The deterioration of the situation not only exceeded the expectations of the Jiannan armies, but also caused a tremor in the Daqian court.
The king of Shu wanted to ban the army in the north and south, but the army from Chang'an was transferred to Jiannan. The road to Shu was difficult, and it was difficult to reach the sky!
The war is imminent, but it will take at least a month and a half for Chang'an's troops to be mobilized. The exhausted army will fight the victorious army, which looks like a huge defeat!
If there was a mistake in the imperial army, how could Emperor Daqian intimidate the wealthy families? The three envoys would have already stretched the nerves of the wealthy families to the extreme.
If the Forbidden Army is defeated, the whole world will be in chaos!
"No!" Zhao Yumin, the saint in the court, said in an indifferent tone without any emotion.
Even if it was his wisest son asking him for help!
"Quit the court!" Prince Zhao Zaicheng looked at the silent court and ended the court meeting directly.
"Summon the Dukes of the Five Kingdoms, the Three Prime Ministers, and Wei Xian into the palace!" The purple-robed Duke's sharp voice resounded throughout the court.
The ministers walked out of the hall in a daze, whispering to each other on the way back to the government office. A small border defense made the monarchs and ministers of Daqian lose their former majesty.
This is no longer a matter in Jiannan Road. If the cancer exposed in Yizhou's arsenal this time cannot be dealt with properly, I am afraid that Daqian will be seriously injured.
Everyone understands that water from afar cannot quench thirst from near, but if you just sit back and ignore it, you may lose more than half of Jiannan Road.
Weapons and armor capable of arming 200,000 soldiers were shipped piecemeal to Tibet for sale by the officials and wealthy families of Jiannan Road.
The seller is Tubo Zamp. I had always heard that Tubo Zamp was cunning, but I didn't expect that now he has the potential to be a big loser.
"The saint vomited blood, Prince, you..." Looking at the saint's attendant who was hesitant to speak, Prince Zhao Zaicheng just nodded and turned to the East Palace with the five silent princes and the three ministers.
"The matter in Jiannan cannot be delayed!"
…
Su Ce stood on the city wall less than three feet high and looked at the continuous Tibetan camps outside the city, feeling a sense of powerlessness welling up in his heart.
Sometimes, there are too many and it is really impossible to fight with manpower.
There are examples of one-stopping a hundred, but Daqian has never used one to block a hundred troops, one to ten, which can be defended. This is the limit of the Daqian army.
Human power has its limits, but there are some things that cannot be resisted by human power.
For example, the Tubo camp in front of us. The city of Maozhou is located in the central valley of two mountain ranges, running across the road at the bottom of the valley.
This is a place that the Tibetan army cannot bypass, so Maozhou City is the first obstacle that the Tibetans must crush.
The common people of several lower counties under the jurisdiction of Maozhou with less than 10,000 households had been escorted to Yizhou by their own county magistrates and more than a hundred troops from the city as early as a month ago.
After the King of Shu sent people to see Yizhou's arsenal, he was determined to get rid of these rats. If troops were to be deployed in Yizhou, the people of Maozhou would easily become targets of attack by the local people of Yizhou. Therefore, Zhao Zai The school had no choice but to divide its troops, look for 3,000 veterans of the army, and bring Wenling of the King of Shu to the various places in Jing'an.
Although some riots had begun to occur in Jiannan, they were temporarily suppressed by the intimidation of the soldiers. The situation was rotten, like a pot of hot water about to boil. Either the lid of the pot was opened, or the heat was removed and the pot was suppressed. build.
But now Su Ce can no longer take care of this.
Surrounded by three but one missing, the layout of these Tubo army camps clearly has the shadow of Daqian, but unlike the closely connected armies of Daqian army camps, these Tubo army camps are hundreds of meters apart, even It's a "gap" half a mile apart.
Seeing the Tubo people setting up camp, Su Ce did not send anyone to carry out a futile attack, or he had not found a good opportunity yet.
After confirming for the last time that there were no common people in the city, Su Ce breathed a sigh of relief.
For those who came from the border army, the biggest fear when fighting against foreigners is that their own people will be used as "weapons" to knock people off.
Threatening the lives of the people, blocking the city gates, and letting them pass through, it would be a bloody massacre. Why did Dagan hate the other countries? It was just because these foreigners had a blood feud with the Dagan people.
Blood feuds do not disappear with a smile, only blood debts are repaid with blood.
The Jiuhu people and the Dagan people have a blood feud. During the hundred-year campaign of Dagan, five or six of them were the Anbei Protectorate who mainly attacked the Jiuhu people.
