Turbulent Times Chapter 1615: The highest level of a soldier who surrenders without fighting

While speaking impassionedly, Hong Yibo's eyes fell on an old man in his fifties. The old man was drinking with his head down. He smiled flatteringly at Hong Yibo.

Hong Yibo raised his forehead slightly, glanced over the crowd, and said with a smile: "Everyone, Your Majesty told us to be vigilant in Maozhu County. Although there are devils in prison, it is difficult for the Far East Army's troops to reach our Maozhu County, but there is a saying It's called 'be careful sailing for ten thousand years'. We still have to make preparations. Before the seven of you sent 500 warriors to Maozhu County to help the general defend the city. I will be very satisfied and thank you very much for this However, it is difficult for the king to drive Li Shimin's troops out of Hanzhong for a while, so there is not enough food and grass. The order of the king has been sent to the counties of Champion County. Our Maozhu County does not have the largest share, but there is also a lot of food. One hundred thousand shi, one hundred carts of hay, these things will depend on the seven of you, everyone, think carefully about how much you want to pay, the king said, whoever contributes more this time will consider it later when they are appointed as officials. "

As soon as Hong Yibo said these words, the banquet immediately became silent, a needle could be heard, the patriarchs of the seven families looked at each other and stopped talking.

Seeing that no one said a word for a long time, Hong Yibo's expression turned gloomy, and he glanced threateningly at the old man who was staring at him before.

The old man's heart trembled, and he cursed secretly, but his face was already full of smiles, and he said in a flattering tone: "General Hong, you are polite, Your Majesty leads the army to defend against the enemy on the front line, and protect the children of our clan." It is hard work not to be slaughtered by that Li Shimin's army. Therefore, it is the duty of the seven of us to raise food and grass for the king."

Hong Yibo nodded to the old man with satisfaction, looked around at everyone, stood up, and said loudly: "Well, each family has at least 13,000 shi of grain and 15 carts of hay."

After Hong Yibo finished speaking, he glanced at the heads of the seven families, but the seven pretended not to see them, keeping their heads down and not making a sound.

The seven powerful clans have been able to survive in this troubled world so far. These seven patriarchs can be regarded as local heroes. They are not fools. They are very skeptical about whether the Zhu family army can stop Li Shimin. Besides, they also learned about it through their own channels. Li Yuan and his son were defeated by the Yuan army, and also lost the seven counties of Hedong.

In short, the seven of them believed that it would not be long for Zhu Can to occupy the Champion and Hanzhong counties, but with the power of the seven of them, they did not dare to resist Zhu Can's rule under the current circumstances.

Seeing that the seven patriarchs started to pretend to be deaf and dumb again, Hong Yibo felt annoyed in his heart, and it was inconvenient for him to attack, so he could only bear with it, and turned his gaze to the old man who spoke first.

The old man knew that if no one took the lead to speak, Hong Yibo would definitely come to force him, but the muscles around his mouth still twitched when his eyes were fixed on him, and his heart ached to death, but now they and Zhu Jiajun If you do it wrong, the consequences will be very serious, and if you are not careful, it will bring about the disaster of genocide.

At the moment, the old man suppressed the pain in his heart, forced a smile on his face, got up and said with a flattering smile: "We, the Shi family, dare not fall behind in raising food and grass for King Zhu, let alone raising food and grass for the frontline led by King Zhu." It is used by the army for our own safety. So, um... um, our Shi family is willing to take... 14,000 shi of grain and 16 carts of hay!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the other six families cursed secretly.

Hong Yibo had been listening to the patriarch of the Shi family with a cold expression. When he heard "14,000 shi of grain and 16 carts of hay" from his mouth, a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

The amount of food and grass that Shi's family provided was much more than he expected. In fact, the amount of grain and grass that Zhu Can wanted on the front line was less than the amount of one hundred thousand shi of grain and one hundred carts of hay. Food, sixteen carts of hay, how can this not make him overjoyed.

The heads of the other six families were shocked. They stared blankly at the Shi family and murmured, "The Shi family had such a good harvest last year that they were able to produce 14,000 shi of grain and 16 carts of hay. ..."

At this time, Hong Yibo was no longer polite, turned his head to look at the other six persons in charge of the wealthy family, and asked with a sneer: "The Shi family is willing to provide 14,000 shi of grain and 16 carts of hay. What about home?"

