prosperous age

Chapter 555 Chapter 554
Just when the courtiers of the Ming Dynasty were all paying attention to Xuanfu, the guard of a stone pass of the Great Wall in Funing, Jidong, was running up the city wall panting.

There was no time to rest on the city wall, so I lay down on the crenel and looked out, and sure enough, I saw bursts of smoke rising in the distance.

"General Bai, let's set off the beacon to warn, the Tartars are coming for real."

The hundred households on duty had long been compelled by the aura of the captives outside. Seeing the billowing dust rushing towards them, they hurriedly said to their superiors.

"Can there be rewards, how many Tartars are there outside the pass? Which department is it from?"

Bai Wenzhi, the general guarding a stone pass, stared at him for a while, and asked hurriedly after making sure that the enemy was indeed coming towards him.

"In front of the half-pillar of incense, there are scouts returning to the city. It should be the Donglu Tuman Hei Carboniferous Department, with a scale of more than [-] people."

The hundred households said hastily.

"Set off beacon fires as a warning, summon soldiers to defend the city walls, there must be no mistakes."

While observing the situation of the enemy outside the pass, Bai Wenzhi issued an order: "Send someone to immediately fly to Shanhaiguan City for help, please guard and send reinforcements quickly."

The closest city to them, guarded by heavy soldiers from the Ming Dynasty, is Shanhaiguan. Where can we go if we don't ask them for help?

With more than [-] men on his own, he couldn't stop Donglu's attack no matter what, and the opponent had tens of thousands of horses.

Outside Guancheng is the end of the eastern section of the Yanshan Mountains. Outside Guancheng are dangerous peaks and deep ravines. Behind Guancheng is Yimapingchuan.

A stone pass has always been an important flank barrier of Shanhaiguan, so a solid city wall was built here in the early Ming Dynasty, and it is known as the "First Pass of Jingdong".

Thick smoke billowed from the beacon tower in the distance, warning to the distance, while the brigade soldiers in the pass city were led by the commander to climb the city wall, and the soldiers were busy carrying all kinds of defensive weapons from the arsenal to the city wall. The city was suddenly busy.

While they were busy preparing, the vanguard of the Donglu troops also approached the city wall. A group of Tartar soldiers had already dismounted, approached quickly with arrows, and stopped at a distance from the city wall.

Of course, Bai Wenzhi knew that the section of the city wall they had chosen should be the area they were going to attack this time, so he immediately ordered several soldiers and hundreds of households to lead the reinforcements.

While the Tartars were busy building siege equipment outside the city walls, fierce long-range battles had already broken out between the two sides.

The Tartars threw a rain of arrows at the city wall, and the Ming army on the city also launched a counterattack.

"Don't use firearms, wait until the Tartars attack the city."

Bai Wenzhi has already arrived here and directly issued an order.

He understands that although he has a lot of firearms in his hand, the ability of these weapons to continue fighting is only slightly stronger than that of archers. Once they continue to fire, they will soon have a heating problem. At this time, if they continue to reload gunpowder, it is easy to explode the chamber.

Now the distance of the Tartars, although within the range of the firearms, is on the edge of the range of the firearms, not very powerful and not accurate.

But since the Tartars didn't intend to do anything wrong today, he also ordered people to bring over the large Frang cannon equipped on the pass city, and wait for the Tartars to use it when they attacked the city.

The archers on both sides did not aim directly at the enemy, but shot arrows at 45 degrees to the sky. As for whether they could hit people, it depended on God's will, just to create some confusion for the opponent's camp.

Of course, the Tartars hoped to use the rain of arrows to shoot a vacuum on the wall of the Ming army, so that the ladder could be built to attack the city after a while, and the Ming army would target the opponent's archers.

The Tartars are very good at riding and shooting. If they can shoot the enemy's archers at this time, there will be fewer archers participating in the siege later.

Soon, the Tartar side seemed to be ready. More Tartar soldiers with scimitars carried more than [-] ladders and quickly approached the city wall. Behind them, more Tartar archers joined the ranks of shooting , For a while, even temporarily suppressed the Ming army archers on the city wall.

However, as the Tatars approached, several large Frang machine guns began to fire rapidly, one after another hot projectiles rushed into the attacking formation of the Tatars, piercing bloody alleys, and screams rang out from the city.

And at this moment, the Tazi's brigade finally arrived, more archers rushed under the city wall to shoot at the Ming army, and more ladders began to be assembled.

"General, the Tartars seem to be prepared."

The captain behind Bai Wenzhi shouted in his ear.

At this time, the Fran cannon was firing rapidly, and the sound was so small that it couldn't reach his ears.

Bai Wenzhi nodded, his face was gloomy.

At this time, although it is difficult to accurately calculate the number of Tartars outside the city, about [-] people should not be bad.

After the previous shooting, the archers on both sides suffered casualties, but the Ming army was obviously more disadvantaged.

Not for anything else, just because they have few people.

