Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 208 Watchtower
Consolidate the army to attack the plan, secondly attack the cross, next to attack the army, and then attack the city.The method of siege is a last resort.Repairing sculls, benwen, and tools will be completed in three months; from the distance, it will be completed in three months.If the generals are overwhelmed by their anger and ants attach themselves to them, killing one-third of the soldiers, but the city cannot be pulled out, this attack will be a disaster.Therefore, those who make good use of soldiers should subdue their soldiers instead of fighting, uproot their cities instead of attacking them, and destroy their country instead of perpetuating them. The law also. "

Li Jingjing nodded and said: "The meaning of these few sentences is: the principle of war is to make the enemy's whole country surrender is the best policy, and to use force to destroy the enemy's country is the second best; to make the enemy's entire army surrender is the best policy, and to defeat the enemy is the second best policy." It is the best strategy to subdue the enemy's entire brigade, and the second best strategy is to destroy the enemy brigade; the best strategy is to subdue the enemy's entire army, and the second best strategy is to destroy the enemy soldiers; To be victorious in a hundred battles is not the highest skill; it is the highest skill to subdue the enemy without fighting.

The most brilliant military action is to use strategy to defeat the enemy's strategic intention or war behavior, the second is to defeat the enemy with diplomacy, the third is to defeat the enemy with force, and the last is to attack the enemy's city.

Siege is a last resort, there is no other way.

It takes a long time to manufacture the equipment needed to prepare for the siege. If the general cannot restrain his anxiety and orders his soldiers to climb the walls like ants and attack the city, many soldiers will be killed and injured, but the city will not be captured. This is the disadvantage of siege.

Therefore, those who make good use of soldiers can subdue the enemy without fighting, and make the enemy's city surrender without siege. To destroy the enemy's country does not need long-term warfare. The benefit of total victory.This is the way to attack. "

Li Dingguo nodded and said: "I understand the explanation of the commander-in-chief, but it seems that we can't follow the method in the book when we fight now?"

Li Jing smiled and said: "Reading books also varies with time. Sun Tzu's Art of War was written by Sun Tzu during the Warring States Period. Wars at that time were mainly wars between countries. Of course it is different from what we have now."

After a pause, Li Jing continued: "We are attacking the city now to occupy these places, so that we can develop these places according to our thinking, and then affect the whole country. If these places are not completely occupied, those local officials appointed by the imperial court will not They will listen to us, so let them go, or even kill them."

Sighing, Li Jing continued: "Actually, why do I want to kill people, but there is no way. Most of the officials appointed by the court are dead-headed, and they don't agree with our thinking at all. So they are our stumbling blocks. We must They kicked them away. But there are some things we can't do blatantly, our current strength is not enough, and we can't stand against the court, so I use the rogues to do these things."

Li Dingguo clapped his hands and said, "I understand. If we cooperate with the bandits, we will fight with the bandits, and if we fight with the officers and soldiers, we will fight with the soldiers."

Li Jing touched Li Dingguo's head lightly and said: "En! Sun Tzu's Art of War is amazing, this book is very useful, you are so good at reading it. But you have to remember that you must not stick to the art of war in war, because in war Sometimes, the enemy can't make you fully prepared, and you have to adapt to the situation. Mr. Yangming said, don't change your mind and act according to randomness, so you have to think about it."

Li Dingguo nodded silently.

Walking out of Li Dingguo's camp, Li Jing turned around again, and when he returned to the camp, he suddenly saw the sentry towers at the four corners of the camp.

Li Jing was startled, stopped, and looked at the sentry tower carefully.

The workmanship of these sentry towers is very simple. Four arms thick wood are used as outriggers, and a number of short woods are tied between the outriggers to fix them.The sentry tower is about three feet high. There are three floors in total. Each floor is as high as one and a half people. There are guard plates around it. The roof is covered with a rainproof cloth to keep out the wind and rain.

After watching for a while, Li Jing smiled and waved to the soldiers following behind him, who hurried over.

"Let Chen Dazhuang bring a cannon over here," Li Jing said.

The soldier didn't know what Li Jing meant, so he hurried to the artillery camp.

After a while, I saw Chen Dazhuang hurried over with a few artillerymen and a cannon on his back.

"Marshal, what are you going to do?" Chen Dazhuang asked.

Li Jing waved his hands, and said to the artillerymen: "You guys move the cannons up to the maximum elevation angle, and see how far you can hit."

Several artillerymen did not hesitate and climbed up the ladder.

On the top floor, an artilleryman stomped his feet, feeling that the floor under his feet was very stable, and immediately untied the cannon barrel, while an artilleryman next to him pressed the bracket, and the artillery was erected in a short time.

According to Li Jing's request, the artilleryman raised the elevation angle of the cannon to the highest point, then faced no one, and threw the cannonball into it. With a bang, the sentry tower shook slightly, and then stabilized.
Seeing that the sentry tower could withstand the recoil of the artillery, Li Jing was relieved immediately, and then turned his attention to the impact point.

The cannonball flew far away, triggered the firing pin after landing, and exploded with a bang.

Li Jing took a visual inspection and estimated that the distance was about [-] steps, so he nodded immediately.

