In the early morning of Youzhou City, the air was very fresh, the green grass leaves were still covered with dew from last night, and the sky was shrouded in a layer of light white mist. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was already bright and blue.
Somewhere there were sparrows chirping occasionally.
Guo Shao and his followers strode across the artillery array. He couldn't help but feel that the bronze Dragon Roar Cannon was very beautiful, much better looking than the cast iron one. The golden cannon body was polished smooth and the workmanship was very good, and it looked very new.
The rows of artillery muzzles were facing diagonally towards the sky. When Guo Shao looked back, he could see rows of huge black muzzles.
The battle was very powerful. They were still just mortars for hitting stones. Their actual effect could not be as good as the howitzers that could destroy everything in their impression. Their power was very limited. But Guo Shao knew that as long as they were used properly, these things would be very useful for siege.
Suddenly, there was a loud scream of a rooster. Guo Shao looked in the direction of the sound and was immediately shocked.
It turned out that a few soldiers killed a rooster and dripped the chicken blood on the barrel of a cannon. The generals around him hurriedly said: That cannon will be fired first, and everyone is doing it for good luck.
After inspecting the artillery formation, Guo Shao left. He no longer needed to personally take care of any specific tactics.
After a long time, there was a sudden thunderclap, the ground trembled slightly, and the thunderous roar of cannons tore through the silence of the sky. Thick white smoke rose into the sky.
The neighing of horses and the noise of people increased, and the birds in the distance were frightened and flew away desperately.
But after the first shot, there was silence for a while, and then the cannon fire in the camp stopped and stopped as if it was chaotic. The towers and walls in the distance were not affected much, but the Zhou army was filled with smoke and noisy.
Guo Shao said nothing, and of course he did not blame the cannon because he designed it himself. Of course he understood. The accuracy of this mortar is really limited, mainly because the casting technology and measuring tools are very crude; how can we hit the target? Yes, we can try the elevation angle and charge amount one by one, and because the size of the cannon cannot be completely standardized, the shooting parameters of each cannon are slightly different. Even so, it is still impossible to be completely accurate, as long as it can hit the target.
The artillery array fiddled with it for more than half an hour before it stopped again.
Before, the world was like a pool of clear water, with blue sky, green earth, fresh air and moist white mist; but now, the world seemed to have been poured into a basin of dirty water.
The sky above the Zhou army camp was filled with fog, as if dust filled the sky, and the smoke from the artillery mixed with the fog. People were coming and going in the camp, and it was a mess and busy scene.
At this moment, a group of horsemen slowly rushed to the fortifications in front, and without stopping, they continued to spread over the Mutu camp and slowly moved forward.
The cannon fire that lasted for more than half an hour did not cause much damage to the city wall. Most of the cannon fire missed the target. It was just a test. Now that the cannon fire stopped, there was no more. Instead, there were people on horseback.
Bombardment alone cannot test the enemy's defense strength, this cavalry is a test; and by approaching the cavalry to lure the defenders to the city, the first round of volleys can expand the results of the battle by surprise.
Guo Shao and other ministers watched the scene. The camp inside and outside looked a bit messy, but he could feel the order in the chaos. Everything was proceeding in an orderly manner according to plan.
The light cavalry entered the front line like a charge, first reorganizing, then jogging, and then rushing towards the city wall on horseback.
The cavalry received almost no long-range attacks and successfully reached the moat. They quickly turned and made a detour, firing many arrows from the side gates and hurling them onto the city walls. The moat of Youzhou City was not very wide, and hurling arrows from the riverside could reach the top of the city walls.
Guo Shao was several hundred steps away and could not see the counterattack from the city clearly. But judging from the situation of Zhou's army, the defenders had almost no strong counterattack.
A sound came out of Wang Pu’s mouth, and then nothing else happened.
The others didn't react much, they just watched. The battle lasted for more than half an hour, but the pace was not intense and everyone seemed a little lazy.
Guo Shaodao and Wang Pu seemed to have the same intuition: the start was very strange.
He smelled something unusual.
Cavalry attack is of course not a good way to attack a city, after all, horses cannot carry people across the moat, and they cannot climb up the three-meter-high city wall on foot. But according to common sense, if you get close to the city, you will be attacked by the defenders, after all, the distance is only 20 to 30 steps.
Why didn't the defenders fight back from a distance? It's possible that there weren't many people on the wall.
The Zhou army cavalry in the distance circled outside the city wall and fired a few arrows on horseback. Then the front of the army gradually turned back, and a group of cavalry rushed to the wall like a stream and then flowed back.
Wang Pu said in a deep voice: The situation seems to be different from what we expected.
Guo Shao did not act rashly. The Zhou army was too large and its deployment was complicated, just like a huge ship that would turn very slowly. He could not change his strategy just because of a small accident.
The cavalry ran very fast, and soon they had planted a row of triangular flags fifty steps away from the city wall, and then swarmed back.
