Wang Xingchao was at the base of the city wall, leading a few people to inspect the water tank at the base of the wall.
After receiving reports that a riot broke out in the city, the people and the officers and soldiers of the Protectorate actually fought, and there were even casualties. Wang Xingchao's heart sank.
“A group of unruly people killed several soldiers in the Duhu Mansion.” A visitor reported: “The soldiers also injured some people in the chaos. The Lord Protector was escorted back to the Duhu Mansion, but the unruly people did not let him go.
Many people were fanned and rushed to the Protectorate's Mansion."
"General, there are spies in the city." Someone next to Wang Xingchao immediately said: "They are inciting the people to rebel."
Wang Xingchao was naturally surprised.
There is a strong enemy outside the city. If there is further chaos in the city, the consequences will be disastrous.
In fact, he also knew that there might be some spies lurking in Liaoyang City, so he implemented a curfew in the city early, and officials from the Duhufu were patrolling the city day and night to prevent anyone from causing trouble in the city.
The city is quite peaceful these days. Who knew that what was supposed to come would come sooner or later, but someone still jumped out today.
"Qian Lu, take fifty people and go to the Protector's Mansion quickly." Wang Xingchao said with a solemn look and a frown.
A subordinate next to him said: "I obey the order. It's just...General, there are a lot of unruly people. Fifty people may be difficult to deal with."
"I'm not asking you to make enemies of the people." Wang Xing said: "Take people to the Protector's Mansion and tell Mr. Dong to push out the wounded soldiers and execute them in public."
Qian Lu was startled, and Wang Xingchao said in a deep voice: "There must be no chaos in the city for the time being. If this turmoil does not subside, the situation will become more and more serious. Kill a few officers and soldiers who injured others, give an explanation to the people, and let Mr. Dong apologize to them."
, calm the storm
, we must never give spies an excuse to incite the people to cause chaos."
Qian Lu also knew that the enemy was at hand, and Wang Xingchao had no choice but to make it.
But right now, as Wang Xingchao said, the government cannot continue to intensify the conflict with the people and can only try its best to calm it down.
"Remember, keep an eye on the leaders among the people." Wang Xingchao sneered: "Even if they are not spies, they are inseparable from spies. After the people disperse, keep an eye on those people secretly to see if they can follow the clues and catch the hidden people.
The spies in the city."
Qian Lu nodded and said: "General, don't worry, my subordinates know what to do."
Immediately, fifty people were ordered to quickly calm down the situation.
The sky had darkened, and although Wang Xingchao seemed calm, his face looked quite tired.
Although he knows that the stronger the enemy is, the more he must stay calm and ensure that his energy does not wane.
At this time, the only way to boost morale was for him to stay at the city gates day and night. Only in this way could the soldiers maintain their morale.
But after more than ten days, he still felt exhausted.
There has been no war in the Northeast for many years, except for occasionally sending troops to exterminate some banditry. As a general, he naturally does not need to personally act. After so many years, like most Liaodong generals, he has lived a pampered and luxurious life.
Suddenly, he was leading the troops in battle day and night, and coupled with his old age, he still felt tired.
Although I also wanted to rest and recuperate my energy, every time I lay down, I didn't dare to fall asleep completely. Deep down in my heart, I was worried that I would be trapped after waking up from a deep sleep.
"General, there's something going on!"
A soldier rushed over, bowed and said: "The water tank made an unusual noise.
."
Wang Xingchao's body trembled and he immediately asked: "Which water tank?"
The soldier immediately led Wang Xing towards the group of people. When they reached a wall, the soldier guarding the water tank immediately raised his hands and said: "General, half an hour ago, there seemed to be a strange noise coming from the water tank, but soon
It just disappeared. I'm not sure. But just now it started making strange noises again, and it lasted for a long time."
Wang Xingchao didn't talk nonsense. He went over by himself, squatted down, laid his hands on the ground, and listened into the water tank.
After a while, Wang Xingchao got up, walked a few steps to the left, raised his hand and pointed to the bottom of the wall and said, "It should be this area."
"They really want to dig a tunnel into the city." Everyone around Wang Xingchao was surprised.
"Hurry up and check if there is any movement in other places." Wang Xingchao said: "Send a team of archers, then a team of civilians, and an extra batch of civilians with shovels!"
My men immediately went to make arrangements.
When the archers and civilians came over, Wang Xingchao faced the city wall, stepped back a dozen steps, made a few gestures with his hands, and said: "Start from there and dig a ditch here. The deeper the better!"
The generals under their command immediately assigned civilian servants to take action.
These civilian men immediately started working enthusiastically.
The generals under Wang Xingchao also knew that digging a deep ditch under the inner city wall would block the enemy's plan to dig tunnels into the city.
If the enemy troops really use tunnels to enter the city and there are ditches to block them, the local tunnels will be directly exposed.
The civilians dug ditches, and the soldiers stood ready.
Wang Xingchao ordered people to bring dinner directly to the base of the wall to eat, and the peasants took turns digging ditches to eat.
"If they are really coming from outside
If we dig a tunnel, it will definitely be deeper than the moat outside." Wang Xingchao said: "When we were at the top of the city, we couldn't see any movement in the moat, which means their tunnel is still under the moat."
