sweeping the world

Chapter 537
This time, in the Northern Expedition commanded by Li Tan, the size of the Han army will not be larger than before, and it can even be said that it is relatively small compared to the previous strength.

Under the Zhengbei Shogunate system, there will only be six armies, and the rest, whether they are county soldiers or servants, will participate, but the county soldiers and servants are only one type of support troops, and the command of the latter two is in the center. Instead of conquering the northern shogunate.

Qian Jiantong led the Habayashi Army, the Third Cavalry Army, and the Fourth Cavalry Army to the north through Jiuze. They had already crossed Pingtao and entered the vast grassland area, near the upper reaches of Wenshui.That place happened to be in the middle of Jinyang and Zhongyang, and it took about the same amount of time to attack any target, and it was good for intercepting Shi Xuan's headquarters who might escape.

Li Tan mobilized the [-]st Cavalry Army, [-]rd Infantry Army, and [-]th Infantry Army to Jicheng, and began to attack Yangyi.The Second Cavalry Army was left in the direction of Zhongyang, and Li Tan asked them to use Fenshui as a barrier, just to prevent Fu Hong's troops from crossing Fenshui and going south.

Although the war in Yangyi started again, it is really not easy to fight in the ice and snow.

The First Cavalry Army rushed to the north of Yangyi. They aimed to cut off the interdependence between Yangyi and Jinyang. They had intercepted the Shijie Zhao army from Jinyang to Yangyi many times. After certain results In order to avoid losses, Jinyang seems to no longer send reinforcements to Yangyi.

The [-]rd and [-]th Infantry Corps, together with the county and county soldiers brought up from the rear, surrounded Yangyi with water.At the beginning, it was only a few small-scale charge trials. After finding out how many defensive equipment or methods there were in the Yangyi city defense, they no longer sent soldiers to try to attack the city wall, but placed densely packed catapults and ballistas, Bed crossbow for ranged strikes.

Under the fine weather, the sun is not shining on people, the teeth-stinging voices are frequently issued as the soldiers operate the equipment, and various passwords are yelled and shouted in batches, and every "release" command is the same thing He was taken to the city of Yangyi by the power of equipment.

"Keep bombarding, cracks have appeared in the city wall, and it won't last much longer!" Si Hongzhuang was also idle. His troops did not rush into the city, but just bombarded endlessly with long-range attack equipment, so he asked for a temporary position to command the trebuchet. : "Try to be as accurate as possible. Whichever one breaks down the city wall first will be credited with the first achievement!"

There are two kinds of catapult vehicles in the Han army, one is produced by the system, and the other is built by the army craftsmen themselves, but they are actually similar in style. The difference is that the catapult vehicles built by the craftsmen have a winch, while the system The catapult trucks produced did not.

It was the first time for Si Hongzhuang to get close enough to the catapult. He was a little strange now. He couldn't figure out why the catapult operated by the Guards didn't have a winch, but why the launch speed was similar to that of the one with the winch?

Yangyi is surrounded on all sides, and there are long-range attacking equipment on each side. A few days ago, the defenders of Yangyi opened the city gate and poured out soldiers to seem to destroy the Han army's equipment, but what they faced was the Han army's arrow array waiting for them After several repeated charges, they fell a hundred steps away from the Han army's equipment. The Yangyi defenders recognized the reality and no longer made fearless casualties.

Yangyi's city wall actually looks a bit strange, the lower two feet or so looks dusty and dirty, while the upper half meter or so looks relatively new, obviously it was raised urgently.

At this moment, the Yangyi city wall, the female wall and the arrow stacks of the city wall were smashed into disrepair. Crossbow arrows.

Faced with the endless long-range attacks from the Han army, the Yangyi defenders did not dare to put too many people on the city wall. They only arranged some lookouts to hide behind the female wall to keep watch. If they were unlucky, they would also take the people with them. If the female wall was hit by a stone, she would definitely die and not run away.

They did not dare to place troops on the city wall, but the guards of Yangyi city were afraid that the Han army would go directly to the city, so they just arranged the troops behind the city wall, and the result was that the huddled defenders looked at the stones and crossbow arrows that kept crossing the city wall and smashing into the city. There were not a few defenders who trembled and were so frightened that they peed directly.

Inside the city, within fifty steps of the city wall, there were all kinds of Miyagi weapons shot in by the Han army from outside the city, and pieces of buildings were also smashed into ruins.

