Chapter 868 God's Arm City
Since 1235 AD, the Mongolian army invaded the Southern Song Dynasty. After the fall of northwest Sichuan, it was a defensive war in the early third year of Chunyou in the Southern Song Dynasty. The famous official Yu Jie was sent to Sichuan as the minister of the Ministry of War. He was appointed as the envoy of the Sichuan pacification system and also informed the Chongqing government. He used Chongqing as his base camp to lead the defense of Sichuan.
After arriving, Yu Jie adopted the advice of his staff and formulated a strategic plan to build a fortress based on the mountains and set up dangers to defend Shu. In the entire mountain city defense system, with Hechuan Diaoyu City as the center, Luzhou was built in Sichuan. More than ten mountain cities, including "God's Arm City", Pengxi's "Dahuo City", Wanxian's "Tiantian City", and Jintang's "Yunding City", supported each other and fought against the Mongolian army.
Among them, the Divine Arm City is the "snake head" of the long snake formation built by this fortress complex, and its location is very important.
The city was built along the Longtou Mountain. The entire city is 1,200 meters long from east to west and 800 meters wide from north to south. The total area is five square miles. The terrain is higher in the east and lower in the west. Except for the cliffs, there are stone walls of different heights around the city, and five city gates have been built.
There are also two stone walls built to protect the city on the slope outside the east gate, forming an "ear city".
Parallel to the east gate, there are forts at the left and right ends of Ercheng. There is a unique path into the city two hundred meters away from Ercheng. There are protective pools on both sides of the path. The left side is called Hongling Pool and the right side is called Bailing Pool.
This formed a layout of building a city outside the city, digging a pond under the city, and fortifying it layer by layer.
After the city was repaired, the state government was moved here, so it was also called "Old Luzhou". To this day, the village located on the site of Shenji City is also called Laolu Village.
This is the most complete and spectacular ancient battlefield site on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River during the Mongolian-Song War in Sichuan.
After getting off the boat at the river beach outside the city at the foot of the mountain, there was only a narrow land route that passed through two large ponds and connected to a city gate.
The river bank here is steep, with jagged rocks and almost all cliffs. There is no way to climb. Only the east side is connected to the land road. However, there are also several stone walls that go straight to the river.
After Hongling Pond, there is a slightly open area 100 meters to the south. This is the place where troops are organized, called Xiaochangba.
However, there is a dike to the west of Xiaochang Dam, called Yizicheng, also known as Duishui City. In addition, there is a fort guarding the school field dam.
The fort is located on a cliff, which is easy to defend but difficult to attack. It is called "Maozui Rock". There are underground tunnels everywhere in the fort and the city wall. They were used by the Song soldiers to hide and transport troops, and to connect the inside and outside of the city. Secrets of Export.
There are two such one-word city walls, built along the slope. The two walls, cliffs and river banks form an "ear city".
The northern end of Ercheng is connected with the cliff of Divine Arm City, and the southern end extends to the edge of the Yangtze River. In the south of the city, a small city is formed by natural cliffs, a one-word city wall and the Yangtze River. The depth of the defense also effectively blocked the enemy's lateral traffic on the south bank of the Divine Arm Mountain.
The two straight city walls are built using the Ding masonry method. The wedge-shaped city wall stones have uniform specifications, regular shapes, and obvious slopes. Not only are they difficult to feign an attack, but they are also difficult to destroy. It is no wonder that they can be preserved to this day. .
After passing through the narrow city gate, there is a yamen in the city, and then start climbing the mountain. On the mountain road, you can find that this is a military platform-type city defense facility.
It can be said that the mountain is a city and the city is a mountain.
"There are many types of defense facilities here." Fang Wenyu stepped into the role of a military observer and explained to everyone the exquisite design of this city: "The first type is the fort. The fort is not located on the city wall like an ordinary city, but on the city wall. A place with broad internal and external vision and a dangerous location is a typical platform defensive work. "The second type is called the enemy platform. The enemy platform is located on a tall platform at one end of the city wall or at the corner of the city wall. The platform base and the city wall are integrated, and the masonry style is the same as the city wall. The enemy platform is There may be a watchtower, called a turret.”
