On the second day of the fifth month of the fifth year of Shaoding, outside the city of Caizhou. Nearly 40,000 Song troops surrounded www.biquge.info outside Caizhou City, gathered nearly 100 artillery pieces of all kinds, and were constantly spitting firelight, and the sound of cannons almost suppressed the earth-shattering shouts of the two armies, and the air was filled with the smell of gunsmoke.

Clouds of smoke are rising on the city wall all the time, and the scene of gray stones flying everywhere abounds, and the Song army carrying the ladder continues to rush towards the city wall, and there are many Song army ants attached to the ladder and are climbing upward.

However, the Jin army in the city was extremely resolute in resisting the city, constantly sending arrows, throwing stones, and pouring boiling water into the city...... The entire Caizhou City was already in flames, and the two armies were already red-eyed by this time.

Meng Heng quietly stopped under the banner of the Chinese army in the west of the city, and observed the situation of the enemy army in Caizhou City with a telescope from time to time, his face looked a little unsightly, his lips were tightly pursed, and his beautiful hair was also fluttering on the bright light armor on his chest with the breeze.

Since the Song army launched the Northern Expedition, this was the most stubborn resistance suffered by the Song army, after Meng Heng was ordered to seize Gwangju, he gathered the loyal army of Tangzhou, and the two armies combined to attack the city of Caizhou.

But they did not think that they encountered the stubborn resistance of the Jin army in Caizhou City, and on April 20 the Song army arrived outside Caizhou City, first persuaded to surrender to no avail, and then on April 23 Meng Heng began to organize the siege of the city, and now it has been nearly ten days have passed, and the Song army has not been able to take Caizhou City.

On April 29, Meng Hui received Gao Huaiyuan's order to capture Caizhou City within ten days, Meng Hui was a little sullen and determined to conquer Caizhou City as soon as possible before Gao Huaiyuan's deadline. The reason why this attack on Caizhou did not go smoothly was not caused by Meng Heng's lack of command and the refusal of the soldiers to use their lives, but that Caizhou City is now the strongest city in the Central Plains, and the strength of the city even exceeds that of Bianliang City.

And the reason is that it is still in the main general of Caizhou City, some time ago, after Wanyan Shouxu judged that the Song army was about to use troops against the Jin State, he immediately transferred the famous general of the Jin State to Caizhou, and transferred nearly 7,000 elites from the front line of Tongguan to Cai Shu, and ordered Wanyan Zhongde to lead the affairs of the southern marshal's mansion and hold Caizhou to resist the Song army going north.

Wanyan Zhongde's original name was Hu Xianhu, able to write and martial arts, in the early years in Hebei and the Mongolian army, but was captured by the Mongolian army, and then actually managed to escape from the hands of the Mongols, and also snare nearly 10,000 people in Hebei to cross the river and flee back to Henan, was valued by Wanyan Shouxu and awarded a heavy responsibility, so this guy is also a strange person. . .

In the early years, he was ordered to guard Gongchang Mansion, and had fought with the Mongolian army many times, but there were few defeats, and later because the Yellow River was critical, he was transferred back to the Central Plains, responsible for the Yellow River line, in recent years, the Mongolian army attacked the Yellow River many times, and was repelled by Wanyan Zhongde many times.

Over the years, the number of famous generals in the Jin State is really limited, and Wanyan Zhongde is the pillar that the Jin State can rely on to play the role of a firefighter, where there is danger, he will be transferred to where, as a result, the Song Army Northern Expedition, Wanyan Shouxu remembered Wanyan Zhongde again, and as a result, Wanyan Zhongde was sent to Caizhou, and the commander-in-chief of the South Road anti-Song plan...

Wanyan Shouxu pinned his hopes on Wanyan Zhongde, hoping that Wanyan Zhongde could turn the tide and danger for him, as long as Wanyan Zhongde held Caizhou, the fortune of the Jin Kingdom may continue for a while. Wanyan Zhongde did not live up to Wanyan Shouxu, at the end of March was ordered to rush to Caizhou City, during this time he led the army to strengthen the defense of Caizhou City, making Caizhou a little impregnable, and also gathered a lot of Jin soldiers who retreated from the southern front, and recruited a lot of local people to enrich the troops.

When Meng Hui led the army to Caizhou City, Wanyan Zhongde had already gathered nearly 20,000 Jin troops and managed Caizhou City into an extremely difficult fortified city.

And what Meng Heng and the soldiers under his command did not expect was that Wanyan Zhongde still had considerable demagogic power, and the soldiers and civilians in Caizhou City who were encouraged to work together to resist the attack of the Song army to the death.

When Meng Hui led the army to Caizhou, Wanyan Zhongde actually personally led the army out of the city to attack the Song army once, fortunately, Meng Heng was prepared and led the army to repel Wanyan Zhongde, but in front of the superior forces of the Song army, the Jin army actually advanced and retreated under the command of Wanyan Zhongde, and was not defeated by the Song army.

