On May 15th, the sixth year of Chongzhen, the 25,000-strong army commanded by Zhu Youjian and Concubine Wu Liangha finally slowly arrived at Pingyan City where Tong Yangxing was stationed.
Pingyan City is just a small bastion. Its appearance is almost the same as that of Kaiping City, but its size is reduced by more than half. At a glance, you can tell that it is a smaller copycat version of the latter.
Although it is a knockoff and a scaled-down version, it does not mean that the castle is easy to fight.
Because Dorgon, who was in charge of the construction of this copycat bastion, was a careful man and copied all the essence of Kaiping Castle. It has a sloping sandbag outer wall, a prismatic musket platform that can form cross fire, a winding, wide and deep trench... Of course, there are also 1,000 soldiers equipped with imitation red Yi cannons and tiger crouching guns. The Eight Banners Han Army used artillery, Korean shotguns and bows and arrows.
In addition, the terrain where this bastion is located was carefully chosen by Dorgon. It is not surrounded by water on one side, but is surrounded by Jinlian River on three sides. Before Jinlian River was frozen, there was only one direction to enter and exit from the west.
If such a small bastion were placed on the battlefield of the Thirty Years' War or the Eighty Years' War in Europe at this time, it would be enough to make the attacking enemies pay a heavy price.
Unfortunately, this Pingyan City met the person who knows the most about bastions in this era-Zhu Youjian!
Zhu Youjian knew that to deal with the bastion, it was useless to rely on recklessness! Especially a bastion with an outer wall built with sandbags is simply impossible to break through with repeated bombardment by solid bullets.
As for filling it with human lives, the bastion can be breached, but the casualties will be unbearable.
In Zhu Youjian's memory, the key to conquering a fortress is to learn mathematics, physics and chemistry well!
Learn mathematics, physics and chemistry well and be invincible in all the fortresses!
"Have you drawn all the shapes?"
To the west of Pingyan City, outside a large golden-domed tent in the center of a huge camel city, Zhu Youjian was sitting on a small horse and giving lessons to a group of "students" from the guard regiment.
"The painting is done!"
"Everything is drawn..."
"Already painted!"
There are more than a hundred students in total, all of them are "top students" from the guard camp. They are all sitting upright, with their legs together, and there is a wooden board on it, which is clamped with a clip. A piece of rice paper, holding a lead pencil (a pencil used by ancient people), a ruler, a compass, and a small abacus, I have been writing, drawing, measuring, and calculating for a while, and now I have mostly completed it.
Zhu Youjian nodded: "Wei Zaode, collect the papers!"
Wei Zaode, who was called to collect papers, was actually one of more than a hundred "top students" and had just completed today's exam. Today's exam content is to draw the topographic map of Pingyan City and the sketch of parallel trenches for siege...very easy questions!
Because Pingyan City is a bastion with a very simple structure, you can remember its shape at a glance. The only difficulty is measuring the distance. As long as the distance is measured correctly, the size of the bastion can be easily estimated. Once the size is estimated, it will be too easy to find the blind spot of the bastion gun platform.
Once you find the dead end, you will know where to start the snake-shaped trench, how to dig the parallel trench, and where to place the 12-pound small black pot (mortar)... As long as the small black pot is placed close enough to the fortress, In places that will not be attacked by the firepower of the fortress, you can use indirect firepower to continuously hit targets on the gun platform and inside the fortress - the bastion is uncovered, so it can withstand direct firepower, but it cannot block it. In front of dozens of 12-pound small black cauldrons placed in place by the direct-shooting bombs, any bastion would be vulnerable to a single blow!
"Long live my Lord, I have collected all the papers you asked for. There are 104 papers in total."
Wei Zaode quickly came to Zhu Youjian with a thick stack of papers. The one on the top was of course drawn by himself.
Even though his "enrollment" time is the shortest among all the Shangshe soldiers, it's so easy to use melon seeds if you can't hold his head! Therefore, he learned mathematics, physics and chemistry very quickly, and now he knows how to draw maps and how to besiege a fortress.
Zhu Youjian picked up Wei Zaode's paper and looked at it carefully. It seemed to be almost the same - there is no standard answer to this question, because there are too many blind spots in Pingyan City. It doesn't matter which one you choose, as long as the calculation method is correct. That’s basically correct.
