Under the scorching sun, tens of thousands of Chu troops, carrying countless Chu people, rushed towards Xincai City in the north in a hurry.
Xincai, as the name suggests, is on the shore of Caishui. To be precise, it is the end of the Caishui River, which is about to merge into the city "washed out" by the Huaihe River.
The turbulent Caishui River came all the way from the west highland to the east, but was forced by the mountainous terrain to turn a corner here. The sudden slowdown of the flow speed gradually allowed people to build houses and fields again, and the new Caishui City gradually formed. its appearance.
Nowadays, Caishui almost wraps up half of Xincai City, turning from the southeast to the east, then to the northeast, and then to the southeast to meet several tributary creeks, and then rush towards the Huaihe River together.
People in ancient times lived by water. In addition to the necessity of water sources, there was also a very important point: river water could hinder more attacks.
And this Xincai City is a typical example.
If you look down from the clouds, you will see that Caishui is almost naturally half of the moat of Xincai City.
Although the Caishui River is not turbulent in the Xincai section, just the river surface, which is several meters wide, can well stabilize the defense system of Xincai City. Of course, the one who benefits the most is the south of the city, which is completely surrounded by the river.
The unique terrain also makes Xincai City another natural pass leading to Chendu, the capital of Chu State.
Of course, this is also the last hard nut to crack for the Qin army to reach Chendu.
Normally, Wang Hao would definitely choose to take a detour from the west or east of Xincai, even if it was a detour of hundreds of miles, so as to attack directly.
Obviously, with the blessing of the moat, the Qin army will have to pay a heavy price if it wants to attack the east, west or south of the city. Although there is no interference from the moat in the north of the city, unfortunately, except for the water surface in this section of Xincai, it is not bad. The water conditions in other areas are very stable, and the water conditions in other areas are very unsuitable for swimming or bridge building.
Therefore, the best and fastest way is to spend five or six days taking a detour to find an upstream or downstream ferry, cross the Caishui River, and then pick up Xincai from the north.
However, this solution has no other disadvantages, except that it is a bit time-consuming.
But time is the most precious thing for the Qin Army now.
There is no way, no matter how high the price is, Wang Hao must break through Xincai as soon as possible.
With the arrival of the defeated army, the Chu general stationed in Xincai was also shocked.
After all, he only received the news of the Qin army's large-scale entry the day before yesterday. Today, the defeated army of Zengcheng in front arrived at his own city. It takes more than a day to travel from Zengcheng to Xincai, my hometown.
In other words, could Zengcheng, as the former capital of the Zeng Kingdom, not be able to stop the Qin army for even one day?
Where is there an army of 30,000 people!
According to the plan, Zengcheng should be defended for at least twenty days to a month. At the same time, reinforcements from all walks of life began to converge on Xincai. When the Qin army could not attack Zengcheng for a long time, the troops gathered in Xincai would The army went south and defeated the Qin army in one fell swoop.
Why did this plan fail before it even started?
The more serious problem is that there are only less than 20,000 troops in Xincai City today. Although it has the advantage of a moat, how can it stop the Qin army of the Tiger and Wolf Division?
Without any time to think, the Chu army commander in Xincai immediately ordered the city gate to be closed.
There is no other way. The defeated army is holding the Chu people hostage. There are too many people. Once they are allowed to flow into the city, not to mention how many Qin troops will do it, just these tens of thousands of people will be enough to cause a new attack. Chaos in Caicheng.
This is not alarmist at all. No city can bear the impact of doubling its population overnight, even modern and highly developed cities, let alone today's weak Warring States cities.
It should be said that Xincai's general's reaction was quite fast. If he really had to wait for this group of defeated soldiers and refugees to enter the city and then try to clean them out, it would only be half the result with half the effort.
Of course, General Xincai's orders were fast enough, but many defeated soldiers and refugees still rushed into the city before the city gates closed.
As for the remaining defeated soldiers and refugees, they can only follow Caishui towards
They rushed to other cities upstream and downstream.
Fortunately, Zeng Cheng's defenders entered Xincai City as expected.
With the arrival of the Zengcheng garrison, Xincai's garrison finally knew the reason for the loss of Zengcheng. While he was glad that he had issued the order to close the city gate in time, he immediately ordered the entire city to be raided, and the Qin army must be captured. All the female cadres were caught in one fell swoop.
While General Zengcheng was telling about the Battle of Zengcheng, the small group of defeated soldiers and refugees who entered the city had already spread the news throughout Xincai about the bravery of the Qin army in conquering "Zengcheng".
Involuntarily, the people and guards of Xincai panicked.
Immediately afterwards, the massive manhunt described by General Zeng Cheng only intensified the panic.
However, in just half an hour, Xincai, who had been peaceful for many years, suddenly became turbulent. At this time, General Zeng Cheng patted his butt and led the remaining soldiers to continue rushing to Chendu.
Looking at the Zengcheng guard who was gradually going away, Xincai's general also had mixed emotions.
On the one hand, he envied Zeng Cheng's guard for being able to escape here and return to Chendu; on the other hand, he also knew that what awaited Zeng Cheng's guard in Chendu was probably an endless prison.
Whether it was for Chen Du, Chu State, or his own life, General Xincai knew very well that he had to delay Xincai for enough time.
Of course, if the Qin army planned to bypass him, that would be the best thing. The cavalry and archers in his hands can create some difficulties for the Qin army crossing the river.
