Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties

Chapter 491 Technological Singularity

Wang Sizheng was naturally unmoved.

Wang Sizheng was a descendant of the Wang family of Taiyuan. Before Su Ze and Erzhu Rong became enemies, the Wang family of Taiyuan had already completed their alliance. Wang Sizheng and his branch had already moved to Yongle City and joined Su Ze.

Wang Sizheng is not just a person, his family's future lies in Guanzhong. For this reason alone, it is impossible for him to open the city and surrender to Erzhu Rong.

In addition, Su Ze’s treatment of Wang Sizheng was also quite good.

Moreover, all the officials in Guanzhong knew that Duke Su was never stingy with rewards. As long as they defended Yubi City, why would they worry about not having the opportunity to be promoted?
In the end, it’s Wang Sizheng’s own choice.

He once followed the false emperor Yuan Hao, but was ignored by Yuan Hao after offering advice, and finally he defected to Su Ze.

It was Su Ze who selected him, recognized his aspirations, and trained him.

With such a favor, it is impossible for Wang Sizheng to betray Su Ze.

In addition, in the current situation, Su Ze is clearly more proactive.

Wang Sizheng personally drew his bow and shot to death the messenger sent by Erzhu Rong to speak.

Erzhu Rong also ordered archers to tie notes to their bows and shoot arrows into the city, writing on the notes that anyone who could kill Wang Sizheng and open the city to surrender would be "appointed as Grand Commandant, granted the title of Duke of the Founding State, and given 10,000 households and 10,000 pieces of silk."

But Wang Sizheng just smiled at Erzhu Rong's incompetent rage, and said to his left and right:

"This enemy chief has run out of tricks!"

After saying this, Wang Sizheng also asked his scribe to write on a piece of paper, tie it to a bow and arrow and shoot it into Erzhu Rong's camp. It said: "If anyone kills Erzhu Rong, he will be rewarded according to this."

Erzhu Rong's soldiers picked up these feather arrows and presented them to Erzhu Rong. Erzhu Rong was naturally furious again, and ordered his troops to attack the city with flesh and blood for a day. However, after leaving thousands of corpses outside Yubi City, there was still no progress, so he had to call off the attack again.

By this point in the battle, the morale of Erzhu Rong's side had reached an extremely low point. Even those Erzhus who were the most rebellious before the war were now like eggplants hit by frost, unable to raise their heads.

Yubi City is really too strong!

It was so strong that even the Erzhus couldn't understand how Su Ze could choose such a tricky location in such a large area of ​​Hedong County to build a city, thus blocking Erzhu Rong's army from advancing an inch.

Erzhu Rong looked at the Heba brothers, who also lowered their heads. The usual methods of attacking the city had been used up, and Yubi City remained unmoved. Now, if they wanted to break the city, they could only use human lives.

No one present had the courage to make such a suggestion.

Erzhu Rong gradually regained his composure. He looked at Yubi City through the camp. At this point in the battle, he already knew that there was no shortcut to capture Yubi City.

Faced with such a strong city, the only solution is to use human lives.

Although he had invincible armored cavalry at his disposal, he had no way to deal with such a jade city.

In the end, Erzhu Rong had no choice but to order people to build siege equipment, and then began to collect cannon fodder and start attacking the city with human lives.
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Inside Yanmen Pass, Su Ze also felt emotional. It was no wonder that armored cavalry gradually withdrew from the stage of history after the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.

This type of troops is powerful, but its limitations are too great.

To use the terms from later games, armored cavalry is something that is both god-like at the upper limit and devilish at the lower limit, and its cost is extremely high.

Armored cavalry tactics are limited by terrain, horses, and the quality of soldiers, and there are not many terrains where this type of troops can be used in combat.

For example, the Shu area where Hou Jing fought was not suitable for armored cavalry to fight, and the Jiangnan region with its dense water network was also not suitable for this type of troops to fight.

Secondly, if armored cavalry can be compared to ancient tanks, then grassland is the gasoline of the cavalry. Without high-quality forage, it is impossible to support so many high-quality cavalry.

Why was it that the Mongolian cavalry, which was famous in later generations, was able to fight all the way from Central Asia to Europe, but stopped before Hungary? One of the reasons was that there were a large number of high-quality grasslands throughout Central Asia, but after Hungary there was not enough grassland to support the Mongolian cavalry.

The Mongolian emperors tried to turn the entire Central Plains into a large pasture because of the need for cavalry.

However, this idea was destined to fail, which led to the Mongol cavalry advantage being destroyed in just a few decades.

Finally, these armored cavalry were helpless in siege operations.

Cavalry is not a type of soldier that is good at attacking cities. With the development of city defense technology and the increase in the number of cities, cavalry is becoming less and less suitable for such an environment.

During the last two glorious cavalry eras in history, the Mongolian cavalry obtained the siege technology from Central Asia, and the Jurchen cavalry obtained the developing artillery technology. They used these two technological singularities to make up for the disadvantages of cavalry siege and finally unified the world.

The problem that Erzhu Rong encountered in Yubi City was just like the problem that Gao Huan encountered in Yubi City before Su Ze traveled through time. It was a systematic dilemma that the armored cavalry was helpless in the face of the increasingly advanced city-building techniques of this era.

