Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 686 General Attack
early morning.

Chen Qianfu and Qian Sule, two governors and two inspectors, led a group of sub-inspectors out of their tents early and came to patrol outside Yingzhou City.Among the flag officers behind them, some held the flag of Wang Ming, and some held Shang Fang's sword.

This group of civil servants are all above the third grade, all of them are purple robes and jade belts, and everyone is well-educated. As they walked, they talked about the historical allusions of Yingzhou, which was endless.

Chen Qianfu praised Yingzhou as the inner screen of Huaihai and the hub of the southeast.Qian Sule said that Yingzhou led Changhuai and controlled Chen Cai.

Another inspector said that Yingzhou has a long history, which started in Ruyin County in the Qin and Han Dynasties and has a history of nearly 2000 years.

In the past 2000 years, the site of Yingzhou City has basically remained unchanged, and it has always been the regional center of politics, economy, culture and transportation in the Yinghuai River Basin.

There are four gates in this city, and there are thirteen floors around the city.

The last two repairs were two reinforcement repairs in the eighth year of Chongzhen and three years in Shunzhi of Qing Dynasty, but they are still not very big.It can only be said that the defense is complete, there are moats, urns and enemy towers.

Several civil officials also praised the city wall of Yingzhou. They believed that the military defense capability of this city is very strong after the city of solid soil, the city of bricks, the city of the north, the city of the south, the construction of the gate, and the addition of enemy towers.

Governor Zheng Zunqian came over with a group of generals. Hearing this, he smiled and said, "In terms of military defense, Yingzhou City is very ordinary."

The person in charge of commanding the heavy artillery was Nicholas, the deputy commander of the Tokyo Artillery Academy, who was even more disdainful of Yingzhou City.

"The two and a half months of the city in the north and the south are surrounded by a half-brick and half-earth city. It is still a very traditional and backward city. As a residential town, it is okay. If you talk about military defense, it is too backward. In front of the artillery, the defense of this city is weak. It's frighteningly backward, and the only real defenses in this era are the bastions built by His Majesty the Emperor on the Denglai Peninsula, although they don't look that big, but in terms of defensive capabilities, they are more than a dozen streets away from Yingzhou!"

Nicholas was an old mercenary from the 30-year war in Europe. Later, he went to Macau to seek a living and became a soldier of the Ming emperor.

"Believe it or not, this old-style city is vulnerable to siege artillery."

Chen Qianfu didn't argue about it.

He also knows a little about military affairs, and has also participated in the construction of various bastions in Denglei. He has a good understanding of these bastions. They are purely military fortresses, not cities for residence or business, each with its own characteristics.

Bastions are only suitable for garrison guards, while cities are suitable for living, business, and business. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

It is not uncommon for Yingzhou City to be able to hold on for almost two years. The main reason is that the Ming army did not attack by force, and the defender of the city, Luck Dehun, was also tenacious after all.

Of course, defending a city for two years is nothing. When Turkey besieged a city, the other party insisted on defending it for 21 years.

Zheng Zunqian is the main general in the siege of Yingzhou, and he has been the main force in the siege for the past two years.

In the cool breeze in the early morning, Zheng Zunqian briefly introduced the situation of the siege to Chen Qianfu and other purple-robed officials.

In the past two years, of course, it's not just Wai.

From setting up the camp and setting up the village, digging a circular trench one mile away from the city, and finally digging three trenches around the city two miles, one mile, and two hundred steps away from the city, and using the soil that was dug to erect the earth wall, and even buried the tip. The pile tree refuses the horse and so on.

Between the three trenches, Z-shaped trenches were dug and pushed forward continuously. These trenches were dug to a very high level, and they all used the method of building bastions to prevent shelling. It seems a bit overkill to deal with traditional Chinese cities. up.

When the Z-shaped trench is advancing, there is another detail, that is, the horizontal section of the Z-shaped trench will extend to the outside for a section, which will be used as a firepower point to pull the gun up and pile up sandbags to cover the artillery.

