stubborn thief

Chapter 317
Bajiao City is like a permanent Mongolian camp.

The entire camp surrounded the monks and laymen buildings left by Xiao Lhazun in this ancient city, and set up countless yurts, large and small, forming three yurt camps in the north, east and south of the city.

Each pack group is relatively independent. Fences, fortifications, and outposts are set up on the outside, and streets are formed by felt tents inside.

Except for the outer city walls, this place is almost a replica of nomadic settlement towns, but the layout of the towns they built was greatly affected by the shells bombarded from outside the city.

No one camped in the middle, because during the rumble of artillery fire on the first day, people found that the middle of Bajiao City was the most likely place to be hit by shells.

Under the western city wall, on the second day of the war, Chuoke Tutaiji drew a line along the shadow of the city wall in the evening, and ordered all the shepherds in the army who could forge iron to build twelve furnaces in the shadow, and pick up dozens of furnaces under the protection of the western city wall. The iron cannonballs that came in were smelted and forged, and knocked into arrow clusters suitable for their use.

This place is out of the reach of artillery, allowing craftsmen to concentrate on making arrow clusters, so as to strengthen the Mongolian soldiers' ability to resist stubbornly after the city is broken.

Liu Chengzong outside the city didn't know that Chuoke Tutaiji was using his shells to make arrow clusters, and he was doing his best to add private goods to the surrender letter with Zhang Tianlin, Li Wanqing and other leaders.

Liu Chengzong's first letter of persuasion to surrender was very simple. It was a response to Chuoke Tutaiji's desire for him to withdraw from the siege, and at the same time gave the conditions for withdrawing from the siege, asking them to put down their weapons and surrender.

But this letter was later seen by Zhang Tianlin who was discussing the ambush for the Double Ninth Festival. The two used their brains, and then simply called the lower-level officers of the Lion Army to get together to come up with bad ideas.

As rebel leaders who started in northern Shaanxi, everyone has rich experience in being persuaded to surrender.

It's just that in the position of being persuaded to surrender in the past, it was difficult to think about which words were more subtle, but now it's interesting.

In contrast to the two, the generals and academies who were belatedly aware of the matter were everywhere in the tent discussing the matter, denouncing the court officials for being too thoughtful and yelling. .

Of course, scolding is scolding, and these tricks are really delicious. People turned around and used the imperial court's tactics of persuading them to surrender and divide them on Chuoketu's defenders.

The general content of the letter has not changed, but it has added the promise that the letter bearer can lead ten people to avoid death, that those who hold the head of Nayan will be rewarded with 500 taels of silver, and those who hold the head of Chuoke Rabbit will be rewarded with 500 taels of gold.

Due to the large volume of persuading letters, Liu Chengzong asked someone to carve a board and print them out. However, he did not let Xie Erhu be idle. Erhu was responsible for writing the page numbers, and wrote [-] pages from [-] to [-]. open.

Liu Chengzong came up with the idea. He felt that when these letters entered Bajiao City, Chuoketu and the nobles must collect them. No matter how they received them, they would not receive [-] copies, so they could only be suspicious of each other.

Whether the effect is good or not is not known yet, anyway, Xie Erhu looked at Liu Chengzong with a little fear.

On the morning of the eighth day of September, two catapults rang out again outside the city, and [-] large paper bags of persuasion credits were glued into twelve large paper balls, and several small cannons with fuses were tied on the outside, and were shot into Bajiao City one after another. .

The big ball of paper exploded in the air, and the letters scattered over the city like flowers from a goddess.

The whole Bajiao City was in chaos because of these letters. Chuoketu got the news immediately. After reading the letters, his temples throbbed violently, and he was furious and yelled: "The children of the Han family are not good people!"

Afterwards, the nobles of the three battalions were convened for a meeting. Monk Zhuoerji held the letter and trembled his lips, and whispered to Chuoketu: "Taiji, if you can't do it, just surrender. If the hearts of the people are not in harmony, no matter how strong the camp is, it will be broken."

Chuck Rabbit turned his head suddenly, his eyes were like a tiger that would eat someone, but in the end he didn't say anything, he just ordered the nobles to collect the letters.

He had lost many battles, tried defeat all over the world, but never surrendered.

A Haidaiqing sat aside, looked at the three nobles in the tent, and folded his arms behind him quietly thinking... These persuading letters made him feel very complicated.

Not to mention sad and anxious, but actually a little happy.

After the defeat, his [-]-odd followers had a very low status in the city. Although people didn't say anything on the surface, everyone could feel that others looked down on them.

The three battalions of nobles each occupy a part of the city, and his followers can only squeeze into a corner near the middle, which is a place where there is a possibility of being hit by shells whenever a cannon is fired.

However, following Liu Chengzong's fierce attack in two days, all the battlements of the west city wall were demolished, and he could clearly feel that their status had returned!

It seems that people have let go of his defeat, and even have a little more understanding: there is nothing shameful in being defeated with this kind of gun.

Because of this, A Haidaiqing didn't dare to tell others that when Liu Chengzong fought him, he didn't have so many shots.

