Ji Han Grand Commander

Chapter 267 261. Firepower Test
“Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh… boom…”

The Han army arrived as expected, but their tactics were beyond the expectations of He Qi and Sun Shao.

To be fair, although He Qi and Sun Shao's talents are not top-notch in this era of shining stars, they are at least at the level of being recorded in history and cannot be considered mediocre.

They had made sufficient estimates of the possible offensive methods that the Han army might use.

But unfortunately, the limitations of the times were there. Just as neither Zhuge Liang nor Jia Xu could have predicted the dust explosion underground in Fancheng, He Qi and Sun Shao were also unable to predict in advance Feng Xi's means of warfare that were beyond this era.

He Qi thought that in the face of a situation like Chaisang, the Han army should mainly siege and supplement it with siege. Because Chaisang was surrounded by water on three sides and the army could not be deployed, the conventional ant-attachment tactics would be difficult to be effective.

If a small number of Han troops used ladders to attack the city, they would simply be sending their heads flying. He Qi and Sun Shao knew this, and they also believed that Feng Xi and other Han generals knew this.

In this case, there are only two possibilities. The first is to attack from the direction of Lushan in the south of Chaisang. The second is to break through the water gate of Chaisang, rush into the city and start street fighting.

However, the water gate is in the direction of Pengli Lake. If you want to attack the water gate, you have to break the hidden stakes and iron chains at the entrance of Pengli Lake. If you want to land, you also have to land from the direction of Pengli Lake. Although there is water to the west of Chaisang, almost all large and small ships of the Han army can't enter. Only some small boats and sampans can come in.

In this way, from the perspective of traditional cold weapon warfare, Chaisang is undoubtedly a strong city. In addition, Chaisang is not Jingzhou, so there are no insiders in the city who care about the Han Dynasty and will cooperate with Feng Xi.

No matter how you look at it, Chaisang City is not only heavily guarded, but it is also impregnable.

Unfortunately, this is the perspective of traditional cold weapon warfare, or even the perspective of early cold weapon warfare. Not to mention hot weapons and gunpowder weapons, even many late cold weapon weapons can play a significant role, not to mention Feng Xi's technology tree directly skipped a stage of armaments?

Feng Xi raised the crystal telescope in his hand and took a closer look at the situation in Chaisang. It was indeed like a hedgehog, and it was obviously difficult to conquer.

This crystal telescope was made purely for luxury and status. In fact, it is not impossible to make an ordinary glass telescope. The blast furnaces and blast furnaces in Jingzhou are enough to make glass. However, because the glass industry is still in the process of being created from scratch, complex products cannot be made due to the lack of skills of glassmakers, but telescopes can still be made.

Feng Xi glanced at the Wu army that was on high alert through his glasses and knew that they were determined to stop him outside the city of Chaisang. If he attacked by force, he would probably suffer heavy losses.

Although the soldiers of the Eastern Wu were all new soldiers and the veterans were not elite, defending a city was not a job that required high quality soldiers. You said you had never been on a battlefield, but you know how to pour hot water and gold juice down the city wall? Throwing stones and battering rams down doesn't require any training, right?

Therefore, even Sun Tzu's Art of War advocates encircling an enemy with ten times the force and attacking an enemy with five times the force. However, it seems that he has not even reached the basic level of "fighting an enemy with twice the force" now.

Feng Xi led 10,000 naval forces and 30,000 land forces in this eastern expedition, while the Chaisang County soldiers and new recruits totaled 30,000, which was considered a relatively large patch in Sun Quan's underwear. On paper, the two sides were evenly matched in strength, with a gap but it was not big.

But in reality...at least Dongwu has no confidence.

"Have you investigated the situation on the river ahead? Are there any obstacles?"

Feng Xi asked the messenger to ask Zhang Nan through flag signals. Although Feng Xi was the Grand Commander, he was in charge of the army at the rear, and the navy was still under the charge of Zhang Nan and Zhao Lei. Although Feng Xi did not think there was anything that could threaten his troops in the current environment, he did not put all his eggs in one basket just in case.

Feng Xi himself and other senior generals such as Zhang Nan and Zhao Lei were all on different ships, in order to avoid leaving a ridiculous name in the history books: "Grand Commander Feng Xi and Admiral Zhang Nan, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, were both killed because they were on the same ship."

"Grand Commander, Commander Zhang reported that the Wu army has set up hidden stakes and chains at the entrance to Pengli Lake, and there are many Wu soldiers around. If we try to dismantle them directly, we will probably suffer losses."

Soon, the messenger came down from the mast and reported what Feng Xi had just communicated.

"The intersection?...Yes, pass the order, 20,000 infantry will camp around first, be prepared and stand by. The rest of you will join me with the navy to test the defenses of Chaisang City."

Feng Xi thought about it for a while and decided that he needed to observe the situation in Chaisang before making a decision. After all, this was the first battle against Wu. Not only victory or defeat but also morale had to be considered. If too many soldiers were killed or injured in Chaisang City, it would definitely affect the morale of the army in this eastern expedition.

But it cannot be delayed too long, otherwise it will damage the morale of the Eastern Expedition Army.

Intelligence is the most important thing at this time. Feng Xi needs to take a look at the defense situation of Eastern Wu before deciding what to do.

Soon, the Han army split into two groups. One group, led by Bao Feng, Deng Ai, Ma Su and others, went upstream to find a suitable place to set up camp. Feng Xi led 10,000 people to join Zhang Nan's navy and continued to advance forward, preparing to explore the situation in Chaisang.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack! The Han army is coming!"

Previously, there were only a few small boats of the Han army, so the Wu army naturally knew that they were scouts of the Han army. The two sides only exchanged fire briefly before retreating. Now the Han army's ships were like a dark cloud, and the Wu army soldiers were not blind. They immediately lit the beacon to notify Chaisang City.

"Quick! Get on the city wall! Get ready for defense!"

On the edge of the city wall, He Qi personally commanded the soldiers to come to the city wall with strong bows and crossbows and be ready for battle. The boiling hot water, huge stones and rolling logs had already piled up into small hills. If the Han army dared to attack the city, they would surely be taught a bloody lesson.

In fact, the Wu army had paid attention to the tactics used by the Han army in previous battles, but there were two important issues.

First of all, most of the witnesses were ordinary soldiers. Some of the generals were either dead or captured by the Han army. Few people could clearly describe the effects of the new weapons of the Han army. They could only talk about palm thunder, iron hooks and the like. How could this be understood by high-level officials like Sun Quan?

Secondly, most of the new weapons of the Han army were used in naval battles, and there are not many details about the Battle of Xiangfan between the Wu army and the Wei army, so that now it is not clear how the Han army won, let alone the weapons used by the Han army.

So many factors led to the fact that the Wu army was actually not clear about the Han army's current combat capabilities. Even He Qi could only treat the Han army according to the standard city defense method and did not pay any special attention to it.

(End of this chapter)