After the Yellow River froze, the eastern city wall that was initially bombarded became the safest area of ​​Yuancheng.

"No need." He was fully armored, with his hands on a crooked wooden fence, and he was staring at Gaojingshan, the main body of the Song military camp in the north of the city, without looking back. The masonry crenels here had long been destroyed by the Song army's artillery vehicles.

"Song Jun doesn't have the energy to take care of the city today..."

"That's true." Gao Qingyi was startled for a moment, then nodded, and walked forward, but after just one look, he couldn't help but sigh, and then he fell into a trance like Gao Jingshan.

It turns out that from here, the core part of the entire Song Army camp is clearly visible:

It is not just the two obvious thick defense lines in the north and south, not only the two Yellow River channels in the east and west, the natural defense line shaped by the embankment, but also the crossbow positions on the six earth mountains and the artillery position above the embankment, and more than the excavation.

The most intuitive thing about the docks and reservoirs built during the Tushan period is actually the scale of the camp and the intensity of the fortifications.

Dense fences, earthen ramparts that are not tall but enough to act as obstacles, and neat trenches are everywhere. Between camps and camps, between construction sites and positions, they are all clearly distinguishable. Even because of their density,

This made most of the roads in the Song Army's military camp feel like corridors.

Just one look at this level of fortifications will make people feel sad for the surrounding army.

"Does Qualcomm want to see me for anything?"

After watching for a while, the exhausted Gao Jingshan finally came back to his senses, but he frowned.

"Pu Suyue has been assembled. May I ask for the next instructions from the Commander-in-Chief?" Gao Qingyi quickly suppressed some uneasiness and answered quickly.

"Ignore him, I will give it to him when the time comes." Gao Jingshan's expression remained unchanged, and he just pointed to the hot air balloon hanging in front of the safe area in the middle of the Song Army's camp. "Telling him now will only reveal the direction of the attack. "

Gao Qingyi looked back at the two guards who followed him. One of them understood and immediately turned back to tell Pu Suyue. As soon as they left, Gao Qingyi stared at many things in front of the city for a while, and couldn't help but shake his head:

"This battle is becoming more and more difficult to understand. Hundreds of thousands of people from both armies met, but it was not a field battle, but countless artillery carts, giant crossbows, large sky lanterns that could seat people, and such dense fortifications... …Twenty years ago, when we were young, how could we have thought of this?”

"There are still traces to follow." Gao Jingshan shook his head after hearing this. "Except for the hot air balloon being an anomaly, the rest of what you mentioned had their origins twenty years ago..."

Gao Qingyi was confused for a moment.

"It's still armor." Gao Jingshan didn't mean to show off. Instead, he explained calmly while staring at the Song army who was beginning to arrange orderly under the city. "I've had this idea for a long time... Armor is so thick and dense. , which makes ordinary soft bows, swords and guns ineffective... Do you still remember that twenty years ago, when we were guarding against bandits in Liaodong, the most useful things were actually spears and large shields, and then the sword and shield were in the waist You also need to prepare a small bag with seven or eight stones in it."

"There is such a thing." Gao Qingyi thought of the past, as if it was a lifetime ago. "That is a good thing for sword and shield wielders without bows and arrows to use to prevent the opponent from attacking at a distance or close range."

"That's right." Gao Jingshan stood up and pointed at the heavy armor on his body to calmly respond. "What now? After such thick armor comes out, all the elites who can really decide the outcome will be armored like this. Wouldn't it be a joke if the seven or eight stones were still attached to this kind of armor? Even the soft bows and simple knives were mostly things prepared by the people themselves, rather than the vital points in the army. How could the Song and Jin families have it? What kind of soft bow and thin arrows do you put any thought on?"

"Now they are all powerful crossbows, heavy arrows, war hammers, thick maces, large axes, and spears..." Gao Qingyi nodded.

