Yuxi Timuer was really worried. He thought he could attack the tactics and seize Changshu City in one battle, but now it was a stalemate. He actually didn't care about the destruction of the stone thrower, because he knew very well that a "real" stone thrower was very complicated to manufacture. Not to mention ten or eight days, it would be good to build it in a month. So he knew that the stone thrower he built overnight was barely shoddy, and even if he was not destroyed by the Song army, whether it could be used today would be a question.

Now, when several generals were clamoring that they would only build a few giant stone throwers to smash the city wall and attack the city, Yuxi Timuer didn't say anything, and knew in his heart that it was useless at all. That was not to add the word "giant" to the stone thrower to solve the problem. It can only be said that this stone thrower is powerful and can throw larger stone bullets, but there is no breakthrough innovation in key technologies.

The stone thrower cannot be expanded without limit. To a certain extent, there will inevitably be technical bottlenecks and lose its inherent advantages. How to arrange the huge device to the appropriate position, how to prepare enough giant stone bullets, how to transport these giant stone bullets, how to install giant stone bullets onto the machine are also problems. Moreover, these tasks will consume too much manpower, and each shell requires many soldiers to work hard to transport it, which will undoubtedly reduce the efficiency of using this weapon, and the practical value of this weapon will be greatly reduced.

In addition, because of his young age, Yuxi Timur had no chance to participate in large-scale wars such as the Western Expedition and the Destruction of Song Dynasty. However, as a family of generals, the elders said that it was almost impossible to smash the city wall with a stone throwing machine, especially the strong city built by the Southern Dynasty.

The cities of the Southern Dynasty generally had tall walls, with a wide and deep city foundation, and even the top was wide enough. What's more, the city wall was made of rammed earth, with bricks on the surface, and built into a slope shape. This city wall with a "thick city, mud core, and slope" had a strong defense against the stone thrower, and the force of the projection would be absorbed by the center of the wall of the mud. The city wall was still oblique, indicating that there was a significant slope from the bottom to the top. This could also play a protective role. When a horizontal projectile hits the city wall, there would be an angle, and the force did not act directly on the city wall.

Therefore, the targets that the stone thrower targets when siege are mainly the city head and wooden fortifications in the city. They attack both building entities and city gates that mark authority. Since the city tower is made of wood, they are very vulnerable to damage. Furthermore, the targets of the stone thrower attacks are people on the city, which reduces the resistance to siege by killing the soldiers in the city. In addition, this is to use this to psychologically deter the defenders, making them timid and give up resistance. Of course, the larger the stone bomb, the greater the deterrent effect on the enemy.

Yuxi Timur also knew that he would capture Xiangyang. Even if he used the "Xiangyang cannon" offered by the Western Regions Alaowading, Yisimayin and others, it would be difficult to cause serious damage to the city walls. In the end, the enemy was besieged for many years. In despair, he used heavy bribes as bait to surrender, and he was able to capture the city. Although the Changshu City is not as strong as Xiangyang City, it is also a newly built city. It is also a good army and has sufficient food. There are also a large army on the side that may come back to reinforce at any time. It is basically impossible to "scar" it closely with the stone thrower, so he still hopes to conquer the city by digging the tunnel.

Although Yuxi Timuer did not stop him from making a giant stone thrower for morale, he was not concerned about his plan to boost morale. However, the reward of the scout who returned overnight made him very uneasy, making him a little surprised by his strategic arrangements. When he first arrived in Changshu, he had asked about the situation around Basa. He reported that the scout had searched for thirty miles around, but no trace of the Song army was found, and the residents were all evacuated. This made him feel a little relieved, but he still sent scouts to search for fifty miles around again, and the scouts returned one after another at night.

According to the scout report heading to Pingjiang, it was found that the 5th Army of the Song Army, Shaoxing Army, Pingjiang Army, First Cavalry Division, First Artillery Brigade and other banners had about 80,000 troops; the sergeant report from the Kunzhou direction found that the 3rd Brigade, Fourth Brigade, Cavalry Brigade, Xiuzhou Army, Kunshan Army had about 60,000 troops; the sergeant report from the Wuxi direction found that the 1st Brigade, Second Brigade, Runzhou Army, Changzhou Army and Jiangzhou Army had no less than 50,000 troops were found.

Yuxi Timuer was a little confused after hearing this. If the news brought back by the scout cavalry was good, the Song army had already gathered nearly 200,000 troops on the road ahead, far exceeding his own troops. Then the most realistic problem is that he can annihilate more than twice the enemy and complete the predetermined strategic goal. He understood that based on his recent experience in fighting with the Song army, his side could not defeat the enemy with equal strength, especially when the Song army had danger to defend or had a city to rely on, and the long-term attack on Changshu City was proof of this.