"General, no wonder they waited for more than ten days and never rushed up." Someone sneered: "The catapults attacked Wengcheng just to attract our attention. From the beginning, they planned to use the tunnel to enter the city."
"Our Liaoyang City is extremely strong. If we attack by force, they may not be able to break in even if all their people die. That's why they came up with this method."
"It took more than ten days, day and night, to dig under the city so quickly. Qin Xiao's men are really some rats."
"General, if we dig a trench now, will it alert the enemy troops in the tunnel?" Someone asked: "Will they be scared away by this?"
Someone laughed and said, "We were just trying to scare them away, but why are we still thinking of letting them stay? The general ordered the digging of ditches to deal with the enemy's digging of tunnels. He was really clever. If they continue to advance, we only need to stay by the ditch."
, we can catch the turtle in the urn by waiting for them to surrender. If they are afraid to retreat, then most of the hard work of the past half month will be in vain. Unable to use tunnels to attack the city, they will have no choice but to attack forcefully."
"Yes, if it is confirmed that they really want to use the tunnel to enter the city, we can summon more civilians and dig a deep trench under the inner city wall to prevent their scheme from being carried out."
Everyone said a few words, but Wang Xingchao didn't say much.
After digging until midnight, the villagers dug a deep trench.
In order to make it easier to go down, the peasants followed the instructions and
Steps were even dug into the earth walls on both sides of the ditch.
Wang Xingchao went down the stairs into the ditch, walked back and forth, then took the shovel from a farmer's hand, shoveled it against the stone wall a few times, then walked a dozen steps with the shovel, and shoveled the earth wall again
A few times, it seems to be marking.
"From there to here, dig under the wall." Wang Xing said, "Look where they dug the tunnel."
Immediately, a general said loudly: "I heard it all. Keep working, and you will be rewarded heavily when you turn around."
Wang Xingchao knew that the tactic of digging tunnels could only be carried out secretly. Once the enemy knew that the city had been penetrated, the enemy would definitely give up this method.
He deliberately wanted to make a big noise in the hope that the enemy troops would retreat on their own.
Compared with digging trenches, it is naturally much more difficult to dig horizontal tunnels.
Wang Xingchao ordered people to supervise him, and he climbed to the top of the city to pay attention to the dynamics of the enemy camp.
Under the darkness of night, there were a few fires in the enemy camp, but there was not much movement.
Wang Xingchao sneered inwardly, thinking that Qin Xiao was full of tricks, but Jiang was very old, and if he wanted to break through the city with those weird tricks, Qin Xiao was still too young.
If the enemy launched several attacks on the city in recent days and left some lives behind, they might be able to confuse someone.
However, Qin Xiao was obviously afraid that his soldiers and horses would suffer too heavy losses, so he wanted to achieve the goal of breaking the city with the lowest casualties. However, this move to seek stability was the biggest flaw.
He looked up at the night sky, but in his mind he was thinking about the war at sea.
If the estimate is correct, the maritime coalition forces in the Bohai Sea and Liaodong should have reached the waters in western Liaoning and even wiped out all the naval forces in western Liaoning.
If nothing unexpected happens,
In a few days, many of the enemy troops outside the city will be transferred back to western Liaoning.
With the Bohai Navy attacking from behind, Qin Xiao could not fully focus on Liaoyang.
Even if Mr. Da sent Su Lun to convey the message, Wang Xingchao knew that the situation in the pass was unlikely to change drastically in a short time, so he did not expect Mr. Da to really send a large number of reinforcements to reinforce the war in the Northeast in a short period of time.
.
However, he also knew that Mr. Da would definitely not sit back and watch Qin Xiao take over the entire Northeast.
Once Qin Xiao controls the four northeastern counties, he will immediately become an extremely troublesome opponent for Mr. Da, so Mr. Da will definitely find a way to prevent Qin Xiao from successfully taking over the four counties.
He believed that Mr. Da should make plans and would definitely find a way to launch an attack on western Liaoning, so as long as he persisted, the situation would definitely change.
Wang Xingchao was relieved a lot when he thought that he was not alone and had a chance to reverse the situation.
At daybreak, someone finally climbed onto the city tower and reported: "General, you are so good at predicting this. The enemy has really dug a tunnel and it has reached under the city wall."
"Can the enemy soldiers be found?"
"There were no enemy soldiers, but we found that they had placed many sacks under the city wall." The subordinate said: "The civilians found the sacks, which were piled up. They did not dare to open them. They only said that there was a strange smell in the sacks. Qi
The captain has already entered the tunnel to see what the enemy is up to."
"Sack?" Wang Xingchao looked confused: "Strange smell? What is that?"
He was suspicious, so he didn't ask any more questions. He went down from the tower and reached the ditch. He saw that the entrance of the tunnel was already there.
A lot of people have gathered.
The distance from the ditch to the bottom of the city wall is not far. Many civilians worked together to dig the tunnel. It didn't take long.
He looked inside towards the entrance of the tunnel and saw a faint light of fire inside.
"Colonel Qi brought a few people in." Someone on the side said: "They should be out soon...!"
Before the man finished speaking, a "boom" was heard, like the sky falling apart and the earth shattering. Everyone present felt that the earth seemed to tremble at this moment.
Before he could figure out what was going on, Wang Xingchao only felt a strong airflow coming from the tunnel. He ducked away almost as a reflex and said sternly: "Be careful!"