Guiyi Fei Tang

Chapter 382: Attack on Longxi
"put!"

"Boom bang bang-"

In the Wei River Valley, accompanied by the generals waving their command flags, more than sixty catapults immediately threw stones towards the distant pass.

Not only did they throw slings, but slings were also thrown from the pass.

The stones thrown by both sides crossed in the air. A few of them collided, but most of them missed and fell into the enemy's formation.

Stones were thrown at the pass. Some of them hit the catapults on the horse road, causing a few of them to break. The remaining dozen of stones fell into the pass, and the rest all hit the wall of the pass.

Compared with the damage suffered by the pass, the government troops suffered greater damage. Several catapults were hit and broken, and more than a dozen civilians who were unable to escape were crushed to death on the spot.

After a round of stone-throwing, both sides continued to load the stones. The difference was that the official army's supervisory team supervised thousands of civilians operating the catapults, while the soldiers of the Longyou Army at the pass loaded the stones themselves.

Because the catapult had an additional winch and many structures to disperse the force compared to the government army's catapult, more than 30 soldiers from Longyou could operate a catapult, while the government army needed 50 to 60 people.

This meant that the Longyou Army could use fewer manpower to achieve the same stone-throwing firepower as the government army.

The key point is that the Longyou army built many reverse angles on the horse road for escape, while the government troops could only hide in the flat river valley outside the pass.

The two sides threw stones at each other from early morning to noon, and there were indeed many marks of stone impact on the wall, but this was not enough to destroy the wall.

If the pass was attacked at this speed, Wang Shi's tens of thousands of troops would need at least two or three months to break through the pass and capture it by force.

"It's only been two and a half hours, and we've already had twelve trebuchets destroyed, and more than forty civilians killed."

"If we continue like this, won't nearly a hundred civilians die every day?"

Li Chengxun, who was standing behind Wang Shi and looking at the pass in the distance with Wang Shi, couldn't help but speak.

Wang Shi was not panicked, but asked Zhao Qian beside him: "Have you taken the stone fort in the south?"

"No!" Zhao Qian shook his head in response, and then said:

"It's easy to defend there but difficult to attack. We can't use catapults at all. We can only rely on manpower to attack."

"Wang Bingma led his troops to attack for two hours, but still failed to reach the top of the city. The number of casualties is no less than 200."

Two hundred people may seem like a small number, but this is just the pace for one morning. If it were a whole day, it would be at least four or five hundred people.

There are less than four or five hundred people in a day, and even Wang Shi couldn't help but frown at this number.

Whether attacking or defending the city, the capabilities and qualities of the Longyou Army far exceeded his expectations.

But the war has already begun. If he fails to gain even an inch of land, how can he face His Majesty and the court?

Thinking of this, Wang Shi said in a deep voice: "Continue the attack, we must seize the stone fort in the south and cut off the connection between Weizhou and Chengzhou!"

"Yes!" Zhao Qian nodded in response, and at this time there was a commotion in the camp.

Soon, a brigade commander came galloping with a military disc in his hand.

"Young Master, this is the military disc sent by Chengji!"

Li Chengxun recognized the man, so he quickly stepped forward, snatched the military disc from his hand, and handed it to Wang Shi.

Wang Shi took it and looked it up, but his brows were still furrowed.

"The rebels sent cavalry and infantry to cut off the official roads between Qinzhou and Huizhou, with a number of no less than 3,000 people."

Wang Shi told Cheng Ji's military situation, and then asked the brigade commander who sent the military disc:
"When you went south, did you encounter the reinforcements I sent?"

"Yes, they are less than seventy miles away from Chengji. They should be arriving in Chengji soon!"

The brigade commander bowed quickly and told everything he had seen and heard on the way. After listening, Wang Shi looked at Li Chengxun:
"Please ask Envoy Li to lead the Tianxiong Army here to Chengji County, and at the same time gather the troops from Chengji and Longcheng to repel the rebels in the north of Chengji."

"Besides this place, it would be best to transport the grain and fodder from Chengji County to Shanggui."

"I obey your command!" Li Chengxun did not refuse. After all, Chengji was garrisoned by his eldest son Li Zhiyi. If something happened to Chengji, it would not only mean that there was a problem with the army's food and grass, but also that his eldest son would be imprisoned.

What he wanted to do most now was to lead his troops northward and repel the rebels in the north of Chengji.

It’s better to leave the turtle shell of Weizhou to Wang Shi to gnaw on it himself.

