My brother Ying Zheng, who dares to kill me?.

Chapter 746: How about we build a city? The hardest shield is the most fragile shield!
"Protect with the shield wall! Everyone keep your heads down!"

"Chang'an Jun has treated us captives well. As long as we can fill up this river, we can escape captivity. From now on, we will be counted as the Qin army for military merit. Comrades! We must all repay Chang'an Jun with our lives!"

"Brothers, work hard!"

"The Zhao army is attacking! Quick! Retreat!"

Under the bright sunshine, more than 5,000 young and strong men from Zhao, wearing only short clothes and without armor, stabbed the yellow earth with copper hoes and put handfuls of yellow earth into baskets.

Then, more than ten thousand young and strong men from Zhao picked up bamboo baskets full of loess and walked quickly forward.

At first glance, it looks like a scene of spring plowing and repairing canals in the fields.

But if you look closely, you can see that the more than 15,000 young and strong men are actually captured Zhao army soldiers.

And the place where the yellow earth on their shoulders went was exactly the moat of Handan City!

In front of the Qin army, Ying Chengjiao looked around the battlefield and kept shouting, "Send a message to the commander Qiang Huai to move east immediately and stop the Zhao army!"

"Commander-in-Chief Meng Tian's troops will immediately retreat to lure the enemy, and Commander-in-Chief Xifeng's troops will wait for an opportunity to cooperate with Commander-in-Chief Meng Tian's troops to attack the Zhao army from both sides!"

Orders came out of Ying Chengjiao's mouth one after another, constantly guiding the various units of the Qin army to resist the harassing Zhao army.

The blood of the soldiers from both armies gradually dyed the yellow earth beneath their feet red.

But correspondingly, a large amount of sand and gravel were dumped into the moats on the west and south sides of Zhaowang City, turning the originally clear Zhu River into a dim yellow!
When the golden crow set in the west, the armies of Qin and Zhao finally sounded the retreat.

The candidates active around Handan City finally found an opportunity to reunite with Ying Chengjiao.

Standing one step behind Ying Chengjiao, the attendant spoke in a deep voice: "Commander-in-chief, Handan City is composed of four cities."

"Among them, Dabei City is where the people of Handan Qianshou live, and it is also the location of Handan's workshops."

"Xiaobei City is where the government offices of the State of Zhao are located. It is also where the royal family members and nobles live."

"Dongwang City is where the Handan guards train and station. It is also where the arsenal and granary are located."

"The people of West King City call it Zhaowang City. It is the location of Zhaolongtai Palace. King Zhao, his concubines, and the Queen Mother all live in this city."

"All four cities are surrounded by city walls. Among them, Xiaobei City, Dongwang City, and Xiwang City are in the shape of a Chinese character '品'. The inner city walls are connected, and there are inner city gates for people to travel between the cities."

"The Great North City is located to the north of the east of the Small North City. The distance between the two city walls is about 57.75 zhang ( meters), and they are heavily guarded."

"Among the four cities, the one with the weakest defense is Dabei City. Its wall is about 9.24 feet (16.17 meters) high, 2.31 feet ( meters) wide at the base, and feet ( meters) wide at the top."

"The most heavily fortified city is the West King City, whose walls are about five zhang (11.55 meters) high and about eighteen zhang (41.58 meters) wide at the base. The west and south walls are the thickest, with a base width of twenty-three zhang (53.13 meters) and a top width of about one and a half zhang (3.456 meters)."

"There is a gate in West King City..."

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period when productivity was low, it was common for a capital to be composed of multiple adjacent cities, as was the case with Linzi, the capital of Qi, and Xinzheng, the capital of Han.

And Zhaodu Handan is the best among them!

Whenever the State of Zhao was still strong, the contemporary King of Zhao would have the same idea:

Otherwise, let’s build a city!

From the time when Zhao Jinghou moved the capital here to the time when King Qian of Zhao succeeded to the throne, there were only eight generations of kings and princes, and no more than five of them had the energy to expand the capital.

The result is that three new cities have sprung up!

Today, these three new cities, surrounded by the old city of Dabei City, together constitute what the world calls Handan City!

However, the situation of these four cities being adjacent to each other is by no means extravagant or wasteful, but rather the legacy of the past kings of Zhao to the present State of Zhao.

Even though he had already memorized all this information, Meng Tian still said with emotion: "Handan City has many gates, many city defenses, a wide moat, and four cities standing side by side."

"When the battle comes, these four cities can reinforce each other and provide interlocking cover, thus supporting the defenders of Handan to deploy various strategies."

“Even if one of the cities falls, the King of Zhao and his courtiers can quickly retreat to the other three cities and continue fighting.”

"No wonder even Wu An Jun couldn't take this city after attacking it for so long."

"Handan City is very strong!"

Ying Chengjiao's expression did not change, and he even wanted to tease and ask: "After I destroyed Wei, King Qi of Chu did his best to build Helu City."

"But the walls of Handan City have not been expanded and are still the same as in previous years."

"It seems that Zhao is quite confident in the thickness of Handan City's walls!"

The waiter smiled and said, "It's just that I have the will but not the strength."

"After all, Zhao is very poor!"

A burst of cheerful laughter could be heard around Ying Chengjiao.

Although the Qin State was poor, the Zhao State was even poorer!

It is really pleasant to laugh at the poverty of one's enemies!
Ying Chengjiao then asked, "How many troops are there in Handan City now?"

The waiter immediately said: "Since Chang'an Jun broke through Zhaowang City and almost captured Longtai Palace in one fell swoop, Zhao State has attached more importance to the defense of Handan City."