"Yes, in other words, they have all become heavy troops...heavy on foot, heavy on cavalry...We are the Iron Buddha, and the opposite is the infantry armor. A main soldier has to carry dozens of kilograms of equipment to fight." Gao Jingshan continued with emotion. "If you want to deal with these heavily armed armies, in addition to using heavy weapons, a simpler way is to rely on cities, fortresses, and fortifications. If they are inconvenient, they will not be able to fight for a long time, and if they are unable to fight for a long time, they will The logistics are unfavorable. As for the city and the role of fortifications, it is necessary to launch cannons and lock the city. Then, if you want to suppress the peripheral artillery vehicles, the best way within the city fortifications is to launch cannons to prepare cannons... So the cannons Cars are becoming more and more common, more numerous, and more convenient, and cities and fortresses are becoming thicker and denser... It has become what it is now."

Gao Qingyi thought for a moment, but couldn't think of any words to refute, so he could only nodded heavily.

"There are actually two things I'm worried about right now." Having said this, Gao Jingshan finally turned to business. "One is that the Fourth Prince and their general attack are unsuccessful. In order to be safe, the Song Army will inevitably attack the city with all their strength... And Yi Generally speaking, although our city is thick and solid, the shortest part of the city wall is also three feet high, making it difficult to defend against artillery bombardment. In addition, there is only one layer of city wall. Once any section of the city wall is blown open by a combined force, the city may be destroyed directly. .”

Gao Qingyi looked at the city wall under his feet, then looked back at the inside of Daming City behind him. He also shook his head and said, "The city is too big!"

"The other one." Gao Jingshan pointed to the hot air balloon again. "I am worried that the Song Army will have such sudden and new methods."

Gao Qingyi still shook his head, but he did not mean to express his agreement: "You have overthinking it. The current situation is that if the Fourth Prince and others cannot break through the fortress, we will be attacked by the Song army by conventional means. At this time, Even if the Song Army has some surprising tricks, it is also the icing on the cake. As people in a jar, what do we want to do with so much?"

Gao Jingshan was obviously startled for a moment, and then nodded heavily.

Immediately, the two chatted for a while, probably digging trenches around the city to prevent the Song army from fighting in tunnels; storing some gunpowder and oil behind some obvious weak points, and using gunpowder and oil as accelerants to block the gaps if necessary; Of course, it also negates the "advice" of repairing the city wall by pouring water and freezing it as a precaution, because many parts of the city wall have internal cracks, and pouring water and freezing it may be counterproductive and destroy the stability of the city wall.

But they only talked about a few things, and Gao Jingshan and Gao Qingyi stopped discussing the city defense together, because in the morning sunshine, in the dry midwinter season, Wang Bolong's tribe, which had not participated in the war before, took the lead in appearing in the eastern part of the battlefield and began to They formed a formation across the river, which aroused the tension of the Song army, and also caused the two high-ranking officers on the city to frown together.

"Wang Bolong came too early." Gao Jingshan said coldly. "He looks too much like he has done meritorious service!"

"Old bastard!" Gao Qingyi said bluntly.

Let us also say that the Song army surrounded Yuancheng and built a very large camp seventy or eighty miles in circumference on the ground using the rivers on both sides. There must be countless minor flaws in it, and these flaws had already been discovered in the previous three days of battle. They were all tested by the Jin Army... But in large-scale corps operations, in addition to finding those flaws and deploying troops in a targeted manner, the most important thing is to consider some large-scale tactical options.

For example, the Song Army built the northern defense line first, and then the southern defense line, so the south side was inevitably inferior to the north side. The east and west defense lines were built much later, and they could only be built hastily by relying on rivers and embankments, which resulted in very complicated defense lines on both sides. It is difficult to compare with the north and south sides.

And because of the objective existence of Yuancheng, the middle and southern section of the seventeen-eight-mile defense line on the west side appears weaker - there is no way, for the Song army in the southern section, there is Yuancheng behind them occupying this area. Half of the area naturally lacks the necessary defense depth, and troops and supplies have to be mobilized from the core area in the north.

In addition, the main force of the Jin army came from the west and gathered in Hexi. This further caused the Song army to concentrate its energy and equipment on the west side. On the other hand, the section east of the Song army's camp area was It will be the weakest area as a whole.

