Hearing the orders of Hu Quancai, the governor of Huguang, the general army of Hanyang bowed down and obeyed the order. He felt in his heart that the defenders of Yunyang, Gucheng and other cities were stupid enough, they had no idea how long it would take to attack the cave, and they didn't know how to observe the progress of the attacker's project, so they were tempted out of the city by this worthless trick.

"Students understand." Zhou Peigong also bowed to Hu Quancai. The task given to him this time was to help the defenders praise the military affairs, but Zhou Peigong also knew that he didn't need to do anything, just watch from the sidelines, and there would definitely be a big note from him in the credit book afterwards.

When Wuchang's reinforcements arrived in Zhongxiang, the defenders left only one south-facing city gate to pass, and the rest of the city gates had been blocked, just waiting for them to enter the city. Seeing the arrival of the Hanyang army with reinforcements, a large stone fell to the ground in the chest of the prefect of Anlu Prefecture, and hurriedly urged them to enter the city, preparing to follow the instructions of the governor to firmly block the last city gate.

"If the thieves only had 40,000 when they arrived in Yunyang, then their total number would probably not exceed 60,000 at the moment, of which there were only about 15,000 armored soldiers, and there was no need for our army to enter Zhongxiang City." The general soldiers trampled on the terrain around the city, and felt that it might be better to set up a camp outside each city gate and put a few hundred soldiers. Under the cover of the city wall, the soldiers outside the city could attack and retreat, and the Ming army could not let go of the attack on the city wall before driving the Qing army into the city. However, the general soldier quickly dispelled this idea, feeling that it was contrary to Governor Hu's order to defend the city: "Zhongxiang is not far from Wuchang, and reinforcements will come in a steady stream soon, so why should I go against the governor?" ”

Thinking of this, the general army no longer considered military problems, but led the whole army into the city, and when he saw a large number of reinforcements rushing in from the city gate, the cheers of Zhong Xiang's defenders resounded throughout the city, and the happy prefect immediately ordered the auxiliary soldiers to seal the last city gate.

In the early morning of the second day of the arrival of the Qing army, when the sky was just dawning, the advance army of the Ming army arrived at the foot of Zhongxiang City.

"It's June 23, and Inspector Wen said that Zheng Chenggong will enter the Yangtze River in early or mid-July." Deng Ming arrived at Zhongxiang with the guards and the advance army of the Ming army. He silently counted the time in his heart, and felt that the time to stay in Huguang was running out, and after capturing Zhongxiang, he would go to Wuchang for a turn, and then the Ming army should go home, and he would go to Nanjing with the guards.

The commander of the front army of the Ming army was Liu Tichun, and Deng Ming asked him for advice on the essentials of the city's attack and defense at any time along the way.

The previous attack on Yicheng was the easiest since the expedition. After Liu Tichun arrived in Yicheng, he soon found that the four city gates were sealed in the city, so he didn't have to worry about the Qing army going out of the city to counterattack, and the Ming army was relieved to boldly launch a cave attack, and the city was broken in less than a day.

On the way to Zhongxiang, the Ming army did not find the Qing army's long-range scouts on the Han River, and they still did not find a large number of Qing soldiers until they were very close to Zhong Xiang, so Liu Tichun suspected that Zhong Xiang also blocked the city gate by itself like Yicheng, otherwise it was so close to Fucheng, even if the sky was not bright, the Qing army detectives who were investigating the Ming army should have buzzed like a swarm of flies.

If Zhong Xiang did seal the city gate, and the entry and exit had to rely on the hanging basket that was drawn down from the city wall, then at most a few spies could only be dispatched. The sporadic Qing spies were unable to reconnoiter the Ming army, and their reconnaissance capabilities were very limited, and they were unable to relay important information back to the city in time, if they could.

Before Liu Tichun and Deng Ming got off the ship, a group of exploration horses sent to Zhong Xiang had returned, reporting that Liu Tichun and Zhong Xiang's four doors were closed, and no personnel entered or exited. Tanma found a basket hanging down from the castle tower to the south, and the Qing soldiers who came out of it untied a horse tied to the city wall and headed southeast.

