Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 126 The first warrior to climb the mountain is like a water ghost!
"Hey, that's my house!"

In Lujiang County, a middle-aged man with a goatee was looking at the smashed hat shop on the street and was immediately heartbroken.

Although his family is most likely fine, the shop is his family's livelihood. Without the shop, how will they live even if the rebels leave?
"Manager Li? Your shop was smashed? Why don't you go back and see if your family is okay?!" The neighbor who was guarding the wall couldn't help but exclaimed.

"Oh, you said that there was nothing wrong, but you had to rebel and fight a war. You are bringing disaster to innocent people, bringing disaster to innocent people!"

Shopkeeper Li slapped his thigh in pain while crouching behind the parapet. He wanted to go down from the top of the city wall to take a look, but he had not taken a few steps when a pair of thighs suddenly appeared in his sight. When he looked up, he saw a skirt and armor that was shining coldly.

"Go back! Anyone who leaves his post without permission will have his entire family killed!"

The man who came was also crouching, holding a shield in one hand and drawing a sword in the other, and gestured in front of Manager Li. It was the supervisory team sent by the defending general Cai Qingyuan.

Shopkeeper Li was hesitant to speak when he saw this, but looking at the steel knife in front of him, he finally suppressed his resentment and turned back to his original duty place.

This scene immediately made the defenders on the surrounding city walls feel resentful, but they dared not speak out.

Since the defending general Cai Qingyuan and the county magistrate Wang Xiaocheng were both timid and feared that spies from the Shengwu Army had infiltrated the city, they did not dare to let civilians outside the city enter. However, there were not enough defenders in the city, so they had to forcibly recruit soldiers from the residents inside the city. As a result, most of the soldiers defending the city were residents of the city.

In fact, they were not that averse to the Shengwu Army in Luzhou. After all, Luzhou had been occupied for several months. They had only heard that they had reduced taxes, used work instead of relief and carried out large-scale construction projects, but had never heard of any massacre. So what did it matter who occupied the city?
Anyway, no matter who rules, they are just ordinary people. Could Marshal Lu be worse than the Mongols and Semites?
But now Cai Qingyuan from Anqing forced them to come up to defend the city. Isn't this an unexpected disaster? Everyone would be happy if they surrendered directly, but now they have to defend the city, which will result in deaths and destruction of houses.

Cai Qingyuan, you are so powerful, why don't you go to the city to form a battle line and fight the rebels head-on? !

To the north of Lujiang City, there are six large trebuchets, all of which are gravity catapults, a technology brought back by Mongolia from Central Asia. They are not the human-powered catapults of the Song Dynasty that relied on dozens of people to pull them. However, when they were actually used at this time, the effect was horrific.

Of course, it is also possible that these people do not understand ballistics and have not received special training. The specifications and weights of the stone bullets are not uniform and there is no pattern at all. It is purely a matter of luck as to where they can hit.

Stone bullets hit the city one after another. Most of them flew over the top of the city wall and hit the city. A few that hit the city wall did not cause any harm. At least dozens of stone bullets were thrown over, so don't expect to be able to collapse the rammed earth wall that was several meters thick.

On a wooden watchtower in the north of the city, Lu Jin was holding a telescope, with Liao Yongan beside him. The two men watched for a while and fired dozens of shots, but not a single one hit the women's wall or the top of the city wall. Lu Jin was speechless and could not help frowning.

"This fennel cannon is not very useful. It has no accuracy at all. Look at the smoke coming out of the city wall. The enemy must be boiling oil or gold juice. This thing must be destroyed first before the soldiers can attack the city like ants.

"Ordinary arrows can be resisted with shields and armor, but this gold juice and boiling oil are really unstoppable. They will flow into the clothes through the armor leaves. If we don't knock them out first, we will have to pay with our lives. We have too many new soldiers. We must not use them to fight this kind of battle. Otherwise, we might not be able to capture the city before our new soldiers are defeated."