Just thinking about what to do in the future, I saw Chuoke Rabbit think for a while, and said to the crowd: "What he said in this letter is nice, but he wants to drive us all to death, so that he can leave the people to recruit and work for him. It is better to defend the city desperately. Even if we only take Bajiao City, it will be enough to feed the troops when he retires."

Chuoketu found the most critical part of these persuasion letters, just like Liu Chengzong's not afraid of the imperial court's death-free card. It is not only the peasant army in northern Shaanxi who cannot read words, but Chuoketu's Mongolian tribe is also illiterate.

As long as these nobles can be maintained, things are not dangerous for him.

And all the nobles, no matter they were fake or sincere, agreed with each other, making the atmosphere in the big tent very harmonious.

A Haidaiqing also said: "Han'er is good at guns, and the cannons can't be moved to the city!"

In fact, he really wanted to surrender. The shells flew over his head, which scared him a little.

But he didn't dare to surrender, just like the Mongolian Nayans in this yurt today, A Haidaiqing didn't believe that everyone was like Chuoke Rabbit, and he had to stand firm to the end.

Just because Liu Chengzong was outside the city, A Haidaiqing was worried about his treatment after surrendering. It would be better to lose the war than to surrender at that time.

The premise for them to attack Qinghai was Liu Chengzong's southern expedition. Who doesn't know what he did in the south!
Isn't that just to drive out the nobles? The Western nobles are nobles, but Mongolian Nayan is not a noble?

There is no first rafter, not to mention whether you think about it, but whether you dare or not is enough to make the nobles in the tent hesitate.

Besieged in Bajiao City for the past few days, A Haidaiqing has been thinking carefully, and now he is belatedly aware. He feels that Liu Chengzong's ability to return to the north alive shows that this is an enemy they cannot defeat.

Touching the interests of the nobles is equivalent to killing lives, changing the concept of slaves is digging people's graves, and the concept of the bottom is precisely bound to the source of the interests of the nobles.

Liu Chengzong offended both sides of Xifan, and finally he was able to retreat and lead his army to march north. Appearing in front of them can explain many problems in itself.

At least this can show that Liu Chengzong did not need to cooperate with the nobles to surrender Kangning Xifan, so he also did not need to cooperate with Nayan to surrender them.

Because of this, rather than surrendering, A Haidaiqing was more willing to delay for a few more days to see if there was any chance of escape.

However, in order to ensure personal safety, A Haidaiqing still hid hundreds of letters persuading him to surrender in case of emergencies.

His remarks about the fact that the cannons could not be loaded into the car won the heart of Chuoke Rabbit, and he immediately responded: "Yes, let him attack the city and let them eat the arrows forged by his own cannon!"

Everyone in the tent was talking loudly about the chances of street fighting against them. This meeting was like holding on to a life-saving straw, discussing tactics to the extreme, such as what kind of arrow clusters were inserted in the cesspit for backup, and the west wall was greased. thing.

Some people even shouted that they wanted to send the warrior Ye Fan out of the city to move rescue soldiers to the east, which attracted everyone's attention.

Relief soldiers are moved to the east, what kind of reinforcements are moved, the Ming army?
If it weren't for that face with high cheekbones and a face like a silver plate, people would somewhat doubt his bloodline.

But then Chuoke Rabbit and several nobles made a plan, and it seemed that this matter was indeed feasible. At worst, they couldn't get Bajiao City, and Liu Chengzong didn't want to get it either, and gave it to Daming.

But then someone put forward a contrary opinion. After all, at the Guide Thousand Households, the army of the Marshal's Mansion joined the Ming army to defend against them. Don't turn around and the Ming army came to surround them.

At this moment, the waiters who collected the persuasion letters came back, approached Chuoke Rabbit's ears with strange expressions, and whispered: "Taiji, there are numbers on these letters, from one to nineteen hundred and eighty, there may be two thousand pieces , we only received 440."

Chuck Rabbit stared directly, and then pretended to be okay, and told the waiter to go down.

After everyone's discussion was over, he specially left A Haidaiqing, and said with a serious expression: "You were defeated by Han'er, I believe you, you may not know, we are talking about tactics here, but someone secretly hid Han'er's surrender Book!"

A Haidaiqing stared in disbelief at the time: "There is such a thing?!"

Chuoke Tutaiji nodded heavily: "We only received 440 of the [-] letters of surrender, and there are more than [-] scattered in the army. What do you think should be done?"

A Haidaiqing was cursing, blushing with anxiety, took a few deep breaths, and after calming down a little, he said: "Taiji, could it be that the people hid the letter? We should be in the camp." Search! But don't make too much noise, otherwise it will be detrimental to the morale of the army."

"That's what you said, so how should you search?"

Chuck Rabbit didn't know either, but before he could come up with a solution to this problem, he heard a report from the sentinel connected to the west wall that there was a change in the enemy camp, and someone had brought a lot of livestock into the camp.

They climbed to the city quickly, and looked outside the city from a distance, and saw soldiers in Liu Chengzong's camp gathered and cheered, all the camps were slaughtering sheep and cattle, and some people moved tables and tables to the south mountain to drive livestock.