After hearing this, Liu Tichun was even more convinced that his previous judgment was correct, but he still needed the final confirmation. At present, the Qing army has blocked the city gate, and the possibility of pursuing out of the city is very small, so Liu Tichun selected a few agile and experienced scouts, and asked them to wear heavy armor and hold a large shield into the range of Zhong Xiang's bow and arrows, trying to investigate the city gate at close range.

While waiting for the results of the reconnaissance, the Ming army set up camp near Zhongxiang and sent a search team to find the horses hidden outside the city by the defenders. Although they may not all be found, they will not miss too much after repeated searches, and if they want to go out of the city to Wuchang to report the news in the future, these envoys will have to walk to the Huguang Governor's Mansion on their legs.

"The city gate is the most dangerous place, both armies will fight with all their might, and once the city gate is lost, the city will be lost. Because of this, blocking the city gate is the favorite thing for the civil official to do, and he thinks that since the city gate is so dangerous, I can't stop it? While waiting for the results of the investigation, Liu Tichun sighed to Deng Ming: "Civil officials who have never fought at all will not do this, because they don't know that the city gate is so dangerous; Those who know how to fight will not do this, because they know that if they block the gates, they will lose most of them; On the contrary, it is the half-bucket of water that prefers to do this, they know that the city gate is the most dangerous place, but they do not know the use of the city gate. ”

Soon the scouts returned to the camp one after another and reported to Liu Tichun that Zhong Xiang's city gate was completely blocked, and Liu Tichun let out a sneer: "The dog officials in the city will not defend the city at all. ”

Under normal circumstances, the attacking side's remaining troops monitoring the gates need to be very strong in case the defenders swarm out. If the number of troops is not several times that of the city, the attacker will not be able to completely encircle the city. If there are a lot of gates, it will be difficult for the attacking side to completely cut off the connection between inside and outside the city, even if it is ten times the number of troops.

For example, a huge city with as many as 13 city gates like Nanjing, not only has many city gates, but also has a very long circumference of the city wall, and if you want to completely surround the city and cut off internal and external communications, you will spread your forces very scattered. Leaving troops everywhere will lead to weakness everywhere, and the city can condescendingly see the deployment outside the city clearly, and any weak link may be attacked by the defenders in the city. Surrounding such a giant city with a large number of gates is very difficult and risky. In the original history of Deng Ming, Yang Xiuqing led hundreds of thousands of Taiping troops to attack Nanjing, and the defenders were only 5,000, but Yang Xiuqing was never able to completely encircle Nanjing.

But now that Zhongxiang's city gate is blocked, the situation is completely different. The surveillance troops in front of the city gate only need to stay a little, and if they find that the defenders are in a hurry to open the blocked city gate, they will send a pre-jǐng to the main force; If reinforcements arrive from outside the city, the defenders will not be able to go out of the city to respond; If the enemy retreats from outside the city or wants to besiege the city, the defenders inside the city will not be able to pursue or interfere.

"The number of troops in the city is estimated to be too small, and there may be more than a thousand armored soldiers." After interrogating the captives before, Liu Tichun learned that although there were thousands of defenders in Zhongxiang City, there were not many with armor, and their self-defense ability was worse than that of Gucheng. Liu Tichun popularized defensive knowledge to Deng Ming by the way: "For the defenders, the city gate must not be blocked, if the troops are rich and not too different from the enemy soldiers outside, they should send troops to camp outside each city gate." Camping outside the gate is a great way to protect the most dangerous part of the city, and once you set up this camp, it will be very difficult for the enemy soldiers to block you inside. Before these camps were pulled out, it was not known whether the defenders had smuggled a large number of soldiers and horses out of the city, and the attackers could not attack the city with peace of mind. If these camps were to be attacked, the defenders could advance and retreat freely with their backs to the gates, and there would be bows and arrows at the head of the city and the walls to support them, and the attack would be very difficult. ”

"How many people should be left to defend the stockade in front of the city gate?" Deng Ming asked with great interest, the advantage of walking with veterans such as Hao Shaoqi and Liu Tichun is that they can learn a lot of military knowledge, and they have seen all kinds of situations.

