At the Songshan front line, Luo Zhixue once again personally led a team to inspect the construction of defensive facilities ahead.
Since the last attack by the Ming army in Songshan, even though Fei Bingqing's troops were completely annihilated, Luo Zhixue did not dare to relax at all. After the battle, he continued to let the soldiers build the defense line of Songshan.
Not only were the defense facilities such as city walls in the Songshan Valley increased and strengthened, but checkpoints were also built at several other places at both ends of the valley where the terrain was relatively flat and could be surrounded by small groups of enemy troops.
After all, there are thousands of Ming troops behind Fei Bingqing's command.
Facing thousands of Ming troops, especially according to Fei Bingqing's explanation that there were about 200 to nearly 300 main soldiers among them, Luo Zhixue and other rebel leaders all relaxed.
If the preparation work is not sufficient, it will be in big trouble when the Ming army attacks.
"Now our wooden wall in the valley has been built to a height of five meters, and the bottom has been reinforced with soil and gravel." Wang Daqian walked beside Luo Zhixue and introduced the defense facilities in the valley to Luo Zhixue.
"Although our wooden wall is not as strong as a real city wall, as long as it is not bombarded by artillery, it is not a big problem to block people."
"We also built a total of six arrow towers, large and small. There are two in the valley and two more on the mountainside on both sides."
"Our artillery is deployed on the mountainside on the left, and branches are deployed to cover it for concealment."
"On the top of the mountain on both sides, we also have a low wall with checkpoints."
While Wang Daqian was introducing, he occasionally glanced at Luo Zhixue, trying to see something from Luo Zhixue's expression. However, Luo Zhixue's expression was always calm, making it difficult to tell whether Luo Zhixue was satisfied or dissatisfied.
This made Wang Daqian a little uneasy.
Wang Daqian was not from the frontier cavalry, nor was he an old thief who had taken refuge among the prisoners, nor was he even an ordinary mountain soldier recruited.
His previous identity actually had nothing to do with being a soldier. He was a plasterer and often helped people repair houses after escaping into the mountains.
After Luo Zhixue and others occupied Sanshui Village, they began to recruit various craftsmen in order to build camps in Sanshui Village and build defensive facilities such as walls in Sanshui Village.
It was at this stage that Wang Daqian was 'invited' to Sanshui Village by the rebels in Sanshui Village.
At first, Wang Daqian was just an ordinary plasterer, but he was considered a technician after all, and he worked hard. Later, he was valued by Luo Zhixue and became a small boss, mainly responsible for leading people to construct various buildings.
Before going out to fight in Songshan this time, Luo Zhixue also transferred some craftsmen, including Wang Daqian, to Songshan. He promoted Wang Daqian to be the person in charge of building various fortifications in Songshan, and gave Wang Daqian the title of temporary captain of the engineering team. .
Let him take some soldiers, a large number of prisoners of war, and young men recruited nearby to urgently build various fortifications and barracks.
Luo Zhixue told him personally that if he did a good job this time, he would be able to remove the word "temporary" and become the official captain of the engineering team.
Moreover, this engineering team is not under the baggage camp, but directly under the jurisdiction of Luo Zhixue.
In order to get rid of the word "temporary" above his head, Wang Daqian attached great importance to the construction of Songshan's fortifications.
After a period of emergency construction, the fortifications have taken initial shape.
What Luo Zhixue saw now was that a large number of trees on the mountainside on both sides of the canyon and valley had been cut down.
It is completely different from the dense forest before.
The reason why the surrounding trees were cut down was not only to use local materials to build fortifications and barracks, but also to improve the visibility of the valley and to clear a large open space to increase the difficulty of the enemy's attack.
Originally, this place was densely covered with woods. If the enemy was not afraid of trouble and approached directly through the mountains and forests, they would be able to get close to the city wall. However, it would be difficult for our archers to effectively attack enemies hiding in the woods with the woods as cover.
But if there is a large open space, and the enemy wants to take a detour and directly climb the mountainside to launch an attack, he will be exposed a few hundred meters away, and then be attacked by long-range coverage by our own archers and artillery.
With the help of temporarily felled trees and soil and stones dug on the spot, they raised the wooden walls in the valley to between four and five meters, and extended the wooden walls directly to the tops of the mountains on both sides.
On the periphery of the wooden wall, there is also a set of obstacles and barriers built mainly with redundant branches. Enemies can easily climb over these obstacles, but the role of these obstacles is not to really prevent the enemy from passing through, but purely to prevent enemies from getting through. In order to destroy the enemy's offensive formation, impact the speed, and then create opportunities for our own archers and other long-range troops to intensively kill the enemy.
Luo Zhixue carefully looked at the wooden walls, archery towers, and the horses and other defensive fortifications in front, and finally nodded slightly to Wang Daqian: "The engineering team has done a good job. You, the temporary captain, have been made regular. From now on, you will lead the engineering team well and continue to study and build matters."
After hearing Luo Zhixue's praise, Wang Daqian grinned: "Thank you, General!"
