When the news that "King of Hun and Zhao Mu all picked off Wanyan Sheye's horse with guns" was sent to Wanyan Zonghan's army by thousands of Dajin's defeated troops (Dajin's troop losses were not large, only about 3,000). Around the Pingding Military City, the attack and killing between the Song and Jin sides was in full swing.
Dozens of cannons were already approaching the west gate of Pingding Military City. Fire large and small rocks and earth towards the wall of Pingding Military City.
As for Wanyan Zonghan himself, he pushed directly to a place less than two miles away from the west gate of Pingding Military City, and watched fiercely as the Bohai gunners in front collected batches of gravel collected by Alixi's auxiliary soldiers again and again. It smashed into the Pingding Military City, which made the Dajin Heavenly Soldiers extremely angry, but still stood firm.
The hard-line soldiers of the brigade, carrying ladders or cattail bags for filling trenches, and axes for cutting railings, were on standby behind the cannon, watching the scene of rocks raining down.
Once the cannons stop firing stone and mud bombs, they will launch an attack!
And each of them looked so solemn. This was because in the past ten days or so, every attack they made was repelled by the Song army.
It seemed that the rocks and mud bombs fired by the cannons could not hurt the Song people at all.
Although the Song army in this era was relatively weak in field battles, it was weaker than the armies of Liao and Jin, and was only on par with the Xixia army.
But in terms of defending and building cities, the Song Army is definitely top-notch!
It is basically impossible to use cannons or trebuchets to break the castle that the Song army is really determined to defend. Even the "return artillery" that was trumpeted by later generations did not actually break open Xiangyang City... Xiangyang surrendered after being besieged for nearly six years.
In fact, it is not very scientific to use cannons (including return cannons) to throw stones to destroy city walls. Because the trebuchet does not aim directly, but in a curved direction. Those stone bullets and mud bullets must obey the law of parabolic motion, and they must fall from top to bottom!
Therefore, the stone bullets and mud bullets fired by the cannon mostly hit the city head, and rarely hit the city wall directly. Therefore, it is impossible to punch a big hole in the wall, causing the wall above the big hole to collapse.
And if you want to smash down from the top of the city wall to collapse the city wall, it is really too difficult. If you smash some thin walls, it might still be possible. However, the rammed earth city walls of the Song Dynasty were generally very thick, and sometimes the thickness could exceed the height. It was possible to race horses on the top of such a city wall!
How could a wall of this thickness collapse from the top? Moreover, while the attacking side is smashing the wall, the defensive side can also repair it!
If the damage is not done quickly enough, the wall will have to be smashed until the end of the year. Of course, just because it can't knock down the wall doesn't mean the cannon is useless. If it can't knock down the wall, it can destroy all the pieces on the top of the wall. For example, bed crossbows, cannons, fences, wooden buildings, etc. will all be destroyed one by one by the stone and mud bullets fired by the cannons.
Without these things, the difficulty of defending the city will be greatly increased!
However, the defenders at the top of the city wall will generally not be killed much, because in the Song Dynasty, any city that was seriously fortified would build a female head wall (parapet) on the top of the city wall. This is a kind of earth wall about five feet high, very thick, built a few feet behind the crenellations. It is not only the second line of defense behind the crenellations of the city wall, but also a place for the defenders to avoid cannons and arrows. When the enemy fired stone bombs and mud bombs with tip cannons, the defenders would sit with their backs against the female head wall and use the blind spot behind the female head wall to avoid the cannons.
When enemy archers approached the city wall and shot arrows upwards, the defenders would erect dog-legged wood on the female head wall and hang leather and bamboo grate fences to block the arrows.
In addition, there will be a row of forked logs, which is a wooden fence, erected in front of the female head wall. The height is about a mile away, five or six feet higher than the female head wall. When the enemy climbs the top of the wall, the defenders will retreat to the wall of Nutou, relying on the protection of the forks and rafts of wood, and shoot arrows or poke with spears from a high position.
The enemy troops who boarded the city could only use axes to cut off the forked logs before they could attack the Nutou Wall and occupy this section of the city wall.
However, occupying a section of the city wall does not mean conquering the city. Because the city wall guarded by the Song army will be divided into sections with dry gondola boards. The attacking enemy has to fight section by section, but basically laying down an entire city wall does not mean that the city is broken.