In this way, trenches were dug all the way, and the artillery advanced all the way.

The Z-shaped trench can effectively defend against the artillery on the city, and the artillery in the own trench can provide cover.

The Ming army besieged the city for two years, and carried out civil engineering work around the city of Yingzhou. On the surface, there are clear trenches, and there are many underground passages, and construction started at the same time.

Engineers and auxiliary soldiers dug trenches here every day, while artillerymen pushed their cannons forward and fired live ammunition every day as training.The artillerymen even mastered the ricochet attack technique taught by the instructors, that is, first find a good angle, pull the cannon and the city wall into a straight line, and lower the angle, so that after the cannonball is fired, it will fall on the city wall. There will be bounces on the solid brick surface of the city roof, and they will bounce and smash all the way, one row at a time.

The biggest threat of this thing is not that it can smash a few soldiers to death, but that it will cause huge threats and damage to the artillery and ballistas deployed on the city wall. There are not many cannons defending the city.

The artillerymen have used Yingzhou City to practice attacking the city every day for the past two years, and the more they practiced various artillery techniques, the more powerful they became.

What kind of mortar cannon curved bombardment of the city, what kind of wall ricocheting method, what kind of trench firepower attack, plus the bombardment of the siege artillery and the enemy towers, etc. After two years, the current Yingzhou City can be said to be scarred, even several times. Sections of the city wall collapsed directly, and they rushed to repair and fill them up afterward. The newly built city walls were as ugly as patches one by one.

As for the fortifications such as trenches, moats, and sheep and horse walls outside the city, they have been filled in long ago.

Zheng Zunqian is really not exaggerating. If the emperor hadn't asked repeatedly not to rush to attack by force, Yingzhou City would have been taken down more than a year ago.

It has been two years since the actual combat drills around Yingzhou City.

The engineers have acquired extremely professional skills in digging trenches, digging tunnels, and building castles and camps. The auxiliary soldiers have also become professional engineers, and they are even very experienced in making all kinds of siege equipment.

I don't know how many shells the artillerymen have fired in the past two years, and the artillerymen are already very skilled.

Even the musketeers of the infantry practice shooting at the city every day.

Yingzhou Daying even built a special arsenal. There are guns, guns, and shells. There are heavy siege guns, 24 pounds or even 36 pounds, and short body Large-caliber siege mortars and so on were cast directly under the city, and then tested, and passed to the artillerymen after they passed the test, and began training with Yingzhou City.

When Zheng Zunqian first started besieging Yingzhou City two years ago, Zheng Zunqian was only in command of Yixing Town, with [-] soldiers and only [-] gunners. The armor rate was only [-]%, and there were almost no heavy artillery.

But now, his seventh town already has 5000 people, not only cannon marks but also cavalry marks, and even the student heavy artillery mark of the Artillery Academy is under his command.Up to now, the camp has been established, and nearly 5 people in the three new imperial camps have been controlled by him.

As far as his own 5000 people have completed full armor, the infantry in the soldiers have all completed the firearms, and only the auxiliary soldiers still have knives, guns, spears and cold weapons.

Nicholas proudly said to Chen Qianfu and the others, "The trenches have already been dug under the city wall, and the forts are already on top of the city wall. I have seen that the Tartars in Yingzhou city have no artillery, even if some are hidden, but I guess they don't have any shells and gunpowder anymore, as long as they give an order, they can break through the city within an hour."

Chen Qianfu raised his head and looked at the sky. The weather today is fine, with no wind or clouds. For the Ming army that deployed large-scale firearms, this is definitely a good weather.

Qian Sule smiled and said, "Let's attack quickly while the morning is cool, finish the fight early, and save yourself from the sun."

Everything is already in place.

Zheng Zunqian nodded and rode back to camp.

