Follow Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the country

Chapter 240 The power of industrial power shocked Chen Youliang
Autumn, the eighteenth year of Yuan Zhizheng.

When Chen Youliang sent 600,000 troops to the south of the Yangtze River ahead of schedule and headed for Taiping, behind him, a large number of gunshots were heard in the countryside where cries continued.

Many officials of the Chen and Han regime who followed Chen Youliang's orders to forcibly recruit civilians and even took the opportunity to make money from the people were executed one after another by the Chinese army that came in.

Xinzhou (Shangrao).

After Huayun's Chinese army captured this place to cut off Chen Youliang's retreat, a group of officials who had just gone to the countryside to capture the people were gathered together and executed by Huayun's order.

"Damn it, you don't treat the people as human beings, but our Datong Society treats the people as loyal masters!"

"Now you kill our master and you will die!"

Hua Yun also said these words to these officials before they were executed.

Although the Datong Theory has a clear official declaration, each member of the club has his own different views on the Datong Theory.

Hua Yun, who was accustomed to regarding his allegiance as a specific person, now asked him to swear allegiance to Datong Society. Although he no longer regarded Zhu Yuanzhang personally as his allegiance, through his own understanding, he began to regard the people of the world as his allegiance. .

In Hua Yun's view, being loyal to Datong Society means being loyal to the people, and treating Datong Society as your master means treating the people as your masters.

That's why Hua Yun said this now.

After Hua Yun said this, he waved his hand: "Kill! No one who disrespects our master will be spared!"

"Yes!"

Mu Ying, who was transferred to serve as an official under Hua Yun, responded, and therefore led his subordinate military academies to shoot all the officials of the Chen Han regime who oppressed the people.

"Mr. Zhang said that we should do our best to save the people."

"During the mobile operations, during the temporary rest in the towns, slogans and notices were left. All officials and gentry who cooperated with Chen Han's reactionary regime and forcibly recruited the people will be liquidated in the future! Not only will their fields not be preserved, but their families will also never be able to do anything for them. Officials and those in charge of the clan will also be shot!"

Xu Da here also issued instructions to a group of officers responsible for going out for mobile operations to save the people.

As a result, many officials of the Chen and Han regime quickly learned about the attitude of Datong Society. In addition, they all knew that the Chinese army was now infiltrating into their own ranks in large numbers, so they did not dare to forcefully recruit civilians and violate Chen Youliang's orders.

The essence of power has always been that whoever has the most violence has power.

Now at the grassroots level under Chen Youliang's rule, because of the mobile troops of the Chinese Army, they have become the owners of the largest violence in the area. Naturally, Chen Youliang's power will disappear and be replaced by the power of Datong Society.

For this reason, many civilians were not forcibly recruited to serve in the war launched by Chen Youliang, which also caused Chen Youliang's logistical food transportation efficiency to decrease and slow down.

At the same time, Xu Da, Zhu Wenzheng and other Chinese troops also took advantage of the slowdown in his food transportation and sent troops frantically to cut off Chen Youliang's food route.

This caused Chen Youliang's 600,000-strong army to be short of food and grass before they reached Taiping.

This made Chen Youliang very irritated.

He had to give strict orders to urge the rear officials to increase the speed of transporting grain, and at the same time ask the army to speed up. He was a typical example of neither treating the people as human beings nor the soldiers as human beings.

But when Chen Youliang arrived near Taiping City, he still didn't have much food.

This made Chen Youliang very angry and threatened to kill grain transport officials from various places afterwards.

This news spread to the rear and directly caused a large number of local officials to choose to surrender. When the Chinese army came, they even took the initiative to express their allegiance to the Datong Society and directly changed the flag on the city wall.

After all, although they don't like the idea of ​​Datong, they are really worried that Chen Youliang, a tyrant who only regards himself as a human being, will kill him if he succeeds. In this case, it is better to hope that Datong Society will win.

Chen Youliang actually knew that what he said would have such consequences.

But he doesn't care.

Because he didn't think being gentle was a strategy, he just thought it was a sign of weakness.

Chen Youliang believed that as long as he captured Taiping and Jiqing and destroyed the foundation of Datong Society, those officials and generals who chose to betray him would return to him and serve him as slaves again.

After all, he allows them to continue to ride on the heads of the lower class people and act as their masters.

It was just the lack of food and grass that forced Chen Youliang to order a fierce attack as soon as he arrived in Taiping, and boosted morale with the decree that he could massacre the city for three days after the city was broken.

However, Chen Youliang's army soon tasted the firepower brought by an industrial regime.

Before his building ship even entered the Taiping City, it was bombarded by steam warships on the river, making it burst into flames and sawdust flying everywhere.

at the same time.

His troops attacking Taiping City on land were also blown up by dense mines, flintlock guns and cannons.

Chen Youliang was completely stunned.

But he decided to hold on.

Because he had already made psychological preparations and knew that the Chinese army in Datong Society must have more powerful firearms.

And what he originally planned to do was to use the human wave tactic to win.

Therefore, Chen Youliang ordered to continue the attack and let the army win Taiping at all costs. For this reason, Chen Youliang also said that if Taiping was captured, the city could be slaughtered for ten days.

