Chapter 334
Xie Shangkui quietly looked at the rebels coming up from the city. He asked with great confusion: "These rebels are obviously very cowardly, why have they become so crazy now?"
Cheng Shijie smiled faintly and said: "If a vicious dog is placed behind you, you won't run forward as hard as you can!"
Xie Shangkui suddenly realized.
When Cheng Shijie was in later generations, he had a very puzzling question. Why did the Ming army turn into the Manchu Green Camp after defecting to the Manchu and Qing Dynasties? , but the combat effectiveness of the Green Camp skyrocketed.
Now he understood that the Manchus did not regard the Green Camp as human beings at all, but only as cannon fodder or death. They killed the Green Camp soldiers who were afraid of the battle without mercy. There is another problem. In the late Ming Dynasty, soldiers were the generals.
The biggest disadvantage of having soldiers as generals is that if generals have soldiers, they are still superior generals. Without soldiers, they are nothing. Therefore, when encountering a war, these generals think not of winning the battle, but of preserving their strength. As a result, they are attacked by Jiannu. , it will be a complete failure.
Just as Daolang wrote in the lyrics of "Rakshasa Sea City", all problems are the fundamental problems of our humanity. In fact, most of the problems of the Ming army were the problems of generals, not ordinary soldiers. Just like this time, Xie Zhiliang was determined to die and led more than 800 troops to break up. He stopped some soldiers and civilians and defended Pingding Prefecture, Mongolia. The army suffered heavy casualties, but they did not take Pingding Prefecture. Instead, they persisted until Cheng Shijie arrived.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, it was not that the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were not brave, nor that they were afraid of the enemy, but that the generals were greedy for life and afraid of death and did not dare to fight. In the Battle of Daling River, Zhang Chun refused to retreat until the end, and he killed anyone who dared to retreat. , although more than 40,000 lone troops were isolated and helpless, with no ammunition or food, they killed seven to eight thousand elite slaves.
"It's just a pity! Their courage came too late!"
Cheng Shijie listened to Xie Shangkui's explanation that the root cause of Taiyuan's fall was that He Sui, a general, suddenly launched a mutiny and Xie Zhiliang was unprepared, so Taiyuan fell. Most of the soldiers in Taiyuan Prefecture could only be carried away and attacked. But no matter the reason, Cheng Shijie will definitely not be soft on them.
Cheng Shijie said: "Get ready to shoot!"
Some of the scouts of the Annan Legion in Ningnanhai are equipped with crossbows and Chongzhen 8-year-old rifles. Moreover, they are all the best among the best. Most of them have a 70% chance of hitting a target at a distance of 300 steps. Target. Especially when shooting the Chongzhen 8-year-old rifle, you don't have to stand up and be exposed to the rain of Mongolian arrows like a crossbow.
All Ning navy officers stood behind the sandbags on the city wall and aimed their rifles at the enemy.
"Bang bang bang bang..."
Continuous gunshots swept across the battlefield, and bullets shot out like wind and fell into the middle of the enemy. The sound of bullets entering flesh was endless.
Whether it was the Mongolian war team or the rebel soldiers who served as cannon fodder, they were all treated equally. They all fell to the ground and wailed the moment they were hit by bullets. Whether it was leather armor or steel armor, they seemed like paper in the face of the impact of the bullets. Generally speaking, the lethality of the Chongzhen 8-year-old bolt-action rifle is too terrifying. Once shot, it will go in the front and out the chest. Even if you don't die, you will be seriously injured!
The rebels were in chaos, and the officer screamed: "Raise your shield! Raise your shield!"
The sword and shield wielder woke up from a dream and raised his shield to form a shield wall, trying to block the terrible rain of arrows. But the bullets kept flying, directly penetrating the shield, causing larger wounds on the upper body of the shield hand. People kept being shot to death on the ground by the bullets that penetrated the shield.
It can be seen from the city wall that gaps are constantly appearing in the shield wall, and people are constantly screaming and falling into the trenches. The howls are heart-breaking.
Although the first wave of attacks was easily repelled, if the Mongolian army attacked on their own, they would definitely stop and rest, but now they are driving only cannon fodder. The rebel soldiers did not even have time to breathe heavily before they were driven to launch a second wave. Wave attack.
Cheng Shijie could clearly see that the scouts and soldiers of the Annan Corps of the Ning Navy also used rifles and grenades to repel the second wave of cannon fodder offensive.
However, the Mongolian army seemed to be crazy and launched three waves of attacks in just an hour. The bullets and grenades of Ning Haijun were consumed very quickly. If this continues, the bullets in Ning Haijun's hands will not be consumed for long.
At the Baihe defense line, Cheng Shijie didn't have to worry at all, because he had too many bullet reserves in his hands, but the problem was that even six bases of ammunition wouldn't last long.
