When I was in Qin Dynasty, I lost contact with the wave

Chapter 618: The city of Xinzheng is destroyed and the ground is opened to death!

In front of the gate of Xinzheng City, Wei Zhuang's paralyzed face couldn't help but twitch as he looked at the trebuchet positions that the Qin army had built crazily, as if for free.

It has long been unknown who invented the trebuchet, but the first large-scale and historical record was in the hands of Fan Li. Legend has it that he once used a "flying stone weighing twelve kilograms, which was used as a machine and traveled three hundred steps." Trebuchet.

There is a record about the trebuchet in "Mozi Bei City Gate": "All the borrowed carts are made of iron. The pillars of the borrowed carts are seven feet long, and those of Yuanli are four feet long."

Borrowing a cart is a trebuchet.

When Mozi, the founder of the Mohist family, and Gongshu Ban, the founder of the Gongshu family, demonstrated their offensive and defensive battles in front of King Hui of Chu, the defensive equipment they used included trebuchets, which were used to destroy Gongshu Ban's ladders and other equipment.

However, things like trebuchets may be an artifact of siege warfare in later generations or in games, but in this era they are just useless.

The low craftsmanship and technology meant that the trebuchets could not actually reach the eight hundred steps mentioned by Fan Li. Even in the Song Dynasty, except for those giant trebuchets that required hundreds of people just to use them, the slightly more advanced Tiger Crouching Cannon fired It was just a stone bullet weighing fifteen kilograms in later generations, and its range was only seventy-five meters.

In this era, the weight of the stone projectiles that can be thrown by a purely human-powered trebuchet is only about eight kilograms in later generations, and the range is only about fifty meters. If the craftsmanship is not good, this data will be reduced by 22%. .

Whether it is a field battle or a city siege, not only is the power insufficient, but the distance of fifty meters is really not enough. It is too easy for the crossbowmen to kill the soldiers in the trebuchet position, or they can suddenly attack out of the city and destroy the trebuchet position in the blink of an eye. things in between.

And if the battle situation really comes to a point where there is no need to worry about the trebuchet position being attacked, no matter how hard it is to build the trebuchet, a flat push can take away the opponent in one wave.

Therefore, during the Warring States Period, trebuchets were mostly used by defenders to defend the city.

But the problem is that the Mohists, who have been playing trebuchets for more than two hundred years, and the public loser, who is famous for his domineering machine skills, jointly improved the trebuchet... To be honest, Zhang Ji felt that the power and range of this thing were a bit abnormal.

Not to mention the several types of trebuchets invented by Gong Shuqiu that could be called giant cannons, Zhang Ji felt that it was a bit outrageous to see a standard trebuchet that could fire stone projectiles weighing ten kilograms in later generations and with a range of about 120 meters.

The so-called standard trebuchet, as the name suggests, is a trebuchet with standardized equipment. It is based on the assembly line project invented by Qin Mo. The parts required to assemble the trebuchet are individually produced, and then the parts can be carried out after being polished and formed, and then assembled temporarily.

The use of this standard trebuchet is not only easy to carry and use, but also greatly reduces the personal qualities required of soldiers who build trebuchet positions.

You must know that training a group of soldiers to build trebuchet positions originally required too much learning. It was no less than sending a group of craftsmen with half a bucket of water to go online.

Wei Zhuang on the top of the city took a deep breath and watched the Qin army building trebuchet positions one after another as if no one was around. Even he couldn't help but want to curse.

He understands the truth, but the question is what are these eighty trebuchets doing?
Is the commander-in-chief of the Qin army crazy?
"It doesn't matter. It just so happens that the development of Xinzheng has reached a limit. The population in the city is too dense. I have the idea of ​​demolishing the city wall and expanding Xinzheng this year."

Nanyang County Prime Minister Zhao Hai looked at Tu Sui and Ren Xiao who were also stunned, and waved his hand casually.

Although General Teng was the governor of Nanyang County, he didn't know much about government affairs, so all was handled by Zhao Hailai, the prime minister of Nanyang County, who was a branch of the Qin clan.

The Qin State has always had the custom of providing relief through work. In this year of great disaster, he can also take advantage of this major project of demolishing the broken old city wall and expanding Xinzheng City to appease and recruit the refugees in Yingchuan County. Enrich the population. Of course, Wei Zhuang didn't know Zhao Hai's plan, but facing the eighty trebuchets prepared by the Qin army, he was really helpless.

When the trebuchets were fixed at a good angle, and based on the intensity of the previous projection, the Qin army could carry out stoning bombing almost day and night. Even at night, they maintained at least five trebuchets on each city wall.

The wall at the top of the city was so dilapidated that many rebel soldiers often fell off the top of the city and died due to poor visibility at night and because the wall lost its shielding effect.

On the fourth day, the Qin army continued to bombard with endless stone throwing. The Qin army became a little bored. Except for the soldiers who were on duty to protect the trebuchet positions, the rest of the soldiers began to play Cuju, wrestling and other entertainment projects.

In contrast, the rebels in the city had been driven crazy by the Qin army's endless bombings. Even the rangers and prisoners, who were known for their bravery and ruthlessness, could not stand the Qin army's style of play.

In the absence of effective means to counter the trebuchets, the rebels knew that the city would be bombarded with endless stones, but they had to continue to station troops at the city. Otherwise, the soldiers of the Qin army protecting the trebuchet positions could be attacked at any time. Become a siege vanguard.

Anyone who is bombed like this will have their morale plummeted, and the rebel army, which is a ragtag group of people, has even reached the brink of collapse.

But the Qin army had no intention of giving them a way to survive. The city was surrounded on all sides and it was impenetrable. Even warriors who were good at Qinggong found it extremely difficult to escape from the encirclement of a hundred thousand troops.

On the sixth day, Meng Wu finally waved the general's flag, beat the drum himself, and sounded the bugle for the Qin army's first attack since the siege.

It is true that the bombing of trebuchets provided the rebels with a terrifying amount of trebuchets, but the rebels, who had been mentally tortured to the limit, could not exert much combat effectiveness at all.

Until the city of Xinzheng was broken, the street fighting in the city was basically over. The 100,000 Qin troops wiped out 50,000 rebels, but only more than 1,000 people were killed, more than 2,300 people were slightly injured, and more than 400 people were seriously injured.

It is a pity that Wei Zhuang and Zhang Liang escaped once again due to the intentional indulgence of Meng Wu and Luo Wang and "missed their traces."

However, Zhang Kaidi, the prime minister of Han who created the story of the fifth prime minister of the city father Zhang family, stayed outside Xinzheng forever.

If a human spirit like Kaifang fails in his rebellion once, he will become more aware of the gap between the anti-Qin forces and the Qin State the second time, and then begin to hibernate with the anti-Qin forces.

And this is definitely not something Luo Wang is happy to see.

Moreover, the Xinzheng Rebellion did make Ying Zheng, the King of Qin, feel angry and worried. The answer sheet handed to Ying Zheng must also include a highly valuable head to calm the anger of the King of Qin.

So Luo Wang chose to kill Zhang Kaidi and let Zhang Liang, who was still young and energetic, escape.

By using the two sworn hatreds of killing his ancestor and his father to stimulate Zhang Liang to take the anti-Qin forces for impulsive revenge, this can help Luo Wang better uproot the secret anti-Qin forces.

(2083 words)
(End of this chapter)