"Just this one!" Zhu Youjian handed the paper back to Wei Zaode, "Wei Zaode, I'll give you 30 troops and 1,000 troops. You can take them to dig the soil! Dig well, and you will be able to do great things in the future. There is a future!”
Well, the dignified Tanhua Lang is going to dig the soil now, and he has to dig hard, maybe he can find treasures, this is the Xanadu ruins of the Yuan Dynasty!
"I accept the decree!"
"Wu Sangui, Qin Mingtao."
Zhu Youjian then named two more "Shangshe soldiers", which were also the names of good students who served as generals in the army in front of Zhang. He was already a general before he graduated, and he would be awarded the title of general in the future.
"The general is here!"
Both men were out of line.
"You two each bring a cavalryman in front of the camp to protect Wei Tanhua as he digs a hole."
Digging holes is dangerous and must be protected! If the defenders in Pingyan City also learned mathematics, physics and chemistry, they might rush out and fight for their lives.
"The last general has given orders!"
"Sun Yuanhua!"
Zhu Youjian praised Sun Yuanhua again. Sun Dapao was also a disciple of the Emperor. However, he doesn't go to class much, but mainly studies on his own, but today he also came to take the exam together.
"I'm here!"
Zhu Youjian laughed and said: "Sun Qing, give your scapegoat camp to Wei Zaode."
"Your Majesty..." Sun Yuanhua and Sun Dapao became a little anxious when they heard this. This was an opportunity to make meritorious deeds!
Sun Yuanhua said: "My scapegoat is difficult to use, so let me personally command it!"
"Is there anything difficult?" Zhu Youjian smiled, "I compiled the "Artillery Manual", and Wei Zaode led others to do the acceptance test of the 12-pound black pot cannon!"
Of course he also understood what Sun Yuanhua was thinking, and said with a smile: "Sun Dapao, don't worry about not getting any credit... I still have an important task for you! When Pingyan City is bombarded, Huang Taiji will definitely jump over the wall in a hurry. At that time, he will probably come from across the Jinlian River and fight to the death. He seems to have some imitation Hongyi cannons on hand. Wuliangha's Tuocheng may not be able to carry them, so your artillery will have to bear them. Is that okay? "
"Your Majesty, don't worry," Sun Dapao said, "the new cannons I brought this time will definitely defeat Huang Taiji's artillery!"
"Okay!" Zhu Youjian nodded, "It will be up to you then!"
...
"Fu Jin, what do you think your sister wants to do?"
While Wei Zaode was leading his men to dig a hole, Huang Taiji also arrived at Kaiping City with his 14,000 troops. However, he did not set up camp between Pingyan City and Kaiping City as envisaged by Zhu Youjian. Instead, he went around to the north of Kaiping and Pingyan City, about 15 miles away from Pingyan City, and chose a place where he could ford the crossing. On the shoal, we built a stronghold next to it.
I don’t know if the continuous marching and construction made Huang Taiji’s Eight Banners soldiers exhausted. This time they did not go to Taiying’s stronghold. Instead, they used carts to circle Gulieyan, dug trenches outside Gulieyan, and placed the horses there.
After setting foot in the stronghold, Huang Taiji began to wait for Wu Liangha's army to meet and fight in Pingyan City.
But he waited and waited. He waited for four or five days, but he didn't wait until the cannon fired.
By the sixth day, he couldn't stand still anymore. He took Taisong Dafujin and climbed onto a specially reinforced observation tower to look at Pingyan City with a telescope.
After watching it for a long time, it was still quiet!
How does Taisong Dafujin know what his sister is planning? Just when she didn't know how to answer, she suddenly saw a ball of fire emerging from the top of Pingyan City.
"Sweat..." As soon as Taisong Dafujin opened his mouth, there was a muffled sound as he rolled over from the direction of Pingyan City!
Huang Taiji also heard the roar of the bomb explosion! He quickly raised his telescope and looked in the direction of Pingyan City, only to see groups of flames rising from the top of Pingyan City.
Pingyan City is being bombarded by Ming army artillery, and not by ordinary solid bullets, but by powerful blooming bullets!
And why does this cannon fire endlessly? Can Tong Yangxeng in Pingyan City handle it? If he can't hold it anymore, Wu Liangha's army will come towards him... With this explosive bomb, his camp will be reduced to rubbish!
Thinking of this, Huang Taiji's head felt a sharp pain as if it was about to crack, his heart also felt cramped, and then his vision went dark and he fainted!