Liao Yongan also frowned and looked through the telescope. He found that the defenders in the city were still carrying buckets to transport water and firewood to the city. Smoke was coming out of the three walls. It was obvious that a lot of boiling oil and gold juice were prepared on the city.

Liao Yongan had no choice but to say.

"Then we can only build arrow towers to suppress the city walls and see if we can destroy their gold juice. But we should try the fennel cannon a few more times first. Otherwise, when our own arrow towers are built, the fennel cannon will be useless and it will be easy to hit our own people."

Lu Jin nodded and tried to speak as little as possible so as not to affect Liao Yongan's judgment. It was also his first time to observe such a battle of storming a city, so he came with the intention of learning.

A long bamboo tube with bamboo joints opened was hung on the watchtower. Liao Yongan would knock on it and issue orders into the tube. The messenger below would then receive the message and save himself from running up and down.

A moment later, a messenger rode a fast horse to the catapult position. The commander here was Guo Zixing's brother-in-law Zhang Tianyou. He had only been in the company for a few days and his subordinates were all new recruits, so he did not receive the task of the main attack and was responsible for operating the catapult in the back.

"The commander-in-chief has ordered that we should not smash the ball too high. We should smash it towards the top of the city wall. Whoever can smash the ball into the top of the city wall will be rewarded with a commendation."

"Yes, I got it. Listen up, brothers. Aim carefully before shooting. Everyone who hits the top of the city wall will be rewarded. If there is any reward from above, we won't take a penny. We will share it all with the brothers. Everyone, work hard for me."

"okay."

"Just wait and see, Officer Zhang."

A group of recruits suddenly shouted with excitement.

Zhang Tianyou originally thought that he had no chance of making any merit by throwing stones from the back, but now, he didn't expect that he could also make any merit by managing the catapult.

Anyway, his family was rich, so he didn't care about the reward. Merit was more important to him. Every thousand-man army in Liao Yongan's Third Regiment had military merits and were the main force of the Shengwu Army. He felt that he would not be able to stand firm if he did not have any merits when assigned to such a regiment. Therefore, he performed very hard in this first battle.

Boom—Boom—

More than a dozen stone bullets came flying. Under the deliberate control of the catapult, the stones flew lower and lower. Five or six of them hit the upper half of the city wall directly. The vibration caused by the stones hitting the city wall made the defenders on the city wall panic-stricken.

One of the stone bullets even flew past the parapet and hit a soldier of the supervising team. The soldier was instantly knocked flying to the bottom of the city, where he fell to the ground in a bloody mess. The defenders were terrified by the sight.

Boom——

Finally, a stone bullet hit the top of the city wall. Although it did not hit the cauldron, it hit the battering ram prepared on the top of the city wall. Stones flew everywhere on the city wall. One stone hit a defender on the back. The man knocked over the oil pan in pain. The boiling oil pan was overturned, instantly scalding five or six defenders around him.

The boiling point of oil is much higher than that of water. If you get scalded, blisters will appear in an instant. If you take off your clothes, a layer of skin may be peeled off at the same time. It is extremely cruel. Large-area skin burns were almost impossible to heal in ancient times.

"Great job, the carriage is moving forward!"

On the watchtower in the north of the city, Liao Yongan saw this scene and couldn't help but pump his fist excitedly. He immediately ordered the carriage to start moving forward.

On the top of Lujiang City, the flying stone attack was still going on. Perhaps because they had gained experience, the accuracy of the stone attacks was getting higher and higher. Two more stone bullets hit the top of the city one after another, knocking over two iron pots that were boiling gold juice. The defenders on the city were so frightened that they dodged in a hurry and even felt that they were no longer safe behind the parapet.

"Go back, everyone, go back and defend the city. Whoever dares to leave the city wall will have his entire family punished. Anyone who retreats will be killed!"

The supervisory team was guarding the stairs behind the city wall. From this position, they were not afraid of being hit by stones, but the defenders on the city wall were even more resentful. They could only be forced to return to the top of the city wall, endure the stench of gold juice, and lie behind a seemingly solid parapet to avoid flying stones.

