Take the warehouse back to the end of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 164

"All on the walls, all on the walls."

A Ming army general held a long knife, stood on the top of the city and shouted angrily at the soldiers who were gathering below.

Gu Shanezhen of the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty held a long knife, looked at the moat in front of the city wall, and shouted angrily: "Fill it for me."

As soon as the words fell, hundreds of Han Eight Banners soldiers rushed forward carrying the sacks filled with soil.

"Hurry up and shoot the arrows, aim at those carrying sacks, and shoot for me quickly." The Baihu leaned under the female wall, poked his head out and saw the soldiers of the Eight Banners of Han who were about to fill the moat.

Xifeng Pass is surrounded by low mountains and hills, the altitude rises from more than 200 meters in the south to more than 1000 meters in the north. The terrain is abrupt and the traffic is difficult.The valley road formed by the Luan River makes it a natural passageway between the north and the south.

At the Xifeng Pass, the left and right high cliffs confront each other, and the terrain is dangerous.From here, it goes out of the pass and goes east to the Daling River Basin, north to the upper reaches of the West Liao River and the eastern part of the Mongolian Plateau, and to the southwest via Zunhua and Jizhou (now Jixian), an important town in northern Hebei, to the capital.

Xifengkou pass was built in the Jingtai period, more than 200 years ago.From the reign of Jingtai to the present, the imperial court has repaired Xifengkou several times.

The biggest one was during the Jiajing period, when Xifengkou Fort was built.Located behind the Xifengkou pass, it is used to store ordnance and supplies and for relatives of soldiers to live.

The most recent time was during the Wanli period, when Qi Jiguang was in Jizhen Town, he presided over the renovation of Xifengkou, and added hundreds of smoke piers, roadside piers, and beacon towers.

It's just that the imperial court is in financial difficulties now, and many roadside piers and beacon towers have been abandoned.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for Mangurtai to arrive at Xifengkou so smoothly.

If Jiannu hadn't obtained the defense map of Xifengkou, it would not be so easy to break through Xifengkou.

"Archery, archery!"

Wielding his long knife, the chief yelled at the Jianu who was filling the moat below.

"Whoosh whoosh!"

The Ming army standing on the city wall aimed at the soldiers of the Han Eight Banners below, and directly let go of the bowstring in their hands.

For a while, the sound of bowstrings shook like a forest.Countless arrows shot down.

The horizontal distance between the moat and the city wall is no more than fifty steps, and the vertical distance is no more than four feet.In addition, the Ming army was standing on the city wall, so the arrows shot were relatively far away.

"Puff puff!"

In an instant, twenty or thirty Han Eight Banners soldiers were shot by bows and arrows.

The sacks they carried on their shoulders fell directly to the ground, and fell into the moat together with them.

Some Han Eight Banners soldiers who were hit by arrows but were not fatal fell in the moat, speeding non-stop, hoping that someone could help him.

Unfortunately, at this time, no one helped him at all.The people behind didn't even look at them, and threw the sacks directly on them.

The Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty were not Jiannu's confidant forces, and it was impossible for Huang Taiji to equip each of them with excellent armor. The armor they wore was basically the tattered armor taken from the Ming army when Jiannu defeated the Ming army.

The armor on some Han Eight Banners is still broken, and they can't even cover their chests.

How could this level of armor be able to defend against the arrows shot down from the city wall?
Although the defenders at Xifengkou also had firecrackers, they were unwilling to use them.

In the late Ming Dynasty, the bombardment rate was so high that soldiers would rather use bows and arrows than firecrackers.

"Give it to me, don't stop for a moment." Mangurtai looked at the arrows like a rainstorm, and waved the whip in his hand.

Although the arrows on the top of the city kept flying down, there were as many as [-] Han Eight Banner soldiers below.It didn't take long for a small moat to be filled with sacks filled with soil.

"Kill me!"

One was riding on a horse and walking in the back of the Eight Banners of Han Dynasty. Gu Shanezhen looked at the filled moat, pointed at the top of the city with a knife in his hand, and roared angrily.

