I am not an ant thief in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 457 Chapter 458

Liu Bei was thinking about the imminent battle, he and Cao Cao were the commanders-in-chief of the army, leaving Dingtao City at this time would definitely affect the morale of the army.If because of their departure, the morale of the army collapsed and Dingtao City was captured by Lei Gong, then the Central Plains War would be over.

Liu Bei thought for a while and said, "The war has not yet started, and the victory or defeat is still unknown. If our commanders leave Dingtao, it will easily affect morale. Why don't Brother Meng De return to Qingzhou first, command the army to find a way to defeat Li Gang's troops, and support our central battlefield!"

Cao Cao knew that now was not the time to be polite, so he said to Liu Bei and Yuan Shao: "After returning to Qingzhou, my younger brother, immediately integrate the army and launch an attack on Li Gang's troops! Support the battle in Dingtao!"

But Yuan Shao looked embarrassed, don't look at Xu You boasting that Dingtao City is indestructible, as if no one in the world can break through the army of Dingtao City.But more than ten years of combat experience told him that all cities in the world will be breached, even the seemingly indestructible Dingtao City.

He also wants to leave, but it happens that this battlefield is on his territory. Cao Cao and Liu Bei are here to support him. The soldiers of the coalition army knew it, and there was no need to fight this battle.So at this time Yuan Shao realized that he was the most dangerous one, and he didn't even have an excuse to leave Dingtao City.

So he could only laugh and said: "Xuande is right. The war has not yet started. With Dingtao's strength, even if Lei Gong came, it would be difficult to break through our city. Fleeing without fighting like this, I'm afraid it will become the laughing stock of the ages!"

Cao Cao was speechless, he was talking about me!

He just wanted to speak, but Guo Jia came to him and said: "Master, Dingtao is too dangerous for us now, and the current situation has nothing to do with us, let Liu Bei, Yuan Shao and Lei Gong fight, The most important thing for us now is to return to Qingzhou. If we win this battle, the lord can integrate the army in Qingzhou to attack Lei Gong and occupy Yanzhou. If the coalition army loses, we must return to Qingzhou to guard against Lei Gong's attack on Qingzhou! "

Cao Cao immediately calmed down after hearing Guo Jia's words!
That night, taking advantage of the darkness, he took his confidant and left Dingtao City in a small boat!Then attacked Changyi and came to Pei County to enter Xuzhou, and finally entered Qingzhou through Xuzhou, and it was half a month before Cao Cao entered Qingzhou!

And Dagan's attack on Dingtao was launched on the third day after Cao Cao left!
Xu Wei pulled all the thousands of cannons he transported and the cannons in Huanglong's hands to the front line!

And Liu Bei, Yuan Shao, Xu You, Zhang Fei and the others ran to the highest tower of Dingtao City Wall after they knew that Lei Gong had started pulling cannons, and then they were dumbfounded to see this scene in front of them!
"How could Lei Gong have so many cannons? Could it be that all the copper coins in the world are in his hands!" Yuan Shao said in horror.

2-3 miles away from the city wall, there were countless cannons of the Dagan Army one after another, and this was the source of Yuan Shao's panic.

It's not that he hasn't cast cannons before, the price is nothing. Even if the most expensive one is 50 yuan, casting thousands of cannons is only 5 million yuan. With Yuan Shao's family background, he can really afford this money, but he can't. There are so many copper coins, or the economy of the big man will collapse without so many copper coins. One cannon will melt hundreds of thousands of coins, and thousands of doors will cost hundreds of millions of copper coins. economically important
And the big man went through three mutinies, sued the order, and Xu Wei persisted in absorbing the big man's copper coins with wool. Now the entire Central Plains is short of money.There was even deflation, and bartering began to appear in many places (in fact, the Han Dynasty has always been short of money. In this era, silk and linen can be used as money. It can be seen that the Han Dynasty has a lack of copper coins. It can even be said that the feudal era that traversed the entire Celestial Dynasty, From the history books, we can find that when the Tang Dynasty was short of money, silk could be used as money, the Song Dynasty was short of money, and even Jiaozi appeared, and then the Ming Dynasty was short of money, and Zhu Yuanzhang even made immoral treasures!)
When Yuan Shao calculated the cost of a cannon, he was reluctant to cast a large amount of copper coins for the cannon.He never thought that Lei Gong would be so violent, casting thousands of cannons in one go, wouldn't Lei Gong be afraid of the collapse of his family's economy?
Yuan Shao never imagined that Lei Gong is really not afraid of his family's financial collapse!Copper can actually do very little in Dagan. The function of weapons was eliminated by steel hundreds of years ago. When it was used as a copper mirror, Dagan now has a glass mirror, and the copper mirror does not consume much.