The shooting of stones and bed crossbows never stopped outside the city, and sometimes the Han army would use a few waves of crossbows to cover them when they were in the mood. It can be said that within fifty steps of the city wall, they may be smashed into flesh by stones at any time, or be killed The bed crossbow was nailed to the ground.No one knows when the Han army's crossbow troops will launch, so it is not so safe to be 170 steps away. The safe distance is at least [-] steps away from the city wall.

"It's too arrogant..." Xu Guang's anger has been suppressed in the past few days: "Is there a message from the prince?"

Du Guang responded with a frown: "The route was cut off by the Han army, and I haven't received any news from Jinyang for two days."

Regardless of the surnames of Xu and Du, in fact, as the chief and deputy city guards of Yangyi, Xu Guang is a genuine member of the Jie tribe, and Du Guang is a member of the Qiang tribe.They had already made their mark in Shi Le's generation. When Shi Hu was in power, they were depressed for a period of time, and then they were rejuvenated when they took refuge in Shi Xuan. They just kept going up and down. What's even more unfortunate now is that they became the principal and deputy of Yangyi. City guard.

"It's been two days..." Xu Guang had a very bad feeling and didn't hide it: "I'm afraid we will be abandoned."

"When the crown prince ordered the gates of the city to be blocked except for the north, someone already noticed." Du Guang said with a wry smile, "Don't tell me, that's because we are not as good at defending the city as the Han people."

Are the Han Chinese good at defending the city?The Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty, that is, the early Western Han Dynasty was on the defensive, while the middle and late Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty were always on the offensive, and the war was mostly based on offense instead of defense.When it came to the Han Dynasty established by Liu Yan, whether it was in the late period or after its rise, it seemed that there was no serious battle of defense in the Central Plains. It had always been offensive, only relying on the "Liaodong Great Wall" on the Liaodong Peninsula. "Fight a defensive battle in the early stage of the war with Murong Yanguo.

The Hu people's assumption that the Central Plains Dynasty was good at defending the city is actually based on the impression of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The Hu people of all ethnic groups defeated the Western Jin Dynasty in the Central Plains with ease. In fact, very frequently, the small imperial court of the Eastern Jin Dynasty used the water network to resist the invasion of the Shijie Zhao army.

The Han people were good at defending the city. That was after the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Moreover, even the Sui and Tang Dynasties actually used offense instead of defense. The real passive beating began in the Northern Song Dynasty.The reason why the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty defended was that they were too short of horses to confront the Hu people in the wilderness, and it was not that the Song Dynasty was willing to guard all the time.

So, in the present day of [-] A.D., it is simply nonsense to say that the Han people are good at defense and not good at attack.

"The Han people are good at defending the city, and they are also good at attacking the city." Du Guang made a gesture of listening. In fact, the city lord's palace is in the center of the city. He can't hear the sound of stones being smashed, and of course he can't hear the crossbow or the powerful crossbow. Regarding the sound of the launch, he said: "Listen to the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground and the wailing of soldiers..."

"It's impossible to persuade someone to surrender to the Han army!" Xu Guang stared at Du Guang's neck with cold eyes, and said, "The Han army shot crossbow arrows, some of which were tied with letters of persuasion. Don't think that someone doesn't know about you." Who secretly ordered people to watch it."

Du Guang looked at Xu Guang with magnanimous eyes, and still smiled wryly: "It's not just someone who has seen it, there are many people who have seen it. Someone wants to watch it, because he needs to understand how big the temptation is."

Shijie Zhao Guo no longer reuses people with Han blood flowing in their veins, and has strict control over the family members of various officials. Shihu takes the family members of hundreds of officials anytime and anywhere, and then something unexpected happens The thing is that the wives and daughters of Baiguan were attracted by Shihu and directly called to serve the bed, and they were occasionally killed and eaten after serving the bed.

Shihu still has some rationality. The wives and daughters he plays rarely have the same Hulu, and as a result, more wives and daughters who are not Hulu suffer bad luck.

One thing to be clear about is that the State of Shijie Zhao used to be the actual ruler of the Central Plains. After the mountains and rivers were broken and the Shenzhou land sank, there are not too many Jin people who took refuge in Shijie, especially those so-called great Confucians, so there are "Confucian scholars who betray the country." Competing to be the first, widows keep their chastity without hesitation" such a sentence.

Of course, whether it was the pre-Qin, Ang, or the Western Han and Eastern Han, or even the Three Kingdoms, Western Jin, Eastern Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and even the Northern Song and Southern Song, there was never actually a requirement for widows to keep their chastity. Remarriage, it can even be said that the above-mentioned dynasties still encouraged widows to remarry.