"What should I do? It seems to have hit my house just now. I don't know how my family is doing."

A man lay on the top of the city wall and whispered to his neighbor.

The neighbor held his head and looked around. Seeing that there was no supervision team nearby, he whispered.

"It is important to save our own lives first. If the Red Turbans outside the city really attack us, we will surrender."

"Surrender?" The man said in surprise, "What if the rebels massacre the city?" "Damn it, you really believed Cai Qingyuan's lies. Chao County and Wuwei are right next to us. Wouldn't they be living well if they surrendered the city? Why did they come to our Lujiang to massacre the city? Those are all lies that Cai Qingyuan told us!

"I've long disliked Cai Qingyuan. He's not from Lujiang. If he wants to earn military merit, why doesn't he go to his hometown to earn it? Why did he come to Lujiang to fight? He's locked up and not allowed to leave the city every day. My family can barely afford firewood and rice. If we continue to fight, we'll starve to death in the city before the rebels massacre us."

"Okay, I'll listen to you."

At this moment, the continuous flying stone attacks suddenly stopped. After a long time, there was no more flying stones. The defenders on the city wall relaxed their spirits. Someone bravely looked down at the city and found that the rebels were pushing carts towards the city wall. The real siege was about to begin.

Cai Qingyuan had been hiding on the stairs behind the wall. When he found that the rebels had stopped throwing stones, he immediately ran up to show off his power and cheer up the defenders.

This guy was wearing iron armor and was protected by several shield soldiers. He walked and shouted loudly.

"Don't be afraid, everyone. I have sent people to Tongcheng to call for reinforcements. We only need to hold out for three days and reinforcements will surely come to rescue us. By then, the rebels under the city will naturally retreat.

"Don't think that they are throwing stones fiercely, but they can only throw stones. There is a moat outside the city. It will take the rebels at least a few days to fill up the moat. There is no need to panic.

"Hurry up and clean this up. Fetch two stones of soil and put the oil on the ground. Otherwise, it will be slippery when you walk."

After these words were spoken, the morale of the defenders on the city wall was restored a little, but Liao Yongan would not be stupid enough to actually fill up the moat.

Where did the Shengwu Army come from? They came from the Chaohu Navy, so they have plenty of boats! Don’t I know how to build a floating bridge?

Sure enough, someone with sharp eyes shouted immediately.

"Look, the rebels are trying to build a bridge!"

Upon hearing this, Cai Qingyuan quickly stretched his head to look, and saw rows of carriages under the city with cloth curtains hung on both sides. They swayed as they moved, like butterflies with their wings spread out. However, the carriages stopped when they reached the edge of the moat, and then people began to build bamboo houses behind the carriages with bamboo poles.

That's not a floating bridge, it's clearly an arrow tower!
"The enemy soldiers are setting up the arrow tower. Shoot arrows and fire rockets quickly. We must not let them set up the arrow tower!" Cai Qingyuan certainly knew how powerful the arrow tower was, so he immediately gave the order to the soldiers.

As soon as the order was given, more than two hundred archers on the city wall began to shoot arrows at the chariot.

However, the Shengwu Army was not stupid. Liao Yongan had made preparations in advance. The materials for building the arrow tower were all prefabricated, consisting of long and short bamboo ladders.

First, make a long bamboo ladder with bamboo poles in advance, and then tie three bamboo ladders together side by side to form a triangular truss column. Then use short bamboo ladders to string together and tie up the nine columns, and the foundation of a watchtower-style bamboo house is laid.

Then they kept tying bamboo ladders on top as a skeleton, and hung bamboo curtains made of thick bamboo boards on the front and left and right sides to block arrows. In just over ten minutes, one arrow tower after another rose from the ground.

The rammed earth city wall of Lujiang County is only five meters high, and including the parapet it is less than seven meters. However, the bamboo house built by Liao Yongan is ten meters high, which is half a meter higher than the city wall!

