The sound of tapping metal echoed harshly in the rain, announcing the failure of another day's attack on the Yuhuatai Highlands and Xiaoling Acropolis outside Nanjing.
In the southeast of Yuhuatai Highland, four high mounds (artillery forts) have been built. Even though the cannons mounted on Yuhuatai are still firing, civilians captured from four villages outside Nanjing and soldiers from Jiangsu and Zhejiang The regiment members who were forcibly recruited from other places were still struggling to transport straw bags to these lands and pile them higher. In the mounds of earth and the muddy water around Yuhuatai Highland, the corpses of fallen regiment men, militiamen, and green camp soldiers were everywhere.
It is now the early summer of the 13th year of Kangxi or the 47th year of Chongzhen. A typhoon blows over, bringing days of heavy rain to the battlefields around Nanjing. This sudden heavy rain brought great trouble to both the offense and defense.
The land under the Yuhuatai has become very muddy, and many potholes have accumulated water into pools. The captured civil servants and the forcibly transferred regiment members can only wear single clothes, or even shirtless, to withstand the rain pouring from the sky. And the cannonballs flying from Yuhuatai from time to time, biting the bullet or building a fortification with earth.
The work of piling up earth and building fortifications was huge and time was tight. The Eight Banners soldiers and Green Camp soldiers in charge of supervision were very aggressive. They would hit them with whips if they made the slightest mistake. No matter how strong a man was, it would be difficult for him to last for ten and a half days. moon!
Relying on these fortified lands, the Qing army launched wave after wave of fierce attacks on the southern edge of the Yuhuatai Highlands a few days ago.
The highest point of Yuhuatai Highland is about 30 feet above the ground, and it is relatively close to the city wall of Nanjing's inner city. Once occupied by the Qing army, they would be able to bombard Jinling from a commanding position.
Moreover, after occupying Yuhuatai, the south side of Nanjing City was basically locked - the outer city of Nanjing was already damaged and too long at this time. The Qing army could only seize some gate towers as support points, and there was no complete Possibility of controlling the city walls. Therefore, if we want to completely block the southern part of Nanjing, we must destroy the Rain Flower Terrace!
To blockade the east of the city, at least Xiaoling Acropolis must be controlled.
As for the blockade of the west of the city, it is easy to handle. Just set up defenses along one of the forks of the Qinhuai River that enters the Yangtze River. There are many forks of the Qinhuai River into the Yangtze River, and it is impossible for the Ming army to set up defenses on all of them.
Therefore, the last two links of Yue Le's plan to surround Jiangning are Xiaolingwei and Yuhuatai.
Of course, it would be better if Xiaoling could be captured! If you set up a cannon on Xiaoling, you can directly bombard the east wall of Nanjing's inner city!
However, the Qing army's attack on Yuhuatai encountered bigger troubles than building a fortification with earth!
Although the Ming army only dug a deep and wide trench at the southern edge of Yuhuatai, they also erected a wooden fence behind the trench and built a barrier behind the wooden fence with straw bags filled with soil, relying on the trees on Yuhuatai. A wall for penning sheep and horses.
But behind that wall of sheep and horses, there were countless crossbowmen!
This type of arms, which was rarely seen on the battlefield during the first battle between the Ming and Qing Dynasties, now formed a very lethal combination with artillery and musketeers.
The artillery mounted high on Yuhuatai was very accurate at hitting the Qing army in formation. If it formed a ricochet, it would be really miserable. It would sweep away a large area!
At the same time, those shield vehicles that can only move slowly are also their perfect targets!
After the formation of the Qing army was scattered and the shield vehicles were destroyed one after another, the infantry without cover became the target of crossbowmen and musketeers.
On the edge of the trench under the Yuhuatai, there are discarded straw bags everywhere - these straw bags are filled with soil and are used to fill the trench. However, the civil servants and regiment members carrying straw bags were shot by crossbow arrows one after another!
Those civil servants and regiment members who were not knocked down by the arrows saw that the situation was not good, so they had to throw away their straw bags and ran away on the battlefield crying. Of course, the Green Camp and Eight Banners soldiers of the Qing army who were escorting them were not polite. They shot them with arrows and slashed them with swords, trying to drive them to continue filling the trenches. But at this time, they often become the targets of the musketeers hiding under the rainproof shacks!
There were not many musketeers, but they fired accurately, and the Eight Banners soldiers and Green Camp soldiers who escorted the team suffered heavy casualties, so they had to retreat dejectedly.
However, the attacking Qing army did not give up so easily. After a group was pushed back, another group soon came up.
The bloody battle at Yuhuatai continues like this without interruption!