"Commander, the Tatar attack has been repulsed!"
Cheng Shijie said: "Don't be too busy celebrating now. The Tatars will launch a second wave of offensive soon. After suffering, they will become angry and fierce, and they will become even more ferocious. Our hard days are still to come!"
Li Dingguo stopped laughing immediately. After all, he was a general who grew up with Zhang Xianzhong. He was very familiar with this kind of battle. They had done this before. But now he is on the defensive side. He actually wanted to lead the cavalry in a charge, but when he saw the densely packed Mongolian cavalry outside the city that could not be seen at a glance, he felt a little frustrated.
Even if so many Mongolians stood still and were killed by them, they would be exhausted to death.
Li Dingguo said with a headache: "This... what should we do? We don't have reinforcements, we can't stop it!"
"What else can I do? I can only block it for now, and you will be responsible for the command. I will go to the city to see if I can find anything useful!"
When Cheng Shijie came to Pingding Prefecture City, a policeman named Zhang, with dozens of young men, was looking for shit all over the city. Yes, he was looking for shit.
Gold juice was a weapon used to defend the city in ancient times, and it was also the original version of a biochemical weapon. The main component of gold juice was human or animal feces. It was boiled with arsenic or tung oil and feces. After boiling, it was poured on the siege soldiers. It will cause a large number of casualties. Even in later generations, burns will be very difficult. What's more, the gold juice contains huge poison and a large number of bacteria. Once injured, it cannot be cured at all.
However, the golden juice is most effective in summer or spring and autumn, but not as effective in winter. The siege soldiers wore thick and thick clothes. When the cold wind blows, the golden juice will easily cool down quickly and cannot be ironed at all. through.
However, having gold juice to help defend the city can also save too many grenades. Just as Cheng Shijie walked for a long time holding his nose, he found a huge house where dozens or hundreds of carpenters were working in full swing, or making one after another. Large wooden cans, or throwing guns were made, and the wooden cans or throwing guns were immediately moved away.
The wooden jar was sent to the house next door. A group of people very skillfully filled it with black powder, iron nails, earthen jar fragments and other things, and then sealed it.
Cheng Shijie naturally knew that this was a commonly used city defense weapon in the Ming Dynasty army. It was also the thunderbolt, the ancestor of the grenades equipped by Ning Haijun. Each thunderbolt weighed thirty or forty kilograms and contained black powder, iron nails, and ceramic pieces. Once something like this explodes, it will definitely not be a joke. There are already several piles of Hongtianlei.
As for weapons such as throwing guns, they were distributed as soon as they were taken out, and groups of young men were armed. These young men were also prepared to block the gap once Ning Haijun's officers were killed or injured.
Now the fate of the entire city's soldiers and civilians are tied together, and the people also know that even if they want to run away, they can't escape the Mongols outside the city. In the icy and snowy environment, where can they run? Only by holding Pingdingzhou City can they survive.
"Commander!"
When the people saw Cheng Shijie arriving, they saluted him one after another.
Cheng Shijie smiled and said: "Fellow fellows, I have good news to tell you. The three attacks of the Tatars were all repelled by us!"
"Great, great!"
Cheng Shijie said: "However, the Tatars have not given up yet, they will come again, so we have to use these secret weapons! You guys speed up production, who knows how long this battle will last, prepare more guys That’s right!”
Outside the city, the Mongolian army attacked for the third time and was repulsed.
As the Chechen Khan Shuolei did not say anything, he just asked the two Mongolian men to step up their preparations and launch the fourth round of offensive as soon as possible. Siege of a city is not that easy. Not to mention big cities with millions of people, even small cities cannot be conquered after being besieged for several years. There are many examples of such battles in history. .
However, Shuolei didn't think that this city of Pingding Prefecture could stop his offensive. It would be a blessing for them to withstand it for three days.
Captain Yatai thought that the morale of the defenders had been raised. It would not be easy to capture this county. He said to Shuolei: "King Khan, Minggou's muskets are quite tenacious, and our people don't have iron armor." We were shot to death and many wounded! Could you please send a group of heavily armored archers to suppress the Ming army's muskets? If we suppress the Ming dog's muskets, the battle will be much easier to fight."
This request is reasonable and reasonable, Shuolei said: "Then Bren!"
"exist!"
"You take 600 heavily armored archers to suppress the Ming army's musketeers and cover the warriors' attack on the city!"
"As you command!"
Without any unnecessary movement, Bren went straight to order someone. In a moment, six hundred heavily armored archers formed a team and joined the siege sequence.
These archers were wearing iron armor, but the iron armor was stained with rust, which showed that these armors were old, and some were wearing chainmails. Even if they were Shuo Lei, he could not equip 600 heavy armored soldiers. These 600 heavy armored soldiers were also from East Asia. Cobbled together.
