stubborn thief

Chapter 252 Curse
In the narrow living room of the castle, the oil lamp is always on, and the room is full of fireworks.

Ngawang Daiben wrinkled his nose and carefully drew thangkas on the Tibetan paper spread on the Kang table.

It was a drawing of anatomy of a human body, showing bones and organs. Awang Daiben used a Tibetan brush dipped in clay paint to draw different surgical instruments, marking where the injury should be treated.

The mountain is very cold at night, so the castle looks very majestic from the outside, but the largest room inside is only two steps square, which can only accommodate a small bed and two Buddhist altars.

Awang is his name, and Daiben is his official position.

As the highest officer sent by King Baili to garrison Nangqian, Awang is more like a monk than a general.

A long time ago, Ngawang was indeed a monk, when his tongue was still in his mouth.

He was born in Jiama Chikang Manor in Lhasa, which was the birthplace of Songtsan Gampo. Ngawang's father was an official knight whose life was worth 80 taels of gold.

Awang is the smartest son in the family. At the age of 12, the Mongols entered Tibet. His father was called by the lord to fight bravely and was seriously injured. When he was dying, he donated his family property to Ganden Monastery. Temple study.

Ngawang's family background is above average, but in Ganden Monastery, such background is not worth mentioning.

He should have a bright future, maybe he can become an iron monk with his martial arts and wisdom, or he can travel around to preach with his medical skills and become a well-known monastery abbot.

It's a pity that Ngawang liked to bicker with others at that time. In the debate with Zongben's son, he won the debate and lost his own tongue.

After that, he left Ganden Monastery.

In the next few years, U-Zang was in turmoil, and Monk Ngawang was like catkins blowing in the wind. Sometimes he could get paid for treating diseases, but most of the time he could only use his cassocks in exchange for charity from the people.

He tried to join the local aristocrats, hoping to exchange knowledge for an upper-middle job, but no aristocrat was willing to wait for a dumb person who did not have a Geshe degree to write—they didn’t even know him when he wrote it!

The world is so strange, some people can speak but prefer not to speak, and some people want to speak but cannot.

In order to make a living, monk Ngawang decided to go to danger.

Wherever there was war, where did he go to perform surgery on people, he was still not appreciated by the nobles. Instead, he was shot blind by the Mongols and lost his left ear in the scuffle with the robbers.

But that doesn't matter.

Except for his long-lost tongue, most of the body parts bestowed by God are matched.

Lost one and got another.

Until four years ago, he wandered into Kham and met the first nobleman who appreciated him.

The nobleman's name was Dunyue Dorji, and he was willing to spend precious time waiting for him to write, so that he could understand what he wrote, and he didn't mind that he was a fake monk who didn't get a Geshe degree.

Few monks are willing to go to the battlefield. Monk Awang is one of them. He is more familiar with the battlefield than the temple, and he traveled all over the world with King Baili's army.

At first people called him Monk Ngawang, and later Doctor Ngawang, and later, he became an officer of Daiben.

Last autumn, he personally led the army to capture the fortress of King Nangchen, and now it is his turn to guard the fortress.

The wooden door of the living room was knocked lightly, and the white horse Ruben under him stepped forward and reported: "Daiben, all 120 prisoners in the dungeon have been executed."

Ngawang nodded to show that he knew it. The officer Ruben looked worried and said, "There are more troops under the city. At noon today, there were two loud noises from the mountain."

Awang thought for a while, took a pen and paper and wrote: "The Mongols' attack is like the wind of the end of the catastrophe, blowing fiercely; but it burns like a timid curser setting fire, and they will flee back to their homeland in a short time, rest assured. .”

Prisoners in dungeons who wasted food had been put to death, and they had enough food to last through the warm season.

After October, the ground will freeze again, and the Mongols will run back to Qinghai, or they will be beaten away by King Baili's army if they don't run.

Although the fortress has only [-] defenders, it still has an absolute advantage over the tens of thousands of Mongolian troops down the mountain by virtue of the mountain.

Ngawang's ease is not because he has the chance to win, but because he is confident after making sufficient preparations.

The stone wall foundation is difficult to destroy, the fluffy structure of the upper Bianma wall can resist arrows, and the narrow mountain road can ensure the superiority of the defenders.

As in his method of taking the fort, it did not matter what the enemy had been like in this fortress.

The defender's greatest enemy is himself.

So in the past half a month, he ordered the army to melt ice and store water, check food, reduce population, and deploy defenses. He even promised the soldiers in the army that when they returned to Malkang, he would treat their sick family members.

After Awang finished writing that sentence, the spectator general was still very disturbed, and continued to write with a smile on his face: "Order the three branches, if any soldiers die while defending the city, I will come to find the celestial burial master; Have them cremated."

Baima Zhiru watched him write slowly with worry, his eyes widened bit by bit, and he stammered and couldn't even make a sentence: "Fire, me, can I also be cremated?"

