Zhang Xianzhong and Sun Kewang commanded 100,000 troops and countless civilians, claiming that an 800,000-strong army was coming.
Sun Kewang pointed to the brand-new city wall and said: "It was built in July last year. It uses some cement to lay bricks, and the middle is rammed earth. The foundation is not deep, so I don't think it will be very strong."
"Can the main force of the enemy army be in the city?" Zhang Xianzhong asked.
Sun Kewang replied: "I'm not sure. In Zhao Han's territory, you don't dare to ride a horse to inquire, otherwise you will be arrested as a spy. In recent times, the enemy troops have been mobilized frequently, and peasants, soldiers and civilians have been recruited on the spot. The information that was previously discovered has been
No more counting.”
Zhang Xianzhong thought: "Send out a group of cavalry to the east to find out the enemy's strength, and see if they can plunder the Wu family cave."
Wujiaxue is located on the edge of the Yangtze River. It was a commercial market town in the Ming Dynasty and was later the urban location of Wuxue City.
As for Guangji County, there was no city built in the Ming Dynasty.
After Zhao Han occupied this place, he spent more than half a year to quickly build the city wall. Strips of stone and Sanhe soil were the base of the wall, rammed earth was the wall, and the wall was made of cement bricks. There was no moat, only the Meichuan River blocking it.
The cement brick wall is very brittle and will fall off when blasted with artillery. It is purely to protect the earth wall inside from 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 encountering enemy troops. Zhao Han's fire rifle soldiers are really powerful." Zhang Xianzhong told someone next to him again.
This man's name is Ma Shouying, also known as "Lao Huihui".
Among the five camps of Ge Zuo, King Zuo Jin died in a battle with the Ming army. Ge Liyan, the king of Gaishi, and the king of chaos were killed by Zhang Xianzhong and annexed his tribe.
Now only Lao Huihui is left to guard the horse, and the territory was assigned to Yunyang by Zhang Xianzhong. This man was from the Ming Dynasty's frontier army. The cavalry under his command included not only Han and Hui people, but also Mongolians.
Zhang Xianzhong's army camped near Guangji County and sent out 2,000 cavalry as spies. Lao Huihui took 5,000 elite cavalry and headed straight for Huangmei County.
Every village in Guangji County has been fortified and cleared.
The people either retreated into the mountains in the northwest or into Guangji County. Zhang Xianzhong led his troops all the way. Some rice seedlings had been planted along the way, and some paddy fields had not yet been planted.
At this moment, the people guarding the city looked at the enemy troops outside, with hatred in their eyes.
Especially those farmers who had no time to transplant the rice seedlings. They had already planted seeds and raised seedlings, plowed the fields and stored water. They had done all the work except for the crucial step of transplanting the rice seedlings. Once Zhang Xianzhong came, everything they had done was in vain, and the farming season had been delayed!
The next day.
Zhang Xianzhong took out a pair of civilian telescopes, which he bought in Jiangxi.
He sent many agents out, with their families as hostages. But only half of them came back. It is not known whether they were killed or stayed in Zhao Han's territory and refused to leave.
The city tower was densely packed, and the number of defenders was very large, but they all looked like miscellaneous soldiers.
Zhang Xianzhong put down his telescope. He had an intuition that the Datong regular army was not here. The city should be full of civilians, and the people guarding the city were also local people. I heard from Xizuo that there were peasant soldiers in every village in Zhao Han's territory, and he wanted to come to Guangji
The county's defenders were also mainly farmers and soldiers.
This city is not easy to fight. Although there are no regular troops stationed there, the early preparations are too sufficient!
No matter how difficult it is to fight, Zhang Xianzhong must be defeated.
Due to terrain reasons, with the Yangtze River to the south and the Dabie Mountains to the north, Zhang Xianzhong's troop dispatching channel was very narrow. If he marched straight in without taking the city, his food route would be very dangerous and might be cut off by the defenders running out of the city.
