Chapter 583 Before the War (2)

The knight crossed over the horse and thrust twice hard on the horse's butt. The horse was in pain and ran even more forcefully, like a sharp arrow off the string. In just half a cup of tea, he arrived in front of the camp gate. The knight immediately exerted force with both wrists and lifted the reins. The mount under his crotch jumped stubbornly, rotated, stood up with his hind legs, sniffing, and neighed in anger, but still did not push the knight off the horse's back. Finally, the horse calmed down, and the knight jumped off the horse and threw the reins to the sentry behind him, and said sternly: "Take it down, take it down, take a walk first, wipe the sweat dry, and then drink the horse, mix half of the wheat in the horse's feed!" After that, he quickly walked into the camp.

In the tent, Zhu Jin sat on the head seat, Li Jian sat slightly to the right, facing the map in front of him writing something. At this time, a notice came from the outside: "General Shi is here!"

"We're finally back!" Zhu Jin stood up suddenly. In fact, his idea was coincidental with Wang Foer on the opposite side. They all wanted to defeat the main force of the enemy in front of him through a decisive battle, and then launched a rapid pursuit, winning the entire war in one fell swoop. However, after nearly half a month of operation, Zhenhai Army built a long siege around Wujincheng, isolated the connection between the defenders and reinforcements in the city, and a large number of sentries came forward. Zhu Jin did not know the details of the enemy. As his number one cavalry general, Shi Yan fought bravely and personally went out to learn about the details of the enemy. Finally, he got the news back.

"Zhao Gong, Li Dutong, Zhenhai Army camp is strong and has been built. It is more than ten miles long. It is difficult to judge how many troops there are in total. There are only 40,000 or 50,000 soldiers!" Shi Yan poured water into his mouth, and said as he said, sweat connected his curly hair and the curly beard on his temples. He could hardly see his face clearly. Only his two shining chestnut eyes were seen: "But look at their camp arrangement, the spacing between the camps is very small, and there should be not many cavalry, at most two or three thousand cavalry, which is not worth worrying!" At this point, Shi Yan walked to the map, stretched out his fingers and gestured to talk about Lu Fang's camp arrangement.

"Two or three thousand cavalry, which is similar to what I estimate!" Zhu Jin nodded, looking relieved. He and Lu Fang were also old acquaintances and also knew about his ability to manage and use troops. When he crossed the river eastward, the biggest reliance in his hand was the nearly 10,000 elite cavalry. After all, the two armies faced the front battle, and the cavalry had a huge advantage. If it was beneficial, it could pursue and expand victory. If it was disadvantageous, it could counterattack and save the situation. A powerful cavalry was in the hands of generals who were good at commanding and cold weapons.

The role that the times can play is not high no matter how high. Zhu Jin has sufficient confidence in himself and Shi Yan. He rubbed his palms habitually and said with a smile: "Since that's the case, what we should do now is to lead the servant Lu Fang out of the camp as quickly as possible and fight on a field on a favorable battlefield. Otherwise, over time, let the servant know that there are so many cavalry in our army and he hides in the camp and cannot come out, which is troublesome!"

After Shi Yan finished drinking the water, when he heard Zhu Jin's words, his cheek muscles twitched, as if he had remembered something bad, and said, "Yes, I have to fight in the field as soon as possible, otherwise I am afraid that Wu will not be able to defend it if he enters the city."

Li Jian, who had not said anything, said loudly when he heard this, "Can't defend it anymore? How could this be possible? Wu Jincheng was built by the former King Wu Zhong. Although it was not big, it was very strong. The guards in the city were also sufficiently equipped with food and fodder. At least it could last for three or five months. A few days ago, the thief army only built a long siege and did not attack the city. How could it be broken so quickly?"

Shi Yan said coldly: "After I checked the situation of the enemy camp today, I suddenly heard thunder sounds from Wujincheng. I thought it was going to rain, but there was not even a cloud in the sky. Later, a cheer from the thief camp suddenly came from the "city is broken, the city is broken". I was shocked, but I dared not get too close. I was injured by the Fuqiu. I had to risk going around a small mound not far away to see what I saw. Do you know what I saw?"

Zhu Jin and Li Jian looked at each other and asked together: "What have you seen?"

"There were fires shooting from the positions of the Pirates in the City and flew towards the top of the city. Wherever they went, the house collapsed, and thunder came from his ears. Although it was in the sky during the day, I felt like hell at that time." Shi Yan whispered, his face, which was tanned by the sun, turned gray at this time. Obviously, recalling the scene at that time made him feel bad.

"Firelight? Thunder? General Shi, are you wrong?" Li Jian stared at Shi Yan's eyes, trying to find signs of madness, but although the other party's eyes were full of unbelievable eyes, they were obviously normal.

