows, catapults, and ladders, but the quality was not satisfactory, and the range was greatly reduced. It was not as far as two hundred feet, and the accuracy was even worse. The Tubo people wanted to prevent the construction site from continuing to construct, so they could only come out of the square platform and use close combat to solve the problem.

Xue Chongxun accepted the suggestion of the general of Jiannan Army and transferred 200 infantry troops to guard the cliff. It was useless to deploy too many soldiers here, so he could only be placed vertically in the valley and could not be placed at all. Two hundred people could resist it for a while. If something happened, it would be too late to increase troops from behind.

At this time, there were no cranes and other equipment, and the speed of repairing fortifications was so slow that even if we worked day and night, we were busy until June that we had not completed the repair. The two sides confronted each other in the Yaoshui Valley for a month and did not even fight a single battle.

Finally, the first battle broke out one night in mid-June. Tubo *** could no longer tolerate the Tang people's Xianbei people repaired fortifications under their noses, and they had been repaired for more than a month. They took advantage of the dark moon and wind to destroy the fortifications. It happened that the Tang army defenders had been careless for a long time, so they allowed them to attack. When the Tubo army killed the generals, the two hundred Tang troops had not yet formed a battle formation and did not resist at the moment.

During the melee, some Tubo people rushed to the foot of three artificial earth mountains, where there were only some Tuyuhun slaves who were carrying soil and working hard labor. They were powerless to resist and were killed in scattered and fled. The Tubo people sprinkled oil on wooden racks and labor tools and set fire. The fires soared into the sky to burn all the woods. But they had no choice but to have any explosives to blow them up at this time, and they could not find a way to destroy them in a hurry.

So they raised the thick wooden pillars to hit the mountain, hoping to collapse the earthen mountain like a city gate. However, the Tang people's construction method was based on the strict earth ramming. The soil was rammed very strongly and would not move for a while after being hit.

Xue Chongxun also heard the news of the raid and immediately ordered Zhang Wulang to dispatch troops to quickly reinforce, and at the same time he met with the Tuyuhun Grand Minister Fu Lu, asking him to transfer the Tuyuhun Army as the follow-up troops to continue to follow up.

Zhang Wulang dispatched three regiments of cavalry to quickly reach the stone fortress, and a fierce battle broke out. The Tuyuhun army behind him also came, filling the narrow valley with a lot of people. It turns out that there are too many people.

Xue Chongxun climbed to a high place to see the situation on the battlefield, but he couldn't see it clearly at night. He only saw the fire in front of him and heard noise in his ears. Anyway, it started to fight. He was also a little anxious. He mainly didn't know much about the construction and didn't know what level of damage the soil mountain could withstand. If the construction site that had been hard-working for more than a month was completely destroyed, wouldn't it be a waste of work?

He found Zhao Sijue from the Si Workshop and asked, "Will the earth city you built collapse?"

But Zhao Sijue is most afraid of taking responsibility. Xue Chongxun has also known it for more than a month. As expected, Zhao Sijue stammered and said: "There is no problem with materials and structure, and it generally does not collapse. However, if it is destroyed by humans, it is hard to say the officials..."

If this ambiguous thing is, Xue Chongxun could not judge what the situation was. Of course, Zhao Sijue would not slapped his chest to guarantee: he is an engineering department and is only responsible for construction. Anyway, the built earthen city does not collapse itself, so it is not his business; being destroyed by humans is the responsibility of the garrison, and nothing to do with him. Of course, it is not necessary for Zhao Sijue to be the blame for others.

Xue Chongxun frowned and felt very depressed. If all his efforts were wasted was not just a matter of delaying time, nearly 100,000 coalition troops, mainly Tuyuhun people, would eat and drink every day on the banks of Huangshui on the east side! This battle was fought for national strength, and the Tuyuhun people would probably be exhausted.

After realizing the seriousness, he immediately wrote an order in person, mailing Zhang Wulang: Repel the enemy within half an hour and retake the construction site.

Zhang Wulang was supervising the battle behind the officers and soldiers of the Jiannan Army in front. After receiving the letter from the messenger, he unfolded the paper and put it in the fire to see Xue Chongxun's handwritten letter. He immediately realized the seriousness of the matter.

He looked up and saw that there were people in front of him, and swords and guns flashed brightly in the fire. Originally, the cavalry were reinforced, but now they were dismounted and fought because the place was too small, the infantry could be arranged more densely.

The general around him said, "The place is too narrow, and it will take too much time to use it."

Zhang Wulang said angrily: "Those who order the front army to advance, fight for the bloody path, and take a step back will be killed!"

The war drums were beating with the sound of killing and screams. The Tang cavalry dismounted were still wearing heavy armor, and the dense formations were crowded with people and could not even turn around. What martial arts tricks could be described at this time? There was no place to show you, and you could stab someone when you saw it, or you could be stabbed by someone, and you could only bear it and have no place to hide.

A general shouted loudly: "Stand firmly even if you die, don't fall..." In this situation, if you fall down, you will be stepped into a paste.

Arrows flew above the head, and no one knew when an arrow pierced into the flesh from a thin part of his body with his armor. Everyone opened their eyes wide, and most of them had fear on their faces. It was nonsense to take the initiative to move forward. It was just a responsibility to retreat, and retreating was just a violation of the law.

Fortunately, the Tang army's combat effectiveness was indeed stronger than that of the Tubo people and had better equipment. The situation was already very obvious. The Tang army was attacking and retreating while fighting.

When the sky gradually turned white, the Tang army finally regained the construction site and Tubo retreated to the square platform. The Tuyuhun soldiers behind were useless. They were ordered to pursue and followed the Tubo defeated soldiers to rush up the cliff path... It turned out to be obvious that they were smashed back by a pile of rocks, wooden crossbows and messy things, killing many people, and dying for no reason.

Zhang Wulang walked to the construction site and saw that fortunately the three earthen mountains were still standing there, but the wheelbarrows, wooden frames, ladders and other things around were all burned, and the embers were still blazing with blue smoke.

Xue Chongxun then came to the construction site to inspect it. When he saw that the fortifications had not been damaged, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was not a big deal if the tools were destroyed, and they were transported from behind.

There was also a burnt smell and a bloody smell in the mist. Many corpses fell from all over the ground. The broken sword and spear were inserted crookedly into the soil, which was particularly messy. The troops were silently carrying the bodies and cleaning up the battlefield.

Xue Chongxun asked coldly: "Where are the people responsible for guarding the construction site dead?"

At this time, a general with a bun of hair was scattered and covered in armor rushed towards this side. Before he could reach the ground, he was stopped by Xue Chongxun's guards and seized his sword.

"After the general is careless and misleading, he deserves to die!" The general hurriedly fell to the ground.

"You are right." Xue Chongxun waved his hand, "Drag it down and chop it, the head level passes to the three armies!"

Four or five soldiers rushed up, pressed them to the ground, grabbed their arms and left. The general looked desperate and could not say a word... The sin he said was dead.

Within a moment, with a "click" sound, the general's head rolled into the soil. Xue Chongxun looked around the officials and said, "The construction site is almost completed, whoever has dereliction of duty will cut off whoever makes mistakes!"
Chapter completed!