Ji Han Grand Commander

Chapter 583 577. Battle of Luoyang (VI)

"kill!"

As the Han army's drums sounded, the apricot-yellow blocks began to move and surged towards the Luoyang city wall like a tide.

After several days of emergency production and prior preparation, there were two or three battering rams, countless ladders, three or four siege towers in three directions, and countless soldiers, who marched towards the west, south and east gates of Luoyang City in a mighty manner.

Relying on the grating that was somewhat higher than the city wall, the Han soldiers used the crossbow to accurately kill the Wei troops on the city wall from a very safe distance.

Due to various reasons, the offensive power of the Yangzhou army was obviously lower, and it was Guo Huai who was guarding this side of the city wall, so the Han army did not make any substantial progress and could only engage in a tug-of-war with the Wei army to fill the moat.

In contrast, Zhuge Liang used the same tactics that Feng Xi had used before. He used heavy battering rams to cover the soldiers who went to fill the moat. At the same time, he used wells to specifically fire back at the archers on the city walls. The progress was quite good. The three people who confronted Zhuge Liang here were Xiahou Mao, Xiahou Heng, and Xiahou Wei.

The South City Gate was naturally guarded by Cao Zhen himself, and he engaged in a fierce confrontation with Feng Xi.

Feng Xi had no intention of showing mercy in this siege, and the Jingzhou army went all out. Even without the traps, the archers on the ground posed no small threat to the Wei army on the city wall. Coupled with the Jingzhou army's catapults, they were able to fight back and forth with the Wei army for a while.

Moreover, the purpose of the Jingzhou army seemed to be different from that of the other two sides. The purpose of the east and west gates was to fill the moat as soon as possible and then use ladders to climb the city. Feng Xi's side seemed to have no interest in the moat. Instead, under the cover of archers, more than a hundred well-protected and armed to the teeth Han soldiers came to a place a hundred feet away from the city wall, took off the shovels on their backs, and began to dig something.

"What is this Han army doing?"

Naturally, the strange behavior of the Han army did not escape Cao Zhen's eyes, but he had never seen such a scene. Logically speaking, digging a pit means digging a trap or digging a trench, but those are actions that the defenders should take. No matter what, it is not the turn of the attackers to do so.

"Could it be that Feng Xi thought I would rush out of the city?"

Cao Zhen watched for a long time and found that the other party was really digging small pits. He stared at it for a long time but still couldn't understand the other party's intention.

Since he couldn't understand Cao Zhen, he could only wait and see. Although some of the Wei army's powerful bows and crossbows could hit the enemy, the enemy's heavy armor and even iron-covered helmets clearly showed that they were prepared and it was obvious that they were determined to do so.

In addition, the offensive power of other Han troops was not small, so Cao Zhen soon had to turn his attention back to preventing the Han troops on the front line from trying to lower the drawbridge or fill in the moat.

On the Jingzhou army side, the hundreds of soldiers on the front line used a strange triangular mold to compare, as if to confirm how well they had dug the pit.

The deepest part of the pit is no more than half a meter, or fifty centimeters. From the side section, it is a right triangle. The Han army seemed to have thought that it would not look good to the human eye, so they made a wooden triangle ruler. As long as the long right-angled side of the triangle ruler was exactly at the same height as the ground, it meant that the pit was qualified.

Afterwards, some soldiers, under the cover of their comrades, pushed a few small carts to the vicinity of these Han soldiers with strange movements, and distributed some cylindrical objects to them.

Cao Zhen's brows were getting more and more furrowed. He had heard of Feng Xi a long time ago. He still remembered the other party's method of destroying Fancheng with unknown means in the past. In just a moment, the whole Fancheng turned into a sea of ​​fire. If Xu Huang had not sacrificed his life to cover the retreat, I am afraid that they would have been captured alive by the Han army. Now seeing the other party sneaking around in front of the battle, Cao Zhen instinctively felt that something was wrong. However, he racked his brains and could not find a strategy from his military books that could match the current performance of the Han army.

Now the Jingzhou army dragged all kinds of new weapons to attack the city, including the previous fire box carts and hand-propelled crossbows. These heavy firepower suppressed the Wei army very severely. Wei soldiers often stuck their heads out from the parapet and were shot in the head by a crossbow as thick as a bowl.

Under the suppression of these light and heavy weapons, although Cao Zhen felt something was wrong about the movements of the Jingzhou army, he was unable to control the behavior of the Han army and could only take the time to observe the movements of the Han army occasionally.

At this moment, the hundred or so soldiers placed the cylindrical objects horizontally into a specially dug groove at the bottom of the triangular pit, then pulled out the long fuse and put it aside, and then used the soil piled aside that had just been dug out from the pit to carefully modify the cylindrical objects that had just been placed, and piled them up into an inverted right triangle.

After pressing the soil firmly, they used the triangle ruler in their hands to measure it again. After making sure the angle was correct, the soldiers took down the package-like objects from the wheelbarrows and put them into the pit, as if all they had done was just to dig a burial pit for the object and bury it.

Cao Zhen was completely confused, but the Wei army's defense on the city wall was still complete, which made Cao Zhen feel relatively at ease. He only occasionally paid attention to the movements of these mysterious Han army members.

Those mysterious soldiers pulled out another fuse from the package, twisted the two fuses together, and then took out a tinder to light the fuse.

"Could these be the Han army's thunder weapons? But if they ignite them like this, won't they hurt themselves?"

As a general, Cao Zhen naturally did not believe in the so-called magic. He was one of the first people to believe that those "thunderbolts" were newly invented weapons by the Han army. Unfortunately, as the Wei army was defeated many times, the infiltration effect of Jingzhou was very poor, and they could not even get any information about those weapons. After all, except for those specially trained soldiers, most of the Han army soldiers only thought it was the so-called magic.

Those fully armed Han soldiers retreated immediately after the fire was set. There were no other Han soldiers where they were, and there was at least a blank area of ​​dozens of meters around them.

"boom!"

After a while, as expected, with a series of loud noises, this area of ​​​​the battlefield made a loud noise, attracting the attention of both sides on the battlefield.

However, the Han army, as the users, had long been accustomed to these loud noises. They just looked back and continued their attack. Instead, the Wei army continued to point and criticize the Han army's positions which were filled with smoke.

"Did the Han army really make a mistake? Why did they blow themselves up?"

Cao Zhen was full of doubts, but what was happening now was beyond his understanding, so he was naturally puzzled.

"Heaven! Heaven!"

Suddenly, the shouting of a soldier beside him brought Cao Zhen back to reality, and he looked up involuntarily.

(End of this chapter)