With the previous experience, the girl would not be so foolish as to directly choose assassination this time. However, this did not mean that she had given up. Yes, in addition to direct assassination, there was also poisoning in the assassination methods throughout history!
All you have to do is observe carefully, determine Fang Zheng's meal times, and then find an opportunity to poison him!
Of course, this is not something that can be done overnight. It takes a long time to observe. Fortunately, in the next two days, perhaps in order to find a countermeasure, Xiang Yu did not launch an offensive against Hangu Pass again, which made it easier for the girl. She observed back and forth several times and found that Fang Zheng seemed to be no different from other soldiers in terms of diet and daily life.
Generally speaking, according to the girl's experience, all these military generals would have someone in charge of their food and daily life. On the one hand, they are generals after all, and on the other hand, it is also to prevent them from being poisoned.
However, Fang Zheng was obviously not so particular. The food he ate was no different from that of other soldiers, except that he had more meat and wine, which were brought to his room separately.
In this case, the best way is to poison the food on the way to Fang Zheng's room. However, although the girl in charge of delivering the food looks weak and seems to be about the same age as herself, the girl can feel that her strength is not inferior to hers. Rash actions may only alert the enemy.
But she was a "professional killer" anyway, so she knew that opportunities had to wait for them, so she would come here every day and wait until night fell and Fang Zheng went to bed, just to find an opportunity to poison him, but now it seemed that this opportunity was not so easy to find.
During this period, Xiang Yu was not idle either. He had been thinking about how to crack Fang Zheng's weird weapons. It must be said that he really came up with some methods. After discussing with Fan Zeng, Xiang Yu decided to move the existing catapults back again and no longer try to blast down the city wall. Instead, he first used the catapults to launch stones and "bomb" the ground outside Hangu Pass. According to the results of their study of the fragments, these so-called "underground fires" should have some kind of sophisticated mechanism, and they would explode as long as people stepped on them.
In that case, why not just detonate it in advance and everything will be fine, right?
In addition, Xiang Yu also found a way to deal with the strange launching devices on the city wall. He ordered people to modify the battering ram and added a thick wooden wall made of rolling wood in front of the battering ram, which looked like a bulldozer from a distance. Xiang Yu's idea was also very simple and direct. The opponent mainly relied on the strange black cylinder and ground fire. Therefore, as long as the ground fire was broken and the explosion was focused on rushing to the city as quickly as possible, as long as the city wall could be climbed and involved in a melee, the black cylinders would be useless. At that time, he would press forward with his army and win!
After finalizing the plan, Xiang Yu did not attack immediately, but ordered his men to make weapons first. After all, he knew that the army would be in high spirits once it made an effort, but would be weaker and exhausted the second time. The first time could be said to be the enemy's surprise attack, not the fault of war. But the second time obviously lowered the morale of the army. If the third time still failed, then Xiang Yu felt that there was really no hope.
This preparation took half a month, and then Xiang Yu assembled his army again and launched another offensive towards Hangu Pass.
“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”
The flying rocks hit the ground, causing rounds of explosions. Fang Zheng, who was standing on the city wall and watching this scene, was not surprised at all.
"Well, Xiang Yu is indeed Xiang Yu. I knew he was quite capable."
For Fang Zheng, minefields are not difficult to break. After all, the greatest effect of mines is not killing but deterrence. It is precisely because they do not know how much danger lies ahead that they will naturally retreat in fear. However, this rough and direct method is only effective now. After all, when mines were really popular in history, catapults had long since withdrawn from the stage of history.
But now... Fang Zheng had to admit that this catapult was quite useful as a mine clearing device.
Most of the stones thrown by the catapults are huge in size and can easily cause mines to explode. At the same time, these huge stones are thrown forward and can be used as walls to resist artillery attacks.
“Kill ahhhhhh!!!”
Amid the sounds of artillery fire and mine explosions, the soldiers also rushed over shouting. They bent down, carrying ladders for climbing the city wall, and rushed through the decrypted minefield at the fastest speed, rushing straight towards the city wall.
