In order to capture the eastern suburbs fortress, the Chu army invested an infantry regiment and an assault battalion, totaling about 2,500 people.
In order to resist the Chu army's attack, the Ming army invested about 1,500 people, all of them Jiangbei New Biao Army, and they were also the most elite troops under Song Zushun's command.
Therefore, the fight between the two sides was brutal.
The intensive sound of gunfire lasted for more than half an hour, and so did the screams and shouts.
When the explosions here gradually subsided, the Dachu Empire Army's black-edged red-bottomed black dragon-wielding sword flag finally flew from the top of the fortress in the eastern suburbs outside Yangzhou City.
The Chu army's flag was surrounded by dead and wounded from both sides!
Just half a quarter of an hour later, many artillery pieces of the original Ming army on the eastern suburbs fortress were turned around by the Chu army and began to bombard the Ming army.
Two-quarters of an hour later, more than a dozen Chu army artillery pieces, including four 48-pound mortars, also arrived at the eastern suburbs fortress and began to bombard the Ming army from a high position.
The Yangzhou city defense line that Song Zushun worked so hard to manage suddenly became vulnerable with the fall of the eastern suburbs fortress. When the Chu army used this eastern suburbs fortress to deploy more than 20 artillery pieces for fierce bombardment!
Many civil and military officials of the Ming army who were watching the battle at the top of the city all had the same idea when they saw this scene: Yangzhou is in danger!
As for Song Zushun, before the fall of the eastern suburb fortress, he had already descended from the city and began to mobilize troops to deploy other lines of defense to prevent the Chu army from using the eastern suburb fortress to set up a large number of artillery and attack other lines of defense with fierce bombardment.
He could guess with his toes that after the Chu army captured the fortress in the eastern suburbs, they would definitely use the terrain advantages here to deploy artillery and then bombard the surrounding Ming army positions.
Therefore, as soon as he saw that the eastern suburbs fortress could not be defended, he immediately began to adjust the defense deployment.
However, although Song Zushun reacted quickly and made a decisive decision, his efforts were in vain in the face of the absolute strength of the Chu army.
After conquering the eastern suburbs fortress, the Chu army continued to carry out large-scale artillery attacks on the Ming army's positions through the forts on the eastern suburbs fortress.
One day later, on February 24, the Chu Army's Fourth Division launched another offensive in the eastern suburbs.
This time, the Fourth Division fought very smoothly because of the close range and condescending artillery support provided by the eastern suburbs fortress.
With less than 200 casualties, they successfully captured multiple fort positions and numerous trench positions.
Although the Jiangbei New Biao Army, under the command of Song Zushun, fought desperately, they were at a huge disadvantage in terms of strength and firepower, and at the same time, the forts on the eastern suburbs fortress above their heads continued to threaten them, so they were completely passive in the fight.
On February 25, after two days of fierce fighting, the Fourth Division successfully captured all the Ming army's peripheral positions deployed in the eastern suburbs, including four important fortresses outside the city.
By this time, there were no Ming army peripheral positions between the Chu Army's Fourth Division and the city wall of Yangzhou City. The subsequent Chu Army's attack could directly face Yangzhou City itself.
For the current war model, this basically declares that the Chu army has opened the eastern corner of Yangzhou City, and it will be much easier to enter later.
That's right, for the contemporary battle between the Chu Army and the Ming Army's New Standard Army, especially for the Jiangbei New Standard Army, which has very good fortifications and is not bad in combat effectiveness, the outer positions are their greatest strength. The defensive support point, as for the city wall itself, is actually of little use.
The seemingly tall city wall has a poor defensive effect on mortars and is worse than a trench...
Song Zushun obviously knew this, so when all the outer positions in the eastern suburbs were completely lost, Song Zushun was no longer as calm as he had been in the previous few days.
Although Song Zushun knew early on that he had been strategically surrounded, there was a high probability that this battle would result in defeat.
But in his expectation, even if he was bound to lose, he should be able to hold on for a few months no matter what.
However, there are months here and there. It seems that the Chu army has been surrounding Yangzhou City for more than a month, but in fact it only took five or six days to launch the attack.
The real general attack took place three days ago.
In just three days, the Eastern Suburb Fortress and all the outer defense lines in the Eastern Suburbs were lost, and the Jiangbei New Standard Army, the main force of the battle, suffered more than 3,000 casualties.
This result was beyond Song Zushun's expectation.
Now he looked at the Chu army outside the city and couldn't help but sigh.
They all use guns and cannons and train with strict discipline. Song Zushun also spared no effort to collect money and food, and the soldiers received enough money and food.
But why is the performance gap so big in actual combat?
Our side lost at least 3,000 people, and also lost the so-called eastern suburbs position. More importantly, we relied on the fortress trenches for defensive operations.
