I originally thought it was enough to update four chapters and 12,000 words today. I wanted to save this chapter for tomorrow's update, but after I finished writing it, I saw, good guy, there is an extra hall master (familiar look), I have to add more. Bar……
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After Huang Dingquan and Xu Zhixian arrived at the West City Gate, they briefly met with Wang Xiazi and Li Dongshao and quickly finalized the next battle plan.
Subsequent battles within the city, including tasks such as capturing other city gates and key locations within the city, will be fully handed over to the 1st Infantry Brigade.
The cavalry brigade no longer continued to enter the city, but garrisoned at the west city gate together with the guard battalion to ensure that the west city gate was not lost.
If the light cavalry of the cavalry brigade enter the city, they can at most be used as ordinary light armored infantry. When fighting on foot, they are not as effective as the elite infantry in the first infantry battalion.
Furthermore, the two hundred cavalry brigade are proficient in mounted archery, and the elite cavalry that fight on horseback are very valuable. Normally, Wang Xiazi would not hesitate to lead them in charge operations, and most of the time they fight with mounted archery.
If there were too many casualties in the melee after entering the city, both Blind Wang and Luo Zhixue in the rear would be heartbroken.
As for the more than 50 people left in the personal barracks, they contributed a lot in this battle and suffered a lot of losses. Now there are only more than 50 people left in total, and these people have gone through fierce fighting. They need to be let go. They should take it easy, they can't use it to their death.
After finalizing the battle plan, the sky began to light up!
The pre-dawn darkness is over and the sky is about to begin to light up!
On the gate tower of the west city gate, a yellow triangular "protect" flag was also erected, with the big "protect" character in the middle very conspicuous.
At the same time, Huang Dingquan also led more than a thousand people from the First Infantry Battalion and the Fourth Infantry Battalion to attack the south gate. He wanted to gather superior forces while the enemy forces in the city were still confused and failed to respond and assemble in time. And suddenly annihilate hundreds of enemy troops in the south city gate, then go straight to the east city gate, and also annihilate hundreds of enemy troops in the east city gate.
The West City Gate, the East City Gate, and the South City Gate are all city gates facing the land. They all have supporting military camps and garrison sub-cities, with hundreds of troops stationed there.
These troops are also a relatively elite group of garrison soldiers in the city's garrison, and there are many combat soldiers among them. Otherwise, they would not be assigned to garrison these three strategic locations.
Now that the defenders at the West Gate have been defeated, as long as the defenders at the East Gate and South Gate are also defeated one after another, it can be said that the strength of the defenders in the city will be lost by 70 to 80%, and the remaining North Gate and the military camps in the city will be defeated. The Ming army could no longer overcome the storm.
Huang Dingquan led two infantry battalions to attack the south gate and east gate, while Xu Zhixian, chief of staff of the Xiangyang campaign, led his third infantry battalion into the city and went straight to the prefect's Yamen, trying to capture the prefect as soon as possible Yamen, killed or captured the prefect Tang Xianyue and other officials in the prefect's Yamen, directly destroying the high-level command system of the Ming army in the city.
Without the presence and command of the prefect Tang Xianyue, the other generals of the Ming army would have no one to command them, and it would be impossible to figure out what was going on in a short period of time.
Xu Zhixian led his third infantry battalion all the way into the city. Along the way, he encountered many scattered Ming troops. Some of them were defeated troops who had retreated from the West City Gate, and some had received orders in panic to reinforce the West City Gate or had other tasks. Ming army.
However, after they encountered Xu Zhixian's troops, without exception, they either turned around and ran away, or surrendered on the spot.
Xu Zhixian didn't pay much attention to those soldiers who turned around and fled. He even didn't pay much attention to the surrender troops who surrendered on the spot along the way. He just left a team of people to take care of the prisoners of war.
Now that time is running out, and he has limited troops, it is impossible to leave too many people to receive prisoners of war...
The soldiers of the Fourth Infantry Battalion, who were left to take care of the prisoners of war, were getting more and more panicked. It was fine at the beginning, as they only accepted dozens of surrendered soldiers.
But soon, the number exceeded one hundred people...
This was not over yet. After just a moment, their group of thirty people saw that the number of prisoners they had accepted had exceeded five hundred!
A mere thirty people were guarding more than five hundred prisoners of war, and they themselves were very panicked!
In order to prevent the prisoners of war from unrest, they not only confiscated the weapons and armor of the surrendered soldiers, but also asked the prisoners to tie each other's hands with belts.
They even connected them in series, tied them into a bunch, and then all lay on the ground!
A young soldier with a very immature face patrolled around with a vigilant look on his face, and at the same time shouted from time to time: "Everyone, be honest!"
"You are not allowed to get up. If you get up, kill them on the spot. I have killed more officers and soldiers with my sword, and I don't care how many more people I kill."
"If one person escapes and others in the same team do not stop him, the whole team will be killed!"
Each and every soldier of the Home Guard Army patrolled with concentration. Not only were they nervous, but the prisoners of war were actually even more nervous. They were afraid that the thieves would stab them down with a spear if their hands shook.
No, there was a prisoner of war who was very uncomfortable because there was a stone on the ground where he was lying. He moved his body a little and wanted to change his position. He heard a bald soldier next to him shout: "Don't move, don't move." move!"
As he said this, he trotted over with the musket in his hand.
The frightened prisoner of war immediately lay down and shouted: "I didn't move, I didn't move!"
His words were extremely panicked, even with a crying sound: "Woo, don't kill me, I really didn't move."
"It's just that there were rocks on the ground. I wanted to move, but I didn't want to run away."
