Even though it was just a casual chat by Lan Yu, it had a huge effect.
The seven people who were still a little afraid of Timur's army just now, now the fear in their hearts has completely disappeared.
Because Lan Yu expressed something to them through this incident, that is, Timur is not invincible. At least he had failed once before Daming.
The originally low morale was not only fully restored, but also surged to its peak.
...
Timur didn't know the change in morale on the other side, but he looked at the unusually tall Jiayu with concern and calmness.
Contrary to Timur's calmness, his generals were shocked by the majesty of Jiayuguan. It is not that these generals have never encountered cities and city walls during their campaigns. When conquering Central Asia, Asia Minor, the Delhi Dynasty and other countries, they also experienced many sieges.
But they had never seen a military city like Jiayuguan that was used entirely for fighting. Even Angola, known as the fortress, had ordinary people living there. Moreover, the city wall of Jiayuguan is also extremely high. These Timur generals have never seen such a tall and majestic city wall.
You know with your toes that the higher the city wall, the more difficult it is to attack.
Rashid was keenly aware of the changes in the expressions of other generals and understood that this matter was not good for the army. So he suddenly knelt down in front of Timur and complimented happily: "The great Sultan must have received God's oracle and prepared enough siege vehicles and stone-moving vehicles in advance. With these sharp weapons, We will definitely be able to smash through the walls of the Ming army, occupy their territory, and make all the Ming people join our way."
The generals felt relieved when they heard that His Majesty the Sultan had prepared a large number of siege vehicles and stone-moving vehicles. No matter how tall and solid the city wall is, facing these two siege weapons, it will fall sooner or later.
Timur noticed the changes in the expressions of the generals, and with a slight thought, he realized that these people had never seen the Ming Dynasty's city gates, and were just shocked by the majesty of Jiayuguan. Rashid's words just dispelled their worries.
Timur also laughed loudly, pointed at Jiayuguan arrogantly and said: "That's right. Since I have seen Jiayuguan a long time ago, why didn't I make preparations in advance?"
"Generals, prepare to attack and capture this city!"
...
Timur's army camped in front of Jiayuguan. After resting for a day, they began to attack Jiayuguan early one morning.
Woo~woo~woo~
The low sound of the horn at Jiayu Pass instantly woke up the entire city.
Lan Yu was getting stronger, and he stood up from the bed like a carp. Several soldiers put on his armor in an orderly manner, mounted the horses that had been prepared, and ran all the way to the tower.
"what's the situation?"
"Master, Timur's camp has begun to mobilize troops and horses, and I'm afraid it's about to start an attack."
Lan Yu held up the telescope and looked towards Timur's camp, then nodded subconsciously and said with great agreement: "Timur's army has come from afar, and the shorter the delay, the better for them. Of course they can't wait. attack."
"Master, look, what is that?"
A deputy general pointed at a dozen tall wooden structures among Timur's army, and some were shorter, which were slowly moving towards this direction under the push of infantry.
Lan Yu saw this thing for the first time and couldn't understand it for a while.
The Ming dynasty sieges only needed ladders and ramming vehicles. Although such tall things seemed to be able to be pushed in front of the city wall, relying on the advantage of being almost the same height as the city wall, the siege soldiers could climb onto the siege vehicles and jump directly onto the city wall, but This thing only needs to be poured with two basins of fire oil to completely destroy it.
Who can brave the blazing fire and rush to the city wall? I'm afraid he was burned to death before he even got close to the city wall. Moreover, wooden siege engines will also be ignited by kerosene and will soon turn into a pile of burning wooden racks.
"This thing... seems to be used to attack the city. Look, there are archers on it."
"Sir, do you want to destroy it by firing a cannon? These things made of wood will definitely not be able to stop the cannon." The deputy general suggested.
But Lan Yu waved her hand and said without any anxiety: "No, it's not too late to test the Timur people's methods first."
...
The trebuchet stopped after approaching for a certain distance, and the Timurids quickly moved in heavy rocks one by one. The trebuchet used by Timur was not a simple one, but the king of trebuchets, a counterweighted trebuchet. This large-scale trebuchet can be said to be far superior to other types of trebuchets in terms of range and catapult weight. At the same time, the manpower required for operation is also minimal.
This trebuchet has a triangular support made of wooden beams on both sides, and a horizontal bar in the middle as a fulcrum. The biggest difference from ordinary trebuchets is that the beam used to eject stones has been lengthened. In this way, the thrown stone will have a higher height and faster speed. In front is a huge wooden box, used to place the required counterweights.
The advantage of this weighted trebuchet is that it does not require too many people to control it. When launching, you only need to place the launched stones on the beam first, then tie the beam with ropes, and then continuously add stones to the counterweight box to increase the counterweight.
