scourge the qing dynasty

Chapter 201 The Battle of Wuchang

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At the beginning, when the fire and help signal agreed on the Wuchang South Gate tower, Tu Hai, Yue Le and other Qing army coaches who were struggling under the fierce artillery fire of the Wu army could not believe what they said, thinking that Cai Yurong had sent the wrong signal or made a wrong judgment. The enemy's situation was wrong-nearly a hundred artillery pieces of the Wu army were raging and roaring here, and the main force of the Wu army was also waiting in line behind the artillery array. How could there be an emergency at the south gate?Could it be that Cai Yurong's waste has reached the point of no return, and seven or eight thousand troops plus a solid city defense can't stop Wu's partial division from attacking the city?
The sound of explosions and the sound of the city wall collapsing from the city wall of the south gate, as well as the sudden igniting of torches all over the mountains and plains outside the south gate of Wuchang, finally woke up Tu Hai, Yue Le and others, and they also screamed, " It's a trick! Wu Gou's main force is in the south, and our side is a feint!"

"Damn it! Is it a vile idea conceived by that savage? Take hundreds of cannons and tunnels to make a feint, it's a shame he's willing to spend the money!"

It was too late for the main defenders concentrated at the east gate to wake up. Although the reserve team led by Belle Tsani rushed to the scene to rescue them as quickly as possible, the two teams of the Wu army, Wu Yingqi and Ma Bao, had already recovered from the collapsed city wall. The two unlucky wretches Wu Yingqi and Ma Bao, who had been scolded countless times by the old man Wu because of the unfavorable siege of the city some time ago, took the opportunity to vent the anger they had received before, and brought the soldiers of the Wu army to meet everyone. Killing, chopping when encountering the enemy, and constantly throwing nitrocellulose grenades one after another, which made the Qing army guards cry and howl, and also killed the panicked Qing soldiers. Not to mention blocking the gap, so that Wu Jun's follow-up troops could not enter the city.

"Brothers, let me kill you!" Wu Yingqi yelled, "Take Wuchang, enjoy yourself in the inner city for three days, rob money, food and wives, kill!"

"Brothers, the prince has given an order to take down Wuchang City. Everything in the inner city belongs to us. Kill it!"

The voice of Ma Bao shouting is even worse than that of Wu Yingqi, and the soldiers of the Wu army behind him are also screaming. It is constantly retreating towards the inner city of Wuchang, while the Wu army brigade behind is like a flood, pouring into the city along the gap in the city wall, quickly controlling half a block in the south gate of Wuchang, and moving towards the remnants of the Qing Dynasty above the city wall. The defenders launched a strong attack to establish a solid advance base for the main force of the Wu army to enter the city.

The Qing army is not a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. After finally recovering from the panic and chaos of the collapse of the city wall, both Cai Yurong and Chani saw a glimmer of hope-although the Wu army blew up two small gaps and one on the Wuchang city wall. There is a big gap, but there are still not many Wu troops who can quickly enter the city. At the same time, the strength of the Qing army is still there. As long as they can quickly concentrate their forces and drive the Wu army out of the city again, then there is still hope for Wuchang City!

After discovering this, Cai Yurong and Chani unanimously sent people to ask for help from the main force of the East Gate, and quickly organized a team together to launch a counterattack against the Wu army's forward.As a result, the battle inside the South Gate of Wuchang quickly became intense. Soldiers from both sides collided desperately under the light of weak torches and lanterns. , Every foot and every step has to pay the price of blood to fight for it. Although Wu Jun has psychological and weapon advantages, he is still making slow progress in front of the red-eyed resisting Qing army, and he has never been able to further expand the controlled area.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" In order to disperse the enemy's resistance troops as soon as possible, Wu Yingqi had a rare brainstorm and gathered the grenades in the team and threw them together. Amid the continuous explosions, half of the Qing soldiers on the street were almost killed After sweeping away, Wu Jun took the opportunity to charge forward, and Cai Yurong, the old traitor Cai Yurong who was commanding behind him, his eyes were red, and he yelled frantically: "Brothers, the city is alive, and the city is dead! Let me go!" The Qing army led by Cai Lin The army elites agreed in unison, shouted and rushed up again, entangled with Wu Jun's charge team again.