Chen Youliang, a landlord-minded person like Chen Youliang who did not regard others as human beings, naturally used the method of boosting morale to make the soldiers not regard the common people as human beings, and turned the soldiers into barbarians without any benevolence.

However, times have really changed!
An agricultural regime has no qualifications to compare with an industrial regime as to which one is more barbaric.

Compete with who is more civilized and just, and you may still have a chance of winning.

Therefore, Chen Youliang still failed to enter Taiping City even though there were a large number of soldier casualties.

But Chen Youliang was unwilling to give up.

Because he is fighting the war like a gambler, he has staked all his treasures on it. Now that he is gambling red, he will naturally not choose to retreat easily.

What's more, Chen Youliang didn't regard his soldiers as human beings and didn't care about casualties, so he kept urging his soldiers to attack the city.

However, there are hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops stationed in Taiping City, and they are personally commanded by Feng Guoyong, who is familiar with guarding the city and has blocked Yu Que's 200,000 yuan soldiers in Anfeng. Therefore, even if the entire Taiping City suffered hundreds of thousands of soldiers from Chen Youliang, The army attacked the city day and night, and there was no situation where it was beyond its capabilities.

Plus.

Taiping City is now fully fortified, surrounded by clusters of bastions, and the bastions are all made of cement.

No matter how many troops Chen Youliang invested in the siege, even if they were flooded by the water of a river, they would be divided into small streams of people by the dense bastions, and then they would be wiped out by the Chinese army armed with flintlocks, muskets, and cannons.

Even though Chen Youliang's army had firearms, they were still cannons, so they couldn't take advantage of the Chinese army who had flintlock guns and muskets.

What's more, due to their limited manufacturing capabilities of firearms and lead bullets, they relied on purchasing most of them, so most of their equipment was bows, arrows, swords and spears, which basically meant using human lives to fill the road to Taiping City.

As for the Chinese Army, since Taiping City was originally an industrial city designed by Zhang Cheng himself, with large ironworks and ordnance factories, large-scale craftsmen and apprentices would continuously send firearms to the front line, as well as food and gunpowder. , cement, etc. can also be delivered continuously through railways and waterways. Even if Chen Youliang's army really kills one bastion with human lives, it will find that many new bastions have been added behind.

What's more.

Chen Youliang's army was just a classical army with a low degree of organization. It was an army formed by force, so it did not have a strong will to fight.

After suffering several setbacks, Chen Jun did not dare to attack the city again. The temptation of slaughtering the city for ten days began to have no motivating effect on them. Even if they sent a supervisory team to force them to attack, it was of no use.

Chen Youliang also had to order a suspension of the attack after several camp roars occurred in his front troops.

Although his hundreds of thousands of troops were camped hundreds of miles away, the roar of the camp in front was not enough to affect his center army.

However, Chen Youliang was still worried that the camp roars would become more and more frequent and even affect his Chinese army.

As a result, Chen Youliang began to realize the power of industrial power.

"Their fire blunderbuss can be ignited without a match rope?"

"Can their artillery fire continuously?"

"Their warships can emit smoke, fire cannonballs very far, and are fully armored?"

After Chen Youliang heard what his general Zhang Dingbian reported when he returned from the front line, he asked with a shocked look on his face.

Zhang Dingbian knelt on the ground and said with a mournful face: "I dare not hide this from Your Majesty. Not only do their ships have strong ships and powerful guns, they even have no cracks in the walls of the fortress. Giant trees cannot be knocked open, huge rocks cannot be smashed, and fire and water cannot attack them." Cannonballs can't blast them, and they can be built very quickly. Twenty or thirty more can be built overnight."

"impossible!"

"This is absolutely impossible!"

"Even if his Datong Society has excellent firearms and strong ships and cannons, it won't reach this level."

"I can be considered a person who has traveled far and wide and has seen a lot. There are many capable people and strangers around me. The great scholars and gentry asked me for advice. I have never heard that strange skills and cunning techniques can block the majestic power of heaven!"

"You must be afraid of death and don't dare to fight in a bloody battle. I will personally go and supervise the battle!"

Chen Youliang still didn't want to believe that people like Zhu Yuanzhang would undergo such big and rapid changes in technological artifacts after they chose to adopt the Datong concept as their governing ideology and abandoned Confucianism as their governing ideology, so he chose to come to the front line to check it out in person.

When Chen Youliang came to the building ship on the front line and looked at Taiping City on the river with a telescope, he was also shocked by himself.

Because he himself saw a large number of fortresses densely packed into clouds and a large number of smoking iron warships.

Chen Youliang knew the time required to build a masonry fortress.

Therefore, he knew that generally speaking, Taiping City would not be able to build so many stone-like fortresses in just a few years.

But there is no reason for people like Zhu Yuanzhang to know how to guard against Chen Youliang a few years ago, unless the Datong Society can really turn mud into stone and build so many stone-like fortresses in a short period of time.

Therefore, Chen Youliang couldn't help but secretly wonder how Datong Society was able to build a large number of strong fortresses in a short period of time.

As for the iron warships, Chen Youliang found it incredible.

"Call Mr. Zhou!"

For this reason, Chen Youliang decided to ask the Confucian scholars around him who were more knowledgeable and knowledgeable than him.

(End of this chapter)