The flesh on the faces of the heads of the six clans twitched several times, and after a while, another patriarch of the rich clan gritted his teeth and said: "Our Hu family is not as rich and powerful as the Shi family, and we are willing to give 14,000 shi of grain. Sixteen carts of hay!"

With these two people taking the lead, the remaining five rich families also expressed their willingness to contribute the fourteen thousand shi grains and sixteen carts of hay. . Only then did Hong Yibo happily let the patriarchs of the seven wealthy families go back.

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The head of the Shi family who took the lead at the banquet before left Maozhu City in a carriage and returned to Shijiawu Fort. There was already a man in his thirties with stern eyes waiting for him.

The head of the Shi family bowed deeply to the man, and then respectfully told what happened in Maozhu City today.

After finishing speaking, the head of the Shi family asked cautiously: "Master Shen, is the Far Eastern Army really going to fight over?"

That's right, this man is Shen Guang. He cooperated with Xu Jingzong, Huang Shaoqiu and his party in Yangzhou half a year ago to crush Yuwen Zhiji's rebellion, supported the emperor's grandson Yang Yu to continue to be the Sui emperor, and successfully controlled Yangzhou And the two nearby counties have now completely established themselves in the south of the Yangtze River.

A few days ago, after the situation in the Tianhe East War became clear, Wang Junlin relayed the order with a flying eagle and ordered Shen Guang to come to Sichuan and Shu to lead the personnel of the Military Intelligence Office, Wulin Guild, and Xiaoyu Theater in Sichuan and Shu to prepare for the invasion of the Wagang Camp. Preparations for Sichuan and Shu.

This Shi family was not the one Shen Guang came to recently and developed into his own.

The Shi family was almost wiped out four years ago. It was Xiao Yu Theater who secretly gave them food, grass and some weapons to protect themselves, and helped them build this strong dock, so strictly speaking, the Shi family was four years ago

Bao is already a member of the Far East Army.

Shen Guang nodded and said: "Old Shi, you are also an old man of our Far East Army, and I will not hide it from you, the Devil Pass has been breached by our army, and tonight the army will raid this bamboo city. "

The head of the Shi family was shocked when he heard the words. He knew that the devil was behind the gate. He thought that the Far Eastern Army was really powerful, and he couldn't help but rejoice that he chose to attach himself to Xiaoyu Theater four years ago.

"Master Shen, the old man is going to send 14,000 shi of grain and 16 carts of hay to Maozhu City. It is just for our 1,000 warriors to **** these things, and then they will act as internal agents to take down this Maozhu City. "The head of the Shi family responded quickly and decisively, knowing that this is a good time to make great achievements.

Shen Guang nodded slightly to express his satisfaction, but shook his head again and said: "No, you don't need to attack the small Maozhu County with one person, so you take this opportunity to follow Hong Yibo closely and continue to get him." Trust, when you attack the champion county later, it will be when you play a role."

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In the evening, the sky in Maozhu County had already darkened. Hong Yibo easily collected one hundred thousand shi of grain and one hundred carts of hay. When the king liked it, he suddenly heard the piercing sound of horns coming from the direction of the east city.

Hong Yibo turned his head and looked outside the house in astonishment.

A private soldier stumbled to Hong Yibo and said in a trembling voice: "General, there are enemy troops...the enemy troops are coming!"

In the fifteenth year of Daye, on the night of February 6th, no one in the entire city of Maozhu County expected that the Far Eastern Army would suddenly approach the city.

Fortunately, the head of the Shi family led people to deliver the food and grass, and when he rushed to his own Wubao, he suddenly discovered the Far East Army, led people back to Maozhu City, and warned Hong Yibo in time, and rushed to the city gate first. closed.

At that time, the vanguard of Xu Shiji's army was only about seven or eight miles away from Maozhu County.

Before the Far Eastern Army arrived outside the city, the defenders in Maozhu County were already panicking. After all, the reputation of the Far Eastern Army as invincible has gradually gained popularity.

As for the common people in the city, after learning of the large-scale invasion of the Far Eastern Army, there were almost no people on the street, and every door was tightly closed. The arrival is full of anticipation.

Of course, some people worry about their unknown fate.

Although he pretended to be full of confidence, Hong Yibo realized that his legs were trembling when the Far East Army actually approached the city. His prestige is too great.

