A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 807 Vicious Line of Defense
The group of people continued to go west, and officers and soldiers sentry horses appeared around them from time to time, watching the pedestrians from a distance.

There are several forts near the Yuanwanggou at the western end of the Eastern Plateau, and there are quite a few Huoduns. At this time, people from each fort go to the fort, but there are still guards on the Huoduns. These Huoduns are generally five feet high. , with a circumference of more than ten feet, it is difficult to capture enemy towers or small castles without infantry.

Because seeing those sharp sentry cavalry from before, they either used the fire pier as their base, or fled into the pier. In order to prevent them from sniping on it, Li Zicheng and his party stayed far away from these fire pier, and the cavalry around them scattered. On guard.

They stood on a plateau slope and looked out. Many trespassers had been to or knew Yuanwanggou. At this time, they were stunned by the scenery in front of them.

Ant-like crowds are busy on the opposite side, digging trenches, repairing defense lines, and building earthen walls. There are many gullies in the distance, and many plateau slopes are steep and straight. The ditch is too long, more than 20 miles long, and it cannot be all rough terrain. There are also many gentle places where it is easy to cross the ditch, and there are official roads on both sides.

However, at this time, in those places where it is easy to cross the ditch and go up the plateau, dense low walls are built on the roads from the middle uphill. These low walls are not just one at the intersection, but are distributed in layers according to the slope and road conditions.

Unlike the straight highways of the later generations, the paths at this time are of course winding and zigzag according to the slope. Good natural defense.

Those ladder cliffs are generally one foot high, or about two or three feet high, and basically have a ninety-degree slope.

Those low walls are built on the ladder cliffs, and the height is about the chest of a person. The defenders can shoot arrows with blunderbusses, or protect their own bow and arrow firearms. Within the range of side firepower, it is naturally at a disadvantage.

Because it is a small road, the troops cannot be deployed, and it is not so easy to climb up from the bottom of the ladder cliff, so they can only be squeezed on the road and get beaten.

Because of the low wall, the people on the opposite side dug soil under the earth cliff, making many trenches in those places, making it more difficult to climb.

Not only that, because of the topography of the plateau, there are gullies in many of them, and some small roads meander from the valley to the plateau. On both sides of the road, many are Liangmao soil bumps.The road passes down, and the hills are on both sides. If there is a pass at one place, the defenders guard the two sides, and there will be one man guarding the pass, and no one will be able to open it.

This kind of gully path, according to the favorable terrain, the defenders also built many low walls. If one's own side attacked, they would have to face fire from both sides.

At some wider intersections, it seems that there are still tiger squatting guns, and there are also low walls on both sides for protection, and beside the tiger squatting guns, there are refusal horses.

Those layers of low walls seem to be connected with each other. Li Zicheng and others saw that some cliffs were piled up with soil to form oblique waves, which is convenient for the defenders on each line of defense to reinforce or retreat. counterattack.

The opposite slope was bustling with various flags fluttering behind the wall. Apart from the busy crowd, there seemed to be some officers and soldiers practicing advancing and retreating.

Looking from north to south, it seems that every passable road in the 20-mile ditch in the distance is arranged in this way.Layers of defense, each layer is self-contained and connected to each other. A ditch becomes a three-dimensional city. With such an arrangement and dense defense lines, how can the army cross the ditch?

Li Zicheng's face was ashen, and Liu Zongmin murmured: "Which killer thought of such an arrangement... When did Sun Chuanting become so vicious?"

A trace of regret surged in Li Zicheng's heart. Tongguan is not easy to fight. Even if you go to Yuanwanggou, there is still Tongguan City over there. The layout can't be worse than this.

Gu Junen bit his lower lip, and strongly advocated attacking Shaanxi, which was his strategy, but he guessed what King Chuang and others were thinking, but he didn't expect that Tongguan was so dangerously arranged, and the morale of the defenders was so high, it didn't matter if the dead, just afraid Guangou was not easy to fight, and finally morale dropped.

