The Tang Army's city-defending trebuchet was a very simple counterweighted trebuchet, like a seesaw. A large wooden box was hung with an iron chain on the front end. The wooden box was filled with heavy stones. Several soldiers worked hard to turn the winch and pull the iron chain.
After rolling it up, the iron chain lifts the large wooden box filled with heavy stones into the air through the pulley. The throwing pole is made of wood and is not long. There are two ropes hanging from the other end, and the throwing bag is hung on the rope.
When the wooden box fell heavily and hit the sand pit, the wooden pole was thrown out with the rope, and the stones in the throwing bag were also thrown out. This is actually the same principle as the Arabs throwing stones with a rope.
This is also because the width of the city head is limited, so long throwing poles cannot be used, and only throwing ropes can be used.
The trebuchet is very simple. It does not have a heavy chassis and only has two thick wooden pillars as legs. Two three-foot-high hollow pillars are also built with bricks on the top of the city. The two wooden legs of the trebuchet are inserted into the hollow pillars.
It's fixed in the middle.
The most important thing here is the production standard. The two wooden pillar feet of each trebuchet have standard width and thickness. No matter which city it is transported to, they can be inserted into the hollow brick pillars.
Bringing it down is also very simple. Dozens of soldiers work together to pull out the two wooden column legs from the hollow column, and then slowly lay them flat.
In just a quarter of an hour, more than ninety trebuchets of the Tang army were knocked down on the city.
At this moment, the Yan army's giant trebuchet also started firing, and twenty huge rocks roared and rolled towards the city wall.
After yesterday's slinging battle, the Tang army was no longer afraid of the Yan army's heavy trebuchets. The Yan army's heavy trebuchets seemed very powerful, but their shortcomings were also obvious. They were hastily made and had no accuracy at all. Every time they were thrown
The power is different.
Three hundred steps away, it is very difficult to accurately hit the city head through a parabola, because the angle is very small, and it will either hit the city wall or go over the city wall.
More importantly, even if it accidentally hit the city head, it would basically not be able to hurt the soldiers of the Tang Army. Its speed was very slow and its flight path was fixed, but the soldiers of the Tang Army were alive and no one would stand there waiting.
Death, before the flying boulders hit the city head, the soldiers had already dodged.
When the soldiers of the Tang Army leveled the trebuchet, the Yan Army's trebuchet lost its target, and huge boulders flew into the city. The several squares near the south wall of the city were almost all wasteland, where the lowest level people lived.
It was a slum area, and within a hundred steps of the city wall, the Tang army had cleared it.
After throwing more than twenty rounds of boulders, Yan Jun found that it had no effect, so he stopped firing.
At this time, it was already dawn, and the heavy drums were beating in the Yan army camp, "Boom! Boom! Boom!" Every sound of the drum was shocking.
The huge camp gate slowly opened, and 150,000 troops rushed out in a mighty manner. There were giant chariots and ladders in the middle, and the soldiers also carried hundreds of siege ladders.
It was Li Guiren's opinion to continue using siege ladders. He believed that twenty ladders were too few and needed to be supplemented with more siege ladders. However, they also learned their lesson and changed the top two rungs to wrist thickness.
Even the Tang army's Mo Dao could not cut through such a thick iron rod.
The well-trained side of the Yan army was revealed at this time. The 150,000-strong army ran in an orderly manner. All the soldiers ran in rows, with fifty people in each row. After running past two hundred rows, there was another square formation.
Appeared, a phalanx of 10,000 people, led by three generals, one chief and two auxiliaries.
The nest carts and ladders both appeared in the gap between the phalanxes. Each cart was pulled by dozens of strong oxen. There was a wide and heavy chassis underneath, and dozens of soldiers stood on each cart.
Half an hour later, in the wilderness three miles away, which was more than ten miles long, there were fifteen large phalanxes and an army of 150,000 people densely arranged, with battle flags fluttering, overwhelming and murderous.
The Tang army did not show any weakness and dispatched 80,000 troops. Each of the other three cities deployed 10,000 troops as backup. The Nancheng head deployed 50,000 troops, but the Nancheng head could only accommodate 30,000 troops at most, so
Another 20,000 troops were deployed within the city walls and were on standby.