Nowadays, the Jiuhu people who once established the Great Yuan Empire can only become vassals of the Rus after handing over most of their wealth.
Become a vassal, not a slave, and be inferior to the people.
Seeing that the Tubo camp was getting better and better but no attack had been seen, although Su Ce felt it was very strange, he did not send anyone out to die.
The pace of the war was not that fast, so Su Ce took advantage of this time to prepare his army.
Among the ten thousand soldiers, there are one thousand light cavalry, four hundred reconnaissance cavalry, four hundred heavy cavalry, and two hundred armored cavalry.
The rest were all infantry. The arrows sent by the King of Shu determined that Su Ce could only focus on the deployment, with the purpose of killing, and could not afford to cover it with arrow rain.
Therefore, Su Ce drew a thousand crossbowmen from the remaining eight thousand soldiers.
The remaining 7,000 soldiers were divided into seven teams, each with a thousand men. If Maozhou City was not small, it was only a small city two miles square, and a team of a thousand men would really not be able to defend it.
Since the city of Maozhou was first established, it was considered that it was located in a critical location and the possibility of war was high.
Therefore, the statement that Maozhou is half a military city is not a joke.
The city wall is square, with a turret at each corner, two gates, one in the east and one in the west, each with a castle, and a double-story arrow tower on the gate.
The city gate is towering, reaching more than three feet, and the double-layered arrow tower is thirty meters wide. The city is circular, only a hundred meters from east to west.
Every seventy-five meters on the four city walls, there is a horse face protruding from the city wall. The horse face in Maozhou City is not as wide as the horse face in Chang'an City, only five meters wide. There is a rectangular two sides on the platform above. There are two floors of attics, the lower floor is occupied by people, and the upper floor is used as a watchtower. The city walls on the outer side are all concave and convex female walls.
There are a total of forty-eight horse faces, four turrets, and two arrow towers. These are the defensive buildings of Maozhou City.
As for the armaments, there were only eighty three-bow bed crossbows and one thousand arm-mounted crossbows sent from Yizhou. Bows were the standing weapons of the soldiers, and each man had one or two. This was chosen based on the individual abilities of the soldiers.
As for personnel allocation, Su Ce's troop formation needs to be considered. Although there is a Wengcheng and an archery tower at the city gate, it needs to be heavily guarded. These two walls are also the focus of the Tubo attack.
Put yourself in his shoes, if Su Ce had an army of 100,000 and faced a city guarded by 10,000 people, the best way would be to attack the two city gates with all his strength, detach a partial division, and wait for the defenders on the two gateless walls. After some were transferred, the main attack was carried out with the main division, and the earth was built as a slope. With the strength of the troops, one area was broken open, and the entire city was easily accessible.
Therefore, Su Ce placed 2,000 men on the east and west sides, 1,500 men on the north and south sides, and the remaining 2,000 men as auxiliary troops, who could be supplemented on the city wall at any time, and 2,000 cavalry as a counterattack force.
The cavalrymen in Dagan who could be called scouts were all excellent riders with superb riding skills, so Su Ce temporarily used these scouts as cavalry to deliver messages in the city.
As for Su Ce, the guard on the four walls of the city, his subordinates were all captains and brigade commanders, so he could only choose between shorter ones and taller ones.
These soldiers are all from various Zhechong mansions, and they all know each other to a certain extent.
Among the forty infantry captains, the crowd elected twelve captains, four captains and eight deputies. The guard general of one city wall consisted of one captain and two deputies, twenty-eight captains, one for each of the four turrets, and the remaining twenty The four school lieutenants each led two seats close to the horse's face.
Although the Tibetan army outside the city had more than 100,000 troops, the soldiers in Maozhou City did not have the slightest fear.
These temporarily transferred government soldiers are all government soldiers who have returned in turn. In other words, these government soldiers are all from the border army.
A frontier army, except for the military city, fights most of the battles in forts and forts. Although those forts and forts are dangerous, the battles are also extremely cruel. Now they are defending Maozhou City. For the people of the frontier army, Said, the cruelty of fighting has undoubtedly been reduced a lot.
As for Su Ce and Jun Sima, they were stationed in the city, and Su Ce was more cruel to his arrangements than anyone else.
In addition to the reconnaissance cavalry, there were 1,600 remaining cavalry in the city. The Army Sima led 200 armored cavalry to press the formation, and Su Ce led 1,400 light and heavy cavalry to defeat the army.
However, now that the enemy is coming fiercely, it will take some time to make a sneak attack out of the city.
After arranging his men, Su Ce ordered the whole army to kill the sheep and cook them for meat.
