Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 888 Prepared
After the Ming army approached the city of Yangzhou, Chen Bangyan convened and discussed the method of breaking the city. He decided to capture the high slope outside the west city and bombard the west city from a high position.

It can be said that all the actions of the Ming army in the past two months were based on these two strategies.

On the one hand, Chen Bangyan asked Liu Shun to take the stone village on the high slope, and on the other hand asked Hu Yiqing to urge the peasants to dig the canal, while actively preparing for the war. Along the Grand Canal, according to the scale of the West City of Yangzhou, an identical section of earthen wall was built.

He asked his soldiers to use the Grand Canal as the moat of Yangzhou, and the earthen wall as the west city of Yangzhou, and let tens of thousands of soldiers train here in rotation to familiarize themselves with the situation first.

Chen Bangyan and his party came down from Shizhai to inspect the preparations of the navy. Passing through this section of the drill field, they saw more than a thousand elite Ming soldiers pretending to be Qing troops standing on the earth wall to defend. On the other side were ten warships. The soldiers hiding in the ship built a long bridge from the ship and attacked the earth wall, and the sound of shouting and killing rang out.

Except for unsharp swords, spears and arrows without gunpoints, the weapons used by the soldiers are basically the same as those used in combat. Chen Bangyan gave an order to the Guangwu Battalion in Zhongwu Town, which pretended to be the Qing army to defend, that if they Those who can prevent the rotation trainers from climbing the earthen wall will be rewarded, and those who can easily climb the earthen wall will be punished.

In a society, there will always be many chains of contempt, and there are also many chains of contempt in the Ming army. For example, Zhongzhen Town looks down on Zhongwu Town, and Zhongwu Town looks down on local town troops such as Zhejiang and Tang families, and local town troops despise The government soldiers and chieftains below, in short, continued to despise them layer by layer.

The commander of the Guangwu Battalion in Zhongwu Town is Wang Guangen, who was promoted from Houyong Town a few days ago. , These two months of training have already caused several deaths and hundreds of injuries.

Chen Bangyan and others passed by the training place, fierce fighting was going on on the earthen wall, and the soldiers in Zhongwu Town did not hold back at all against the brother troops.

Men are full of energy in the army, so they don't have many opportunities to vent. They usually like to fight and fight. There are often frictions between departments, but they can gather to fight. Punishment, after doing it, will basically regret it, but this round of training is different. It is a place for them to vent their vigorous energy, especially when they meet soldiers from the Tang or Zhejiang departments to practice. Both sides are very jealous. All the insidious tricks greet each other.

At first, Zhongwu Town was showing off its supernatural power, and it was too arrogant to beat anyone with its nostrils in the sky, but as the rehearsal time went on, it gradually became too much to bear.

Chen Bangyan listened to the shout of killing and watched soldiers being thrown down into the water. He stopped and ordered: "After today's drill is over, stop temporarily and let the soldiers recuperate for a few days."

"At the end of the day, the general will know, and when he goes back, he will order to stop and cancel tomorrow's rotation training."

Liu Shun took the order, Chen Bangyan nodded, and was about to take a step, when there was a burst of cheers on the dirt wall. It turned out that the attacker finally pulled out the defender's flag and planted his own flag on the top of the wall.

A Qianhu with a bruised nose and a swollen face, and his subordinates occupying the earthen wall, were holding up their weapons and cheering loudly, as if Yangzhou had really been captured.

Chen Bangyan stopped again, and asked with a smile, "Whose team is training in rotation today?"

"It's the Wuwei Army, Li Yuanyin's troops." Liu Shun's face was a little unhappy.

It turned out that they were from Jiangxi. Chen Bangyan shook his head, patted Liu Shun's arm lightly, and said with a smile, "This is very good, it's a good sign. Let someone send a batch of meat to Li Yuanyin's department tonight. Of course Guangwu It is also meritorious to be able to train them, and some should be sent to the past."

The staff who followed immediately took note of the matter, and then took their leave to supervise it first, lest Huotou Camp be in a hurry when the time comes.

A group of people left the soldier rotation training place and walked along the Grand Canal.

At this time, along the canal, more than 80 to [-] warships of the Ming army were moored along the river, and thousands of craftsmen were busy transforming the ships.

These warships are selected sailing warships. The craftsmen are unloading all the sails that are easy to be ignited by rockets, and then installing hanging ladders on the ship tower. As long as the ships are close to the city wall, the ladders are directly hung on the city wall. You can directly rush to the top of the city from the boat tower that is level with the city.

Of course, when the ships rushed into the moat and approached the city wall, the Qing army on the city must counterattack. In order to prevent the artillery and rockets on the top of the city, and the artillery stones in the city to attack the warships, the craftsmen also hung a layer of wooden boards on the outside of the ship. Covering it with wet cowhide is like adding a pair of armor to a warship. Although it cannot completely offset the attack on the city, it can play a certain defensive role.

Gunpowder, kerosene, cowhide, and refined iron are all war preparations, especially cowhide. The Ming army doesn’t have much, but it is very important. Apart from armor, it is needed in many other aspects, but it is difficult for the Ming army. Traded with the Mongols in the north to obtain this kind of war preparations. Fortunately, the caravan obtained some from Tibet and Qinghai. The Portuguese knew that the Ming Dynasty bought this material at a high price, so they would also ship some, which made the Ming army barely enough.

Chen Bangyan and his party patrolled the river, seeing that the transformation of the warship has been basically completed thanks to the efforts of thousands of craftsmen, they felt at ease.

Now that the seasons have changed, the cold current from the north to the south has already changed the weather in the south of the Yangtze River. He still has at most one more month. All the previous efforts were in vain, and more than 4 Qing soldiers would retreat to Huaibei calmly, creating a line of defense that the Ming army could not cross.

To attack Yangzhou, the Ming army prepared under the city for more than two months. It can be said that it was the longest siege battle that the Ming army had prepared for. But the time was short, and Chen Bangyan almost pressed the treasure on the battleship to attack the city, so he could not tolerate it. If you fail, you can only make the best preparations, make full preparations, and then win Yangzhou in the first battle.

A group of people inspected carefully, and after asking the craftsmen, Chen Bangyan felt relieved a lot. The pressure Wang Yan put on him seemed to dissipate because of his full preparation. He stood by the river and looked at it like a warship in armor. Doubling, he said with a smile: "Okay, now everyone go back to rest and recharge their batteries. As long as the canal is connected, the army will officially attack the city."

Shizhai was captured, all preparations were completed, and the war was developing in the direction they expected. Liu Shun felt a little relaxed, feeling that he could live up to Wang Yan's trust, and turned back to the camp with everyone smiling.

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(End of this chapter)