In ancient wars, the battle with the greatest casualties must be siege warfare, siege warfare will not only encounter short encounters, but also various siege weapons and defensive weapons, especially the siege side, will suffer from the enemy's condescending bow and arrow shooting, rolling stones, hot oil and other defensive means.
Since the frontal siege losses are very large, why not take the detour attack method? In fact, this way of attacking will not only be thought of by the attacking side, but also by the defenders, so as early as the construction of the city, these back roads were completely eliminated.
The establishment of the city
The city appears to occupy the territory, so the first thing to consider in each city is how to defend against the enemy's attack, in order to maximize the defense, special terrain will be added to it.
In feng shui, the construction of the city should follow the principle of four elephants: left green dragon, right white tiger, former suzaku, and later Xuanwu, which correspond to four different geographical factors.
The so-called hou Xuanwu, that is, there is a big mountain behind the city, Xuanwu represents the "soil", placed in the terrain to represent the mountain range, most of the important cities and pools are built according to the mountain, the last side is handed over to the endless mountain range for protection, the enemy can not attack from the rear.
Even if the frontal city is breached by the enemy, soldiers can also enter the mountains to temporarily take shelter, and then make a comeback, and the mountains are inexhaustible resources, trees, stones, etc. are very effective means of attack, and even some mountains have metal mines, with these resources, defense is more effective.
The so-called Zuo Qinglong, refers to the left side of the city pool there is living water or river, because there is no convenient drinking water system in ancient times, so there must be living water outside the city for the people in the city to live, this living water is still a natural barrier to defend the enemy, and the living water is not afraid of the enemy poisoning, many cities will also choose to introduce the living water as a moat.
The right white tiger means that on the right side of the city, there will be a passage, which is also the passage of the city to connect the next city, there is no highway in ancient times, only a few official roads, other areas are all wilderness ridges, and this is also the only direction in which the enemy can successfully attack.
Suzaku means that in front of the city, there will be a large number of swamps, lakes and other terrain, if there is no such terrain, generally use artificial barricades to limit the enemy's attack.
Every city, at the beginning of its establishment, will take into account the attack from all directions, and the ancient city pool is still easy to defend and difficult to attack even if it is put into the present.
A city on the plains
With the expansion of the territory, many cities had to be built on the plain, there is no natural danger, there is no river, the difficulty of defense will increase a lot, but in the case of increasing the budget of the city, it can still be effectively defended.
The cities above the plains will have two standards: the moat thick walls, because of the large number of attacks, so the cities above the plains should be very strong, and these cities and pools have enough watchtowers and other defensive facilities in four directions, in the case of the same strength, the siege side basically has no chance of winning.
In the Art of War, it is said that if the strength of the army reaches ten times, it is possible to besiege the city, and if the strength reaches five times, it is necessary to attack only one direction, and if the strength is equal, it must be outwitted, so it can be seen that even in the plain area, siege warfare is very difficult.
Therefore, some people will ask whether the city pool built by relying on natural dangers is easy to defend and difficult to attack, but the city pool built on the plain can be attacked around the rear of the city or directly bypassed to hit the next city? For this idea, experts give the answer: go around and try it.
The wisdom of the ancients
For example, during the Three Kingdoms period, when Deng Ai attacked Jiang Wei, he launched an attack behind Chengdu, but this successful case was too rare, and it also took a great risk.
Ancient cities and pools are completely defensive fortifications, there is no battle dead end at all, even the city on the plain, can also resist the defense in any direction, in other words, no matter which direction you attack from, you are facing a frontal enemy, so detour combat has no effect, but also increases the fatigue of soldiers.
Ancient city walls cover a very large area, the width of the general wall can reach about 2 kilometers, if you do not want to be attacked by the enemy, the distance from the city wall must be at least more than 200 meters, in order to leave the shooting range of the bow and arrow, which means that you want to detour behind the city wall, at least to march more than ten kilometers.
According to the ancient infantry marching speed to calculate, ten kilometers to walk at least two hours, that is, four hours, soldiers not only have to rest, but also experience the consumption of grain and grass, time is precious, no one can easily bear such time consumption and grain and grass consumption.
At this time, some people also proposed that in the face of some cities that are not easy to attack, whether it is possible to bypass and attack the next city, of course, from a strategic point of view, this can be done, in the Ming Dynasty Zhu Yunjiao period, Zhu Di bypassed several cities when attacking, but it was a battle to seize the wife, and many of the defenders of the city were not involved in the battle.
The war period is completely different, if you choose to take a detour to attack the next city, you will definitely suffer from the enemy, plus there is no resistance in the plain area, the probability of the whole army being destroyed is very high, so the ancients will honestly attack the city, even if there is a lot of wear and tear, the enemy will also pay the corresponding price if he wants to retake the city.
Ancient cities and pools as a familiar building for war, fully taking into account the philosophy of war, many cities and pools not only reached an astonishing height of 10 meters, the thickness also reached about 5 meters, in addition to breaking through the city gate and climbing up, there is almost no other way to attack.
If the guards poured their hearts on the city gates with molten iron, the only way to win was to continue to consume them, and they would not be able to win until all the people in the city starved to death.
However, with the change of the times, the city no longer has any meaning, modern high-tech weapons can easily destroy the brick structure of the city wall, high-altitude weapons can also easily complete the bombing, so the modern city has no wall-like buildings, followed by all kinds of low buildings and air raid shelters.
Perhaps the ancients did not have modern high-tech weapons, but in the handling of war will be the wisdom of the extreme, a high-quality city, can become an independent country, if this city backed by the mountain, its survival ability will reach the peak, the most typical representative of which is the Republic of China period of the mountain carving.
Relying on natural dangers, the mountain sculpture successfully survived during the chaotic period, whether it was the Kuomintang or the Japanese army, there was no way to take him, and the People's Liberation Army also relied on Huang Zirong to break into the interior to gain the initiative.