As for the other side, it is estimated that there were only about a thousand casualties, and a considerable number of the injured were treated. The actual loss of casualties or disabilities was estimated to be only four to five hundred people.
Such a comparison is enough to make Song Zushun despair!
And Song Zushun also knew very well what made him despair. It was not enough money and food, not enough guns, especially long-barreled artillery.
If he had dozens of long-barreled artillery pieces under his command, even if they were only two and a half kilograms, five kilograms of artillery, then the outcome of this Yangzhou battle would be completely different.
But there is no if...
He doesn't have that many long-barreled artillery.
He was able to cobble together more than twenty long-barreled artillery pieces. This was the result of his desperate efforts, and he did not hesitate to offend many salt merchants, which resulted in him being dismissed as the Governor of Water Transport.
He couldn't even imagine seventy, eighty or even hundreds of artillery pieces!
In despair, Song Zushun saw with his own eyes that the Jiangbei New Standard Army he had formed, together with the guards soldiers who had little combat effectiveness, ushered in a major collapse in the next few days...
After the Chu army captured Yangzhou's eastern suburbs fortress and other eastern suburbs positions, it launched a direct attack on Yangzhou City itself from the eastern suburbs. On the other hand, it dispatched the First Guards Division to attack the Ming army's peripheral positions such as the southern suburbs and western suburbs. A fierce attack.
The scale of the battle suddenly expanded several times compared to the previous few days.
Under the Chu army's all-out offensive, the Ming army under Song Zushun could withstand it.
Even the Jiangbei New Standard Army, which he regarded as his own soldiers and who had given priority to all kinds of money, food and materials, had to be defeated again and again in the face of the Chu army's fierce artillery fire and continuous infantry attacks.
As for the guardsmen, they can only be used as cannon fodder in such fierce battles, and sometimes they can't even be used as cannon fodder...
Often, a group of guardsmen would just enter the front line, only to collapse and flee after being violently bombarded by the Chu army.
In the end, Song Zushun could only organize a large number of supervising troops to prevent these guardsmen from retreating without authorization.
However, under this kind of pressure, the guardsmen were not easy to mess with.
After they went through five or six extremely miserable and frightening days, they saw that Yangzhou would be captured sooner or later. At the same time, Song Zushun continued to force them to be cannon fodder and go to the front line to continuously consume the Chu army's ammunition...
As a result, many guardsmen began to spontaneously flee from the battle line, then threw down their weapons and ran to the Chu army under white flags to surrender.
At first, only sporadic guardsmen fled spontaneously, but soon led by officers, they came in groups and surrendered.
They would rather surrender to the Chu army than continue to die as cannon fodder.
It's hard to say what kind of treatment you will receive if you surrender to the Chu army, but you will definitely not have to die. The Chu army is famous for treating prisoners well.
But if you continue to resist and become cannon fodder, you will die sooner or later.
Moreover, their deaths in battle were of no value except for consuming some Chu army's ammunition.
And when more and more guardsmen began to flee, or even fled in groups, the Jiangbei New Biao Army was inevitably affected, and they also began to flee and surrender.
When this situation occurred on the front line, the Chu army's offensive slowed down. They carried out shelling every day to create pressure, and then continued to shout for the other side to surrender.
After all, although Yangzhou can definitely be captured by continuing the offensive, casualties will inevitably occur. According to the estimates of the staff, if the attack continues until the entire Yangzhou city is captured, at least thousands of casualties will be incurred.
The casualties of thousands of people may not be a big deal to the generals of the Ming army, but they are already considered relatively large casualties to the Chu army.
In the previous battles of the Chu army, the casualties were basically relatively small.
Battles with relatively large casualties are often big battles and tough battles.
For example, the previous Battle of Jiujiang, the Battle of Ganjiang, and the current Battle of Yangzhou are all typical hard-core battles that are difficult to fight.
Now that the opponent has signs of large-scale flight, the Chu army is naturally happy to see more escapes from the opponent. It is best if the opponent can all surrender to reduce its own casualties and ammunition consumption.
The casualties of thousands of people are not a small number, but the ammunition required to continue the attack on Yangzhou is a huge number.
In today's world where ammunition is so expensive, it is natural to save some guns and guns during combat.
As a result, a very strange scene occurred outside Yangzhou City. During the day, the Chu army fired artillery step by step, and then charged twice casually.
When evening begins, many Ming troops will often flee in groups and surrender...
A few days later, even in broad daylight, many Ming soldiers came over and surrendered.
When the time entered March, Song Zushun found that at least several thousand of his troops had fled.
This is much greater than the losses suffered in combat.
And not only the soldiers on the front line surrendered in large numbers, but also the civil and military officials in the city were inclined to surrender!
At this time, Song Zushun knew that this Yangzhou... this country was completely hopeless!