“The turret is a weak area for city defense. Although it can attack invading enemies from 270 degrees, it also has to withstand the siege of enemies from 270 degrees, so it needs to be made particularly strong."
"The best defense is. To attack, there are often three-dimensional shooting holes and secret passages under the turrets. Taking advantage of the geographical advantages and combining with ambushes, It can cause huge damage to the invading enemy. "The third category is the offensive and protective surface on the city wall, called the pier. Because it is specially thickened, it looks like a shield protruding above the city wall, and there is also a shooting point in the middle. Square holes can hide people on both sides and below, also known as 'horse faces'"
"The fourth category is the sentry post. It is generally located on both sides or above one side of the city gate. It is a processed platform that plays the role of observing and guarding the city gate."
Walking along the mountain road, Along the way, you will also pass by bell and drum towers, footrests, secret doors, government offices, and warehouses.
There are also rice fields and villages.
“This place is completely self-sufficient,” Fang Wenyu said after reaching the highest point and having a panoramic view of the entire beautiful place: “There are springs, wells, and rice fields here. Once the city gate is closed, the large army can The cavalry is counted because of the existence of lotus ponds on both sides. It is useless, so we can only use the refueling tactic through the narrow passage in the middle of the lotus pond, becoming a living target for the defenders in front of us."
"Don't even think about the other three sides. The cliffs are so steep that even a monkey can't do it. Come up." Zhang Lu nodded in agreement.
Yang He looked around: "With the terraces on the mountain alone, it is not a problem to grow rice and feed a thousand people."
From south to north, everyone chatted and took photos while playing, and finally at the northern suburbs of the Divine Arm City ruins resting under the gauze rock.
There is a stone dam here, and there is a huge Song Dynasty sculpture on the dam, which is shaped like a huge stone turtle with a circumference of more than 20 meters and a back height of nearly two meters lying on the ground, as if trying to crawl.
On the back of the big turtle, there is a giant python more than 20 meters long, coiled around the belly and back of the turtle.
The turtle's head is raised up, looking at the python prime minister. This is the statue of Xuanwu, the mythical beast that guards the north.
"Let's take a rest here and wait for someone." Zhou Zhi smiled and said: "Commander, if you were to defend such a city, how long can it withstand the Yuan army?"
"Give three thousand people, and then Prepare some boats, catch fish, plant rice, and train soldiers and horses in your spare time..." Fang Wen Yu thought for a while: "If we have enough troops and food, we can defend as long as we want, right?"
"Is it useful to defend like this?" Zhang Lu was a little strange: "Can't I just leave you there and do nothing?" "
" Passepartout leads to you. This is I don’t understand military matters.” Fang Wenyu said: “In ancient wars, the most important thing was the food route. How much food can each soldier carry? How fast can we carry it? To fight effectively within the territory? ”
“There must be other forces and channels for transporting food. Once such forces and channels are destroyed by the enemy, unless there is the ability to 'conquer the enemy with food', the army at the front will have only one The end result is that we will collapse without attacking.”
"The south of the Yangtze River is not like the north. The Yuan army can march with cattle and sheep. Therefore, except for using naval forces to raid the capital, they can only nibble away and cannot swallow it up." Fang Wenyu said.
“But water warfare is the strength of the southern regime, and the battle at Caishiji can illustrate the problem. There are more than one river defense projects here, and there are many Austrian aids in the rear, so even if there are ten times more enemies , I will never dare to go south until this level is taken."
"Is this true?" Zhang Lu asked Zhou Zhi.
“It’s almost the same.” Zhou Zhi said: “After the construction of Divine Arm City, Song and Mongolia competed for this strategic fortress. In the thirty-four years from the third year of Chunyou, Lizong of the Song Dynasty to the second year of Jingyan, Duanzong of the Song Dynasty, The most brutal tug-of-war took place here, and it changed hands five times, and many tragic deeds took place."
"But it was still destroyed in the end?" Wei Fei asked.
(End of this chapter)