Manggurtai looked at the filled moat, his eyes lit up, "Abalu, take my personal guards and go to supervise the battle. Now is the most critical moment, anyone who dares to retreat will be killed without mercy."

"Hey, the servant obeys the order!"

A big man clasped his fists at Mang Gurtai, and then led Mang Gurtai's personal guards towards the Eight Banners of Han.

After the soldiers of the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty filled the moat, they pulled out the special ladders for attacking the city.

The ladder is not like that in later film and television dramas, it is a ladder made of wood or bamboo.

The ladder is an ancient siege weapon, with wheels under it, which can be driven, so it is also called "ladder cart".Equipped with anti-shield, winch, grapple and other appliances.

If the ladder is caught on the city wall, it is not so easy to be overthrown.

Hundreds of Han Eight Banners soldiers pushed more than a dozen ladders slowly towards the city wall, and the wooden wheels and axles under the ladders rubbed against each other violently, making teeth-stinging sounds.

The rest of the Han Eight Banners soldiers bent over and followed behind the ladder cart with long knives in their hands.

There is a large shield four feet long and seven feet high under the ladder cart, which can protect the soldiers pushing the cart behind from being shot to death by bows and arrows.

The guards on the top of the city watched the ladder truck approaching slowly, and hurriedly shouted: "Ladder, ladder!"

"Frang machine, Frang machine!"

Looking at the Han Eight Banners soldiers coming densely under the city, a hundred households hissed.

As soon as the words fell, Simen Flangji was pushed out by the Ming army.

"Aim at the Jiannu below, and beat me hard!" Baihu leaned against the female wall, pointed at the densely packed Han Eight Banners soldiers under the city, and shouted angrily.

"Bang bang bang!"

The Flang machine let out a roar, and in an instant, the bullets fired by the dozens of Flang machines rushed towards the soldiers of the Eight Banners of Han under the city.

The Franz machine is the rapid-fire gun of this era, and its biggest advantage is its fast rate of fire.

The Frang machine cannon is an iron rear-loading smoothbore cannon. The whole cannon is composed of three parts: the barrel, the belly of the cannon, and the sub-cannon.When firing the cannon, the gunpowder pellets are first filled into the sub-cannon, and then the sub-cannon is loaded into the belly of the cannon, and the sub-cannon fire door is ignited to shoot.

The belly of the Frang machine is quite thick. Generally, there is a rudder stock for steering at the breech of the gun, and there are front sights and rear sights on the barrel.But limited to the technical level at that time, the disadvantage of the Frang machine cannon was that the gap between the sub-cannon and the belly of the cannon was large, which caused the leakage of gunpowder gas, so it did not have the long range of the Hongyi cannon.

The shells loaded in the Franc machine are basically iron sand as thick as a thumb.Just like the shotguns of later generations, they are shot in pieces.

When Frangji let out a roar, those Han Eight Banners soldiers who did not hide behind the ladder car fell down in groups.

A Frang machine was aimed at a slow-moving ladder car, and the soldiers of the Ming army squatting behind the Flang machine directly held the torch and ignited the fuze.

When the fuze burned out, the Frang machine let out a roar that shook the sky.

"Oh!"

The iron sand rushing out of the Frang machine went directly towards the ladder car.

"Da da da!"

The iron sand directly hit the large shield, turning it into a hornet's nest in an instant.

The Han Eight Banners soldiers squatting behind the big shield and pushing the cart were beaten to death.

"Oh!"

At this moment, there was a loud roar from the top of the city.Immediately afterwards, a cloud of black smoke burst out.

It turned out that a Franco cannon exploded, and the violent explosion directly blasted the Franco cannon and the gunner next to it, and the falling barrel killed many defenders.

At this time, the garrison in Xifengkou Fort in the rear also got the news that Jiannu attacked Xifengkou.

He hastily asked his personal guards to send the news to Santun Camp in Ji Town, and he took the remaining troops in the fort towards the city wall of Xifengkou.

The defense map at Xifengkou has been clearly seen by Jiannu, how could it be possible to block Jiannu's attack?

When Huang Taiji led the Chinese army and horses to arrive, Xifengkou had already been breached by the Eight Banners of Han Dynasty.

