On the eighteenth day after Zhiyao led his army to "Wei" City, Zhi's attack on "Wei" City officially began.
The reason why it is said to be an attack and also mentioned to be formal is that the first is just a small fight, and the second is that it does not pose a threat to the city of "Wei".
Fourteen catapults were concentrated in the north of the city. They were lined up and loaded and thrown repeatedly. The stone bullets were thrown towards the "Wei" city one after another, causing various commotions.
The soldiers operating the catapults were covered in sweat in the cold weather.
Some of them are responsible for carrying stone bombs, some are responsible for resetting the machinery, and of course there are people who specialize in loading bombs.
Amidst bursts of roaring sounds, the stone bullets either hit the city wall, hit the corridor above the city wall, or even crossed the city wall and hit the city.
This is the second appearance of the catapult, the first one was in "Anyi".
To be honest, Zhi's use of catapults in the attack on "Anyi" was just a practical test. He wanted to initially understand the actual power of the catapults, and then plan how to use them next.
Crush the city wall? The catapult was created for this purpose, and later it became a shocking siege instrument. The reason is that the accuracy of the catapult is very worrying, and it is impossible to hit the same place every time.
, hitting the same place more than twice out of a hundred times is considered lucky.
Since you can't hit the same place over and over again, don't think that the rammed earth city wall is too fragile. It really can't be destroyed by a stone bullet. It will take a relatively long process to use a catapult to destroy the city wall.
The sturdiness of the rammed earth city wall is beyond many people's imagination, and the strict construction is even stronger than the masonry city wall.
Let's put it this way, archaeologists of later generations can still find rammed earth city walls from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in many places. Even though they have been corroded by time for so long, they did not fall down as soon as they were pushed; on the contrary, after bricks and stones began to be used to build city walls, they soon
It is rare to find a section of masonry city wall, and almost all of it is not presentable.
Maybe the bricks and stones were stolen by nearby residents, causing the brick and stone walls to look fragile? Anyway, that's how some people explain it.
As for the Great Wall that looks very complete? Who said that the whole section of the Great Wall is complete! Those sections of the Great Wall that look complete are actually repaired again and again later and used as tourist attractions. It is not that they are originally so complete. There may be some bricks on them.
It's just mixed with bottle caps, or it says it's made in a certain brick factory.
There's nothing exciting about using catapults to smash a city, it's boring to a certain extent.
The people of the Wei family who were being attacked didn't think so. It was the first time they saw that kind of "monster". Before that, they were guessing what it was for. When they found out, they were only left with fear and fear.
This time, Zhishi did not immediately use specially made round stone bullets. In fact, he collected suitable stones from the surrounding area and then threw them to attack the "Wei" city.
Those collected range from 80 kilograms to 130 kilograms. In fact, 1780 kilograms can also be thrown, but the greater the weight, the shorter the range.
Zhi's catapult can throw an object weighing 150 kilograms to a range of 450 meters. It cannot be said that the range is short.
Why are there only fourteen catapults? Because Zhiyao concentrated most of the craftsmen on making siege towers.
Of course Zhishi usually stores siege equipment, but winter is really not a good season for fighting. The roads will become muddy if people walk too much, not to mention the weight of the siege equipment makes it difficult to transport.
So, it is true that Zhi's army arrived on the outskirts of "Wei" city, but a large number of siege equipment fell behind.
Catapults were constantly throwing stone bombs, and a large number of Zhishi soldiers stood silently in formation.
Their existence was not to siege the city, but purely to protect the catapults from damage. Furthermore, they occasionally made gestures of charging to attack the city, luring the Wei defenders to climb up the city wall and be smashed.
It has to be said that when Wei saw Zhi's infantry about to charge, he did send his soldiers up to the city wall to prepare for defense again and again. Later, Zhi's troops made more fake moves, and Wei no longer fell for the trick.
Send a small number of soldiers to the city wall.
This is pretty good.
real!
Some of the commanders of the Wei family may feel that they are very wise, they have not been fooled by the Zhi family, and they have reduced unnecessary casualties, and they are full of pride.
Waiting for when Zhishi's siege troops actually launch an attack, those Weishi officers who were so proud before will be so upset.
Of course, Zhiyao is not in a hurry to launch a city attack. A game like "Wolf Crying" can still be played for a while.
You can imagine how depressing the atmosphere inside the Wei family was, and they were probably mentally prepared for a bloody battle. In this state, they would definitely have the courage and blood to fight the invaders.
There is a saying in the art of war: "again, again, three times, three times, until the enemy is exhausted, and I am full, so I can overcome it", which can be used in field battles or sieges.
If you know that the enemy's morale is high, or have a desperate will, and choose this moment to launch an attack, even if you win in the end, your own side will definitely suffer huge casualties.
Therefore, without saying anything more from Sun Wu, Zhiyao was quite willing to play with Wei's mentality.
Waiting for the catapults from behind to be transported up, not only the east side of "Wei" City can be smashed, but catapults can also be arranged to smash in other directions.
"Wei City is not Xiangyang, and it will not collapse even after being hit for decades." Zhiyao actually didn't know whether Xiangyang had ever collapsed under the attack of returning artillery.