"Su Governor, isn't it too early to kill the sheep?" The army commander named Zhao Pei held two bowls of mutton soup in his left and right hands, with a few pieces of mutton vaguely visible under the oily flowers.
Su Ce looked angrily at the military commander who was trying to "promote" him. He was in his forties, and it was not fun to bully a man in his early twenties.
If you want to persuade me, what did you do before you killed the sheep? Now you are eating the sheep and your mouth is full of oil. What kind of advice is this?
These soldiers were all soldiers from Jiannan Road. They were not tall, but they were very fierce. Compared with the soldiers Su Ce had led before, these soldiers who had taken turns had more murderous intent.
However, he is very optimistic. He is not as calm as the northern soldiers, but he is not calm enough, but he is brave.
"They are all good soldiers. After you drink the soup, go and tell the captains that they are on the defensive in this battle and don't be greedy for credit. The lives of the soldiers are precious!" Su Ce picked up the mutton soup that the army commander had just put on the case. , took a big sip, the mutton was hot and it was perfect for a bowl before a fight.
Hearing the word "Jin Gui" coming out of Su Ce's mouth, the army commander nodded without any trace. Soldiers don't know generals, and generals don't know soldiers. This is a taboo for military strategists. However, the governor's words are very heart-warming, at least. He would not use the lives of his soldiers to buy himself wealth and glory.
There are all kinds of people in the army. Generals like Su Ce are rare anymore. A general does not care about soldiers, and soldiers will not sacrifice their lives. Anyone who can be a soldier is not a fool. Su Ce was also a soldier in the past, and he is deeply aware of this. I have a feeling that when the army wins battles and has their homes confiscated, it is mostly because they sacrificed their lives to gain military merit. Such people will not survive long in the army.
The Army Sima did not stay much longer. The forty-year-old Zhao Pei was not the Zhao of Zhao, but a general of Jiannan Road. He was not a world-famous general. He was just a young general of Jiannan Road who fought against Liuzhao. However, this did not hinder him. His status among the soldiers of Jiannan Dao.
Sometimes the reason why nobles cannot do too much when facing generals is also because of the status of generals in the army. Most of the brave people in the middle and lower ranks of the army are generals, and the army respects the strong. These generals are in the government.
The position in the army is very special.
They are all on the edge of the sword, and Xungui and Jiangmen already have a tacit understanding.
Su Ce knew that what the army commander wanted when serving soup was his own attitude. If ten thousand fought against one hundred thousand, the soldiers would dare to fight, but whether it was worth it or not needed to be considered by the soldiers themselves.
The reason why generals don't get titles is also here. The noble saint suppresses generals because of their special status among the soldiers.
Success is here, and failure is here.
But what Su Ce needs now is to work together to defend Maozhou.
The selection of Zhao Pei as Army Sima was also due to the fact that the Ministry of War valued Zhao Pei as a very prestigious person among the soldiers of Jiannan Daofu.
No one dislikes a person who knows how to advance and retreat. Su Ce and Zhao Pei had already tested each other in a few words.
"Old fox!"
"Little Fox!"
…
One of them was outside and the other was inside, drinking mutton soup and cursing secretly.
The peace before the war is always limited and luxurious.
At dawn the next day, the drums of the archery tower in the west of Maozhou City were beaten. Su Ce had spent the night wearing armor and would open his eyes.
"The governor, come from the archery tower to report that the enemy troops have come out of camp and arrayed themselves!"
Su Ce stood up from the couch and shook his somewhat confused head: "Look again, order the four guards to not let the enemy troops go up the city wall."
There were not enough people to stand on the two-mile city wall, so they were divided into two groups and took turns to go up the city wall, and those selected as auxiliary soldiers were all young.
There is competition among the soldiers, and there is also the meaning of honoring the robe. The old soldiers are in the front, and they are ranked down according to their age. This is not a competition for merit, but a competition for one more person in the front line who will die first.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
…
As the Tibetan troops in formation approached the city wall little by little, Su Ce also rushed to the west gate on horseback.
Su Ce frowned as he saw the Tibetan slave soldiers with red and dark faces and fur coats walking in front of him.
The Tibetan military formation was a bit despicable, with slaves in the front, guards in the middle, and archers in the back. This obviously meant to consume the weapons and equipment of the Maozhou defenders, and Maozhou's weapons and equipment could not withstand the consumption.
"attack!"
A loud shout came from the Tubo army. Su Ce didn't know what the shout meant, but seeing the slave soldiers carrying rough bamboo ladders swarming over, Su Ce didn't understand what the loud shout just now meant.
mean.
When the Tubo slave army came to attack, Su Ce was furious. However, facing the attrition tactics of the Tubo army, Su Ce could only bite the bullet and take it on.