This siege, which should have ended long ago, dragged on until now, not because the Ming army was incompetent in command, but because they had completely controlled the situation. After two years of siege, the Tartars lost all energy, and even ate up all the horses hungry. Finally eat people.

At this time in Yingzhou City, the total number of people is less than [-], all of them are the Eight Banners and the family members of the banner people who have withdrawn into the city. Apart from this, there is no other living person to be found.

Either they were eaten, or they were marinated and dried into dry food after being hunted down.

Because the Tartars ate people, there were several times of resistance in the city. Later, the Tartars simply killed all the people. If they couldn't finish eating, they would pickle them and hang them in the air. This not only prevented rebellion, but also prevented these people from starving to death without food. Thin.

This is already an army of the living dead, struggling and resisting by cannibalism.

But if it weren't for the fact that the Ming army was not in a hurry to attack the city, they would have been unable to defend it at all.

Trumpets sound and drums beat.

The long-awaited Ming army finally got the order to attack.

The eighth town led by Liu Mu and his son and Liu Shixun began to launch a feint attack from the north and east of the city. They said it was a feint attack, but in fact they all held back their energy and planned to make a fake show and go straight into the city.

Although Zheng Zunqian is the governor, whoever advances into the city is of course the first.

"boom!"

On the forts in the south of Yingzhou City, the artillery fired one after another.

The artillerymen manipulated the cannon proficiently, and they didn't even need to calculate and aim, they were already familiar with it.

In the sky filled with gunpowder smoke, the demolition artillerymen in the tunnel immediately ignited the fuse and then retreated. The blasting room was full of gunpowder barrels, and there were bricks to seal the outside, leaving a fuse to come out.Even the blasting room was dug at a chamfer, which not only ensures airtightness, but also increases the blasting power.

Rumble.

Almost at the same time, the powder kegs in the tunnels were detonated in the blasting chamber.

The earth was shaking violently, and many people felt deaf and could not hear anything.

Immediately afterwards, the brick-wrapped Yingzhou South City Wall suddenly collapsed in many sections, revealing large gaps, and the rotten bricks and broken soil collapsed on the ground.

Countless artillery bombarded the top of the city and the gap, pouring out the artillery fire to their heart's content, regardless of the consumption of gunpowder and shells.

In the trench, the infantry, who had been fully armed and on standby here for a long time, also burst into cheers after seeing the collapse of the city wall.

The officers raised their arms and shouted, "Come on!"

Numerous soldiers behind them followed the officers and jumped out of the trench with muskets, rushing towards the gap.

A group of Tartars rushed over to the gap where the collapse occurred, carrying logs and other things that had been removed from the house, trying to quickly block it up again. The city wall had collapsed several times before, and they blocked it up in the same way.

But today, as soon as they charged up the pile of rubble, they saw countless Ming troops rushing towards them like a tide.

Then, a sharp howling sound came.

A cannonball bombarded the group of Qing soldiers standing on the pile of broken stones in the gap, directly throwing blood mist, and the castration continued. After flying into the city, it fell to the ground and knocked down another piece. It continued to bounce up and smashed inside. Go, after hitting a few more unlucky ghosts, it finally hit a wall, smashed the wall into pieces, and finally fell to the ground. After rolling weakly for a few times, it stopped there. Also with a lot of minced meat.

More artillery shells continued to bombard, and the gap became the first target. The Tartar soldiers who rushed up to block the gap were almost instantly blasted into blood mist by the shells one after another.

When the infantry rushed, the artillery had already cleared the gap for them to come to help.

A flag bearer held high the blue sky, the sun, the moon, and the red flag, standing on the pile of rubble and the blood of the Tartars, dancing the flag excitedly, and countless Ming troops poured into the city.

Zheng Zunqian put down the binoculars, and said to Chen Qianfu and other civil servants who opened their mouths wide, "Look, the Tartars are nothing more than that!"

(End of this chapter)