After receiving the military order, Li Chengxun immediately returned to the camp and mobilized 3,000 Tianxiong troops in the camp to march north to Chengji.

After he led his troops out of the camp, fast horses appeared again from the direction of Shanggui, bringing very important military intelligence.

"Shao Bao, the Shuofang Army's pigeon is sending military intelligence!"

Zhao Qian took the military intelligence from the fast horse and quickly handed it to Wang Shi who was observing the changes on the battlefield.

Wang Shi took the military intelligence and immediately opened it to read it. Then he spoke to the military commanders and military governors around him:

"The rebels marched north to attack Huizhou. Shuofang Jiedushi Zhou Bao was defeated and lost nearly a thousand elite cavalry. Huining was besieged by a large number of rebels, with no less than 20,000 troops."

Upon hearing this, everyone bowed and said, "The rebels have already headed north, so can we attack Weizhou by force?"

"Yes!" Wang Shi nodded. What he was waiting for was for Longyou to gather heavy troops in one place and then create opportunities for a strong attack in other directions.

"Pass on my military order. Li Hongfu, the governor of Jingyuan, will be the vanguard. The troops from Fengxiang, Hedong and other towns will assist. We must capture this pass within ten days!"

"I obey your orders!"

In front of the pass, the surface of the moat shimmered in the sun. The river water was diverted from the Wei River and was wide and deep, becoming the first line of defense for the pass.

At this time, the government army's 7,000 infantrymen and 20,000 civilian laborers had lined up and were ready to launch an attack.

"Enter!"

"Uuuuuu——"

Dozens of nest carts were slowly pushed to the front line. The nest carts were tall and sturdy, and the top of each nest cart was large enough to accommodate dozens of crossbowmen, making them an important weapon in siege warfare.

As the horn sounded, two thousand of the seven thousand infantrymen began to cover the advance of the nest chariot, and twenty thousand civilians followed closely.

Under the cover of the infantry, the nest car slowly approached the pass with a dull sound of wheels and axles.

Behind the nest car, 20,000 laborers followed closely, carrying sandbags, ready to fill the trench line of the moat.

The Longyou army at the pass had already been on high alert, with catapults continuously launching huge stones in an attempt to block the attack of the government troops, but the hit rate of the stones was not high. Among dozens of huge stones, only a few hit the nest car.

Even if it hits, it can only leave a few holes on the fender of the nest car, and cannot destroy its main structure.

After a cup of tea, the government troops finally pushed the nest car to the edge of the moat, level with the city wall, only a few dozen steps away.

Hundreds of government troops quickly climbed onto the platform on top of the nest car, holding crossbows, and began to suppress the Longyou army on the wall.

"Escape!!"

"put--"

Arrows from crossbows rained down on the wall, and the Longyou army had to hide behind the battlements and seek cover.

At the same time, the civilians behind the nest car rushed out and threw sandbags into the moat.

The sandbags stirred up countless splashes of water, the water level of the moat gradually dropped, and the trench line was filled up bit by bit.

Upon seeing this, the Longyou army on the wall immediately fought back with crossbows, and their arrows shot towards the nest carts and the civilians like locusts.

From time to time, civilians were shot by arrows and fell to the ground, but more people continued to come forward and fill the trench line.

While the crossbowmen on both sides were shooting at each other, the Longyou army pushed out dozens of crossbow carts from the corner tower.

These crossbow carts were different from the government army's winch crossbows. Each crossbow cart was equipped with three large bows, one of which pointed in the opposite direction to the other two.

The crossbow was wound with a winch, and it required more than ten soldiers to operate it together. The crossbow arrows on the crossbow were extremely large, with the pole as thick as a wrist and the arrowhead flashing with a cold light.

"Fire!" With the team leader's order, the crossbowmen stepped on the pedals hard, and the crossbow cart made a deafening roar.

A crossbow arrow more than ten feet long shot out like lightning, instantly piercing through the fender of the nest car, causing the nest car to vibrate violently.

Some crossbow arrows directly hit the government soldiers on top of the nest car, instantly piercing two officers and soldiers. The bodies were blown dozens of feet away by the crossbow arrows and fell heavily to the ground.

A small number of crossbows that penetrated the nest vehicles then stuck into the ground after flying a few hundred steps, only a few dozen steps away from the camp.

Li Hongfu and others felt their scalps tingling when they saw the thick crossbow arrow.

"Windlass crossbow?"

"should be!"

Li Hongfu's tone was not yet calm, and the general beside him nodded and said, "Sir, after the moat is filled, our army must use the cloud chariot as the main attack. Only by close combat can we limit the effectiveness of the winch crossbow."