Yuxi Timuer was stunned when he looked at the map on the table. Pingjiang, Kunshan and Wuxi were the three strong cities that were located on his way forward. They were separated from the left, right and front directions. It was almost impossible to go around and go straight to the city of Lin'an. Therefore, the first thought that arose in his mind was that things could not be done, and there was a risk of being surrounded here. He should preserve his strength and retreat quickly.

"Haha, this little thief is using a fraud!" Yuxi Timuer looked at the intelligence brought back by the detective cavalry, and suddenly slapped the table and stood up and smiled. He understood that the so-called "knowing yourself and knowing yourself and your enemy, winning every battle" refers to the importance of intelligence work on the battlefield. As a qualified military commander, you must roughly know the opponent's strength, deployment, logistics, morale and combat effectiveness level. If any general can be so confident that he completely ignores the number of enemy soldiers, he will definitely seek death.

So how can we roughly and accurately know the scale of the enemy's troops? Yuxi Timuer knew that from the perspective of hindsight, the perspective of a war that had already occurred in ancient times was clear, and the outcome, process and the comparison of the military forces were clear, but both sides of the war could not have known this information at the time. This required continuous reconnaissance to obtain some true or false and inadequate intelligence.

Even if you know the approximate total number of troops sent by the enemy and the forces assigned to each specific battlefield are different, you still need to reconnaissance to obtain the real situation. However, the transmission of messages will be limited by weather and traffic conditions, and the gathering of troops cannot be uniform. Usually, the outpost has been launched, and most troops are still on the road, and you don’t know when they will be put into the battlefield. Therefore, for the generals on both sides, the battlefield situation is changing rapidly, and reconnaissance is required to be continuously carried out to find out the real-time forces of the enemy in front of you.

But Yuxi Timuer knew that any general knew that this job was not easy to do. First of all, the opponent could not tell you on his own initiative. Generally speaking, the commander did not want the opponent to control his own situation. The less powerful force was afraid that the opponent would find out, and the more powerful force wanted to hide his strength and suddenly put on a big move. Secondly, it was not reliable to expect both sides to be able to compete.

More importantly, there are many sub-battle fields in a war, and the main forces of both sides are unlikely to be launched on the same battlefield, and even the generals with little experience will not put all their troops into the front. In other words, outside the range visible to the naked eye, there may be a powerful force waiting for an opportunity to act. Once the estimate is wrong, the consequences may be disastrous.

If you want to know the exact number of people on the other side, the most common method is to send a memorial or a scout cavalry to directly investigate. Memorial cavalry often dresses up as ordinary people or even enemy soldiers, and find ways to get close to or sneak into the enemy camp. The reconnaissance cavalry is quick and flexible in its movements. The main function is to detect the distance from a distance to prevent the enemy from hiding ambush. Once you arrive in the enemy camp to observe, you can roughly judge the strength of the troops at that place from the number of camp tents.

Generally speaking, each camp of regular army has a fixed number of troops, which may vary from era or in the same era. However, spies are generally experienced guys, and it is not difficult to calculate the approximate number of people based on experience. Of course, what you encounter in the meticulous work may also be an army that does not play according to routines. For example, the temporarily pieced together army, even their generals may not know how many people there are. In this case, meticulous work can only vaguely calculate and tell the numbers based on intuition to intervene.

In addition to sending detailed spies, you can also understand the enemy's situation by interrogating prisoners of war. But this method may not be reliable. First of all, if the captured person's identity is too low, the information you can get on them will be very limited, and it is difficult to guarantee that the other party will not provide false information or even deliberately design. Once a mistake is made, it is easy to fall into a Jedi, and the ending is often very miserable. In addition, if you want to truly understand the enemy, the best way is to install advanced insiders in the enemy camp. Compared with the previous method, the threshold for the inside method is much higher. A good insider can be encountered, but once you succeed, it will be a fatal blow.

In short, there is no absolutely reliable method to count on the battlefield, and can accurately count the enemy's forces. The so-called "water has no constant shape, and soldiers have no constant momentum", the battlefield situation changes rapidly, and the judgment of the enemy situation is also a dynamic process. It not only requires all-round enemy situation reconnaissance, but also requires constant reconnaissance and constant updates.

Now that Yuxi Timur calmed down, he found that he almost fell into the trap. According to the information that spies sent to Jiangnan long ago, the organization and number of the Song army were no longer a secret. Their imperial guards had a total of ten troops, each of which was about 30,000; the imperial guards had eight brigades, each of which had about 9,000; in addition, each of which had a division of the wing army, with a number of people ranging from 10,000, and the few were only 5,000. In addition, they were naval troops, but they were deployed on the coast and rivers and lakes, and did not participate in ground combat, and were responsible for transporting soldiers and supplies at most.
Chapter completed!