Moreover, because of the heavy supplies, the rebel army could not stay in front of Tongguan for a long time, and if they returned home in defeat, they were afraid that their status in King Chuang's mind would be greatly reduced in the future.

All the officials in Changyi Mansion, except the servant of the household government who stayed in Xiangyang to take care of the grain and grass, all went to the expedition. At this time, they were with Li Chuang. It was a sneer in my heart.

In particular, Niu Jinxing glanced at Gu Junen and asked you to offer a plan to fight Shaanxi. Now you know what it's like, talking on paper, Zhao Kuo's generation.

Li Guo, Liu Xiyao and the others were speechless, even though they had learned about the situation from the sentry cavalry, they all had dignified expressions after seeing it with their own eyes.

Tongguan is not easy to fight, the seriousness of the situation is beyond their expectations, Qinchuan, eight hundred miles away, is rich and attractive, and the expectation of returning home in good clothes is even more haunting, but the deep ditch in front of them, and the Tongguan danger on the opposite plateau City, have blocked their expectations.

Following Liu Zongmin, Li Guo also muttered: "Even if we attack this ditch, how many people will die in the end?"

Everyone looked carefully and found that apart from the arrangement on the slope of the plateau, there were also large and small cannons placed in many places on the edge of the plateau, and the surrounding area was protected by earthen baskets filled with soil.

Because the distance between the two plateaus is different, some are more than 100 steps, some are more than one mile, and some are two or three miles. The place.

Looking north for a few miles, there seems to be a small fort next to the ditch on a small plateau opposite, and the distance between the two plateaus is only more than 100 steps.

Li Zicheng asked, "Is that Taojiazhuang?"

Gao Yigong said: "Go back to King Chuang, yes, there is an official road over there, you can directly cross the ditch and go to the south gate of Tongguan."

Li Zicheng thought that if he captured Taojiazhuang, he could condescendingly attack the upper south gate, but seeing that the castle was heavily guarded, there seemed to be many cannons on the fort and the fort, and it was too difficult to attack from there.

The more Gu Junen looked at it, the more he gritted his teeth. In such a terrain, his own advantage in the sea of ​​people could not be exploited. From all the roads, he could only attack like a long snake formation. With the defense line of officers and soldiers, it would be even more fueling tactics. It is certain that there will be heavy casualties in the attack.

However, no matter how many people die, he still has to persuade King Chuang to capture Tongguan.

For Li Zicheng and others, it was difficult to ride a tiger, and the arrow was on the string, so they had to attack. Their advantage was that they had a large number of people, and they were not worth much. Isn't it just dead people?

Looking at the opposite plateau, Li Zicheng remained silent for a long time, and it seemed that he also found a large group of soldiers and horses spying here, and some commotion started, and some horses galloped.Li Zicheng and the others didn't move, not to mention that there was no cannon on the opposite side, but they did. The distance between the two sides is more than two miles, and their cannons can't reach this side.

"When will the artillery of my rebel army arrive?"

Li Zicheng asked suddenly.

"At least five to ten days."

Tian Jianxiu replied, he hesitated: "Even if the artillery arrives, if you want to pull Niutouyuan..."

"Let those hungry people build roads!"

Li Zicheng said coldly.

Our own side has a manpower advantage, wouldn't it be easy for them to open up the road? If 5000 people can't do it, it's 1, and if [-] people can't do it, it's [-]. No matter how difficult it is to fight Yuanwanggou, he has to fight through the ditch, and then pull the artillery over, set it up under the city, and bombard their city walls and gates.

The group rode their horses along the side of the ditch again, and finally reached the southern end of Yuanwang Gully. The drop between the two ends of the gully is quite flat for several miles, the bottom of the gully is wide, and there are quite a few trails. Walls are more densely stacked.