"Of course." Li Hongfu forced himself to calm down, his eyes fixed on the pass in the distance.

The civilians on the front line tried to escape several times, but the officers and soldiers in charge of supervising the battle held Mo Dao in their hands and threatened everyone with their cold swords.

Whenever there were civilians trying to escape, the supervising officers and soldiers would chop them down with their Mo Dao, cutting their flesh and blood open, spilling their internal organs, and frightening them into incontinence.

"Anyone who retreats will die!" The words of the supervising officers and soldiers forced the civilians to bite the bullet and go to the moat to fill the soil under the arrows of the Longyou Army.

More and more civilians died in front of the moat, and their blood gathered and flowed into the moat, causing the moat to turn bloody and smelly.

"put!"

"boom--"

At the pass, the crossbow carts of the Longyou Army were still firing, and the officers and soldiers' crossbows were also constantly suppressing them.

As time went by, 20,000 civilians, facing life and death, filled up the moat in a very short time.

"Retreat!"

"You bastards, you can get out of here now!"

With the permission of the supervising officers and soldiers, more than 10,000 surviving civilians fled in panic. When Li Hongfu in the rear saw the civilians withdrawing, he immediately raised the command flag in his hand.

Under his wave, the battering rams and cloud chariots that had been prepared long ago began to be pushed to the front of the formation, and five thousand officers and soldiers pushed these siege weapons to launch an attack.

The civilians ran back to the camp with them as if they were escaping. The crotches of countless people were already wet, and the air was filled with an unpleasant smell of urine.

Even so, the five thousand government troops did not stop and crossed the three hundred steps distance in just half a cup of tea.

They came to the moat, where several paths had been created by filling the river with sandbags and digging out the sand.

The battering ram and cloud chariot were pushed into it and rushed to the other side of the moat along these roads.

The officers and soldiers raised their shields and began to attack the city wall.

They used battering rams to attack, used cloud rams to release ladders to hook the battlements, and began to climb up and attack.

An officer climbed up the parapet, but when he saw the situation clearly, his face suddenly changed.

"put!"

"boom--"

As the team was issuing military orders, the crossbowmen stepped on the pedals, and the thick crossbow arrows pierced through the officers and soldiers, nailing their bodies to the other side of the moat more than 20 steps away.

Rolling logs and pounding stones are just the basics; more important are the constantly moving gun carts and the rising and falling wolf-tooth bats.

Countless iron spikes were embedded in the wolf-tooth plate weighing more than 100 kilograms. When the Longyou soldiers put it down, the government troops who were climbing up would be immediately crushed to death and fall off the ladder.

Occasionally, soldiers who came climbing the mountain would be hit violently by the gun carts filled with gun heads from the front. They would either fall off the city, suffer internal injuries from the gun carts, or be killed.

These city defense equipment were continuously reported back to the central army by the soldiers of the front army. Wang Shi, who was sitting in the tent, closed his eyes and listened quietly to the unprecedented city defense equipment and methods.

While he was listening, a cursing voice came from a tent somewhere inside the pass.

"Dou Yun, you bastard, you killed Ye Ye!"

The person who was cursing in the tent at this moment was Xin Dan, who was recommended by Dou Bin from the Chang'an Jinzouyuan some time ago.

He sat in the first left seat in the tent, listening to the shouting and screaming outside the pass with mixed feelings.

He didn't expect that he had just joined the Longyou Army, but the imperial court would label Longyou as a rebel and Liu Jilian as a traitor.

He, Xin Dan, suddenly transformed himself from the grandson of "Xin Zhongxian (minister's posthumous title)" of the Tang Dynasty to a county magistrate among the rebels.

"Xin Changshi, now that the grain has arrived, you should return to Longxi County first."

Gao Jinda, who was sitting at the main seat, spoke slowly, and Xin Dan nodded: "I will take my leave."

After he left the tent, Gao Jinda also said to the two captains in the tent: "Prepare the Ten Thousand Enemies and the Iron Cannon and use them at any time."

"I obey your command!" The two men responded one after another, while Gao Jinda continued to handle government affairs amid the noise.

As time passed, half an hour later, the frequency of the government troops' attacks increased, and the pass, which was guarded by only 3,000 men, gradually became overwhelmed.

At this time, carts of two-foot-long pottery jars "locked" by square wooden frames appeared on the road, along with long iron bells that were two feet high and half a foot wide.

These pottery jars locked in wooden frames were distributed, and then some soldiers lit torches and ignited the oil lines next to the pottery jars.