At this time, the Tartars outside the city were already approaching the city wall. Bai Wenzhi waved his hand violently, and more than [-] muzzles of firecrackers protruded from the crenel of the city wall, firing a salvo at the Tartars below. After squatting on the wall, use the wall as a cover to start reloading the ammunition again.

The sub-cartridge of the Franco cannon has already fired a round, and the assistant gunner is still reloading nervously. After almost one round is loaded, the gunner of the Ming army will shoot out immediately.

But by this time, the previously massive artillery offensive had also stagnated, and was no longer as ferocious as before.

"Go, transfer the people from the western wall to three hundred teams."

The Tartars had a huge number of troops, so naturally they would not choose a mountainous area where it was difficult to march, but set their attack target at Guancheng, where the terrain was relatively flat, which gave Bai Wenzhi a chance to calmly deploy his troops.

Soon, Ming soldiers from the west wall section began to gather on the Guancheng to participate in the defense.

When a ladder was built on the city wall, a tragic offensive and defensive battle finally broke out on the top of a stone pass.

When a fierce battle broke out at a stone pass in East Ji, the beacon fire of the Great Wall finally spread to the Santun Camp of the General Army Mansion in Ji Town.

The advantages of beacon towers are fully displayed at this time. Information hundreds of miles away can be quickly transmitted through beacon towers, regardless of the restrictions of complex terrain.

As for the area where the Great Wall is built, except for Shanhaiguan, which is the beginning of the Liaoxi Corridor and is open, almost all other places are built on winding mountains.

Wangshan runs dead horses, one can imagine the difficulty of delivering messages under such terrain conditions.

Although the defenders along the Great Wall of the Ming Army were able to pass on military information through relays, they were not as quick as beacons.

Santunying, located in the west of Qianxi County, Jizhen Town, connects Zunhua to Beijing in the west, and connects Qian'an to Shanhaiguan in the east. Located in the middle of the Great Wall in Ji Town, the nearby rivers are abundant enough to provide water for tens of thousands of troops, and the transportation is also extremely convenient.

In the General Army Mansion of Ji Town, Hu Zhen, acting general soldier, has received the news that there is a war in the east. From the beacon smoke, it can be seen that the scale of the Tartar invasion is not small.

"Besides my personal barracks in Guancheng, are there other teams that are neat?"

The battle a month ago led to the mobilization of the Ming army in Jizhen and almost ran back and forth along the Great Wall of Jizhen.

Although the battle was over, after the order to return to the camp was conveyed to all the ministries, the ministries of the Ming army did not rush to the Santun camp, but returned slowly to the camp. They were really tired.

As acting commander-in-chief, Hu Zhen was also unwilling to squeeze the soldiers, fearing that it would arouse the resentment of the soldiers, so he simply let it go.

However, who would have thought that in just one month, the Tatars would make a comeback, but this time the target was shifted from Jixi to Jidong.

At this time, Hu Zhen realized that he didn't have many soldiers to use for the time being.

"The infantry battalion has Gu Huan, Li Huaide and other units that can be used, and the cavalry and guerrilla Dong Yiyuan are in order."

"Quickly send an order to Dong Yiyuan to immediately lead the army eastward for reinforcements, and along the way notify the three guards of Xingzhou, Yongsheng, and Funing to be ready to fight at any time.

The Buying also immediately prepared, and set off with me early tomorrow morning, and informed the nearby ministries to advance eastward immediately. "

Hu Zhen immediately issued an order to let the soldiers go down with the command arrow to deliver the order.

Ji Town's tens of thousands of troops have recently mobilized troops to run here and there. They have not fought a few battles, but they are already exhausted. Hu Town has no choice but to consider using the local guards to help in the battle.

The three guards of Jidong are naturally the first choice to participate in the battle. After all, their geographical location determines that they can reach the battlefield quickly.

Parllay has obvious advantages in the speed of message transmission, but after all, it cannot accurately transmit complex information, but in this era, it is still the best communication method.

Dong Yiyuan, who was still waiting in the camp, did not dare to delay for a moment after receiving the command arrow, and directly led the cavalry out of Santun Camp, galloping towards Qian'an.

In just over a month, Ji Town encountered two large-scale invasions by the Tartars, and Hu Zhen's military order naturally caused a flurry of panic.

For the soldiers of the Ming army in Jizhen, although they received much more than the guards in the interior, they still could not get the full salary.

But continuous rapid advances like this are a great test to the morale and physical fitness of the soldiers, and there are complaints from all the troops for a while.

However, to Shangguan, who would care about their voices.

Liu Tao, governor of Jiliao, also rushed to Jidong immediately after hearing the news, and the Ming army was constantly urged by him to advance along the way.

At this time, the capital has already seen the beacon flames rekindled on the Great Wall of Ji Town.

For the capital, this is already the third major military report received in a short period of time, with tens of thousands of invaders and captive cavalry.

Under such pressure, there is no doubt that the people in the capital will feel that the sky is about to collapse, the land will collapse, and the tense atmosphere will suddenly rise again.

