Basa looked at the newly renovated Changshu city. Although it was difficult to get the whole picture because it was dark, she lamented in her heart. Knowing that when she was running for a hundred miles, she was trapped in the crowd and lacked siege equipment, it was impossible to capture a city that was prepared and had tight defenses. Instead, she might be counterattacked by the troops in the city. Therefore, it is the main thing to quickly camp and rest, rather than siege blindly overnight.

Because they were lightly raided, all the camps and supplies remained in Jiangbei, and they only carried the dry food they used for ten days. However, they had long lived in the Central Plains and had long given up their nomadic lifestyle and turned to military farming as their business. Cattle became an important tool of production. It was impossible to use cattle and sheep as the staple food in the past, so they could only learn from the Han army to prepare food and grass.

Therefore, each person always carries two dou of fried yellow rice with him, one dou crushed into crushed powder, and another packed with him; there is also a dou of five-fold flour, of which five-fold makes steamed cakes with sesame oil, five-fold makes fried noodles soaked in soaked in soy wine, and five-fold makes fried noodles soaked in salt and vinegar, each of which packs them with him for emergency needs. Although war horses can be maintained with grass, their physical strength will be greatly reduced, so each person also carries five dou of black beans and fifty kilograms of hay as horse ingredients.

At that time, Changshu City could not be captured for a while, and there was no way to go to the city to have a meal. They could only choose a place to camp temporarily. One was to rest and recover their physical strength; the other was to guard against the enemy's night attack. Soon, a scout came to report that he found a small town five miles away from the city. The residents of the city had already fled and could be used as a camp. Basa thought that he could establish a camp as a screen when entering the town, and avoid the pain of camping, so he agreed.

"Reported to thousands of households, the officials have led people to search. The population in the town has long fled and no one has been found!" When he arrived outside the village, all the troops were on guard and waiting, and Tuge stepped forward to report.

"Well, let the 1,000-man team camp two miles outside the town, and the rest of the troops enter in turn to repair the city and guard against the enemy's night attack!" Basa looked at the moonlight. The town was located in the north of Changshu City and was built on the water. It was about five or six miles in radius. There were earth walls outside the town to prevent bandits. Judging from his experience, the town was not small in size and was enough to accommodate its troops. But he still ordered the 1,000-man team led by his eldest son Hesar to be stationed outside the town because if an enemy attacks, the visibility will be low at night and cannot go out to the camp to fight to prevent being defeated by each one. He can only defend passively. If another army outside the town can detour behind the enemy and attack the enemy from behind, and at the same time it can serve as a warning.

As for the entire army waiting outside the town, it is also a military rule. When a large army enters a private house, it must first send a scout cavalry to search and clear the possible resistance. Only after everything is done can the entire army enter. At this time, camping in teams, each team lives in one family, so that the captain’s supervision is not allowed to be separated. If it is a wealthy family and government agency with a larger area, then several teams will be installed in each section until they are settled.

If a soldier is unwilling to live with the team or leave secretly, the captain has the right to deal with the military law on the spot. After the arrangement is completed, the generals and officials of each department will lead each team to the prescribed residential houses. The soldiers will set a decision at the door and wait until the central army to enter the residential houses before they can rest. If they enter the residential houses without receiving the order, they will be under military law after being arrested, and the people in the same team will also be held together.

After the trumpet sound, each army entered this way. According to the divided areas, each unit began to strengthen the soil encirclement, cut down trees and build fences, dispatch troops to arrange warnings, ignite fires and cook, and feed horses. However, they were worried that the villagers would poison the well when evacuated, so they chose to drink horses in the river outside the town without using the well water in the town. Because the river water is flowing living water, even if poison is thrown, it will be diluted and the toxicity is greatly reduced. If so many people are wanted, the poison will be thrown out in a large amount, and no one can do it.

Basa's handsome tent was placed in an independent courtyard in the town. After entering, he found that although it had been cleaned up, it was still messy. The furniture in the house was basically still in its original state, and there was still a small amount in the granary. However, there were not a few valuable items left. Obviously, the owner left in a hurry, and in a panic, he only brought easy-to-carry gold, silver and fine soft materials, and even the clothes in the cabinet were not taken away. There were even two watchdogs tied to the doghouse next to the door.

Seeing this situation, Basa felt a little calm. It was only a hundred miles away from the river bank. They walked so quickly that they obviously did not receive any news of their southward transit in advance. When the news came here, it was at least afternoon, and at first it would not be concluded that the army was rushing to Changshu. So the owner had no time to place everything and hurriedly fled. In this way, he could infer that it would definitely not be too early to get the news from the city. Even if he sent a message to Pingjiang nearby for help, it would take several days to arrive after he mobilized the team to come for reinforcements, and he had won at least a few days of hard work...