The biggest function of copper is to use it as money, but Dagan has its own banknotes, using woolen cloth as an equivalent, and everyone is willing to accept the banknotes discovered by Xu Wei.Therefore, in the territory of Dagan, there are very few places where copper can be used, and it will not affect the local economy at all to cast cannons!

"Can Dingtao handle it?" Liu Bei seemed to be asking Yuan Shao, and also seemed to be talking to himself!

Xu You said to himself in horror: "If you can bear it, you can definitely bear it!"

With so many cannons, no one knows the power of this cannon now, so everyone can only cheer themselves up like this.

At this time, under the city wall, on the positions of the main army, the soldiers set up the cannons one by one, and put the ammunition next to the cannons. Around each cannon, 10 artillerymen were busy preparing!

Among the artillery positions closest to Dingtao is the 10-jin small cannon, 50 steps behind it is the 20-jin medium-sized artillery, and behind it is the 30-jin large-scale artillery, and the most powerful cannon has the longest range of 50 jin!
The war drums continued to roar, shaking the sky and the earth. In addition to the appearance of the artillery troops, the 18 troops of the Dagan Army also took battalions as units, covering the battlefield within a radius of 10 miles!
But after the preparations for the artillery battalion, Xu Wei stopped the sound of the drums and horns!For a while, the battlefield was extremely silent, only the sound of the wind blowing the flag.

Then Xu Wei shouted loudly: "Fire!"

After receiving Xu Wei's order, the soldiers standing behind the artillery lit the fuses one by one with the torches in their hands!

"Boom boom boom!" The artillery was like thunder, and the huge sonic boom was like a violent hurricane passing through the world, rushing towards Dingtao City with a fixed rhythm!
Seeing this scene, Liu Bei shouted loudly: "All soldiers, hide in a safe place!"

In fact, there is no need for Liu Bei to shout. When seeing the artillery bombardment, the soldiers of the Han army hid in the corners they thought were safe!
10 catties of shells, 20 catties of shells, 30 catties of shells, thousands of shells of different sizes rushed towards Dingtao to form a fortification with thrilling screams!

"Boom boom boom!" The shells flew for less than a moment, and the shells hit the low wall in front of Ding Taocheng like meteors, the horses, the antlers, and the solid camp!
The camps and fortifications of the Han army suffered devastating blows. In front of these shells, whether it was a low wall made of blue bricks and mud or antlers made of solid wood, Juma was smashed to pieces.

It was just a round of bombing, and the camp that was intact just now was shattered under the attack of the artillery. The gatehouse at the front of Dingtao was directly destroyed by several 50-jin shells and collapsed. The internal defense facilities have also suffered a devastating blow, and now the entire camp looks like a refugee camp!
Xu Wei, who was using a telescope, saw his victory and laughed, "Continue to attack!"

"Boom boom boom!" So a new round of artillery bombardment began again!
And Yuan Shao on the tower said with a bit of anger in panic: "Use artillery to fight back against Lei Gong, and Lei Gong cannot be allowed to bomb our camp like this!"

However, Tian Feng stopped him and said: "The artillery of the Dagan army is out of range of our army, and it is still difficult for our army's artillery to exert its power!"

But Yuan Shao said: "Now, if we don't fight back, I'm afraid our army's morale will be completely destroyed by the main army. Now we have to let the soldiers see that we are capable of fighting back against Lei Gong!"

After the soldiers on the Dingtao city wall heard Yuan Shao's order, they put 50 cannons along the wooden rail transport road laid on the city wall to the muzzle position!
Then Yuan Shao asked Wenpin: "Adjust the range of the artillery to the maximum, can it hit the artillery positions of the Dagan Army?"

Wen Pin's face was filled with embarrassment: "Although the range of our artillery can be increased by about 50 steps on the city wall, the artillery of the Dagan Army has already exceeded the distance of 3 miles. It is difficult for our artillery to hit this position!"

Liu Bei asked at this time: "Can the gunpowder be increased to hit the opposite side?"

Wenpin immediately said: "It must not be done. Although increasing the metering can shoot farther, the life of the artillery will also be affected. The artillery that could have been fired hundreds of times will be scrapped if it is fired a few times. Measuring will also cause an explosion, so I’m afraid I won’t hurt the enemy, but myself first! If I really want to attack the artillery positions of the main army, the only way is to push the artillery to the front line and shoot at Lei Gong’s artillery!”