After Sun Chengli died, Luo Zhixue officially took over as the general and became the third general of this group of rebels. That's why Wang Daqian no longer called Luo Zhixue sir or military advisor, but directly called the general.
When Wang Daqian was first kidnapped into the den of thieves, he even wanted to escape.
But later, like other craftsmen who were forcibly invited, they gradually lost their thoughts on escaping.
Because they had good food and drink in Sanshui Village, and Luo Zhixue was also very kind to the craftsmen like them. After staying for a long time, they found that life in Sanshui Village was much better than life outside, at least they could have enough to eat.
Some of them who were promoted to be leaders and managers, such as Wang Daqian, who was promoted directly to be the captain of the engineering team, have long since lost their thoughts.
Now he is the captain of the engineering team. He is in charge of more than 20 craftsmen and apprentices in the engineering team. At the same time, he can also manage dozens or hundreds of prisoners of war and more than 200 young civilians recruited temporarily during construction. Except for the veterans and technical personnel who were willing to surrender anyway, the Ming army prisoners who were previously captured were all ordinary county warriors who were organized into prisoner-of-war camps and were temporarily assigned to the engineering team to manage the construction of fortifications and camps.
After all, he is still in charge of hundreds of people.
When he reaches this level, you ask him to leave the Baoxiang camp and go back to be an ordinary mountain man, farming on weekdays and occasionally working as a plasterer to build houses for others. He still won't be happy.
People, as the environment changes, their thoughts will also change.
Luo Zhixue continued to inspect the defense line, and later climbed to the top of the mountain for inspection, focusing on the layout of each arrow tower to see if it met the original design requirements.
Luo Zhixue's requirement for each archery tower is that the archery tower system must be able to effectively cover the entire front, including the front of the valley and the mountainside on both sides, without any blind spots.
And some key areas, that is, the front of the valley must be covered by arrows from at least four arrow towers, and cross fire can be formed between any two arrow towers at other locations.
As you can tell by the term crossfire, Luo Zhixue does not know how to use the tactics of contemporary cold weapon armies. His tactics are purely based on the deployment of later generations of firearms armies.
It was just a matter of adapting to local conditions and using bows and arrows instead of muskets.
As for artillery, this is even more true. Luo Zhixue directly deployed the artillery position on the mountainside on the left and made it secret.
Its effective range can just cover an open space directly in front of the valley.
This open space is also the easiest place for enemies to attack, and it is also the only place where heavy troops can be gathered to attack the valley.
Luo Zhixue waited for the incoming Ming army to deploy heavy troops to attack the front of the valley, and then used his own artillery deployed on the mountainside to cover it with artillery fire from above.
Well, the two-hundred-pound light artillery currently used is not very reliable. It would be better if it were replaced with a long-barreled artillery.
After your side has severely damaged the enemy with bows, arrows and artillery, and the infantry has held them back, you can then send out cavalry to kill them, pursue them, or attack their flanks.
This is also one of the reasons for clearing the large woods outside the valley in advance. In addition to broadening the field of vision and allowing archers and artillery to gain shooting range, the other purpose is to provide a sufficient open area for the cavalry to charge.
Let's see if there is a chance to send out cavalry to charge!
You must know that the most powerful force at hand for the Funiu Mountain Baoxiang Battalion is not infantry or artillery, but cavalry.
During the first Battle of Songshan, Luo Zhixue tried to have the cavalry attack to pursue the enemy's defeated troops. Although the effect was good, Luo Zhixue still found that the cavalry's combat in the valley was greatly restricted.
The cavalry at that time could actually only advance along roads and a small amount of relatively flat terrain without dense forests.
This situation could barely be used last time, but it's different now.
During the last ambush in Songshan, Luo Zhi's men only had seven elite cavalry and about twenty old thieves cavalry.
But now, Luo Zhixue succeeded Sun Chengcheng as the general of the Funiu Mountain Baoxiang Camp, and Wang Xiazi did not cause any trouble, so Luo Zhixue completely accepted the pro-army under Sun Chengcheng's command.
At the same time, Luo Zhixue also transferred the remaining four cavalry soldiers of Lin Dongsheng, Wang Dazhuang, and Xu He to the pro-army. At the same time, he combined his own cavalry troops with the pro-army to form a new cavalry post.
After the reorganization of the cavalry sentry, Wang Xiazi served as the sentry officer and An Yongduo served as the deputy sentry officer. The two men each concurrently served as the captain of a cavalry team.
The cavalry sentry now consists of three teams, each with thirty cavalry.
Among them, the additional cavalry were actually the old thieves' cavalry that were originally commanded by Ta Tianhu.
This sentry hundred knights are the most powerful combat power and the most important trump card of Luo Zhixue.
Therefore, Luo Zhixue also deliberately thought about how to use their combat power. In addition to using them as archers, he also sent people to cut down all the trees outside the valley, just to give them an open and flat area for fighting. terrain.
However, these are just Luo Zhixue's many preparations. After all, even if many trees are cut down and an open area is artificially created, it still depends on the situation whether the cavalry will be dispatched to charge or mount a shooting.
If there is no chance to dispatch at that time, it is also possible to use these cavalry as archers.