The archers in the rear came directly to the bottom of the arrow tower under the cover of the chariot, climbed up to the top of the arrow tower along the ladder, and began to shoot arrows at the top of the city wall to suppress the enemy with a moat between the two sides.

Although they were the attacking party, they forced the defenders on the city wall to experience the disadvantage of attacking from a low position against a high one.

Cai Qingyuan no longer dared to be arrogant, and quickly retreated to the stairs behind the city wall under the protection of several shieldmen.

The arrow tower outside the city was very well designed, with a parapet made of shields and thick bamboo strips. The platform above was made of a scaffolding made of wooden boards and bamboo strips, and it was no problem for it to carry a dozen people.

Outside the entire northern city wall, there are a total of thirty arrow towers, and there are ten archers on each arrow tower. They are divided into two groups and take turns shooting arrows at the city. There is also a person holding a small flag to send signals, and another person pulling a rope to hang arrows on the arrow tower.

Hundreds of archers fired at the city from top to bottom, but after only a few rounds, no one on the top of the city dared to stand up and shoot back at the arrow tower.

Seeing that the city wall had been suppressed, a signalman immediately waved the flag, and the engineering echelon behind him moved forward again from outside the range of the arrows on the city wall.

Several large shieldmen in front held up shields for protection, and behind them were small boats carried by teams of twenty people. The famous scene of Lu Jin's land-based boat sailing when he attacked Luzhou was staged again, but this time the boats were not used to climb the city wall, but to build a floating bridge.

Bang——Bang——

Small wooden boats were thrown into the water, causing huge splashes. After the wooden boats filled the moat, which was not wide to begin with, people immediately piled wooden boards on top.

In a short time, a pontoon bridge was built, and immediately a team of soldiers pushed a cart across the river. However, they did not go down to the city, but went around and cut the ropes of the suspension bridge. With a loud bang, the suspension bridge at the north gate was also lowered.

With this sturdy wooden suspension bridge, heavy engineering machinery such as ladders can approach the city wall. Otherwise, the only option is to fill up the moat. Ordinary floating bridges will definitely not be able to pass the heavy ladders.

On the observation tower in the north of the city, Lu Jin watched the auxiliary barracks of the Third Regiment pushing a six-meter-high, six-wheeled ladder truck towards the city wall. The springboard on the ladder truck slammed onto the city wall with a bang, and the iron hook on the head of the springboard was firmly fastened into the rammed earth of the city wall. He finally breathed a sigh of relief.

I couldn't help but sigh in my heart.

"It was not easy to attack a city in ancient times. The moat is really disgusting."

Although it is just a small river and can hardly stop infantry, it can stop most heavy siege machinery.

As long as the attackers have no heavy machinery and only rely on infantry and ordinary ladders, it is actually relatively easy for the defenders to deal with them.

It seems that I need to study more about bridge-building technology in the future.

Cai Qingyuan poked his head out from the stairs behind the city wall, and saw that the gangplank of the ladder truck outside the city had already been placed on the top of the city wall, and he immediately shouted.

"Armored soldiers, come on, block it, set fire, and burn that ladder for me!"

However, before he could shout again, Yin Congdao from the Third Regiment, wearing two layers of heavy armor, holding a shield in one hand and a short spear in the other, rushed up from the ladder springboard with water dripping from his body.

This guy was afraid of being doused with hot oil by the defenders on the city wall, so in the middle of winter, he wet his clothes with warm water in advance, making his whole body look as if he had just been pulled out of the water. This could significantly reduce the risk of burns, but he was more likely to catch a cold in winter. However, in order to reduce casualties among the first to climb the city wall, he could not care less.

Behind Yin Congdao, there were more than a dozen brave warriors who were like water ghosts, with water dripping from their bodies. They were all wearing double-layer heavy armor and rushed up with short weapons such as maces, iron bone clubs, and short-handled halberds.

(End of this chapter)