Sheng Tang: What is Liu Jianjun going to do today?

Chapter 222 The Situation in the Domestic City and Liu Jianguo Playing in the Mud

"Guongukseong was once the capital of the Goguryeo Dynasty. It is located on the right bank of the middle reaches of the Yalu River, which serves as its natural moat. The city is backed by high mountains, forming an excellent defensive position of 'facing the water and backed by mountains.' This layout makes it difficult for the attackers to encircle the city from all sides, while the defenders can rely on the natural defenses of the mountains and rivers to effectively offset the enemy's numerical advantage."

"Moreover, Goryeo has deployed 20,000 troops in this city. Whether in terms of manpower or terrain, we cannot gain the slightest advantage!"

After Liu Jianjun brainwashed the eight hundred Thunder Guards, Li Xian went with him to Xue Ne's governor's mansion.

The purpose, of course, was to find out about the situation in the domestic city.

As for the domestic city, Xue Ne had absolutely no intention of making a move.

"It's too difficult. To do something knowing it's impossible is not courage, but foolishness," Xue Ne said.

Li Xian couldn't help but press further: "Even with a thunderbolt, it still won't work?"

Xue Ne's attitude toward Li Xian improved considerably, and he earnestly advised, "Liu Changshi said that the Thunderclap Bomb must be kept secret, so it is unlikely that it will be used on a large scale. As for the use of the Thunderclap Bomb on a small scale, given the terrain of the inner city that is surrounded by mountains and water, it will be almost useless."

Xue Ne walked behind him, unfolded a map, and pointed to the place marked in vermilion on the map, saying, "Your Highness, please look, this is the National City. Its relationship with the Yalu River is a perfect example of making the best use of its geographical advantages."

His finger traced the winding Yalu River: "This section of the river is turbulent and the banks are steep, making it difficult for a large army to cross, let alone build a pontoon bridge. This is the first natural barrier, which prevents our army from launching a large-scale attack from the west and south."

Then, his finger moved to the mountains in the north and east of the city, which were outlined in thick ink: "Look here, the mountains are steep and continuous, and the forests are dense, making it extremely difficult for the army to move and even more difficult to transport supplies."

"The Koreans built their city on the mountainside, with the city walls connected to the mountain ridge, giving them an absolute height advantage. If our army were to attack from these two sides, it would be like throwing an egg against a rock. The defenders could easily inflict heavy casualties simply by rolling logs and stones."

"Most importantly, the terrain was so dangerous that it far exceeded the range of small or even large catapults. Our army was able to capture Wugu City with the help of the Thunderclap Bomb because our catapults could launch the Thunderclap Bomb onto the walls of Wugu City."

“But it’s impossible to do in a domestic city.” Xue Ne shook his head with regret.

At this moment, Liu Jianjun suddenly pointed to the east on the map and asked, "What if we attack from here?"

Li Xianshun looked over and saw that it was a flat area.

Xue Ne shook his head again: "The terrain to the east is indeed relatively flat, but it must be the most heavily fortified area. Even with the help of the thunderbolts, our army of more than 4,000 people will probably have difficulty shaking the defense line built by the 20,000 defenders who rely on the fortified city."

"Moreover... the large-scale use of the Thunderclap Bomb would be too noisy and would inevitably expose such a divine object. If the court were to investigate its origin, how would Your Highness and Chief Secretary Liu conduct themselves?"

When Li Xian heard Xue Ne say this, his brows furrowed tightly.

He only knew that the city was difficult to attack, but he did not expect its terrain to be so troublesome that even the Thunderclap Bomb could not do anything to it.

He couldn't help but lament, "If only there were more soldiers in Yingzhou City!"

If there were also 20,000 soldiers in Yingzhou City, they could directly surround the east side of the city with a large army, and use thunderbolts to blast it, and the city would definitely be breached.

Unfortunately, there were fewer than 5,000 soldiers in Yingzhou City.

Upon hearing Li Xian's words, Xue Ne chuckled and said, "Your Highness's words are a bit naive. Let alone whether Yingzhou City can support so many soldiers, even if it could, it cannot all be stationed in Yingzhou City."

"Goryeo is a small country, and it only needs to defend the important city of Yeongju, so it doesn't matter if the whole country has to defend it."

"But our Great Tang Dynasty is vast and rich in resources, with borders stretching for hundreds of millions of miles. We can't afford to wage war over such a small country as Goryeo, can we?"

