In the mysterious and deep Yangtze River valley, the large crowd on the north bank was like a long dark torrent, but now it had stopped and blocked the road; the Shu army fortifications in front were a flood control embankment, blocking the passage. The noisy sounds echoed back and forth between the rocky mountains on both sides, like the roar of a mountain torrent.
The Zhou army soldiers in front of the fort were digging trenches, busy as a fire, as if they were doing rescue work. In the winding trenches, the soldiers were using hoes and shovels instead of weapons, desperately digging the soil.
The ground here is not made of stone but soil, so the Shu army could dig deep trenches in front of the fort, and the Zhou army could naturally do the same. Unlike the labor scene, stones were flying overhead, and the stones thrown by the stone cannons fell on the ground all around. Occasionally, a stone fell into the ditch, hitting the Zhou soldiers and making them scream.
So people couldn't help but look up at the sky while digging the soil.
The ground outside the trench was already full of stones, and the Shu army's stone cannons never stopped firing. Arrows flew in from time to time, but most of them could not hit the people in the trench. The Shu army's passive defense sandbag tactics could only use long-range attempts to attack the Zhou army's trenches, but the army did not come out and was blocked behind the deep trench fortress by its own fortifications.
In the rear camp, Guo Shao was sitting in front of a rough wooden desk under the gaze of his subordinates. The desk was so rough that it was just a piece of wood and a few stones. On the wooden board were papers and pens. He looked like a construction engineer instead of a general.
The trench has been dug to the fort. You two should go up and supervise it in person. Continue digging as I say and come back to report the situation in detail. You must look carefully. If there is a mistake, it will be equivalent to poor combat effectiveness. Guo Shao said to a general next to him.
The general asked cautiously: Will the gunpowder explode
No, Guo Shao said affirmatively, this is a directional blasting, don't worry.
Guo Shao had never worked in the field of blasting, but he had seen it before and could understand the pattern: gunpowder would leak energy in the direction where the seal was most vulnerable. Otherwise, why wouldn't unsealed gunpowder explode, but would instead release expanding heat energy from the gaps? The same is true for cannons, because the cannon wall cannot be blown apart, and energy will be directed out of the muzzle. In real life, if you poke a small hole in a balloon with a needle, the place where it explodes and tears is also the location of the puncture.
Ren Guoshao has learned a lot of knowledge and is not very clear about the principles of this profession, but life and experience have taught him the rules.
Guo Shao pointed at what was drawn on the blueprint and explained it to his general. This man had done cave attacks in the past, and he was good at digging tunnels and building siege works, so Guo Shao felt that it would be more reliable to let him supervise the civil engineering work, at least he had experience. Guo Shao himself would not go up and take on the cannon arrows, with rocks and arrows flying overhead, so close to the fortress, if he was unlucky and got smashed to death, wouldn't it be a very unfair death? He felt that if he didn't seek death, he wouldn't die.
The front army did not dig a tunnel directly as it was too troublesome. It would be much faster for a group of people to dig a trench in the open air to get closer to the fortress.
Everyone dug another earthen trench in front of the Shu army's trench fortifications, and brought sandbags to pile in front. They were less than 20 steps apart, so both sides could see each other's appearance. Even though they were so close, the Shu army couldn't do anything to them for a while. The heavy weapons of this era were trebuchets and crossbows. Trebuchets threw stones from overhead, with limited accuracy and frequency. The most limited thing was of course the lethality. Occasionally a stone hit, it would only kill or injure one person at most; crossbows fired horizontally and could not hit people hiding in the trench.
Then the Zhou army generals who were proficient in acupuncture were ordering people to dig a hole. This hole was much simpler than digging a tunnel. It was like digging a well. A hole was dug diagonally downward from the back. After the hole was dug, it was dug diagonally upward, and the tunnel was like a flat V shape.
The hole was not deep, so it was dug in less than half a day.
The general turned around and urged, "Bring it over quickly." Suddenly, a stone fell on the ditch next to him with a bang, which startled him and made him shrink his neck.
I saw some people in the trenches carrying stones and rocks in baskets, and some people were carrying coffins. Of course, the coffins were not filled with corpses, but gunpowder, which the Zhou army had prepared long ago. It was originally prepared to blow up the city when it encountered a strong city that could not be conquered; fortunately, the war against Shu was prepared by the whole country for a long time, and the gunpowder was sufficient.
It was already noon, and some soldiers were sitting in the ditch eating wheat cakes with water. Suddenly, there was a clang. When the general looked back, he saw a soldier's head was hit by a stone cannon. The helmet could not protect against the stone. The soldier fell into the ditch with a bloody head without even a cry. A stream of blood immediately flowed out of the helmet and soaked the mud. He was still biting a piece of wheat cake in his mouth. The general looked at the cake in his mouth and cursed uncomfortably: "Fuck!"
People were dying everywhere, but the general didn't ask and went into the cave himself. Another exit of the cave was facing the Shu army's fortress. The opening was on the wall of the deep trench dug by the Shu army itself, and there was still a thin layer of soil left.