When the oil line was about to burn out, the soldiers from Longyou immediately pushed the pottery jar off the parapet, and then a loud explosion was heard.

"boom--"

The pottery jar exploded after two breaths, like a thunderclap out of nowhere, and the tallow and iron slag in the jar flew out.

The clothes were set on fire, and the iron slag shot onto the surrounding soldiers like a rain of pear blossoms.

The areas protected by armor were fine, but the bullets shot into the flesh and blood of other exposed areas, causing the person to wail in pain.

"Give Aye a taste of this!!"

The iron bell was placed on the parapet, and it exploded like a pottery jar after a breath, and countless irregular iron balls were shot out. This time even armor could not protect against it. Anyone who was hit by the iron bell would die within seven steps.

This so-called iron bell is the iron cannon used by the Longyou Army. The technology used is the bell casting technology brought by the refugees from Xichuan, and it is cast in one piece.

Two feet high was the best size that the Xichuan bell craftsmen could build. If one wanted to build an iron cannon as tall as a person or even taller, one had to go to Chang'an and seek craftsmen from the palace.

Although it was more durable than the iron cannon developed by Longyou, it had a short range and was very heavy.
The cannon is two feet and three inches long, one foot and two inches in diameter, and one inch thick. It can shoot a two-jin iron ball eighty steps away, and a hundred iron balls the size of a fingernail away thirty steps, but the whole thing weighs three hundred pounds.

With such weight and power, it would be extremely heavy even for defending a city, let alone attacking it.

If the metallurgical technology does not meet the standards, it will be impossible to build a thinner, narrower-caliber, and longer-bodied iron cannon.

If the imperial court had not been determined to pacify Longyou, this batch of iron bells would have had to be studied in the military weapons workshop in Linzhou for at least several decades, or wait for Liu Jilian to obtain craftsmen who were proficient in the technology of making large bells from Chang'an before they could be released.

Today's iron cannon has the shape of a cannon but not its power.

The difference is the difference between the fierce fire oil tank in the Song Dynasty and the flamethrower in later generations.

Even if it is used to defend the city, we cannot say that it can achieve remarkable results.

Even so, the government troops still suffered a defeat.

"Damn it, water it and clean it out!"

On the horse path, the soldiers who had just used the cannon immediately began to pour water on it, and then began to clean the barrel with a wooden stick filled with pig bristles.

The whole process could not be accelerated. After the cannon fired a shot, the entire barrel became hot and smoking.

Even if doing so will reduce the life of the iron cannon, if it is not dealt with, the deformation caused by high temperature will be more fatal.

If watered, it can fire dozens of shots, but if not watered, it can only fire a dozen shots. This is also one of the defects of the iron cannon.

"It's thundering?"

The sound of artillery fire at the pass reached the government army's camp. Many military governors sitting in the tents looked towards the door in surprise, but saw bright sunshine.

"Young Guard!"

At this time, the captain of the Tangbing army hurried into the tent and told the Longyou army about the things they used.

Upon learning that the muffled thunder was caused by the city defense equipment used by Longyou, Wang Shi slowly opened his eyes with a hint of doubt in his eyes.

"Did you see clearly what it was?"

When Wang Shi asked, the captain quickly described the appearance of Wan Ren Di and Tie Pao.

Wang Shi searched his memory, but had no idea what this thing was.

Someone did say, "This description is more like the situation when an alchemist's furnace explodes while refining an elixir."

Wang Shi looked and saw that it was Wang Chongrong in the river who expressed his opinion, and after hearing it, Wang Shi also looked at the captain of the pond soldiers.

"Draw these things. It would be even better if we can find objects left on the battlefield!"

"I obey your orders!" The captain left the tent, but Wang Shi's brows became more and more furrowed.

After listening to Captain Tangbing's description, he also knew the power of these city defense equipment.

Since these city defense equipment can appear here, they can definitely appear in other places.

If every pass and city had these strange city defense equipment, they would probably have to pay a huge price to seize some land from Long You.

As for pacifying Longyou, Wang Shi no longer had any illusions at this moment, and he also hoped that the Supreme could get out of his illusions.

Thinking of this, he began to write down everything he had seen on the battlefield today in front of everyone. After half a quarter of an hour, after repeated consideration, he called Zhao Qian and ordered him to send a fast horse to deliver this memorial to Chang'an.

Zhao Qian did not dare to delay and immediately sent a fast horse to Chang'an.

At the same time, the situation was developing as Wang Shi was worried about...

(End of this chapter)