scourge the qing dynasty

Chapter 404 Prepare for Siege
(PS: I have been disconnected from the Internet for a whole day, and all the information on the city wall of old Beijing is searched online by mobile phone, which wastes a lot of time, so the number of words is less, please understand.)
The fat man's army is partial to Gao Dejie's team, most of which are cavalry. On the North China Plain, they are more mobile than the main force of the fat man's army led by Lu Fatzi himself. It was a full-strength rush and attack, and the advancing speed even surpassed the main force of the Fatty Army. On the ninth day of June, the main force of the Fatty Army had just broken through Nanpi and advanced towards Cangzhou, when Gao Dejie's team reached the city of Zhengding.

Fatty's army approached the city, and the magistrate of Zhengding, who had only a thousand local soldiers in his hands, knew that he was not an opponent. He honestly opened the city and surrendered. The traitor from Zhenglan Banner has always been known for being greedy and violent, and has a very bad reputation among the people. He knows that the fat army cannot forgive him, and he also heard that the old witch of Xiaozhuang has already taken Kang Mazi away, so Chang Wenkui also Without hesitation, he fled to Liaodong with gold, silver, jewelry, his wife and children early on, and the Gaode Jie army took the small town of Dingzhou without any effort, and continued to advance towards Baoding, the provincial capital of Zhili.At the same time, the main force of the Fatty Army led by Fatty Lu had just arrived in Cangzhou, more than 100 miles behind Beijing.

However, that's all for now. According to Fatty Lu's crow's words, the Gaode Jiejun, who had been advancing all the way, was advancing like a broken bamboo. Under Baoding City, which was guarded by Jackie Chan, it encountered the most fierce resistance since the Fatty Army's Northern Expedition. The famous Yu Chenglong not only flatly rejected the surrender of Fatty Army forward Gao Qi, but also lifted the coffin up to the Baoding city wall, and personally led more than 1000 green battalion soldiers and [-] township soldiers in Baoding City to resist the Fatty Army's siege. Jackie Chan's official voice is excellent, and he has a strong appeal among the people. Most of the [-] people in Baoding City went to the city to help in the battle, and used various weapons to repel the two attacks of Gao Qi's five thousand forwards. city.

After the two sieges failed, Gao Qi's troops, who suffered heavy casualties, had to stop and wait for the brigade led by Gao Dejie to arrive with heavy siege artillery, and then use regular siege tactics to attack Baoding Fucheng together with the main force of Gao Dejie's army .At the same time, the Fatty Army led by Fatty Lu surrendered the small city of Cangzhou without bloodshed, and continued to march towards Jinghai County with a wicked smile.

There was no Tianjin Mansion in the Mazi Dynasty, but only one Tianjin Guard, and the Tianjin General Soldier led the army to garrison. The notorious traitor Zhao Liangdong in history and Liu Guoxuan who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty both served in this position. The current Tianjin General Soldier is called Li Zhending, who is also a traitor. Zhenglan Banner people have about four or five thousand traitor green battalion soldiers stationed in Jinghai, Tanggu and Tianjin Acropolis respectively. At the same time, because Tianjin Defense needs to consolidate the defense of Gyeonggi, the fortifications of the city are quite complete and strong. If According to the words of the city guard, it could indeed cause some troubles for the Fatty Army, so Lu Fatty did not dare to underestimate the enemy. In addition to sending a large number of scouts to closely observe the every move of the Qing army in Tianjin, he also sent envoys with heavy gifts to the Acropolis of Tianjin to surrender. Take down Li Zhending's team by appeasement.

To Fatty Lu's surprise, it didn't take long for the scouts to spread the news, saying that Li Zhending's army had abandoned the relatively well-fortified cities of Tianjin, and they all withdrew to Beijing, taking away all the food, grass and weapons that could be taken away. , and took away a large number of middle-aged people, the current Tianjin Weizhu City is basically an empty city.After hearing the news, Fatty Lu's heart sank unavoidably, and Yao Qisheng, who was accompanying the army on the sidelines, also immediately warned: "My lord, the siege of Beijing this time may not be as easy as imagined, and our army may have to fight hard for a long time. psychological preparation."

