On the first day, the Oirat people's offensive was not very fierce.
They dispatched 20,000 cavalry to dismount and attack the city on foot.
Yang Fan did not send out the Beijing camp, because the Oirats were mainly attacking Beicheng. Beicheng was handed over to Tuanlian for guarding, and only 10,000 Beijing battalions were responsible for supervision. The other 30,000 capital camps are all in Nancheng.
South City is only half the size of North City. It was formed by extending the east and west city walls into the Yellow River. In fact, the dock part is included. This lifeline related to Jiuyuan City was included in the city.
As long as the water transportation of the Yellow River does not stop, this city will have an endless supply of supplies, soldiers, and weapons. Of course, there is about a hundred days of freezing in winter. During this period, Mongolian war horses could gallop on the ice.
During this period, Jiuyuan City will be surrounded from all sides. Because it was too cold in the north, the ice on the Yellow River was two or three feet thick. Not to mention the cavalry, even the heavy-duty trucks of later generations could walk on the ice. It has been extremely cold these years. Taihu Lake is frozen so that a heavy-loaded carriage can be driven, let alone this place outside the Great Wall.
Yang Fan has been commanding at the Beicheng Tower today. Today he wants to have a good understanding of the Oirat people's tactics.
Oirat is not an easy person to deal with. They have traveled across the Western Regions for hundreds of years, and they have never seen any kind of fortified city. What nation has not been beaten before? They were either fighting or on their way to fight.
The Oirat people were the Oara people who also led the army first. And what’s in this city today is Jingying.
It’s true that enemies always meet on a narrow road, but it’s not that enemies don’t get together.
The capital camp was also made by the guards, passed down from father to son, and they served as soldiers for generations. Those soldiers from the Beijing camp who died in Tumu Fort were their ancestors.
This is a feud that needs to be ended.
Now, we meet on a narrow road and bump into each other at the foot of Yinshan Mountain and on the bank of the Yellow River.
Perhaps due to God's will, the offensive and defensive momentum has changed today.
This time it was the turn of the Beijing camp to attack the hinterland of Mongolia. The last time there were few people in Wala, a total of 80,000 people were dispatched, but only 50,000 people from Tumubao actually participated in the battle.
Today, there are few soldiers in the Beijing camp, with only 40,000 actually participating in the battle.
Today, both sides are testing each other.
The Oirat people wanted to find out the security situation in Jiuyuan City and the combat strength of the defenders in all directions. Each time, he retreated in a flash. Didn't cause too many casualties.
The carriages and other siege equipment were parked a mile away and were not even mounted. That is to say, ladders and trench-filling trucks were used. Plus 10,000 Mongolian archers. Use light arrows to shoot far away. Cover the siege.
Yang Fan was also conserving his strength. The Beijing camp did not move. Obviously, the people attacking the city below were not elite. Yang Fan didn't even use firearms.
Both sides exchanged bows and arrows, but the Oirats did not take advantage. The team trainers were hiding tightly under the battlements and couldn't shoot at all.
Gushi Khan's deep eyes stared at the city emitting white light.
"Dasha Jinong, I heard that Jiuyuan City was built in the Tang Dynasty. Is it so well-preserved?" Gushi Khan looked at the outer wall made of gray and white stones and asked in a dark tone.
This city is too new and looks too solid.
He also built many castles in the Western Regions, all of which were built with stones on top of mountains. The outer walls of those castles were generally only two feet thick and could be broken open by a trebuchet.
[In view of the general environment,
However, today, the stones outside the city wall seem to be one piece, and there are no gaps or clay used to fill them in the construction, or triple soil or anything like that.
Da Sa Lao's face turned red, he was the one who gave up on this earthly weizi.
Unexpectedly, when he came back three months later, this place had become Stone City.
"Dear Gushi Khan, when I left, this place was still a crumbling earthen city. Most of the buildings in the city had collapsed. There was only one thousand-household residence from the early Ming Dynasty and a small brick courtyard with three entrances that were still intact. I don’t know what kind of magic Uncle Dingyuan knows, but he actually covered the city wall with stone within three months.”
Gushi Khan said with some worry: "The trenches in this city have not been dug.
That is to say, what they filled between the stone wall and the original earth wall was not clay, so what could it be. "
Daza thought for a while and said: "Then it can only be river sand. It is easiest for them to use river sand. I asked them how they repaired the wall so quickly. It turned out that they poured sand into it. It is easy to fight now. No, the sand cannot stand. If you use a trebuchet to smash the stone outer wall of the city wall, it will collapse on its own."
Gushi Khan gave him a strange look, and sighed inwardly when he saw the self-righteous expression on the old man's face. He finally understood why Monan Mongolia became like this. Why were they almost completely wiped out by the Jingying camp?
They haven't lived in a dangerous battlefield for too long.
Gushi Khan patiently told him: "That's not the case. These city walls have an inclination and are tilted inward. If we use a trebuchet to hit them, the stones on the walls will be smashed into the sand, and our stone bullets will be embedded in the sand." No matter how much they are smashed, it has no effect except increasing the stone content of the wall."
"If I'm not mistaken, their city wall is multi-layered. One layer of stone, one layer of clay, one layer of sand, and inside is the original rammed earth wall. If the trebuchet hits the city wall, it will smash the stones of the city wall. It goes into the clay, and the clay layer squeezes the sand. There are large gaps in the sand, which will cover the excess clay. Except for the replacement of a stone on the outer wall, there will be no changes in the city wall."
Daza sounds silly, but you can still do it like this.
His old face sank. It seemed that they had been at ease for too long and had lost the vigilance of the warriors. Over the past hundred years, the Ming Dynasty has been too weak, causing their strength to decline sharply.
"This is not a new thing. The city outside the pass was built like this in the days when Dajin was destroyed by our ancestors."
The Oirat people withdrew their troops early in the afternoon. Yang Fan also returned to General Zhengxi's Mansion in the city.
Although this five-entry courtyard is a Ming Dynasty double-eaves style building, it was temporarily poured and covered with concrete. The current progress is just a rough house with the roof sealed, and the doors and windows have not been finished yet. Just cover it with a screen.
The main reason is that it is very fast to build a house with cement, and the General's Mansion is also very important as the command center. Therefore, construction is prioritized. Other buildings that have been established can only be occupied before freezing. Most of the others still live in tents.
After Yang Fan came back, he saw Zhang Shize sitting cross-legged on the soft couch, facing the small kang table, eating braised pig head, while drinking some wine with soy sauce beef, vegetable platter, and white water mutton.
Yang Fan sat cross-legged opposite him and poured himself a glass of wine.
"I just like your sauce beef. It's chewy and chewy." Zhang Shize said happily. "Before I came back, I went to your house to meet my sister-in-law and asked them if there was anything they needed me to bring you. She actually asked me to bring you fifty loads of stuff. I was dumbfounded."
"She's always afraid that you'll be short of this and that. If it weren't for the unlucky nature of a woman when the army went on an expedition, she would probably have sent a few people to serve you. How could I have brought so many things? They were all transported by water. It will take a few days to arrive. I brought these soy sauce beef from your house with me."
"Are they okay?" Yang Fan then remembered that his two wives were about to give birth. I am still thousands of miles away and can't go back. From last winter to now, seven months have passed since the expedition.
"Everything is fine, don't worry, it's just that I'm about to give birth." Zhang Shize took a sip of wine and said, "Sister-in-law misses you very much. When she saw me, her eyes were red. She asked a lot about you here. .”
