Volume 3: The Land of Jingchu Chapter 319: The Bridge Car and Lu Gong Car
Rongling City is just an ordinary small county town, but the city walls have been strengthened by Liu Pan, and the city walls are higher and have more parapets.
Like many ordinary county towns, Rongling City has a circumference of less than ten li - one li in the Han Dynasty was about four hundred meters, which means the circumference is less than 4,000 meters.
But being small also has its advantages. The siege of a small city and the siege of a big city are two completely different concepts.
In a small city like Rongling, no matter which side the enemy comes from, the defender can stand on the middle tower, covering an area of about one mile on both sides and having a commanding view, so it is easy to take care of the whole situation.
For example, if it were Luoyang or Chang'an, which have a circumference of sixty or seventy miles, as a defender, if you make a mistake in prediction, even though you are defending the city wall, the enemy's key attack section may be several miles away from you. If you fail to take care of one of them, the enemy's first landing troops may come up and clear the safe zone and gain a foothold before you even know it.
In contrast, this situation does not exist in Rongling City. Standing on the city wall, one can basically see the situation of one side of the city wall.
Chen Gong did not intend to be mysterious, and directly placed twelve cloud ladders in front of the battle, eight in front and four in the back, slowly pressing towards the south wall...
Some were pushed by the shield-bearing infantry around them, and some... were moving slowly on their own?
At this time, there were eight "ladders" in the general's mansion. Compared with ladders, they were more like "covered bridges", that is, a bridge with a roof covering the bridge body.
Similar to an aerobridge at an airport, it can be moved to connect different boarding gates and aircraft doors.
Of course , it is only "half a bridge". You enter from the ground entrance, run up from the stairs in the "corridor", and the exit is at the top more than ten meters high. If it is pushed to the edge of the city wall, it can be built on the parapet of the city wall!
Compared with ordinary ladders, it is "wider" in size because it is a staircase that is folded twice instead of a simply slanted ladder.
Although it is still very steep, at least the warriors can hold a shield or even a knife with both hands to fight back when climbing the ladder...
The other four are more regular and look square. They are also covered with defensive cowhide on the outside. You can’t see the inside clearly, but you can vaguely see the arrow holes!
If you look through it, you can see that it is divided into five floors, connected by ladders. There are soldiers on each floor, and the soldiers on the bottom floor are responsible for "riding" this huge "Lü Gong car".
That’s right, they ride, using everyone’s legs to pedal the winch, which in turn drives the axles forward, so it looks like huge “boxes” are approaching the city wall.
The two different "ladders" also symbolize different siege concepts.
The "boarding bridge"-like ladder creates a safer channel for climbing the wall, allowing soldiers to dare to climb the wall. It is equivalent to building a temporary external staircase outside the city wall, and there are shelters around and on the roof. By going up along the corridor-like rainbow bridge, you can reach the city wall directly.
The latter is an improved version of "Lü Gong Che" - Lü Gong Che is named after Lü Gong, that is, Jiang Ziya, but it is actually a siege weapon that only existed in the Song Dynasty.
Compared to the ladder, the idea is to build an extra wall outside the city wall...
The top floor of Lu Gongche is level with the city wall and it also has a certain area. Once it connects with the city wall, it is equivalent to forcibly "transforming" a piece of the city wall occupied by the attackers.
And before they are completely pushed to the edge of the city wall, they can also shoot at the defenders at the same height!
It is equivalent to a combination of a ladder and a well.
The General's Mansion's Lu Gong Cart had stronger "power" because it was equipped with pedals and a winch, so it could be built larger and carry more soldiers.
The two types of advanced ladders have their own advantages and disadvantages. The former is a relatively stable passage, but it is easy for one man to block the pass. The latter is an artificial platform of the city wall, but the supply of troops on it is slow.
At the same time, both have a common "defect" - complex structure and high workmanship requirements for fine details.
It is necessary to have a certain number of engineering corps trained by the Ministry of Civil Affairs to command and assist in building equipment of this complexity. Some of the grassroots "officers" of the engineering corps are not even generals, but grassroots officials of the Ministry of Civil Affairs who hold official seals!
Relying solely on the "siege equipment construction" technology learned from ordinary military training, even if they can barely make a shape , it is likely to be easily damaged due to some details.
At this time, there were eight ladders in front, four of which were covered bridge vehicles and four were Lu Gong vehicles, and the four behind were all covered bridge vehicles...
Looking at the several huge machines approaching, although their designs were very novel, it was obvious to everyone that they should be siege weapons similar to ladders.
However, this thick cowhide covering not only looked very stuffy, but also suppressed the defenders' desire to shoot arrows.
Fortunately, it is already October, otherwise it would be a test for the soldiers inside to withstand the heat.
However, the cowhide cover on the outside did effectively resist the damage from the arrows...
Although they were feeling depressed, when they really reached the range of one arrow, both sides started shooting at each other.
The defenders have a parapet, and the "exit" of the corridor bridge and the top floor of Lu Gongche also have baffles.
As for using fire arrows to ignite it?
It’s not that easy. Bai Tu mentioned it before when he was developing the dishes. Oil refining was not well developed at that time, and it was not easy to make fire arrows with either tung oil or sesame oil.
Tung oil is a technology that has existed since the Warring States Period. However, tung oil is poisonous and inedible. It is mainly used to make paint and waterproofing. With the technology of the Han Dynasty, the refined tung oil is thick and easily becomes mushy. It cannot even be used as lamp oil. If used in defending a city, it is generally used as a lubricant and poured on the wall to increase the difficulty for the enemy to climb.
Sesame oil is a raw material crop and technology introduced from the Western Regions during the Western Han Dynasty. It can be used to make lamp oil, but when defending a city, it is not practical to light it directly and pour it on the people. It is usually better to boil it and pour hot oil on people!
Otherwise, the burning sesame oil will spread and go out quickly after being poured, and its killing power will be less than that of hot oil... Don't forget to add " gold juice" to the hot oil.
As for why not use hot water?
Try it with your home water heater and you will know that the water that feels hot when you cover the nozzle with your hand will be moderate or even cool when it falls on your feet - the water dissipates heat very quickly when it falls. Why do you waste so much effort to boil it, but the effective range is only one or two meters? Generally, you need to use gold juice or hot oil!
As for the so-called fire arrows, they are usually made of oil-soaked cloth wrapped around the arrowhead. Not only are they top-heavy, but in order to prevent the fire from going out, the bow cannot be fully drawn.
Generally speaking, the function of fire arrows is to ignite something from a distance, which means that preparations for a fire attack have been made, and fire arrows can be used to ignite straw or something like that from a long distance.
As for using fire arrows to set the enemy on fire? Only if the target is the tents in the camp, or in a naval battle, if it can land on the enemy's deck, preferably on the sails, there is some hope...
And when you really need to attack with fire, rushing forward and throwing torches is definitely more reliable than using flaming arrows!
To burn down the covered bridge vehicles and Lu Gong vehicles, you can only rush close to them, throw torches at them, and rely on long-range fire arrows to "put a stop to the enemy's efforts."
If you don't want to go out and meet the enemy, you can only shoot at them honestly...
When it comes to shooting, Huang Zhong has never been afraid of anyone!
Special combat skill - Fiery Bow, activated!