Siege tactics and city defense tactics are like a pair of spear and shield. Both sides are carrying out spiral upgrades around offense and defense. With the increasing maturity of city defense combat technology, this short-lived glorious era of armored cavalry will eventually come to an end.

Su Ze was also a little sad. A duel between armored cavalry, this was the battlefield that countless soldiers dreamed of.

It’s a pity that this is just a small ripple in history and will eventually decline.

It was time to develop new siege techniques. Gunpowder technology was first used in the early Tang Dynasty, and in fact it had already been used on a large scale on the battlefield in the Song Dynasty.

The technology of gunpowder siege still requires the development of smelting technology, which is still a bit far away from this era.

However, there are still things we can learn from the Mongol siege tactics.

The most commonly used weapon for sieges in the Yuan Dynasty was the "cannon".

Unlike a cannon, this type of cannon, as its shape suggests, is actually a catapult.

In fact, the trebuchet has existed since ancient times, but the trebuchet before this era had a major flaw, which was that the range of the trebuchet was not far.

Until the Song Dynasty, the range of a catapult was only about fifty steps, which was even within the sniper range of elite archers.

Therefore, in the Song Dynasty, a large number of catapults were installed on the city walls and used as a city defense machine.

When the Mongols invaded Central Asia, they absorbed a type of catapult called the "Manzanik".

This device was originally popular in Central Asia. The Arabs improved the rope-type catapult introduced from China by hanging a huge stone or iron (counterweight) at the tail of the gun. The kinetic energy of the falling counterweight was used instead of human traction. The range was longer and the power was greater. The range could even be adjusted more conveniently by adding or removing the counterweight.

Later, when the Yuan army besieged Xiangfan of the Southern Song Dynasty, the "Xiangyang Cannon" that shattered the city wall with one shot was this kind of catapult.

Although Su Ze has told the craftsmen about his ideas, he has never seen a real catapult and cannot provide more details. The craftsmen are still groping for the answer.

However, good news has come from the rear. The workshop has already produced a catapult that can fire stone bullets a hundred steps away. As long as they continue to improve along this path, they will soon be able to produce a catapult that can be used in actual combat.

After passing Yanmen Pass, a gap opened up in Bingzhou.

Going south from Yanmen Pass is Dai County.

However, this Dai County is not the Dai County where the Northern Wei Dynasty started. The Dai area where the Northern Wei Dynasty started refers to the Hengzhou area near Pingcheng. This Dai County is the former site of the Dai Kingdom granted during the Han Dynasty and was the frontline area during the Han Dynasty’s fight against the Huns.

To the east of Yanmen Pass, there is a historical site called Baideng Mountain, which is where Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, was besieged by the Hun army.

However, Su Ze did not advance rashly, because further south was the Xinding Basin, also known as Xiurong. This area was where the Erzhu family started out, and the Erzhu family had a strong influence in Xiurong.

However, after Erzhu Rong took control of Shanxi, he shifted the political and military center to the Jinyang area.

Shanxi is mountainous, and there are actually only four areas of land suitable for development.

The Xinding Basin (Xiurong) in the north, the Taiyuan Basin (Jinyang) in the middle, the Changzhi Basin (Shangdang) in the southeast corner, and the Linyi Basin (Linyi) in the southwest corner.

Among these four regions, Jinyang (Taiyuan) is located in the center and is a fortress city that is no less important than Yubi City.

This is also the reason why Erzhu Rong quickly moved his government to Jinyang after occupying Bingzhou, and even wanted to move the capital to Jinyang.

Jinyang's geographical location is really important.

Su Ze knew that although he had occupied Yanmen Pass, his soldiers were tired and it was not advisable to fight deep into the enemy's lair.

So he ordered the craftsmen to repair Yanmen Pass and left the soldiers inside to repair.
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Sichuan.

After Yang Jia led the recruited Liao soldiers and joined Hou Jing, they began to march towards Baidi City.

The navy of Southern Liang in Baidi City has been destroyed. Without the protection of the navy, it is only a matter of time before Baidi City is captured.

However, Hou Jing was not in a hurry to advance. Because of the natural barrier of the Three Gorges, the warships from downstream could not reach Baidi City. And the limited manpower and materials in Baidi City did not allow them to build new ships.

In Hou Jing's view, the fall of Baidi City was only a matter of time. He attached more importance to this battle because it was the first time he commanded infantry, cavalry and navy to fight in coordination.

Hou Jing was an ambitious person. He rose from a low-level soldier in the Six Garrisons who could not read a single word to a general who now governs a region, thanks to his enterprising spirit of continuous learning.

In addition, Hou Jing is also a person who is extremely good at seizing opportunities.

In military terms, he was able to seize the enemy's weaknesses and find opportunities to strike a fatal blow.

In politics, this is reflected in his ability to see future trends and improve himself in that direction.

This is an amazing talent.

Hou Jing knew very well that once the war in the north progressed smoothly, given Duke Su's temperament, he would certainly go south to complete his historical goal of unifying the world.

Most of the generals in the north have no experience in commanding naval operations. As long as I master this skill, Duke Su will definitely use me!

This is Hou Jing’s confidence!

(End of this chapter)