Speaking of which, there are now more than 16,000 troops in Maozhu City, which is quite a lot for the defenders, and they just collected 100,000 shi of grain, so I won't worry about it for a while food problem.

It's just that Hong Yibo discovered that they didn't have any equipment to defend the city, such as bed crossbows, trebuchets... nothing. The only ones that have some are the rolling stones at the top and the foot of the city, and a few large oil pans.

Frightened, Hong Yibo repeatedly issued orders that he didn't know were correct. The pot caught fire.

That is to say, after finishing these things, the army of the Far East Army has already arrived outside the city, and it is estimated that they will attack the city soon.

Moreover, Hong Yibo discovered that there seemed to be many more Far Eastern Army troops outside the city than he had imagined.

Xu Shiji's troops didn't even intend to set up a camp, or they had no plan to set up a camp at all. They lit more than a dozen piles of bonfires outside the city, and countless bright torches, illuminating the night sky outside the city bright red. .

Then the erection of fifty catapults was started.

Manipulating the trebuchet is the people from the engineering battalion. They unload a large number of parts of the trebuchet from the bullock cart at the fastest speed, and then assemble them into a trebuchet, and build the trebuchet to launch position.

Soldiers from another engineer and supply battalion carefully unloaded the gunpowder packs from the bullock carts and distributed them to fifty catapults.

Hong Yibo also used trebuchets when he fought with Zhu Can in these years, but he had never seen such a big trebuchet, and he wanted to hit the city wall with a trebuchet more than 400 steps away.

Besides, he couldn't believe that the army of the Far East Army actually transported such a heavy thing from the other side of Bashan to the city of Maozhu County.

In addition, there are people who are drinking loudly, chopping and sawing trees overnight, most of them are making siege tools.

Under the contrast between the offensive and defensive sides inside and outside the city, Hong Yibo suddenly lost confidence in defending the city of Maozhu County.

The south of Maozhu County is surrounded by mountains, and a small river flows from the west around the city to the east. The county seat is cut off.

This kind of terrain was originally very beneficial to the defensive side, so Xu Shiji was fully prepared. However, having said that, if everything is forewarned, if it is not forewarned, it will be abandoned. Even if the city is well defended, if the defenders are not prepared and panic, the result can be imagined.

Hong Yibo was a little flustered at this moment, but he forcibly suppressed the urge to lead his troops to flee to Champion County——because withdrawing troops overnight would inevitably cause great chaos in Maozhu County Let them defeat faster, not to mention, let King Zhu know later, he will definitely be steamed in a steamer and eaten.

No matter what, at least one night must be persisted. Even if the Far Eastern Army intends to attack the city overnight, as long as he can't hold on, the opponent will need to build a ladder all night!

After tonight, the reinforcements from the seven docks should arrive!

Of course, the army of the seven forts will definitely lose to the Far East Army, but as long as they can hold out for half a day, the army of other champion counties will come to rescue.

Thinking in this way, Hong Yibo felt a little more at ease, without the initial panic.

As if it was a routine matter, a horse jumped out of the Far East Army and shouted at the top of the city to persuade him to surrender, but Hong Yibo didn't listen to a word, making the archers shoot indiscriminately as his own. answer.

The Far Eastern Army didn't seem to have much sincerity in persuading the surrender, and soon stopped such meaningless things. Inside and outside the city, they are caught in a strange confrontation—the two sides are nervously busy and making their own preparations.

But this confrontation was very short, and soon it was interrupted by the explosion of powder packs fired by a catapult.

The trebuchet company finally made all preparations for shooting, and the gangsters tentatively launched a shot towards the city.

The angle of launch this time was a bit low, and the distance it hit was not enough, so it hit directly under the city wall, creating a crater as big as Zhang Xu.

Such a loud noise scared the soldiers and civilians in Maozhu County who had never seen or heard of gunpowder explosion. A few soldiers even lost their legs and fell to the ground.

No way, although the gunpowder weapons of the Far Eastern Army have been famous all over the world these years, the troops who have never fought against the Far Eastern Army are only limited to hearing and imagining, which is very different from the explosion of real gunpowder weapons.

Standing on the city wall, Hong Yibo could hear the generals in the Far East Army's army scolding angrily, as if scolding for wasting a gunpowder pack or something.

