warring states careerist

Chapter 840 Dao is one foot high and the devil is one foot high

Every advancement in war technology is based on the accumulation of countless dead bones and blood.

The generals of the Wei and Han coalition forces have never encountered such a thing as a second simple city wall piled up behind the old city wall.

The most common strategy encountered before was to lure the enemy into the city and then close the city gate to catch the turtle. For example, the battle where Confucius' father became famous was like this, and there was a legend about Confucius holding up the city gate.

Since then, countries have learned to carefully lure them into the city and then close the city gates when attacking the city.

As for now, this is not a strategy, but a blatant method, but this kind of blatant method has never been done before, that is, the generals of the Wei and Han coalition forces were at a loss.

There is a saying in later generations that the Tao is one foot tall and the devil is one foot tall.

This sentence is very suitable for use in city offensive and defensive battles.

After gunpowder just appeared and was used in copper cannons, the defenders were first in an unfavorable situation.

Under the attack of gunpowder weapons and trebuchets, the old city defense system became extremely fragile. The previous city defense system, which was the greatest advantage as long as the defense of the city wall, completely collapsed.

After the fall of certain famous cities, the defenders began to consider methods such as concave-convex angles, angles, and star-shaped forts, which made the defenders at an advantage and the siege at a disadvantage for a certain period of time.

After a long period of attack and defense, the siege party thought of parallel trench excavation tactics to offset the copper cannons of the city defense. After the means of civil excavation and artillery were used intensively, the siege party regained its advantage.

In the future, it will be the era of national power competition. The city defenses are strong, but countries can also mobilize a huge army ten times or even dozens of times before, leaving a part of the besieged city to monitor, protect and supply slowly. The final victory is a field battle.

This kind of interaction between offense and defense originally had to evolve with each other hundreds of years after the appearance of gunpowder, and sacrificed thousands of lives to accumulate experience, but this natural evolution was artificially advanced.

The current siege method in Sishang can be regarded as the pinnacle of the siege method in the black powder era, that is, the parallel trench and zigzag trench excavation tactics-this is not used to deal with the old-style city defense. The old-style city defense is equivalent to non-existence after the appearance of gunpowder. Therefore, an army that can attack the city with parallel trenches and zigzag trenches can easily capture the old-style city defenses; conversely, an army that can capture the old-style city defenses may not be able to capture the new-style city defenses like Dangshan.

The siege methods of the Wei and Han coalition forces were still in the early days of the black powder era, which was the artillery-breaking tactic of facing the old-fashioned cold weapons and city walls.

The mohists defending the city would use that kind of concave-convex angle tactics, which made the siege technique of the Wei and Han coalition forces weaker than the defense technique in the city.

Now that the matter has come to this point, the Wei and Han coalition forces are also unable to advance or retreat.

The Mo family has a reputation for being good at defending the city, even if they don't know whether it will be useful to repair another city defense later, but since it was done by the Mo family who are good at defending the city, they have to guard against it.

If you are on guard, you don't know what to do.

After eliminating the existence of artillery, it is extremely difficult to siege a city at this time. For example, when Yang was forced to attack a small country with a small size, it was difficult to break through the city by the Eight-Power Allied Forces for several months; After a few times, it still stands tall.

After the appearance of gunpowder, all kinds of simple gunpowder guns, hand cannons and other guard weapons fired by gunpowder can also cause great damage to the besiegers, not to mention the gunpowder mines that pose the greatest threat to the siege of ants.

Fortunately, after gunpowder, there were copper cannons, which could blast away the city walls.

But Wei Han's artillery is not Sishang's artillery, and Wei Han has no full-time engineers. The military system is still the old military system, at least there is a big gap in the use of gunpowder weapons from Sishang.

The direction of the main attack has been chosen. If it is the offensive ability demonstrated in the battle of Sishang against Dangshan, facing the old city defense of Xinzheng, it may be possible to completely collapse the city wall within two days with only artillery and engineers.

Wei Han can't do it, and it will take at least five or six days or even longer for the concentrated artillery to blast enough gaps.

At least a gap of [-] to [-] feet is needed to deploy offensive forces. Otherwise, the gap is too small, and it is easy to be counterattacked when attacking. The people in the city can quickly block the gap in the city wall with stones and civil engineering.

Now that there is a bomb outside the city, it is repaired inside the city. The speed of the bomb may not be able to catch up with the speed of the repair. This is where Wei Han is in a dilemma.

The most important thing is that for Wei Han, the time to carve up Zheng Guo this time is limited.

It is difficult to determine the attitudes of Chu, Qin, and Sishang. If the attack on Xinzhengwei cannot be defeated after two or three months, once the countries send troops, it will be a waste of work.

Now that the main attack direction of the city wall is already crumbling, and the soldiers have begun to fill up the trenches, it is really unacceptable to choose another main attack direction at this time.

So knowing that the Mohists were making moves in the city, the Wei and Han coalition forces had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue the attack.

…………

Three days later, it was sunny.

After a few cannon shots, followed by an earth-shattering collapse, a gap of about [-] feet was finally exposed in Xinzheng's city wall.

The drums of the Wei and Han allied forces were loud, and the selected elite fighters, wearing three layers of leather armor, rushed in through the gap first.

There were rows of soldiers following behind, and many Wei and Han soldiers thought that Xinzheng City had already contributed, and as long as the city wall was broken, the fall of the city would be within a day.

