The last three kingdoms

Chapter 427 Digging Under the Castle
There are several clever tricks in the anti-tunnel siege method. As long as you can grasp the general position of the enemy's tunnel in advance, send troops to guard at the exit of the tunnel. Smoked.In low-lying areas, ditches can be dug to divert water to irrigate them. As long as the enemy troops dig a tunnel and open the canal, a large amount of water will be poured in. No matter how many people in the tunnel, they will be drowned alive.

The Shu army is now digging a tunnel towards the south city wall, and the south of the city is the lowest point in Chang'an City. Sima Wang ordered people to dig an open channel several miles long on the street near Anmen. Up to four or five feet, leading the water from the Cangchi into the open channel.

This open channel almost runs through the south of Chang'an. As long as the Shu army's tunnel is dug here, it will be connected with the open channel, and the water from the Cangchi will be poured in continuously. Sima Wang believes that this method can be used to deal with the tunnel offensive of the Shu army. , could not be more appropriate.

The excavation speed of the Shu army was quite fast. They excavated in shifts of twelve hours, day and night, not to mention that in the tunnel, only torches and oil lamps could be lit, and there was no distinction between day and night.

When bypassing the moat, the engineers were very careful, and determined the depth of the tunnel digging according to the depth of the moat measured in advance.The tunnel in this section is extremely dangerous. If you are not careful, it may be dug through the moat. Once a flood accident occurs, the consequences will be disastrous.

After reasonable calculations, the Shu army determined the appropriate excavation depth, and the tunnel meandered in, passing through the moat safely.

As the setting sun passed away, the offensive in Dongcheng came to an end the next day. Although the battle situation can be described as fierce, the casualties were extremely light. preparations, so casualties were minimal.

Although the catapults were busy all day, the walls of Chang'an City were extremely strong, and the results of the catapults were not ideal. At most, there were some pitted scars on the city walls, and they wanted to smash the walls to the point of collapse. I really don't know if I have to wait until the Year of the Monkey.

This also proves how difficult it is for Liu Yin to conquer Chang'an if he adopts conventional tactics.After the troops were withdrawn after dark, Liu Yin ordered to speed up the excavation of the tunnel, and strive to complete the excavation task of the tunnel tomorrow morning.

The entire tunnel has completed 80.00% of the workload. After crossing the moat, the excavation is carried out obliquely upwards until it reaches the cornerstone of the city wall.

Only one person is allowed to pass through the narrow space of the tunnel, and it will be very crowded when switching between two positions. The engineers responsible for the excavation mission are all the strongest and most hardworking soldiers selected from a hundred. A total of three shifts are arranged, and they rotate every four hours. A team of ten people in each team took turns digging hard with tools such as picks and shovels.

The engineers behind will use baskets to store the excavated soil and transport it out of the tunnel for processing. For sections that look more dangerous, the engineers will use wooden sticks and planks to reinforce them.Fortunately, the alluvial plains of the Weihe River are all around Chang'an City, with more sand and less rocks. In the area excavated by the Shu Army along the way, basically no large rocks were found. This will undoubtedly greatly increase the excavation speed of the Shu soldiers.

How many steps to dig to the moat and how many steps to dig under the city wall are all carefully calculated, and there will be no slight deviation. When they dig under the city wall, the engineers stop digging forward and widen to the left and right.

At this moment, Liu Yin used a total of about three thousand catties of gunpowder, and if these gunpowder were buried under the city wall, they would have to be placed at least five or six feet wide. The width of the left and right was widened by five or six feet, and the excavation of the entire tunnel was completed when the sky was slightly bright.

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"Report to the governor, the excavation of the tunnel by the Shu army seems to have stopped." After receiving the report from the monitors, the military officer immediately reported it to Sima Wang.

At this moment Sima Wang had just woken up, his eyes were sleepy. Since the Shu army came to the city, Sima Wang had never closed his eyes. After finding out the direction of the Shu army digging the tunnel, Sima Wang finally breathed a sigh of relief. He had a good sleep last night. Sleep.But when he just woke up in the morning, he received such a report, which made Sima Wang stunned.

Did the Shu army already know that the Wei army was preparing in the city?It stands to reason that no, the two sides are now in a state of confrontation, with the barrier of the city wall, it is difficult to communicate carefully, and the arrangements in his own city should not be known to the Shu army outside the city.

But in the past few days, the Shu army has been digging tunnels day and night and has never stopped. Why they chose to stop work at this time is intriguing.

"Where did the Shu army dig now?" Sima Wang asked.

"Probably outside the city wall between Anmen and Xi'anmen." The Chinese army replied.

Wei Jun used the empty urn to monitor, and he could only roughly judge the direction and distance based on the strength of the sound, and there would be some errors. Therefore, the monitoring personnel could only roughly judge that the Shu army had dug near the city wall. As for whether it was inside the city wall or the city wall Otherwise, they really don't know.

Sima Wang let out a light oh, the tunnel siege method must dig a tunnel into the city, and then take advantage of the defense's unpreparedness, send troops into the city from the tunnel entrance, catching the defender by surprise.

But now the Shu army has only dug to the periphery of the city wall, and this position is of little use. If the Shu army does not continue to dig forward, all previous efforts will definitely be wasted.

Could it be that their goal is to destroy the city wall?

This idea flashed through Sima Wang's mind, but he shook his head quickly. Destroying the city wall cannot be achieved just by digging a few tunnels. The city wall of Chang'an City is extremely strong, and several tunnels It is not enough to shake this solid city wall, and digging tunnels to collapse Chang'an City is almost a joke, even Sima Wang can't believe it.

Maybe the Shu army has noticed something, or there may be other arrangements. All in all, the news of the shutdown of the Shu army is mixed. The joy is that if the Shu army stops digging tunnels to attack, then the tunnel attack plan will be aborted. I am taking precautions, but what is worrying is that I still don't know the next step of the Shu army's plan. It is still impossible to destroy the Shu army's tunnels. Even if the Shu army stays there, it will be a disaster after all.If the Shu army dug the open channel, Sima Wang could really feel at ease.

Sima Wang ordered Hu Shi to immediately dispatch a part of the army to the south city wall to strengthen the defense force of the south city wall, and at the same time pay close attention to the latest movements of the Shu army.

(End of this chapter)