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 asked people to build bridges while cutting down trees to make siege equipment.
Some of the cavalry that dispersed went toward the southeast, trying to plunder the commercial town of Wujiaxue.
When I rushed to the outside of the town, I saw that two wide trenches had been dug around the town. The farmers in the villages along the way had already evacuated, and most of them had withdrawn to Wujiaxue Town for defense.
The cavalry team rushed back to report the situation: "Your Majesty, there are deep trenches outside Wujiaxue Town, and only a few are narrow enough to pass through. There are no farmers along the way. I am afraid they have withdrawn to the town. There may be 20,000 to 30,000 people in the town.
.”
Zhang Xianzhong frowned after hearing this. His original strategy was to rob food along the way and coerce the people into marching continuously.
But in this situation, we can't grab food, and the people can't hold them back, so we can only slowly attack the city one by one. What the hell is this?
How much food and grass did Zhao Han have in his hand, so he could actually clear the field with a strong wall?
Guangji, Huangmei, Susong and other counties were all occupied by Zhao Han last year, and many people immigrated there for less than a year. They didn't harvest much staple food at all, they just replanted some miscellaneous grains, and half of the people survived the winter by eating sweet potatoes.
The people in these counties were all a burden and were hiding in the clear fields. Most of the food rations had to be provided by Zhao Han.
Zhang Xianzhong couldn't understand why Zhao Han used precious food to evacuate and relocate people? Isn't it better to stay in the countryside and fend for himself?
Zhang Xianzhong thought that dividing land and production, levying light corvees and underestimating taxes was a way to win people's hearts. At critical moments, the army had to fight the war. Now that a war was about to begin, what would happen if food was used to feed the people?
Soon, Zhang Xianzhong will understand!
After the pontoon bridge was built, the only more than twenty artillery pieces were pushed to the other side of the river to attack the city.
Seeing the artillery launch, the defenders left the city wall one after another.
After several rounds of bombardment, the effect was not very good because Zhang Xianzhong did not have heavy siege artillery.
Even though a large area of the wall made of cement and bricks was destroyed by artillery fire, the rammed earth wall inside is very solid. Several meters of rammed earth, how much would it take to collapse it with an indestructible artillery shell?
Before the city wall collapsed, Zhang Xianzhong was already worried about the gunpowder. He had to keep enough gunpowder for field battles and not waste it all during the siege.
One hundred thousand troops crossed the pontoon 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.
The county magistrate of Guangji was named An Qigong, a native of Xinhua, Hunan. He himself was a scholar, and his elder brother An Qiwen was a civil servant. Although the An family was given thousands of acres of land, both brothers became officials, the younger brother became the county magistrate, and the elder brother
Judge.
An Qigong sat in the center of the county government office and commanded, responsible for the city's logistics affairs.
Officials kept coming in and out of the county government office, waves of supplies were pulled out from under 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 defend the city. There were even gentry and merchants who personally brought meals to comfort the soldiers and symbolically carried some supplies.
Guangji County was occupied by Sun Kewang for a full year. Whether it was ordinary people or gentry and merchants, they all knew the virtues of the enemies outside the city.
The gentry and merchants have been reduced to the status of common people!
There are indeed regular troops in the city, but there are only a dozen of them, all officers of the regular army, who are responsible for commanding the peasants, soldiers and people to defend the city.
After Zhang Xianzhong stopped the bombardment, the officers, peasants, soldiers and people quickly returned to the city wall.
Not long after, a large number of enemy troops rushed in carrying ladders.
On each section of the city wall, there were missionaries holding tin trumpets and shouting to the enemy soldiers who rushed towards the city wall: "Brothers outside the city, don't serve as soldiers for Zhang Xianzhong anymore. Quickly put down your weapons and surrender to the King of Wu. The King of Wu loves his people like his own sons."
