The head of Echeng city.
Zhang Xi told Wei Yan, who was already fully clothed, "General, go to the southeast corner of the city to set up a stronghold. We will be at arm's length with Hubei City to support each other. Don't be careless!"
Wei Yan's attitude towards Zhang Xi was still the same dead-faced and unhappy look, but when it came to Zhang Xi's military orders, he finally obeyed them and said, "I will obey my orders!"
After saying that, he ignored Zhang Xi, turned around and left, commanding the thousand soldiers assigned to him just yesterday to set up camp ten miles southeast of Hubei City.
Kou Feng was very unhappy about this.
First, he was unhappy with Wei Yan's attitude towards Zhang Xi, but he was jealous that Wei Yan could lead the army alone, while he needed to guard Zhang Xi.
"Brother, this man is just a guard, but he is so arrogant and rude. Why do you want to entrust military power to him?!" Kou Feng complained angrily to Zhang Xi.
Zhang Xi was also unhappy with Wei Yan's attitude, but there was nothing he could do about it.
There were only two useful generals on hand, one was Wei Yan and the other was Kou Feng. Compared with Kou Feng, Zhang Xi still believed that Wei Yan was more capable of being on his own.
As for Kou Feng?
"No need to say anything more, Gongzhong, hurry up and sort out the military affairs and arrange the defense of the city. Wei Yan's departure from the city is just a response. How can it be compared to Gongzhong's defense of the city?!"
Zhang Xi coaxed this Erha to talk.
Kou Erha was relatively simple and easy to coax. When he heard what Zhang Xi said, he immediately ran to sort out the thousand soldiers under Zhang Xi and began to arrange the defense of the city.
As for Zhang Xi, he was thinking about how to defend this city.
The usual preparation of city defense materials should not be a big problem with Kou Feng's help. Zhang Xi also started to collect and prepare some rolling stones and wood in the city.
But Zhang Xi was always a little worried. This was his first time defending the city, and he always felt that something was not safe.
There is no way, "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is too deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. In that book, attacking a city is like drinking cold water. Maybe the enemy can use any trick to "swindle" it. What's even more unlucky is that Zhang Xi's opponent Or Zhou Yu, a commander with an intelligence value of 97.
Don't worry too much about things like pretending to be reinforcements or defrauding the city gates. As long as you are careful, have a little more wisdom, and don't open the door to anyone, then it shouldn't be a big problem.
Zhang Xi's main worry is that he does not know how to defend the city and cannot decipher the enemy's siege strategy during the regular defense of the city, thus leading to the loss of the city.
Therefore, Zhang Xi began to recall the methods used by siege parties to defeat enemies in history.
As far as some of the siege methods that Zhang Xi knows, the routine is to siege the city with ants, which is also the human sea tactic, constantly attacking the city wall and trying to get to the top of the city.
This kind of siege is very practical, but not very efficient. As long as there are enough soldiers to defend the city wall, it will be difficult for the opponent to attack.
Another thing is that Huang Zu's management of Jiangxia was really good. Echeng was the station of Jiangxia navy. Huangzu was also very attentive to the defense of Echeng and even built a barbican city in Echeng.
In other words, if Jiang Dong uses ants to attack the city, Zhang Xi is confident that Jiang Dong will be defeated.
But Zhang Xi felt that Zhou Yu could not be so stupid.
The Jiangdong Army's land warfare skills are not very good, but Zhou Yu is not just an expert in water warfare. He is omnipotent on both land and water. It is impossible for him to not understand land warfare, let alone use low-level methods such as ant attack.
Therefore, Zhang Xi felt that Zhou Yu must consider other ways to attack the city.
For example, use siege equipment.
The more common siege equipment are hook ladders and cloud ladders.
The hook ladder is an ordinary ladder, but there is an iron hook at one end, which can be hooked on the city wall, and then the soldiers can climb up. This cannot be pushed down by hand.
The aerial ladder is more complicated. It is an upgraded version of the hook ladder, and it is also more troublesome to make. It is a bit like a scaffolding with wheels, and a ladder is placed diagonally on the scaffolding.
During the attack, the soldiers hid under the ladder and pushed the ladder close to the city wall. Once the ladder approached the city wall, they used the hook on the ladder to hook the wall. The soldiers climbed up diagonally along the ladder much more efficiently than the hook ladder.
Against the hook ladder, you can still use the gravity of the rolling stone to kill the enemy, but you can't do anything about the ladder. People come up diagonally from the rear of the ladder. If you want to hit someone, you have to throw the stone out. Not to mention the effort, you may not be able to hit them. to people.
The only way to deal with the ladder in this era is to guard the exit of the ladder while sending troops out of the city to burn it. This is why Zhang Xi sent Wei Yan to lead the troops outside.
As for the well-mounted vehicles and ram vehicles, these siege equipment are more troublesome to build, and they can basically be destroyed from the outside.
In addition to siege equipment, tunnel digging is also a common special siege method.
Although Zhang Xi felt that Zhou Yu was unlikely to use such a time-consuming and laborious method. After all, Zhou Yu did not know when reinforcements would arrive from Xiling. However, Zhang Xi still buried large vats under the four city walls to be on the safe side and sent specially sent troops. People listen for the sound of tunnels being dug.
In addition to these conventional methods of defending the city, Zhang Xi also began to wonder if there were any special defensive methods.
The first thing is to think of ways to deal with conventional city defense equipment.
In this era of city defense, equipment is also a very important thing, such as car crashes.
Car crash is a simple version of car rush, but it is not used to attack city gates, but to deal with ladders.
It didn’t exist in this era, and it wouldn’t exist until nearly a thousand years later.
