world festival

In the early morning of the next day, the Shouzhou garrison found that the long stretches of low walls and ditches outside the Northeast Gate had been completely demolished. The dark Huainan army crossed the gap and formed dozens of small square formations. Soldiers galloped between the phalanxes, and on the earth hill outside the east gate, the banner of Huainan Jiedu Ambassador, Yangzhou Metropolitan Governor's Mansion, and Hongnong County King Yang Xingmi was erected.Jiang Congxu, the governor of Shouzhou, asked the counselors around him in surprise: "It's strange, why has this Yang Xingmi been sending envoys to persuade Yu to surrender for many days, and he also knows that this is perfunctory to him, why is he suddenly making a big fuss today? Could it be that food is in short supply?" .”

The counselor shook his head and said: "Impossible, he took down Haozhou without bloodshed, the treasury is intact, and the food stored there alone is enough for his army for three months, plus his original preparation, sailing on the Huai River, how could it be possible do."

Jiang Congxu nodded and said, "The king of Dongping County brought a large army to help? That's even more impossible. How could Yang Xingmi attack the city with a large army and let the army of the king of Dongping County attack the rear. Could it be..." Jiang Congxu thought After a while, I couldn't believe it. Looking at the counselor, I found that the eyes of the other party were also excited.The counselor went on to say: "It should be a fire in the back. Earlier in the letter of Dongping County King, it was mentioned that Qian Miao, the commander of the two Zhejiang provinces, wrote a letter to attack Dong Chang, the Yisheng Jiedu envoy who usurped his title and conspired against him. It seems that this is the case. The subordinates dare to bet that if the Huainan army cannot take Shouzhou City within five days, they will definitely withdraw."

Jiang Congxu laughed loudly and said, "Heroes see the same thing." In an instant, his voice became deeper and deeper: "However, the Jianghuai army will definitely attack with all its strength in the past few days. I don't know how many soldiers will die here." It also became gloomy.

Lu Fang stood under the banner of Mo Xiedu, but Li Rui stood next to him.Lu Fang tilted his head and asked, "Why don't you, a brave general, no longer obey General An's tent, and you can't make any credit for what you've done as a military supervisor here."

Li Rui smiled and said: "General An told me that I am a cavalry general, and siege warfare is useless to him. It is better to learn more from Commander Lu as an army supervisor. You have the most tricks, and there must be someone here." the benefits of."

Lu Fang didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he heard this, and turned his head to ignore him. Li Rui didn't take it for granted, and looked around with a smile, and suddenly asked, "Commander Lu, you have a lot of stone cannons, but why are you shooting them like this? What can you do, and there are these cows and millstone-like things next to them, do you want to grind rice?"

On the side of the Moyedu phalanx, there are two rows of unarmored infantry holding spears, behind them are the longbowmen from Qijiazhuang, and at the end are more than 30 stone cannons, of which a dozen are Qishao. There were several piles of stone bullets. The stone cannon was quite strange. One end was the same as the ones we saw in ordinary times. Wicker baskets filled with soil bags and haystacks under them. Two wooden winches with a diameter of more than 6 feet are installed at both ends of the bracket fixed on the ground. The ropes of the two winches are respectively connected to two bulls.There are more than a dozen spare large livestock behind.There is the same arrangement on the other side. There is a wooden high platform under the commander's flag, and two flags are planted on the high platform, which are red and yellow.

Lu Fang turned his head to Li Rui and replied, "You will know what these cows and millstones do later."

At this time, a horse came galloping from the camp of the Huainan Chinese Army, and immediately the man with bright armor was the messenger of the Chinese Army. Before going down the mountain, we must fill up the moat outside the east gate, and push down the sheep and horse walls, until the ground below the urn is flat." After saying that, he jumped on his horse and left quickly. "

Li Rui looked at the soldiers of Mo Xiedu on the left and right, and whispered to Lu Fang: "It seems that the superior wants you to fill this moat with flesh and blood. Except for those in your own village, few of your men have armor. It's time to play big."

Lu Fang's face was full of inscrutable smiles: "Brother Li, make a bet. If you can repel the Shouzhou soldiers attacking at the city gate, if 200 soldiers of Moxiedu die today, you will lose."

Li Rui smiled and said: "Commander Lu doesn't seem to have fought a siege battle before. You want to use these stone cannons to hold down the city? That's very rare. It's true that there can't be a few stone cannons on the urn over there, but these stone cannons are powerful. If it is big enough, it will not be accurate. Nine out of ten rounds will miss the target. What's more, a stone cannon requires dozens of people to wait on it. Once the other side hits you, the casualties of your sergeants will be very miserable. The 500 people under a certain man They are all cavalry, don't worry, if the defenders go out of the city, they will look good to them."