Chuck Rabbit Heart said it was broken, is this going to attack with oath?

A Haidaiqing was in a hurry to divert the attention of Chuoke Rabbit, and quickly asked: "Are they going to attack at night?"

Chuck Rabbit shook his head: "How can there be such a big night attack."

He felt that A Haidaiqing was an old idiot. If he thought about Liu Chengzong according to his thinking, he would definitely have to lose the battle, but he still had hope of winning if he thought about it the other way around.

But since there are concerns in this regard, we have to step up our precautions tonight.

Xie Erhu knew that the Double Ninth Festival was for robbery, but in Chuoketu and A Haidaiqing, the nobles from Mobei seldom dealt with the Han people, and they didn't know about the Double Ninth Festival at all.

On the contrary, because the pontoon bridge on the moat has been erected, there is only one ditch left to protect them. There is indeed a possibility of being attacked at night, so that the Mongolian Nayans could not sleep easily because of worry all night.

The strength of the defenders at night has been increased by [-]%, and they can only watch the camp of the Marshal's Mansion in the dark night, staring until midnight.

When the sky was about to dawn, the nobleman Yan who was on duty at the top of the city became impatient, cursing and berating Liu Chengzong for not coming to attack at night, and if he didn't come to attack at night, I would run out to attack him at night.

After finally closing his eyes in a daze, he heard gongs and drums beating outside the city. Countless soldiers held torches and merged into several fire dragons, wearing their bright armor and walking south.

For a while, no one in the city could sleep, and the leaders of the various tribes rushed to the city, only to see large banners gathering southward in the morning mist. It seemed that the scale was at least several thousand people. The sheep were dressed in red and colored, and finally climbed up the mountain and disappeared.

The Mongolian nobles were puzzled one by one: "What are they doing?"

No one knew, and finally a nobleman asked incredulously, "Han'er's Double Ninth Festival?"

"What is Double Ninth Festival?"

The person who said it didn't know, just heard it mentioned, and then people began to speculate about it.

I kept guessing until noon, and saw that the Han troops who had gone to the mountains had no intention of returning. Although there was still defense in the camp, the old Han troops were nowhere to be seen.

People couldn't hold back anymore, and the nobles asked to go out of the city to attack.

The noon sun made people sweat on their foreheads, and Chuoketu was in a dilemma. On the one hand, he was worried that this was Liu Chengzong's strategy to lure the enemy. , this is a good opportunity to weaken the besieging army.

Miss this time, and there may never be another chance to strike at the besieging army.

What if it's really a holiday?
With a single thought and an order, four Mongolian nobles each led a cavalry team of thousands of cavalry, and filed out from the south gate.

The four-way horse team galloped all the way, directly hit the besieged camp, set fire to the catapults and building carts, jumped over the horses and directly attacked the Xifan defenders behind the ditch, defeated them in an instant, then dismounted and formed an array, and headed towards the artillery position on the dirt hill outside the west city. Attack.

The Xifan soldiers retreated steadily, and the Changhe Xijia soldiers, who were responsible for guarding the camp, lined up to resist the enemy, but they were outnumbered, and they retreated to the mountain camp before they had time to regroup.

Chuoke Tutaiji saw it clearly from the city. Seeing that the cavalry captured the artillery position and dragged more than a dozen cannons around the position, he quickly ordered another [-] cavalry to go out of the city to fight, intending to completely defeat the enemy at once.

The formation of herdsmen has even approached the commander's tent on the earth hill. To break through the defenders in front of them, they only need to advance a hundred steps westward at most, and they can capture the high flag of the commander's tent on the top of the mountain.

But before they had transported the heavy artillery halfway, there was a loud bang suddenly from the top of the hill where the dismounted herdsmen formed an attack.

An unprecedentedly huge shell hit the air at a slow speed, and then fell at a faster speed, obliquely falling behind the phalanx of the shepherds.

Before people could react, there was a man on the top of the mountain wearing armor and holding a bow. He led more than ten people to rush out from the tent, pulled the bow down the mountain and shot down the mountain. Three arrows in succession knocked down three people.

At this moment, the huge artillery shell that fell behind the formation exploded, and the shattered fragments flew everywhere. No one was hurt, but it made the phalanx of the shepherd soldiers extremely flustered.

Immediately afterwards, Han soldiers rushed out of the camps everywhere, holding muskets and firing nearby, then dropped their guns and raised their knives and rushed into the gunpowder fight.

The cavalry that dragged the cannons didn't care about the heavy cannons. They quickly unloaded the cannon carriages, but they didn't know whether they should support the battle or flee back to the city.

At the foot of the mountain in the distance, there was a high-pitched suona sound, and the elite cavalry of the Marshal's Mansion lined up behind the mountain, accompanied by eight ladder carts, and slowly pressed towards the center of the battlefield.

"Damn..." Chuoke Rabbit cursed tremblingly on the city wall: "I want to steal your camp, but you want to attack my city!"

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)