stubborn thief

Chapter 313
In Bajiao City, in the temple that once belonged to Razun.

The monk translated the letter into Mongolian with a strange expression. He scratched his head and scratched his head.

Chuoke Tutaiji, who was sitting cross-legged in front of the Buddha statue, looked as usual, but he felt sorry for his monk and asked the waiter to fetch a handkerchief.

The monk’s name is Zhuo Erji, who is proficient in three languages: Fan, Han, and Mongolian. He is good at medicine and painting. He was first ordered to preach in Guihua City. Riba Biography" was translated into Mongolian and introduced to Khalkha.

For him, the words in Liu Chengzong's letters are not obscure, he understands every word, and there is no problem with the words and sentences connected together, but he can't directly translate it and show it to Chuoke Rabbit.

In fact, Monk Zhuoerji was very puzzled. Before the war started, he was ordered to enter Gansu to inquire about the Marshal's Mansion occupying Qinghai, so he had some understanding of the Liu family.

In the monk's cognition, Liu Chengzong's family came from the hinterland of the Han family. His father Liu Xiangyu once managed tens of thousands of people as an official, and Liu Chengzu and Liu Chengzong were both brave and fierce fighters.

They led the army to deal with several generals and generals in the hinterland of the Han family, and finally moved thousands of miles to occupy Qinghai.

Moreover, someone specifically told the monk that the three of Liu, father and son, had extremely high knowledge and education.

Zhuo Erji doubts this.

Because Liu Chengzong gave Chuoke the title of "Brother Rabbit Who Takes Farts" in the letter, and asked him to "take a self-portrait" to see if he is worthy of occupying Qinghai, and ordered him to quickly mobilize troops and horses to the Heka Grassland, "come to extend I've never seen a Tartar who can beat me, or if I'm timid, I'll wait two months in Bajiao City. I'll come to you when I chop it up. '

Monk Zhuoerji said in his heart: The blood in this fucking letter is almost overflowing, how do you translate it?
He was really afraid of translating it directly, and he would be pissed off before he started fighting Chuoke Tutaiji; but he couldn't do without translating a lot of words. After all, Monk Zhuoerji knew a lot, but he didn't know how to fight, so he was afraid that he would miss something. make them lose the war.

After a long time of preparation, the final letter was more than 1 times gentler in terms of words and sentences while retaining the general meaning. .

Chuoke Rabbit took the translated letter and put it on the scripture case. He folded his beard with his callused hands, and read and read.

In the letter, Liu Chengzong first extended his sincere blessings and greetings to him and his family, and then expounded his opinions on the issue of his invasion of Qinghai and occupation of Bajiao City, condemned his tactics of attacking from two sides, and cordially invited him to meet him in the Heka Grassland, if the time is not suitable, I wish him good health, and will visit Bajiao City in two months.

Finally he said to the monk with a smile on his face: "This Han family boy is very humble and polite!"

What could Monk Zhuoerji say, he felt guilty in his heart, and answered very seriously with the corners of his mouth drooping, and quickly put aside the topic: "Yes! I heard that Marshal Qinghai was born as a scholar...Taiji is going to Heka Grassland Are you going to fight him?"

Chuoketu shook his head, raised his hand and tapped twice on his crossed legs: "What kind of battle is it? If Liu Chengzong marches westward, we will go west from the Yellow River and leave here around him."

This polished letter did not make him angry, so he realized very rationally that Liu Chengzong's attack on Wulan Mountain was the best chance for him to lead his army to leave here.

Even though it was not his intention to leave Qinghai in embarrassment, the capture of Gu Rutaiji and Xiao Lazun's territory also allowed him to obtain huge wealth, and the result of leaving now is not too bad.

Chuoke Tutaiji did not publicize the news of the messenger's capture. On the one hand, he ordered the defenders in the city to build defense equipment, and on the other hand, he sent people to move to the west of the Yellow River to investigate the defense situation along the coast, waiting for Liu Chengzong's westward expedition to Wulan Mountain. , took the opportunity to leave Huang Nan.

But why did Liu Chengzong leave?
In fact, at the same time that Chuoketu sent people to monitor Hexi's defense, Liu Chengzong also sent Dai Daozi to lead Tangqi across the Yellow River, and told Liu Chengzu his thoughts. The two sides built a communication line in Huangnan to pass military information back and forth.

What Liu Chengzong was worried about was siege. He didn't have much experience in siege, but he also knew the most basic thing in war: siege is the worst policy.

Unless the city is surrendered in anticipation of the wind and the internal response is to open the city, if the defenders stick to it, it will be a nightmare for the attacking side.

Liu Chengzong has always had Qiu Ba's style, and he is not very serious like a scholar, but he rarely swears at people mercilessly or even for the purpose of disgusting people.