In the dark night, the streets and houses near the South Gate of Wuchang completely turned into a Shura battlefield. The Wu army with high morale rushed and fought fiercely. The Qing army, who was familiar with the terrain and had a superior number, resisted desperately, and gradually competed with the Wu army for control of the area. , The sounds of shouts, screams, and sword collisions merged into one, and the sound spread all over the field, enough for the whole city of Wuchang to hear clearly.In order to move forward, soldiers of the Wu army had to kill two or three enemies before they could step forward. However, at least one or two soldiers of the Wu army had to sacrifice their precious lives. It was stained red with flesh and blood, and the air was filled with the stench of blood and charred corpses, making people want to vomit.

After all, the Qing army was fighting on the inside, and the mobilization of troops was much easier than that of the Wu army. Cai Yurong and Chani desperately blocked the Wu army's charge, and after gaining an incomparably precious time, Zhou Bangning, the Henan general, also arrived with tens of thousands of Qing troops. Nanmen joined the battlefield and quickly stabilized the Qing army's position. At the same time, they counterattacked and regained many battlefields that were snatched by the Wu army.Seeing that the situation was not good, Wu Yingqi had no choice but to bite the bullet and ask for help from the rear, asking the old traitor Wu to send reinforcements to support him.

After Wu Yingqi's rescue messenger hurried back to the Wu army banner to report the letter, the old traitor Wu first scolded a trash, then raised his head and asked, "Who wants to enter the city to fight street fighting? Open the way for the main force of the king?"

"Grandfather, grandson-in-law is willing to go." Fatty Lu couldn't wait to jump out first.

The grandson-in-law was so upbeat, the old traitor Wu was naturally very satisfied, and immediately nodded in agreement. When Fatty Lu was about to go down to form a team, he never thought that Hu Guozhu would suddenly stand up and stop him: "Yifeng, you can't go in person. If there is no accident, you will be full of dogs." It is very likely that someone will be sent to negotiate over there, and it will be more beneficial for us if you stay to participate in the negotiation."

"Then I'll let Li Tianzhi and Line Yuxuan lead the army, is that okay?" Fatty Lu asked helplessly.

"It's not that uncle doesn't want you to make meritorious service." Hu Guozhu continued to shake his head, and said seriously: "Your army has never fought such a street battle, and it will be difficult to break the deadlock if you send it in. It will only be a waste of troops."

After finishing speaking, Hu Guozhu turned to old traitor Wu and said, "Father-in-law, the most important thing right now is to break the deadlock as soon as possible so that the main force of our army can enter the city. My son-in-law suggests dispatching the elite infantry soldiers that we put at the bottom of the box, and send them to the second general." A batch of grenades went in to help them disperse the dog-man defenders around the south gate!"

The old traitor Wu was even more satisfied when he heard that, and immediately ordered the Yi general of the Wu army, A Rong, to lead four thousand soldiers to dispatch, and also asked the Firearms Battalion to send two thousand grenades to Wu Yingqi and others so that they could kill the enemy in street fighting.Although Fatty Lu's act of grabbing merit was prevented, he was not dissatisfied. On the contrary, he secretly admired Hu Guozhu-at present, the Wu army's infantry has not gained a stable foothold in Wuchang City. Be sure to break the deadlock as soon as possible.

"It seems that I have to learn more about commanding in the future." Fatty Lu muttered in his heart, "Only by rationally matching arms and rationally using ace troops can we win the greatest victory at the smallest cost."

Sure enough, when the Wu army's No. [-] trump card in infantry battles joined the battlefield, the Wu army immediately regained its footing and pushed the Qing army's defense line back again. The Qing army soldiers who were suffering were very timid and screamed: "Crazy! Those crazy guys are coming again! Brothers, be careful, Wu Gou's lunatic soldiers are coming again!"

It cannot be blamed for the cowardice of the soldiers of the Qing army. The key is that the Wu army, which is composed of all daredevil warriors, is too terrifying. On the battlefield, they don't know what it means to be afraid, let alone what it means to run away. The only thing I know is to rush into the densest place of the enemy, slashing and smashing the huge sword like crazy, even the soldiers of the Qing army are fearless with their swords and guns, in order to chop the huge sword weighing tens of kilograms in their hands. On the enemy's head, the moves are all of the same style.

