Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 108: Siege Operation

Under the cover of night, Liang Lie and others groped their way around the city wall step by step.

They were looking for the sluice gates in the city wall.

If you want to blow up the city wall, it is definitely not enough to just pile up explosives on the edge of the wall.

The walls of Chuzhou City are all made of solid stones and bricks, and are extremely strong. Even modern artillery would find it difficult to destroy them easily, let alone gunpowder of this era.

Just think about it, if it was so easy to blow up the city wall, Fang Yong’s army of more than 100,000 would not have been stopped outside the city.

If you want to blow up the city wall, or to blow a gap in it, you need to find a "gapping" point in the city wall, preferably an enclosed hole, put the explosives inside and detonate them, so as to maximize the effect.

The sluice gate on the city wall is a good choice.

Liang Lie led his men to slowly circle the city wall, searching carefully.

Not long after, Liang Lie successfully found a drainage trough!

He ordered his men to take out the explosives they carried and were about to place them inside when suddenly, a sound was heard not far away.

Liang Lie hurriedly told his men to hide.

Everyone ducked their heads and hid in the surroundings. They were all wearing night clothes, so they just had to find a dimly lit spot and crouch down. It would be difficult to spot their tracks unless you got close and looked carefully.

This technique of hiding at night is very useful. On another distant continent, some races have even developed this technique into an innate instinct, allowing them to hide directly without the use of night clothes.

"Hiss, hiss, hiss."

The sound of wooden wheels rolling was heard.

Under the cover of night, some government troops carefully pushed carts of food and supplies inside.

Liang Lie's eyes widened.

What’s going on? Isn’t Chuzhou City surrounded? Why are there still food and supplies being transported in from outside?

Just as he was thinking about it, the alarm drums sounded in the city.

It turned out that the soldiers who were changing shifts discovered the bodies of the government troops killed by Liang Lie and others.

"An army of bandits is invading!"

The defenders in the city acted quickly, and a small group of soldiers happened to pass by.

Although concealment technology is good, there is still a great risk of exposure if the distance is too close.

Liang Lie and others saw that they could not escape, so instead of being discovered by the enemy, it was better to strike first!

Rows of crossbow arrows shot out, directly killing all the soldiers in this small group.

Taking advantage of the fact that there were no large numbers of government troops arriving at this time, Liang Lie and others quickly set up explosives.

Unfortunately, before Liang Lie and others could perfectly arrange the explosives, the government troops quickly attacked them.

Seeing this, Liang Lie had no choice but to detonate the explosives in advance.

With a loud bang, some cracks appeared on the city wall, but it was still a long way from collapse.

A large number of government troops surrounded and suppressed them.

Liang Lie left behind twenty men to cover the rear and order them to attract the attention of the government troops. As long as they could stop the government troops for a cup of tea, they could make their own decision afterwards.

Twenty people shot the government troops with crossbows. When the crossbows ran out of arrows, they used bows to engage them. Finally, the arrows in the bows were also used up, so they drew their swords and fought, killing enemies that were twice their number. In the end, nineteen out of the twenty people died in battle here.

Only one person was seriously injured and unconscious, and was rescued by the leader of the government troops.

The leader of the government troops was called Dong Qiang, who held the position of city gate officer. He was not a good person and was accustomed to bullying the good and fearing the evil. When he was a city gate officer, he would extort some money from the common people when they entered the city, even if they were old men in their seventies or eighties.

But even such people have their own ideas.

Dong Qiang's biggest characteristic is that he is afraid of death. When Feng Tai attacked Chuzhou, he led his brothers to work without putting in any effort, and he survived and was promoted because of this.

Now Fang Yong was attacking Chuzhou. Dong Qiang had heard of the reputation of the Huaiyin Army. He also heard that there was no reinforcement from the imperial court this time and even the governor had run away. It was very likely that Chuzhou would be in danger, so he was very worried about his future.

Just now, Dong Qiang was in charge of attacking the 20-man scout team of the Huaiyin Army. He did not dare to use force for fear of being accused of killing Huaiyin soldiers. If that were the case, wouldn't he be dead when the Huaiyin Army entered Chuzhou in the future?

But what was unexpected was that these Huaiyin soldiers were so stubborn. Dong Qiang almost asked them to surrender, but these people still shouted, "The Huaiyin soldiers will never surrender!" "You dog officials deserve to die!" "We are worthy of the general!" and rushed forward with swords drawn.

In the end, nineteen out of twenty people died.

Dong Qiang was about to cry, luckily there was only one seriously injured person left. Dong Qiang hurriedly changed the other person's clothes and carried him to the hospital for treatment overnight.

This man has now become his life-saving talisman. He has never treated his own father so well!
the other side,
Liang Lie led his men to climb over the city wall and escape.

It’s not that he was afraid of death, but Liang Lie knew that the scene he saw in the city was very important, and someone must go back alive to report this information to the general!

During the escape, the government troops caught up with them and shot and killed more than a dozen people with bows and arrows. In the end, only a dozen people from the team of fifty returned.

When Liang Lie was escaping from the city wall, his rope was cut by the government troops and he broke his arm.

But fortunately, I came back alive.

The first thing Liang Lie did after returning to the camp was to find Fang Yong to report what he had seen.

Fang Yong was furious when he learned about this and immediately launched an investigation.

According to Liang Lie, although it was not directly discovered where the government army's food was transported from, Liang Lie speculated that it was from the northwest based on the direction of the wheels of the grain carts.

Fang Yong immediately contacted Ma Laohei in the north, and both sides conducted searches at the same time.

If the government troops wanted to transport grain into the city from outside, there were only a few routes. The towns and villages outside were controlled by Fang Yong, so it was impossible for anyone to transport grain in openly.

Then the rest of the place is obvious.

They must have taken a mountain road. The forest is vast, and Fang Yong couldn't have sent people to guard every place, so the enemy must have taken a hidden path, and then quietly entered the city through the secret door at night and transported the food in.

"Search!"

At Fang Yong's command, the Huaiyin army began an intensive search in the mountains.

At the same time, the siege was still going on.

During the siege, four artillery carts were damaged by artillery fire from the city walls and could not be used.

But the artillery on the city was also damaged. Some of them exploded on their own, while others were destroyed by Fang Yong's dense artillery fire.

On Fang Yong's side, there are still sixteen artillery vehicles available.

The soldiers defending Chuzhou City suffered the same pain as the soldiers defending Yangzhou.

This cannon cart is so unsolvable!
It is like a steel turtle. Bows and crossbows cannot penetrate it, and fire has little effect. Although artillery can deform its outer iron shell, it cannot completely destroy it.

After some repairs, it can be used again.

On the other hand, the artillery on the city had no effective protection and its firepower was inferior to that of the enemy. It was quickly damaged in the close-range shooting.

The soldiers on the city walls could only defend themselves under the heavy bombardment of artillery vehicles, and their morale dropped severely.

The soldiers guarding the city sometimes don't understand.

The bandit’s artillery is more powerful than ours, their swords are sharper than ours, their armor is stronger than ours, and even their clothes are newer than ours. So who is the bandit after all?

On the sixteenth day of the battle, the two sides were locked in a stalemate, and it was obvious that the morale of the defenders was rapidly declining.

Faced with this situation, the prefect of Chuzhou sent people to prepare gifts worth thousands of taels of silver and a table of delicious food.

(End of this chapter)