He wrote Chuoketu a disgusting person, simply hoping that Chuoketu would come out because of his insults, and then the decisive battle would be fought on the Heka Grassland. Liu Chengzu was responsible for leading the army to cut off his way back to Bajiao City. It's easy to end.

The purpose of releasing the captives back is to let the defenders know that there are no reinforcements, so as to eliminate their desire to defend.

If such a plan fails, then he can only build siege equipment and prepare to attack the city.

In the Heka Day Camp in July, Shi Cheng and I led craftsmen to arrive, and built two blast furnaces, smelting iron and melting copper, and making instruments at the same time.

Speaking of which, A Haidaiqing also did Liu Chengzong a favor. If it weren't for the ready-made return cannon, even if the craftsmen of the Marshal's Mansion were to make siege equipment, it would be difficult to think of such a siege equipment.

Now he has two disassembled return guns in his hand, and they can take part in the siege when they are transported to Bajiao City.

Large-scale siege equipment is difficult to transport, so Liu Chengzong builds standard parts of small equipment and large equipment here, and relies on Xining Prefecture for ammunition supplies.

The small equipment is naturally the old treasure of the ladder car and the wooden mantle that captured Zhenyuan City. It was the only serious attack on the city by Liu Chengzong's army in three years, and it can be said that he is most familiar with the siege equipment.

In addition, because there are senior officers like Li Bei as their staff, their siege equipment has added a few blueprints.

The only heavy equipment is the trench filling vehicle and the trench vehicle. Other than that, it is a flower bomb...not a flower bomb that blows up all over the sky. The fire rate is low, and it is easy for the Mongols to pick it up and light it before throwing it down when they are attacking the city.

The blooming bomb Li Bei mentioned was a smoke bomb with a large amount of nitrate and mixed charges inside, used to obscure the view of the defending army.

The trench filling cart and the trench cart are two kinds of wooden carts. The former is a movable wooden shell, which is used to cover the arrows and protect the soldiers from pushing the earth, wood and rocks into the trench and adding the trench to the road.

The latter is similar to the ladder car, but the boards released are used to build bridges on narrower moats for the siege army to pass through.

In addition to these, Liu Chengzong's army dunked Heka to manufacture copper materials waiting to be processed. The proportion of copper materials was as follows: every 92 catties of pure copper was mixed with eight catties of tin and lead to make five catties of thin slices waiting to be processed. Easy to transport and use.

This time Liu Chengzong asked Shi Cheng me to make a heavy cannon with a thousand catties, and they had to prepare at least [-] catties of copper materials.

When all these things were prepared and it was already August, Liu Chengzong couldn't help but sigh in midsummer. His aggressive method against Chuoke Tutaiji still failed.

Chuoke Rabbit can really sit still. According to the news from the elder brother of Guide Qianhusuo, during this period of time, the army of Bajiao City did not even attack. They only dug trenches and made defensive equipment in Bajiao City. Twelve catapults and four cannons were shot out on the ground, which was very scary.

On the contrary, Arslan in Ulan Mountain's plan of suspicious soldiers succeeded.

Although Arslan couldn't stay idle, he led troops to fight Zhong Hu who guarded the Chaka Salt Pond for more than a month, and even led a cavalry team across Nanshan Fort to have a cordial conversation with Liu Guoneng, the magistrate of Haixi County, but what did he say? They didn't come to the Heka Grassland to add to Liu Chengzong's obstacles.

In short, Liu Chengzong admired this peer who was ten years older than him, and his whole body exuded a maturity that did not match his age.

Liu Chengzong felt that even if Chuoketu sent a messenger to Wulan Mountain and asked him for help, Arslan might not believe it, and even retorted: "Your father just told you to go to Heka!"

On the ninth day of August, Yang Yao, a member of the army stationed in Xining Prefecture, led his army out of Nanshan Fort to further block Arslan's eastward march. advance.

At the same time, Li Wanqing, under Liu Chengzu's command, led his army to set off into Bajiao City with a radius of hundreds of miles, and began to clean up the strongholds occupied by the Khalkha Mongols.

Within ten days, they fought eight times, were defeated six times and were defeated once, and faced off until dark and retreated. A total of 46 enemy soldiers were captured, and they were successively informed of various false information, and the prisoners were deliberately let go.

It's not easy for Chuck Rabbit Taiji these days.

Intermittent information was sent back to the city through the escaped captives in no particular order.

When the night covered Bajiao City, bonfires adorned the walls of the cross city, and Mongolian soldiers in sheepskin jackets sat around the bonfire, always bringing the topic to the depressing battle situation.

The people vividly relayed the words of the captives who fled back, and announced for Liu Chengzong that Arslan, who was alive and kicking in Wulan Mountain, was dead, and died in the artillery fire of the siege army.

