Daqin Engineering Corps

Chapter 70 Pangea

Yang Duanhe looked confused: "What is Mongolian sweat medicine?"

When Yang Duanhe asked Shen Bing, he knew it was a dead end. He explained with a little disappointment:

"It's a kind of medicine, after taking it, you will temporarily lose consciousness."

Yang Duanhe thought for a while and replied:

"This Mongolian sweat medicine has never been available, but there is Pangi softshell turtle with similar effects."

Shen Bing stared at Yang Duanhe blankly.

What the hell is this wood turtle?

It was only later that Shen Bing found out that it was a kind of poison, and it was usually prepared by nobles.

There is a saying that "accompanying a king is like accompanying a tiger". In ancient times, nobles were actually very insecure.

This is especially true after Shang Yang's reforms, where every decree either chopped off the feet or cut off the nose.

These are not bad, if the King is offended, tortures such as "Ling Chi", "cutting in half", and "car cracking" will be staged.

Therefore, just in case, most of the nobles would prepare some poison and prepare to "suicide by taking poison".

If you can't get it, you can't live, you can't die, you can't suffer.

This wood turtle is one of the commonly used poisons.

Although the Hedinghong and his ilk have quick results, their deaths are miserable and expensive.

In contrast, the price of the softshell turtle is very affordable, and after taking it, the symptoms are trembling limbs, difficulty breathing and then dying in a coma, the pain is much less.

It can be said that he committed suicide by taking poison while traveling at home...

Shen Bing didn't answer but instead asked, "I wonder if this thing is fatal if burned?"

Yang Duanhe shook his head and replied:

"Although I haven't tried it, I know that taking a small amount of this substance is not fatal."

"Only headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath, inconvenient movement, etc."

"What do you want this thing for?"

Then Yang Duanhe laughed again:

"Could it be that you want to poison those Zhao soldiers?"

"If we can poison his food, why should we bother?"

What Yang Duanhe said was that if he could sneak into Zhao Jun and poison him, it would be easier to just open the city gate.

However, Shen Bing has his own reasons, he answered unhurriedly:

"What if instead of poisoning the food, we put the wood turtle in a sackcloth bomb and threw it into the city?"

Yang Duanhe couldn't help saying "oh" when he heard the words, then nodded with wide eyes and said:

"A clever plan, this plan will most likely succeed!"

"According to this plan."

Needless to say, Yang Duanhe immediately reported the matter to Wang Jian.

Wang Jian was at his wit's end right now, so there was no reason to disagree.

Immediately order the nobles of the entire army to hand over the Pangi turtles they carry with them...

Conditional nobles will also bring some during the war, in case they can be relieved quickly when they are seriously injured.

In addition, Wang Jian also sent cavalry to search the surrounding pharmacies, and within a day, he collected a small half basket of Pancitia.

The number is not large, of course it is far from enough to deal with all Zhao Jun.

But if it's just to deal with the city gate... that's more than enough.

That night, Shen Bing asked people to divide these softwood turtles into dozens of sackcloth bombs.

This is not a simple installation, but it is mixed with dried horse manure and then loaded into the middle layer of sackcloth bombs.

This is done because dried horse manure burns longer and creates a lot of smoke.

From a scientific point of view:

If horse dung is not used, the poisonous gas produced when the wood turtle is burned will quickly rise into the air and be dispersed by the wind.

If it is mixed with horse manure, there are many heavier particles and impurities in the smoke of horse manure, which will stay on the ground for a long time and spread with the toxicity of the wood turtle.

As for wrapping it in the middle layer, it is for more complete combustion.

After it was over, Shen Bing asked people to tie a red string to these special sackcloth fireballs to show the difference.

Otherwise, it would be a bad idea to accidentally mix in other fireballs and overwhelm your own person.

Yang Duan and Na Nai organized five hundred soldiers who were trapped in the battle and practiced overnight.

The content of the drill is to familiarize them with the structure of the city gate, and which team is responsible for killing the enemy, which team is responsible for covering, and which team is responsible for opening the city gate after rushing to the top of the city...

I have been busy until late at night before giving them a good meal and taking the time to rest.

Early the next morning, just after dawn, Zhao Jun smashed the high platform with a trebuchet as usual.

What Zhao Jun didn't know was that those high platforms were just wooden shelves to attract his attention.

When the sun was slowly rising from the east, Wang Jian gave the order to attack.

In an instant, the sound of drums rumbled and the sound of killing shook the sky.

The tens of thousands of troops of the Qin army rushed towards the city wall from all sides like a tide, and then set up a siege ladder and climbed towards the city wall.

The focus of the Qin army's offensive was the east, west, and south.

This can be seen from the number of Qin army's catapults and the strength of the siege troops.

Especially in the east, the number of trebuchets and crossbowmen is the sum of the other directions.

