Sun Wu, a military scientist in the Warring States period, once said that the upper soldiers plotted to attack the city, and did not fight a siege war unless they had to, because the defending side occupied the favorable terrain from a commanding height, and the siege side often suffered more than half of the casualties, and could not cross the city wall, and the price paid was too heavy; and in the battle that must be besieged, some tools will be used, such as the cloud ladder is a very common one, at this time everyone will be curious, the first soldier to climb the cloud ladder to attack the city, the danger coefficient is very high, often nine deaths, often nine deaths, So why would anyone dare to climb? The reasons for this are answered by the editors.
In addition to the towering walls of ancient times as protection, large cities and pools in ancient times often build moats, so the siege side must first fill in the moat before it can set up a ladder to attack the city, of course, the task of filling in the moat is also very dangerous, for this reason the ancients also invented the ancient "armored vehicle" such as "reeling car, trench car", as a cover to fill the moat, after which it can provide the necessary foundation conditions for the erection of the ladder; and the ancient ladder is very complicated, Sun Wu once said that it takes at least three months to prepare for the siege ladder.
The size and weight of the siege ladder are very huge, but as early as the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, the bottom is equipped with wooden wheels, which can be moved at will, and the elevation angle can also be adjusted; the top is equipped with hooks, which can firmly hook the edge of the city wall, without worrying about being pushed down by the defending soldiers; to the Song Dynasty, the cloud ladder further "evolved", the "Wujing Huijiao" records that the Song Dynasty cloud ladder takes a large wood as a bed, and a large wheel is installed below, on which there are two ladders, each with more than two inches long, and there is a spindle in the middle that can be flexibly driven.
When the moat under the city wall is filled, the trebuchet and arrows are "suppressed by fire", and the defender does not dare to show his head easily, that is, when he sets up the ladder to attack the city; the soldiers who are selected to climb the ladder first are not afraid in their hearts, on the contrary, most of them are very excited to take the sword and slam it; the reason why they are not afraid is because the first to attack the city wall, the reward temptation of "first climbing" is too great; the "History" records that the first to attack the city is rewarded.
For example, Zhou Bo, the founding hero of the Han Dynasty and the prime minister, was originally just a person who played musical instruments to receive money and meals on red and white happy events, and later followed Liu Bang to fight the world at first, he was only a "zhongjuan", that is, a low-level attendant of the military tea cleaning; but when he attacked Xiayi, because of the great merit of climbing the cloud ladder to climb the city wall first, he was given the title of five masters by Liu Bang; and then there was Ding Feng in the Three Kingdoms period, who was originally only a "big head soldier". Later, he also relied on the merits of the first ascension, and the official worshiped General Zuo.
Under the heavy reward there must be brave men, most of the soldiers climb the ladder to attack the city, are with the mentality of "fighting a fight, the bicycle becomes a motorcycle", once the first climb can be "turned over and counterattacked", the future battle does not need to rush to the front line, but sit in the rear to command the army to fight; and in addition to the official, the first soldier will also get a rich monetary reward, such as the Ming Dynasty during the Wanli Dynasty, the Invasion of Goryeo by the Ming Dynasty, the Ming general Li Rusong led troops to support, when he attacked the city of Pyongyang occupied by the Japanese army, he ordered the first to climb the silver reward of 5,000 taels; according to the price at that time, Five thousand taels of silver can buy more than 900 tons of rice, which is a huge amount of money unimaginable to ordinary soldiers.
In addition, being selected by the general as a siege soldier, if you dare to be afraid to refuse, that is, disobeying the military order, you will be severely punished; in most cases, when attacking the city wall with a single blow, some people dare to disobey the military order, and the generals will kill the timid soldiers on the spot in order to boost morale; the first to climb can turn over, and the timid retreat will be dealt with by the military law, since the horizontal and vertical are all dead, it is better to gamble hard, and there is a certain hope to leave a life, and the temptation to climb first is also real; so in ancient siege warfare The soldier who first climbed the ladder had in mind the two situations of adding officers to the knighthood and retreating and being killed, and the wise people knew how to choose.
[References: "Sun Tzu's Art of War", "History", "Study of li rusong's battle of Pyongyang"]