I want to be emperor

Chapter 52 Songshan Defense Line
On the Songshan front, Luo Zhixue once again personally led a team to inspect the construction of the defense facilities ahead.

Since the Ming army attacked Songshan last time, even though Fei Bingqing's troops were wiped out, Luo Zhixue did not dare to relax. After the battle, the soldiers continued to build Songshan's defense line.

Not only was it necessary to heighten and strengthen the defensive facilities such as the city walls of Songshan Valley, but also built checkpoints at several other places at both ends of the canyon where the terrain was relatively flat and might be surrounded by small enemy troops.

After all, after Fei Bingqing's troops, there are still thousands of Ming troops.

Facing thousands of Ming troops, especially according to Fei Bingqing's account, there were still two hundred or so, nearly 300 main soldiers, Luo Zhixue, and other rebel leaders all relaxed.

If the preparations are not sufficient, it will be in big trouble when facing the Ming army's attack.

"Now our wooden walls in the valley have been built to a height of five meters, and the bottom has been reinforced with soil and gravel." Wang Daqian walked beside Luo Zhixue, introducing the defense facilities in the valley to Luo Zhixue.

"Although our wooden wall is not as strong as the real city wall, as long as it is not bombarded by artillery, it is not a big problem to block people."

"We also built a total of six arrow towers, two in the valley and two on the mountainsides on both sides."

"Our artillery is deployed on the left side of the mountain, and there are branches deployed to cover it for concealment."

"On the top of the mountains on both sides, we also have a low wall with checkpoints."

While Wang Daqian was introducing, he occasionally glanced at Luo Zhixue, trying to see something from Luo Zhixue's expression, but Luo Zhixue's expression was always calm, making it hard to see whether Luo Zhixue was satisfied or dissatisfied.

This made Wang Daqian a little uneasy.

Wang Daqian was not a cavalry soldier of the frontier army, nor was he an old thief among the captives, nor was he even an ordinary soldier recruited from the mountains.

His previous identity had nothing to do with being a soldier. He was a plasterer, and he often helped people repair houses after fleeing famine and entering the mountains.

After Luo Zhixue and others occupied Sanshui Village, they began to recruit various craftsmen in order to build camps in Sanshui Village and defensive facilities such as walls in Sanshui Village.

It was at this stage that Wang Daqian was 'invited' to Sanshui Village by the rebels of Sanshui Village.

In the beginning, Wang Daqian was just an ordinary plasterer, but he was considered a technician after all, and he worked hard. Later, he was valued by Luo Zhixue and became a small boss, mainly responsible for leading people to construct various buildings.

Luo Zhixue transferred some craftsmen, including Wang Daqian, to Songshan this time, and appointed Wang Daqian as the person in charge of the construction of various fortifications in Songshan, and gave Wang Daqian the title of temporary captain of the engineering team .

Let him take some soldiers, a large number of prisoners of war, and the young and strong recruited nearby to urgently build various fortifications and barracks.

Luo Zhixue told him personally that if he did a good job this time, he would be able to remove the word "temporary" and become the official captain of the engineering team.

Moreover, this engineering team does not belong to the supply battalion, but directly belongs to Luo Zhixue's jurisdiction.

In order to try to get rid of the word "temporary" on his head, Wang Daqian attached great importance to the construction of Songshan's fortifications.

After a period of emergency construction, the fortifications can be regarded as taking shape.

What Luo Zhixue can see now is that a large number of trees on the mountainsides on both sides of the canyon and valley have been cut down.

It is completely different from the dense forest situation before.

The reason why the surrounding trees were cut down was not only to use local materials to build fortifications and barracks, but also to improve the view of the valley and open up a large area to increase the difficulty of the enemy's attack.

Originally, this place was densely covered with forests. If the enemy was not afraid of trouble and approached directly through the forest, they would be able to approach the city wall directly. However, it was difficult for our own archers to effectively attack the enemies who were hiding in the forest and had the forest as a cover.

But if there is a large open space, if the enemy wants to detour and directly climb the mountainside to launch an attack, then they will be exposed hundreds of meters away, and then they will be attacked by long-range coverage of their own archers and artillery.

With the help of temporarily felled trees, soil and stones dug on site, they raised the wooden walls in the valley to between four and five meters, and extended the wooden walls directly to the tops of the mountains on both sides.

Outside the wooden wall, there is a piece of distance horses and obstacles mainly built with redundant branches. These obstacles can be turned over by the enemy directly, but the function of these obstacles is not to really block the enemy from getting through, it is purely In order to destroy the enemy's offensive formation, impact speed, and then create opportunities for the long-range troops such as archers of one's own side to intensively kill the enemy.

Luo Zhixue carefully looked at the fortifications such as the wooden wall, the archery tower, and the distance horse in front of him, and finally nodded slightly to Wang Daqian: "The engineering team has done a good job, and you, the temporary captain, have become regular. From now on, you will lead the engineering team and continue to study and build matter."

After hearing Luo Zhixue's praise, Wang Daqian grinned and said, "Thank you, General!"