Awang nodded slowly, very satisfied with the general's response.

Often, the habits that are handed down the most widely known were, in the past, the privileges of a few.

Farmers in the Central Plains couldn’t afford silk and satin, Miao girls couldn’t afford silverware, Mongolian herdsmen couldn’t bear to eat meat, gold hunters couldn’t afford mink fur, and Tibetans couldn’t afford sky burials.

Only nobles and monks have power in sky burial, while cremation is even more noble, and only great lords and eminent monks can burn relics.

This is Awang's trick to win people's hearts.

As early as when Ngawang Daiben was a wandering Ngawang monk, he held funerals for the serf soldiers who died in battle, and was almost proclaimed as a small headman in the region... Unfortunately, he could not speak, and the dozens of serf soldiers who were still alive were very sad. They were soon taken away by their masters.

The general ran out excitedly to convey the order, and not long after, Awang heard soldiers cheering one after another in the castle in the living room.

He raised the corners of his mouth in satisfaction and continued to paint quietly.

Until the afternoon, the shin-bone horns in the castle blew one after another, and the corridors on the third floor were creaked by the urgently mobilized soldiers.

The accompanying horse soldiers knocked on the wooden door of the living room: "Daiben, the enemy is about to attack!"

Awang's hidden pen fell on the Kang table, and he was full of doubts about the news.

It's almost evening now, and it gets dark later in the warm season here, but there are only two hours left before night falls. The Mongols will launch an attack at this time. On the contrary, the siege army can be broken up by itself.

Not long after, Awang, with an iron helmet with peacock feathers on his head and a chain mail with front and rear breastplates shining in the moonlight, climbed up to the flat top of the fortress for a lookout.

The army at the foot of the mountain is like a group of ants migrating to their nests, densely packed, advancing along the stone steps between the mountains to the platform.

In the open area of ​​the castle, the Bailey Army teams are gathering under the leadership of officers, and two Ruben officers with different colored helmets tassels lead the soldiers to the outer high wall.

Slingers, archers, and 32 peasants and soldiers in tiger or lynx skins guarded the high walls, exhaling white breaths, and the city was filled with chills.

Those peasants and soldiers are the most elite forces, wearing tiger skins, everyone has won the title of Tiger Hero in battle, equipped with the best chain mail and four-level armor, holding strong bows or arquebus from Tibet and the Central Plains , majestic.

Awang stared at the army struggling to climb down the mountain. As its height climbed, he could already see the silhouette of the enemy gradually climbing the mountain.

Awang frowned, those people... those people don't seem to be the Mongolian army.

They carried square logs, which seemed to be shields for shielding arrows. They wore armor and had bowls on their heads, and tall helmet spears were inserted into the bowls.

It seems that except for the one carrying the shield, the people behind are all carrying a piece of wood on their shoulders.

In addition, there are bird guns, the bird guns in Han and the big guns similar to those in the west, but they seem to be bigger and longer.

The leading officer was carrying a flag, which had been blown up by the bitter mountain wind, and the words on it could not be read clearly, only that it was a red flag.

They are not Mongols.

The lieutenant general pointed at the mountain-climbing army and said, "Daiben, they took the wood and wanted to set fire to us?"

Awang shook his head, pointed to the dry grass next to him, the meaning was very obvious.

It is true that the upper half of the mountain fort is the Bianma wall, but the fire cannot be set that big, not to mention that there is only firewood and no hay. It is not easy to set fire on this bare earth mountain.

The lieutenant general looked at the dry grass, understood instantly, and said with certainty: "Daiben is right, I am too stupid."

Awang looked sideways at it, raised his right hand and rubbed it along the left cheek to his chin: Me, what did I say?

This lieutenant general is probably what is said in the scriptures, it is wonderful to smile without saying a word.

There are roots of wisdom.

Ngawang was very worried about those muskets and armors. From U-Tsang to Kham, he had never seen such a well-equipped army.

Soon, the vanguard troops occupied the platform, and the shin-bone horns sounded one after another on the high wall. Military orders were passed down one after another.

But those troops did not continue to climb, but set down shields on the platform, and the people behind put down the wood and rested.

With a slap, the lieutenant beside Ngawang clapped his hands and said worriedly: "Daiben is indeed right. They want to build a mandala with wood, and they must have brought a powerful magician to set fire!"

"Your Majesty didn't send a curse master, Daiben, can you stop it?"

Awang Daiben opened his mouth, and the only remaining tongue moved in his mouth twice, and finally he only sighed.

For so many years, Ngawang wandered around, from one battlefield to another. He saw many curse masters and monks setting up mandala, or asking gods to heal diseases, or demons and demons, or calling wind and rain, or sending down hailstones.

Some people's magic tools fail and their mana is exhausted, and their success is on the verge of failure; others can successfully cast spells.

Ngawang didn't understand what was going on, maybe he was using astronomy and geography for his own use, maybe it was a blind cat bumping into a dead mouse.

