The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

Heifu was not wrong. The Qin army surrounded Shouchun from all sides. Its troops were well-organized and its soldiers were elite. It really frightened the King of Chu, Fu Chu.

He wanted to defend the country and die for the country, but Wang Jian expected that he might move the capital again and escape. He deliberately did not cross the Huai River to give him hope, but let Meng Wu, Li You and others cut off the escape route and trapped the King of Chu to death in Shouchun.

Although hiding in the deep palace separated from the residents by high walls, Fu Chu seemed to hear the sound of the Qin army cutting down trees on the mountain on the other side of the Fei River even in his dreams. Seeing that the siege equipment was being built day by day and deployed on the west and south sides, ready to launch an attack at any time, Fu Chu felt more and more that he didn't have much time left.

Sima, Youtu and others also advised him: "Although Chu is in danger now, it is not as good as Zhao Wuxiu in Jinyang and Qi Tiandan defending Jimo! There are still troops in Huainan and Jiangdong who are loyal to the king. As long as we persist for a few months, there may be a turning point..."

They hope that the King of Chu will personally go up to the tower to encourage the soldiers to fight to the death, and the women in the palace will be organized among the troops, and all the treasures in the palace will be distributed to the soldiers.

However, Fu Chu said in despair: "The elite of Chu have been buried in Huaibei by Xiang Yan, and Changping Jun has been slow to send troops to Jiangdong to help the king. The total number of soldiers in the city is less than 50,000. How can we resist the Qin army of more than 100,000?"

Zuotu and others advised him to surrender, but considering that Han Wang An, Zhao Wang Qian, and Wei Wang Jia, who surrendered to Qin before, all ended up badly, Fu Chu was still hesitant.

Just when he was in a dilemma, Wu Ling, who had always been favored by the King of Chu, suddenly ran out of the temple with laughter and bowed down in front of the King of Chu. When he raised his head, there was a hint of madness in his eyes.

"Your Majesty, Shouchun is saved, and the State of Chu is saved!"

The ministers and nobles looked at each other, but the King of Chu hurriedly walked to Wu Ling, helped him up, and asked expectantly: "Have the gods responded?"

"Yes!"

Wu Ling pulled the King of Chu outside the palace, pointed to the sky in the distance, which was cloudy and thunderous, and said: "Your Majesty, please look, the gods are in it! There is light and color on his body, and it is bright and endless!"

The King of Chu widened his eyes, but could only see a pile of ordinary dark clouds. Where is the god?

"Yun Zhongjun has left again." Wu Ling sighed with regret: "Your Majesty, you must bathe for three days and let a hundred witches perform rituals on the top of the city before Yun Zhongjun can surrender again..."

"Can Yun Zhongjun really save the State of Chu? Can he save Bu Gu?" The King of Chu didn't know what to believe. He was like a drowning man and could only try his best to grab every straw.

"Yes!"

Wu Ling said confidently: "Although Yunzhongjun often appears in the world in human form, his body is a dragon. His dragon rides on the imperial robe and shines as brightly as the sun and the moon. As long as the king offers enough sacrifices, I will summon Yunzhongjun to make him send down thunder and rain to destroy the 100,000 Qin invaders outside the city!"

...

While the King of Chu placed his hopes on ghosts and gods, the Chu people on the top of Shouchun City were still trying to save themselves. Their resistance was extremely tenacious, and they actually blocked several waves of attacks in succession...

On the Qin side, in addition to the traditional moth echoing and holding up shields to break the door with battering rams, Hei Fu also saw almost all the siege methods of this idea: tens of thousands of people transported earth and stones from afar, built five earth hills in the west of the city, even higher than the city wall, and then ordered archers to stand on them, shoot arrows and crossbows into the city to cooperate in the siege.

However, the Chu people completely blocked all the gates. Even if they destroyed the city gates, it would be useless. They had to move the solid earth and rocks inside. The Qin army could not get in for a while.

And those who attacked the city wall could not stand firm and were repeatedly driven down by the Chu people's mourning soldiers.