The stone bullets and arrows flew towards Zhao Jun like dark clouds covering the sky and covering the sun.

This makes sense.

The ancients did not attack the city without considering the casual deployment of troops. They also considered various factors.

For example, in the east in the morning, the sun just rises from the horizon and the sun shines directly on the east city.

In this way, it will cause some interference to Zhao Jun's sight in the east, especially the crossbowmen.

However, the crossbowmen of the Qin Army could find the target more easily because the sun illuminated the city.

The old general Pang Nuan was in charge of defending the city... Pang Nuan was the only one Zhao Guo could use after Li Mu's death.

As for Zhao Cong, at this time, he was boycotted by all the soldiers and civilians because of the notoriety of killing Li Mu.

Of course, this boycott was not public.

But no matter which army Zhao Cong leads, there will be many deserters or subordinates who refuse to obey orders.

In desperation, King Zhao could only leave him aside.

Pang Nuan stood at the top of the city and observed Qin Jun's offensive. His first feeling was that Qin Jun's attack was different from usual.

The biggest difference is that the scale is much larger than usual. As far as the eye can see, it is full of Qin troops ready to go, densely packed like ants.

Pang Nuan only said that the Qin army was trying to fight to the death, so he immediately pulled his troops to the main attack direction of the Qin army, which was the east gate.

However, what Pang Nuan didn't expect was that this was just Qin Jun's plan to divert the tiger away from the mountain.

The main direction of the Qin army's attack has always been the north gate in charge of Yang Duanhe.

It's no wonder that Pang Nuan couldn't imagine that the wall at the north gate was a few feet higher than the walls in other directions, so how could the Qin army focus on it?

Even Pang Nuan felt that it was normal for the Qin army to attack the weakest at the north gate.

The two armies fought like this for half an hour, and the situation changed before Pang Nuan could react.

When Pang Nuan was busy transferring a large amount of supplies and troops to the east gate, a general came to report in a hurry:

"General!"

"The Qin army stepped up its offensive at the North Gate."

"North gate for help."

Pang Nuan was clumsy and struggling to deal with it, and when he heard this, he only said that the North Gate was just Qin Jun's diversion.

So without even thinking about it, he responded:

"Make the north gate stand firm."

"There will be reinforcements later!"

The general responded and returned to his command.

Who would have thought that before Pang Nuan had time to send reinforcements, the North Gate would be in chaos.

When Pang Nuan was wondering, he saw several soldiers covered in blood running up and shouting:

"General, something is wrong!"

"The North Gate is lost!"

"The Qin army has broken into the city from the north gate!"

……

Chapter 71 ends

At the beginning, Pang Nuan only thought that deserters spread the news randomly... How could this city gate fall so quickly?

It's no wonder that Pang Nuan didn't believe it. The most difficult thing to attack a city is the city gate.

The gates of the real battlefield are not as simple as those shown in movies and TV. There are only two gates and a bolt.

Such a city gate only needs a few bundles of pine lights to throw over and burn it for a few hours, and it may burn through.

In ancient times, the gates of cities, especially capitals like Handan, were often made into urns.

The so-called Wengcheng is to change the city gate into two front and back gates and connect them end to end in a circle surrounded by city walls.

It looks like an urn mouth from above, so it is called urn city.

In addition to making the gate more difficult to breach, this also turns the static defense of the gate into a dynamic defense:

The enemy broke through a gate?

It doesn't matter.

They will soon enter the Urn City by another gate.

At the same time, these enemies who entered the urn were surrounded by the city walls like turtles in the urn.

The crossbowmen at the top of the city stretched their bows and set up arrows to shoot down, which was a blow from all directions and angles.

Occasionally, you can throw rolling stones and Leigi... that sour.

Therefore, even if Wengcheng deliberately opened the first city gate wide, the enemy would not dare to enter easily.

On the other hand, Wengcheng is also advantageous to counterattack.

If it is just a city gate, the defenders in the city will face a problem if they want to go out of the city to face the enemy: once the city gate is opened, the enemy will take advantage of the momentum to fight back from the city gate.

Wengcheng no longer has any worries in this regard.

If you want to counterattack, first arrange the troops in the urn city.

The operation procedure is just like a watertight compartment, this door is closed and that door is opened, and then this door is opened and that door is closed.

Then the troops came out again... Even if the enemy counterattacked and came in, they entered the Wengcheng and were surrounded.

Handan is the capital of Zhao State, and its four gates are urn cities, especially the north gate urn city is extremely difficult to break through because of its thick walls.

Therefore, it is hard for Pang Nuan to believe that the city was lost in the blink of an eye, and it was the city gate that fell.

Although Pang Nuan was skeptical, his subordinates did not dare to neglect, so he took a thousand guards and rushed to the north gate for reinforcements.