national surname chiming

Chapter 389
Faced with Yan Yingyuan's strict defense, Duoduo's initial attack failed to achieve results, so he had to think long-term and prepare in several hands.

He summoned all the generals under his command, brainstormed, and quickly came up with several countermeasures.

These strategies were mainly analyzed by Zhang Cunren:

"My lord, the nails protruding out of the city on the west side of the city are really difficult to pull out. Although they are small, the officials have already observed them. They are almost solid lumps of dirt, and they may not collapse even with cannons.

Even if the strong attack goes up and the foothold is unstable, the city can still retreat or reinforce through the earth embankment corridor.Therefore, it is better to think of another way, take time to slowly pull out one or two of the triangular fortresses, and then storm the west city wall of Jiangyin.

At the same time, since our army has completely besieged the city on all sides and has far more troops than the defenders, we can launch a supporting offensive from the north and the south.It is also a surprise to share the attention of the defenders of the Ming army and consume the defenders. In case there is a flaw in one of them, they will climb the city first. "

Zhang Cunren's countermeasures are divided into two parts, one is to adjust the strategy of the main battlefield in the west of the city, and the other is to open up a second battlefield on the north and south sides.

Because he hasn't said how to adjust the main battlefield, Duduo can't hear the problem, so he only asked a few concerns about the second battlefield:

"The south of the city and the north of the city have to attack the city at the same time. I'm afraid it's not easy to start. It's true that Yan Yingyuan didn't build that disgusting triangular fortress on the north and south sides of Jiangyin City, but that's probably because of the rugged terrain. It took a lot of effort to ram the earth and transport the rocks, and he didn't have that much energy for a while.

Since the rough terrain is not good for the defenders to build forts, it is also not good for our army to bring in heavy siege equipment.The king has already seen that the roads outside the city are either rugged mountains or low-lying muddy land that has been flooded by the canal.

The heavy-duty Lu public vehicles and ladder vehicles could not be pushed outside the city walls in those directions, and it was also difficult for Hongyi cannons to establish positions that were far enough away from the city walls, safe enough, and had a good range of fire.If you set up artillery directly on the narrow flat ground outside the city, it may not be enough for the artillery at the top of the city to counterattack!
You asked me to launch an offensive from the north to the south. Do you want to use flying ladders, light ladders, trench bridge carts, rams and digging wooden donkeys just to hope to break through the wall? "

Regarding this difficulty, Zhang Cunren could not deny it, but he said generously that there was really no way, but the Qing army had no choice.

The reason why Yan Yingyuan didn't build triangular forts in these places was that there were indeed difficulties, and he also knew that it would be difficult for the Qing army to attack from these mountainous areas. The pros and cons are equal to both sides.

If they have studied the history of the Japanese 30 years ago, they will also know that Sanada Yukimura only repaired the Sanada Maru in the south of Osaka, and did not repair the other three sides, because the other three sides are not easy to attack.

A position that can avoid the defensive focus of the defenders must be inherently flawed.

Duoduo weighed it over and over again, and found that he had no choice, so he agreed to this arrangement.The Qing army in the north-south direction was abolished part of its martial arts and banned some heavy equipment that was difficult to deploy, so it was recognized.

Then, he shifted his attention back to what Zhang Cunren said, "use other methods to slowly pull out the triangular fortresses in the west of the city", and wanted to ask what is the specific method.

Zhang Cunren obviously thought about it in advance, pointing to the terrain in the distance and explaining: "My lord, these triangular forts are all made of solid rammed earth, so they won't collapse, so we have to find a way to hollow out the foundation and let them collapse by themselves.

Since ancient times, the most feared thing in attacking a city through tunnels is to be discovered by the defenders in advance, and then dig long trenches inside the city wall to cut off the exit of the tunnel.But this time we are just looking to dig to the bottom of these triangular forts. First, use a large number of wooden pillars to support them, hollow out some heights, and then burn the wooden pillars. We can even spend some money and finally bury more gunpowder.

In the end, the foundations collapsed, and these triangular forts sank. As long as they sink a few feet, or even a foot, to ensure that the top forts are destroyed and cannot be repaired temporarily, our army can take the opportunity to press on and launch a general attack on the city wall behind.

And this kind of tunnel collapse siege method, because it didn't expect to dig into the inner side of the city wall from the beginning, it just focused on creating a collapse, so naturally it didn't worry that the defenders in the city would dig deep and cut off the exit.It's just that it takes a long time, so it needs to attack from the north and the south, and use a multi-pronged approach to try to make the defenders make mistakes in chaos, whichever side succeeds first. "

Duoduo rolled his eyes and admitted that Zhang Cunren did have an idea, and that one of the biggest shortcomings of the tunnel siege had indeed been circumvented in this environment.

However, Duoduo is also a good soldier, and he also knows that the shortcoming of tunnel siege is far more than this one, and there is a second biggest and very important shortcoming, that is, tunnels are very afraid of groundwater.

