The sun never sets in the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 743
Whenever he sees that the internal exercises he has put his heart and soul into have formed an army, although there are only 500 people, Wang Chengen always feels that he has a sense of accomplishment.

Every time he came to inspect, he had to lecture and encourage the internal military to train hard, and this time was no exception.

He said in a high-pitched voice: "Men in the army robes, our family is very happy to see that you are making progress every day. We are all people in the palace, and the Holy Son of Heaven is our only reliance. Serve the country as faithfully as Yue Wumu.”

These preferred eunuchs were not bad, and they shouted loudly together: "Serve the country with loyalty, and serve the country after death, and serve the country with loyalty, and only after death..."

The eighteen female instructors looked at these eunuchs with enthusiasm, and felt that their efforts were not in vain.

Originally, Wang Chengen planned to train [-] to [-] domestic troops, but unfortunately, the internal funds were exhausted. To maintain the food, equipment, salary and training expenses of the [-] internal troops would require no less than [-] silver coins per year. No.

After practice, Wang Chengen finally realized that training elite soldiers was too expensive a job, and he understood why many Ming troops had no combat effectiveness at all.

In the first month of the 14th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng took Luoyang with high spirits, but the harvest was far from what he expected, and the robbers felt uncomfortable with too little robbing.

The heads of the thieves sat down to discuss where to grab the next one?

The thieves believed that most of the local tyrants and squires in the counties and counties of Henan should flee to Kaifeng with their treasures, and the next step is to take this big city to have a good harvest.

Song Xiance, who looked like a dwarf, shook his head and told the history of Kaifeng to many illiterate leaders of the thief department. The thieves finally knew that there was once Bianliang City in Tokyo, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, and they all became excited.

The bosses began to launch propaganda to confuse the minions to go to Bianliang, Tokyo to grab gold and silver treasures, and the beauties who sleep delicately, and if they are lucky, they may also sleep with a fragrant princess and princess.

Many old gangsters with their mouths open showing their yellow teeth, and their bodies exuding a foul smell left their halazi behind, sleeping until the temptation of beautiful girls like princesses and princesses made their lower bodies feverish.

Soon the bandit soldiers who were in a state of excitement moved all over the mountains and plains to Kaifeng. They spread like locusts, and all the families they passed lost their ability to survive.

The dignitaries and landlords headed by the King of Zhou are of course at odds with the burglars who are good at robbery. Kaifeng is not only the residence of King Zhou’s vassal, but also one of the few remaining heavy cities and giant towns in Henan. The choice of Kaifeng is related to Zhongzhou. general trend.

The king of Zhou knew that the imperial court had no money and food to allocate, so he paid for the construction of Kaifeng City to prevent the rogues from seizing the city.

In February of the 14th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng led an army to surround Kaifeng, claiming to have 2 troops, and besieged the city for seven days and nights.In fact, there are only about [-] elite bandits, and most of the rest are civilians who were coerced.

Li Xianfeng, governor of Kaifeng City, had a capable frontier army in his hand, and the chief general Shanxi General Hu Dawei was also a fierce man, with thousands of soldiers from Yulin under his command.

Li Zicheng used Song Xiance's trick of attacking east and west to attract more than [-] troops from Li Xianfeng's Fubiao battalion and Hu Dawei's main battalion. He led the army to rush northward to open Fengxiguan.

But the fortified city of Kaifeng was difficult to attack, and the trespassers fought fiercely for seven days and seven nights without any bargain.

Chen Yongfu, the deputy general of the Kaifeng City Defenders, found that Li Zicheng personally led the troops to charge, and led his nephews and personal troops to gather strong bows and shoot arrows from a long distance.

The unlucky intruder was shot in the left eye by a stray arrow. Fortunately, the distance was too far, and the strength of the arrow had already failed. The intruder only lost one eye and became one-eyed Li, which was fine.

One-eyed Li, who was frustrated in the attack, got a report. Xiong Wencan led the three-way army and a total of more than [-] reinforcements were approaching. Knowing that the deceived Li Xianfeng and Hu Dawei's troops also began to quickly return to defense, and they were not far from the closed city. Knowing that there was nothing to be done, he was afraid of being surrounded by the Ming army and decisively abandoned the siege.

The one-eyed Li, who is not dead, has always been thinking about Kaifeng. After he captured the city in the Central Plains for a few months, his force doubled again.

The bandits thought they were strong enough and surrounded Kaifeng again in December of the same year, this time doubling their numbers to 20.

After a year or so of rogue career, many simple peasants have gradually turned into old bandits, and there are many more elite thieves, now there are [-] to [-].

Li Duyan learned the lessons of the last siege, and strengthened the coordination of troops and firepower.

It is also because he took down many prefectures and counties in the Central Plains, wiped out many local armed forces that tried to protect themselves, and obtained a lot of artillery, firecrackers, and gunpowder.

The thief department captured many gunners and musketeers armed by the Ming army and landlords, and it became possible to attack the city by shelling the city and covering the common people with three-stage fire guns.

The Kaifeng defenders resisted desperately, and the civil and military officials urgently mobilized the young and strong men in the city to join the battle.

This time the main general who defended Kaifeng was Li Zhongzheng. In order to encourage the soldiers and civilians to never surrender, he imitated Tian Dan's method of sticking to Jimo during the Warring States Period, and fabricated leaflets for rogue bandits and spread them widely among the soldiers and civilians in Kaifeng.

Rumors spread quickly, and the soldiers and civilians guarding the city learned that the intruders were vicious, and planned to "attack Kaifeng and break it, leaving no one behind. Even the broom head will have to be chopped three times."

Knowing that everyone will die if the city breaks down, the soldiers and civilians are desperate, and the virtuous King Zhu Gongyan of Zhou is not a miser. two.

The burglars' siege is a human sea battle, and the deployment of equipment and troops is out of order. The artillery is also shot indiscriminately. The quality of the firearms is too poor, and the range and accuracy are not reliable.

The guards and civilians sprayed fierce kerosene from the kerosene tank and threw torches. The thieves were burnt to death. There was nothing wrong with it. Li Duyan tossed outside the city for nearly a month and gave up Kaifeng again in desperation to find soft persimmons.

The second intruder failed to open Fengfeng, but although Kaifeng City was rescued, it was already shattered.

It's not that silver and other precious metals are gone. These things always exist, but they just keep changing owners.

It was a shortage of food, and there were hundreds of thousands of people who fled into the city to avoid military disasters. It was the middle of winter, and the common people were suffering unspeakably from hunger and cold.

Li Zhongzheng, Zhang Xiushen, etc. civil and military learned from the "God of War" to do food rations, and set an example by themselves to eat chaff and swallow vegetables with the soldiers and civilians, so that they barely let the people starve to death.

In the first month of the following year, Kaifeng did not wait for the relief food from the court, but Chongzhen issued an edict to praise Zhou Wang.

For example, "...the gods of the high emperor sympathized with the descendants of the clan's clan Weicheng Mogu, and enlightened the king's heart and gave him blessings..." Such sentences are already highly praised.

But at this time, ordinary people don't need beautiful words, they just need a bowl of hot porridge...

(End of this chapter)