Fatty Lu nodded slowly, deeply sympathetic to Yao Qisheng's warning, since staying behind Jieshu decisively gave up the Tianjin Zhuwei City, he will definitely give up the small cities around Beijing, and gather all who can concentrate in the strong city of Beijing to fight tenaciously and strive for as much as possible. There may be a delay, but my main army has gone deep into two thousand miles alone, and there is almost no food available for the newly occupied land, and the logistical burden is extremely heavy. If Beijing cannot be captured quickly, the siege battle will be delayed for a long time, and the food and grass will be insufficient and the rear will catch fire. The precious summer and autumn time was wasted, and the southern soldiers were impatient with the wind and snow, and it is not possible to experience the first defeat in their lives when they capsized in the gutter.

After careful consideration for a while, Fatty Lu not only ordered the army to continue to march and take over the cities of Tianjin, but also called Mao Yougui, the vice-admiral of the navy who led the fleet to escort the food and supplies, and told him: "General Mao, from now on, your ship In addition to carrying food and grass, the team has to cut down all the wood on both sides of the canal that can be used to build siege weapons and send them to Beijing together. Is there enough manpower? If not, I will give you a few thousand more infantry?"

"Chopping wood?" Mao Yougui was taken aback, and quickly asked, "Dare to ask your lord, why do you want to chop wood?"

"You have never been to Beijing, so you don't know the surroundings of Beijing." Fatty Lu explained casually, "Because of the massive population growth and land development, there are no suitable tall trees around the city of Beijing. It was shipped from the south and stocked at Tongzhou Wharf for sale in Beijing. Now Mangou Wangye Jieshu is determined to defend Beijing, and he will definitely not leave the timber on Tongzhou Wharf to us. If we don’t make preparations in advance, we will wait until Beijing is under the city. Looking for trees to cut down, it's too late."

"Understood." Mao Yougui suddenly realized, and quickly flattered: "It's still the prince who is thoughtful, and there are dozens of grain boats in the general's team. I asked the prince to give the general some people, and the general will take care of these dozens of ships. Fill it with useful timber and send it to Beijing."

"Here are three thousand infantry for you to choose from among the newly surrendered troops." Fatty Lu ordered again casually, and Mao Yougui agreed, taking over Fatty Lu's order and leaving in a hurry.Fatty Lu called Xiao Erlang to the front again, and ordered: "Erlang, arrange for people to send orders to the troops. From now on, our troops are only allowed to drink boiled water, not raw water. Arrange someone to boil water and deliver it as much as possible. Prevent acclimatization." Xiao Erlang agreed, and hurried down to arrange the order.

The situation was once again confirmed by Fatty Lu. In order to stick to Beijing as much as possible and wait for a turnaround, Jieshu not only ordered to burn all the unremovable wood on the Tongzhou Wharf, but also burned the entire Tongzhou City to ashes, and even a safe All the food storage land is not left to Fatty Lu.At the same time, Jieshu also set fire to Daxing and Wanping counties next to Beijing, and moved all the middle-aged people from these two counties into Beijing. Together with the middle-aged men and women in Beijing, they were recruited into the army. Wan's militia volunteers.

In order for these militiamen to help the Eight Banners defend Beijing, Jie Shu not only imitated Tu Hai and spread rumors that the Fatty Army would massacre the city after they broke through, but also made a wish for these militiamen to appoint officials, making countless promises that even Jie Shu himself dared not All kinds of benefits to imagine, encouraged these people who couldn't even be equipped with weapons to charge for the Qing court and resist the fat army's siege.

In addition, Jie Shu tried his best to expel the old and weak women and children who were destined to waste food out of the city, and transferred back to Beijing all the green battalion soldiers, township bravery and various auxiliary arms that could be mobilized around. The Fengtai garrison and Miyun garrison left behind, as well as the servants of the various yamen in Beijing and the slaves of the rich and powerful, made up nearly [-] regular troops. The regular army referred to here is actually barely able to equip The regular army with military weapons such as bows, arrows, knives and guns is seriously lacking in combat experience, and their morale is also very low.

Fortunately, Jieshu also has two major reliances. One is the grain borrowed from the common people by Yu Chenglong kowtowing and bowing everywhere in the prefectures and prefectures of Zhili. The grain and grass in Beijing can last at least three months. It lasted for more than four months; second, the city of Beijing is quite strong. The walls of the Inner Nine Cities are four feet long at their lowest point, twenty feet wide at their widest point, ten feet long at their narrowest point, and more than one foot deep. There are inner urns at the gates, and there are as many as 170 enemy towers on the city wall. There are also a large number of archery towers, and turrets are built at each city corner to strengthen the defense of the corners. In addition, there are large enemy towers outside each city gate. There is food and clear water hidden on the stage to keep the defenders for a long time. They shoot the siege soldiers from behind with bows and arrows. The fortifications are perfect, even better than those in Nanjing.