There is no way, the deployment of troops and the garrison of troops have been figured out by Jiannu, and the number of Jiannu at this time is several times that of the defenders at Xifengkou, how can the defenders at Xifengkou be able to stop it?
Mang Gurtai looked at the slowly opened city gate at Xifengkou, with an extremely strange smile on his face.

He drew out the long knife at his waist, pointed forward, and said angrily: "Go into the city, don't seal the knife tonight!"

As soon as he finished speaking, all the armored soldiers of the Zhenglan Banner jumped on their horses, brandished their whips, and rushed towards the city gate.

For an hour, the defenders at Xifengkou only held on for an hour before they were attacked by Mangurtai's troops.

When Jiannu rushed into the city gate, the defeat was irreversible.

The garrison at Xifengkou looked at the Jiannu pouring in like a tide, holding a long knife and shouting to the sky: "If you want to kill a thief, you can't turn back!"

"Brothers, kill me!"

The guard at Xifengkou led the last dozens of guards and rushed towards Jiannu.

Mang Gurtai looked at Xifengkou who was rushing towards him, smiled contemptuously, and then swung his waist knife towards his neck.

When the war horse passed by the defense at Xifengkou, a huge head soared into the sky.

"Break into the fortress of Xifeng, and kill all these lowly Han people." Mang Gurtai stopped, wiped the waist knife in his hand, and said frantically.

Xifengkou Fort is big and small, and there are more than 3000 soldiers' families living in it.

When the Xifengkou Pass was breached, many defeated soldiers rushed into the Xifengkou Fort and spread the news everywhere.

Some defeated soldiers tried to confine the gate of Xifengkou Fort in vain to resist Mangurtai's soldiers.

The entire Xifengkou Castle was in chaos.

Okay, how could a small Xifeng Fortress be able to stop it?
In a low and cramped thatched hut, a woman dressed in rags was holding a fat boy who was not long after the full moon.

"Son, your father can't come back. My mother and I can't live anymore." The woman looked at the child who was smiling at her, and tears welled up.

When he was still young, he couldn't understand the woman's words at all, and he just kept giggling at the woman.

"Sister-in-law of the Wang family, run quickly, Jianu is rushing in."

A burly woman rushed in and shouted at her in panic.

The woman hugged the child and said with a sad face: "Run? Where else can I go?"

"Sister-in-law of the Wang family, run quickly, you can't let your Wang family die. Run quickly." The burly woman immediately grabbed the woman and rushed outside.

"Boom boom boom!"

Not long after the two ran out, there was a rush of hoofbeats from the street.

In an instant, there were shouts of killing and screams.

A vest soldier with a blue flag watched an eight or nine-year-old child running wildly on the street, with a cruel smile on his face, and then grabbed the horse's belly and rushed towards the little boy.

"Hey Law!"

The Zhenglan Banner soldier directly controlled the horse and jumped up.

The horse's hooves trampled on the little boy's body fiercely, and the little boy didn't even make a scream, and was trampled into meat paste by Zhenglan Banner's soldiers just like that.

"Haha, weak Ming people, you southern barbarians are only worthy of being our slaves. Only we can enjoy this fancy world!"

The Jian slaves let out wild cheers and massacred wildly in Xifeng's mouth.

The woman holding the child was cut in half by Mang Gurtai, and the child in her arms was picked up from the ground by Mang Gurtai, and thrown into the air, kicking it like a football die.

Those soldiers of the Eight Banners of Han who rushed into the fort were crueler than Jiannu to some extent. They didn't care about the begging of the people in the fort at Xifeng's entrance, and still stabbed their long knives in their chests fiercely. .

The insults these Han Eight Banners received in Liaodong are all vented on the compatriots today.

The entire Xifengkou Fort became a purgatory on earth, and the thousands of people who used to live here turned into cold corpses in one night.

"What? Jiannu broke through the gate of Xifeng and entered?" In the mansion of the general soldier of Ji Town in Sanyingtun, Zhu Guoyan, the general soldier of Ji Town, slapped the table and looked coldly at the guard who came to report the letter.