The elite soldiers who crossed the city wall first did not encounter the expected Zheng Guo warriors who were blocked in the gap and executed to fight back.

However, just after crossing the collapsed city wall, there was a burst of gunfire from a distance.

Several leading corporals looked in horror at the white smoke rising from the opposite side, and a few iron balls flew past them, hitting the ground and knocking down several Koreans.

"There are guns!"

A corporal from the Wei State shouted, and when he was horrified, he realized that the inside of the city wall was not what he imagined.

On the open space 150 steps forward from the gap, there are no traces of the original houses. In an open space, people in Xinzheng demolished and burned all the houses near the gap within a few days. There is no cover at all.

A hundred and fifty paces away, a strange city wall that didn't look very high, only more than ten feet high, was so abruptly exposed to the eyes of Wei and Han soldiers.

After winding for more than 300 steps, it was connected with those walls that did not collapse.

The thick soil slope, the star-like protrusions, the artillery placed in front, the soldiers guarding the new city wall... everything fell into the eyes of the soldiers of Wei and Han who had just entered the gap.

There was a loud drumbeat behind him, and another lieutenant general shouted: "You have already entered the city, you can't retreat! The city wall is broken, and the people of Zheng will be terrified. Let's do our best to be the first to ascend!"

After being encouraged, the first batch of elite Wei and Han soldiers who rushed in through the gap hurriedly formed a team in front of the gap.

Because the gap is not flat, but an uneven ground where some collapsed soil has accumulated.

Ordinarily, it is the most dangerous to enter the gap first, and it is very likely to encounter the elites in the city who will fight back desperately. Therefore, the role of the first batch of people entering the city is to control the gap and buy time for the subsequent main force to attack.

They were wearing three layers of leather armor, and some of them also wore the iron armor that Wei Han bought from his body with gold, copper or silver. It was unbearably heavy, so it was impossible to directly attack the new simple city defense a hundred and fifty steps away.

As elites, they also understand the fate of charging a hundred and fifty steps ahead of time... Not to mention wearing armor, even if they run two hundred steps to the front without armor, they will not be able to fight.

Moreover, both Wei and Han were princes who started with heavy infantry. Although the Xihe pawns were a reform of the entire military system, the Wei state could not implement them all, but the Xihe pawns' training method was still inherited by the Wei state: to fight with heavy infantry phalanxes instead of chaotically. Follow the chariot.

An army without formation will die in the era of cold weapons.

Coupled with the uneven gap, the formation of the people who came in has been scattered, and they can only choose to regroup in the open space.

But it takes time to complete the team, Zheng Guo is not artillery, although the number is small, it is not without.

Originally, houses were not allowed to be built within [-] steps from the inner side of the city wall. That was the road for patrolling the city. Now the Mo family has even demolished or burned all the buildings within [-] steps. , where is it so easy?
There were a few more cannon shots, and there was another gap in the elite soldiers who were close to the whole team under the officer's organization just now. After two bombardments, these people could no longer bear the feeling of being targeted by the artillery bombardment, shouting "It's not like death!" On climbing the city, it is better than being crushed to death by iron pellets here!"

Immediately, hundreds of people marched towards the distance, and the follow-up soldiers continued to pour into the gap in the back. There were soldiers from Zheng Guo farther on both sides of the gap in the city wall, and the two sides were also fighting.

When the first batch of attacking elite soldiers approached the new city defense for about forty or fifty steps, the formation had already dispersed, and many gaps were opened by the artillery of the defending Zheng army.

The front of them is a concave angle, forty or fifty is the distance from the front, and the concave surface on the side is also forty or fifty steps away from them.

There was another cannon sound on the new city defense, followed by the sound of drums from the front and the left and right sides, or crossbow arrows, or hand cannons, or firecrackers, all at once.

The three sides are sandwiched, making the front three times the direction of Wei Han's attack. Almost instantly, the first batch of Wei Han soldiers who attacked collapsed.

The comrades who were shot dead were left behind, and the rest of them shouted and retreated. The gap was within the limit range of the defensive artillery. With one bombardment and the scattered soldiers, the first round of the gap in the city wall was opened. The shock failed in such a muddled way.

Seeing this, General Wei Han outside the city had no choice but to choose Ming Jin to withdraw his troops, reorganize the team outside the city, and reconsider the means and methods of attack.

I thought that once the city wall was broken, there would be no fighting spirit in the city, and as long as the counterattack at the gap was won, the city would be considered captured.

Who would have thought to clenched his fist but hit the cotton, what's even worse is that there is a sharp wooden wedge hidden inside this bag of cotton.

More than 200 elites were dispatched in a chaotic manner. The chief generals of the Wei and Han coalition forces were extremely distressed. These elites were different from ordinary soldiers.

Taking advantage of the gap in the city wall, General Wei Jun used a telescope to see the situation behind the city wall, and finally understood after thinking about it.

He frowned and said, "Is that so? Abandoning the main wall instead of building another small wall is unprecedented. It's really a poisonous plan. The city defense of the Mohists who don't abide by etiquette and law...is really hard to break through."

"In this way, wouldn't it be possible to use soldiers to storm the walls on both sides of the gap, and use human lives to pile it up? Originally, the city would be destroyed as soon as the gap was opened, but now the Mohists use it in the opposite way, using the gap as a ground for grinding meat ..."

(End of this chapter)