"The generals of the Far Eastern Army are not very satisfied with this launch?" Hong Yibo saw a group of people gesticulating with a few odd-shaped wooden boards, and some people were paddling quickly on the ground, as if they were counting. He yelled loudly, and made some adjustments to all the trebuchets that he couldn't understand at all.

After a while, it seems that the adjustment is finally good.

The next moment, as someone in the Far Eastern Army waved a small flag and shouted a password, the Far Eastern Army's trebuchet was launched again.

With a sound of "boom", a few soldiers somewhere at the top of the city were bullying their heads out of the parapet to have a look. The sound came again, and then there was a scream from the top of the city.

Hong Yibo turned around to look, but saw a dozen or so soldiers lying in a pool of blood, and more than half of their bodies were torn apart. It was so miserable and shocking.

"I'm afraid, I've already eaten human flesh, so what's there to be afraid of. Come and carry their corpses down!" Hong Yibo suppressed the fear in his heart, and inspected the dozen soldiers with a straight face. The dead body, called a dozen people over, and hurriedly carried the large piece of broken body to the city.

The general who followed Hong Yibo turned pale, and asked in a trembling voice: "General, what should we do?"

"Stay behind the parapet wall, spread out, and hide, afraid of a bird!" Hong Yibo almost roared angrily, "This is called gunpowder, and the Far East Army has gunpowder weapons. It's not like you haven't heard of them. However, I don't believe that they can also use this gunpowder weapon when attacking the city!"

As if in response to Hong Yibo, outside the city, fifty catapults from the Far Eastern Army came to launch on the assembly line, and vaguely heard the passwords ringing one after another, and the catapults were launched one after another. , Gunpowder packets were poured one by one towards the head of Maozhu County.

Amidst the loud explosions, the city of Maozhu County seemed to be trembling.

As time went by, the faces of the defenders became more and more frightened, and their morale became lower and lower.

I don’t know how long the gunpowder packs of the Far Eastern Army’s siege lasted. Fifty trebuchets fired once in turn, and a quarter of the trebuchets actually missed the target. They hit outside the city, which may not be true. How much damage can be caused to Maozhu County, what is really desperate is the helplessness of the guards of the Zhu family army in the face of the gunpowder packets fired by the trebuchet.

Xu Shiji may not know what psychological warfare is, but he understands it. He originally wanted to use the explosion of gunpowder packs to destroy the will of the defenders and achieve the goal of defeating the enemy without fighting.

So, he ordered fifty trebuchets to be launched one after another, and the terrifying loud noises continued to hit the city of Maozhu County in the night sky.

For the Zhu family army in the city, this was a night of nightmares.

What made Hong Yibo even more annoyed was that, except for the 10,000 soldiers who had already reached the top of the city, most of the more than 6,000 people he sent out to move the rolling stones did not come and hid somewhere. Only the head of the Shi family The 2,000 people with the Shi family kept moving rolling stones and logs from the city.

"The Shi family is still loyal. The people from the other six Wubaos have all run away. Looking at it like this, these six Wubaos will not send reinforcements over tomorrow." Four weeks later, he found that the Far Eastern Army would not send troops to attack the city for a while, so he wanted to seize the time and send some soldiers to move the rolling stones and hardwood from the city to the top of the city.

But before he finished speaking, he heard screams from all over the city, he turned his head in surprise, and was momentarily stunned.

In the city of Maozhu County, there are flames everywhere.

On the originally deserted street, there are people running around everywhere, and the city is completely in chaos!

"The spies of the Far East Army have sneaked into the city!" At this moment, Hong Yibo could hardly conceal his panic.

"The general trend is over, withdraw! Go to Champion City!"

Almost at the same time, outside the city of Maozhu County, there was also the sound of horns, and 10,000 infantrymen of the Wagang Battalion of the Far Eastern Army surrounded a dozen simple trench bridges and ladders, and attacked the city wall.

Knowing in his heart that it would be wrong not to resist at all, but at this time Hong Yibo had lost the determination to resist, so he managed to gather six thousand elite guards including two thousand members of the Shi family, abandoned the east city, and went to Xicheng fled.

Only a quarter of an hour after Hong Yibo left Dongcheng, with a creak, the suspension bridge of Dongcheng was lowered, and the city gate was slowly opened.

"Just like that... captured this Maozhu City?" Xu Shiji watched the city gate slowly open. Although this was the result of his plan being implemented smoothly, it still felt a little unreal. The siege has never been so smooth.

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