Chapter 652 The first battle with Jiangxia (Part 2)
After a big battle, five hundred soldiers of the Jianghan Army climbed down the ladder and went down to the city. They simply cleaned up the battlefield, collected weapons, arranged corpses, dismantled pontoons, etc. They also sent injured enemy soldiers back to the city for medical treatment.
An hour later, a Yongwang Army cavalry galloped over on horseback and shot a letter with arrows at the top of the city. A soldier picked it up and presented it to Lei Wanchun. Lei Wanchun opened it and read it. It was written by Ji Guangchen.
letter, requesting him to return the bodies of the soldiers who died in the battle to them.
Generally, enemy soldiers are burned collectively and buried deeply, but if the bodies of our own soldiers are burned individually, the ashes and bones are put into jars and returned to their families. The treatment is of course different.
Lei Wanchun nodded, "Allow them to transport the soldiers' bodies back!"
Not long after, hundreds of large trucks arrived, and it took three trips to transport all the more than 3,000 corpses back to the camp.
In the next few days, Ji Guangchen launched two consecutive daytime sieges, which also ended in failure, with nearly 3,000 people killed. In the three siege battles, more than 6,000 Yongwang troops were killed and nearly 10,000 injured.
There were still more than 40,000 men left in the 60,000-strong army. Seeing that it was too difficult to attack the city, Ji Guangchen became somewhat timid and never ordered the attack again.
Another five days passed without any fighting between the two sides. In the afternoon, another army of 20,000 people arrived in Jiangxia. This was Yong Wang Li Lin personally coming to inspect the battle of Jiangxia.
Ji Guangchen and Hun Weiming invited Li Lin into the Chinese army's tent. Li Lin sat on the coach's chair. Ji Guangchen and Hun Weiming sat on the right side of the lower room to report. Two military advisors, Xue Yu and Li Taiqing, sat on the left side of the lower room.
After listening to Ji Guangchen's report, Li Lin frowned and said with real dissatisfaction: "Ji Shijun also admitted that there are only more than 10,000 people in the opponent's city, but you have an army of 60,000. Even if five people fight one person, you can't win?"
Hun Weiming explained: "Your Majesty, Jiangxia City is indeed easy to defend but difficult to attack. Moreover, using the siege ladder, the opponent will cut off the top two rungs with an axe. It will be very difficult to get up to the city. We have attacked the city three times in a row.
It can be said that they all failed in this detail.”
"Then you can use iron rods to replace the wooden rungs. That'll be fine."
"Prince Qi, we did change for the third time, but the opponent used a hammer instead, and the iron rungs were smashed off with one hammer, and we could only stand one person at the top of the siege ladder, while the opponent had more than a dozen people.
In other words, if one of us has to fight against a dozen of the opponent, it is basically impossible to win. If more than a dozen spears are thrust at us at the same time, our soldiers will have nowhere to escape. This is why a large number of soldiers died in battle."
Li Lin was annoyed. He walked to the sand table with his hands behind his hands and looked at Jiangxia City on the sand table with gloomy eyes.
At this time, military advisor Xue Yu stepped forward and said slowly: "Your Majesty, I feel that Jiangxia's characteristics can be used to attack the city!"
Li Lin nodded, "Tell me, what characteristics are you using?"
"Your Majesty, please look after the city river!"
Xue Yu pointed at the moat with a wooden pole: "The biggest feature of Jiangxia City is that the moat is very wide, twenty feet wide, and the water is two feet deep, and it also leads to the Yangtze River. So we use ships as chariots to attack
The city can be attacked directly from the boat."
Li Lin's eyes lit up, and it was a good idea to use ships to attack the city.
He looked back at Ji Guangchen and asked, "What do Ji Shijun think?"
Ji Guangchen smiled bitterly and said: "This method has been discussed with General Hun, but it requires at least a big ship of more than three thousand stones, but we don't have one, so this method is not realistic!"