As for the hardness of the Beijing city wall, Liang Qichao’s son has already made it very clear when he opposed the demolition of the Beijing city wall. The city wall bricks, which are as strong as bluestone, are surrounded by rammed earth. The rammed earth is mixed with special materials. After hundreds of years, it has become as strong as concrete. Generally the same, it happens to be the nemesis of the fat army's heavy artillery.At the same time, he learned the lesson of the fat army's explosives blasting the gates, and Jie Shu also prepared a large amount of bricks, earth and boulders, which can block all the gates and corridors of the city gates at any time. Even if the fat army explodes the gates, they will not be able to enter the city.Thanks to these two great reliances, Jie Shu, who had been wiped out in front of Fatty Lu twice, was once again full of confidence, and was ready to teach Fatty Lu a lesson in the city of Beijing, and to avenge the shame and humiliation of that year.

What should come will always come. On June 29th, the main force of the Fatty Army, led by Fatty Lu, finally arrived at Tongzhou Wharf, and set up camp outside the ruins of Tongzhou City. Started to build a large number of various siege weapons, and built grain warehouses to prepare for long-term hard battles.

At the same time, after 4000 days of hard fighting and consuming a lot of artillery ammunition, the Fat Man Army Division led by Gao Dejie finally broke through Baoding City and captured Jackie Chan, who was already bruised all over his body.However, the result was just as Fatty Lu had expected. Yu Chenglong categorically rejected Gao Dejie's surrender. According to Fatty Lu's instructions, Gao Dejie allowed Yu Chenglong to kneel to the northeast and die, put him in a coffin, and buried Yu Chenglong alive at the same time. More than [-] people under Wang Yuan, Baoding's deputy defender of the city, and their family members were also executed together to avenge the more than [-] fat soldiers who died in the attack on Baoding.

The camp was set up, and Fatty Lu had to lead Yao Qisheng and other dog-headed military divisions and a team of elite soldiers to the foot of Beijing city to observe the city defense of Beijing and look for tactics to break the city.After eight years and six months, he came back to the city of Beijing again. Looking at the tall and dark city wall of the capital towering in the distance, Fatty Lu was so excited that his heart was pounding again. : "Beijing, I'm finally back. The vow I made outside Beijing is finally coming true."

"My lord's oath back then?" Yao Qisheng, Zhu Fangdan and others next to him were all taken aback, and they couldn't help asking together curiously: "My lord, what kind of oath did you make outside Beijing?"

"The twelfth lunar month of the sixth year of Mangou Kangmazi... seems to be the eighteenth of the twelfth lunar month." Fatty Lu recalled the past, and said: "I led Erlang and the others to Beijing for the first time, and they took the road of Chaoyangmen. When I saw the city wall of Beijing for the first time, I swore quietly that one day I would personally lead an army to break through this city of Beijing, kill all the filthy dogs occupying our Chinese capital, and drive them all back The hometown of Tunguska! Eight and a half years have passed, and I have finally realized my wish!" (see Chapter 44 of this book)

"My wish back then is finally coming true!" Fatty Lu waved his right hand, closed his eyes and looked up to the sky, and said with emotion: "Eight and a half years of hard work, eight and a half years of hard work, finally saw the rewards."

"I remember, I remember too." Xiao Erlang yelled, "I also remember that when I was outside Beijing, my greatest wish was for the young master to become the magistrate of Beijing, so that Liu Zhen and I could follow the young master and pay respects. Unexpectedly, when I return to Beijing after eight and a half years, the young master is already a prince."

"I also remember." Zhu Fangdan also said with emotion: "The first time I met the prince, it was in a restaurant on Qianmen Street in Beijing. If it's still there, I really want to go inside and have a few more drinks with the prince."

"If that restaurant is still there, when the city of Beijing is conquered, I will definitely go and have a few drinks with you." Fatty Lu said with high spirits: "This time, we will take over that restaurant. One drink is enough!"