"My lord, it's the Mamangguertai tribe of the Zhenglan Banner, which has about 3 people. The garrison led the people to the city wall, and he asked me to report." The guard knelt on the ground with a panicked expression on his face. Said.

Zhu Guoyan looked at the guard with a gloomy face, "Is what you said true?"

"It's a capital offense to lie about the military situation, and I don't dare to talk nonsense. According to the estimates of the garrison, the Mangurtai Department should only be the forward, and there will be a large number of troops in the follow-up."

"3 people are just forwards?" Zhu Guoyan became anxious for a while.

These 3 people are just forwards, how many people will be behind?Fifty thousand or one hundred thousand?
Thinking of the densely packed Jiannu, Zhu Guoyan's scalp tingled.

"Send an order to block all roads, strengthen the walls and clear the fields, drive all the people into the city, lock the city gates, and no one can enter or leave at will. Also, hurry up and report this matter to the imperial court within [-] miles, so that the imperial court Hurry up and increase your troops."

Zhu Guoyan looked anxious and shouted sharply.

When the personal guard heard this, he hurriedly said: "My lord, the garrison is still fighting with Jian Nu, so hurry up and send troops to rescue him."

When Zhu Guoyan heard this, he raised his foot and kicked the bodyguard, "Save me, don't you know what it's like to be a slave? Going out to fight in the city? This is not courting death, what is it for?"

Since Saerhu, the courage of the Ming army has been defeated by Jiannu. Now that Jiannu broke through, who would dare to go out and fight Jiannu?
Even if they went out to fight in the field, the Ming army would definitely lose.

The night before dawn is the darkest moment of the day, a fast horse gallops non-stop on the official road towards the capital.

"Open the gate of the city, it's urgent for eight hundred miles, and it's urgent for one hundred thousand miles!"

A soldier stopped under the gate of the capital, waving a bamboo tube sealed with wax in his hand.

"What military situation?"

A city guard on the top of the city stretched out his head and looked down.

"This is the General Military Mansion of Xuanzhen Town. Jiannu detours to Xifengkou, open the city gate quickly!"

When the soldiers on the top of the city heard this, they hurriedly put down a bamboo basket.

"You are not allowed to enter the city late at night, we can only fish you from the top of the city, and then match you with a fast horse."

The soldiers on the top of the city shouted to the bottom.

After a few breaths, an exhausted soldier in iron armor was hoisted to the top of the city.

"Thank you!"

The soldier took out his identity certificate from his pocket and handed it to the defenders on the top of the city. Then, under the arrangement of the defenders, he rode a fast horse and ran towards the palace.

A quarter of an hour later, Chongzhen, who had just fallen asleep, was awakened by a hasty knock on the door.

"Who dares to disturb the emperor's sleep?" Wang Chengen, who hadn't left the bedroom, hurried out and yelled at the visitor.

"Wang Gonggong, it's urgent for [-] miles, and it's urgent for [-] miles. I just came from Ji Town."

Holding a bamboo tube in his hand, Liu Changfu bowed and said.

Wang Chengen picked up the bamboo tube and muttered in a low voice: "If there is any urgent military situation, it must be delivered in the middle of the night. Can't it be tomorrow? The emperor just fell asleep."

Chongzhen sat up from the bed, and shouted with a puzzled look: "What's the matter?"

Holding the bamboo tube, Wang Chengen hurriedly walked up to Chongzhen, "My lord, it's an urgent matter of [-] miles, and a military situation of [-] urgency."

When Chongzhen heard this, his face darkened, and he hurriedly took the bamboo tube from Wang Chengen's hand, inspected the wax, and opened it.

After just a few glances, the military document in Chongzhen's hand fell directly to the ground.

"Hurry up, hurry up, summon the six ministers, and discuss the affairs of the old Nuan Pavilion in the cabinet." Chongzhen stood up hastily and shouted loudly.

Wang Chengen didn't know what was going on, but he didn't dare to refute Chongzhen's order, so he ran outside in a hurry.

"Come here, change my clothes." Chongzhen looked at the female officer next to him and said in a deep voice.

A few quarters of an hour later, the Nuan Pavilion was full of people.

(End of this chapter)