"Marshal is planning to use this thing to bombard the officers and soldiers in the city?" Chen Dazhuang asked doubtfully.

Li Jingjing nodded and smiled: "Exactly, if we fire on the flat ground, the artillery of the official army can hit us by relying on the height of the city wall, but if we fire on the sentry tower, the distance will exceed the artillery of the official army."

"Hahaha, in this way, we are the only ones to fight the officers and soldiers, and the officers and soldiers can only stare blankly when they are beaten." Chen Dazhuang laughed.

Li Jingjing nodded and said: "However, if you want to hit the urn city, the sentry tower has to move forward at least a hundred steps. That is to say, your artillery is divided into two parts, one part is a little farther away, and it attacks the outer city wall." The official army on the top, the other moved forward more than 100 steps, attacking the official army inside the urn."

Chen Dazhuang patted his chest and said, "Don't worry, Commander, my brother will blow up the officers and troops in the outer city until they can't find their way to the north, and then the second echelon can move forward with confidence."

Li Jingjing nodded, and said to the soldiers: "Get all the brothers who built the sentry towers, and let them build a hundred sentry towers as quickly as possible."

The soldier took the order and turned around.

……

Inside Anyi City.

Standing on the city wall, Zhang Li pointed to a row of sentry towers hundreds of steps outside the city and asked, "What are the bandits doing there?"

All the officials around shook their heads, chasing them didn't know what the rogues were up to, building watchtowers outside the city, who knew what the rogues were going to do?Wouldn't so many sentry towers be built to monitor the movements of the officers and soldiers?What's more, it is impossible for the officers and soldiers to have any movements.

"It's weird, the rogues will never be free to build sentry towers and play, maybe they want to attack the city." Zhang Lining said with eyebrows.

"You don't know how to use sentry towers to attack the city? And it's useless for them to build so far away!" Liu Bai wondered.

Zhang Li glared at Liu Bai, there was really no need to explain to this idiot.

Looking at the distance between the watchtower and the city wall, Zhang Li looked at Zhou Kang and asked, "Zhou Qianhu, I wonder if the artillery in our city can hit the watchtower of the rogues?"

Zhou Kang shook his head: "I'm afraid they won't be able to hit that far. Rogues are not stupid. They know that we have cannons in our city, so how can we build watchtowers within the range of our cannons?"

"How do you know if you can get it if you don't call it!" Liu Bai said.

Zhou Kang glanced at Liu Bai, shook his head, called a soldier, and ordered him to shoot the rogues opposite.

The result is self-evident, the impact point of the shell was dozens of steps away from the bandit.

"Zhou Qianhu, can you send an army to destroy the watchtowers of the rogues?" Zhang Li looked at Zhou Kang and asked.

Zhou Kang glanced at the rogues outside the city, shook his head, and said, "It's not the last general who dares not go out to fight. In fact, going to battle now is tantamount to letting the brothers go to death. Please see, my lord, the rogues outside the city are waiting in full force, just waiting for me to go." , the bandits have ten times as many troops as I do, and when they go out of the city to fight, they are defeated but never won."

Zhang Li sighed and said, "Then we can only wait and see what happens."

Zhou Kang nodded and said, "Let's take a look at the movements of the rogues before deciding how to deal with them."

Zhang Li nodded.

In the next few days, the rogues only built sentry towers outside the city. These days, more than 50 have been built, and they are lined up outside the north wall of Anyi. However, it seems that the rogues have not stopped.

Seeing that the rogues were building watchtowers almost day and night, Zhang Li's intuition told him that something bad might happen.

After the rogues finally stopped after building more than 100 sentry towers, Zhang Li's feeling became stronger and stronger.

Glancing at Zhou Kang beside him, Zhang Li said sternly: "Zhou Qianhu, the bandits are probably going to attack the city soon, let the soldiers get ready!"

Zhou Kang looked outside the city suspiciously, and saw several bandit soldiers climbing up the sentry tower, and began to install things on the tower.

Zhou Kang's heart shuddered, and he suddenly remembered that the rout soldiers who had escaped from other places had said that the artillery of the rogues was very powerful, and that the artillery they were in was captured by the rogues.

Thinking of this, Zhou Kang hurriedly said to Zhang Li: "My lord, please retreat to the Wengcheng. I suspect that the bandits are going to attack the city with artillery. It is too dangerous here."

Zhang Li nodded, waved to the officials around him, and hurried down the city wall.

After Zhang Li left, Zhou Kang rolled his eyes and summoned a few soldiers to give some instructions in a low voice.

After hearing the order, several personal soldiers were startled for a moment, then nodded and hurried away.

……

Barracks outside the city.

Sitting in the tent, Li Jing listened to the report from the guards that the sentry tower had been built, and the artillerymen had begun to climb the tower, and nodded slightly.

After thinking for a while, Li Jing summoned a soldier and said, "Go and tell Wang Ziyong that he is not allowed to kill indiscriminately during the capture of Anyi. I will only give him half a day to take as many things as he can, but if If he kills people indiscriminately, I will be rude to him."

After pondering for a while, Li Jing said again: "At the same time, tell Wang Ziyong to capture Xia County immediately after the looting, and then I will open a road for him to go to Zezhou and make him ready."

(End of this chapter)