The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

"Waihuang Ling is going to resist to the end."

Seeing that the 2500 people sent by Lord Yang Xiong to persuade the surrender were shot back by a volley of arrows under the city, Hei Fu shook his head and said to the several squad leaders beside him.

They arrived at Waihuang County yesterday evening. Waihuang was originally a city of Song State in the Spring and Autumn Period, and it belonged to Wei State in the Warring States Period. The size of this county is similar to that of Anlu County. Because it is located in the hinterland of Wei State and rarely encounters war, Waihuang's defense ability is far inferior to Chenliu. The wall is only three feet high. At this time, the city gates are closed, and the city is crowded with people preparing for defense.

When everyone heard this, they were not worried but happy, because if the city surrendered without attacking, they would not get any credit.

"Looking at the preparations on the top of the city, the morale of Waihuang is not low. This may be our first hard battle."

After saying that, Heifu looked back at his own camp. After they arrived yesterday, in addition to the one thousand soldiers, there were also one thousand prisoners and soldiers from Daliang who came to support them, a total of two thousand people. Then, under Yang Xiong's order, they dug the earth and cut wood, and hurriedly built a camp for the soldiers to settle down.

After gaining a foothold and the enemy city refused to surrender, fighting became the only option. Soon, a messenger came to find Heifu and asked him to go to the big tent with other garrison commanders and generals to listen to orders...

This kind of big tent with a thousand people is actually a little wider than an ordinary tent. Yang Xiong, who can also be called the "leader", sits in the middle, with two five hundred masters on his left and right, Zhang Yi from Nanyang Wancheng, and Cheng Wuyou from Nanjun Yidao.

More than a dozen generals and garrison commanders sat at the bottom. Heifu's position was far from the main seat but very close to the tent door, which showed that his position in this army was not high.

Although Yang Xiong was a clan member and liked to pay attention to his clothes and accessories, he didn't waste time and asked quickly: "I led the leader to the north to take Waihuang under the order of Zhonggeng, but the Waihuang commander was unaware of the general situation and led the soldiers and guests in the city to resist stubbornly. Therefore, the crowd has gathered and not dispersed in vain, and the soldiers have gone out and not returned empty-handed. This city must be captured! Do you have any strategy to break the city?"

Wancheng Wei Shi Zhang Qi has always been good at making plans, so he bowed and said: "The method of using troops is to surround them if there are ten, and attack them if there are five. But now our army has only more than 2,000 people, and there are thousands of young men in Waihuang City. After scouts went around the city to investigate, they said that there were armored soldiers, sword-wielding guests, and market people holding farm tools on each wall in the southeast, northwest, and northeast. There were at least 500 people. In total, the enemy and our forces are equal, and the general siege and attack method may not be effective."

Yang Xiong said: "Oh, then what do the five hundred masters think should be done to attack the city?"

"The Art of War says that if you don't win a battle, you can't talk about fighting; if you don't capture an enemy, you can't talk about attacking." "In my opinion, it's better to... lure the enemy out of the city!" Hei Fu listened below and shook his head secretly. Zhang Qi was born in a school and learned a lot of laws and military tactics, but he had not fought many actual battles and was quite following the map. He had proposed to march all night and launch a night attack on Waihuang, and Yang Xiong also accepted his suggestion. But when Hei Fu and others arrived at Waihuang after wearing armor and spears and trotting for thirty miles, they found that the Waihuang magistrate in the city was not a stupid person. He was very vigilant and had already detected the Qin army approaching. He closed the city gates, and the torches on the top of the city were bright. The light knights of the county patrolled all night and were waiting for them! At this time, Zhang Qi was still excited and said: "We pretended to be tired from the rapid march, and let the prisoners and garrison soldiers disperse to challenge the city, while the elite soldiers hid in the camp. The men, soldiers, and retainers in the city are equal to ours. The commander of Waihuang sees that our army is tired and scattered, and may go out of the city to fight. We can first let the garrison soldiers pretend to be defeated, lure them to chase, and then set up an ambush. After annihilating this group of enemies that have gone out of the city, we can then attack the county city fiercely. In this way, the remaining enemies in the city will be frightened and their morale will be low, and it will be easy to take Waihuang! "

He was having fun imagining that, but Hei Fu found it funny. Since the commander in the city was not stupid, it was undoubtedly a foolish dream to rely on poor acting skills to lure the enemy out for a field battle.