Therefore, the Jin army will almost certainly regard these two sections as the main direction of attack.

Among them, not to mention the southern section of the west side, only the east side. The Jin army wanted to devote its troops to concentrated attacks, but it was impossible to divide its troops in advance and set up camp here to attack at any time, because the Song army was not weak.

, and it is arranged in the middle to facilitate the attack. If you send more and fewer, as long as you dare to set up a base for the night, it will give the Song army an opportunity to attack separately.

Therefore, when it comes to the general offensive, the Jin Army can only temporarily dispatch a special force to the eastern front... This special force starts from the camp in the west and needs a certain amount of time to cross two glaciers and bypass the Song Army.

The camp and the Daming City still controlled by the Song Army came behind the Song Army to join up with Wang Bolong's tribe in the northeast.

Then, when the war is at its most intense, elite heavy armor is concentrated to carry out a unified pincer attack.

Taking into account the distance and the need for the soldiers to rest in a safe area before attacking, the battle to the east should start in the afternoon or later in the afternoon.

The possibility of a night battle cannot even be ruled out.

But at the moment, the main front in the west has not started fighting. Wang Bolong has brought his troops over eagerly. Isn't it equivalent to holding his nose and reminding the Song army not to forget the weakest defense on the eastern front?

In addition, this person has always been arrogant, and he refused to listen to Gao Jingshan's instructions because he was a direct descendant. There is also the implicit tradition of antagonism between Liaodong Han people and Bohai people in the early days of A Gu's war. It's no wonder that Gao Qingyi would directly call him "son of a bitch"!

However, it was not the time to care about these, because soon, on the western front, the Jin Army launched a tidal wave of offensive after a brief preparation.

This time, the Jin army only forced the signing army to launch two assaults.

Two times later, just after half of the morning, the signing troops withdrew... This time, they really just came to consume crossbow bolts and cannon stones... Immediately, the so-called supplementary troops in Wanhu, mainly Han'er's army,

But now it was not just the organic infantry of the Han army who began to attack in large numbers.

Of course, these infantrymen cannot be as well-equipped, skilled in fighting skills, and well-paid as those Meng'an Mouke. However, as an organic combat force, they are also the basic product of the Jin Kingdom's aggressive Chinese rule in Lianghe and Yanyun in recent years.

I still got the equipment and treatment I deserved.

The armor-wearing rate of the soldiers reached more than 60%, and crossbows and battle axes were generally distributed according to the organizational structure... This is the configuration for the armored troops of the Song Army... Of course, the more important thing is the spears and knives that are indispensable in the medieval battlefield.

Shield bearer.

As for this kind of troops, the Jin Army invested 30,000 to 40,000 people in one go.

The reason why there is such a big deviation in the numbers is because the Song troops on the hot air balloon did not have time to count and estimate properly. These soldiers rushed directly to the Song army's position with military qualities that far exceeded those of the signing troops. This caused the two sides to directly attack each other.

Fell into close combat... After the previous battles, these supplementary soldiers knew very well that the smooth but bumpy, wide and concentrated river ice was the main strike area for the Song army to project its power. Unlike the signing army,

If they stay here, they will never get any mercy, they will only encounter the most violent blows, so they must enter the melee as soon as possible.

However, the Song Army deployed a large number of crossbow carts along the embankment. In addition to the artillery carts, they also built fences on the inner slope of the embankment, steepened the slope directly in front of the crossbow carts, and deployed sufficient front-line troops.

The supplementary soldiers in the Jin army's camp swarmed forward, but encountered a tenacious blockade on the top line of the embankment. They had to attack from their backs to withstand a large number of damage from the Song army's powerful crossbows.

And soon, the Song Army's Eight-Niu Crossbow Cart quickly ended the assault using the simplest and most direct method - that is, using wood to prop up its hind legs to lower the firing boundary.

The Song Army did this on purpose. In the past three days, they would rather sit back and watch two precious Eight Ox Crossbows being burned than use this incredibly simple and incredibly effective tactic.