Compared to Li Jian, Zhu Jin knew much about Shi Yan. He knew very well how tough the nerves of this Shatu man were. Compared to the devastating war between the Central Plains and Zhu Wen, the warlords in the south were just fighting for water sources among villages. He did not think that this level of war would have much impact on Shi Yan. It should be that the "smart" Lu Fang created a new siege equipment. Since this is the case, he should force the other party to accept the field battle faster. Thinking of this, Zhu Jin said in a deep voice: "Come on, call the generals to discuss."

Under the city of Wu, several long trenches stretched out from the long circumference built by the Zhenhai Army. The trenches pointed to the defending city wall in a "zigzag shape", just like several cow horns pointing to the city wall. At the tips of these cow horns, dozens of soldiers of Zhenhai Army were busy cleaning the inner chamber of the bronze mortar with long-handled wool brushes, preparing for the next launch. The entire trenches were filled with smoke, full of the smell of burning black gunpowder and the smell of mixed together after the evaporation of acetic acid, which made people feel sick.

"Have you brushed it?" The cannon leader's voice came over. He was too excited and did not notice that the sound was hoarse. After several bombardments, the fortifications and guards at the city were almost wiped out. The high-speed drop of the stone bullet weighing 200 kilograms could smash all obstacles. The splashed fragments knocked the remaining survivors to the ground. Apart from the arrows flying scattered from afar, there was nothing that could prevent them from continuing to shoot.

"Okay!" The cleaning soldier quickly pulled out the wool brush from the cannon bore, and confirmed that there were almost no rags and black gunpowder residues on it, and replied loudly. As soon as he finished his speech, he reached the ground, and with the gunman's order of resetting, more than a dozen shirtless men pushed the mortar to the designated position. Then the gunman put the medicine bag from the muzzle, and the medicine line from the gun door. After confirming that it was correct, he placed a stone bullet from the muzzle, and finally put the gunman's order at the gunman's order.

The fuse was lit down. With a loud bang, the mortar cannon seemed to be kicked back by an invisible giant, and jumped backwards. At the same time, it pointed to the muzzle diagonally above and shot a ball of fire. Several soldiers with good eyes could see the heavy projectile flying out as if it was not weight. Then they heard the terrible sound of the collapse of the building from the city not far away, and then a desperate shout came from the opposite side of the smoke.

"Cleaning the cannon chamber!" The cannon leader shouted sternly. He waved his arms and drove his hands to clean the cannon chamber. The excitement of using firearms for the first time drove extreme fatigue out of his body. As the gunpowder smoke in front of him dissipated, a miserable scene appeared in front of him: a section of the city wall at the west gate of Zhenhai Army had collapsed half of the wall, and half of the collapsed city wall fell into pieces and scattered on the ground, forming a slope. The soldiers of Zhenhai Army could rush into the city through this slope. Now these artillery soldiers finally knew why the despair shouts in the city just now.

"Why are you doing while standing there? Why don't you work quickly?" The cannon leader turned around, but saw his subordinates who were supposed to be busy looking at the scene in front of him in amazement. Obviously, they were still a little uncomfortable with their amazing results. They wield their hoes for more time than wielding swords. The arrows on the top of the city were almost ineffective against these enemies at the bottom of the "zigzag" trench. After nearly two hours of fighting, their worst loss was that a soldier accidentally broke his calf by a rolled stone bullet, but the results were so huge. He cleared the guards on the top of the city and opened the gap in the city wall. Is this true? Almost everyone's mind was a question flashing.

"Work quickly, work quickly!" The gunman waved his short spear as a baton in his hand and drove his subordinates to continue working. The one who was most excited among these people was him. After years of hard work, Lu Fang finally accumulated a lot of experience, made nearly twenty mortars, and based on this, he established his first firearm unit, the Si Shen Ji Battalion in the Palace, and trained a group of gunners. The mortars are a short and thick, high-arc ballistic artillery. Because the barrel is short and thick, for Lu Fang, who is still behind in metal casting technology, the production difficulty is very low. Moreover, due to the high arc of the ballistic, the shooting angle is small. Therefore, Lu Fang specially used to first approach the city wall through the "zigzag" trench, and then fired large-weight stone bombs with high elevation angles, using gravity acceleration to destroy the city wall and kill the defenders, which has achieved quite good results now.

"Cleaning the barrel of the gun quickly and expanding the gap a little further so that the brothers who came first to break through the city." The gunman proudly tapped his subordinates' backs with a short spear, and continued to shout: "Actually, the merits of the first to arrive should be given to us. If we hadn't opened the hole, they wouldn't know how many lives they would have to fill in?"
Chapter completed!