The tragedy of the battle under Xiaoling Acropolis was even worse than that of Yuhuatai. The Acropolis of Xiaoling Mausoleum is not big. It is built according to Purple Mountain. It guards the gate of Xiaoling Mausoleum and also blocks the main road to the top of Purple Mountain. Purple Mountain is not steep, but there are dense forests on the mountain, making it easy for infantry to penetrate. However, if you want to move artillery up and use it to bombard Nanjing, you have to go south. Especially the area close to Nanjing City happens to be Zhu Yuanzhang's Xiaoling Mausoleum. In order to facilitate the filial sons and grandsons of the Ming Dynasty to climb and visit their tombs, very good roads have been built here at Xiaoling Mausoleum. No matter how heavy the red cannon is, it can easily be pulled up to the high ground of Purple Mountain. .
The Third Prince Zhu is truly a filial son and grandson of Zhu Yuanzhang. He doesn't care about the peace of his ancestors' tombs - the Ming Dynasty is about to end again, and your ancestors don't get up quickly to bless you, so why don't you sleep peacefully!
Therefore, after the Qing army approached the Xiaoling Acropolis, Zhu Daxiao personally led the Fujian artillery under Chen Yonghua to drag eight red cannons capable of firing twelve kilograms of shells up the Purple Mountain, and also had the gate of Xiaoling The Golden Gate and the Sifang Fort where the monuments of divine merits and virtues are stored were transformed into artillery forts.
He also plausibly said that if he put this cannon at the gate of Xiaoling Mausoleum to defend the Ming Dynasty, he would definitely get the blessing of Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, so that when the Tatar soldiers came over, he would keep it with perfect accuracy - co-author Zhu Hongwu also knew artillery!
But the actual effect is actually really good!
The solid bullets fired by the eight red cannons mounted on the Golden Gate fort and the Shengde Monument can cover a large area of the north, northwest, and northeast of Xiaoling Acropolis, and can also be compared with those mounted on the Xiaoling Acropolis. The artillery on the city formed a crossfire.
The Qing army did not know that Prince Zhu was so filial at first, and wanted to use filial piety as a cover to pass between Purple Mountain and Xiaoling Acropolis, trying to raid and occupy Xiaoling to cut off the connection between Xiaoling Acropolis and Nanjing City. .
As a result, two to three thousand cavalrymen were suddenly bombarded by sixteen red cannons while performing interleaved missions. They were then rushed by the training troops of the Yingtian regiment who had been killed from Zijin Mountain and Xiaoling Acropolis. In a very short time, More than a thousand people were killed in the civil war. In the narrow strip between Xiaolingwei and Purple Mountain, the corpses of the Qing Army's Green Camp and Eight Banners elites who were killed were rotting and smelly!
While the Qing army was making a detour between Xiaoling Guard and Zijin Mountain, they also sent another detour force composed of Green Camp soldiers and Eight Banners soldiers to make a detour from the south of Xiaoling Guard. As a result, this unit was bombarded by the red cannons mounted on the Chaoyangmen Urn City and the red cannons mounted south of Xiaoling Acropolis. They also suffered heavy losses!
However, this Qing army was composed of Jiangning Banner and Green Camp soldiers who had left their families in Nanjing. They all went to the battlefield with a bloody feud. So after being bombarded, they actually withstood the counterattack of Yingtianfu Tuanlian and the Dongwang Army who rushed out from Xiaoling Guard City and Chaoyangmen Weng City, and occupied a Zhuangzi south of Xiaoling Guard, and then in Red cannons were also set up here to blast with the cannons on the Xiaoling Acropolis.
After gaining a foothold in the south of Xiaoling Guard, the Qing army began to storm the southeast corner of Xiaoling Guard to attract the attention of the Xiaoling Guard defenders. At the same time, they used military force two miles away from the northwest corner of Xiaoling Guard. Civil servants and militia groups built artillery forts despite the firepower of red cannons and heavy rain for days.
Although a huge price was paid, this artillery fort, which could be used to cover the right wing of the Qing army attacking the east wall of Xiaoling Guard, was finally built successfully. It’s just that the price is a bit high! Around the fort, the corpses of civil servants and regiment men were lying in layers.
After the construction of the artillery fort in the northeast of Xiaoling Guard was completed, the Qing army also began to attack the east wall of Xiaoling Guard!
After many days of fierce fighting, under the low Xiaoling Acropolis wall, all the people walking around were damaged shield vehicles, rush vehicles and ladder vehicles. There were also many civilians and regiment men pushing these vehicles towards Xiaoling Acropolis. In fact, the two There is no difference to the Tatars who have "learned to be bad", they are just consumables. They seemed to be everywhere, soaked white in the rain. These siege vehicles were either destroyed by the red cannons and small cannons (which produced six or three kilograms of projectiles) placed on the walls of Xiaoling Acropolis, or they were killed by the training soldiers of the Yingtianfu Regiment who were killed from the Xiaoling Acropolis. The wheel was broken with a big axe. Soldiers on both sides wearing cotton armor also engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat, and many soldiers died one after another.