The strong bows in the hands of these heavily armored soldiers have thick and long arms, and the arrowheads are in the shape of sharp wolf teeth with spots of rust on them. It's not that these archers are too lazy to ignore the rusty arrows, but they do it deliberately. Before the war, they will soak the arrowheads in dung juice to make the arrowheads rusty and full of bacteria. Once they are shot, even if If you are not shot to death on the spot, you will still suffer from incurable diseases such as tetanus and septicemia, and have a narrow escape from death.
After several trials, Shuolei launched nine attacks in just one day, and after losing six to seven thousand lives, he finally had a full understanding of the pacification of Dingzhou City. He believed that the Ming army defending the city had medium and long-range combat capabilities. Extremely tenacious, especially those of the Musketeers. However, if we want to conquer Pingdingzhou City, there is no better way.
Yatai said: "King Khan, we can't attack anymore! This ghost place is so evil that we can't get through it at all!"
Bren's eyelids jumped when he saw it, and he secretly rejoiced: "Fortunately, it's not my men who are attacking the city. Otherwise, I'm afraid my capital will be lost in these rounds!"
Although all those who died were soldiers from the Ming army, he felt a little distressed if there were too many of them. No matter how cheap these soldiers were, they couldn't be wasted like this. If they were all dead, who would serve as slaves for them, and who would help them cut grass and herd sheep?
Yatai took a step forward and said to Shuolei: "This Pingding Prefecture is really difficult to defeat. The entire defense line is like an iron wall with no flaws... How about we adjust our direction first, capture Lu'an Mansion first, and enter the big name?" Mansion?"
This road was actually the offensive road of Zhasak Tuhan Subadi. After conquering Taiyuan, the Chechen Khan tribe and Zhasak Tuhan divided the spoils of Taiyuan City equally. They began to part ways in Taiyuan, and the Chechen Khan attacked eastward to pacify the city. Prefecture, prepare to conquer Pingding Prefecture and then attack Yangquan County, capture Yangquan County, attack Jingxing, then cross the Taihang Mountains, attack Zhending Prefecture, attack Baoding Prefecture, and threaten the capital.
And Zasaktu is preparing to attack Lu'an Prefecture, break Changzhi, and then attack Fukouxing, break Fengyue Pass, and attack Daming Prefecture. Among the prefectures in the entire North Zhili region, the richest one is not Shuntian Prefecture, but Daming Mansion. Since the third year of Chongzhen, Lu Xiangsheng was promoted to the Chief Envoy of Shandong and participated in politics. He organized the military preparations of the famous people, took charge of the three prefectures of Daming, Guangping and Shunde, and established the Tianxiong Army. The Tianxiong Army was the first in the Ming Dynasty to have its own military expenditures. military.
Moreover, there are three prefectures at the beginning, which is equivalent to the Xingtai City, Puyang City, Anyang City, Hebi City, Xinxiang City, and Heze City in later generations. It is also the junction and junction of the four provinces of Shanhe.
Especially Daming Prefecture, as Lu Xiangsheng's base, spent money over the past few years to build many roads and ditches, repair city walls, and improve road traffic. The appearance of Daming Prefecture soon changed dramatically. A few years ago, the underground engineer found two large coal mines in Damingfu, which were the same as more than a dozen iron mines. The high-quality anthracite stored in them made Tianxiong Army ecstatic and spent huge sums of money to mine it. It was not only used for steelmaking, but also A large amount of supply to the Daming Palace and the capital, relying on massive anthracite coal and steel, the money bags of the people of Daming Palace, who have always been poor, bulged like a balloon.
Once Daming Prefecture is captured, the results achieved are no less than those of Shuntian Prefecture.
"No, Ben Khan, I'm not very interested in Pingding Prefecture, but now, I still have to conquer it!"
Shuolei pointed with his horsewhip at the black tiger flag flying high on the city wall and roared: "That battle flag is more important than the ten Pingding states! Lu Xiangsheng is trapped on the Huguang battlefield and cannot come back for the time being. As long as If you chop down that battle flag again, no one in the entire Ming Dynasty can stop the Chechen Khan’s rolling iron cavalry!”
Yaguan was anxious: "But Pingdingzhou City is too strong, and we can't even attack it! And it is guarded by the Ming Dynasty's number one general. Even if we are all killed here..."
Shuolei roared like thunder: "So what? So what? No matter how powerful he is, he is only one person, with only a few thousand defeated troops around him! How can our army of 100,000 do nothing to him with only a few thousand ragtag troops?"
Shuolei stared at Pingdingzhou City with a cold expression and a evil smile: "Cheng Shijie, do you think I can't do anything to you if you set up a turtle formation? You are indeed a defense expert. The entire defense line is like an iron castle in a soup pool. If you set up a turtle formation on the battlefield, In Liaodong, I really can't do anything to you, but I shouldn't, those nerds shouldn't let us in! In Shanxi, I have plenty of ways to deal with you!"