Li Zicheng breathed a sigh of relief. Compared with the tens of miles to the north of the ditch, he could deploy more attacking troops here.

He looked at the opposite side for a long time, and finally said: "Go back and discuss the matter."

……

On the first day of May, Li Zicheng's army continued to drive up Niutouyuan. Their intentions were clear and they decided to pass through Wangyuangou instead of Jindouguan to the east gate of Tongguan.

Sun Chuanting was a little disappointed about this, but after thinking about it, it was expected. The intruders were all experienced in the army and skilled in tactics. It was true that they would not fall so easily. , and the ambush arranged by Niutouyuan was meaningless, and Sun Chuanting ordered the withdrawal.

At the same time, the defenders of Jindou Pass also withdrew, and the Chuangjun occupied Niutouyuan, so they could monitor the five-mile dangerous road from a condescending height. They could also rush down from the plateau, cutting off the rear of the Jindou Pass defenders. It was meaningless to defend this pass.

On that day, the intruding army occupied all parts of Niutouyuan, and they also deployed surveillance troops and horses to the north of the plateau to prevent officers and soldiers from coming out from the official road and attacking the important places on Pingchuan.

Now things are reversed. If officers and soldiers come out, they will condescend to ambush.

After deliberation, Sun Chuanting also withdrew the Huludun defenders on the east bank of the Yuanwanggou. Preserve vitality.

For Sun Chuanting, it is more important to concentrate troops to defend the west bank of Yuanwanggou.

The voluntary retreat of the officers and soldiers was proclaimed by Li Zicheng as the victory of the rebel army, and the morale of the Chuang army was even higher. This is what everyone in the Chuang camp would like to see.

At the same time as they entered the Niutouyuan, there were also people who broke into the camp and crossed the Tiegou, or entered from the Gudonggou, and occupied the Daiziying area in batches. There are many forces, and they advance side by side, and soon occupy the main points in the east of Yuanwanggou.

This situation was also expected by Sun Chuanting and the Jingbian army. No matter how many ravines and complex terrain these places have, there are too many troops invading the army. Under their overwhelming search, the ambushes and harassing soldiers have nowhere to hide, and they gradually retreat. It has become inevitable, and this is also the norm in large-scale battles. The two sides ultimately fight for strength.

At the same time occupying the east of Yuanwanggou, the intensive logistics and handymen also vigorously opened up various rural roads in the northwest village and the upper plateau of Gudonggou to facilitate the passage of their luggage. The earth is full.

When the main force of the thieves arrived, Sun Chuanting paid close attention to it. Now that the war was imminent, he even called the generals to discuss matters and patrol the defense line.

To Sun Chuanting's relief, all the soldiers and horses in the towns have now arrived, and the new army arrived in Tongguan on April [-]th, leaving more than ten days for repairing the fortifications. The first line of defense can be described as layer upon layer, impenetrable.

However, Sun Chuanting did not dare to be negligent. He made inspections several times a day and asked for details tirelessly. On the second day of the first day, he saw that the opposite plateau was densely packed with bandit troops, and the trench was just around the corner. Everyone cheers.

After the meeting was over, the hired generals of the Jingbian Army also gathered in their Xingyuan to discuss matters, but it was on Qilin Mountain, a tower not far from the Governor's Xingyuan.

In addition to Wu Zhengchun and Gao Xun, all the officers and generals at the general level arrived, and there were also officials from the battalion department who praised paintings, calmed down and comforted them.

Finally, he discussed the details of each line of defense in detail, and after making sure that everything was safe, Wu Zhengchun looked around the crowd, his black and thin face was full of determination: "Masters, if Shaanxi is not protected, Shanxi will be lost; if Shanxi and Shaanxi are not protected, the government barriers will perish. All the key points are in Tongguan. Keeping Tongguan is the expectation of thousands of people, and it is also the expectation of the general, and you should work hard."

Everyone stood up, and shouted in unison, "Loyalty!"

(End of this chapter)