At nightfall in Prince Yu's Mansion in the capital, Zhang Juzheng, Wei Guangde and others were urgently recalled by the servants of the palace to discuss the current situation.

The crisis in the Xuan Mansion has not yet been resolved, who would have thought that Ji Dong would fight again.

"Dark clouds overwhelm the city to destroy it."

Zhang Juzheng said such words under repeated emergency military situations.

"Shan Loan, do you think that the Battle of Ji Dong was also arranged by Al Da Khan? Is there any follow-up?"

While Zhang Juzheng sighed that the current situation is bad, he did not forget to ask Wei Guangde.

Perhaps, this is also related to what Wei Guangde told him before about the strength of Al Da Khan, and Zhang Juzheng was a little helpless under the repeated Mongolian offensives.

Wei Guangde lowered his head and rolled his eyes, he could only mutter in his heart: I don't know where I'm going, and I'm not a roundworm in An Dahan's stomach.

He lowered his head and rolled his eyes, not daring to let them see.

After all, they didn't even know who the Mongolian tribes were that attacked the Jidong Great Wall, so how could they tell if it was Altan Khan's arrangement.

Almost all the Mongolian tribes close to the Ming Dynasty were subdued by Altan Khan, but there are also tribes who just obeyed and disobeyed, and may not all obey his orders.

Attacking the Ming Dynasty was tantamount to hitting a rock with an egg for small and medium-sized tribes, while the large tribes still focused more on their own interests, and might not follow Al Dahan's orders sincerely.

In such a short period of time, Altan Khan can issue combat orders to the large Mongolian tribes in Jidong, and the other party still obeys unconditionally?
Seeing that Wei Guangde didn't answer, Zhang Juzheng said again: "Shandai, I didn't pay attention to what you said before about how powerful I Dahan is and how good at layout, but this time it really opened my eyes.

After Miyun took action, in such a short period of time, he attacked Xuanfu and Jidong successively.

It's so powerful, you don't even know which of the two paths of this thing is the feint and which is the main attack.

If there is a backhand, it is really terrible. "

Hearing Zhang Juzheng's words, Wei Guangde raised his head and glanced at him, thinking about what happened to the battle in Jidong.

Now we only know that there seems to be another war in the east of Ji Town, because the beacon towers for the beacon fires in Jidong and Jixi are different.

This time, due to the lack of information, Wei Guangde did not speak much for the first time.

Needless to say, the situation of the army in Ji Town is very bad.

"Let's talk about it after the army reports to Beijing. I don't know how many captive cavalry there are."

Wei Guangde sighed: "As for what you said in the daytime, contact more people to refute the forbidden sea, let's rest, let's not create trouble for His Majesty."

At this moment, Li Fang, who usually stays close to King Yu, quickly stepped into the house, cupped his hands at King Yu and the others, and said, "Your Highness, my lords, a decree has just been passed down from Xiyuan, ordering the Minister of the Ministry of Officials and the Imperial Academy Yan Na, a bachelor, Li Chunfang, Minister of the Ministry of Rites and a bachelor of the Imperial Academy, Zuo Shilang of the Ministry of Officials and a bachelor of the Imperial Academy, Dong Fenju, went straight to Xiyuan, just like Xun Fuchen."

"Is the imperial meeting over at Xiyuan still not over?"

Yu Wang frowned and asked.

"No, Elder Xu Ge and Yang Shangshu didn't come out, but a servant went out to deliver an order to summon the three adults to enter Xiyuan immediately."

Fires had already been lit up and down the stone pass city in East Jidong, groups of Tartars abandoned their horses and charged towards the pass city, climbing up the ladders to attack upwards.

Siege with ants is the most cruel and bloody way of war in the cold weapon era.

When entering the siege battle, the two sides actually have no strategy to use, just head-to-head, and the will to fight is more tenacious than which side.

The Tartars took turns attacking the Guancheng guarded by the Ming army with their shields on, and climbed up the erected ladders. The archers also took turns throwing arrows at the city wall to cover the infantry attacking the city.

To be able to do this is undoubtedly the absolute reason for the superiority of troops.

For the Mongolian generals, if the city gate cannot be broken in a short time, the battle will be impossible to fight after the reinforcements of the Ming army arrive.

Although his subordinates lost a lot, the Ming army on the city wall would not feel much better.

At this time, the participating general Bai Wenzhi had sent the maximum force that could be mobilized on the surrounding city walls to the Guan Wall, and the confrontation between the two sides caused a lot of losses to the Ming army.

At this point in the battle, we can only expect reinforcements from the direction of Shanhaiguan near the left, otherwise, if the Tartars are desperate to attack the city day and night, a piece of stone pass will not be preserved anyway.

Calculating the time, the messenger I sent out should have arrived at Shanhaiguan. I only hoped that I could send people to rescue overnight, but the time dragged on.

Bai Wenzhi really couldn't imagine the consequences.

(End of this chapter)