Shuolei waved his riding whip vigorously and shouted: "Send people over to arrest the Ming people in the surrounding areas, and let them attack the city on our behalf!"
Yatai was confused: "Capture the common people? Even our elite troops can't attack the defense line. What use can those unarmed common people do?"
"Why didn't it work?"
"Who says they are useless? At least they can help us fill up the trenches, and at least they can help us consume a few crossbow arrows and bullets from Ming Gou!"
When Shuolei said this, there were a few bloodshot eyes in his eyes, and he stared at Pingdingzhou City. His bloodthirsty and crazy eyes made people shudder: "I want to see, facing thousands of myself People, those smart dogs can be so ruthless as to open fire! I want to see how many people have to be slaughtered before the Duke of Haiguo, who has a reputation of loving the people like a son, is willing to step out of that turtle shell. Come and have a fair fight with me!"
The Mongolian army retreated and did not launch another attack. Li Dingguo breathed a sigh of relief and took the time to repair the battlements destroyed by the shells. The wounded soldiers were carried down and treated with all their strength. The vacancies were filled by the young men who volunteered to join the army.
The casualties of the Ming army were very small. Ning Haijun was very proud of killing more than 7,000 to 8,000 enemy troops with such slight casualties, and the people of Pingding Prefecture also felt anxious in their stomachs.
Only Cheng Shijie's eyes became darker.
Li Dingguo laughed and said: "Commander, although the Tatars are very fierce, they actually didn't fight. They collapsed before we even used much force!"
Cheng Shijie sighed and said, "Our trouble is coming!"
Cheng Shijie could tell what these Mongols were going to do. Taiyuan Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty accounted for nearly 20% of the entire Shanxi population. Taiyuan City was composed of five cities: Fucheng, Jinwang City, Nanguan City, Beiguan City and Xinbao. The fortification group has more than 800,000 people.
But the problem is that he really can't do anything now. He can only beg for one thing: whether reinforcements from the Ning Navy will come faster or whether the people captured by Mongolia will come back faster.
It can be said that now it is a matter of life and death, a race against time.
While Cheng Shijie was thinking, sporadic sound of horse hooves appeared in the east of Pingding City.
…
At this time, a large number of fleeing people appeared on the official road of Yangqu County, Zhending Prefecture. These people were heading east along the official road. The people believed that the emperor would not ignore them if they fled to the capital.
However, a retrograde team appeared on this official road. There were old and young people in this team. Everyone was straddling their waist knives, braving the wind and snow, leading their mules and horses, and arduously marched forward.
This is a small escort team. The leader of the escort team is about forty years old. He is followed by dozens of escorts riding horses, as well as hundreds of bicycles full of supplies.
"Chief escort, we have now entered Yangqu County. We are only two hundred miles away from Zhengding Prefecture. It is still too late to turn back!"
The head escort Li Guanying is from Cangkou. He owes Cheng Shijie his life. When he was escorting, he originally wanted to train his son, but he did not encounter bandits who robbed him. An arrow shot Li Guanying's only Li Yiming in the stomach. At that time, Li Yiming Seriously injured and unable to find help, he happened to meet Cheng Shijie on his way to Beijing. Cheng Shijie asked the military doctor around him to perform an operation on him, remove the rotten flesh, and use strange medicine.
Although Li Guanying did not understand, he knew that the medicine was hard to find, but Cheng Shijie still saved his son. However, when Li Guanying's escort arrived at Zhending Mansion, he heard that Cheng Shijie was leading more than 2,000 troops. Sticking to Pingding Prefecture, Li Guanying decided to go to Pingding Prefecture.
Of course, Li Guanying adopts the principle of voluntariness. If he is willing to go, he will pay the settlement fee. If he is not willing to go, he will not force it. There were originally more than 800 people in the Zhengxing Escort Agency, but now there are less than 300 people willing to follow Li Guanying to Pingding Prefecture.
As a bodyguard in the world, Li Guanying may not have the desire to change his bicycle into a motorcycle.
What kind of person is Cheng Shijie? It's impossible to fight with him, but the problem is, if you make good friends with Cheng Shijie, who in the world will dare not to give him face in the future?
"Everyone, Li owes Marshal Cheng his life. This time, Li has no intention of coming back alive. The two armies are facing each other. Li has no other ability. He can at least block a few arrows for Marshal Cheng!"
Li Guanying said: "If anyone is scared, you can go back immediately. When Li comes back, we can have a drink and have a good time. If Li doesn't come back, we will burn incense sticks for Li next year!"
"The head escort always urinates standing up. He is timid and has given up on this profession a long time ago!"
In fact, how many people can't guess Li Guanying's thoughts?
If you want wealth and honor in danger, you must gamble when you have to.
(End of chapter)