Although Basa was ready to deal with the night attack of the Song army, he was safe overnight. The Song army in the city did not take advantage of their position to launch an attack, which made him more confident that the city was not strong enough and could not launch a night attack. He could only barely defend the city, otherwise he would not miss this great opportunity. But he still did not dare to relax his vigilance. On the one hand, he sent a scout cavalry to search the city to find out if there were any enemy aids; on the other hand, he wrote a book to the central army who was still on the way, briefly informing the current situation.

At the same time, Basa ordered all the troops to prepare equipment and prepare for the attack. He led a group of officials to inspect the city defense of Changshu. He circled around the city from north to east, and was worried in his heart. The current Changshu City is no longer the small earth city that was almost razed to the ground in the past. After reconstruction, the city wall is raised to two feet and two feet wide, and is built with rammed earth. Five city gates are built and accompanied by water gates. However, only the city gate has been bricked and even the city tower has not been built.

On the surface, Changshu City is not a solid city, but a slightly thin county town. However, the reconstruction of Changshu City has expanded to more than 2,400 steps, and is a natural barrier with Yushan. It embraces Changshu City in a large arc. The moat that accompanied it has expanded to more than 3,000 steps, with a width of more than 6 meters, and is estimated to be more than 2,400 meters deep, which is spectacular and enough to sail. It can be used as a defensive facility to connect the inland rivers in the city and communicate with rivers to facilitate the transportation of materials.

Basa also discovered the difference between Changshu City and other cities. The main function of the city is to resist foreign enemies, so the construction method of the city is focused on this, and the moat, as the first line of defense, is built close to the city wall, and the two are about meter apart. In this way, even if the enemy crosses the moat, it will be difficult to set up siege equipment because of its narrow foothold and its troops cannot be deployed, so it is difficult to set up siege equipment.

However, Basa found that the moat in Changshu City was at least five meters away from the city wall, and renovated it. A stone wall was built on the side of the river, just like a ring road, and a wharf was built near the water gate. At first he thought that this was the reason why Changshu City was currently used to hoard materials. Because of the need for defense, the water gate would not be built tall and spacious, in order to prevent the enemy from ramming the water gate with a ship or climbing the city directly with a boat building. Therefore, the roads and wharfs were built because of the outer river that transported materials could not pass through the short water gate, so they could directly transfer to small boats or transport them by vehicles on the outside docks.

At first, Basa still realized that the Song people were stupid. They knew that the transportation of materials was convenient, but they forgot the fundamental defense of the city. But they soon realized that it was clever. The low wall built on the outside of the ring road under the city not only prevented pedestrians and vehicles from rushing into the trenches, but as long as they increased the height, it was a wall of sheep and horses. Now some areas have been piled up with straw bags and piled up with sand, and a battle shed was built to form an outer line of defense, so that the city could be protected without dead corners. It also saved the cost of building horse faces, battle platforms and city towers.

Basa thought that the Song army had already fully equipped with firearms. Although he had not yet confronted him head-on, he had already learned a lot from previous battle examples. The power of artillery can break stones and crack walls, and people and horses were all broken when hit, and they could not be blocked by iron armor or large shields. What's even more powerful is that the range of guns and cannons is far beyond crossbows, and heavy artillery can be three or four miles away. If the Song army arranged artillery and musketeers behind this low wall and had a deep trench as a barrier, it would be a stronghold. If the defenders on the city cooperated with each other, they would not only be killed or injured when crossing the river, but also suffered heavy casualties and injuries during the rush to the trench.

At this moment, they came by lightly riding fast horses, and they were unable to carry long-range heavy weapons such as stone throwers, and the siege equipment also needed to be made locally. Moreover, the Song army had already demolished the long bridge leading to the city gate, leaving only a wide water surface. It was not easy for them to cross the wide moat without crossing the river, and the casualties would be heavy. Therefore, if Shushu's plan was to capture the city in a short time, Basa felt that he was not sure.

Basa became heavy and continued to walk around the city. He suddenly found that the river water in the moat disappeared after entering Xishuimen in the west, which made him feel very strange. But when he thought about it, he realized that the city was small in shape in the past, and there were moats in the west. However, after the city was expanded to the west, most of the Yushan Mountains were wrapped into the city, and the previous moat became an inner moat. The project of re-digging new outer moats was not only quite large, but also the natural barrier of Yushan Mountain was not necessary, and the moat ended abruptly here.
Chapter completed!