But he had never seen a magician push the army to his eyes before casting a spell.

What's more, the red flag has been unfurled, and Ngawang doesn't know the character. With his intuition, it should be a Chinese character. He has seen Geshe monks flipping through such books in Ganden Monastery.

The Chinese are here.

The person holding the flag is Wang Wenxiu, a general of the Liu Bu Battalion.

The defenders squatted in the fort to deploy defenses, and did not block the attack on the platform, which made Wang Wenxiu feel very relieved.

The infantrymen were exhausted and out of breath. They set up the light bird guns on the shield frame to set up a line of defense, put down the wooden blocks they carried, and took a short rest, waiting for the reinforcements behind.

It is said to be a mountain platform, but it is actually just a not-so-steep slope, with a square of four feet, and a height of more than ten feet and a distance of more than a hundred steps from the castle, so it is not possible to gather too many troops.

Especially under the condition that the wooden blocks were constantly being sent upwards, except for the [-] soldiers with light bird guns, the others scattered to the mountains without stone steps, looking for a relatively flat place that could shelter the arrows to rest.

Finally, the centurions in front spread out to the surroundings, and Cao Yao, the artillery battalion general of the second echelon, came up.

"In such a broken place, you can't even move your weapons, you fucking coward."

Cao Yao climbed up full of complaints, threw down the iron pipe on his shoulders, took a few breaths, and then turned around and shouted: "Children, set up the Generalissimo's guns, and put together the Liuhe Cannon!"

"Yes!"

The artillerymen of the Lion Army, resting on their legs, took the order in unison, squatting on the ground to search for the needed items from the three-foot-long iron pipes and the wooden blocks piled up into hills.

The weapon Liu Chengzong prepared for this attack on the fort was the Liuhe cannon in the early Ming Dynasty, that is, the wooden cannon.

Use the thin iron tube with the back cover as the core, hollow out the log and split it into six pieces to make the shell, use two iron bars to make the ring, and tie it with cowhide belt and rope.

The charge is two and a half, and the ammunition weighs three and a half. The range is far inferior to his big gun.

But the advantage is... thick wood and more barrels.

There are so many that they can be used as a large one-off matchlock gun.

Cao Yao covered the sunlight on his brows, looked up at the mountain fort, and looked at the high fortress wall crowded with people, pursing his dry lips excitedly.

The five big guns put away the tripod and set it up on the rectangular wooden shield. Cao Yao pointed to the high place and asked: "The stones under this fort are covered with branches and mud walls. I will look at those people later and shoot them through the walls. .”

"General, the eighteen Liuhe guns are loaded."

Cao Yao turned his head, the eighteen wooden cannons brought by the first batch had been placed in three rows in the open space behind them, their heads were bowed down, and the soldiers carrying the wood were still climbing up from the foot of the mountain.

Even the craftsmen in the besieged camp continued to forge tin cylinders and split wooden cylinder shells.

"The commander-in-chief said that the Lions came here to show off their might."

As Cao Yao said, he used a scythe to ignite the artillery fire hooks. This place lacked oxygen, and the Lion Army's fire pockets went out as soon as they were carried.

He turned his head to look at the crowd: "Six gunners stepped forward and fired at places where there are many people. They hit low but not high. If they hit the city, they can't stand up."

The six artillerymen carried the wooden cannon less than four feet long and walked out in front of the shield wall, staggered back and forth along the stone steps, adjusted the angle of the wooden cannon, and stood in the gap.

The six artillerymen behind got ready with the loaded wooden guns.

The musketeer who wields a five-barreled gun also raises the hammer, puts the gun on the shield, and lays down on the ground to aim. The gun dropped his hand and rolled down the cliff.

From the time the six wooden cannons were placed on the stone steps, the defenders on the city were in a commotion, and a burst of arrows were thrown from far away. Due to the difference in bow strength, they were scattered on the mountain.

Cao Yao didn't even blink his eyes. The habit he had developed over the years of using cannons made him turn his head to one side, raised his right arm and raised the command flag.

Boom!
A big gun was the first to emit a muffled sound that was different from that of a bird's gun, followed by three more sounds. After the hammer was re-triggered, the last gun was also fired.

Gunpowder smoke wafted from the narrow mountain platform, and five lead pieces weighing [-] qian pierced the upper part of the city wall through the hole, and then the soldiers died when they touched it.

Immediately afterwards, the six wooden cannons between the stone steps were also fired by the artillery one by one, and two or three iron or stone bullets were shot out by gunpowder and hit the stone wall or the Bianma wall.

Before the gunpowder smoke cleared from the muzzle of the Liuhe Cannon, it was placed on the platform by the artillerymen. A new round of artillerymen climbed up the stone steps again, took over the fire hook and prepared to launch a new round of bombardment.

The 400-year-old city wall defending against the traditional siege method seems to be nothing, and Baili's wounded soldiers rolling around their wounds let the wailing resound over the fortress.

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)