Immediately, Xincai's general sent out cavalry reconnaissance teams to the east and west sides.
The purpose is self-evident, which is to explore where the Qin army crossed the river upstream and downstream, and then mobilize troops and horses to block it.
However, God seemed to be joking with the general of Xincai. The cavalry reconnaissance team here had not been sent out for two hours, but the Qin army over there had already appeared at the southern end of Caishui!
"Is the Qin army going to attack Xincai?" The general of the Chu army was a little unsure.
However, soon, the Qin army's deep horn sound gave the Chu army the answer.
Seeing that the Qin army had just settled down, tens of thousands of troops had already been sent towards Xincai. The general of the Chu army finally knew how impatient the Qin army was.
The more impatient the Chu army is, the less likely it is that the Chu army will be able to give the Qin army any opportunity to take advantage of it.
Immediately, the general of the Chu army ordered the army to mount the city to defend.
The battle started in less than two quarters of an hour.
The most important thing for the Qin army is obviously to deal with the natural moat of Caishui. Specifically, it is to find a way to cross Caishui and put personnel and siege equipment under the tower.
If it were an ordinary moat, the Qin army could have cut it off by building embankments with lots of earth. Although it would cost a certain amount of troops, it would not be a big problem, especially since the Qin army still had a large number of cavalry, who came and went like the wind. , which can minimize the losses during the embankment construction process.
Once the dike was built, the passage to the tower was also formed.
But this Caishui is different. Although its water surface is gentle, it is very fast and complicated under the water. If a bag of sand is thrown down, it will be washed away by the flowing water in a short time. If you want to cut off a river, it is still under the eyes of the Chu army. Down there, it's almost impossible.
Another method is to build temporary bridges.
This method is obviously much inferior to building embankments with heavy soil. The first level requires soldiers with good water ability to swim across the river. The second level requires braving the rain of arrows and rolling logs from the tower to anchor the landmark; The third pass is the follow-up troops, who must continue to brave the rain of arrows on the tower and lay planks.
Even if these passes are passed one by one, the wooden bridge is still at risk of being destroyed by the Chu army on the tower.
Obviously, no army would take such an approach to attack unless it was absolutely necessary.
However, the Qin Army obviously has no better way now.
What, take a boat? !
This is a front that is wide or narrow. How many ships do you want the Qin army to prepare?
Even if you ignore the cost and cover the entire front
After setting up the boats, even ignoring the losses incurred during the crossing, we could ferry hundreds or even thousands of people to the gate tower at a time.
Then, the boat returned to the south shore, picked up hundreds of people, and rushed to the north shore.
This round of time was enough for the Chu army on the north bank to wipe out all the hundreds or thousands of people who had just arrived on the north bank. Without a continuous output of troops, this is not crossing the river, but giving away lives!
What, the Qin army anchoring the landmark will also be shot?
This is of course, but how small is the goal of one or two people? No matter how good the eyes of Chu Jun on your tower are, they can't find all of my people.
Of my ten groups of people, one or two groups can always succeed.
Out of my hundred groups of people, I can always succeed in one or twenty groups, right?
Even if all the anchoring personnel of this hundred groups were killed in battle, the loss would only be a few hundred people, and this would be the loss of just one trip by ship.
Similarly, the Qin army laying the bridge planks would also be shot and killed mercilessly, but this was already a very cost-effective method.
Again, although building a pontoon bridge is clumsy, it is the best way for the Qin army today.
Sure enough, what Wang Lu chose was also the method of building a floating bridge.
Of course, in order to reduce losses as much as possible, the Qin army luxuriously used dozens of arrow towers and catapults as cover.
This time, the trebuchet was no longer throwing bamboo slips. The solid projectiles drew a graceful arc in the air and hit the city of Xincai hard, even though they were beyond the dust and smoke. , there was not much damage, but the psychological impact on the Chu army soldiers and people in the city was huge, especially after they had just learned about the atrocities committed by the Qin army in Zengcheng.
Involuntarily, the soldiers and people in the city were already thinking of retreating.
Fortunately, the general of the Chu army sat calmly on the south tower supervising the battle.
At least, before Cai Shui was defeated by the Qin army, the Chu army general was still very confident that he could stop the Qin army.
However, this confidence really couldn't last long.
As dozens of arrow towers slowly rolled out from the Qin Army's camp, tens of thousands of Qin Army soldiers followed closely and attacked Xincai City.
The arrow tower may be the only siege equipment that is not interested in moats.
Although the moat widens the distance between the enemy and ourselves, as long as the enemy's arrows can cover the moat, the attacker's arrow tower will naturally pose a threat to the defenders on the tower.
Obviously, the width of Caishui is not enough to prevent the Qin army's arrow tower from suppressing the Chu army.
However, because Xincai City is located on the north slope, even if the Qin army has heightened the arrow tower on the original basis, it will still be shorter than the city wall, but this height is still enough for a strong bow and a hard crossbow. The Qin army suppressed the Chu army.
Sure enough, as the Qin army's arrow towers were in place, a fierce exchange of fire broke out between Qin and Chu.
The Chu State had the advantages of geographical location and numbers, while the Qin State had the advantages of weapons and personal abilities. For a while, the two armies were in a fight that was inseparable.
But it is obvious that the Qin army's dense positioning and successive climbs on the stairs meant that its casualties were much higher than those of the Chu army.
However, Wang Lu had already expected this.
Just as the two armies were firing crossbows...