Besides, if you can defend the city, why risk going out of the city for a field battle?

In the Spring and Autumn Period, the nobles paid attention to fair battles. Everyone set up their positions in the wild and decided the winner within a day. Even the epoch-making Sun Tzu's Art of War rarely talked about sieges due to the limitations of the times, and said that sieges were inferior.

But by the Warring States Period, sieges had become something that military strategists had to face.

The population density and land development level of the Warring States Period were very low compared to the era after the unification of the Han Dynasty. Low population density means that the main population and resources are concentrated near the main cities; low land development level means limited transportation conditions. Before the Qin State carried out large-scale transportation construction, even in the Central Plains, the main roads were very limited, and there was often only one post road connecting counties.

The above two points determine that the offensive style of war in the Warring States Period can only be mainly to capture points and push forward, that is, to capture cities one by one along the post road, and at most add some tricks of siege and blocking reinforcements.

Because the concentration of population and resources determines that the attacker must capture the city strongholds, and it is meaningless to occupy an undeveloped land with no birds and shit; and the limited road traffic has caused great restrictions on the army's advance and the transportation of logistics supplies, which is destined to make it impossible for the attacker to bypass the enemy's front-line cities and play frog leapfrog warfare.

Therefore, the offensive route of the attacker is basically certain, and the defender only needs to concentrate the main forces on a major city on the enemy's offensive route and defend it strictly. Even in the Battle of Yan and Ying, the Qin army had already occupied a huge advantage, but it still could not bypass Yancheng to attack the hinterland of Chu, so Bai Qi had to capture the city with difficulty.

Therefore, at the strategic level, the battlefield environment in the Warring States Period was indeed beneficial to the defender.

From a tactical point of view, in the era of cold weapons, the defenders had a great advantage when attacking a city. A few thousand people could often stop tens of thousands of soldiers, unless there were a few people who were not afraid of death and opened the city gates to fight.

Zhang Er, the commander of Waihuang, was obviously not such a person. He was also afraid that the Qin army outside the city was just the vanguard, and there were still large troops behind.

Hei Fu thought so in his heart, but he was not stupid enough to reject the proposal of his superior in public. He could only hope that the commander Yang Xiong could reject this plan.

However, surprisingly, Yang Xiong adopted it again and asked everyone to go down and prepare immediately, either to lure the enemy or to hide in the camp as an ambush.

"What does this commander want to do? "Heifu was somewhat puzzled. Judging from his words, Yang Xiong was not a stupid person who didn't know military affairs.

As expected by Heifu, after letting the prisoners and soldiers go out of the camp casually and pretending to challenge for a day, the gates of Waihuang were still closed. Waihuang had no desire to attack. The county hero Zhang knew what he wanted very well. He wanted to defend for three or five days, repel an attack, prove that he had not let down the State of Wei, and then he could run away.

Seeing that his strategy failed again, Zhang Qi looked a little ugly. At this time, the leader Yang Xiong comforted him and put forward a real battle plan.

"It seems that Waihuang must be attacked by force! "

Looking at Yang Xiong's smiling face, Hei Fu in the tent figured it out.

Yang Xiong, the leader of a clan, seemed to have no opinion. He would call everyone to ask for advice every time he fought, but in fact, he was a very scheming person. He seemed to always want to deliberately let Zhang Qi, who liked to make suggestions and steal the limelight, come up with some ineffective strategies. After Zhang Qi was slapped in the face, Yang Xiong stood up again and put forward what he thought in his heart.

In this way, on the one hand, he could be praised for being good at listening to the opinions of his subordinates, and on the other hand, he could always make decisions at critical moments and reverse the wrong strategies.

Sure enough, after Yang expressed his true thoughts, he immediately attracted a burst of admiration from everyone in the tent.

"In the past two days, although I seemed to send people to lure the enemy to attack, in fact, this was just a trick. The real purpose is to let the craftsmen build siege equipment. Now the siege equipment is ready, and the enemy's morale in the first few days has also slackened. From tomorrow, you two should attack the city with all your strength! "

Finally, Yang Xiong ended with a sentence from "Wei Liaozi" to show his determination to attack Waihuang.

"The Art of War says that some soldiers are better than the court, some are better than the wilderness, and some are better than the market. Only those who dare to fight can win, and those who surrender and retreat will fail! You two, I dare to ask who is willing to be the first to capture the city tomorrow?"

As he spoke, Yang Xiong cast his eyes on Hei Fu!