"Although Zhao State sent 600,000 troops to attack Qin State, it still did not use the garrison troops in Handan."

"There are more than 50,000 garrison troops and guards in Handan City, including the thieves and Cao, and about 20,000 palace guards. If we are in dire straits, we can also send more than 3,000 elite eunuchs and ministers to the battlefield."

"In addition, there are more than 40,000 Chinese households in Handan City. Considering the hatred between Qin and Zhao, Zhao may be able to get 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers and 100,000 civilians if it mobilizes a large army!" "My comrades who stayed in the city are trying to find out the details. Once they find out, they will report to the commander as soon as possible!"

After hearing what Houzhe said, the smiles on the faces of all the Qin army generals disappeared, and were replaced by solemnity.

The systems of Qin and Zhao were similar, and all those who could be stationed in the capital were the best of the best.

And there are 70,000 such elite soldiers in Handan City!
In addition to the 70,000 elite soldiers, Zhao could also recruit 50,000 to 60,000 regular soldiers.

In addition, if all the powerful people in Zhao State support this war with all their might, Handan City can gather at least 20,000 soldiers consisting of rangers, family soldiers, servants and clan members' children.

After a total calculation, all the Qin army generals were shocked to find that under extreme circumstances, Handan City could mobilize at least 150,000 troops, and more than half of them were elite troops!
Relying on the four neighboring cities of Handan and the solid city defense line, if one wants to storm Handan and break it, one will need at least a general leading an army of 700,000 or 800,000 to have hope.

Even if we adopt the strategy of besieging the city, we will need at least 400,000 soldiers and horses!

But how many soldiers and horses does Ying Chengjiao have under his command at this moment?
But only a hundred thousand!

Even including the prisoners, there were only 150,000!

How to fight this? !

This is simply delivering takeaway to Handan City!
All the generals' eyes were focused on Ying Chengjiao.

Ying Chengjiao's smile slowly faded, and he asked solemnly, "Have you received any updated military reports from General Jian's troops?"

The fortune teller immediately said, "I just received a report from General Jian's army. General Jian said that he will launch a decisive battle within three days!"

Ying Chengjiao felt a little relieved: "General Jian is leading 230,000 troops into Jingxing. This battle will undoubtedly be a great victory."

"As long as General Jian defeats the troops of Lord Wuxiang of Zhao, then you can lead the main force of our army to come to our aid."

"According to the time, General Jian should have started the battle."

"It should not be long before General Jian joins forces with our army!"

Although the Qin army generals were still worried.

But Ying Chengjiao was relieved and continued, "Handan City and the other four cities are close to each other. They can rely on each other, support each other, and serve as each other's retreat routes in times of war. They can even form four extremely stable camps for generals to paint."

"However, there is no perfect formation in the world."

"Just like the shield, the harder the shield, the more brittle it is."

"The structure of four cities next to each other is extremely strong if it is strong, and extremely weak if it is weak!"

Hearing this, Meng Tian was surprised: "If it is strong, it is very strong, and if it is weak, it is very weak?"

"Chang'an Jun, do you think that Handan City, which is adjacent to these four cities, has a very weak point?"

Ying Chengjiao nodded slightly: "Not bad!"

"Handan's four cities standing side by side seem to be very beneficial to the city's defense. No matter which city our army attacks, we will have to face the threat of the four cities at the same time."

"The fall of any other city will not lead to the fall of Handan."

"But correspondingly, no matter which city our army attacks, the four cities of Handan need to do their best to rescue it!"

"Zhao cannot accept the fall of any city!"

The Qin generals were wary of Handan, which was adjacent to the other four cities, because even Bai Qi had no way to deal with it, and Handan's defense system seemed perfect.

But Ying Chengjiao understood a very simple truth.

The development of things always rises in spirals and advances in waves!

If having multiple cities side by side can make a city invincible, the Chinese people in the future will definitely be able to build a capital city with ten or even twenty cities standing side by side, and will also develop various city layouts in the shape of a honeycomb, a hexagram, or overalls.

But the fact is that the capital layout with multiple cities coexisting only existed on a large scale during the Warring States Period.

Although the capital cities of later generations may also have satellite cities for protection, there will never be a large number of cities that are only a few dozen meters apart or even have their walls directly connected to each other!
This is enough to show that Handan City’s defense system is by no means perfect, and it can even be said to be on the wrong track.

Meng Tian frowned and said, "I think otherwise!"

"If I am the one guarding Handan City, even if it is as important as Xiwang City, I can give it up, or even use it as bait to lure our army deeper into the city."

"What about other cities?"

Ying Chengjiao smiled softly: "Although Xiwang City is the residence of King Zhao and the location of Longtai Palace, it is precisely the most insignificant city!"

"Kill the concubines, maids, and even princes and princesses in the palace if you want."

"As long as the King of Zhao can escape to another city, it doesn't matter if we give up the West King City!"

"But Captain Meng, do you dare to hand over Xiaobei City to our army?"

Meng Tian said hesitantly: "Xiaobei City is the residence of the Zhao nobles."

"Unless the war situation is extremely bad and there is enough time to evacuate the people in the city first."

"Otherwise, I really wouldn't dare to give up Xiaobei City so easily."

Not to mention the consequences after the fall of Xiaobei City, the order to abandon Xiaobei City alone would be difficult to execute.

That is where the homes and families of all the nobles and ministers of the State of Zhao are!
If the families of all the ministers in the court were handed over to the Qin army to be killed, there would be no need for the Qin army to attack the city. The Zhao ministers themselves could throw the King of Zhao and the commander of the Zhao army in front of Ying Chengjiao!
Ying Chengjiao asked again: "What about Dabei City?"

(End of this chapter)