The dozen or so other surrendered soldiers who were tied up in tandem with him also looked nervous. Those who were close to him lay tightly on the ground and did not dare to move. At the same time, they shouted: "Hurry and get down, I'm here." If anyone dares to move and harm me, I will beat him to death."
After a moment of panic, the Baoxiang Army soldier looked at this group of people nervously and shouted: "Be honest, I will take action directly next time."
A mere thirty people were guarding more than five hundred people, and there were more and more prisoners of war, putting every soldier in this team under tremendous psychological pressure.
Even though the sky was getting brighter, it didn't make them relax much.
Xu Zhixian at the front didn't know that a small group of soldiers behind him were under tremendous psychological pressure. Now he had led his troops to the prefect's Yamen.
As soon as they got close, bows and arrows were fired from the prefect's Yamen. Xu Zhixian immediately waved his hand: "The infantry cannons come forward and fire. The armored troops are ready."
As three 200-pound artillery pieces opened fire directly, the gate of the prefect's Yamen was blown to pieces, and there was a burst of screams from inside. It was obvious that someone was hiding behind the gate and was killed by the artillery fire.
Immediately afterwards, dozens of soldiers in armor rushed up from the broken gate, and then more soldiers followed and entered.
As the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Battalion rushed in, screams were heard one after another, but the screams did not last long and stopped after just a moment.
Soon a sentry commander came out and said: "Report to the battalion commander, the situation is under full control, and all officials below the prefect are captured."
Xu Zhixian said: "Okay, quickly organize the team, leave one team to guard, and the others will follow me to the next place."
Xu Zhixian led the 3rd Infantry Battalion to rampage through the city. They first captured the prefect's Yamen, and then entered a garrison barracks in the city. There were more than a thousand guards in the barracks who still didn't understand what happened. After a little resistance, the soldiers simply surrendered and became prisoners.
On the other side, Huang Dingquan led the First Infantry Battalion and the Fourth Infantry Battalion to the south city gate. After all, the Ming army here was slightly better prepared, and at one time, under the leadership of more than a hundred soldiers, they fought stubbornly.
But they don't have many troops and their equipment is not very good. What's more important is that the city is now in chaos. A Ming army guerrilla general in charge of garrisoning the south city gate doesn't even know where the rebels entered the city from or how many people entered the city.
He led more than a hundred soldiers under his command and hundreds of guardsmen to resist for a while. After dozens of people under his command were killed or wounded, he saw that the situation was over. He immediately lowered the drawbridge and left the city, and fled with a few elite soldiers under his command.
After some of the remaining enemies at the South City Gate fled, Huang Dingquan did not lead his troops to pursue them. Instead, he put away the suspension bridge again, leaving a sentry force to garrison and then continued to attack the East City Gate with his troops.
At this time, the South City Gate, like the West City Gate, also erected the unique yellow triangular Baoxiang flag of the Baoxiang Army.
When Huang Dingquan and others arrived at the East City Gate, Huang Dingquan and the others did not encounter any actual fighting force, because the Ming army at the East City Gate had more time to collect information. When Huang Dingquan and the others led their troops to kill, the Ming troops stationed here were The army already knew that the rebels were entering from the west gate. The number of the rebels who entered the city was unknown, but they were at least several thousand.
At the same time, he also learned that the prefect's Yamen had been breached and the military camp in the city had been destroyed.
As for the south city gate, you don't need to pry for information to know that it is definitely over.
Under such circumstances, when they saw Huang Dingquan and the others, they didn't even resist, and ran directly out of the city under the leadership of a general.
At the east city gate, the yellow triangular "protection" flag of the Hometown Protection Army was also erected.
After watching the enemy run away, Huang Dingquan breathed a sigh of relief.
It's a good thing that the enemy has escaped. If he relies on the city gate to resist, he will have to spend time and pay a certain amount of casualties to attack. Even if he can win in the end, he will still pay some casualties.
However, how far can the enemies who escaped from the South City Gate and East City Gate escape?
Huang Dingquan immediately told the messenger: "Inform Commander Wang of the situation at the South City Gate and East City Gate, and let him decide whether to send troops to pursue them."
"Leave one outpost to garrison here, and the rest of the troops will follow me to continue to fight towards the Great and Small North City Gates and seize the pier. We cannot let the ships on the pier escape."
The North City Gate area, because it is close to the river, is where the wharf of Xiangyang City is located. There are a large number of ships moored at the wharf, and these ships are also urgently needed by the Home Guard Army. In the future, whether it is to cross the river or use It can be used for transporting baggage on the Han River and Baihe River and for troop deployment.
In addition, it also prevents the dignitaries in the city from escaping on ships with large amounts of gold and silver.
The city of Xiangyang has been taken over by them, and the large amount of gold and silver in the city will become their trophies, and will become the military pay and weapons and equipment for the rural protection army in the future.
Therefore, we must not let a large number of dignitaries take advantage of the chaos and run out with a large amount of gold and silver.
The operation at the North City Gate was also relatively smooth. There were even fewer officers and soldiers here, and they were not determined to resist. After Xiangyang City was defeated, and at the same time, the Home Guard Army shouted the slogan that those who surrendered would not be killed, many The officers and soldiers surrendered on the spot.
When the first ray of sunshine appeared on the horizon, a yellow triangular flag was also raised at the North City Gate.
By this time, a total of four main city gates in the southeast, northwest and northwest of Xiangyang City plus a small north gate had been completely captured by the Baoxiang Army. The yellow triangular Baoxiang flag of the Baoxiang Army was fluttering in the wind in the early morning sun!
Xiangyang City belongs to the Baoxiang Army from now on!
At this time, Xu Zhixian also led the remaining troops of the 4th Infantry Battalion to his last target, which was also the last place of resistance in the city: Prince Xiang's Mansion!
