October, twenty-sixth.

The second day after breaking Nanhe City.

In the early morning of this day, Li Mengxi slept soundly until dawn again, but got up late again.

When I got up, I saw that Xiao Brick was not there.

Li Mengxi called out twice, but Xiao Zhuan didn't respond. Instead, Liu Bei's soldiers came from outside the tent.

The soldier said, "Xuan Degong left a message that the military advisor can go to the city after breakfast."

After that, he went out of the tent again, and after a while, food was brought.

Li Mengxi ate breakfast in a hurry. The breakfast was not very tasty. It consisted of meat and egg cake porridge, and the porridge was meat porridge. It looked like it was leftover from last night.

I remembered what happened last night. Last night, everyone chopped the meat of chickens, ducks, sheep and geese into minced meat, and then cooked it. I don’t know how many urns were used and how many people were responsible for cooking the urns.

This is so troublesome.

In fact, everyone can cook the rice themselves, but the amount of meat is not large. Two large pots are enough to cook enough for all the soldiers.

The key is that there is no big pot.

After the meal was finished, Li Mengxi picked up the bowls and chopsticks and went out of the tent to find water to wash the dishes, and then went to the city to find Liu Bei.

The camp was set up about three to four hundred paces away from the city. Li Mengxi walked out of the camp and before he had gone far, he saw Liu Bei's commanding flag at the left corner of the east city wall.

Looking at the figures, I saw a group of people standing by the moat, wondering what they were doing.

Li Mengxi walked over directly.

Xiao Zhuan was on Liu Bei's neck again, and Li Mengxi was helpless.

Seeing Li Mengxi coming, Liu Bei turned to Li Mengxi and nodded, and Li Mengxi nodded in response.

Taking two steps forward, Li Mengxi walked to the trench and lowered his head to look down.

At the bottom of the trench, stones and fallen arrows were still everywhere, and the trench was steep and deep.

Generally, naturally formed ditches should have gentle slopes on both sides. However, the steep side of the ditch in front of us is almost straight up and down, and the other side, the side close to the city wall, has only one slope.

Looking forward, next to the ditch is the base of the city wall. At the foot of the city wall, the narrow part is just a stretch of land.

The siege ladder used to attack the city yesterday was still in place. Li Mengxi saw that although the siege ladder was pressed against the ground and firmly established at the foot of the city, there were scratches on the trench stems where the siege ladder slipped down.

As you can imagine, during the siege of the city, as soon as the yellow turban pushed the ladder, it slid down. The ladder slid back a little, and it became a slope, which was not stable at all.

There was a small stone beside his feet. Li Mengxi moved his feet lightly and kicked the stone down.

The stone followed the terrain, rolled into the deep trench, hit a big stone, and bounced elsewhere.

Li Mengxi frowned. The deepest part of this city-protecting trench was three to four meters deep. The trench was not only deep, but also wide.

No wonder, after yesterday's siege of the city, the siege soldiers succumbed in the trench after descending into the ditch.

How could a city-protecting trench cause so much trouble to the attacking party?

Standing by the pit, Li Mengxi couldn't help but think about what to do next time he encountered a city moat. He tried to recall the scenes about the city moat in all the costume TV dramas he had watched.

It seems that someone will carry a basket with soil and then fill in the moat.

It should be like this. The attacking side will drive away the refugees, or simply let the soldiers carry earth to fill the river and turn the deep trench into a flat one.

At this time, Liu Bei saw Li Mengxi dazed beside the trench for a long time. Liu Bei came over and asked, "Xi'er, this trench is deep and wide. Is there any way to break it?"

Li Mengxi nodded, looked at the rocks at the bottom of the trench, and said, "I think of a way. Let the soldiers use baskets to pick up soil and fill the trench."

Li Mengxi even thought that people in the army were making baskets all the time. If they had to lift soil to fill the trench, there would definitely be enough baskets.

After listening to Li Mengxi's method, Liu Bei couldn't help but smile, "The solution Xi'er wants to solve is the same as what a certain person thought. But it is different from what the second and third brothers thought."

Li Mengxi was surprised, turned to look at Guan and Zhang, and asked, "What clever ideas do the two generals have?"

Guan Yu stroked his beard, smiled slightly, and came over and said, "I can't speak of a clever strategy. The solution I thought of was a shield formation.

Look, Xi'er, although the ditch is deep, it is not deeper than two people.

If people set up a shield array at the bottom of a trench, and the shields connect to form a level ground, and then raise the shield array, the height of the shield array will be as high as the people, and those who come after will walk on the shield as if they were walking on flat ground. In this way, the depth of the deep trench will be reduced by half, and it will become a shallow trench.

The trenches also mean that our siege soldiers will not be blocked by the trenches and become ineffective in attacking the city."

After Guan Yu finished speaking, Li Mengxi's eyes widened. After a while, he suddenly realized what he was saying!

It's a shield formation!

Come to think of it, the Romans were very good at playing shield formation. Sometimes, when the city wall was low, the Romans would go to the city and put their shields against the city wall, one shield after another, from high to low, artificially setting up a slope.

Then, the siege soldiers didn't even need ladders, and ran directly onto the shield wall to reach the top of the city.