"Not bad, not bad. It's really good."
Looking at the soldiers below, Fang Zheng nodded with satisfaction. It turned out that the creativity of the working people was endless. Frankly speaking, if he had really only made mines and artillery, he would probably be facing a tough battle by now. Fortunately, Fang Zheng was well prepared for this.
"Send the signal."
Thinking of this, Fang Zheng gave an order to the general beside him, who immediately took the order and left. A moment later, a firework suddenly flew into the sky, and then exploded with a "bang".
"What is that?"
Seeing the fireworks flying into the sky, Xiang Yu frowned slightly. He could certainly guess that this was some kind of signal, but... what signal could it be?
Could it be that Master Fang would choose to attack? Or was there an ambush? But an ambush? Xiang Yu was a famous general after all. When attacking Hangu Pass, he would definitely send scouts to keep a close watch on the surroundings. It would be a joke if someone really came around and attacked him. He was sure that the spies had reported before that there were no ambushes around!
It can't possibly come from the sky...
"boom!!!"
However, this time Xiang Yu had not yet finished expressing his feelings when suddenly, an explosion was heard, and then he saw his army exploded everywhere!
That's right, before, it was the troops in the front who were bombarded, which Xiang Yu could accept, but now the troops in the rear were also attacked at the same time, what was going on? Xiang Yu had done a special investigation before and knew that those "machines" had a long range, so he deliberately moved the troops far away, but why were they still bombed?
It can’t be from the sky… huh?
Thinking of this, Xiang Yu shuddered all over, then he hurriedly raised his head and looked at the sky, then his eyes widened in surprise.
In the azure sky, Xiang Yu could see several dark shadows floating around. Due to the bright sunshine, Xiang Yu could not see clearly what they were, but he was sure that they were definitely not clouds or flying birds!
“What, what is that!?”
This time, not only Xiang Yu, but also other soldiers saw those strange black shadows in the sky and became nervous. However, what made them even more nervous was yet to come. They saw small black dots falling from those black shadows. These small black dots whizzed down and hit the army formation directly, and then...
"boom!!!"
Another wave of explosions occurred.
"It's an immortal! It's a god!"
"This is magic, run!"
This time, the soldiers could no longer remain calm. After all, people of this era were more superstitious. They didn't know what was flying in the sky, but they knew that it was definitely not an ordinary thing!
That’s right, this is Fang Zheng’s third hidden trump card - hot air balloon!
With the technology of this era, it is impossible to make a hot air balloon of such a high quality. In fact, it took Fang Zheng a long time to make these hot air balloons. After all, the only material that can be used for hot air balloons in this era is animal skin, and sewing such a large hot air balloon with animal skin is also very time-consuming and labor-intensive!
The next step was very simple. Since there was no anti-aircraft equipment in this era, Fang Zheng simply sent someone to take a hot air balloon into the sky, and then throw a bunch of mines down. There was no need for accuracy... the mature gravity would solve the problem itself.
"Retreat, retreat immediately!!"
At this moment, Xiang Yu finally lost his composure. Although Fang Zheng's hot air balloon actually had certain limitations, he could not see it so clearly at high altitude. Now that he saw the opponent in the sky, he naturally knew that it was Fang Zheng's work. In this case, there was no way he could continue fighting!
There is no other way but to retreat!
However, what Xiang Yu did not expect was that this time Fang Zheng's signal was not just for the hot air balloon.
The coordinated operations of aerial bombing and ground armored forces are the hard truth!
"Admiral!!"
Just when Xiang Yu was trying to withdraw his troops, scouts from the rear suddenly brought news.
"We are under enemy attack!"
Is there really an ambush?!
Hearing this, Xiang Yu's face darkened.
"How many people are there on the other side?"
"This, this villain doesn't know, but the other side has thousands of chariots!"
"Chariot?"
Faced with this unexpected answer, Xiang Yu was really stunned. Ever since King Wuling of Zhao adopted the Hu clothing and horse riding, chariots had begun to slowly withdraw from the stage of history. However, now, chariots appeared again?