Li Xian smiled sheepishly.

Indeed, his idea was too naive. An army needs financial resources to maintain. Even if the Tang Dynasty had so much financial resources, it would need to allocate them reasonably along its vast borders. It was unlikely that it would go to great lengths for a mere domestic city.

not to mention……

Wu Zetian is still undertaking large-scale construction projects everywhere, building gardens and temples, which is greatly depleting the national treasury's resources.

Li Xian couldn't help but purse his lips.

Sometimes the saddest thing is not that you can't do it, but that you can do it, but for various reasons you can't.

But then Liu Jianjun spoke up again. Pointing to the Yalu River, which Xue Ne had initially rejected on the map, he asked, "General Xue, how wide is the Yalu River?"

Upon hearing this, Xue Ne was taken aback at first, then chuckled and said, "Does Chief Secretary Liu intend to use catapults to launch thunderbolts into the city from the left bank?"

Liu Jianjun frowned and nodded.

Xue Ne smiled and shook his head: "This plan will not work. The river is about 120 zhang wide in this section and about 100 zhang narrow in the other section. Even the largest catapults of our army will have a hard time going more than 180 zhang."

"One hundred and eighty steps, that's about three hundred meters..." Li Xian heard Liu Jianjun muttering to himself and asked curiously, "What meters?"

"No."

Liu Jianjun shook his head and asked again, "Then... what can attack the other side?"

“The Eight-Ox Crossbow,” Xue Ne replied affirmatively. “There is only one of its kind, and the bolts must be fired from an upward angle. While this method can threaten the exposed defenders on the city walls, it has limited effect on the sturdy walls and towers. As far as siege warfare is concerned, it has little practical significance.”

Li Xian couldn't help but interject, "That will be a thunderbolt..."

Before he could finish speaking, Li Xian shut his mouth in embarrassment.

Li Xian had seen Liu Jianjun's thunderbolts. Not to mention the spherical thunderbolts that were almost the size of a human head, even the thunderbolts that the Thunder Guard used for individual throwing were quite large and heavy.

If you tie it to a crossbow bolt, can that bolt still shoot that far?

Seeing that Li Xian had stopped talking, Xue Ne probably knew that Li Xian had figured things out on his own, so he smiled kindly and didn't say anything more.

"Could it be... that the city is truly impregnable..." Li Xian looked at Liu Jianjun with some worry.

Without the great achievement of capturing the domestic city, Liu Jianjun's plan would have to be shelved, and he would have to find other merits to replace it.

"Have!"

Xue Ne suddenly spoke up at this moment, laughing: "In the first year of Longshuo, the late emperor ordered Qibi Heli to attack Goguryeo. At that time, it was cold and the river was frozen, so our army was able to drive straight in and attack the city of Goguryeo."

“The first year of Longshuo…” Li Xian couldn’t help but murmur.

That was when my father was still alive.

Back then, the Tang Dynasty was invincible, all nations paid tribute to it, and it was still called the Tang Dynasty.

He looked at Xue Ne, only to find a hint of longing and nostalgia in Xue Ne's eyes.

But then Xue Ne shook his head and said with a wry smile, "But the Goguryeo army at that time was a remnant force. The garrison in the city was less than half of what it is now, and their morale was low, which is why they were able to win. To replicate that now... it's difficult! Difficult! Difficult!"

Xue Ne said "difficult" three times in a row.

Li Xian also fell silent.

The problem has returned to its original point—the troops in Yingzhou City are insufficient. Even if the Yalu River freezes, the less than 5,000 troops in Yingzhou City cannot capture the city with 20,000 defenders.

"What if we set up the catapult on the ice?" Liu Jianjun suddenly asked.

Upon hearing this, Li Xian's eyes lit up.

Since catapults can't get through, how about using a closer weapon?

“No.” Xue Ne shook his head again, dashing Li Xian’s hopes, and said, “Although the Yalu River freezes in winter, the ice is no more than a foot thick. It’s fine for horses to walk on and people to cross, but if it’s any thicker, there is a risk of the ice breaking.”

The glimmer of hope in Li Xian and Liu Jianjun's eyes was quickly extinguished.

……

When Liu Jianjun left Xue Ne's governor's mansion, his expression was unusually downcast.

Li Xian asked with concern, "If it really doesn't work..."

"No way!" Liu Jianjun suddenly interrupted Li Xian, saying angrily, "I just don't believe it! It's only a hundred zhang! I'll go back and get a big one!"

