Chapter 434: Counter the opponent’s moves!

While Ye Mingsheng was working and living well in the Governor's Mansion, Wang Kangxin and Yuan Song, who were far away in Ruishan County, the imperial capital, were leading their subordinates to fight bravely, trying their best to kill each other...

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Amidst a burst of dense gunfire at Wushupo Mountain, the soldiers of the Gongdu New Army, who had retreated an incense stick ago, once again raised their spears and swords at the urging and command of their superiors and launched a charge towards the Fengwu Army's camp not far away.

Today is already the third day of their siege of this camp. In the first two days, they basically only rested for five hours out of the twelve hours a day. In the remaining seven hours, they were constantly charging, trying to rush into the camp and chop the Fengwu Army hiding inside into meat paste.

At this time, Yuan Song, the commander-in-chief of the Fengwu Army, was on a hidden observation tower. He raised the telescope in his hand with a serious expression and observed the charging new army of Gongdu.

In the past two days, the individual combat of the new army in Gongdu and the command of the generals were almost the same as Yuan Song had expected. The only thing Yuan Song did not expect was that this group of Gongdu people under Wang Kangxin's command had obtained thousands of Japanese cannons and dozens of catapults from somewhere.

Although these Japanese iron cannons were not as powerful as the Weiyuan guns and Polu guns equipped by the Fengwu Army, their power was also very good. Thousands of them combined caused considerable casualties to the First Division under Yuan Song...
After observing the enemy situation for a while, Yuan Song asked the lieutenant general Guan Fei beside him:
"Has the gap in the northeast corner of the camp been blocked now?"

Guan Fei nodded and replied:
"Commander Ye Dong brought his men last night and locked up more than a dozen carts loaded with supplies to block the gap in the northeast corner. There are now two thousand brothers there, and Commander Ye Dong is stationed there personally. General, don't worry!"

Hearing Guan Fei say this, Yuan Song's expression eased, and after thinking for a few seconds, he ordered:

"Ye Dong and the others have been stationed there all night, right?"

"It has been more than ten hours since last night at midnight!" Guan Fei thought for a moment and replied:

After receiving this answer, Yuan Song gave the order without hesitation;

"Let Ye Dong and his men hold out for another half an hour. At noon, I will have Xue Zhongyuan lead his troops to replace them, and they can also come down and take a rest!"

"Yes!"

After taking care of the defense of the northeast corner, Yuan Song felt that his worries were relieved a lot. The Wushupo he chose was a place that was easy to defend but difficult to attack. The narrow terrain could effectively prevent the deployment of the enemy's forces, making it difficult for the enemy's advantage in strength to be brought into play...
Compared with other directions of Wushupo, the terrain in the northeast corner is relatively flat, which makes it easier for the enemy to stop the attack. Therefore, every time the enemy attacks, the northeast corner is regarded as the focus of the attack.

Therefore, the Fengwu Army soldiers stationed in the northeast corner suffered the heaviest casualties. Nearly half of the Fengwu Army’s casualties in the past three days came from the northeast corner!

Just as Yuan Song gave the order, more than a hundred lucky men from Gongdu had already, under the protection of their shields, stepped on the bodies of their companions, passed through the firepower net formed by the Weiyuan Gun and the Polu Gun of the Fengwu Army, and rushed to the front of the village gate, engaging in close combat with the Fengwu Army soldiers stationed in the camp.
As for these few lucky ones, before they could do anything else, hundreds of arrows were shot at them. Then, amidst a wailing, all the lucky ones were shot into hedgehogs.

Although the Fengwu Army gradually began to shift to hot weapons under Ye Mingsheng's intentional guidance, the development of hot weapons cannot be achieved overnight, but requires a process, so Ye Mingsheng still retained cold weapons such as bows and arrows.

It's just that its proportion in the overall army's weapons has dropped a lot. Now it is the best way to deal with these people in Gongdu...

Seeing that the more than one hundred people in the front were wiped out, the momentum of the new army in Gongdu suddenly stagnated. Although the generals in the crowd were still struggling to command the troops to charge forward, driven by fear, the lowest-level soldiers made the wise choice and retreated one after another.

