In modern movies and TV shows about cold weapon wars, this scene often appears: a large group of soldiers carrying long ladders, roaring "Wow, wow," while rushing toward the city.

One long ladder after another was built up to the top of the city, and groups of soldiers swarmed up the ladder like ant colonies, just to compete for the "first to climb" that could change the fate of their lives in one breath.

Although in the cold weapon age, long ladders were indeed used on a large scale in siege warfare, but... the most mainstream and most useful siege equipment are siege vehicles, trebuchets, heavy ballistae, etc.

Big guys.

Long ladders and the like... have no other benefits except low production cost and convenient transportation, so they are not the best choice for siege.

A long ladder can only transport one soldier at a time, which is extremely inefficient.

As long as the defenders of the city can have sufficient soldiers, abundant supplies, and high morale, these soldiers climbing up the long ladder will simply lose their lives.

Come one and get one free, come two and get a pair.

Therefore, in order to defend the city, the best and simplest defense method is to dig trenches.

A wide and deep trench can effectively prevent the approach of large equipment such as manhole carts and catapults.

Without the assistance of these gadgets, unless some clever strategies are used, such as "Trojan horse", "cutting off the water source", etc., the siege party will have to pay an extremely heavy price to capture a city.

Therefore, in order for large-scale equipment to be effective, the siege team must spend a lot of time slowly filling in the trenches.

During this period, the defenders can leisurely shoot arrows, throw stones, and use long-range weapons to attack the enemy troops bit by bit, reducing their numbers and sapping their fighting spirit.

To sum up, when the enemy attacks, the first thing the defenders have to do is cut down the nearby trees.

The road conditions in the cold weapon era were very bad, and the transportation capacity was very limited.

Smooth roads, fast trains and trucks...none of these things.

Large equipment such as well-mounted carts are too cumbersome to be shipped from afar and must be manufactured locally.

Cutting down the trees around the city can greatly slow down the enemy's ability to build siege equipment.

Then, it was time to dig as many trenches as possible.

If you still have extra manpower and time, lay as many fences as possible.

The fence in the cold weapon era is similar to the modern barbed wire. It may seem inconspicuous, but it can make the attacker very uncomfortable. It is not difficult to destroy it, but it will cost a lot of time. During this period, there will be a large number of companions.

He was knocked down by an oncoming long-range weapon.

This is why ancient Eastern and Western military strategists did not recommend siege warfare.

There is no other reason - the cost of attacking the city is too high.

It was not until artillery was born and deployed on a large scale that those cities became vulnerable.

Of course, cities continued to evolve with the emergence of artillery, and formidable city defense systems such as bastions gradually appeared. That was a story later.

Scenes such as "there is only a long ladder on the way to siege the city" and "the city is surrounded by a flat road without a single trench" in movies and TV shows with the theme of cold weapon warfare in modern times are completely made up by screenwriters in order to speed up the pace of the story.

Not to mention field battles.

Wide and deep trenches and layers of fences can effectively block cavalry charges and infantry advances.

If fences and trenches are used properly, a huge battlefield can be divided into countless small pieces, greatly weakening the enemy's strength advantage and slowing down the enemy's attack speed.

All in all, under the "time crunch" situation Qingdeng is currently facing, adopting the strategy of "building only fences and trenches" is undoubtedly the most correct.

Fortunately, there are good-growing trees everywhere around here, so there is no shortage of materials!

…

…

It's night——

The skylight follows the natural laws of the seasons, and it gets dark early just after 18 o'clock.

The cold night that comes suddenly after the sun sets is both cold and biting, silently reminding people of the undoubted fact that late winter is not far away yet.

The crescent moon, half covered by thin smoke-like clouds, rose quietly at some point and climbed over the top of the mountain.

Looking up, the entire Ueno Basin is bathed in the bright silver moonlight.

The night wind blows, the forest waves burst into bursts, and the looming mist is dense on the top of the mountain.

The mist that sometimes gathers and sometimes disperses constantly changes into shadows of different shades. Against the backdrop of the dark night, it seems that there are indescribable terrifying monsters hidden in the misty clouds and mist, swallowing up half of the sky and the earth, and fainting the mountains.

contour.

For the Shinsengumi, the most scarce thing right now is undoubtedly time.

In a few days, there will be a huge army of thieves surrounding this place.

Every second counts and time does not wait... We must build a usable defense system as soon as possible.

Therefore, as the sun was setting, Qingden issued a strict order: "No one is allowed to rest until a progress that satisfies him is achieved!".

