Siege operations should have been a huge earthwork project that was no less than building a city. The Mongols did not understand this principle at first, so they could not conquer the strong cities such as Zhongjing Yanjing Prefecture, Taiyuan Prefecture and Fengxiang Prefecture for a long time. However, after years of experience in the Central Plains, they understood that it was necessary to mobilize enough manpower to capture the city.

So when attacking Bianliang, the Mongols plundered countless people from Henan prefectures and counties and threw them into the siege, and finally wiped out all the fortifications and trenches outside Bianjing. Only then did they let Bianliang City lose its defensive value. But this time they attacked Jinghu, they made a mistake in the plan. Zheng Yunming's understanding of the four words "Sturdy Walls and Clearing the World" was much deeper than any general in this era except him. Today's generals, better than Meng Gong, built a simple mountain village outside the city to contain the city.

The peasants and landlords sent some unimportant old, weak and disabled soldiers to assist in the defense. The lazy Qingye was not serious and allowed these villagers to continue to live in their own houses. The houses were burned and the food was stolen. The villagers became cannon fodder for the Mongolians to build cities and fill trenches. Even unworthy generals used Jianbi Qingye as a means to make money for private people and boost the morale of the army. Before the Mongolians came to rob, they ransacked their villagers in the name of Jianbi Qingye.

But Zheng Yunming was never like this. In another time and space, Zheng Yunming had seen the power of clearing the world more than once. Even a talented and born military strategist like the French emperor could not resist the Ross' gritting teeth and persistence. Clearing the world was better than the willpower of a country and the willpower of a nation. In this regard, the Song people were much better than many later generations criticized. But these were not enough to deal with the invasion of the Mongols. Zheng Yunming wanted to raise the clearing the world of this era to an unprecedented level. He strictly ordered all the houses, fields and warehouses exposed to protection in Jinghuzhou County, and all the property and food were transported away.

He also strictly restrained the soldiers and attached great importance to protecting the people's private property. In addition, he removed all the tiles and doors of the house and transported them away, blocked the wells with stones, dug the roads and demolished the bridges. In short, he truly achieved nothing in people and wealth and land. He handed over this matter to Bai Yijie himself, and Bai Yijie urged his subordinates to carry out this task day and night, and he didn't even care about his family. In the midst of Wei Ruolan's complaints, the Bai military commander personally took charge of the Jinghu walls and cleared the fields, so that the Mongolian army went south this time, and did not even see an old man or a child near Xiangfan, let alone abducting adult men as hard labor.

The husbands they brought here from the Central Plains were insufficient, at least for besieging a large western city like Xiangyang, not to mention that they had to attack Fancheng and the fortresses around Xiangyang. Originally, Tasi's idea was to plunder tens of thousands of people in Xiangyang on the basis of the husbands they carried by our army to act as laborers for local work. Last year, he had gained this year. Tens of thousands of people were the people who were in the country. But what caught him off guard was that almost tens of thousands of people were destroyed in Xiangyang this year. The Red Army of the Discovery reported that apart from a few large mountain villages with dangerous terrain and extremely strict defense, there was no living person in the wild.

That's because last year Zheng Yunming was just a general manager of a copycat, and this year Zheng Yunming is already in charge of the entire Jinghu area. Last year, as a tactical pawn who performed well in the overall strategy of the Song army, he has become a chess player planning the overall situation this year.

"They should have brought enough husbands to take on the siege when they headed south." Zheng Yunming raised his hand to cover the autumn sunshine, looked at the busy construction site in the distance, and said to Zhao Kui: "Don't the Central Plains army always carry a large number of craftsmen and husbands with them when they go out?"

"This is a habit." Zhao Kui said slowly, as if teaching his students: "The Mongols had no cities when they were in the desert and had no idea about siege. They really learned about siege after invading the Central Plains. However, the Mongols were used to fighting on horseback, and it was very convenient to plunder rural residents. Over time, it became a fixed tactic to plunder peasants from the outskirts of the city without carrying their husbands. But they did not expect to meet Shumou so thoroughly to clear the country."

"The enemy will never get a husband or a grain of food from Xiangfan." Zheng Yunming said firmly: "I want to see how powerful and capable every labor and every grain of food from Tasi are transported from thousands of miles away."

