Chapter 218 The bad idea of ​​smoking

The Tang Army Camp in Cijian was like a small boat in the vast ocean, and it was possible to overturn at any time. Wang Shichong mobilized almost all the troops he could mobilize and surrounded the Cijian Camp. Although as many as tens of thousands of troops surrounded the Cijian Camp, it was impossible to do it, but it was still easy to concentrate superior forces to attack the Xijian Camp in Cijian.

High in the west and low in the east are the general terrain of China, and the magnetic stream is no exception.

Thousands of Zheng soldiers, holding torches, slowly approached outside the Tang army camp. Although they did not launch an attack, such a number and such tactics made Li Shimin and Changsun Shunde dare not neglect, and they did not dare to support Dongdaying with slight carelessly. What appeared there were not thousands of torches, but nearly 20,000 torches!

Wang Shichong made full use of his military strength and invested 50,000 or 60,000 troops in four directions, southeast, west and northeast of Cijian Daying. Since there was no formal attack, Li Shimin could not guess where Wang Shichong's real main attack direction was. In fact, the Zheng army soldiers who appeared outside the Tang army camp this time were not the elite troops of the Zheng army, but the troops of Yang Qing and Tian Zan. They had very poor equipment and weak combat power. However, Li Shimin did not dare to take the initiative to attack, and could only shrink his troops and defend the camp tightly.

The night was as dark as ink. At first glance, there were torches and heads. Outside the Tang army camp, many Zheng army soldiers rushed to the place where two arrows were arrowed in the Tang army camp. At this time, Zheng army soldiers, who were as dense as ants, slowly assembled the catapult. It is roughly estimated that outside the Cijian camp, there were no less than a thousand catapults being assembled. Once these thousands of catapults were assembled, they would definitely have a fatal blow to the Tang army camp.

"Are the Zheng army's troops arranged in Xidaying, Nandaying and Dongdaying elites? Or are they elites or pseudo-elites?" Li Shimin's face showed a serious look and said slowly: "So many stone cannons, can't they want to create fake stone cannons again to attract me to attack, right?"

After all, stone cannons are very deadly weapons for defending the camp. No matter how strong the camp is, it cannot withstand the bombardment of four or five hundred kilograms of stone bombs. Even more than one hundred kilograms of stone bombs can easily collapse the camp wall under the action of huge inertial kinetic energy. Li Shimin had speculated that the Zheng army soldiers sent by Wang Shichong were blocking the Xidaying, and the Zheng army soldiers from Dongdaying and Nandaying were just suspicious of the soldiers. But if this speculation is inaccurate, the other party was actually a team that was enough to attack the city outside his camp. When the Tang army relaxed and suddenly rushed forward, the matter would be dangerous.

The countless torches locked the actions of Li Shimin and Changsun Shunde like chains.

Changsun Shunde shook his head and said, "Outside the camp, there are definitely not so many stone cannons that Zheng Jun is assembling. The wet wood that has just been cut is still a good idea to build a ladder or siege cart, but it is impossible to build a stone cannon!"

Although the stone cannon is simple in structure and easy to make, it has certain limitations. The most important part is the arm rod. Because the wet wood is too heavy and the counterweight is unreasonable, the lever arm cannot reach the speed required to throw the projectile with a higher efficiency. Therefore, when building a trench machine, the heavy lever arm made of hard solid wood is of course not as light and efficient as the lever arm that is compounded by wood, animal tendons and animal skin. The former will inevitably be slow when throwing stones, while the latter is faster and more elastic in comparison. This is like building a ship. The most suitable lever arm needs to be made of wood from the underside. If it is a dry wood used in the city to build house beams or load-bearing columns in various places, a trench machine can be made.

However, the city closest to Cijian is Xin'an, but there is no such reserve wood in Xin'an City. So he said confidently: "More than a thousand trenchers require at least one thousand dry arms. Where can Wang Shichong get so much wood to act as arm rods?"

Li Shimin showed a look of thought, but in fact he also considered this issue. However, some things cannot be done in fake ones. These gradually formed catapults can be assembled in half an hour at most. If they are true or false, they can be clearly seen at a glance. If it is just a fake catapult, as long as Li Shimin doesn't go out to fight back, Wang Shichong will be in vain. For an uncertain factor, it would be too expensive to make so many fake catapults.

"Not good..." Cheng Zhijie smiled bitterly and said, "Your Highness of the King of Qin and the catapults created by Wang Shichong are probably real!"

Changsun Shunde asked back, "Where does Wang Shichong have so much dry wood?"

Cheng Zhijie said: "Although Xin'an City is not big, there are always tens of thousands of houses!"

