Is it difficult to attack a city or defend it in ancient wars?

Is it difficult to attack a city or defend it in ancient wars?

The question is simple, but the answer is complicated. If it is difficult to attack the city, the god of war laid 6 1 city in one year, and Wang Jian and his son captured more than 100 cities. The most exaggerated thing is that Guo Kan, the general of the Mongolian Empire, captured more than 700 cities in three years, which was simply a sure thing.

If it is difficult to defend the city, 20,000 people in Zhu Wenzheng defended Hongdu in the early Ming Dynasty, and 600,000 troops in Chen Youliang fought for more than 80 days, but they did not capture it. Zhu Gaochi once fought against 500,000 troops with a weak defeat of more than 10,000 in Li Jinglong, and the difficulty of attacking and defending the city cannot be generalized.

In the early Warring States period, intelligence and equipment were relatively backward, and the focus of the war was people. As long as you have absolute strength, counting cities is really simple.

With the popularization of sophisticated instruments by masters such as Mozi and Lu Ban, the advantage of guarding the city became more and more great, especially in the Tang and Song Dynasties, the siege war became an extremely complicated and cruel process.

For example, in the battle of Suiyang during the Anshi Rebellion, 6.5438+0.8 million rebels besieged Suiyang, while there were only 7,000 people guarding the city in Tang Jun. The rebels launched more than 400 battles, with casualties of 6.5438+0.2 million. It took ten months to break, so it was not easy to attack the city at that time.

Why is this happening? Because at this time, the city has evolved into a defense system with moving depth, including Mayang City to protect the main city, deer feet for tripping horses, plots for assassination, and a moat with a width of 20 meters and a water depth of nearly 8 meters. Before the army reaches the Great Wall, it will pay a huge price.

The thickness of the ancient city gate is about12-18m. It is almost impossible to pry open the gate with a bolt and then seal it with a stone.

If you are lucky enough to break through the gate, you will enter the urn. As the name implies, you will become a turtle in a jar. The most famous urn is the cornucopia, which contains 27 hidden soldiers' caves. Anyone who comes in will die.

Since the bones of the city gate are hard to chew, attack the city wall. In many TV plays, soldiers climb the city wall with ladders. It's easy to see, but it must be incredible.

The average height of the ancient city wall is 7-8 meters, while the height of Nanjing in Ming Dynasty is about 12 meters. It is not easy to climb up. The city walls are wide and tortuous, and there are prominent "horse faces" everywhere. The defenders can attack from all angles.

Therefore, according to the plot in the TV series, the defenders don't even need to use crossbows. As long as they throw stones and pour "golden juice", the enemy will basically get cold, which is obviously to die. Soldiers will not do it as long as they are not stupid.

The real ladder is like this. It has wheels under it, which can push it to run, and is equipped with shields, winches, grappling hooks and other devices, and some even have pulley lifting equipment, which is by no means a simple long ladder.

Let's talk about the strength gap first. On the one hand, the attackers should divide their troops to resist reinforcements and attack the city, on the other hand, they should divide their troops to guard the camps and grain, and only a few can really attack the city.

On the other hand, the defenders can not only support most of them, but also mobilize the elderly, weak women and children in the city. After all, everyone knows the price after the city is broken. Even if it is impossible to go into battle to kill the enemy, it is still possible to throw stones. This is how Zhu Gaochi defeated Li Jinglong's 500,000 troops.

In addition, the city also has waterproof and fireproof functions, which is really difficult to capture. Therefore, many military leaders say that "siege is the best policy", and many ancient siege wars actually adopted the form of siege warfare.

Since the Yuan Dynasty, there have been "returning guns", "red guns" and "Weiyuan general guns", which directly turned the city walls into decorations and the siege warfare has also undergone new changes. At this time, the difficulty of siege and guarding the city mainly depends on the firepower of both sides.