Duoduo closed his eyes and thought for a while, then suddenly opened them: "Have you ever thought about it? We have been in Hebei and Liaodong for a long time. The land in Hebei is soft and dry. Since ancient times, the Hebei army has been good at caves. In "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, Gongsun Zan will be.

But the south of the Yangtze River is muddy and watery, especially around Jiangyin, where Yan Yingyuan just dug a canal and flooded the land. But if you dig a few feet down, can you be sure that there won't be a lot of water seeping in? "

"This..." Zhang Cunren took a slight breath, realizing that the problem was indeed serious, and after some weighing, he could only adjust the details:

"Then we can only dig a little shallower and shorter at the same time. We only dig one or two hundred steps outside these triangular fortresses, so as to ensure that we can dig under the triangular fort within two hundred steps. Moreover, our kind of tunnel digging is not unusual. The tunnels in the city need to be covered up. We can dig them openly, and use the excavated mounds to form a bunker at the entrance of the tunnel to protect the entrance.

Such a short distance, even if there is water seepage, the big deal is to arrange soldiers to get some stones to plug the big water seepage as much as possible, and then use water tanks to carry the drainage. We have tens of thousands of troops, don’t we have manpower to drain water? "

Duoduo thought about it again, and felt that it was indeed feasible, because their tunnels do not need to consider the issue of secrecy, and digging openly can save a lot of distance.

Then the last remaining question is time.This project will delay the siege party for many days, it is estimated that it will be at least ten days.In the past ten days, they could only shoot at the Ming army head-on, so they had to rely on the north and south wings to find opportunities.

"That's all, let's follow this argument and give it another go!"

……

After the Qing army officially decided on a new general offensive strategy, of course they did not dare to delay for a moment, and immediately reorganized a strong offensive.

It took time to dig tunnels in the west of the city to break through the triangular forts, so the main soldiers of the Qing army gathered in the north and south, especially in the north of the city.In just a few days, the Qing army assembled a large number of flying ladders, more than a dozen light ladders, as well as dozens of trench bridge vehicles and wood donkeys for digging the city, allowing the heavily armored soldiers to climb first and launch a strong attack.

The so-called "light ladder", the specific standard is to see whether these equipment can pass through the rugged and muddy areas, transfer and deploy to the north of the city, and those that cannot be pushed over the rugged by human beings, or are too heavy to be pushed out if they are stuck in the mud The equipment can only be discarded, and the upper limit of all sizes and tonnages is limited to "it can be pushed out of the mud pit".This undoubtedly restricted the performance of the Qing army.

For the same reason, the Qing army could not deploy heavy Hongyi cannons on the northern line. In terms of supporting artillery fire, they could only use those three to five hundred catty Francophones. come out.

In the absence of heavy artillery, the Qing army could only use a large number of traditional bows and arrows to hold rattan shields and temporarily build thick wooden formations. They stepped forward and released arrows to cover the ascent of the city.

However, muskets were not valued in the Qing army, and gunpowder had to be saved to make way for cannons and tunnels to bury gunpowder blasting. Most of the only muskets were sealed up for use by the Qing army.

Yan Yingyuan himself learned that the north of the city had become the new main direction of attack, and he personally led a team to the north of the city to reinforce and supervise the battle.

Although the Ming army was small in Jiangyin City, it had a large population.In particular, it has absorbed refugees from Wujin County and other places who escaped from the shaving order, as well as refugees from surrounding Wuxi County and other places who migrated due to flooded fields, so there are more than [-] strong men in the city!

And don't think this number is exaggerated, because in history, when Yan Yingyuan and others revolted against the Qing Dynasty in Jiangyin, there were more than 20 males gathered in historical records.Now he has absorbed more people than in the same period in history, and the preparation time is longer. Excluding the old, young, sick and disabled, it is not surprising that the young and old can make up more than 20 people.

Because of the hatred for the hair-shaving order, and Yan Yingyuan's prestige in his hometown in Jiangyin, he went out to follow Zhu Shuren as an official to fight against the enemy for several years, and his prestige was even higher.More than [-] strong men were eager to help defend the city. Under the united will, the number of Han people participating in the battle reached three times the total number of the Qing army on the opposite side!
Although the more than [-] strong men have no military skills, and discipline has only been intensively practiced by Yan Yingyuan for less than half a month. Before that, they only helped repair the city defense.However, with such a large number of people, everyone is bravely willing to fill the gaps of casualties and comrades-in-arms, which still makes the Qing army miserable.

The generals Duoduo sent to be in charge of the siege battlefield in the north of the city were mainly Gushan Beizi Shangshan and his younger brothers.Shang Shan is the legitimate son of Fei Yangwu, Duke of Qingzhen, and he inherited his title. He is only in his twenties now. His younger brother Fu Lata and others are also known for their bravery and fearlessness.

On the third day after the siege began, when Shang Shan led his troops to attack, after suffering extremely heavy casualties, he finally found that the guards at the head of the Ming army seemed to be loose. onslaught.

