Chapter 1193: Breaking the City with Wisdom, Fire and Water Are Merciless

Early November.

With 300,000 troops taking turns to work hard.

In less than three days, a trench about three hundred steps away from Lanzhou City was dug.

The entire trench is about twenty miles long, about ten feet wide, and about one person deep, and it draws water from the Yellow River.

From the city wall, it looked as if the people of Qing had helped the enemy dig a new moat.

The actions of the Daqing army amused the leaders of the Junggar tribe.

Great Khan Choros summoned the tribal leaders under him, pointed at the one who was still laughing and said:

"The people of Daqing are so stupid that they dug a new moat for us. Could it be that they want to trap us to death here?"

When everyone heard this, they burst into laughter.

Bolonidu, who was second only to Choros in status and was the chief of the Hui tribe, burst into laughter and almost couldn't breathe:
"We have nearly a million stones of grain in the city. Even if we eat it for a year, we still can't finish it. Daqing must be stupid!"

Bolonidu's younger brother Huo Jizhan was cunning and resourceful. Seeing that no one took the Daqing army outside the city seriously, he quickly spoke up to remind them:

"Great Khan, the Han people are always cunning, be careful of tricks!"

As a result, Choros didn't care at all and continued to smile:
"Brother Huo Jizhan, now we are staying in a fortified city, while the Han people are living in tents in the freezing cold. No matter how cunning the Han people are, as long as we don't go out, what can they do to us?"

"This is what the Han Chinese say, 'The way to be a general is to control your mind first. If Mount Tai collapses in front of you and you don't change your expression, or if a deer appears on your left and you don't blink, then you can control the odds and be ready to face the enemy.'"

Although Huo Jizhan felt that what Choros said was right, he always felt that it was too strange that the Daqing people did not attack or fight after they arrived.

After everyone finished their inspection, Huo Jizhan immediately ordered people to pack up their bags and if anything went wrong, they were to retreat immediately!

There are many tribal leaders as smart and wise as Huo Jizhan.

However, most people still spend their days eating, drinking and having fun as they did in the past.

On the fourth day.

When Choros and his men continued to patrol the city wall, they discovered that the trench dug by the Daqing people was actually protected by an earth wall.

The tribal leaders couldn't guess why Daqing did this, but they ignored it.

In fact, if these leaders looked carefully, they would find that these earth walls were about a hundred steps closer to the city wall than the trenches dug before.

fifth day.

After two days of hard work, the Qing army finally built the earth wall to more than ten feet high.

This height is much lower than Lanzhou city.

Therefore, the tribal leaders still did not take it seriously.

sixth day.

The Qing army built many bastions and towers inside the earth wall.

Although the tribal leaders did not understand the Qing people's plan, they had already clearly felt that these bastion towers were only 150 steps away from Lanzhou City.

Although at this distance, except for sharpshooters, ordinary people cannot kill the enemy with a bow and arrow.

However, Daqing has artillery.

The leaders felt the pressure and quickly sent people out of the city to stop the Qing army from working, but they were beaten back by Su Mingzhe, who was prepared, using bows and arrows and artillery fire.

It was the eighth day of the siege.

All the bastion towers have been built.

After dinner, everyone was having a cold day.

Su Mingzhe suddenly smiled and invited all the generals to follow him up the earth wall to watch how he would attack the city.

The generals didn't understand what was going on, but they all followed Su Mingzhe up the earth wall.

The earth wall is about 12 feet high, or four meters high.

All of them are built with a layer of soil and a layer of water.

In summer, this kind of earthen wall could be punched with several holes by hitting it with rafters.

But now it is winter, and the water and soil have mixed to form frozen soil. The hardness of this earth wall is no less than that of bricks and stones.

When everyone climbed up the earth wall, they found that Su Mingzhe did not place cannons here, but many water dragon carts.

These water hose trucks were originally used to prevent water from leaking into military camps (fire prevention).

Some clever generals, seeing these water dragon vehicles, had a flash of inspiration and immediately guessed Su Mingzhe's plan. They all clapped and cheered:

"General Xiaoqi is indeed the number one scholar. He has such a brilliant idea. We can capture Lanzhou City today!"

Although the others were not very smart, when they saw that someone else understood, they sensibly stopped asking questions to avoid being discovered to be stupid.

Seeing this, Su Mingzhe didn't waste any words and directly ordered people to push the water hose cart into the bastion and spray water at the city wall of Lanzhou.

At this moment, the outdoor temperature was already more than ten degrees below zero. The water in the water hose can indeed spray more than 150 steps under high pressure, but even boiling water will condense into ice mist after flying 150 steps in the air, and will not condense into ice at all.

However, Su Mingzhe is so cunning!

He ordered people to dig many pits along the spray route of the water hose truck and pour kerosene on them.