Sometimes, the Romans would even build a shield bridge using human ladders. People at higher places would step on the shoulders of people below, and one person would be built on top of each other. In this way, the highest height of the shield wall would be the height of two or three people, that is,

Three to five meters high.

Coupled with a person's ability to climb over a three- to four-meter-high shield wall, after running to the highest point of the shield wall, the siege soldiers can jump more than one meter, which adds up to five meters.

Without using any ladders or equipment, the Romans directly built a shield wall and entered the wall that was less than five meters tall.

This brings up another issue.

Before the start of this siege, while still training troops, Li Mengxi realized that the process of alternating manpower when lifting the siege ladder was exactly the same as running in a relay.

From this, Li Mengxi thought that many sports may have their origins in wars and battlefields.

The action of carrying a siege ladder is related to relay running. So, could the high jump be due to the Romans' special siege method? The Romans would use shield formations and shield ladders to siege cities, and soldiers were often needed

After the run-up, he jumped over the city wall, and as a result, the high jump gradually evolved into a sport. When you think about it, it is very possible.

After all, there is no high jump among the traditional oriental sports, but there is a unique sport called tug-of-war in the East.

It is said that tug-of-war has been around since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Tug-of-war was used to train soldiers' ability to pull and resist. This pulling and resisting ability is related to the mainstream infantry weapon "Ge" during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. This weapon does not have a gun tip.

, only the chisel blade, the main attack methods are chiseling and pulling.

Especially when fighting in dense formations, the soldiers hook the enemy's shield, pull it back hard, hook the enemy's shield, pull back hard, smash the shield into the enemy's shield, and then pull hard, it can hook the enemy's shield.

I don’t know how many people have been scratched. With weapons like the Ge, the drawing, pulling and rejecting movements are their most important tactical actions.

Therefore, it is not clear whether it was because the fighting soldiers' hooking and pulling turned into tug-of-war, or whether some military strategists specifically invented tug-of-war to strengthen the soldiers' hooking and resisting abilities.

It is said that tug-of-war was invented by Guan Zhong.

There is a unique tug-of-war in the East, and a unique high jump in Rome. There is a high probability that they are all related to war.

This action of high jumping may actually be because the Romans often needed to jump onto the shield ladder and jump into the city wall when they were attacking a city.

Then why, there are no shield ladders and high jumps in the East.

Probably because of the differences in combat environment and military technology.

The Romans probably fought more with the barbarians. Those barbarian tribes probably didn’t build very high cities. Generally, they only had wooden walls of three to five meters, with shields and ladders, which were just three to five meters long. So, the opponents fought like this.

The environment was such that the Romans often did not need to build a siege ladder. Directly building a shield ladder was the most efficient and applicable technology.

In the East, from the Spring and Autumn Period or even earlier, the city-building technology in the Central Plains has been very developed. Not to mention the world-famous Xiongguan, there are ordinary small cities. The city walls are also high walls made of rammed earth or even stone. The walls of the small cities are also high.

Several feet high.

At this time, let alone building a two-story shield wall with people stacked one on top of the other, even if a five-story human wall were built, the shield ladder would not be able to reach the top of the city at all.

Therefore, in the Central Plains, due to the widespread development of city-building technology in the Central Plains, shield ladders were of no use at all. Therefore, extreme tactics such as shield ladders were not developed.

Guan Yu said that the shield wall was, strictly speaking, actually a shield ladder.

Because the trench was deep but not too deep, Guan Yu thought of asking his soldiers to stand up at the bottom of the trench and push their shields up to their heads, one after another, and a shield wall was built directly.

In this way, the deep trench becomes a shallow trench, and the attackers do not have to climb the slope, and the siege will not be ineffective due to the strenuous climb.

The tactics Guan Yu had in mind were similar to the Roman shield ladder.

Thinking of this, Li Mengxi said to Guan Yu, "Why not call in the shield soldiers and give it a try?"

Guan Yu then ordered his troops to summon three hundred sword and shield warriors to come forward.

The messenger took the order and left.

After a while, three hundred sword and shield warriors gathered.

Guan Yu and Li Mengxi went over and explained the essentials of the shield formation in detail.

To put it simply, there is no big difference from the shield formation during siege.

However, during the siege, in order to reduce the exposed area of ​​​​the legs and body, the sword and shield warriors squatted down and put the shield on their heads when setting up the shield formation.

In the new shield formation, Li Mengxi and the chiefs explained that you cannot squat on the ground, you must stand up, and you must use a shield to spread it from the edge of one side of the ditch to the edge of the other side of the ditch, just like spreading a mat.

Full.

After the explanation, the swordsmen and shield warriors were left to go to work in the ditch.

The ditch had not yet been cleared. During the attack on the city, the stones thrown by the Yellow Turbans from the city head and the arrows shot were all over the ditch, leaving no place for them to stay.

The swordsmen and shield warriors first cleared a section of the ditch, and then the centurions coordinated to discuss how to arrange the shield wall standing up and from one end to the other.

While the swordsmen and shield warriors were busy, Li Mengxi squatted by the ditch and watched with interest.
To be continued...