Zhu Fangdan applauded loudly, but Yao Qisheng, Huang Ji and others beside him were extremely surprised. No one would have thought that Fatty Lu had already wanted to fight back to Beijing eight and a half years ago, but Fatty Lu actually made his wish come true.While secretly admiring Fatty Lu's forbearance, Yao Qisheng said with a smile: "My lord, Dr. Zhu, if you want to feel sorry, you should wait until you enter the city of Beijing. It's getting late, and we have to seize the time to patrol the city defenses of Beijing, or it will be too late."

In fact, the so-called patrolling the city is to roughly observe the deployment of the defenders in Beijing City. Fatty Lu has already figured out the general situation of Beijing City eight and a half years ago. To the north is the inner city, which is entrenched by mites. There are nine gates in total. In the middle of the inner city is the imperial city, and in the middle of the imperial city is the Forbidden City.There is also a moat between the outer city and the inner city. Even if the outer city is breached, the inner city still has to be attacked, and innocent Han people will be involved in the siege battle. Therefore, the best choice for the fat army to attack the city is that there is no outer city. There are six gates in the inner city, Chaoyangmen, Dongzhimen, Andingmen, Deshengmen, Xizhimen and Fuchengmen. As long as any one of these six gates is broken, the main force of the fat man's army can enter the inner city full of dogs. , To realize Fatty Lu's vow to take back Beijing.

Of course, Jie Shu, who has gradually accumulated a lot of battlefield experience, also predicted that Fatty Lu would choose these six gates to attack, so he arranged most of the defenders on these six gates and guarded them very tightly.

Under the eyes of fear and hatred of the defenders in Beijing, Fatty Lu rode his horse and ran around the city for half a circle. He quickly reined in his horse, pointed to the way he came, and said: "There is no need to patrol, the breakthrough point of the siege is Chaoyang." Gate and Dongzhimen, the main attack is Chaoyangmen."

"My lord, these two city gates are very tightly guarded, let's take a look again." Yao Qisheng kindly persuaded: "Also, Chaoyang Gate is close to the canal pier, which is not conducive to the deployment of our troops. It is not as good as Dongzhi Gate."

"No need." Fatty Lu shook his head, pointed at the defenders on the city and said, "Did you see that many of the defenders on the city walls are ordinary people in ordinary clothes? Jie Shumangou must have recruited a large number of people to help the city." Shou, it doesn’t matter which gate we attack. Instead of wasting time looking for impossible flaws, it is better to directly attack the Chaoyang Gate and Dongzhi Gate in the east. We can also save a lot of time for transporting siege weapons. It’s also easier to get back and forth.”

"Then about the wharf at Chaoyang Gate...?" Yao Qisheng asked again.

"Chaoyangmen is really not suitable for deploying our troops." Fatty Lu replied: "But it's the same. Beijing's moat is so wide. It doesn't matter which gate we mainly attack. For the army, there is another convenience that can be used, and that is the bridge of Chaoyangmen. In order to transport heavy grain into the city, the bridge on the moat of Chaoyangmen should not only be wider, but also very strong, suitable for transporting siege weapons. river."

"My lord is brilliant, I also saw this just now. The Chaoyang Gate bridge is indeed wider, but I didn't expect it to be used in siege warfare." Yao Qisheng hurriedly flattered, "Your official can be sure, and Jie Shu must not have paid attention to it. to this point."

"Have he paid attention to him? Leave him alone for the time being, but this guy has improved somewhat." Fatty Lu sighed, "Judging from the fact that he organized the people to help defend the city and the city defense arrangements are extremely strict, this guy Nian is still learning while fighting on the battlefield, if I give him a good army to defend the city, and give him more time to arrange arrangements, I may not be able to take Beijing city with confidence."

Putting a high hat on the enemy to elevate himself in disguise, Fatty Lu ordered again: "Pass down the order, let Hu Tongchun lead an army of [-] to march westward, and set up another big camp [-] miles outside Chaoyang Gate, and take all of us away. All the cannons were dispatched outside Chaoyangmen, bombarding the city walls of Chaoyangmen day and night, destroying the towers and fortifications of Chaoyangmen, as well as destroying the morale of the army, wait for the siege weapons to be ready before launching the siege!"

Speaking of this, Fatty Lu paused, gritted his teeth and gave an unprecedented order, "Also, tell the brothers, after the capture of Beijing, the inner city of Beijing, where the people live, will disband the military discipline for seven days. Brothers want to You can do whatever you want! Dogs and chickens will not be left behind!"

(End of this chapter)