Seeing this, Fu Lata also asked his second brother for orders, willing to personally supervise the battle and ascend the city.Shang Shan told his fifth brother to be careful, so Fu Lata put on three sets of fine iron-tie cotton armor, and then brought a whole armored Manchu warrior, each wearing two sets of iron-tie cotton armor, and began to climb the city.The archers of the Qing army next to them were also fully fired, ignoring concealment, throwing all their strength at the top of the city to share the pressure for the first warriors.

Fu Lata is also considered a brave man of the Manchurians. When he ascended the city, he had two swords hanging from his waist and two swords in his back. He was wearing triple armor, and there were guards holding heavy shields to help him open the way, vowing to cover his master to the death.

The Ming army at the top of the city saw that the new Qing army's heavy armor was so strong that it could not be pierced by a single bullet from a musket, let alone a crossbow bolt, so they hurriedly mobilized gray bottles of gold juice and poured it down crazily.

For a while, the Manchu soldiers suffered quite a lot of casualties. Many soldiers were injured in their heads, faces and eyes.

Only the road led by Fu Lata himself was covered by the iron shield of the offending elite warriors, and the golden juice in the gray bottle could not penetrate. Fortunately, Jiangyin is an important shipbuilding town in the south of the Yangtze River, and there are a lot of tung oil reserves for ships to waterproof and hemp. Yan Yingyuan After noticing the danger here, he asked the soldiers to quickly replenish the hot tung oil pan to this gap.

It's a pity that the deployment of reinforcements for the tung oil pot was still a bit slow. Although the soldiers put out their upper bodies and poured the oil pot down regardless of life and death after being transferred, they actually scalded to death several warriors from the Manchurian army, but they were still taken by the leader of the Manchurians. The dead man successfully went to the city.

As for the strong man who directly leaned out of the city wall to pour oil, he was naturally shot directly into a hedgehog by the rain of arrows from the Qing army below, and fell to the wall wailing.However, the soldiers of the Ming army were not afraid of death. The Paoze partner who died in the battle still took the empty oil pan and continued to fill the oil to prepare for another battle.

After Fu Lata went up to the wall, more than a dozen of the most elite dead guards around him also slashed wildly. The Ming army stabbed frantically with their spears, but they still couldn't hurt the most elite of the Manchus. Soldiers, especially Fratta himself, are invulnerable with their triple armor.

Fu Lata's two knives were flying, and the sound of slashing and killing was loud. He cut off the two hanging from his waist, and then drew a new knife from his back to fight again.

"Go up and hook their legs! Hook them to the ground first! These people's armor is too thick to wear!" Yan Yingyuan's Dian Shi Chen Mingyu happened to be in charge of the defense of this section of the city wall. Responsibility rushed up.

Regardless of life and death, the warriors of the Ming army used scratching hooks and hooks and sickle guns to attack the Manchu dead soldiers in Xiasanlu one after another, taking advantage of their inconvenient turning around to hook several people down, and this process was naturally very dangerous. His own stature is too low, and he is not easy to block. While hooking the enemy, he was also hacked to death by the dead soldiers.

However, Yan Yingyuan was extremely motivated. Even if his soldiers saw their comrades die tragically, they would still pick up the scratching hook and continue hooking.

Immediately after the hook fell, there were civilians and ordinary soldiers who were throwing rolling logs and rocks. Even if they rushed up with a big rock and smashed it at close range, they would greet the fallen Manchu dead soldiers.

Fu Lata himself slashed with two knives and killed four Ming soldiers who scratched the hook with his own hands. In the end, he was defeated and fell, and he killed three Ming soldiers who wanted to rush forward. Even though Min Zhuang was dead, the stone in his hand continued to go unabated, and fell heavily along with the corpse, hitting Fu Lata heavily.

Fu Lata was hit in the abdomen and chest by two stones one after another, and immediately vomited and spurted blood, and stabbed the third stone-throwing Minzhuang to death, but because the sharp blade directly penetrated the dead man's body completely, he failed to stop the dead man from rushing forward. Inertia, the deceased fine-tuned the flexion and extension of his arms by relying on the last nerve reflex. When the corpse fell down, the stones held by both arms were just swung on Fratta's head by the leverage inertia.

"Pfft——" Fratta's brains splashed out from the gap in the double helmet, and finally, the Ming army's raging hook repeatedly stabbed the gap in the neck guard of his helmet repeatedly, making his throat bloody and bloody. The human head was violently hooked off by the roar of the hundred spears.

The heavily armored confidant soldiers brought by Fu Lata were also killed one by one in the Ming army's fearless counterattack.

Half a quarter of an hour later, as the first attempt by the Qing army collapsed, Gushan Beizi Shangshan almost fainted from crying on the battlefield. He had already learned that his fifth younger brother was smashed into flesh by the Ming army. Rotten heads.

(End of this chapter)