However, it was no longer strange that they learned from a small number of captives that Wanyan Zhongde led this time was the elite soldiers of the Jin Army who were transferred back from the Tongguan area! After all, over the years, the Jin army in the Tongguan area has been fighting with the Mongolian army almost every day, even if it is a straw bale, it has already become a soldier if it can be tempered for so many years. Fortunately, the Song army has been growing over the years, if it were the Song army seven or eight years ago, even if there were more people, they would not be attacked by Wanyan Zhongde this time, and they would rush back to the Song realm.

Meng Hui was a little breathless, after repelling Yan Zhongde's strong attack, he called the enemy many times and invited Yan Zhongde to go out of the city to fight, but Yan Zhongde no longer responded to the battle, and the whole army retreated into Caizhou City and closed its door, making a posture of stubborn defense.

Looking at the strong city walls of Caizhou City and the complicated fortifications outside the city, Meng Hui also had a headache, this Wanyan Zhongde is really the title of a famous general, and has accumulated perfect defense knowledge in the perennial battle, when he arrived in Caizhou City, he has realized that Caizhou City may become an important stronghold to block the Song army in the future, forcibly tens of thousands of people around him, and dug out three deep trenches up to one zhang deep outside the city, not to mention the ravines outside Caizhou City, and also used the excavated soil and stone to build a pass wall, Send troops to guard these passes outside the city...

From the outside to the inside, relying on Caizhou City, a complete set of fortifications was built, and the Song army outside the city had a bit of a headache.

Meng Hui failed to persuade him to surrender and could not challenge, so he finally had to use the tactics of strong attack and launched a siege war against Caizhou, but in the face of the strong Caizhou City, after a few days, he only gradually cleared the Jin army position outside the city, filled in the outermost two deep trenches, and retreated the artillery and other siege equipment to the effective range, as for the city wall of Caizhou City, it was basically not even touched, but to do this, the Song army suffered nearly a thousand casualties...

The Jin army fought and retreated, and finally under the fierce attack of the Song army, it had to abandon its positions outside the city and retreated into the city of Caizhou.

Fortunately, the Song army was equipped with a lot of artillery, otherwise, just to do this, I am afraid that Meng Hui would need many days.

But even so, after the Song army captured two deep trenches and pass walls, the artillery retreated to the effective range outside the city, for the siege, the help is not very great, although at this time the Song army has been equipped with a lot of artillery, but this kind of artillery is not the modern artillery of later generations after all, the power is still quite limited, it is okay to deal with things like an earthen wall, but to deal with a fortified city like Caizhou City, it is not much effect, not to mention scattered bombs, a large area, basically no effect on the city wall at a long distance, All of them were bombarded with solid iron bullets, and each iron bullet only carved a shallow pit in the bluestone city wall, which could only hurt its surface, but could not cause enough damage to the thick city wall. . .

Therefore, these days, under the bombardment of the Song army's artillery clusters, in addition to hitting the potholes on the city wall of Caizhou City, it basically did not cause too much loss to Caizhou City, but knocked out a lot of arrow stacks on the city wall, killing and injuring a certain number of Jin troops.

However, due to Wanyan Zhongde's good scheduling, some of the city walls destroyed by the Song army during the day were repaired by the Jin army with sandbags, stones and other materials at night, and they continued to do it the next day...

In the face of such a stubborn enemy, even if Meng Heng has great ability, he has to gnaw slowly little by little.

After two more strong attacks, Meng Hui still changed his strategy, let the Song army take a break, this is not a way, he pondered for a while, decided to make up for the lack of artillery, ordered to follow the army craftsmen two days before the battalion began to build and throw cars, now Gao Huaiyuan's "created" return cannon has been promoted in the Song army, when necessary to be taken out as a supplement to the artillery firepower, so each army has a special skilled craftsman will make the return artillery, a few days, Dozens of large return guns appeared on the Song army's position outside Caizhou.

Today is the time when Meng Hui launched another strong attack, the Song army came out of the camp early in the morning, and launched the siege of the city, dozens of large return artillery were all concentrated in the west of the city by Meng Hui, with these return artillery, Meng Hui and nearly half of the artillery of the general also concentrated over, aimed at the west gate of Caizhou City, and even mobilized all the crossbows of the army and put them into the attack on the west gate.

Meng Heng was determined to use all the power at hand to break through the west gate of Caizhou City and take Caizhou City in one fell swoop.

This day's attack can be said to be a fierce fight, artillery, arrows and stones were constantly poured on the west gate of Caizhou City, countless Song troops under the cover of arrows, carrying sandbags with a morning of repeated impact, and finally filled in the deep trench dug out by the last Jin army outside the west gate.

It can't be said that the work of the Song army for such a long time completely failed in Caizhou City, although the fine work in the city was basically pulled out by Wanyan Zhongde, but the Song people outside the city were beyond the reach of Wanyan Zhongde, these fine works still played a big role after Meng Hui led the army to Caizhou, they mobilized thousands of local people outside Caizhou City, and ran outside the city to help the Song army.

And the Song army did not treat these people badly, and set up a big iron pot outside the camp, constantly boiling meat and porridge, and providing these local people who came to help to eat, so the poor people were even more grateful to the Song army's benevolence and righteousness, and one by one they rolled up their arms and sleeves with shovels and pickaxes and other things, rushed to the outside of the Song army's camp to help, and by the way, they also exchanged their labor for a sumptuous meal.

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