Looking at the east wall of "Wei" city that has been hit repeatedly, many of the parapets have been flattened, and some wall sections have dents or cracks. And this is only half a month of attack by fourteen catapults, which proves that Wei's
When building the city wall of "Wei" city, it seems that the requirements were not so strict?
In fact, it is not difficult to understand that the Wei family built the "Wei" city about 140 years ago. The Wei family was not a very powerful family at that time. They did not obtain the position of minister until the generation of Wei Daozi, and they did not regain the throne later.
When building the "Wei" city, the quality of the city will definitely not be the best.
Even if the Wei family wanted to build the city in the best and most rigorous way, they had to consider the limitations brought by the times, the lack of a variety of tools for building the city, and various standards.
At that time, there was no need to resist the catapults hitting the city walls, so the quality required during city building would be lower.
To put it bluntly, every era has different quality requirements. For example, in the era of bronze cannons, there will definitely be a need to build city walls to resist solid projectiles.
"Maybe we can attack the city?" Sun Wu asked.
The main reason was that someone from the Han family came over and informed the Wei family that they were attacking "Han" city. The Han family once lost control of a large section of the city wall, and only regained control of the section of the city wall after paying a lot of casualties.
In addition, Han Geng has recently been forced to order the city gate to be blocked. He is afraid that the city gate cannot be defended. Once the city gate is captured by the Wei family, the city will almost be declared broken.
It's not that the Han family is weak...that's not true either. The Han family's fighting power is relatively weak, even weaker than that of the Wei family. What's more, now is the stage when the Wei family needs to risk their lives, which makes the Han family look even weaker.
If Han Gu had not lied, the Wei family had already lost more than 20,000 troops in "Han" city, and the Han family's losses had reached 6,000.
The Wei clan who went to attack the "Han" city had more than 160,000 men and women, including auxiliary troops. Among them were a large number of young men who had been temporarily armed, as well as a group of Wei clan's heavy infantry.
Why are there so many, and there are also women? Zhiyao understands Wei Si's layout. It is important to attack the "Han" city. Once the Han family cannot be forced to surrender and the "Wei" land, the Wei family's home base, falls, what will happen to those Wei people?
He immediately started to flee, becoming the guarantee for the continued existence of the Wei family and the main force for revenge one day.
On the other hand, the Wei family was still migrating, and a large number of young and strong men and women were moving to the mountainous area to the north of "Shaoliang". The Han family actually made some conveniences, and even the Hu family turned a blind eye and ignored them.
What are they doing?
The Han family and the Hu family are afraid that the Wei family will be completely destroyed. Next, the Zhi family will attack them. They definitely don't want the Wei family to be completely destroyed.
However, Zhiyao knew that he could not push too hard, so he could only send cavalry to intercept, and he would only be able to intercept as many as he could.
Everyone has their own positions and needs. Once Zhiyao pushes them too hard, the situation will change again.
Therefore, no one is an absolute fool, and everyone has their own various preparations.
Zhiyao was about to speak and heard bursts of cheers outside the tent.
Not long after, someone came to report that the wall on the east side of Wei City had collapsed.
This... is unexpected and reasonable!
The reliable rammed earth city wall is really not that fragile. Zhiyao went out to look around in person and saw a lot of wood in the collapsed city wall section. It can be imagined that it was also mixed with wheat straw and the like. It is no wonder that it collapsed when hit by a stone bullet.
.
When Weiss learns about the situation, he will definitely hate the man who cut corners more than a hundred years ago, right?
Zhiyao ordered all catapults to continue smashing against the collapsed city wall, and ordered to be ready to launch a charge at any time.
The thrown stone bullets fall down again and again. If enough stone bullets hit the target closely, the probability of repeated hits will be higher.
To be honest, Zhiyao made a wrong judgment before, thinking that the rammed earth city wall was very strong, and the use of catapults was more to create a psychological deterrent to the Wei family. There was really no requirement to smash the city wall down.
This time it’s different!
Zhiyao actually saw the city wall being smashed down, which showed that it could really be smashed down.
Even if there is a siege tower, the attack can be launched from the gap without having to fight the city climbing battle. The gap must be chosen first to avoid a large number of casualties in the city climbing battle.
It can be seen that many Wei people risked their lives to carry things to block the collapsed city wall, so that the scene of falling stone bullets was very bloody.
"Just launch the gravel." Zhiyao had just gone to inspect the troops that were about to launch a siege. When he came to the catapult troops, he issued a new order.
Of course it's not a small thing like pebbles, even gravel is about the size of an adult's fist.
The launch of gravel would have been used before starting the battle to climb the city, to attack those Wei people who wanted to block the gap, which was also quite suitable.
Poor hit rate? If there are enough rocks and the scattering area is large enough, what more accurate hit rate is needed?
The distance was far enough that the screams could not reach Zhiyao's ears, but he could see that after a wave of volleys, there was no one standing at the gap in the city wall.
"Attack."
The sound of horse hooves sounded first, followed by the infantrymen who had been waiting for a long time shouted "Attack! Attack! Attack!" and then launched a charge...