Although they once again repelled the enemy's charge and made the enemy retreat in disgrace, leaving behind hundreds of corpses, there was no happiness on Yuan Song's face. The new Gongdu army under Wang Kangxin's command was indeed different from the Gongdu army he had encountered before.

If the enemy at this moment was the Gongdu army from before, they would probably have given up after encountering such a setback. However, based on the experience of the previous two days, Yuan Song knew that it would not be long before the enemy would launch a more fierce charge again...
As Yuan Song had expected, an incense stick later, more than 20,000 soldiers of the new army of Gongdu began to gather around the camp of Fengwu Army. What made Yuan Song feel even more depressed was that next to the battle formation of these Gongdu people, there appeared a number of tall catapults.

In the beginning, in order to prevent Yuan Song from occupying Ruishan County, Wang Kangxin not only sent a 5,000-man advance team, but also led the army to advance lightly, leaving the baggage and heavy weapons behind, because it was a race against time, to eat up Yuan Song's Fengwu Army First Division before Guo Zhiping's reinforcements arrived.
So on the first day of the siege, Wang Kangxin launched an attack without waiting for the catapults to be in place. However, the power of Yuan Song's First Division's equipment was beyond their imagination. Amid the roar of the eighteen red cannons, hundreds of palace soldiers were either killed or had their hands and feet broken, becoming disabled for life.

On the second day of the siege, catapults and other baggage equipment were delivered. Because the maximum range of the catapult was only eighty feet, while the range of the red cannon was as high as two hundred feet, in order to prevent the catapults from being destroyed at once, Wang Kangxin could only let his men use the catapults separately, putting one in this place and one in that place...

It must be said that Wang Kangxin's move was very cunning. Although his move did not bring out the effect of the trebuchet, in order to prevent the trebuchet from causing damage to the camp, Yuan Song could only let the red cannons mainly bombard the trebuchet. The red cannons had limited firepower, and if the trebuchet was blown up, the damage to the enemy's charging troops would undoubtedly be reduced a lot. Therefore, compared with the first day of the siege, the Gongdu New Army achieved some results on the second day. After thousands of casualties, they almost made a gap in the northeast corner of the camp, forcing Yuan Song to use the reserve troops in advance.

Seeing that Wang Kangxin wanted to use the same trick again, using the catapult to attract the firepower of the red cannon, and then launching a large-scale charge, Yuan Song sneered. How could he, Yuan, fall into the same pit twice? He immediately asked the lieutenant general beside him:
"Are you ready, sharpshooter?"

Upon hearing this, the lieutenant nodded and introduced:
"One hundred sharpshooters are already on standby. Please give the order, General!"

"very good!
"I now order them to take their positions and wait for the enemy's trebuchets to enter the 80-zhang area, then snipe and kill the enemy personnel using the trebuchets!" Yuan Song ordered in a deep voice:

Last night, facing Wang Kangxin's catapult tactics, he thought for a long time before he came up with a way to crack it. Among the firearms equipped by the Fengwu Army, in addition to the red cannon, there is also the Po Lu gun that can hit targets a hundred feet away, so he found a hundred musketeers with accurate marksmanship among those who used the Po Lu gun and asked them to carry out sniping.

Although the maximum range of the catapult can reach eighty zhang, in order to make the thrown stones land more accurately, the people in the palace will advance the catapult to a distance of fifty to seventy zhang, which is just a very precise distance within the range of the Po Lu gun. As long as the marksmanship is good, everything is possible.

Although the firing speed of the Po Lu gun is slow, its advantage is that it can shoot far and has great power. At a distance of fifty meters, even if the opponent has a shield or armor defense, as long as the shot hits the vital point, it can be killed in one shot. Even if it does not hit the vital point, it can also make the opponent lose its combat capability...

In this era, operating a trebuchet was a technical branch of the military. It required the ability to measure distance and landing point. Even if one was forced to learn how to operate it, it would take several days. So the fewer soldiers of this type died, the less threat these trebuchets posed would be greatly reduced.

Wang Kangxin, who was unaware of Yuan Song's response at this time, was five hundred feet away from Wushupo, issuing orders to mobilize troops surrounded by his subordinates.