Li Shimin's face changed and quickly ordered: "Hurry, prepare to wet the soil, prepare to prevent stone guns from bombarding!"

The biggest killing of a catapult is the kinetic energy generated by the kinetic energy of the rock bouncing. Ancient people were very smart and had long thought of a way to deal with a catapult, which was to use wet soil or sand to quickly reduce the kinetic energy of the stone bomb, thereby reducing the lethality of the stone bomb.

Slowly, time passed by minute by minute. Under Li Shimin's order, the Tang soldiers were frantically digging soil in the camp and digging large soil pits in front and behind the camp walls. These large soil pits were actually used to consume the kinetic energy of stone bullets. As long as there was no kinetic energy of stone bullets, the lethality of stone bullets could be greatly reduced.

What puzzled Li Shimin was that after the Zheng army assembled the catapult, they did not immediately adjust the launch angle, but instead placed the stone on the fire. Because the distance was too far, Li Shimin could not see clearly. The catapult built by Zheng Jun at this time was also different from the ordinary catapult.

In the past, the arm rods were loaded with stone bullets made of animal leather, but at this time, Zheng Jun's trencher did not use leather pockets, but instead used a basket made of steel.

The burned stone bullets were put into the iron baskets by Zheng's soldiers with iron clips.

When Li Shimin saw this scene, his face changed drastically. He quickly ordered: "Hurry up, let go!"

Almost at the same time, the sound of "dongdong" war drums sounded in the Zheng army formation. In the Zheng army formation outside the Tang army camp in Cijian, more than a thousand scattering machines made shrill roars in almost no order. The long arm rod was swung out and dozens of stone bullets weighing more than ten pounds were thrown out in the air. Thousands of red-burned stone bullets rotated in the air, roaring at the army camp.

Thousands of red-burned stone bullets are very obvious in the dark night. The flying stone bullets are like rushing meteors, dragging the fiery red tail flames to the Tang army camp. These thousands of red-burned stone bullets are like fire meteors.

The Tang soldiers were shocked by the fear. All the Tang soldiers, including Li Shimin, had never seen such a scene. Some soldiers turned their heads and ran away, while others were so scared that they collapsed on the ground.

It was just that the time was too late, and the wave of thousands of red-burned stone bombs eventually fell towards the Tang army camp. Although one-third of the stone bombs deviated from the direction and fell to the ground before they flew to the Tang army camp, these red-burned stone bombs made a loud "bang" sound as soon as they landed on the ground.

I don’t know why Wang Shichong came up with such an immoral and smoked idea. When the red-burning stone encounters water vapor, it will expand rapidly and explode in an instant. A stone bomb weighing more than ten pounds immediately turned into thousands of pieces, bursting out dazzling sparks. Each of these red-burning stone bomb fragments is a fire. When it encounters a substance that can burn, it will immediately burn.

A stone bomb fell on a rushing horse. The wooden rushing horse collided with the stone bomb and exploded with a "boom". The splashing hard fragments of the stone bomb immediately ignited the rush horse, which was about three meters long.

A stone bomb happened to fall on the arrow tower of the Tang army camp. The arrow tower was as high as three meters high. The 'Boom!" exploded. More than a dozen Tang army bows and arrows on the arrow tower were covered by fire. The stone bomb fragments were originally not very powerful, at least far less than the fragments of the shells. However, these red-burned stone bomb fragments were burned wherever they touched because each piece was like a soldering iron. More than a dozen Tang army archers were beaten to bloody by the stone bomb fragments, which was terrible.

"Disast apart quickly, disast apart quickly!" Li Shimin looked at this scene and let out a roar in a deep state.

In an instant, Li Shimin's roar was drowned by the explosion of the stone bomb falling to the ground.

Nearly one-third of the stone bombs finally hit the wall of the Tang army camp. The originally solid wall was instantly covered with cracks, and within thirty steps of the wall, a rain of fire was formed.

Thousands of red-burned stone bullets fell into the Tang army camp, and the entire camp was like a strong man who was punched. He was shocked. Countless Tang soldiers were shrouded in the sky with fire rain, screaming one after another. The Tang soldiers in the fire rain were immediately burned by the red stone bullet fragments, and they wailed continuously!

Just one wave of thousands of stone bombs caused more than a hundred casualties to the Tang army soldiers in the camp. Although the fragments of this kind of stone bomb are difficult to cause fatal casualties, this burn is not easy to treat and is extremely painful, which has a great blow to the morale of the Tang army soldiers.

Looking at the Tang army soldiers in the camp who were rolling on the ground due to pain, Li Shimin was so angry that his eyes were about to break. His hands were pounding hard against the hardwood-made strokes, and his hands were immediately smashed into blood and blood.