The east wall of Xiaolingwei also suffered a lot of cannonballs, and the upper part of the wall was full of gaps opened by cannonballs. Under the gap were all the Eight Banners soldiers and Green Camp soldiers who died in the battle, as well as the regiment members who were used as cannon fodder by the first two soldiers.
Supported by the cannons on the two forts at the rear, they either wore one or two layers of cloth-covered iron armor, or only held wooden shields (the Green Camp soldiers had one layer of armor, the Eight Banners soldiers had two layers of armor, and the regimental soldiers had no armor. ) launched wave after wave of fierce attacks against the bullets and crossbow arrows that rained down from the city wall.
In fact, there are not many musketeers on the wall of Xiaoling Acropolis. There are more than a thousand musketeers in the sky, and they are all matchlocks. On this rainy day when the air is full of moisture, they cannot show much effect. Powerful. This is why Mang Yitu, who was responsible for commanding the siege, dared to take advantage of these rainy days to launch an attack on Yuhuatai and Xiaolingwei.
However, the huge number of crossbow arrows fired from Yuhuatai and Xiaoling Acropolis shattered Mang Yitu's wishful thinking!
Attacks on these two key points outside Nanjing were defeated again and again. Not only the militiamen and regiment members responsible for filling trenches and acting as human shields suffered heavy losses, but the Green Camp soldiers and Eight Banners soldiers of the company's escort team also suffered many casualties.
After a day of fighting, except for the many more corpses stacked under Yuhuatai and Xiaoling Acropolis, there was no effect.
Hearing Jin Ming's call to withdraw his troops, the Qing troops, militiamen, and regiment men on the battlefield were all covered in mud and withdrew - not all of them would be withdrawn. There would always be some naughty militiamen and regiment men who would take advantage of the opportunity to flee in defeat. Leave the battlefield, go around to the bridgehead of Zhonghe Bridge outside Zhengyang Gate to join the Ming army, and then seek revenge from the Qing army!
But at this time, Yue Le didn't care that the defenders of Nanjing City might attack more and more. He was not as "shameless" as Mang Yitu. After all, his wife and children did not die in Nanjing. If it weren't for appeasing a group of people who were clamoring to massacre the city, The mood of Jiangning Banner Army and Green Camp Soldiers, he would immediately give up the attack after finding that Xiaoling Guards and Yuhuatai were difficult to defeat.
Today, he did not even go to Yuhuatai and Xiaoling Guards to supervise the battle. Instead, he stayed in his Qixia Mountain Camp, working with Se Shuo, Deputy Minister of the Jiangdong Camp, Li Zhifang, the General Manager of the Jiangnan Camp, Mu Zhan, the General Manager of the Jiangbei Camp, and Jiangxi Camp. The deputy general manager of the battalion, Gerstad, studied the invitation from Xuzhou that he had just received. It was the invitation signed by Shang Shuying, Shang Kejiao, and Nian Xialing.
These famous Manchu kings and ministers have now seen this somewhat fatal report!
Yes, it’s fatal!
It might cost Li Zhongshan his life, but it might also kill a large number of Qing soldiers who went to the Xusu battlefield to plot against Li Zhongshan, and it was more likely to break the siege of Nanjing.
The reason why it was so fatal was because the "plan to kill Li" formulated by Shang Shuying, Shang Kejiao, and Nian Xialing was not a Hongmen banquet or a sneak attack by elite soldiers. Shang Shuying has revealed Li Zhongshan's troop strength - there are tens of thousands of Huai troops, including no less than 20,000 elite and fierce soldiers, and no less than 20,000 soldiers may be brought to Fuliji by him.
If you want to command this army, you will naturally have to dispatch the main force of the Qing army in the southeast.
At least 30,000 elite troops must be mobilized from the four major battalions of Jiangnan, Jiangbei, Jiangdong, and Jiangxi to do this deal. It is best to recruit more elite troops from the training envoys of the three regiments of Guide, Tai'an, and Jining. If we gather 50,000 elite troops, we will be sure. Big.
But the problem is that if 30,000 elite soldiers are taken away from the four major battalions in the southeast, northwest and northwest at once, the four major battalions will be empty!
There are a lot of cannon fodder in the four major battalions now, but not so many elites!
Among them, the Jiangdong camp, which has the strongest military strength, is based on the 30,000 elite soldiers Yue Le brought from Jingzhou plus the more than 10,000 banner soldiers and green camp soldiers who ran away from Jiangning and lost their families. Later, some of the Jiangnan green camps that were still usable were collected, and a total of 50,000 people were gathered. Yue Le organized it again and organized the five towns of the "front, rear, left, center, and middle" of the Jiangdong camp.