Because there are usually internal trenches within the city wall - trenches dug along the inside of the city wall. This trench can not only prevent the enemy from digging tunnels into the city, but also prevent the enemy from further breakthrough after the city wall is occupied by the enemy.
The standard of the inner trench is very high, it must be several feet wide and more than two feet deep!
Within the inner trench, there is also an inner city. The inner city is not an inner city, but a cheap earth wall built close to the outer trench and close to the inner trench. It is usually only two feet high and is made of rammed earth obtained from digging the inner trench. The city walls of the inner city also need to be fortified, and generally there are protective walls and other fortifications.
The role of the inner trench city is not only to serve as the second line of defense after the outer wall falls, but also to eliminate internal troubles... Nurhaci, who was good at using time to break the city, fortunately did not encounter this Song-style fortitude. City, otherwise his spies would have to attack the inner city and inner trenches from inside the city. Without siege equipment, how could they defeat the city?
Within the inner city, there is usually an inner city that protects the government offices... This is the so-called "two trenches and three cities".
Therefore, even if the outer city can be destroyed with cannons, it is still too early to break the city!
As for the offensive and defensive battle to pacify the military city, it is now in the stage of fighting for the sheep and horse wall and the outer trench outside the outer perimeter. The outer trench and the sheep and horse wall are not easy to fight!
This wall of sheep and horses was built against the inside of the trench. If the trench was not filled up, the attacking side would not even have a place to stand.
If you want to fill a trench, you can't fill the entire trench. The gold thief doesn't have a bulldozer, so how can he do such a large project? So I can only fill in a short section, so that the defenders will know where to focus their defenses at a glance. And their defense method was also simple. They erected wooden forks more than ten feet high behind the sheep and horse wall corresponding to the section of trench that the gold thief wanted to fill. The sheep and horse wall is four feet high, and the fork rafts are ten feet high. The golden soldiers could climb the sheep and horse wall, but they could not jump over the forks. They had to stand on the sheep and horse wall to cut the forks. The Song army can shoot them with divine arm bows and stab them with spears...
To break through such sheep and horse walls and outer trenches, it is useless to rely on cannons alone. Because the Song army was hiding against the wall of sheep and horses, the cannons could not hit them at all. Send archers close to throw heavy arrows, and they will be accurately shot by the Song army on the top of the city with their divine arm bows. Moreover, the attacking Jin soldiers didn't know if there was anyone behind the sheep and horse wall? Maybe they are hiding in the city gate? The outline of a Song-style city emphasized the importance of "more gates than fewer gates". During wartime, many small gates would be dug into the city wall, which not only made it easier for the defenders to leave the city to attack the enemy by surprise, but also allowed them to hide their troops, killing two birds with one stone.
As for other large-scale siege equipment, such as towers, goose chariots, cave houses, etc., firstly, it is relatively difficult to build, and the Bohai craftsmen of the Jin people are not good at it; secondly, there are not so many forests around the pacification military city, If you want to build more and larger equipment, you have to go up the mountain and cut trees, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive...
When Wanyan Zonghan, who was in a depressed mood, was about to issue another attack order, General Wanyan Loushi, who was responsible for blocking the Jingxing Road east of Pingding Military City, and Zonghan's deputy Wanyan Xiyin flew over, and their faces were ashen. .
Wanyan Zonghan knew something was wrong at the first glance, and his voice was a little dry: "What? There is news about the East Route Army?"
He didn't know that he had lost a son in middle age, so he thought Wanyan Zongwang was unlucky!
"No, it's not the Eastern Route Army. It's the troops we sent to attack Niangziguan that were defeated. They lost more than three thousand people. The rest of the army just came back with bad news..." Wanyan Xiyin is a cultural person. When reporting someone's funeral, I'm not very straightforward and a bit hesitant.
"Bad news?" When Wanyan Zonghan heard this, his heart skipped a beat, "What bad news?"
Xiyin sighed but still didn't say anything.
Wanyan Loushi, who looked tough and fierce at the side, had a straightforward temper. He simply took away the question and said: "Deputy Marshal, Shi Ye is dead. He was ambushed during the night attack on Song's camp and was killed by Song. The king of Yun, Zhao Kai, was shot to death without even snatching the body back. Yelu Yu saw that the old boy was also missing. He was either dead or surrendered..."
"What? Shi Yema, he..." When Wanyan Zonghan said this, his eyesight went dark, and then he lost consciousness.
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