Xue Yu smiled slightly and said: "Ji Shijun only thinks of warships, and indeed there are none at the moment, but what about civilian ships? We are a large cargo ship of more than three thousand stones!"
"Where are the cargo ships with more than three thousand stones?" Ji Guangchen asked in confusion.
Li Lin nodded and said: "Indeed, this time I came to Jiangxia for inspection and brought a batch of grain, including twenty-five cargo ships worth three thousand dan, which are now anchored by the Yangtze River."
Hun Weiming was a little worried and said: "Your Majesty has parked the ship by the Yangtze River. I'm afraid it will be attacked by Hanyang's navy."
Li Lin waved his hand and said: "Li Ye did not attack your fleet, and he will not attack my fleet. Without mentioning this matter, I just want to know whether it is possible to attack the city with ships?"
Ji Guangchen thought for a moment and said: "It should be possible, you might as well give it a try!"
After finalizing the plan, Ji Guangchen immediately sent hundreds of army craftsmen to the Yangtze River to renovate twenty-five three-thousand-stone cargo ships. In fact, they used wood to build a simple siege platform about one foot high on the ship, and then installed a
The overpass deck is very easy and can be completed in two or three days.
At this time, Li Ye was still watching the battle patiently in Hanyang County. Jiangxia County and Hanyang County kept in contact with each other using pigeon letters. Every day, he could get brief battle reports and the situation in the city. At the same time, he also issued his own instructions to the city, such as forming long axemen and
The long hammer hand, destroying the top of the siege ladder is the plan proposed by Li Ye.
Li Ye has learned that Li Lin has arrived in Hanyang, which means that the war is coming.
Li Ye knew that there were still 10,000 troops and 5,000 militiamen in Jiangxia City. As Jiangxia City was tall and strong, it would not be a big problem to defend the city as long as there were no troubles.
Once Li Lin's army cannot capture Jiangxia City, he will not dare to fight with himself. Then Li Lin will not be able to stay in Hongzhou and will inevitably develop eastward.
Historically, the reason why Li Lin was defeated was that he failed in his attempt to capture Yangzhou and Jiangnan.
The next morning, a scout came to report, "Your Highness, there are craftsmen on the south bank of the Yangtze River renovating large ships, a total of twenty-five ships."
Li Ye was chatting with Li Mi. When he heard the report, Li Ye smiled and said: "Commander, let's go and take a look! I guess Yongwang's army is thinking of something else."
Li Ye and Li Mi boarded the Wanshi ship, and a fleet of dozens of warships slowly sailed towards Jiangxia.
Sure enough, on the south bank about twenty miles east of Jiangxia City, there are more than twenty large ships parked in a row, all of which are cargo ships with more than 3,000 stones. The craftsmen on them are busy renovating something, each with a tall wooden platform.
The prototype has already appeared.
Seeing the arrival of the war fleet, the craftsmen stopped their work nervously and looked anxiously at the approaching fleet.
However, the fleet stopped moving when it was about three hundred steps away from the ship on the shore, and slowly passed across the twenty-five cargo ships.
Li Ye stood on the Wanshi ship and looked at it for a moment, then asked with a smile: "What do the military advisors think they are doing?"
Li Mi sneered and said: "They are building a siege platform. Obviously, they want to use the big ship as a nest chariot to attack the city."
Li Ye nodded and smiled: "If this is the case, Li Lin will see an extremely spectacular scene with his own eyes."
At noon that day, a carrier pigeon flew into Jiangxia County. The messenger immediately handed a volume of pigeon messages to Lei Wanchun. After Lei Wanchun read the Jiedushi's pigeon message, he quickly walked to the east city head and looked into the distance.
, but his mind was pondering over the various details of the Jiedushi plan.
Three days later, as night fell, King Yong Li Lin led his officials and generals to a high platform located one mile outside the city wall in the southeast direction. He wanted to see with his own eyes how his army invaded Jiangxia City tonight.