Seeing that the Chu people in the city had burst into a desperate effort when their country was destroyed, Wang Jian was not in a hurry. He just asked the soldiers to shoot fire into the city with smoke arrows at night. In the night sky, the smoke arrows fell into the city like fireworks, but the people in the city had demolished all the buildings near the city wall. In addition, the waterways in the city were crisscrossed, making it easy to put out the fire, so they could only play a harassment role.

But this was enough. Attacking the city required physical strength and patience rather than brute force. If there were ten of them, they would be surrounded, and if there were twice as many, they would be attacked. The Qin soldiers outside the city were twice as many as the defenders on the top of the city. As long as they were harassed in turns, they would be exhausted physically and mentally, and their morale would drop. Sooner or later, they would reveal their flaws. Wang Jian did not want to rush and suffer heavy casualties.

He asked the civilians to cut a large amount of wood in the mountains and transport it to the other side of the Fei River. Qin Mo, the military commander, Cheng Shang and other craftsmen hurriedly made "flying stones", that is, catapults.

Flying stones were invented during the Wu-Yue hegemony war. It is said that it was made by Fan Li. Stones were placed on large wood and the machine was used to hit the enemy. The flying stone weighed twelve pounds. After it was fully charged, it could jump two hundred steps to hurt the enemy! The disadvantage is that it is too heavy and the accuracy is touching.

In fact, in Hei Fu's opinion, catapults are more effective against brick and stone walls in the West, but not so good against integrated rammed earth walls. They are mainly used to destroy corner towers and arrow towers. The stones that constantly fly over the head also have a certain psychological intimidation effect on people.

On this day, the catapult was built. The throwing arm was made of the trunk of an old tree, with an iron hoop to prevent it from breaking. There were wheels under the base frame, which could be pushed along the flat ground to adjust the attack distance and angle. The appearance is rough and full of the beauty of wooden machinery. After Qin Mo's transformation, the power is stronger than the "flying stone" in the south more than 200 years ago. It can throw a stone bullet weighing 20 to 30 kilograms 200 steps away!

The civilians will be pushed out from behind the earthen hill in a while, and Hei Fu and his men are ordered to line up in front of it to guard.

But at this moment, the sharp-eyed Xiao Tao came to report that there was a commotion on the top of the city!

"Commotion?"

Hei Fu followed him to the front of the array, an arrow away from the city wall, and saw that there was indeed some chaos on the top of the city. Unlike the solemn defense in the past, it was a bit noisy. Finally, the soldiers with blades and armor left the city wall and replaced them with a group of people wearing colorful feathers and wearing Weimao crowns...

"Witch!?"

Hei Fu rubbed his eyes. He was not wrong. It was indeed a wizard. He was dressed very similarly to the witch dancing on the boat during the Shangsi Festival in Jiangling.

Is this to curse the Qin army? Heifu knew that when Qin and Chu first went to war, the kings of both countries went to the ancestral temple, offered sacrifices, carved stones as curses, and asked all the gods to curse the enemy.

But now, the Qin army is at the gates of the city, so it's useless to ask the gods for help, right?

After the witches prayed on the top of the city, they first knelt down solemnly towards the clouds in the sky and offered some sacrifices such as cattle, pigs, and sheep. They were all cooked food, cooked in a large cauldron, and the aroma was fragrant. Not to mention the Chu soldiers who had only eaten porridge for many days, even the well-fed Qin soldiers began to drool.

After a round of mysterious chanting, the protagonist appeared. A wizard wearing sacrificial clothes, lotus clothes, orchid belts, orchid crowns, and Luli pendants, with colorful paintings on his face, walked to the top of the city wall, looked at the dark Qin army below the city wall with contempt, and then beat the chimes as a signal to start the sacrificial dance...

"Bathe in orchid soup and wash your fragrance, and wear gorgeous clothes like a hero. The spirits are curled up and stay, and the bright and shining will never end."

Hei Fu couldn't figure out what the Chu people wanted to do for a while, so he said to Ji Ying: "Go, find Chen Ying."

When Hei Fu's guide Chen Ying came, the wizards on the top of the city wall just sang in unison: "The spirits have descended, and the beasts are far away in the clouds."