After Sun Chengli died, Luo Zhixue officially took over as the general and became the third general of the gang of rebels. That's why Wang Daqian no longer called Luo Zhixue Mr. or military adviser, but directly called the general.

When Wang Daqian was first brought into the den of thieves, he wanted to escape.

But later, like other artisans who were forcibly invited, they gradually lost their thoughts of running away.

Because they eat and drink well in Sanshui Village, and Luo Zhixue is also very kind to them craftsmen, after staying for a long time, they find that life in Sanshui Village is much better than that outside, at least they can eat enough.

Some of them were promoted to be some leaders and people in charge, such as Wang Daqian, who was promoted directly to be the captain of the engineering team, and they have long since lost this kind of thinking.

Now he is the captain of the engineering team. He is in charge of more than 200 craftsmen and apprentices in the engineering team. During the construction, he can also manage dozens of hundreds of prisoners of war and more than [-] young and strong civilians who are temporarily recruited. The prisoners of the Ming army, except for veterans and technical personnel who were willing to surrender anyway, other ordinary county warriors were all grouped into prisoner-of-war camps, and temporarily belonged to the engineering team to manage the construction of fortifications and camps.

After all, he was in charge of hundreds of people.

When he has reached this level, you let him leave the village protection camp, and then run back to be an ordinary mountain dweller, farming on weekdays, and occasionally working as a plasterer to build houses for others, he is still not happy.

Humans, as the environment changes, their minds will also change.

Luo Zhixue continued to inspect the defense line, and then climbed to the top of the mountain to inspect, and focused on inspecting the layout of each watchtower to see if it met the original design requirements.

Luo Zhixue's requirement for each archery tower is that the archery tower system must be able to effectively cover the entire front, including the front of the valley and the mountainsides on both sides, without any dead spots.

And some key areas, that is, the front of the valley must be covered by arrows from at least four arrow towers, and any two arrow towers in other positions can form crossfire.

Hearing the term crossfire, one can tell that Luo Zhixue doesn't know how to play the tactics of the contemporary cold weapon army. His tactics are purely deployed according to the firearm army of later generations.

It's just that it is adapted to local conditions, and bows and arrows are used instead of muskets.

This is especially true for the artillery. Luo Zhixue directly deployed the artillery position on the left side of the mountain and kept it secret.

Its effective field of fire just covers an open space directly in front of the valley.

And this open space is also the easiest place for the enemy, and it is also the only place where heavy troops can be gathered to attack the valley.

Luo Zhixue waited for the incoming Ming army to deploy heavy troops here to attack the front of the valley, and then use the artillery deployed on the mountainside to cover it with condescending artillery fire.

Well, the two-hundred-jin light artillery used now is not very reliable. It would be better if it was replaced with a long-barreled artillery.

Wait until one's own side has severely damaged the enemy with bows and artillery, and the infantry has held the enemy, and then dispatched cavalry to kill or chase them, or attack their flanks.

This is also one of the reasons for clearing the large area of ​​woods outside the valley in advance. In addition to broadening the field of view and allowing the archers and artillery to gain shooting range, another purpose is to provide a sufficient open area for the cavalry to charge.

See if there is a chance to dispatch cavalry to charge at that time!

You must know that the most powerful force of the rebels in the Funiu Mountain Baoxiang Camp is not infantry or artillery, but cavalry.

During the first Battle of Songshan, Luo Zhixue tried to let the cavalry go out to chase the enemy's rout. Although the effect was good, Luo Zhixue still found that the cavalry's combat in the valley was greatly restricted.

The cavalry at that time could actually only advance along roads and a small amount of relatively flat terrain without dense forests.

This situation could barely make do with it last time, but it's different now.

During the last ambush in Songshan, Luo Zhili only had seven fine cavalry and about twenty old thief cavalry under his command.

But now, Luo Zhixue succeeded Sun Jiancheng as the General of the Funiu Mountain Baoxiang Camp, and Wang Xiazi did nothing wrong, so Luo Zhixue completely accepted the former Sun Jiancheng's pro-army.

Luo Zhixue combined his own army of thirty cavalry and sixty cavalry to form a new cavalry post.

After the reorganization of the cavalry sentry, Wang Xiazi served as the sentry officer and An Yongduo served as the deputy sentry officer. These two men each served as the captain of a cavalry team.

There are now three teams at the cavalry post, each with thirty cavalry.

The added cavalry is actually the old thief cavalry under the original Ta Tianhu.

This whistle of hundreds of riders is Luo Zhixue's most powerful combat power and the most important trump card.

So Luo Zhixue also thought hard about how to use their combat power. Apart from using them as archers, he also sent people to cut down all the trees outside the valley, just to give them an open and flat place to fight. terrain.

But these are just Luo Zhixue's many preparatory methods. After all, even if many trees are cut down and an open area is artificially created, it still depends on the situation whether to send out cavalry to charge or carry out horseback shooting.

If there is no chance to be dispatched at that time, it is also possible to use these cavalry as archers.

(End of this chapter)