Li Xian chuckled and asked, "What big guy?"

"You come with me!"

Liu Jianjun grabbed Li Xian's arm and headed towards the camp where the Thunder Guard was located.

……

When they returned to the Thunder Guard's camp, the eight hundred Thunder Guards were already training on their own. Liu Jianjun called over a man who appeared to be the leader and asked, "Where is Military Advisor Wang?"

"Reporting to Chief Clerk Liu, Military Advisor Wang has gone to the cotton mill. The Bailang River is about to freeze, so he went to arrange for the craftsmen there to take a break." Liu Jianjun nodded, did not ask any more questions about Wang Bo, and instructed, "Go to my barracks, bring over that vermilion box, and then go to the reservoir to find me."

The man who appeared to be the leader responded with a "Yes, sir," and headed towards Liu Jianjun's barracks.

Liu Jianjun then led Li Xian toward the reservoir on the south side of the camp.

A water channel was dug from Bailang River to supply water to the entire Thunder Guard. Liu Jianjun had the person guarding the reservoir bring over a log that was as thick as a person's arm, and then squatted down to wait.

A short while later, the man who appeared to be the leader came over carrying a vermilion box.

Liu Jianjun told him to put the box down, then waved him away.

Li Xian looked at the box curiously, and Liu Jianjun didn't hesitate and opened it directly.

Li Xian immediately spotted the familiar axe, chisel, saw, and hammer—tools commonly used by Tang Dynasty carpenters.

But many of the tools were unfamiliar to Li Xian.

He saw a wooden ruler with delicate metal calipers, quite different from the rulers or tape measures commonly seen today. The calipers could slide, and it seemed to be used to measure the thickness and inner diameter of objects.

"This is called a vernier caliper. It is said that our ancestors in the Han Dynasty already had this thing," Liu Jianjun explained casually, grabbing a few oddly shaped planes.

Li Xian's gaze was drawn to it once again.

These are not the usual flat planers, but rather have a curved wooden handle and a more compact planer body. One of them, in particular, has an extremely tricky angle for the planer blade, and next to it are several replacement planer blades of different shapes, some slightly curved and some shaped like bird tongues.

"What kind of plane is this?" Li Xian couldn't help but pick up the one with the curved handle; it felt quite heavy in his hand.

"This is called a curve plane, which is specially used to plane curved surfaces. The one next to it is a line plane, which can cut out all kinds of beautiful decorative lines." As Liu Jianjun spoke, he took out two more tools from the bottom of the box that puzzled Li Xian even more.

One of them is a strange T-shaped object, with a wooden horizontal bar and a fine iron vertical bar with a sharp tip and fine markings on it.

The other item was an iron tool with curved, sharp teeth on both sides, shaped like an open crab claw, but not a pincer.

Before Li Xian could ask any further questions, Liu Jianjun spoke first, holding up the crab claw-like tool and saying, "Alright, stop asking. It's all just carpentry stuff. I prefer doing some science and engineering work to reciting poetry!"

Li Xian rolled his eyes and said, "What kind of STEM work?"

"Just look at it!" Liu Jianjun didn't explain any further. He picked up the wooden ruler with calipers and measured it on the rough wood a few times, then drew a few straight lines with a charcoal stick.

Then, he picked up a handsaw and began sawing along the line.

The saw blade moved somewhat sluggishly, occasionally deviating from the drawn ink lines, and sawdust flew everywhere.

It was clear that Liu Jianjun didn't do these things often; the broken edges were uneven. He repaired them for a while before finally fixing them neatly.

He put down the saw and picked up the oddly shaped curved plane again. Sometimes he sawed off a thick layer, and sometimes he just scraped the surface, leaving shallow marks. Li Xian saw fine beads of sweat gradually seeping from his forehead.

Then, Liu Jianjun picked up the T-shaped ruler, positioned it on the wood, and began to chisel out mortises.

The force and angle of the chisel seemed wrong; several times the chisel went astray or chipped off a small piece from the edge of the mortise.

He frowned, changed several chisels of different sizes, and then used the crab claw-shaped bow drill to drill a hole in another piece of wood. The drill bit did not turn smoothly and made a "squeaking" friction sound.

He worked for nearly an hour, leaving behind a pile of irregularly shaped wood shavings and wood chips on the ground.