In this way, even though it was already midnight, the Shinsengumi soldiers still did not put down their civil engineering tools.

I saw that the inside and outside of the Shinsengumi's camp were illuminated orange-red by bunches of torches.

There was an endless stream of sounds of shoveling soil, "knock, click, click, click" of sawing wood, and shouts of "one, two, three, pull!".

All civil engineering work is supervised by Director Isamu Kondo.

Before being adopted as the adopted son of the Kondo family, Isamu Kondo was a native farmer.

Whether it is the skill of wielding a hoe or the method of chopping trees, he is very proficient in it, so it is appropriate to give him this task.

Commander-in-Chief Shannan Keisuke is responsible for commanding the supply team and arranging the orderly storage of grain, grass, medicine and other materials.

After determining the camp site, Qingdeng personally determined the locations of two important places in the military camp - the supply depot and the toilet.

The supply depot is located on dry high ground, while the toilets are built in downwind areas away from water sources.

No one knows how long this battle will last.

In order to be safe, Aoto spent a lot of money and ordered Iwasaki Yataro to raise a large amount of supplies and livestock to transport supplies.

In addition, Yagi Gennosei (a big landowner in Mibu Township and a local snake) once again gave Aonto a great gift.

He lent Qingdeng a large number of slave horses free of charge.

With his simple "money ability" and abundant transportation capacity, Qingteng attracted enough supplies for the entire Shinsengumi army in one fell swoop.

Arranging personnel to move a large amount of materials into the warehouse and checking them one by one to confirm which items are in place and which items are missing... This is quite a tedious task.

It would be a good idea to leave it to Shannan Keisuke, who is calm-minded and good at paperwork.

The chain of command of the Shinsengumi is "one orange, two earthwork, three near and four mountain south".

The war is approaching, Qingdeng has many important things to do and has no time to stay in the formation.

There are no convenient communication tools nowadays. If something major happens when Qingdeng leaves the camp, it will be difficult to contact Qingdeng immediately.

Therefore, the task Aomori entrusted to Deputy Chief Hijikata Tobizo was to stay in charge of the main formation and be ready to deal with any emergencies at any time.

As for the captains of the Battō team headed by the General Secretary and Qinghe Hachiro, they were all sent by Qingto to participate in the civil engineering work.

The Shinsengumi currently has a small number of people. Even if they only have 10 people, they are still an indispensable labor force.

The "Shiweiguan Faction" always obeyed Qingdeng's orders.

As soon as Qingdeng's order to "dig the soil" was given, they rolled up their sleeves and joined the "construction site" without saying a word.

On the other hand, Qinghe Hachiro, Serizawa Kamo and Niimi Nishiki...these three people were quite resistant to Qingnobo's order.

Their thoughts were the same - as dignified warriors, how could we wield such an unrefined instrument like a peasant?

However, when they saw Sanako and Mai Kinoshita working hard to dig soil and move rocks even as daughters, they were speechless and silently picked up the hoes and shovels that they had originally despised.

While the Shinsengumi soldiers were transforming into civil servants, Aomori was not idle either.

As the general of the entire army, the things he has to consider are more complicated and heavier than anyone else.

After issuing a series of orders to the entire army and entrusting the three important tasks of "temporary command authority", "supervising projects" and "arranging supply teams" to Hijikata Toizo, Kondo Isamu and Yamanan Keisuke respectively, he rode

Carrot, without any followers, walked around the Ueno Basin.

At this moment, a man and an ox are standing on the hillside of a certain mountain.

"call……"

Qingdeng half-opened his mouth and exhaled translucent hot air.

He squinted his eyes, with thoughtful eyes bursting out from under his long eyelashes, and scanned the surroundings back and forth. From time to time, he picked up the monocular telescope in his hand and looked into the distance, as if he wanted to see what was happening around him.

It was as if the scene was deeply engraved in his mind - and in fact it was.

"Night Vision", "Fiery Eyes +5", "Photographic Memory", "Focused Mind", "Sacred Brain +9" - these five talents are activated at the same time!

"Night vision" makes him not afraid of the veil of night.

"Fire Eyes + 5" allows his sight to span countless spaces.

"Photographic memory", "Gathering the mind" and "Shen brain + 9" make his brain spin rapidly, and he memorizes the sceneries seen by his eyes one by one like rubbings.

Even people who don't understand military science at all know the importance of terrain to military affairs.

Any military strategist who is somewhat reliable will not pay attention to terrain.
To be continued...