"Sir must not have guessed that the strength of this kind of city gate camp is more or less suitable. A strong force is naturally a greater threat, but a small number of troops also has the advantage of a small number of troops. Seeing that there was confusion on Deng Ming's face, Liu Tichun smiled and said: "Even if there are only one or two soldiers in the camp, the effect is also very large, and if there are fewer soldiers, the camp will be smaller, and the troops that can attack will be few." For example, if there are 10,000 people in the camp at the city gate, then the camp will be very large, and it will need to be besieged with 30,000 people, so that the role of the hundreds of archers on the city gate behind it will be nothing; If there were only 100 men in the camp at the city gate, then the camp was small and only 500 men could be sent to attack, and then the hundreds of archers at the gate behind the camp would be terrible. ”

Liu Tichun also pointed out that even if the city gate camp is small, as long as it obscures the attacker's field of vision and makes the attacker unable to see the entry and exit of this city gate, it will be a huge threat to the attacker. It may take a long time for 500 people to attack such a small camp, during which the tens of thousands of siege troops behind them will eat and work in vain. Whether or not they were driven back to the city in the end, this small gate camp bought the defenders a long time.

"The people in Zhongxiang City don't know how to defend the city at all." Liu Tichun once again reiterated his point of view.

The discussion between him and Deng Ming quickly turned to the blasting of the city wall, and Liu Tichun had recently figured out a new method that could greatly reduce the preparation time for the cave attack, and he planned to use the city of Zhongxiang to test it.

In addition to digging tunnels, it takes a lot of time for the Ming army to close the tunnels every time, after Deng Ming's repeated patient explanations, Liu Tichun and his blasting team members understand the significance of sealing to blasting, that is, there is a large mass of gas to be sprayed out, after the tunnel is fully sealed, this mass of gas can only look upwards to find a vent. If the tunnel is not sealed strong enough to contain the gas, it will open the tunnel and escape, instead of destroying the wall structure upwards. Therefore, the tunnel must be blocked for more than ten meters, and it must be held up with wooden stakes to ensure that the solid length of this section of the tunnel exceeds the city wall.

In order to make it easier for Liu Tichun's demolition team members to understand, Deng Ming also briefly talked about the pressure and pressure formulas that he could still recall, and drew some force analysis diagrams for them. Liu Tichun, who had obtained the treasure, went back with these formulas and patterns, and studied them with the demolition team members.

After the capture of Yicheng, one of Liu Tichun's demolition team members suddenly thought that if the tunnel where the coffin was stuffed was no longer built straight up, but turned a corner at the end, then it seemed that it would be enough to seal the corner, and the end of the corner was the earth. For example, the tunnel starts in a north-south direction and then turns eastward, so according to the schematic diagram of the third prince, it seems that the filling of the corner can only continue to squeeze the earth to the west, and will not be pushed south to exit along the tunnel.

If this conjecture is true, the filling and reinforcement time of the tunnel can be greatly shortened.

When Liu Tichun brought the demolition team members to ask Deng Ming's opinion, Deng Ming also felt that this opinion was very good. However, Deng Ming pointed out that his schematic diagram is ideal, and there are actually other problems, such as the penetration of some gas into the gap between the fill and the end of the tunnel, which also creates a thrust out of the tunnel.

But these are easy to solve, Deng Ming thought about junior high school physics, so he drew another diagram, not digging corners at the end of the vertical direction but a paragraph in advance, that is, changing the structure of the word "factory" to the structure of the word "Bu"; Moreover, Deng Ming pondered that the soil was not rigid and may be compressed and deformed, so it would be enough to fill one more section of the tunnel in the vertical direction. As long as the general direction of this idea is correct, the sealing speed can be greatly accelerated, and the time saved is conservatively estimated to be an hour.

This excavation of Zhong Xiang adopted this new idea, Liu Tichun divided the excavation and demolition teams into two groups, and excavated from the north and south directions of the city at the same time. Knowing that the Qing army had no possibility of going out of the city to counterattack, the Ming army dug the tunnel at full speed, and it was estimated that it would be completed tomorrow morning.

Making fuses and anti-cháo treatment on the outer packaging of gunpowder Liu Tichun is already very proficient in these tasks, and he has a lot of experience in controlling the time of the fuse. In addition to adopting the new closure method, Liu Tichun plans to carry out blasting in the north and south directions at the same time tomorrow morning, and attack Zhongxiang by attacking Zhongxiang in two directions. There is the Han River in the west of the city and a lake in the east, and Liu Tichun felt that such a two-sided attack would make the Qing army have no way to escape.