Zhao Kui held the stool with one hand and looked at the rolling crowds on the west: "Don't be too full, you see, Tasi would rather use soldiers and auxiliary soldiers as husbands and soldiers, and insist on building necessary fortifications. He knew that this time he was determined to pull out the thorn in Xiangyang. He erected a fence on the ground one mile away from the city gate, and dug trenches outside the fence, and there were earth walls inside the fence, which was obviously preventing our army from breaking through. He sent people to the east to block the waterway connecting the moat and the Han River, in order to dry up the river water of the moat. He built high platforms in the west and south of the city, obviously he was determined to launch a real cannon battle with us in the southwest direction."

Zheng Yunming nodded and said, "The enemy has realized the problems in the cannon battle a few days ago. They are also adjusting their tactics and focusing their attacks on the walls of the southwest of Xiangyang."

The Mongolians' cannon warfare tactics had a big problem from the beginning, and Tasi saw the problem. The target they targeted was not the city wall but the catapults in the city. However, when the two armies were thrusting against each other, the Song army's cannon was the advantage because of their vision. In this way, even if the Mongolian army surpassed the Song army in terms of quantity and quality, the catapults were still at a disadvantage.

Tasi decisively reversed this futile bombing and locked all the trenchers on the city wall in the southwest corner of Xiangyang. Using trenchers to bombard the city barriers was originally the main business of trenchers. As long as the Song people's trenchers bombarded the city walls, they threw the soldiers into the city. The advantages of the Song army's city walls were gone. Do you still need to worry about the disadvantages of the cannon stones over bombing? So the cannon army spent three days transferring the cannon positions and using them to bombard the city walls in a corner of the southwest of Xiangyang.

But it was impossible for him to easily break through the city defense in the southwest corner. When Zheng Yunming rebuilt Xiangyang City, he attached more importance to the four corners than the city gate. The walls of all four corners were laid with blue bricks and wrapped in double-layer city bricks, and converted the originally simple corner tower into a tall and magnificent three-story city tower. The six corner towers were named Kuimu, Doumu, Jingmu, Kangjin, Niujin and Koumu, and were named four of the twenty-eight constellations.

The tall corner building is built purely with brick and wood mixed stone, and all the large window lattices and eaves used for beautiful appearance are not used. The architectural form is closer to the traditional Chinese fortress, with narrow observation and shooting holes on the brick walls. It is precisely because of this simple and practical design that the Kuimu Tower is facing the continuous bombardment of hundreds of enemy heavy trenchers, although the various wooden components used for decoration were smashed to pieces, the main body of the building is still indestructible. Observers and those who will let go

Hiding in the building, commanding the catapults in the city to continue to fight back. The catapults surrounded the southwest corner, but the counterattack was not effective. The reason was obvious. The range of the catapults in the city was not enough. The original range of the catapults in the city was not as good as the heavy catapults built by the Mongols. The target of the Mongolians' catapults was mainly the city wall, and they only needed to cover the city wall to the range. They shot safely outside the range of the catapults in the city, but the Song army was helpless with them.

Fortunately, even the huge rocks of more than 100 kilograms fired by the super cannon of 15, were helpless against the tall city walls with double-layer bricks. The city wall remained motionless under the bombardment of the flying stones, just like a real Jincheng. The flying stones that collapsed and rebounded on the city wall even piled up into hills at the foot of the city wall. But all the efforts were only to smash a small hole on the surface of the city wall.

"When will it take to collapse a section of the city wall like this?" Bai Yijie said to Zheng Yunming: "If the city wall is collapsed, they will have to face the well-defended Jiaocheng. It is a new section of the city wall. If the battle continues like this, the war will be delayed for a year."

"We have no problem here. Even if we last for a year, the food in the city will be enough to eat." Zheng Yunming said: "But it may not be the other side."

His words hit the deadlock of the Mongolian army. The Mongolians were not used to carrying food and grass when they went south. The soldiers of the headquarters could carry cattle and sheep with the army, or eat air-dried beef as dry food, but most of the supplies still came from plunder. As for the Han army, Jurchen army and Khitan army that followed the army, they all rely on the supplies they plundered from the Song Dynasty. If this strategy was very successful last year, then the situation this year was completely different from last year. Apart from digging out some Chen grains that the Song people had no time to take away, the Mongolian army almost had nothing to gain near Xiangfan. The grain from Jinghu Lake was either hidden in the dangerous mountain villages. In order to obtain these foods and necessary husbands, they had to risk huge casualties to attack these mountain villages. Or there was only one choice left to break Xiangyang City and obtain what mountain of food was piled up from its newly built treasury.

But these two methods are not realistic for the Mongolians.
Chapter completed!