The Taiping Army's offensive was indeed quite smooth.
A large number of cannon fodder from the outer camps continued to attack the city wall. Judging from the dense gunfire on the city wall, the Ming army's firepower density was getting lower and lower.
Under the city wall, the musketeers of the Taiping Army rushed to a place only thirty steps away from the city wall. They fired continuously at the top of the city wall with their muskets. They used dense rain of bullets to suppress the musketeers of the Ming Army on the wall, and covered the outer camp to climb the city wall. cannon fodder.
in this era.
Fighting has become a mathematical problem.
In theory, victory can be achieved as long as the density of firepower and troops exceeds that of the opponent.
As far as the current battlefield situation is concerned, the Ming army covered by the city wall can obviously concentrate more powerful firepower with a small number of troops, and the defender's firepower is quite strong.
With the help of his own soldiers, the fierce man Nie arrived at a place only more than a hundred steps away from the city wall. He leaned on a parapet and stared at the crackling battlements with bricks flying everywhere.
Right now.
The ground shook suddenly, and a city gate was suddenly blasted open!
This was an explosion with the cooperation of the people inside Kaifeng City.
With this move.
Every time the Taiping Army attacked a fortified city, they were always successful!
This is the first time that this trick has been used against the Ming army.
"The city gate is broken!"
The fierce man Nie took a deep breath, pulled out his sword and waved it: "Musketeers! Charge! Charge into the city gate!"
As long as you rush into the city, you will win!
Under the leadership of the fierce man Hou Ye of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The morale of the Taiping Army was extremely high.
soon.
One by one, the old soldiers of the government armed with flintlock muskets jumped out from the trenches, holding muskets and covering their heads, and rushed into the blasted tunnel.
Soon the first group of musketeers rushed in, and a dense volley of guns rang out.
Then came the second and third batch, and a continuous stream of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom soldiers rushed in, and dense volleys of guns continued to sound.
"He actually rushed in?!"
Yao Zhifu, who was watching the battle from behind, couldn't even imagine his eyes.
It took three days to capture Kaifeng City/
This is incredible.
How come the ten thousand Ming army is so invincible?
Wang Sanhuai and Nie Sijou beside him laughed.
Wang Sanhuai laughed and said: "King Wu, it seems that there is no falsehood. How can there be falsehoods when the city gates are open?"
Really speaking.
Then I saw the fierce man Nie's general's flag had been erected on the tower of the north gate of Kaifeng City.
It seems that the tower at the north gate has been occupied!
"The city gate has been captured! The city gate is open!!"
"Win! Win!"
"The world belongs to heaven!"
The fierce man Nie was extremely excited.
Putting all the elites into it at once, it is bound to preserve the results and control the city wall of the north gate.
And Yao Zhifu in the rear did not hesitate.
This is indeed the best opportunity!
"Kill the thieves and divide the fields. Long live the Kingdom of Heaven!"
Yao Zhifu drew out his sword and shouted.
Then Wang Sanhuai and Luo Siju took charge of more than 30,000 of the most elite Laoyingfu soldiers.
He rushed towards the city wall.
The city gate is open.
At this time, we must invest our elite troops to completely consolidate the results and repel the enemy's counterattack with a thunderous blow!
This way.
Even if Kaifeng City is completely captured!
Yao Zhifu's heart was burning.
By capturing Kaifeng, the supply problem that troubled the Taiping Army will be solved in an instant. The army can move south and fight in Lianghuai and Jiangbei.
The population density in these places is much denser than that in the Central Plains!
Wealth is similarly more dense.
Open it.
All alive!
The Taiping Army fought all the way and always dared to make a desperate move at critical moments!
Now Yao Zhifu also decisively issued the order for the entire army to rush into the city. Even he himself rushed to the city gate with his personal guards!
"Junmen, the old camp of the Taiping Army has entered the city from the north gate!"
In Kaifeng City.
Luo Dingshan, who was responsible for commanding the Kaifeng city defense operations and was leading the army alone for the first time, smiled when he heard this.
"Okay! It's not bad if you can trap tens of thousands of people from their old camp here! Gather your troops immediately, close the door and beat the dogs!"
Opening the door to lure the enemy was a strategy decided after seizing the Taiping Rebellion.
It's not too complicated. Just open the city gate, wait for the opponent to put in the elite soldiers, and then use the siege fortifications that have been laid out in the city to trap the opponent.
The Taiping Army never expected that the Ming Army would be so cunning.
They had previously attacked Hanzhong, Xi'an, and Luoyang. After the city gates were opened, the green battalions of the Qing army or the Eight Banners soldiers who guarded the city surrendered. How could they say that they were using the city to deceive people.
So this one was a big trap for King Wu of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
He only discovered it after he followed the old camp soldiers into the city from the north gate and rushed along a wide street.
This is not a sunny avenue at all.
Ahead is a dead end blocked by a wall of sandbags!
The spacious road was crowded with Taiping Army generals who were heading excitedly towards Kaifeng City to plunder the city.
It was like a rushing river suddenly lapping against the embankment.
It was suddenly crowded.
Right now.
Explosives have been laid long ago
There was a loud bang.
