Will Tumen choose to attack by force?
Not to mention Gao Pragmatic cannot be certain about this. In fact, even Tumen themselves are hesitating now.
The spies have come to report that the walls of Shacheng are now guarded by Ming troops. It is not clear where the Ming troops came from, but they must all be Ming soldiers wearing mandarin duck uniforms.
There is no doubt that the Ming army is good at defense. Even if Tumen feels in his heart that the combat effectiveness of the Ming army is very average and only a few units can fight in the field, when the Ming army defends the city, even Tumen Khan will have a headache.
In particular, the firearms of the Ming Army have made great progress in the past ten years. They do not explode or misfire as often as they did in the past. The range has also been significantly increased. Now, if you use a horse bow to shoot against the Longqing II style of the Ming Army, you will not have an advantage in range. Yes, unless you approach quickly, you have a chance of winning by using your rate of fire advantage to make up for it.
For the Mongols, the speed of shooting arrows is very fast, and it is not as mentioned in some articles that they can only shoot a few arrows at a time and cause loss of power. In that case, what is wrong with Mangu's evil tactics? After turning around and shooting a few arrows, I ran out of energy. Isn't this tactic of turning around and flying a kite a direct death sentence?
But no matter how good the Mongols are at shooting, facing the reinforced old city wall of Yuanzhongdu, which is more than three feet high, it is difficult to shoot against the Ming army. Besides, archery alone is useless. The ultimate goal is to destroy the city, and there are only a few ways to destroy the city: break the city gate, climb the city wall, or destroy the city gate or wall.
As for the bribery that the Wild Boar Skins liked to do later on to open the city gate, Tumen really couldn't do it.
There is no need to consider destroying the city gates and walls, unless the current offensive and defensive sides change positions and let the Ming army mount their artillery.
If it is within the territory of the Ming Dynasty, there is an old method that can be used, which is to capture Han people as cannon fodder and drive them to the city to see whether the other party will open the city gate or not.
Once opened, the Mongolian cavalry relied on their horse speed to swarm in, first occupy the city gate, and then kill indiscriminately, causing panic and causing the defenders to collapse. If you don't open it, it's okay. You can continue to capture people and send them over as cannon fodder, which will increase the psychological pressure on the defenders. No matter how you fight in the future, this will be beneficial.
But the place Gao Pragmatic chose was too annoying. This Shacheng was originally the capital of Yuanzhong, but now it is not within the Ming realm. How can any Han people around it be captured?
There is Zhangjiakou Fort not far to the south, but if he can conquer Zhangjiakou, the nine-sided strategic pass, will there be any need to worry about the sand city?
Looking at it this way, the only thing left is to build siege equipment honestly.
But there are also difficulties in building siege equipment. First of all, there is a lack of big trees nearby, otherwise it would not be called Sand City. According to Tan Ma's report, there are mountains fifty or sixty miles to the southeast. The trees on the mountains may be reluctant to create some attacks. City equipment, but only for emergency use.
The second is the lack of good craftsmen. Today's Mongolia is not the Mongolia that conquered region B two hundred years ago and has countless craftsmen under its command. There are no good craftsmen under Tumen Khan, and it is hard to say whether they can build a few simple engineering instruments.
Perhaps the most common equipment, such as a ladder and a crash car, can still be built with difficulty. If it is something like the legendary Lu Gong's car, then don't even think about it.
Burihatu, who is now almost being used as a strategist by Tumen Khan, after counting the number of carpenters in the army, based on factors such as the distance from where the wood was produced, made his own calculations for a long time, and finally told Tumen: If If you want to launch an offensive after building the equipment, it will take half a month to prepare. Even if you go all out to build it, it will take at least ten days if quality issues are relaxed.
After Tumen Khan heard this, he felt disappointed. According to the legend passed down from our ancestors, it didn’t take so long to build siege equipment during the Mongol Empire!
But this is the situation at this time. Whether he admits it or not, he can only accept the fact.
"What siege equipment can we build now? A ladder should be fine, but a goose chariot?" Tumen asked in a bad tone.
Burihatu said: "It is possible to build a goose cart, but we lack iron sheets."
Tumen frowned and said, "It's impossible to think of this without iron sheets. We can only use hard boards to cover the cowhide."
The predecessor of the goose cart was a cave house, which was also called a cave house. It was like a hut with a layer of iron on the outside and four wheels underneath, which could effectively protect soldiers from attacking the city. Later, during the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties, the Mongols integrated the cave house with the ladder, creating a goose-shaped siege vehicle, also known as a goose chariot, which took into account both defense and attack.
But Burihatu was a little worried and said: "Even if it is a complete goose cart, it is difficult to say how effective it is when facing the Ming army's defense. Now hardwood boards and cowhide are used instead of iron sheets. I think it is a bit dangerous."
Of course it is dangerous, not to mention that the small artillery of the Ming army can bombard them more easily. Even if the Ming army does not use cannons, it is not very afraid of these siege methods from two hundred years ago when it is just cold weapons against cold weapons.
For example, the Ming army had a pole, which was also called a "pole pole". This tool could not only prevent enemies from using flying ladders to climb the city, but also be used to kill enemies who climbed the city. When the enemy's flying ladder is close to the city wall, use the cross blade at the front of the fork pole to resist the ladder and push it down, or wait for the enemy to climb halfway up the wall, use the fork pole to push down the ladder and chop it hard. The blade foot can break the enemy's arm.
There is also a flying hook, also known as the "iron owl's foot". It is shaped like an anchor and has four sharp claws. It is tied with an iron chain and then connected with a rope. When the enemy soldiers are at the foot of the city and are about to climb the ladder, they are caught by surprise and throw themselves into the enemy group. Several people can be killed with a hook at one time.
There is also Yaksha Lei, also known as "staying as a guest". This kind of weapon is made of wet elm wood one foot in diameter and more than one foot long as a roller, with "reverse nail nails" densely nailed around it. The nail head is exposed five inches from the wood surface. Wheels with a diameter of two feet are installed at both ends of the roller. Connected to the winch with an iron cable. When the enemy soldiers gather at the base of the city, they can be thrown into the enemy group and turn the winch to crush the enemy.
As for the more common tools for defending the city, they are stones and rolling logs, that is, stones and logs used to defend the city. In cold weapon warfare, some ordinary stones and logs are usually prepared on the city wall. When the enemy soldiers climb the city wall, they are thrown down to hit the enemy. These stones and logs are called "猌石" and "rolling wood". , this kind of thing can be found in any city of the Ming Dynasty. Although Shacheng is the old city of the Mongols, since Gao Pragmatism has come, it is naturally equipped with it.
In addition to the above-mentioned city defense equipment, there are also wooden heads, door-blocking swords and carts, etc., which are used to block city walls and gates that have been destroyed by the enemy.
Oh, by the way, I almost forgot, Gao Pragmatic also has a big killer weapon like grenades.