Lu Fang smiled and said: "That's because they can't use it properly. Brother Li will just watch it later, but if the defenders go out of the city to counterattack, I will trouble you." At this point, he turned his head and made a gesture to Fan Niseng next to him. Gestures, that Fanny Seng ran to the trebuchet and shouted a few words to the team.After a while, the shooter next to the first trebuchet swung a wooden hammer to hit the trigger. With a "buzz", the heavy wicker basket yanked off a section of the lever, and the other end was quickly thrown away with the leather nest. Get up, when the leather nest reaches the highest point, throw the stone bullets inside towards the city wall, but unfortunately the strength is a bit weak, and it falls to the ground seven or eight feet away from the city wall, at this time the lookout on the high platform waved his hand Fan Niseng looked at the flag and recorded something on a white board with a piece of charcoal in his hand. The person next to the fired stone cannon quickly poured the soil bag in the wicker basket on the ground, and then drove the ox to reset the lever. , and then stood on the ladder and put a bag of soil in a wicker basket. Fanny Seng ran to the trebuchet and shouted something loudly. People nodded respectfully. The next time the stone accurately landed on the urn city and hit a watchtower, the broken stones splashed everywhere, beating the guards in the watchtower to blood and blood, everyone in the formation immediately burst into cheers, Li Rui laughed and said: "Commander Lu is still lucky." That’s right, the second shot hit, but it’s a delusion to use this thing to level the tower.”

Lu Fang's face was full of inscrutable smiles: "Is it just luck, anyway, brother Li should take a look first."

Fan Niseng ran to the second stone cannon and signaled the cannon to fire. After firing, he paid attention to the flag waving on the high platform. He wrote down something on the white board, and then said a few words to the little boss next to the stone cannon. The little boss nodded, and ordered his subordinates to put the corresponding soil bags in the wicker baskets, and so on until the second stone cannon hit the target.and so on.As the stone cannons below were fired one after another, Li Rui's expression became more and more dignified. Mo Xiedu's stone cannons missed their targets at most three or four times, and then they all fell on the top of the city as if they had eyes. , The crossbow towers, horse faces, female walls, enemy towers, and watchtowers on the city tower were beaten into a mess, and the defenders on the city were bloody and bloody, and the sound of wailing shook the world.The same is true for the stone cannons on the other side of the formation. Under the crossfire of the two teams of stone cannons, there is no dead angle above the urn city at the east gate. The infantry of the platoon, but was soon smashed to pieces by the attacking side's stone cannon.Lu Fang saw that the cover on the east gate tower was almost finished, so he turned around and whispered a few words to Wang Fo'er beside him, and Wang Fo'er bowed and left, and soon several carts came behind, and came to the side of the stone cannon. Unload a lot of things.Li Rui stepped forward and saw that there were many dried and hard clay bombs.

After the first burst of stone bombs was fired, Jiang Congxu, the governor of Shouzhou, retreated from the city wall and returned to the watchtower of a private house in the city.Seeing the rain of stone bullets bombarding the urn city at the east gate, beating the guards to their bones, he couldn't help but look ashen, turned his head to the generals around him and asked, "Who is the enemy outside the east gate? What kind of stone cannon?" The attack was so accurate, and the top of the city was beaten so quickly that there was no cover."

The person next to him replied tremblingly: "The enemy's flag is the Lu flag of Moyedu, but I have never heard of any general in Huainan with the surname Lu. Don't worry about the stone cannon. They are just lucky. It won't be so accurate in a while, and even if it is so accurate, the houses outside Shouzhou City have long been demolished, and there are not many stone bombs left."

Above the urn city at the east gate, it has become like a hell, with bloodstains and the remains of the guards everywhere, and those who are still alive try to lean against the corner of the wall and curl up their bodies as much as possible, and some people even lost their armor. Anyway, the flying stones are at least seven or eight catties, and it's useless to hit any armor, and they will definitely die from the shattering of muscles and bones.At the beginning, there were captains of the team holding whips and horizontal knives and scolding everyone to stand up and defend the city, but as the number of stone bombs increased, several of the most vicious officers were hit and died immediately.The guards scattered at once and fled down the wall. The first few were immediately shot down to the ground by the supervisors from behind. The stone bombs of the siege party were finished earlier.

Lu Fang saw that the barriers at the top of the city had been basically cleared, so he ordered the stone cannons to stop firing. When the carts brought up the mud bombs and piled them next to the stone cannons, Lu Fang picked one up casually and said to Li Rui with a smile: "Be brave!" Xin, do you see if this looks a bit like the courgettes that some of you usually eat.” Li Rui also picked up one, weighed it in his hand, it weighed about 8 catties, and replied: “It’s a bit similar, but courgettes are delicious, don’t It will cost lives."

Lu Fang smiled, turned to Fan Niseng and said with a smile: "You have done a good job, this time you sent someone to draw the scale and design the semaphore in advance, this time the stone cannon is very effective, and you are the first to contribute. "

Fan Niseng's smiling eyes lost sight, but he pretended to be dignified and decent, and replied: "This is all the commander's plan, and I'm just executing it. What merits are there?"

Seeing Fan Niseng's smug look, Li Rui was rather disdainful, but wondered why Lu Fang's stone cannons were so accurate, and was about to ask when no one was around, but heard Lu Fang order: "Mr. , you adjust the stone cannon according to the weight of the mud bomb, and when the first drum hits, the defenders will definitely go up to the city to defend, so you kill them so that they dare not stop them when they fill the moat."

Seeing that the stone bullets stopped suddenly, only two or three were still shooting slowly, and their accuracy was quite far away, far from being as accurate as before.Only then did the defenders stand up one after another, looking at each other, all of them looked like survivors after a catastrophe.The city is full of blood, gravel, corpses, equipment fragments, parapets, crossbow platforms, and horse faces have been swept away.Everyone was looking around, when they suddenly heard the sound of drums from the Huainan army outside the city, and Mo Xiedu's "Lv" banner waved.