There are no elites in the Jiangbei camp. Even the navy is okay. However, the Jiangbei navy has no way to defeat the Yingtian navy on the river near Jiangning. Although the Yingtian navy is not large in scale, its strength cannot be underestimated. The main force of the Yingtian navy is The warships were all galleys sailing in from the sea, and the cannons on board were all three-pound bronze cannons produced by the Macao Gun Factory!
The total strength of the Jiangxi camp is as high as 80,000! However, most of them are the original Anhui Green Camp and Jiangxi Green Camp. Only the Qianjun Town, Houjun Town, Zhongjun Town, and Zuojun Town of the Jiangxi Camp, which was expanded on the basis of the Green Camp New Army originally stationed in Hunan, are elite. But three of these elite towns must stick to Jiujiang, Nanchang, and Anqing, and only one town can move.
However, this town suffered serious losses in the attacks on Caishiji, Dangtu City, and Dashengguan, and its vitality was damaged. Now it can only bluff to the west of Nanjing City and cannot use it to its death. In addition, Jieshu sent his deputy, the old evil man who once served as Dorgon's bodyguard, the deputy general manager of the Jiangxi Camp, Gestei, to bring more than 10,000 Jiangxi Camp soldiers who participated in the siege of Jiangning. Together, they could collect a total of 20,000. Bar.
The basis of the Jiangnan Camp was the 3,000 soldiers Zhang Zhifang had forced to come from Fuquan (according to Kangxi's order) and some Zhejiang green battalions. A total of more than 10,000 men could fight, and there were still some regiments and so on.
Therefore, the number of veterans in the Qing army camp currently besieging Nanjing is said to be 100,000 (including naval forces), but the number that can be mobilized for the "Battle of Xusu" seems to be only 30,000.
And after these 30,000 people were removed, the Jiangning encirclement was no longer very secure.
But it won’t work without sending troops!
Because Yue Le does not send troops, it is possible that Shang Kejiao and Nian Xialing will surrender. They have already contacted Wang Ni Datou through Shang Shuying's help, and the terms have been negotiated.
If Yue Le does not dare to send troops to attack Wang Datou, it means that Yue Le, who has 100,000 troops (the Qing army besieging Nanjing), is afraid of Wang Datou. Then what are the two of them struggling with when they have a total of 3,000 troops? Wouldn’t it be nice to join the Ming Dynasty and become an earl?
Once Xuzhou surrenders, water transportation will be completely interrupted, and the "return route" of the southeastern Qing army will also be cut off. This is more fatal than the canal being cut off.
So Yue Le had to place a bet!
If you place your bet now, you may still win, and you may be able to make a comeback.
If you don’t place a bet now, it’s hard to say whether there will be a chance to place a bet in the future!
Thinking of this, Yue Le just sighed deeply and looked at the people in front of him: "Jiangdong Camp has sent 25,000 troops. We still need to send 5,000 more, so you can share it. In addition, I also want to besiege Jiangning. It's really We can't leave. Which of you is willing to lead troops to Xuzhou or Suzhou?"
"In the middle hall, both Shang Kejiao and Nian Xialing agreed to surrender, but I think they seemed unwilling to do so! They agreed too readily and did not ask for too many rewards, and they did not immediately hand over the hostages. Although their family members Most of them are in Beijing, but there are still some concubines and relatives around them.
So I think they may be cheating, so you must beware of them. "
It was Shang Shuying who was advising Li Zhongshan to be careful about Shang Kexue and his young age.
She has returned to Suzhou from Xuzhou City - Suzhou was captured by the Ming army not long ago, and Li Zhongshan's Chinese army also sneaked into Suzhou.
"Defense?" Li Zhongshan looked at Shang Shuying and thought: What do you mean by being a witch? Who are you selling to?
"Yes! We must prevent them from carrying out sneak attacks." Shang Shuying said, "We must also prevent them from asking Yue Le for troops. Zhongtang, why don't you write a memorial to the supervisor and ask him to pay attention to the changes in the number of Tatars outside Nanjing. If there are fewer Tatars, we must break the siege of Nanjing as soon as possible!"
You witch sold me to Yue Le? Li Zhongshan understood a little bit, and Shang Shuying made a series of plans. On the one hand, he sold his movements to the Qing army. On the other hand, he sold Yue Le to Prince Zhu Third, the Ming Dynasty superintendent, so that Prince Zhu Third had a way to break the siege. Possibility of Nanjing.
What she did was probably called a seller asking for loyalty, right?
The seller should be beaten for asking for loyalty!
(End of chapter)