The artillery that fired at Zhu Yuan had already been prepared, and it immediately poured out firepower into this small area.
Guangping Mansion, Handan City.
Since sending Yao Zhifu south, the Taiping Heavenly King Liu Zhixie moved his Chinese army tent to Handan, breaking away from contact with Fukang'an and Zhao Si.
However, before King Liu Tian was even hot in Handan, news came from the south that shocked the entire Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The army of King Wu Yao Zhifu, who went south to attack Kaifeng and tried to mobilize Emperor Zhu's army, failed to break through Kaifeng City.
Instead, they were defeated at the gates of Kaifeng City. The tens of thousands of soldiers from the old battalion were bombarded by the Ming army's artillery. Nearly 20,000 of them were killed, and more than 10,000 were captured. The remaining few thousand fled in embarrassment with King Wu Yao Zhifu.
In addition, Nie Jie, the Marquis of Zhijiang, and Sanhuai, the Marquis of Dazhou, were both lost in Kaifeng.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the outer camp dispersed.
The inner camp and the old camp only managed to escape with less than 20,000 soldiers. They escaped across Chenqiao and fled all the way north to Tangyin County in Weihui Prefecture.
After King Wu settled his defeated troops, he traveled through the starry night and arrived at Handan. At this time, he knelt down outside the Chinese army's tent to plead guilty.
"Tens of thousands of veteran soldiers! With a combined force of 300,000, they were unable to defeat the mere 10,000 soldiers and horses guarding the Kaifeng Mansion just now. They were killed and returned with a great defeat, losing all their troops and supplies!"
Liu Zhixie suddenly pulled out his sword and struck it on the table with a clang.
Furious!
Even the most pessimistic predictions before the war were just a futile effort to attack Kaifeng Mansion.
And now.
Three hundred thousand troops! !
Defeated by a mere 10,000 troops.
If this spreads out, how will the dignity of the Kingdom of Heaven be preserved?
The princes and generals below saw the King of Heaven looking so furious and did not dare to speak. All of them had their heads drooped, their expressions filled with fear and difficulty.
They really couldn't believe it.
Sweeping all the way from Hubei, Sichuan, Guanzhong, and Henan.
The Taiping Army, which was bound to conquer almost every city, actually suffered such a huge defeat under the Kaifeng Mansion!
The combat effectiveness of this Ming army is too terrifying.
Originally, everyone thought that the Taiping Army's numerical superiority was enough to threaten the more than 23,000 soldiers and horses under Emperor Zhu's command.
But now?
Now the Taiping Army's 300,000 soldiers were defeated by 10,000 soldiers.
The more than 20,000 most elite Ming troops under Emperor Zhu.
Isn't it comparable to the Taiping Army's million-strong army?
"King of Heaven! Yao Zhifu deserves to die, please quickly bring him to justice in front of the army to shake the morale of the army!"
A marquis from the Taiping Army suggested.
Liu Zhixie narrowed his eyes.
Yao Zhifu is his confidant, and he cannot be executed casually even if he loses the battle.
What's more, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is a system where all princes share the respect of the Heavenly King.
The princes, big and small, all have their own territories and armies.
Liu Zhixie can be the king only because his troops can fight and are strong enough.
There will be no challengers below.
Therefore, it is impossible to kill Yao Zhifu.
He snorted coldly and said: "King Wu is the king of heaven, how can you talk about the life and death of the king of heaven?"
He stood up suddenly.
"What's more, the order I gave to King Wu was to fake defeat. Now, hasn't King Wu completed the task very well?"
"Let King Wu shrink his troops and march eastward, and join me to attack Emperor Ming Ting at Daming Mansion and lead the army led by Lin Lin!"
For this reason.
Liu Zhixie was already riding a tiger and was unable to get off.
If we retreat like this, on the one hand, it will be difficult to explain internally. If we go south to Kaifeng and lose troops and generals, and then retreat to Guanzhong, this will be a huge blow to Liu Zhixie's prestige.
But if we don't retreat and hold on here in Henan, on the one hand, we will delay the farming season that will start in two or three months.
The soldiers of this kingdom of heaven are not professional soldiers.
They were peasant soldiers who were assigned land, although they had slaves and tenant farmers at home.
But when you go out to fight, you have to take your slaves with you. If there are no strong laborers in the farm and the spring plowing cannot continue, the farm will be desolate.
Therefore, for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the period from the autumn harvest to the spring plowing was the time for war.
Therefore, Liu Zhixie was faced with two choices at this time: either retreat to Guanzhong now without wasting national power, or seize the time to fight a war before spring plowing arrives!
Although the former choice is safe, it will reduce one's prestige and also greatly damage the morale of the Heavenly Kingdom soldiers.
second option
It’s an adventure!
And it's a country-wide gamble.
Once defeated.
It will no longer be possible for the Kingdom of Heaven to organize troops that can spy on the Central Plains, and it cannot even protect Guanzhong. It can only pray that the Ming Dynasty can give a peaceful future to the King of the West and settle down in the Western Regions.
Liu Zhixie was able to pull up the White Lotus Sect across several provinces, so naturally he was not someone who was willing to take advantage of others.
so.
to him.
There is only the second option.
(End of chapter)