"Because Zhong Xiang doesn't have any troops, he can fight like this, and he can end the battle faster." Liu Tichun told Deng Ming that the two-way assault was not without risk, because advancing from both sides across a city at the same time was equivalent to diluting his own forces and giving the other party a chance to break through: "At present, our troops are ten times that of Zhong Xiang, although the troops are divided into two routes, each road is also several times more than theirs, otherwise it is better to attack all the way safely." ”

On the day the Ming army arrived, most of the tunnels had been completed by the time they fell, and the demolition team under General Liu was in full swing preparing blasting materials. In the past, there was no concept of pressure, pressure and force, and how the third prince filled the soil at the beginning, everyone followed the cat and the tiger. But after the third prince's simple popularization of science, several members of the demolition team with more flexible brains have more ideas, and in the past few days, one of them has been studying the several schematic diagrams of the blasting force drawn by Deng Ming, and looking at them over and over again.

"How much gunpowder do we need to tear down the walls above, and how long of tunnels we need to close, can we calculate it?" The man consulted with his companions in a very unconfident tone.

So far, Deng Ming can give an explanation of how thick the sealing layer can be plugged, but he can't quantify it, because he can't calculate it at all. The bewildered Demoman paused, feeling more questions swirling in his mind. When he heard these theories of the third prince, he felt that his mind was very messy, and after thinking about it for a few days, it seemed that he suddenly understood it all at once. But when I think about it more deeply, I feel more questions than I did before I didn't know these theories: "If this is the case with cannons, how thick should the barrel of the cannon be cast, and how much gunpowder is needed to fire a shell, can we also calculate a number?" ”

Just then, another demolition team member burst into the heavily guarded tent and shouted, "The gunpowder particles are ground, come and help me pack the bag." ”

This greeting attracted everyone's attention, including the person who asked the question just now, who threw down Deng Ming's drawings and ran out to help.

During the attack on Gucheng, there was a coffin that was cháo, and the gunpowder that did not explode was dug out of the ground by Liu Tichun's demolition team, and Liu Tichun did not want to waste it, so he asked his subordinates to dry the gunpowder and continue to use it in the future. However, after being dried by the gunpowder, it condensed into lumps, so it had to be carefully ground into granules for use. At first, the Demolition Team feared that the gunpowder would not work, or that it would be greatly diminished. But when used in several tests of direct blasting of the city walls, it was strange that the granulated gunpowder was more powerful, more powerful than the powder that needed to be stirred beforehand.

After reporting this matter to Liu Tichun, his first reaction was nonsense, obviously water overcomes fire, it would be good if the gunpowder that entered the water could still be used, how could it be more powerful? However, Liu Tichun thought about it, just a few days ago, he thought that gunpowder could not be used to blow up the city at all, so he did not whip the soldiers who came to report, but asked them to quietly do it twice more.

The result is still subverting the traditional saying that "water overcomes fire", and Liu Tichun secretly speculated that maybe this gunpowder was also soaked in water like a metal weapon that needs to be quenched. Why do both the gold that produces water and the fire that is overcome by water need water? Liu Tichun felt clueless about this. He did not tell Deng Ming about this discovery, because he still believed that it was mostly a delusion, a collective delusion including himself, and that telling Deng Ming and others might be unanimously ridiculed.

The scale of previous tests was too small, and this time Liu Tichun secretly ordered that the same amount of gunpowder should be used in the simultaneous blasting on both sides of the city, but one coffin should use ordinary gunpowder powder, and the other coffin should use the kind of gunpowder particles that are soaked in water and then dried. If the effect of the explosion proves to be different, Liu Tichun will have to ask the all-knowing third prince of Huode, who obviously understands the various principles of fire very thoroughly.

……

"The enemy will not attack the city at all."

This was the first thought that came to Hanyang's general when he saw the deployment of troops outside the city.

The Ming army outside the city actually dug tunnels from both sides of the city at the same time, which seemed to have a posture of attacking caves on both sides at the same time. This posture may be able to scare people who have never experienced the war, such as the young scholar Zhou Peigong, who seems worried, but for the Hanyang general soldiers, it is nothing more than a bluff worth mentioning.