"What a poisonous thought!" Cheng Zhijie shouted with a ferocious look: "The old thief Wang Shichong is so vicious, he is forcing us to go out of the camp to fight them in the field!"

Qin Qiong clasped his fists and said, "Your Highness, why don't I take my men out of the camp and kill them!"

"No!" Li Shimin knew that being beaten by passively had a great blow to the morale of the soldiers, but he also understood that Wang Shichong must have left a backup plan outside the camp at this time, and he was hoping that they would go out to attack these catapults at all costs.

As the saying goes, kindness does not control the army, righteousness does not manage finances, Li Shimin said coldly: "Wang Shichong has a backup plan. Maybe their ambush is eyeing outside the camp. Once the camp goes out, they will definitely be ambushed by them. We will not be able to take advantage of it, but we will hit Wang Shichong's wish!"

"Oh!" Cheng Zhijie said angrily: "This battle is so frustrating!"

Li Shimin said loudly: "Order the crossbow soldiers to prepare and shoot their catapults!"

The range of the bed crossbow is very long, and in fact it is fully capable of shooting Zheng Jun's catapult to pull people. However, the bed crossbow is slow to load, the accuracy is too poor, and the movement is inconvenient. Once the launch position of the bed crossbow is exposed, it means that the bed crossbow will definitely be covered by Zheng Jun's long-range weapons. These bed crossbows are Li Shimin's last mobile phone, and it is not the best time to be exposed at this time.

In fact, the Tang army was quite lucky. First of all, the weight of these stone bullets was too small, and they were not enough to collapse the walls of the Tang army camp. Moreover, the accuracy of the stone trench was too poor. It really hit less than one-tenth of the walls. More stone bullets either fell outside the Tang army camp or within the Tang army camp.

Moreover, Li Shimin reminded that these soldiers dispersed in time. Although these fire meteor-like stone bullets looked amazing, in fact, the power of these stone bullets was far less than that of real artillery shells. The most important thing was that the camp of the Tang army soldiers was outside the city, not inside the city. In the open area, there was not much combustible material in the camp.

However, the burning stone bullet is still quite powerful. As long as it is hit, it will basically be swept a large area.

However, Wang Shichong, who was watching the formation in the Zheng army's rear formation, saw that the burnt red stone bullet was so powerful, he was immediately overjoyed, and he smiled and said, "Tell me my order and continue to fire the stone bullets. We will have a meal tonight, and all the soldiers participating in the war will reward you with a turn for your military merits."

Seeing victory in sight, the morale of the Zheng army soldiers, which was originally sluggish, gradually rose. Especially the troops of Tian Zan and Yang Qing, these people had never seen the power of the Tang army soldiers. Seeing that the Tang army soldiers were bombarded by a catapult, they felt that the Tang army soldiers were nothing special.

Countless Zheng army soldiers shouted and shouted horns and tried hard together, neatly grabbed the arm of the catapult, and smashed the burned stone bullets one by one at a time like they didn't have money to attack the Tang army camp.

Countless red-burned stone bullets were flying in the air, and the stone bullets were thundering. This sound that made people feel thrilled made the Tang soldiers' bodies tremble like sieve.

The burning stone bullets illuminated the entire night sky red, as if the air was burning. The Tang army camp was like boiling boiling water, and wounded soldiers were wailing in pain everywhere.

The burning stone bullets fell one by one, and the burning stone bullets made thunderous sounds from time to time, and the explosions from time to time became the only masterpiece on the battlefield.

Looking at the battlefield, red-burned stone bombs crossed the camp wall and exploded in the camp. The tent near the camp wall was ignited. The fire burned rapidly, and the soldiers in the camp also fled in panic...

As the Zheng army's catapult continued to project red-hot stone bombs, the explosion of stone bomb fragments reached as much as one meter in radius, leaving Tang army soldiers with nowhere to hide, and suffered heavy casualties. At this time, only by going out to the camp to fight and destroying the catapult can the threat of the enemy catapult on their heads be completely eliminated.

It is also Li Shimin's only choice at present. Otherwise, these more than a thousand trenchers could destroy the morale of the Tang Army camp in Cijian, and would blow up the last decisive desire in the hearts of the Tang army soldiers.

Time slowly slipped to the second update. The attack of Zheng soldiers not only did not retreat in the middle of the night, but instead intensified. A violent crowd kept coming. Climbing up the cloud ladder under the flames, even if the Tang army kept pushing down the cloud ladder at the top of the city, even if the soldiers who were snatching the city swords at the bottom of the city, it would weaken the attack of the unexpected attacker at all.

Suddenly, Li Shimin missed Chen Yinglai very much. If Chen Ying was here, he would have been able to take down half of the burden on his shoulders.
Chapter completed!