At this time, the artillery of the Dagan Army only fired three rounds, but the big Han soldiers in the front camp of Dingtao City raised their hands and fled to the Dagan Army!
Yuan Shao also built a few camps in front of Dingtao City. First, he wanted to use these camps to consume Lei Gong's troops, and then he wanted to connect to the Sishui River. But now, under the bombardment of Lei Gong's artillery, the front camp has already collapsed!
Liu Bei said helplessly: "At the beginning, let the soldiers outside the city enter the city wall. It is impossible to rely on a wooden camp to withstand Lei Gong's artillery!"

Looking at the fleeing soldiers, Yuan Shao could only nod helplessly, so at the gate of Dingtao City, soldiers from several camps of the Han Army fled into Dingtao City!

But Xu Wei didn't pay attention to these fleeing soldiers, nor did he take the opportunity to attack Dingtao City. Instead, he arranged his own steps to smash the low wall in front of the artillery step by step, and then sent soldiers to fill up the trench little by little. The fortifications built by the Han army in Dingtao were demolished one by one under Xu Wei's unhurried command.

After 10 days like this, the outer fortifications of Dingtao City were completely demolished by Xu Wei!

Then the artillery of the Dagan army can directly hit the Dingtao city wall, and of course the artillery on the Dingtao city wall can also counterattack the artillery attack of the Dagan army!

The power of the Dagan Army's artillery is beyond Yuan Shao's imagination. A 10-jin cannon can't do anything to form a solid city wall, but a giant cannon that can fire 50-jin shells can smash the female wall on the city wall, and even the solid wall. The walls of the city are also smashed with potholes!Countless green bricks were shattered by shells!

The protruding horse-faced walls on the city wall, as well as the archery towers made of wood, and the towers were even more difficult to withstand the attack of shells. These towers were destroyed and fell one after another.

A lot of shells even shot directly into the city, which has already caused huge damage!These 50-pound artillery shells carried huge kinetic potential energy and destroyed everything in front of them. Whether it was a small wooden house or a small masonry building, they were all vulnerable and became ruins under the impact of the shells!
"Counterattack! Counterattack!" Wenpin commanded his artillery shouted loudly!

"Boom boom boom!" The 50 shells fired at Xu Wei's artillery position.

But Wenpin's counterattack killed at most a few soldiers of the main army, and he exposed the running position of the Han army instead!
Xu Wei immediately mobilized the long-range and powerful 30-jin heavy artillery and 50-jin cannon to attack the artillery positions of the Han army!

"Boom boom boom!"

Wenpin found himself under fire and immediately yelled: "Hide the artillery, the artillery is scattered!" After speaking, Wenpin found a corner to hide himself!

The artillerymen of the Han army immediately found a corner and dispersed, while the men on the city wall pushed the artillery away from this dangerous place!

"Boom boom boom!" But many civilians were killed and the artillery was destroyed.

After the smoke cleared, Wenpin shouted loudly: "How about the loss?"

A soldier cried: "Two cannons were lost, and only three are left intact. Seven brothers died, and we are almost dead!"

Wenpin also looked sad when he heard this!The artillerymen he brought to Dingtao from Jingzhou were only 500 people, but now there are only dozens of them left. If it were not in the middle of the city wall, Wenpin's artillerymen would have run away long ago!
The artillery duel lasted for half a month. Facing the advantages of more than ten times the artillery and range power of the Dagan army, although Wenpin resisted desperately, he destroyed less than 7 Han army artillery, and the 50 artillery pieces in his hand The artillery was about to be completely destroyed by the main army, and the artillerymen were killed and injured. Now they can only find some civilians to fire, and now even if they fire, they can only resign themselves to fate.

Dingtao Dahan's army is almost powerless to fight back, and now it is bombarded by artillery shells every day, and the soldiers are even more panicked, because they don't know where is safe, and the farthest artillery fired by the Dagan army can even cross The outer city attacked the buildings inside the city wall, and the defensive materials piled up under the city wall by the Han army suffered a lot of damage!

The north gatehouse of Dingtao City suffered the most artillery attacks, especially the most powerful artillery bombardment of the Dagan army. The 50-jin shells smashed the city wall little by little. Compared with the main city wall, in the face of such intense bombing, Dingtao City's urn city was shattered into a pile of construction waste!

(End of this chapter)