There were also 30,000 logistics civilians, who carried a large amount of supplies and stood close to the south wall of the city. At this time, the entire Chang'an City became tense, and all the people stayed at home, silently praying for the final victory of the Tang army.
Li Ye stared at the enemy troops in the distance and calmly ordered: "Blow the horn!"
"Woo——"
A powerful horn sounded at the head of the south city, and the soldiers began to re-erect the trebuchets. The five thousand heavy hammer company also stopped training and ran towards the head of the south city.
Gao Shang nodded to Li Guiren, "It's time to go to war!"
Li Guiren drew his sword and shouted loudly: "Attack!"
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" The passionate war drum beat.
The first batch of 30,000 troops, led by An Shouzhong, lined up towards the south wall, shouting low slogans. There were ten chariots and ten ladders in the team, as well as two hundred siege ladders.
At the front of the team were thousands of Yan soldiers who were preparing to install the pontoon bridge. They carried a large number of wooden boxes with iron chains on them. The iron chains were locked and wooden boards were put on them to form a pontoon bridge.
At this time, twenty heavy trebuchets were fired again, and huge boulders rose into the air and flew toward the city. The soldiers ducked and crouched down. The two trebuchets were hit and broke, and fell heavily to the city.
Several other large rocks hit the city head, causing rubble to scatter. The boulders bounced high and flew into the city, while the rest of the large rocks flew directly over the city head.
Li Ye immediately ordered: "Fire a round of fire mud!"
The soldiers pushed the winch and the iron chain pulled up the weight box. The soldiers put about five kilograms of sulfur charcoal powder and fire clay wrapped in oil paper into the iron throw bag and lit it with a torch.
"emission!"
"emission!"
"emission!"
The soldiers shouted, and the wooden poles and ropes were thrown out, throwing the bags of burning kerosene into the sky, where they scattered like a goddess scattering flowers, and shot towards the enemy's trebuchet position.
More than ninety trebuchets were thrown, and only 30% of them hit the trebuchet position. This was much harder to prevent than heavy wooden arrows, which were scattered all over the sky. Many soldiers were hit by the trebuchets and stuck to their leather armor.
It started to burn, and many soldiers hurriedly brushed it off with their hands. As a result, it stuck to their hands and their hands also burned.
The soldiers jumped and screamed in pain. They grabbed the soil on the ground and rubbed it on their hands and bodies. Although the open flame was extinguished, the burning charcoal powder and sulfur powder had entered the leather armor. The high temperature of several hundred degrees burned on the skin, causing many injuries.
The soldier was rolling on the ground in pain.
Suddenly, seven heavy trebuchets collapsed. This was because the leather bags binding the trebuchets were burned.
In the second round of trebuchet firing, only eleven boulders were left to shoot towards the city head. Only one trebuchet was destroyed, and the threat to the city head was no longer great.
Thirty thousand soldiers had already rushed within 300 steps, and the trebuchets on the top of the city began to fire the goddess's scattered flowers one after another. Small burning red dots fell from the sky, as if it was raining fire from the sky.
The soldiers of the Yan army raised their shields to defend themselves. Countless fire rains burned on the shields, but more than 700 soldiers were still hit by the firecrackers. They used their shields to cover their faces and heads, but their legs were not covered.
Most of the fire rain hit the legs, and the fire mud stuck to the legs and burned. The soldiers were burned to the point of jumping up, and the heart-breaking pain made them kneel on the ground, scream, and huddle in a ball.
Of course, this is not the white phosphorus bomb of later generations. Once the charcoal powder and sulfur powder are burned, it will disappear and will not be fatal. However, the damage to the skin and flesh will make the soldiers suffer for at least a day or two.
After entering two hundred steps, 20,000 crossbow arrows were fired from the top of the city, and dark clouds flew over the heads of the Yan army soldiers. The shields became the life-saving artifacts of the Yan army soldiers, allowing them to escape the tragic rain of fire and allowing them to
Withstood the rain of arrows falling.
This is not a big yellow crossbow, but an ordinary military crossbow. It cannot shoot through the Yan army's shields, but it can hit the soldiers' legs just like the fire clay.
Soldiers kept falling down while running. After a round of arrow shooting, about a thousand people were shot down by arrows, but their legs were not injured and they fell to the ground, but no soldiers were killed.
This loss of soldiers was nothing to the 30,000-strong army. The soldiers continued to run like a wave and gradually approached the moat.
