Chapter 746 How about, let’s build a city! The hardest shield is the brittlest shield!
"Shield wall cover! Everyone is low!"
"Chang'an Lord treated us and other captives favorably. As long as we can fill up the river, we can escape from the captives. From now on, we will be like the Qin army. Military merit, you must all repay the favor to Lord Chang'an!"
"Brothers, fight hard!"
"The Zhao army is coming!"
Under the bright sunshine, more than 5,000 Zhao Diqingzhuangs, wearing no armor and only short batons, stabbed hard at the loess with copper shovels in their hands, and put handfuls of loess into baskets.
Then more than ten thousand young people from Zhao Di picked up bamboo baskets filled with loess and moved forward quickly.
At first glance, it looks like a scene of spring plowing in the fields rushing to repair canals.
But if you look closely, you can see that the more than 15,000 young men are actually captured soldiers of Sergeant Zhao.
And the place where the loess on their shoulders went was the moat of Handan City!
In front of the Qin army's formation, Ying Chengyu looked around the battlefield and kept shouting orders: "Command Captain Qiang Huai to advance eastward immediately to intercept the Zhao army!"
"Captain Mengtian's troops immediately retreated to lure the enemy. Wei Xifeng's troops are waiting for an opportunity to cooperate with Du Wei Mengtian's troops to attack the Zhao army!"
One order after another came from Ying Chengxuan's mouth, constantly guiding the Qin army's troops to resist the invading Zhao army.
The blood of the soldiers of both armies gradually dyed the loess under their feet red.
But correspondingly, a large amount of sand and gravel was dumped into the moats on the west and south sides of King Zhao City, turning the originally clear Zhu (zhǔ) River into a dim yellow!
When the Golden Crow fell to the west, the Qin and Zhao armies finally called for gold and retreated.
The candidates who were active around Handan City finally found the opportunity to join forces with Ying Chengyu.
Standing one step behind Ying Chengyu, the waiter said in a deep voice: "Commander, Handan City is composed of four cities."
"Among them, Dabeicheng is where the people of Handan and Guizhou Province live. The place is also where the Handan Workshop is located. "
"Xiaobeicheng is where the government offices of the Zhao Kingdom are located, and it is also the residence of the royal family and nobles."
"The East King City is where the Handan guards practice and station, and it is also where the arsenal and the grain depot are."
"The West King City is called the Zhao King City, and it is where the Zhao Longtai Palace is located. The King of Zhao and the concubines of the King of Zhao, The Queen Mother and Queen Zhao all live in this city. "
"The four cities are surrounded by city walls. Among them, Xiaobeicheng, Dongwangcheng and Xiwangcheng are in the shape of 'pin', with inner city walls connected to each other. The gate can be used to travel between cities. "
"Dabeicheng is located to the east and north of Xiaobeicheng. The walls of the two cities are separated by about 25 feet (57.75 meters) and are heavily guarded. "< br>
"The weakest city defense among the four cities is Dabeicheng. The city wall is about four feet high (9.24 meters), the base of the wall is about seven feet wide (16.17 meters), and the top of the wall is about one foot wide (2.31 meters)."
"The most heavily defended city is the Western King's City. The city wall is about five feet high (11.55 meters) and the wall base is about eighteen feet wide (41.58 meters). The west city wall and the south city wall are the largest, with the wall base being twenty-three feet wide (53.13 meters). meters), the top of the wall is about one and a half feet wide (3.456 meters)."
"The West King City has a city gate..."
In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when productivity was low, the capital was composed of multiple phases. The formation of neighboring cities is the norm, as is the case in Linzi, the capital of Qi, and Xinzheng, the capital of Han.
And Handan, the capital of Zhao, is the best among them!
Whenever the State of Zhao is relatively strong, the contemporary King of Zhao will have the same idea:
Otherwise, let’s build a city!
From the time Zhao Jinghou moved the capital to the time Zhao Wangqian succeeded to the throne, there were only eight generations of princes. Among them, no more than five princes had the power to expand the capital.
The result is that three new cities rose from the ground!
Today, these three new cities surround the old city of Dabeicheng and together form what the world calls Handan City!
But the situation of the four neighboring cities is by no means extravagant and wasteful. It is also the legacy of the past King Zhao to today's Zhao Kingdom.
Even though he was already familiar with these information, Meng Tian still said with emotion: "Handan City has many gates, many city defenses, a wide moat, and four cities standing side by side."
"When it comes to war, these four cities can interact with each other. Reinforcement and staggered cover supported the Handan garrison and deployed various strategies."
"Even if one of the cities fell, the King of Zhao and the Zhao courtiers could quickly retreat to the other three cities and continue fighting."
“No wonder Wu’an Jun has been unable to attack this city for a long time.”
“Handan City is very strong!”
Ying Chengyu's expression did not change, and he even asked with a smile: "After I destroyed Wei, King Qi of Chu tried his best to build Helu City."
"But the walls of the cities in Handan City have not been built. The additional construction is still the same as in previous years."
"It seems that Zhao Guo is quite confident in the thickness of Handan City's wall!"
The waiter smiled: "It's just a lack of intention. "
"After all, Zhao State is very poor!"
Ying Chengyu could not help but feel a cheerful smile.
Although Da Qin was poor, Zhao State was even poorer!
It really makes people feel happy to laugh at the poverty of their world enemies!
Ying Chengyu turned to ask: "How many troops are there in Handan City?"
The waiter immediately said: "Since Lord Chang'an broke through King Zhao's city and almost captured Longtai Palace in one fell swoop, Zhao The country then paid more and more attention to the defense of Handan City."
"Although the State of Zhao sent 600,000 troops to attack the Qin Dynasty in this battle, it still did not use the Handan garrison."
