my wonderful zoo

Chapter 207
Outside Ningling City, in order to ensure the numerical advantage over the Song army in the city, Gan Ping led two armies and horses to cross the river from the north of the fork of the Yellow River to join Chen Xun.

Counting the auxiliary troops, nearly [-] Chen family troops gathered outside Ningling City.

On May 27, the siege officially began.

The fifth battalion of men and horses was sent up, and the tactics were the most standard siege warfare methods. The other Chen family troops stood at the rear and watched the battle.

All the officers who did not go to the front line were asked by Chen Xun to stand at the front of the battle formation, so they could clearly see the battlefield ahead.

Chen Xun and some senior officers stood on the artificially built high platform, condescending, and had a panoramic view of every corner of the battlefield.

When the Chen Jiajun of the fifth battalion approached [-] steps from the Ningling city wall, officers at all levels began to reorganize their troops to ensure that the formation was orderly.

Ningling City is just a county town and has no moat, which makes this siege much simpler.

The three types of siege equipment, the carts and ladders were at the front, and the infantry walked behind the two types of siege equipment, just like the coordination of infantry and tanks in later generations. The artillery position was set up at the rear.
When they were a hundred steps closer to the city wall, the musketeers and crossbowmen on the carriages began to fire, and the artillery positions behind also began to fire.

The ladder continued to approach. After approaching the city wall, the giant wooden ladder that folded backward began to rise. The iron hook in front was tightly grasped at the top of the Ningling City wall.

The entire ladder, plus the transportation and rotating structure below, weighed more than 600 kilograms, making the defender's push rod directly useless.

The ladder surface is wide and the slope is low. The Chen Jiajun who is attacking the city can directly hold weapons with both hands and run up the ladder.

Every three or four feet on both sides of the ladder, there will be a bump. If there is a log thrown down on the city wall, the soldiers climbing the ladder only need to climb down, and the bump will bounce off the log.

The only defensive weapons that could threaten the soldiers on the ladder were rolling stones, gold juice and kerosene.

However, under the covering fire of the musketeers on the carriages at the rear, the defenders on the city wall were unable to organize an effective defense at all.

Soon, nearly half an hour after the siege began, the soldiers of the Chen family attacked the top of Ningling City.

The most tragic fight officially started at this moment.

The musketeers in the rear were throwing rat weapons. In order to avoid hurting their own people, they could not shoot at the climbing point. The Chen Jiajun who climbed to the top of the city could only rely on themselves.

Weapons such as spears, Miao knives, and grenades were used in turn, and more and more Chen Jiajun soldiers climbed up the city wall.

Following this, the defenders' defense intensity became stronger and stronger.

Large groups of defenders were driven up the city wall and desperately attacked the Chen Jiajun on the top of the city, hoping to drive the Chen Jiajun soldiers off.

The garrison general was even more crazy and directly ordered the archers to fire volleys at the melee site, regardless of the fact that his own people would also be hit by bows and arrows.

"Ming Jin, withdraw." Chen Xun ordered.

As the order was issued, the soldiers who had attacked the city in front began to withdraw, and the siege equipment was also pulled back by the tow rope.

"Commander, we have all attacked, why are we retreating?" a general asked.

"The enemy still has a lot of people. If we attack like this, we will suffer a lot of losses. Let's slowly wear them down until they are exhausted, and then attack the city in a big way." Chen Xun replied.

The biggest advantage of Chen Jiajun, who is on the active side, is that he can choose the time of battle, while the defenders can only respond passively. With this, the defenders have much longer time to prepare for war than Chen Jiajun.

"Let the five withdrawn battalions rest and treat the injured quickly." Chen Xun ordered: "Don't stop attacking the city, replace the five battalions and continue."

"Yes, Commander!" Gan Ping received the order, and then ordered his sixth army to send out five battalions of soldiers to attack the city in formation.Round after round, Chen Xun stood behind and watched the uninterrupted siege ahead, predicting the effect and loss of this actual combat training.

From Chenshi in the morning to Shenshi in the afternoon, five hours, the noon meals are carried out in rotation, and all 4 people of the four armies of the Xuzhou Group Army go into battle once.

Although the number of people attacking the city remained at 5000 each time, these 5000 people concentrated on storming the west wall, and with the bonus of artillery, muskets, grenades and other gunpowder weapons, the siege intensity was greater than that of 3 or [-] people attacking at the same time. .

Eight consecutive waves of high-intensity siege battles brought the garrison on top of the city to its limit.

During the last two or three waves of siege, the defenders no longer had rolling stones and other defensive equipment, and even the archers' shooting became sparse.

There was still an hour before dark, and Chen Xun felt that the time had come.

"Miao Dao strengthens the camp!" Chen Xun ordered.

This Miao Dao reinforced battalion was expanded on the basis of the previous Miao Dao battalion. All soldiers were selected by the entire army. Among them, [-] attackers wore two layers of heavy armor, with an inner layer of shark skin armor and an outer layer of fish scales. Steel armor, helmet on head, steel boots on feet, fully armed.

"Here!" The commander of the reinforcement battalion couldn't wait to watch the battle for a day.

"In this attack on the city, your camp will be the first to attack!" Chen Xun ordered.

"Take the order! Commander!" The battalion commander gave a military salute and immediately went down to prepare.

"Gan Ping, a city wall in Ningling County can allow up to 1 people to fight. You send out five battalions of veterans, and I will send out four battalions of veterans, plus the Miao Dao battalion, and try to win it in this wave." Chen Xun said.

In the veteran camp here, the proportion of Chen Jiajun veterans is only [-]% higher than that of other battalions, reaching [-]%. However, the proportion of veterans such as Qin Wangjun, Zhang Jiajun, and Yijun in the camp exceeds [-]%, and pure recruits are less than [-]%.

"Don't worry, Commander, Ningling City is already powerless." Gan Ping responded.

After a short rest for a quarter of an hour, the siege started again. This time the number of people attacking the city was twice as large as before, and the backup ladders and building carts were also pushed up.

When the defenders saw this scene, they also pulled up all their reserves and packed the west wall tightly.

Chen Jiajun added a new siege weapon: explosive rockets.

This was removed from the navy station ship, and it is very lethal to wooden buildings and personnel.

The battle is on!

First, artillery and explosive rockets opened the way. The powerful explosive rockets immediately caused chaos on the defenders on the city wall.

The carriages and ladders pressed up again, the ladders hooked onto the city wall, and the Miao Daoying in heavy armor began to climb.

With a knife in one hand and a floating wooden step in the other, he pedaled quickly with both feet. In less than a breath, the two-foot-high city wall was trampled down by the soldiers of the Miaodao Camp.

The defenders repeated their old tricks and fired arrows at the melee point where the two armies were intertwined, but this time it had the opposite effect.

The arrows had almost no effect on the soldiers of the Miao Dao Camp, but they helped the Miao Dao Camp clear the defenders in front. The climbing point expanded rapidly, and more Chen family troops climbed onto the city wall.

boom!boom!boom!Artillery bombarded the city gate tower intensively, and the roar of grenades exploding everywhere on the city wall.

The defenders, who had been holding on for a day, could no longer hold on and collapsed.

(End of this chapter)