Just imagine, each stone is put into the box, and the elasticity of the trebuchet beam is constantly increasing. As long as the trebuchet can hold up, no matter how powerful it is, it can be obtained through the counterweight box bucket. This avoids the disadvantage of previous trebuchets requiring manpower to pull, allowing the counterweighted trebuchet to launch very heavy boulders.
As the siege vehicle slowly approached, the archers standing on the siege vehicle took the lead in opening their bows and shooting arrows.
Woo~hoo~hoo...
Hearing the whistle of the bowstring, the captain below immediately reminded loudly: "It's a bow and arrow, avoid it!"
The soldiers of the Ming army hurriedly hid behind the wooden planks, curling up as much as possible to avoid being hurt by the arrows.
Lan Yu saw the other party's details at this moment, and sneered: "They don't even know how to project, they just shoot directly, who gave them the confidence?"
】
Facing the people hiding behind the city wall, of course the projectiles would have the greatest lethality, but even this would not be possible for the opponent.
The Ming army had rich experience in fighting against the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. On the city walls at the border gates, there were wooden boards specially designed to withstand arrows. These wooden planks are exquisitely designed to not only block arrows fired from the front, but also to withstand arrows thrown from the sky.
"Send the order, open fire, and kill those archers!" Lan Yu ordered without hesitation.
Bang~bang~bang~
A burst of firecrackers sounded one after another. The archers on the siege vehicle were closest to the city wall. Almost everyone was hit four or five times at the same time. They died instantly and fell straight from the siege vehicle. Even those archers who had not yet entered the range of the bow and arrow were not spared and were directly strangled by the intensive firepower.
Lan Yu's 300,000-strong army will not all be equipped with firearms, but judging from the current situation, even the 30,000 firearms soldiers under his command are enough to withstand Timur's attack.
...
Timur was still overjoyed when he saw the siege vehicle successfully entering the shooting range. He felt that the Ming Dynasty was nothing more than this. He was soon able to enter the city from the city gate. Instead of having to face repeated interrogations by the Ming army like the last time he came.
But when he saw that the arrows fired by the archers did not cause the slightest commotion in the Ming army, he knew that the attack just now had no effect.
But the next moment, he saw the archers falling down from the siege vehicle like pieces of wood. Because of the distance, he didn't know what was going on. Only a strange noise was heard, and then the archers fell down one by one.
"What's going on?" Timur was furious.
Rashid listened carefully for a moment and reported to Timur: "Your Majesty, the great Sultan, people should use firearms. ????????????????"
"Firearms? What kind of firearms have such power?" Killing all the archers on the siege vehicle in an instant. Is this what firearms can do?
It's not that Timur's empire didn't have firearms, but the power of their firearms was very embarrassing. The range is about the same as that of a bow and arrow, but its power is not as good as that of a bow and arrow. It cannot be used once it rains. There are too many disadvantages. This is also the reason why Timur's army did not use firearms at all.
"Perhaps, maybe it's because Akito has a lot of firearms..." Rashid didn't know what was going on and could only make guesses based on his knowledge of firearms.
Although firearms have many disadvantages, they are still very powerful once used intensively. If there are enough firearms, it is not impossible to kill those archers at once.
Timur also understood this, but he was too lazy to find out whether the weapon used by Mingren was a firearm.
He asked directly and loudly: "Is the trebuchet ready?"
"Your Majesty, the great Sultan, is ready." Rashid replied quickly.
"Then launch it immediately and let these people have a taste of its power!"
"yes."
Duh~
The sharp scimitar struck the rope all at once. Not only did the rope break, the scimitar also cut into the wooden pillar.
Dong~dong~dong~
Lan Yu saw the black dots flying towards each other and cursed: "Damn it, it's a catapult. Hurry and hide!"
Huge boulders hit the wall battlements, and the solid stone battlements instantly fell apart. The debris flew and injured the Ming army soldiers, and there was a cry of pain.
"Damn it, fire the cannon, fire the cannon! Knock out those catapults for me!" Seeing that the flying rocks had passed, Lan Yu quickly stood up and ordered angrily.
Although the counterweight trebuchet is powerful and does not require many people to operate, it is troublesome to assemble and takes a long time.
But the Ming army's cannons would not give it another chance to show off their power. As the hiss of burning fuses sounded, the cannons roared one after another. The trebuchet in the distance seemed to have been hit by a giant with an invisible war hammer. A large piece of it instantly shattered, and even broke at the waist. After suffering successive blows, all Timur's trebuchets were turned into piles of broken wood, along with siege engines.
