Speaking of the navy, we must first talk about the situation in the Xiangfan area.
To put it simply, there are rivers and waters everywhere here, so here, the navy is the most important military force. In the past, in the Central Plains, the invincible cavalry in the north has become somewhat constrained.
In the south, if you have a strong enough naval force, you can easily travel through the entire Jingxiang area along various rivers.
Near Xiangyang, except for the Han River and Baihe River, there are basically no large places that can provide navy training venues. Only Panyangze further south is spacious enough. Historically, it was at Panyang Lake that Cao Cao captured Jingzhou.
He trained the navy there, and then went down the Yangtze River to compete with the navy led by Zhou Yu in Chibi.
At present, Cao's army has not yet penetrated deep into Jingzhou, so Cai Mao's navy was trained in Danyang, not far from Xiangyang.
Dan** is also relatively vast, and it is also a good choice to train naval forces here.
The navy led by Lu Yan does not need to conduct training for the time being. They have been cruising in the Han River and the Yangtze River, basically blocking all the upstream generation since Jiangxia.
Xiangyang has been an important military town since ancient times.
Especially during the Southern Song Dynasty, Xiangyang blocked the Mongolian army for more than ten years, and even forced the main Mongolian force to attack the Sichuan Basin in an attempt to attack the Southern Song Dynasty in a roundabout way.
The reason why Xiangyang City is so strong is that firstly, the soldiers work hard and the people are united; secondly, the complex geographical advantages outside Xiangyang City.
To the north of Xiangyang City is the spacious Han River, and to the east is the Baihe River, which also protects the east side of Xiangyang.
There are high mountains and hilly areas to the east and west of Xiangyang. The Mongols are all cavalry and are not proficient in water skills. Moreover, there is no way to detour here. If you make a detour, you will probably have to walk a longer distance, but if you go around,
It would be better to attack Changsha or Chaisang directly.
The Mongols had no choice but to go south to Xiangyang before continuing to advance.
But Cao Cao is different. His current navy is even stronger than Jingzhou and Jiangdong! The Xiangfan area is basically under the control of Cao Jun, and Xiangyang City has been completely isolated with the cooperation of Cai Mao's navy.
It is impossible for Xiangyang City to have foreign aid now, and can only rely on its own city defense to resist Cao Jun's offensive.
After it was determined that the main attack force on Xiangyang City this time was the Han Dynasty Navy under Lu Yan, the other teams of Cao Jun were always curious about how this navy was going to attack the city.
They were not kept waiting for too long. In the early morning of the next day, the Han Navy, under the urging of the commanders of each formation, unloaded the cannons covered with red cloth from the ship and pulled them to the military camp.
When Cao Cao and the generals who had seen artillery before saw these artillery pieces, they immediately understood Lu Yan's plan.
"Does he want to use artillery to directly attack Xiangyang City?"
"I heard that Chaisang City was attacked by artillery before!"
"But how can Chaisang City compare with Xiangyang City? I still feel confused."
The sergeants and soldiers in the army were talking a lot, but Gan Ning and others were not affected at all and still resolutely implemented the steps according to their plans.
There are more than 600 artillery pieces on one hundred warships in total.
But with the joint efforts of countless civilians and soldiers, it only took one day to deliver them all to the military camp.
After a day of rest,
The next day,
Three hundred thousand troops came out and formed an iron barrel formation on the west, north, and south sides of Xiangyang City!
Cao Cao, Lu Yan and others led the army to a distance of 300 steps outside Xiangyang City.
At this time, at the head of Xiangyang City, I saw a group of well-armed soldiers arrayed on the city wall; not only that, there were also ballistae and trebuchets on the city wall, which were enough to pose a threat to Cao Cao and others who were three hundred steps away.
However, the distance was still a bit far and the accuracy was insufficient, so they did not try to shoot towards it.
Cao Cao pointed to the Xiangyang City wall, which was nearly five feet high, and said, "Mr. Lu, are you really sure that your artillery can break through such a strong city?"
"You should still be somewhat sure. How will you know if you don't give it a try?" To Cao Cao's surprise, Lu Yan actually said this.
"Uh" Lao Cao was speechless for a while. After working on it for a long time, I bet you are not completely sure!
Lu Yan smiled and said again: "Even if the walls of Xiangyang City cannot be completely destroyed, the power of the artillery is still enough to crush the will of the defenders in the city. Mr. Cao, you should know that attacking the city is the most important thing, and attacking the heart is the most important thing."
.As long as we show enough strength to defeat Xiangyang City, then many things that follow will actually fall into place."
Lao Cao thought about it, so he laughed and replied: "Okay, let me see how you can show enough strength to defeat the will of the Xiangyang defenders!"
The walls of Xiangyang City are five feet high and three feet wide.
In ancient China, most city walls were built with rammed earth.
There are stone walls in some places, but not all are made of stone.
First, suitable stones are not available everywhere; second, mining, transporting, and building walls are very labor-intensive and there are almost no places where walls can be built entirely with stones.
The most important ancient city walls were rammed earth walls.
The main raw material of the earth wall is naturally earth, which facilitates the use of local materials. Another advantage of the rammed earth wall is that it can be built as a whole.
But the soil used to build cities is treated soil.
Some city builders added sheep's blood, eggs, and other substances to the soil and stirred them to increase the soil's viscosity.
When building a wall, each layer of soil should be tamped down and compacted before laying the second layer.
This layer is stacked up one after another, forming a wall more than ten meters high.
In order to increase the sturdiness of the city walls, builders would also cover the outside of the rammed earth walls with bricks. This is the actual structure of most city walls today.
But even if it is not a complete stone wall, it is not easy to destroy it with artillery.
But this was not a problem for Lu Yan, because he still knew some classic battle cases.
When the sun rose, the soldiers of the Han Dynasty Navy began to rush to the front line after eating and drinking.
Lu Yan did not waste any time and directly ordered Gan Ning, Su Fei and Xu Sheng: "Advance the entire army and attack Xiangyang!"
Following the orders from the generals of various ministries, Cao Jun began to advance steadily.
When the navy soldiers advanced into the maximum lethal range of the city's cannon, they all stopped in their tracks.
The effective range of the artillery is more than two kilometers, and its maximum power is more than one mile away. Moreover, it now uses a new type of gunpowder that has been improved many times. The range has been enhanced and its power is stronger than before.
The artillery corps was arrayed well enough to be out of range of the enemy's trebuchets and ballistae.