"When the signal sounds, Li Yongzhe, Quan Dazhong, Zhao Zaien, the three of you will launch a feint attack from the east, west, and south. Find a few more pack horses and donkeys to pull the catapults. What you need to do is not to throw stones, but to move to the fifty-foot area to make the Fengwu Army in the camp feel threatened. Their camp was set up in a hurry, and many fortifications are not sound. The most worrying thing is that the catapults will hit their camp and make it leak everywhere!"

Wang Kangxin felt helpless when he saw his subordinates were so cowardly and unwilling to take responsibility.

He also knew that Ye Mingsheng's Fengwu Army was equipped with artillery, but he thought it was the old-fashioned artillery that was not only inconvenient to move but also had weak power. It could only be used when defending a city, or it might be the small tiger squat cannon, so he didn't take it seriously.

And when he fought with Yuan Song two days ago, he was completely dumbfounded when facing the fierce firepower of the red cannon. On the first day alone, his 40,000 troops suffered more than 2,000 casualties, half of whom died in the artillery fire...
After feeling the fierce artillery fire of the Fengwu Army, although Wang Kangxin wanted to fight back against Yuan Song's artillery fire and kill him, Ye Mingsheng's lackey, but there was no way. The current level of firearms manufacturing in Gongdu was barely enough to produce a tiger squat cannon, let alone a red cannon.

Although he felt helpless, Wang Kangxin racked his brains and finally came up with a solution and pulled out the catapult. Although the catapult was about to disappear from the historical stage of the Great Zhou Dynasty, it was still very useful in the palace and was a reliable siege weapon.

Because of the range, the red cannon can hit it, but it can't hit the red cannon. However, it is still very good to use it to attract firepower. However, these people in the palace have no spirit of sacrifice. No one is willing to pull the catapult to be bombed.

Seeing this, Wang Kangxin looked around, and his subordinates in the palace said viciously:
“Didn’t I make it clear enough to you before? The Fengwu Army is a group of beasts who do all kinds of evil. If we don’t kill them here now, when they enter Liujing, they will break into your home, cut off your head, sleep with your wives and concubines, steal all your money, and burn down your house…”

"So, will you fight them to the death here, using the swords and guns in your hands to defend your homes, your wives and children, or will you choose to be slaughtered by the Fengwu Army like a dog while begging for mercy?"

Because Ye Mingsheng's Fengwu Army was a new force that had just emerged, the soldiers of the Gongdu New Army did not know much about the Fengwu Army. In addition, they instinctively obeyed their superiors, so they had no ability to distinguish Wang Kangxin's lies. When Wang Kangxin said this, they naturally believed it.

When they thought of the tragic situation described by Wang Kangxin, everyone could not help but unite against the common enemy, and the morale, which had been somewhat low, was once again rallied.

Seeing the murderous intent in everyone's eyes again, Wang Kangxin was delighted and knew that his words had worked. After the intimidation, he quickly tempted them:
"As long as we kill this group of Fengwu soldiers, we will all be great contributors to the defense of the palace! Great heroes! I will personally ask the king for your contributions, and then you will have gold, silver, treasures, beautiful women, and everything else!"

"Kill this group of Fengwu soldiers! Ye Mingsheng's plot to take over Gongdu will fail. Next year, I will personally lead you to Liaoyang to avenge Ye Mingsheng and chop off the head of this bastard. By then, everything in Liaoyang will be ours, and we will have whatever we want!"

Wang Kangxin said this at the top of his lungs, trying his best to incite the emotions of his men. Looking at his expression, if you didn't know him, you might think he was a loyal minister of some palace. Little did he know that the people opposite him were his fellow countrymen. Da Zhou was his motherland, and Liaoyang was his hometown...

Although Wang Kangxin's incitement was exaggerated, it has to be said that the people in the palace really fell for his tricks. After using threats and inducements, the group of people who had just been submissive and unwilling to take the lead suddenly became full of heroic spirit, vying for tasks, and wishing they could have a big fight with the Fengwu Army right now to decide their life and death!
(The blocked chapters have been rejected. We will have to wait forty-eight hours to see if they can be unblocked!)

(End of this chapter)