Some dynasties will fine widows who no longer choose to marry. After all, the important center is not an idiot. I must know the importance of population. In order to achieve the goal of population increase, there are clear laws and regulations on how old men and women must be married. .

Widows must observe chastity after Zhu Cheng's Confucianism became mainstream, that is, from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, in order to encourage them, the government made a big fanfare to send chastity memorial archways.

Xu Guang and Du Guang are no different from the rest of the people who are still officials in Shijie Zhao. Their family members are all hostages in Dingxiang.

People who can be ruthless enough to make their parents, wives and children die can no longer be called human beings. Du Guang doesn't think he is so ruthless, even if he is really abandoned by Shi Xuan, even if Yangyi will fall, he thinks The most important thing is to persevere until death, and exchange his own death for the life of his family.

"Since the route is cut off... Even if the route is not cut off, it is difficult to expect reinforcements to rescue..." Du Guang looked at Xu Guang deeply, and said word by word: "Block the north gate as well."

The two ventured several times to the east, west, south, and north to check the Han army besieging the city, just like the generals and schools of the Zhao army in Shijie before, because the battle robes of the soldiers, auxiliary soldiers, and county soldiers in the Han army Similarly, there are only differences between some armbands and collar patches, and those differences are too far away to be seen clearly. They don't even know the composition of the Han army besieging the city. The county and county soldiers in various places only judged that the number of Han troops would not be less than 13.

There are [-] defenders in Yangyi City. According to the conclusion that the siege army needs at least three times more than the defenders, Xu Guang and Du Guang should actually have full confidence in defending the city, but things have never been conclusive. , There are examples of a dozen times the number of troops being unable to attack for a long time, and there are also examples of more than a dozen people successfully stealing a city. War has never been taken for granted.

As the chief and deputy city guards of Yangyi, it is obvious that Xu Guang and Du Guang have a pessimistic attitude. The Han army has not officially charged into the city and only used long-range attack equipment. In just eight days, there were about [-] defenders. The casualties and constant bombardment also led to low morale in the army.

For Xu Guang and Du Guang, the most terrible thing is that there are only less than [-] Jie soldiers in Yangyi City, and only [-] Qiang soldiers and Di soldiers combined, and the rest are slave soldiers from Zahu and Jin people.Only the absolutely reliable [-] Jie tribes, the slightly unreliable [-] Qiang and Di, the rest are all unreliable, and there are many, many disadvantages. For the two of them, it should be a big deal.

"The Han army has always been besieged on all sides." Xu Guang sighed, and then continued: "They no longer respect their own traditions. It is useless to leave the north gate, just block it."

There are quite a lot of traditions in China, the most prominent in the military is the encirclement of the Three Ques, and more strange traditions have evolved. For example, when building the city wall, it is necessary to leave a weak point. Calling that is too scary Perfection leads to God's punishment.

Out of self-confidence in their own strength, the Han army will never attack a city to do things like encircle three Queyi, as long as the city is surrounded by the Han army, unless the enemy can hold it, or if it cannot hold it, it has enough breakthrough ability Break through, or else they will end up being wiped out.

"Block to death!" Du Guang gritted his teeth, but couldn't help but smiled wryly again: "The death of Yangyi is the destination, but I don't know how long I can last."

Maybe there is really such a saying in the world as the Crow's Mouth. Du Guanggang said that he would die in Yangyi. After a huge roar, a series of noises came from afar.

Xu Guang was stunned by the sudden movement, and jumped up in response: "The city wall has been blown down!"

That's right, a city wall was blown down by the Han army. At this moment, Si Hongzhuang was looking at the smoke and dust in front of him, grinning and smirking continuously.

The final blow to the collapsed city wall was Si Hongzhuang, who dropped the gusset plate hard and let the rocks hit him. He had no idea that he would create such a masterpiece, and he was just having fun.

The collapsed city wall should have a width of about ten feet, because the city wall is a rammed earth structure. After the collapse, thick smoke and dust spread out. I don't know how many people were crushed or injured. There will be no lack of groans among the clamor.

The news of the collapse of Yangyi's city wall quickly reached Zhong Xing, who was in charge of the siege, but with a calm face, he said to the generals who were about to try, "No hurry, no hurry at all. It’s not enough just to collapse a gap.”

The first gap has already been opened, and it won't be long before the second gap is opened. In fact, Zhong Xing is really not in a hurry at all. No matter how many gaps there are, he plans to continue blasting until the enemy is defeated with long-range attacks. The army was bombarded with no morale at all, and then went to harvest the ripe fruits.

(End of this chapter)