When they were a hundred steps away, there was a sudden earth-shaking roar. Guo Shao turned his head and saw a line of white smoke rising above the camp, and large stone bombs flying into the sky.
Before the stone bullets hit the city wall, after a while, the sound of cannons roared again, flames flashed, and a line of white smoke rose.
Earth and rocks flew everywhere on the top of Youzhou City, and the collapse of the parapet could be seen from afar.
The cannons from far and near in the Zhou army camp fired in unison, and the scene was very shocking. The muzzles seemed to be spurting flames at the same time, and smoke billowed. The sparse arrow towers and observation posts between the artillery arrays seemed to be erected from the clouds.
The deafening sound of artillery fire continued in an endless stream, and the bombardment was so crazy that there was no sign of stopping.
Outside the first fortification, wheelbarrows were spreading forward amid the sound of gunfire and smoke. Countless soldiers were pushing soil toward the moat like a flood.
The real siege had just begun. The Zhou army attacked the city by filling the river violently from the front.
When the front of the crowd approached the previously placed pennants, the artillery on the artillery array stopped firing one after another. Everything was in order and coordinated with each other.
The crowd filling the river only needed to take the opportunity to advance 20 or 30 steps to reach the edge of the moat, pour the soil in and it was done. The moat was not a flowing river, the water flow was very slow and almost stagnant, so filling the river was very easy, it was just a matter of the amount of soil and rocks.
Unexpectedly, at this moment, a dark shadow suddenly appeared above the city wall, and stones flew out like hail. The Zhou army's engineers were very dense, and screams were heard everywhere. From time to time, wheelbarrows would fall over and soldiers would fall down.
As soon as this situation occurred, the ministers and generals who were watching from the center of the army began to discuss in low voices.
Wang Pu said: Youzhou City Defense has been prepared for a long time, and it seems that it is specifically aimed at our artillery. The enemy's defense weapons are not on the city walls, but inside the city. Our previous bombardment was mainly aimed at the city walls, and failed to effectively destroy their equipment.
A general said: Our artillery can fire far, let's bombard the equipment in the city again.
Wang Pu frowned and said: We can't see the city, how do you know where they are exactly? What's more, if the enemy keeps moving, we have no way of knowing.
Everyone turned their attention to Guo Shao.
Guo Shao said nothing, stood on his horse with his sword in hand, and looked at the situation ahead.
He still had no intention of changing his tactics. One reason was that if the first wave of the siege was repelled immediately, it would affect morale. The enemy used catapults to hit people and horses, which was less lethal than mortars. The casualties of the Zhou army engineers were not high, and they were far from being defeated. There would be casualties in war, and even now, even if there were casualties, they could not act rashly.
Secondly, he had no idea of a countermeasure. Even if he retreated, how could he attack again? If he stopped the siege at the beginning, it would not be a good choice either.
Guo Shao felt as if there were 10,000 animals rushing through his heart, but he still acted calm. He had to carry on with the tactics he had formulated himself even if he encountered setbacks.
He had to re-examine the barbarians of Liao.
Both artillery and tactics were new things of this era, but those people did not seem to be so ignorant and slow. They were able to adapt to and understand the new warfare mode so quickly.
It can be speculated that Xiao Siwen and other Khitans understood Guo Shao's siege tactics through the tactical details of the Battle of Jinyang, and it seems that they truly understood the tactical logic.
Guo Shao carefully watched the stones flying in the air. It was a parabola. In fact, by drawing a model diagram, the position of the enemy's catapult could be roughly calculated. However, the Liao army still had a simple way to deal with it.
Guo Shao could immediately think of two methods: First, as Wang Pu said, they could keep moving so that the Zhou army outside the city would not know when they moved. Second, they could move the catapults closer to the city wall. The trajectory of the Zhou army's artillery shells was still a parabola with an angle limit; there was an area inside the city wall that was a blind spot.
At this time, a general asked: How should we deal with it
Obviously there is no perfect method, but no matter how bad the method is, we must come up with one immediately, at least let the soldiers know what they should do.
Guo Shao immediately said: Pass the order, all artillery pieces in the artillery battalion should immediately increase their elevation angles and fire the shells into the city.
Wang Pu clasped his fists in response and immediately asked the military officials to arrange for a messenger to deliver the military order.
Guo Shao pointed to the front and said: When the first group of people who were filling the river return to the artillery formation and start shelling, order the engineers to reorganize the formation, with at least ten feet of distance between each person, and continue filling the river in a sparse deployment.
Yes, Your Majesty.
After a long time, the crowd in the distance gradually retreated from the moat. A few hundred steps away, it was also possible to see that the Zhou army had paid a price. The ground outside the moat was in a mess, with many damaged wheelbarrows thrown there, and many corpses on the ground. There were even more injured people being brought back.
The Liao army deployed a large number of catapults in the city, and it seemed that they were well prepared. They might not know when the Zhou army would attack Youzhou, but they had already guessed and guarded against the Zhou army's northern expedition.