But what made Xiang Yu even more puzzled was
"A mere thousand chariots, can't they be destroyed?"
That’s right, when Xiang Yu marched into Hangu Pass this time, he also brought thousands of chariots and tens of thousands of cavalry. Could it be that he couldn’t defeat just a thousand chariots?
"That chariot is different, sir!!"
"I'll go and see for myself!"
Hearing the other party's crying answer, Xiang Yu knew that the situation was not good, and hurriedly whipped his horse and rushed to the rear. After arriving at the battlefield in the rear, Xiang Yu immediately understood why the other party's mere thousand chariots made his men so nervous.
In the past, chariots were pulled by four horses with three soldiers standing on them, one of whom was responsible for driving the horses, while the other two were armed with swords, spears, and bows and arrows for attack. However, the chariots that appeared in front of everyone were completely different. They were completely huge, closed wooden carriages with eight horses pulling them in two rows in front and back. These chariots had four wheels, were huge in size, and were equipped with some kind of crossbows.
These crossbows themselves were also unusual, they could fire thirty arrows at a time, and if thousands of chariots fired arrows together, it would be enough to knock down any enemy. Although Xiang Yu also fought back, the arrows hit the chariot boards and could not cause any effective damage to the enemies inside.
This was also designed by Fang Zheng. Of course, according to the original idea, it would be best to be able to make a tank. Unfortunately, this was too difficult to achieve. There were no engines in this era, and it was completely pulled by horses. Not to mention whether horses could pull heavy artillery, the sound of the artillery explosion alone was enough to scare the horses away. So Fang Zheng had to settle for the next best thing and designed the most famous ancient crossbow - after all, it could be used as an armored vehicle.
Although there is no rubber, the wooden wheels are naturally bumpy on the plains and there is not much riding experience, but Fang Zheng is not the one sitting on this thing...so the riding experience doesn't matter.
With air strikes above and these strange chariots with great destructive power in the rear, Xiang Yu's army was completely defeated this time. Although Xiang Yu also commanded the cavalry and chariots to launch counterattacks again and again, the enemy's crossbows were cleverly designed. Although the firing speed could not be compared with machine guns, it was enough to deal with the galloping cavalry.
What's more, the other side was pulling with eight horses, which was a little stronger than our side in terms of "horsepower". When they saw Xiang Yu coming, they turned around and ran away, and then another round of volleys came, which made Xiang Yu so angry that he almost vomited blood!
Could it be that his 400,000-strong army was really going to be destroyed here by the enemy's 40,000-strong army?
Xiaoying naturally saw this scene. She gritted her teeth and wanted to rush out from her hiding place to kill Fang Zheng immediately, but the girl knew that she had to wait for the right time. It didn't matter if her brother lost this time. As long as she could kill this murderer, then her brother would be able to deal with them easily!
Just at this moment, the girl saw several maids hurriedly coming out from behind, holding a plate of food in their hands.
"How's it going up front? Lord Fang Zheng, would you like to eat?"
"Master Fang Zheng said to put it on the stove in his room first. The battle will be over soon, and he will go back to eat after the battle is over."
"Okay, I understand."
Hearing the messenger's words, the maid nodded, then carried the tray into Fang Zheng's room and put it away. However, just as she had finished getting ready, she heard a call from behind.
"Sister Xiaohuan, there's something wrong here..."
"What's the problem? Let me take a look."
As she spoke, the maid turned around and left Fang Zheng's room, not forgetting to carefully lock the door. Seeing this, the girl's eyes lit up.
Chance!
Taking advantage of the maid's absence, Xiaoying hurriedly rolled over from the eaves, and then jumped into the room through the open window. Then she hurriedly took out the poison in her arms, opened the lid of the wine jug, sprinkled it in, and then stirred it a few times.
Hehehe, you are dead this time!
Just when Xiaoying was about to leave, suddenly, footsteps were heard outside.