If the heavy arrows of the Jurchens are like daggers, then the arrows of the Eight Bull Crossbows are like large javelins. Three arrows are fired in a row. At the shortest distance, they can easily string together several people like a bloody gourd along the slope of the embankment, and then

The body was ruthlessly nailed to the frozen soil or thick ice below the embankment.

The armor, the shield, the exquisite martial arts and the fearless courage are all just like paper.

Frankly speaking, the real damage caused by just a few dozen Eight Bull Crossbows after reducing the range of fire is undoubtedly a drop in the bucket for the huge battle group of the Jin Army. However, its morale damage is too great.

The damage shot from the river was even more exaggerated because it was too close!

With just two or three rounds of shooting, the offensive of these Jin Army reinforcements was disintegrated, and the defeated troops fled back to the river like a tide. They would rather stand below with their shields and receive those crossbow bolts than see them at the closest distance.

His comrades stood in groups, and then they were frightened, imagining that they themselves would be like that.

Even if the experienced soldiers and commanders knew it well, the casualty rate would be even greater in this passive state of being beaten, because the crossbow bolts were dense and continuous, and there would likely be covering strikes from artillery vehicles.

But I just didn’t dare to rush anyway.

However, the commanders of the Jin Army were not stupid or stubborn. Before the artillery vehicles started bombarding, they quickly adjusted their strategy. Instead, they recalled the troops and organized them into groups according to their organizational units to avoid the direct firing range of the Eight Ox Crossbows.

, conduct assaults and operations in smaller intervals in waves.

The adjustment was immediate. It was impossible for the Song Army to deploy the Eight Bull Crossbows to block the front line for more than ten miles within a month. Although the Jin Army's supplementary troops avoided the direct attack area of ​​dozens of Eight Bull Crossbows, they still needed to attack from above.

, but at least there won’t be a big collapse like an instantaneous morale collapse.

Moreover, the Jin Army did not let these supplementary soldiers die in vain. Almost immediately, after confirming that this method was feasible, some Jurchen heavy armor also officially joined the assault team.

This immediately brought the Jin Army's combat capabilities to a higher level. Just like yesterday, the Song Army began to suffer casualties, and the front line began to loosen in very few places.

After about two more major offensives, before noon, large groups of Jurchen heavy armor began to appear, and without any surprise, they appeared collectively in the southern part of the front.

Almost instantly, the Song army that was stationed on the south side of Yongji Canal felt great pressure.

"Marshal, Commander Bei passed down the military information, saying that the second area of ​​the southern section of the Western Front was once captured, but was quickly recovered." On the mountain on the north side of Yuancheng, Yue Fei, who had just returned from Hedong in a hurry a few days before the freeze, saw

After finishing school, Jin was sweating profusely and came to Yue Fei's side, knelt down and reported.

"I got it." Yue Fei was sitting in a chair on the earth mountain, his words were extremely simple.

Bi Jin quickly turned back after hearing this, but he went to the rope under the balloon and continued to wait for the news... This morning, he had been back and forth thirty or forty times, so it was no wonder that he was sweating profusely.

"Marshal, do you want to provide support in advance?" Although the counselor Huang Zong had not exchanged messages, he was still soaked in sweat.

"Isn't it the military strategy that you personally decided on, Counselor Huang?" Yue Fei finally showed a slight expression, but he squinted his eyes and asked. "Before, you said that the Jin army will not attack from the north and the south, and it must not attack the imperial camp on the right. If there is no flanking attack, we must not use two armies on our backs. How can we change our positions before the battle?"

Let's say that at this time, Zhang Rong went to the southernmost front to take charge, and Hu Yin went to the northern front to supervise the battle. Huang Zong looked around and saw only Tian Shizhong, a senior official from the outer town sitting there, holding a piece of Zhao Guan's family. I couldn't stop watching "Absurd Purpose", then I took a few deep breaths and smiled bitterly:

"How would you know it would be so difficult until you are ready for battle?"
To be continued...