The Hanyang General Soldier clearly knew that the manpower and time required for the cave attack were very large, although it seemed that the distance between the two sides was about the same, but each of them was a project that took more than ten days to complete, and the difference in time to complete it was not too long. Is it possible that one side can not burn the pillars when it is completed, and that it will not be burned together after the other side is completed? Aren't you afraid of missing the fleeting opportunity and being flooded by the defenders?

Even if the two sides can be burned together, will they still collapse together? Even if both are successful, will the time of the burn-down be exactly the same? How can the time be a few hours shorter, the soldiers on one side have already fought you to the death, and you still have to leave half of the assault team on the other side of the city, waiting for the city wall to collapse? What if it doesn't collapse in the end?

The most critical one, the Hanyang general army believes that even if the attack on both sides is completed at the same time, the city wall will not collapse one after another, and attacking from both sides of the city at the same time will not have much benefit, that is, it can make the city break a little faster, but this will take the risk of dividing the army.

Now the Ming army outside the city seems to have 40,000 or 50,000 people, and the Hanyang general army estimates that there may be 10,000 armor soldiers among them, in addition to the necessary monitoring and garrison troops, there are about 7 or 8,000 armor soldiers used to enter the siege battle, and then remove some of the rear reserves and generals' guards, each side of the attack into the city is about only more than 3,000 armor soldiers as the main force, and the rest are auxiliary soldiers with questionable combat effectiveness, which is not advantageous for Zhong Xiang, who has 5,000 soldiers. The Qing army could defend on one side first, concentrate its forces to recapture the gap on one side, and then turn around to meet the Ming army on the other side after eliminating the Ming army entering the city. Zhongxiang still has Han water and lakes in the east and west, if the Ming army carries out this kind of north-south offensive, if it succeeds, it will certainly make the Qing troops in the city have no way to escape, but once it is hindered, it will be very difficult to mobilize troops.

In short, such a deployment will give the Qing army more opportunities to turn the tables. The general soldiers of Hanyang sneered for a while, and they were even more contemptuous of the guards in Yunyang, Gucheng and other places before - this kind of worthless trick to lure the enemy can also be successful, which shows how incompetent the generals in these two places have become.

But this contempt for the Ming generals did not last long, because the leading generals outside the city are said to have Liu Tichun, Yuan Zongdi, and Hao Shaoqi, all of whom have far more experience in leading troops than the general army of Hanyang. If these three people don't understand what siege is, then the Hanyang defenders are laymen who don't know how to fight at all.

"Weird." The general soldier hesitated again and again, and finally decided to sail the ship carefully, and immediately organized people to dig canals and ponds, ready to fill water at any time.

After a busy night, the next morning the canal had just begun, and the place where the pond was dug was only a shallow earthen pit, which was not even a prototype. However, the general soldier was not nervous about this. To attack the city wall, it is necessary to dig a large cellar at least one zhang high and a few zhang wide in the ground, and the canals and ponds on the surface of the ground will only look like this overnight, so the underground project is at most a tunnel to dig the earth.

But at this time, the appearance of the Ming army became even more strange, and the general soldiers squinted at the Ming troops lined up outside the city, looking really evil.

"If it weren't for the fact that I knew they only started digging yesterday......" the second half of the general soldier's sentence was not finished. If he hadn't known for sure that the Ming army had only arrived at Zhong Xiang's city yesterday, he would have thought that it would be more than ten days later, the attack on the cave had been completed, and the attack on the city was imminent, so the Ming army would have listed such a formation.

At this time, similar news came from the other side of the city, and the general soldiers rushed there to observe it.

"It's really a posture to launch a general attack." The general army of Hanyang felt infinitely confused: "It's just one night, at most, at most, a tunnel has been dug underground that can transport soil, are they going to attack?" Are they sure that the walls will collapse, and that they will collapse on both sides? ”

If someone else was doing this kind of thing, the chief soldier would probably sneer and go back to the yamen to sleep, but outside the city after all, it was Liu Tichun and others who were famous.

"Someone, pass on my orders, and the whole city will be on alert." ——

Reply to reader melon farmer: I update every day as soon as it is past midnight, so that I have to finish writing during the day and can sleep at night; If you change it to the daytime update, you will always feel that you still have time, and if you don't catch up during the day, you will have to stay up late and work hard......