Disputes erupted among the people. Some people said that Arslan was not dead. According to the information he knew, the Marshal's Palace withdrew after the first attack failed.

The storyteller had ridicule on his face: "You know that the battle was not over yet, and they retired because Liu Chengzong didn't bring thick clothes. Look at what we're wearing? He only wears a single shirt, so why would he suffer?" Come on, go back and get thick clothes and besiege the city again!"

Anyway, it was all hearsay, and those who believed that Arslan was not dead were not so firm, so they hurriedly asked, "Then what happened next?"

"Later, the cannon was adjusted, but only the flames could be seen. The shell hit the defender, and his head was smashed. The brother who told me about this said it was a defender, but where is the defender in Ulan City? It's Arslan, sure. That's right."

When the stars are twinkling at night, and the mutton is rolling in the pot during the day, the same scene reappears again and again in Bajiao City.

These news spread like wildfire in the yurt tents inside and outside the city, and spread unscrupulously until they reached the ears of the nobles.

According to Liu Chengzong's thinking, the news would be known to Chuoketu immediately, and then he would probably be ordered to keep it silent, so it was just a random shot.

But his worries are completely unnecessary, because this Mongolian army is not so highly regularized, and their organization is the same as that of the Qinghai Marshal's wife-many people hope to have it, sometimes it seems to be there, but in fact it doesn't exist.

Chuoketu, who was chanting scriptures in the small temple, didn't even know that any captives had escaped. Chuoketu Taiji was not the first to know any information about the outside of this city.

Of course, even if he ordered to shut it up after he knew it, he couldn't be the last one.

As the Mongolian city of Ulan Mountain was under siege, the defenders were killed by shelling, the defenders fled wantonly, and the marshal's mansion had won a complete victory, the panic was spreading in the Bajiao City camp.

On the evening of August [-]th, the nomadic tribes in the west fled in panic towards Bajiao City. They saw the Han army in bright armor passing through Zequ, and their horseshoes stepped on the mountains full of yellow flowers and came towards Bajiao City.

Chuoketu has not yet recovered from the grief of losing his son. Thousands of Mongolians chanted the Buddha's name loudly in this cross city. The sound was so loud that the shepherds outside the city also joined in the prayer.

People pray not to pray, but to integrate themselves into the collective.

This is like a paradox. In the era when Genghis Khan existed, the Mongols did not need any identity ceremony, but now, this kind of ceremony produced to condense identity just declares that there is little cohesion left, and the great Khanate Survival is at stake.

The long-awaited moment for Chuck Rabbit Taiji has finally come, and the war has begun.

All he has left is this city wall and more than 1 soldiers who are temporarily fighting for him. When his son is dead and Lin Dan is too far away, these people are the only strength he can rely on.

Starting from the morning of August [-]th, his nomadic followers fled back layer by layer. They did not fight anyone, but they saw the approaching army from a distance, and they were frightened and gathered in Bajiao City.

According to the dictation of these warriors who had a chance with the enemy, Chuck Rabbit knew that his enemy had a well-organized army and bright armor.

Liu Chengzong did not, he did not have any armored army, and Basang's fighters could not be said to have a neat lineup.

He just asked Zhang Tianlin to assemble [-] soldiers with Mingjia, riding tall horses and walking in front of the army, that's all scary.

Mingjia's scaring effect is very good. When the morning sun shines on them and they are walking towards the enemy, the dazzling effect is amazing.

On August 22, Liu Chengzong rode his horse Yangqu to the steep slope of the south of the river, and he finally saw Bajiao City, a strange city that he had heard about from La Zun a long time ago, but had never seen it before.

Chuoke Tutaiji has finished clearing the walls and clearing the fields. Apart from the rivers and riverbanks, and the fields where Lazun has planted crops that are about to mature, there is only this lonely cross-shaped city on the grassland.

The Mongolian army has already withdrawn into the city, and only a few horse teams are swimming in the west of the city under the protection of the river.

Liu Chengzong was not in a hurry to attack, but set up camps on the opposite bank of the river in the south and west of the city, built copper furnaces for casting cannons, collected wood from further places, and began to build large siege equipment.

At the same time, Gao Yingdeng was sent to strangle the mountain in the east of the city, and Huang Shengxiao drove the Mongolian rangers on the other side of the river into the city with a gun, and began to dig soil to fill the river and build a wooden bridge.

With the completion of the siege equipment and the casting of the lion cannons, the outermost rivers were also repaired with sections of earth dams, and several wooden bridges were built simultaneously, and everything was ready.

On the morning of the third day of September, Liu Chengzong, dressed in military uniform, walked out of the tent with his helmet in his arms, and asked people to raise the flag of Liu Zishuai outside the camp gate. With the sound of drums, the guards hurriedly ran throughout the camp, announcing to the whole army. : "The battle to capture Bajiao City is about to begin!"

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)