Several pieces of wood that he had processed were finally pieced together and barely secured with ropes and makeshift wooden wedges to form a strangely shaped support structure. A slightly longer wooden stick in the middle acted as a lever, with a stone hanging from one end and nothing at the other.

Liu Jianjun tried to gently turn the lever, but it just wobbled clumsily a few times, making a "creaking" sound, and seemed to have no effect.

He stared at the strangely shaped model, his brows furrowed, his lips pressed into a straight line, and remained silent for a long time.

Finally, somewhat annoyed, he threw down the gleaming chisel in his hand, which landed on the ground with a dull thud.

"What's wrong?" Li Xian asked curiously.

“No!” Liu Jianjun shook his head. “My idea is to make a more powerful catapult model. I know the principle of leverage, but when it comes to practical application, I find it a bit difficult.”

"Difficult to handle? What makes it difficult?" Li Xian pressed.

"If I had known, wouldn't the problem have been solved?" Liu Jianjun rolled his eyes at him.

Li Xian was furious and said angrily, "You talk as if you can solve the problem just by knowing where it is!"

"Hey! I really did..." Liu Jianjun hadn't finished speaking when his gaze suddenly fell on the muddy ground next to the reservoir.

Li Xian followed his gaze with a puzzled look.

This place is a field.

This reservoir was not dug as a backflow reservoir, so during the White Wolf flood season, the water would overflow the reservoir's dam. To prevent this from happening, Liu Jianjun had a shallow ditch dug next to the reservoir. If the water in the reservoir exceeded the level of the shallow ditch, it would flow out along the ditch.

Liu Jianjun didn't intend to waste the water; he leased all the land around the camp and planted some vegetables and grains.

And the direction he was looking at at that moment was that shallow ditch.

"Did you hear anything?" Liu Jianjun asked.

"what sound?"

"It looks like Er Gou..." Liu Jianjun frowned and walked towards the ditch.

Li Xian followed curiously.

Before long, the two arrived at the edge of the reservoir.

It really was Liu Jianguo.

Liu Jianguo was seen working hard to build a low dam with wet mud and stones, blocking a small stream of water in the canal. The water level upstream of the dam slowly rose, forming a small puddle.

Downstream from the canal, there are several similar dams.

Liu Jianguo seemed unaware of the two men's arrival. When the upstream dam had filled up with water, he shouted excitedly and suddenly pried open a corner of the dam. The accumulated mud and water rushed out instantly, and the stored water rushed towards the downstream dam. In just a few breaths, it destroyed the first downstream dam.

Then came the second, the third...

Then, Liu Jianguo saw Liu Jianjun and Li Xian standing by the reservoir. His pupils suddenly contracted, and he abruptly stood up, rubbing the mud off his hands against his backside. He blurted out in a panic, "Brother Gou'er... Uncle Mutou..."

After saying that, as if realizing something, he quickly changed his address: "Your Highness Prince Pei!"

Li Xian couldn't help but find it somewhat amusing.

Although Liu Jianguo's mud-playing was a bit childish, he was only a child in his early teens, and Liu Jianjun was busy all day long. It was normal for him to play some games to pass the time in Yingzhou City, a place he didn't know.

Moreover, compared to the cockfighting and dog racing of other noble children, Liu Jianguo was just playing in the mud. What big deal was that?
So Li Xian said with a smile, "You've smeared mud all over your butt. If your mother finds out, she'll beat and scold you again!"

Liu Jianguo waved his hands frantically: "No, Your Highness Prince Pei...you, you've mistaken me, I...I wasn't playing with mud..."

He blushed as he said this, and even stole a glance at Liu Jianjun.

Clearly, Liu Jianjun had given him some instructions.

Li Xian couldn't help but look at Liu Jianjun with amusement, only to find Liu Jianjun frowning and staring blankly at the dam that had been breached by the water.

"Liu Jianjun?" Li Xian couldn't help but ask.

"Shh, don't talk!"

Liu Jianjun frowned and interrupted Li Xian, then jumped into the ditch, ignoring the cold muddy water, and quickly built a dam with his bare hands.

Then, he stared blankly at the dam.

The water in front of the dam is accumulating more and more.

Suddenly, he climbed out of the ditch and pulled up Li Xian, who was still not fully reacting: "Xianzi! Let's go! We'll go back to find General Xue! I have a plan!"

Li Xian was taken aback, then exclaimed, "Your hands! They're dirty! Covered in mud!"

……

(End of this chapter)