, here everyone has fields to farm, everyone has clothes to wear, and everyone has food to eat. If you fight for Zhang Xianzhong, what will happen if the family members die? They are still looking forward to your return. You are all the pillars of the family, but
You can't die! Put down your weapons and surrender. Zhang Xianzhong will definitely be defeated. The Datong Army will take you back to your hometown to divide the fields..."
This kind of shouting is definitely useless. They are already attacking the city. Who dares to surrender?
Another missionary officer shouted: "Brothers and sisters, keep the city wall. Your families are all in the city, and your fields are outside the city. If the county town is captured, your family will be gone, and your fields will be gone. From now on,
The good days are gone..."
"The world is unified!"
“Get dressed and eat!”
The slogan was temporarily changed because many of the city defenders were residents of the city and did not usually farm.
One after another, the ladders were pushed over. These were very regular ladders. There were wooden boards to block the arrows, winches for lifting and lowering, and grappling hooks to securely fasten the city walls. It was impossible to push them open if they were placed on the wall.
"Throw firewood!"
A large amount of dry firewood that had been soaked with oil was thrown down to the city walls one after another as the ladder approached, and then torches were thrown down.
A section of the ground against the wall suddenly burst into flames, roasting the ladders and the enemy siege troops.
Then hot oil poured down again, burning the enemy soldier who was halfway up to the point where he fell down and fell into the burning pile of firewood below. The hot oil on his body quickly caught fire.
"ah!"
Screams rang out one after another, and the people guarding the city were also screaming, because there were archers shooting from under the city.
This can only be attributed to the fact that the city wall is too short. It only took more than half a year to build the city, and it was only built to a height of more than four meters.
Zhang Xianzhong's first wave of offensive was quickly repulsed. Eight people who were defending the city were shot to death and more than 100 people were injured.
Soon there was a second wave of offensives, and this time the attack was on all sides, completely using the lives of cannon fodder to consume as much of the defenders' supplies as possible.
Only when the supplies to defend the city are almost exhausted, Zhang Xianzhong will send his elite troops to attack the city wall.
Ancient sieges were so cruel.
At the same time, Zhang Xianzhong was still digging tunnels and trying to transport gunpowder through the tunnels to blow down the city wall.
In addition, several Lu Gong chariots are being manufactured, which are weapons for siege.
Half a month later, Zhang Xianzhong's siege cannon fodder caused nearly 10,000 casualties and finally consumed all 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 been fortified and cleared. He could not grab food, and he did not bring much food and grass. Moreover, the main force of the enemy army never showed up, so he requested to return temporarily.
The army meets here.
The news brought by Lao Huihui gave Zhang Xianzhong a bad feeling. This time he seemed to have stepped into the quagmire!
Zhang Xianzhong has never encountered Zhao Han's strategy of fortifying the wall and clearing the field. Zhao Han is the only one in the world who is willing to do this. How much money and food will it cost?
If Zhao Han met Zhang Xianzhong at this moment, he would definitely yell: "It costs money and food to build a wall and clear the country? Do you fucking know how much food I spent on dividing the fields and immigrating! I immigrating a common people is countless times more expensive than raising a soldier!"
Now that the war has begun, there is no room for giving up halfway.
Seeing that the supplies in the city were getting less and less, Zhang Xianzhong ordered to send out elite siege troops and push out the few Lu Gong chariots.
"Boom boom boom!"
This time it wasn't firewood, hot oil, rolling wood, or gold juice, but it was thrown down one by one by thousands of enemies.
Zhang Xianzhong's face turned green.
He has suffered nearly 10,000 casualties so far. Not only can he not capture a single earthen city, he cannot even find the enemy's regular army.
"Your Majesty, a tunnel is about to be dug!"
"Okay, whoever digs the tunnel will be rewarded. The entire army will stop attacking the city. After nightfall, light the gunpowder, blow up the city wall, and immediately take advantage of the chaos to attack!"