"There are now more than 50,000 garrison troops in Handan City and soldiers in the pavilions and pavilions to eliminate the thief Cao and others. There are about 20,000 palace guards in each ministry. If the situation is desperate, more than 3,000 elite eunuchs and ministers can be sent to the battlefield."
"In addition, there are more than 40,000 Chinese households in Handan City. In the war between Qin and Zhao, if the Zhao State raises an army, it may be possible to get 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers and 100,000 civilians! ""My subordinate Pao Ze, who is staying in the city, is inquiring about the details. Once he finds out, he will report it to the commander as soon as possible!"< br>
Listening to the waiter's words, the smiles on the faces of all the Qin army generals disappeared and were replaced by solemnity.
Qin and Zhao have similar systems. Anyone who can be stationed in the capital is the best of the best.
And there are 70,000 such elite soldiers in Handan City!
In addition to the 70,000 elite soldiers, Zhao may also recruit 50,000 to 60,000 regular soldiers.
In addition, if all the dignitaries of Zhao State spare no effort to support this war, Handan City can still muster at least 20,000 soldiers and horses composed of rangers, family soldiers, servants and clan members.
After total calculation, all the Qin army generals were shocked to find that Handan City under extreme circumstances could mobilize at least 150,000 troops, and more than half of them were elites!
Relying on the four adjacent cities of Handan City and the solid city defense front, if you want to storm Handan City and break it, you will need at least a general to lead an army of 700,000 to 800,000 people to have any hope.
Even if we adopt the strategy of besieging the city, we will need at least 400,000 troops!
But how many soldiers and horses does Ying Chengyu have under his command at this moment?
It’s only a mere hundred thousand!
Even if you include prisoners, the number is only 150,000!
How to fight this? !
This is simply delivering food to Handan City!
The eyes of all the generals could not help but focus on Ying Chengyu.
Ying Chengyu's smile slowly faded, and he asked solemnly: "Is there any updated military report from General Jian's department?"
The fortune teller immediately said: "I just collected it. General Jian’s army reported that the decisive battle will be launched within three days!”
Ying Chengyu felt a little relieved: "General Jian has led 230,000 troops into Jingxing. This battle will be won without a doubt."
"As long as General Jian defeats Zhao Wuxiang's troops, he can lead me The main force of the army is coming for reinforcements."
"Calculating the time, General Jian should have started the battle."
"It is not far away from the time when General Jian and our army will join forces."
Although all the Qin army generals were still worried.
But Ying Chengyu was relieved and continued to speak: "The four cities of Handan City are close to each other. Of course, they can rely on each other, support each other, and provide each other with retreats during war. They have even formed four extremely stable camps for the generals to use. "
"However, there is no perfect formation."
"Just like the shield, the harder the shield, the brittle it is."
"The four cities are next to each other. A strong pattern is extremely strong, and a weak pattern is extremely weak!"
Hearing this, Meng Tian was surprised: "A strong pattern is extremely strong, and a weak pattern is extremely weak?"
"Mr. Chang'an thinks that the four adjacent cities of Handan City are extremely weak?"
Ying Chengyu nodded slightly: "Not bad!"
"The four cities of Handan standing side by side seem to be great for city defense. , No matter which city our army attacks, we will have to face the threats of four cities at the same time."
"The fall of any city will not lead to the fall of Handan."
"But accordingly. What’s more, no matter which city our army attacks, the four cities of Handan need to do their best to rescue them!”
"Zhao cannot accept the fall of any city!"
The generals of the Qin Dynasty are very afraid of Handan City, which is adjacent to these four cities, because even Bai Qi has nothing to do with this city, and Handan City The city defense system indeed looks perfect.
But Ying Chengyu understands a very simple truth.
Things always develop in spirals and waves!
If multiple cities stand side by side to make this city invincible, the Chinese people in the future will definitely be able to build a capital city with ten or even twenty cities standing side by side, and will even develop honeycomb-shaped and hexagram-shaped capitals. There are various city layouts in different shapes such as trousers-shaped, overalls-shaped, etc.
But the fact is that the capital layout with multiple cities standing side by side only existed on a large scale during the Warring States Period.
Although the capitals of later generations may be defended by satellite cities, there will never be a large number of cities separated by only a few tens of meters or even directly connected to the city walls side by side!
This is enough to show that the city defense system of Handan City is by no means perfect, and it can even be said to be on the wrong path.
Meng Tian frowned and said: "The general will think otherwise!"
"If the general guards Handan City, it will be as heavy as the West King City, and the general can give up, or even Use it as a bait to lure our troops deeper.”
"Not to mention other cities!"
Ying Chengyu smiled softly: "Although the West King City is the residence of King Zhao and the Longtai Palace, it is the most insignificant city!"
" Kill the concubines, maids, and even the princes and princesses.”
“As long as King Zhao can escape to another city, so what if the West King City is surrendered?”
“But. Captain Meng, do you dare to hand over Little Beicheng to our army?”
Meng Tian said hesitantly: "Xiaobeicheng is the residence of Zhao's dignitaries."
"Unless the war situation is extremely dire and there is sufficient time to evacuate the people in the city first."
" Otherwise, the general will really not dare to give up Xiaobeicheng easily. "
Not to mention the consequences after the fall of Xiaobeicheng, it will be difficult to carry out the order to abandon Xiaobeicheng.
That is the home and family of all the noble courtiers of the Zhao Kingdom!
If the families of all the ministers in the court were given to the Qin army to kill, then the Zhao ministers themselves would be able to throw the King of Zhao and the commander of the Zhao army in front of Ying Chengyu without the Qin army attacking the city!
Ying Chengyu asked again: "What about Dabeicheng?"
(End of this chapter)