There was still a candle burning in the cave, but the light coming in from a small hole at the entrance was brighter than the candle. The general leaned over to the hole and looked outside for a while, then took the candle from the soldier and carefully looked at the surrounding pit walls. The left and right sides and the bottom had been tamped down with wooden pestles, and wooden beams were placed on the top. Ramming the earth was the most familiar and exquisite work for people at that time, because at that time, whether it was building city walls or houses, most of them used rammed earth; brick walls were rare.
Seal the front with pebbles and stones mixed with soil first, don't make it too dense, the general ordered.
The soldiers carrying baskets came up and started to work. Soon, the general ordered the coffins filled with gunpowder to be put in, a total of eight coffins. Why eight coffins, Guo Shao himself didn't know why, anyway, there were too many, and there was no need to worry too much about such costs in war. The fuse was wrapped with oilcloth for gunpowder, and the front part was wrapped with a thin bamboo tube.
After the coffin was ready, the general ordered his soldiers to tamp the earth, making the coffin firm from top to bottom and from left to right. The tunnel behind continued to tamp the earth, filling it up all the way to the back.
The Shu army seemed to be busy too. Perhaps they thought the Zhou army was digging tunnels for attack. They obviously didn't understand the situation. It would be impossible to make any progress without ten days or half a month of tunnel attack. The Shu army had enough time to make temporary defenses underground.
A lone light boat with the flag of the Zhou Dynasty was floating on the river. The oars on both sides of the boat were like centipedes, struggling to sail upstream slowly. Some stones fell from the air into the river, and the boat quickly turned around and ran downstream. There was a loud noise behind the Shu army's fortress, as if mocking the embarrassed appearance of the boat that was spying on the Shu army.
The flags on the ships kept waving from side to side.
On the front of the army on the shore, a general clasped his fists and said: "I got the order." He then drew his sword from his waist, raised it high, and shouted: "Attack!"
The war drums thumped, the flags on the flanks were lowered, and the infantry slowly moved forward in formation. Soon, stones flew overhead, and screams were heard from the army. When they were several dozen steps away, the crossbows in the two-story fortress also shot arrows. The Zhou army soldiers held iron and wooden shields, and the team was already a little messy.
The wooden ladders in front were knocked down one after another, shouts of killing roared in the mountains, and the soldiers rushed forward with swords and shields. I saw flags waving on the wooden arrow tower behind the Shu army's fortress. The defenders should come out of the hiding cave to prepare for battle.
The Zhou army soldiers scrambled to climb up the wooden ladder, with stones and arrows raining down on their heads.
Arrows were flying in the fortress, and there were even crossbows firing huge arrows as thick as arms; behind the Shu army, on the wooden fence that was taller than the fortress, archers were taking turns shooting arrows.
The boat on the river was rowing upstream again. This time, no stone cannons were used to hit it. The Shu army's stone cannons were used to hit the troops attacking the fortress. The flag on the boat changed direction and waved back and forth.
At this time, the Zhou army sounded the horn in the rear, and the soldiers who had just rushed forward turned around and ran, and the crowd moved away like a receding tide.
A gong rang, and a loud shout came from the Zhou army camp. The soldiers who had just retreated fell to the ground under the shouts of the generals. The scene was very strange. The soldiers in the rear stared at the front with wide eyes, as if they were expecting something. Many people held their breath, and the noise here suddenly became smaller in a very strange way.
At this moment, there was a loud bang, and the green mountains on both sides of the Yangtze River seemed to shake. People clearly felt the ground shaking, as if there was an earthquake. In an instant, flames and thick smoke erupted in front of them, and a large amount of stones and soil erupted like a volcanic eruption. The rocks hit the stone walls of the earthen fort and made a terrifying sound. They seemed to destroy everything in front of them, and there was no way to stop them.
Thousands of kilograms of gunpowder lifted up the thick soil surface, and everything flew forward at a speed much faster than an arrow. If the stones were not blocked, they would fly at least one or two miles away. The rapidly spreading gunpowder smoke immediately covered the entire area in front of them, and nothing could be seen.
Boom boom boom, like a series of muffled thunder, the explosions echoed for a long time in the mountains on both sides of the river. Countless people were already shocked.
A moment later, far behind the Shu army, the upper level of the arrow tower had not yet been filled with thick smoke. Amid the rustling sound of wood rubbing against each other, the arrow tower slowly tilted backwards.
The Zhou army soldiers behind were already shocked, and stood there in a daze. The debris that was blown away did not affect the east, and flew towards the west sky as if it had eyes. The Shu army camp was completely covered by thick smoke, and no one knew what was happening now. Only screams of pain could be heard from afar.
What are you waiting for? A general shouted from behind.
Boom, boom, boom! A man stood in front of the big drum, swung his arms, and thundered on the drum head slowly and then quickly. The sound of the trumpet also sounded, and the soldiers came to their senses and shouted loudly.
The soldiers at the front who were ready to go looked a little different at this time. Each of them had a wet towel wrapped around their shoulders, as if they were going to work.