The principle is also very simple, that is, two ropes are tied to the two ends of the wooden bumper, and then the wooden bumper is covered with iron sheets, and the pendulum principle is used to hit the approaching ladder, smashing the front end of the ladder so that the enemy cannot climb up. .
This thing is easy to make and easy to operate. Zhang Xi quickly arranged for people to rush to make a dozen spare cars for collision.
In addition to crashing the car, Zhang Xi also specially asked people to find a lot of bamboo poles, and then put the head of the Changge on the bamboo poles, turning it into an extended version of the Changge. This was because Rolling Stone's wood was insufficient. , used to attack enemy soldiers climbing up the hook ladder and cloud ladder from a long distance. If necessary, it can also be used to push the hook ladder, but it is more laborious and requires four or five people to operate it at the same time.
Of course, these are all alternatives under the existing conditions. If there is strong fire oil, there is no need to prepare these defense equipment at all, just pour the oil, light the fire, and everything is alive.
At this time, Zhang Xi regretted very much. When he came to Jiangxia from Xinye to take up his post, why didn't he bring some soybean oil? If there was no fierce fire oil, it would be better to have soybean oil. At least he didn't have to divide his troops and send Wei Yan out of the city to defend.
Even if possible, he could dig a ditch in Wengcheng. Once the enemy breaks through the outer city, he can pour oil into the ditch and mix it with sulfur, hay and other things, which can kill some enemies.
Without oil, we can only think of other ways.
Zhang Xi was reminded of the golden juice, which was also a liquid.
Golden juice is a bit evil.
The instant lethality of this thing is actually not great. If it falls down, it will only burn people and temporarily lose their combat effectiveness.
But the bad thing about it is that it can easily cause bacterial infection. If it encounters a warm and humid environment, it may also cause plague.
Bacterial infection is an incurable disease these days. If this causes another plague, well, fortunately it is early spring, so it should not cause a plague.
No matter what, Zhang Xi still prepared some as a backup method.
After spending a day and making some preparations, Zhang Xi ordered all soldiers to observe martial law and wait for the enemy from Jiangdong to attack.
As for Jiangdong's army, they are indeed setting up camp ashore now.
The remains of the water fort demolished by the Jiangxia navy floated downstream and were easily discovered by the Jiangdong army. Zhou Yu made a little judgment and felt that this was a sign that the Jiangxia navy retreated overnight.
Therefore, Zhou Yu sent out a reconnaissance ship early in the morning to inquire about the movements of the Jiangxia Navy.
As a result, what Zhou Yu got in return was that the Jiangxia navy did withdraw, but they sank their ships and blocked the Yangtze River, blocking the way forward on the Yangtze River.
The hand that made Zhou Yu angry was so cruel and disgusting.
It turns out that sinking a boat and cutting off the river is not such a waste, right? !
For this reason, Zhou Yu personally led the navy forward to inspect the place where the river was cut off. He also ordered Ling Tong to lead the navy to explore the road to see if he could find a waterway that was not completely blocked and could allow the army to pass.
As a result, Ling Tong reported to Zhou Yu after stranding three warships. The blockage was too tight. The fishing boats might be able to get through, but with the draft of the warships, they couldn't get through at all.
At that moment, Zhou Yu had no choice but to think of other methods.
Zhou Yu's brain was not in vain. He looked at the blocked waterway and then at Echeng on the shore. After thinking about it for a while, he understood.
This was the Echeng garrison forcing himself to abandon the water route and attack the city on land.
Zhou Yu was laughed out of anger for a moment.
Is this Echeng guard out of his mind? !
He is indeed famous in Jiangdong as a naval commander, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know how to fight on land. Who are you looking down on? !
It seems that he has been looked down upon in Jiangdong all these years.
Zhou Yu was so angry that he immediately ordered the entire army to disembark on the south bank of the Yangtze River, then set up camp and prepare siege equipment.
Today he, Zhou Lang, wanted to show the idiots in Jiangxia his land warfare offensive capabilities.
Of course, Zhou Yu was not so angry that he lost his mind. Although he was angry, Zhou Yu did not lose his calmness, but was more disappointed.
At the end of February, Sun Quan ordered Zhou Yu to be the vanguard and led 30,000 Jiangdong naval troops to attack Jiangxia. This was in itself an attempt to capture Jiangxia and expand its territory at the cost of losing a year's grain harvest.
It went well at the beginning. In early March, Zhou Yu captured Xiaji and Qichun counties, giving him a springboard to attack the interior of Jiangxia.
Then Zhou Yu continued along the Yangtze River to the north of Jiangxia and came to E County.
Zhou Yu's original intention was to fight a decisive battle with the Jiangxia Navy in E County. If the Jiangxia Navy could be completely annihilated, the rest would be just a formality.
As Chen Ju analyzed, the counties in Jiangxia without the protection of the navy are basically just fish on the chopping board, ready to be slaughtered.
But Zhou Yu himself did not expect that the battle with the E County navy would be so troublesome.
In more than ten days, Zhou Yu set out from Jiangdong and occupied two counties in the eastern part of Jiangxia.
For the same period of more than ten days, Zhou Yu was blocked at the foot of E County City and did not make any progress.
Of course, in a war these days, it is normal for there to be no progress for more than ten days. Sometimes it is normal to attack a place without progress for half a year and a year. Zhou Yu will not be anxious because of this.
However, Zhou Yu's advance was too smooth in the early stage, which gave Zhou Yu the illusion that if the Jiangxia strategy could be ended early, after Jiangdong's army returned, the soldiers and people might still have time to catch up with spring plowing and replant the previous season's grain.
But the E County defenders told him that this was probably impossible.
Since he was destined to lose food for a year, Zhou Yu gave up taking chances and let his soldiers set up camp ashore. At the same time, he built siege equipment and prepared to attack the city.
(End of chapter)