With the help of kerosene, the water sprayed from the water hose splashed onto the Lanzhou city wall and began to condense into ice.

After a night.

The ninth day of the siege.

When Choros led the tribal leaders to patrol the city again, they found that a thick layer of ice had been poured on their own city walls.

Thousands of tribal warriors who defended the city yesterday were frozen into ice.

Huo Jizhan tried to order people to open the city gate, and found that there was about ten feet of solid ice outside the city.

The tribal leaders finally became afraid and pleaded with Choros eagerly:

"Great Khan, I'm afraid we can't defend Lanzhou City anymore. Let's retreat!"

Choros walked around the smooth city wall and found that the Qing army was still spraying water cannons. He finally began to feel fear.

However, he had just inspected the entire city of Lanzhou and found that it was frozen. He was now in a dilemma:

"Now that all four city gates are blocked by ice, how can we retreat?"

"Great Khan, the Han people can use solid ice to seal the city, and we can also use solid ice to open the road!"

Huo Jizhan was a ruthless, cunning and resourceful man, and he immediately thought of a plan.

Choros was also a great hero. After hearing what Huo Jizhan said, he immediately said happily:
"Huo Jizhan, you are a smart man. If we can get out, you will be the prime minister of the Khanate!"

Huo Jizhan was not polite and thanked him immediately. He then led his men to imitate the Qing army and spray water dragons to pave the road outside the city.

The news soon reached the Qing army.

After hearing this, the Prince of Nan'an quickly summoned Su Mingzhe to ask for countermeasures:

"Nephew, the enemy troops in the city are now paving the road with water. What should we do?"

"Uncle, since ancient times, the siege of a city has always been 'surround three sides and leave one side open'! Now that the enemy wants to escape, we should let them escape!"

Su Mingzhe had already won the first victory, so he did not expect to defeat the enemy in one battle. He immediately offered another suggestion:
"Now, why don't we order someone to open a hole so that the other party can escape..."

After hearing Su Mingzhe's plan, all the generals present broke out in cold sweats:

"This top scholar is really vicious. He just used the vicious plan of 'flooding the whole city' and now he wants to use 'burning the camps'. I'm afraid that if the Jungar tribe is not wiped out this time, there will be only a few people left alive!"

The Prince of Nan'an didn't care about all that. After learning Su Mingzhe's plan, he immediately ordered his deputy commander Wei Hui to lead 100,000 troops to carry out the strategy of "burning the camps".

The other soldiers continued to stay on the earth wall, trying to encircle and kill as many of the Dzungar Khanate's manpower as possible.

The tenth day of the siege.

The army of the Dzungar Khanate broke out in all directions.

Although the Daqing army had tried their best to intercept it, the height of the earth wall had long been leveled by the water dragon carts of the Junggar tribe.

At this moment, two hundred thousand troops poured out, and the Qing army could not stop them at all.

Fortunately, Prince Nan'an and Su Mingzhe had already issued strict orders, encircling three sides and leaving one side open. They only needed to shoot and kill the enemy's active forces without having to fight to the death to intercept them.

As a result, when the Dzungar Khanate army saw that there was a way to escape, they lost the courage to fight to the death.

After one day.

The people of Qing cleaned up the battlefield and collected more than 50,000 enemy corpses, more than 20,000 prisoners, and more than 700,000 dan of food and fodder that the enemy had no time to burn. They also rescued more than 30,000 captured Han people.

Three days later.

Wei Hui, who was in charge of the "Burning the Camps" plan, returned with good news.

At the predicted ambush site, he burned more than 50,000 enemy troops to death and captured more than 20,000 people.

The Dzungar Khanate sent out an army of 200,000, but after this battle, nearly 110,000 were wiped out and more than 40,000 were captured. Together with the more than 30,000 killed by Su Mingzhe before, the number of people who escaped was definitely less than 20,000.

However, Daqing's army of 300,000 suffered almost zero casualties.

The Prince of Nan'an immediately sent someone to deliver the good news back to Chang'an City, and at the same time asked whether he should continue to pursue the enemy.

By this time, it was already mid-November, and heavy snow had blocked the roads west of Lanzhou, making pursuit impossible.

If the emperor insisted on ordering a pursuit, the Prince of Nan'an could only send a small force of several thousand people to pursue, and it would be impossible for him to send an army of 300,000 out of the pass together.

When the good news was reported back to Chang'an, Emperor Longqing was overjoyed at first, and then he saw the request from Prince Nan'an.

Upon learning that the snow outside the Great Wall was more than a man's thickness, Emperor Longqing did not make things difficult for Prince Nan'an. He directly allowed him to return to the court and ordered Wei Hui to lead an army of 50,000 to guard the border.

(End of this chapter)