When Chen Ying saw this, his face froze, and he said in disbelief: "They... are asking Yunzhongjun Pingyi to come down, probably to ask Yunjun for help."

"Lord Yunzhong, isn't that for praying for rain?" Heifu was puzzled. The Chu people wanted to borrow the power of ghosts and gods, but they had mistaken the gods. Why didn't they ask the Great God of Destiny to take in all the Qin people outside the city?

Chen Ying explained: "In Huainan, Lord Yunzhong is not only the God of Clouds and Rain, but also the God of Thunder and Lightning. Maybe he wants to trigger the thunder in the sky and defeat the Qin army..."

"Thunder in the sky?"

Heifu couldn't help but burst into laughter. Over the years, he has been convinced that he is not in the fantasy fairy world, but in real history. Except for the incredible matter of crossing, everything else is normal.

But the Chu witch in this city thinks he is the evil Zhuge Liang in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, who can borrow the east wind to set up the Bagua formation and want to light the Seven Star Lamp to *** the Chu State?

At first I thought it was ridiculous, but as I laughed, I felt sad and lamentable.

He looked at Chen Ying with a complicated expression: "Do you believe it?"

"I don't believe it..." Chen Ying lowered his head. He admired his mother's foresight. The king in the city was so confused that he would rather let the soldiers on the city wall starve than let the witch offer the best meat to the gods. It was not worth dying for him.

Smart people naturally don't believe it, but this posture still makes many people feel serious.

Hei Fu found that many Chu people on the city wall knelt respectfully and seemed to place their hopes on the wizards' practices. Indeed, when people are in despair, isn't it normal to place their hopes on supernatural powers? .

If I remember correctly, when the Jin soldiers were approaching the city, the emperor and his ministers of the Song Dynasty also wanted to defeat the enemy by relying on the trick of the charlatan to turn beans into soldiers, but it ended up being a joke for the ages. But looking at the tragic scene of the Jingkang Shame, it is no longer funny...

"Sure enough, when a country is about to fall, there must be evil spirits!"

It is not a real evil spirit, but the fear in people's hearts that allows evil spirits to take advantage of the situation and cheat.

And there are also many honest and superstitious Qin people under the city who look up worriedly, looking at whether the clouds in the sky are really gathering and turning black. For a while, there is silence, and the wizards on the top of the city think that their method is effective, and they dance and sing more vigorously.

"Dongmen Leopard!"

Hei Fu shouted to his second battalion commander.

"Let Zhang Sikong and Cheng Shang pull up all the catapults!"

He drew his sword and pointed at the group of demons dancing on the top of the city.

"Aim at this group of witches! Fire a few shots. We'll know if they are real gods or fake gods, human or demon after one try!"

...

Half a minute later, just as the witches were about to finish their sacrifice, the thunderbolt they had been waiting for really came!

Accompanied by a dense and dull collision sound! The tall and rough catapults under the city, with the force of the civilians' pulling and rebounding, threw out a lot of stones. After passing the top, they fell rapidly. Dozens of black dots streaked across the sky and fell towards Shouchun City!

According to Hei Fu's request, they all aimed at the wall where the witches were gathered. Although the accuracy was poor, nine out of ten stones missed, or fell into the moat with a plop, or flew over the wall and fell into the city, there were still a few lucky flying stones that landed directly on the witches who could not interrupt the long dance to summon the spirits without dodging...

These stones weighing more than ten or twenty pounds were not comparable to arrows. In just a moment, the muffled sound of the stones hitting the wall and the screams of the crowd rang out. The altar in the center collapsed after being hit. The lucky witches broke bones and tendons, while the unlucky ones had their heads exploded!

After several people died, the witches and shamans no longer cared about the shaman dance. They fled with their heads in their arms, ignoring the witch spirits' attempts to stop them, like a bunch of flies that were swatted away in panic when they were buzzing...

That day, there was a thunderous sound outside the city, stones fell from the sky, the evil spirits were silent, the spirits retreated, and the city was in turmoil, everyone was shocked!

The Qin army also took advantage of this opportunity to launch a full-scale attack on the Chu capital, and the outer city of Shouchun fell!