The soldiers of the Qing army were not afraid of death, but the soldiers of the Qing army were afraid of death. Almost every soldier of the Qing army would immediately have an idea when seeing these demons wrapped in white cloths - run away!Get as far away from these demons as possible!Otherwise, these white-headed demons will rush in like lunatics, swing their giant swords that can easily smash people's heads, and slaughter like Shura descending to the earth, even if the blood is all over the body. Let it go, don't let go until you kill everyone in front of you!With timidity, the Qing army's street fighting defense line collapsed quickly, and the Wu army occupied two long streets in one go, and the follow-up troops were able to march into the city in an endless stream, gradually reversing the strength of the street fighting.

At this time, the engineers and soldiers of the Wu army, who were not distracted, had already taken the opportunity to dig two more holes in the city wall of Wuchang, filled them with explosives and blew up the city wall. After two loud noises, another section of the city wall half a mile long fell to the ground. The Yangyuan Department cheered and rushed into the city together, killing the dizzy and unprepared Qing army defenders. The follow-up troops of the Wu Army entered the city one by one, and gradually joined forces with Wu Yingqi and Ma Baobu, who entered the city before, and basically controlled the vicinity of the south gate of Wuchang. street.So far, the Wuchang South Gate defense line has completely fallen, and it is a foregone conclusion!

If it had been replaced by another city, with the walls of the south gate collapsing one after another and the enemy troops frantically pouring into the city, generals of the Qing army such as Tu Hai and Yue Le would have already issued orders to abandon the city and retreat—of course, street fighting in the city could wipe out a large number of enemies , but the casualties of the self-army are definitely not that small. Such casualties are absolutely unbearable pain for the Qing army, which has lost all its elite!
It stands to reason that we should retreat and abandon the defense, but the problem is that this is Wuchang City, which is not only the main hub of the Qing army's Yangtze River defense line, but also the only first important town with an inner city in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. What about the mite lords, wives, misses, and brats in the city?And what about the gold and silver treasures they looted from the people of all ethnic groups in China?Stay here and let the wolves of Pingxi Palace starve to death?grab?ride?

What's more terrible is that the land to the east and south of Wuchang has been heavily surrounded by the Wu army. Although the waterways to the north and west are still under the control of the Qing army navy, the only way to retreat to the north bank of the Yangtze River is by boat. , How many soldiers and civilians can the warships of the Qing army navy carry across the river at one time?The Yunnan-Guizhou army, which always likes to take advantage of the fire, will watch the Qing army's navy cross the river and ignore it?Is there such a good thing in the world?
Given the critical situation of a dilemma, the Qing army had no choice but to make three preparations. One was to fight desperately to resist, delaying the speed of the Wu army's attack on the inner city; First, the navy warships carried these mite Qing nobles across the river to flee for their lives; the third thing is to quickly send envoys to get in touch with Wu Jun and ask Wu Jun to hold truce negotiations overnight.

The fourth watch is about to expire, and the Wu army has basically controlled the southern part of the outer city of Wuchang. The elite Wu army who had been waiting all night also entered the city one after another. street fighting.At this time, Ye Bilong, Zhe Erken and Fu Dali also came to Baishazhou by boat from Shuimen with a white flag, and started the third truce with Wu army negotiators such as Hu Guozhu, Lu Fatzi and Fang Xueshi who had been waiting here for a long time. negotiation.

Because of the distance and the strength of the Wu army, it is impossible not to station troops within three miles of Baishazhou. Fatty Lu's smug smile is still so hateful and dirty, but Ye Bilong, Zheerken and others don't care about it. After worrying about so many details, even the soldiers of the Wu army deliberately arranged their seats in the south, and Ye Bilong and the others sat down obediently without complaint.After sitting down, Ye Bilong just couldn't wait to say: "General Jinwu, this time I came to negotiate with your army with 12 points of sincerity, and hope that your army can stop attacking immediately and withdraw from Wuchang City, so that this old man can feel at ease with your army." military negotiations."

"Yi Zhongtang, do you think it is possible?" Hu Guozhu asked slowly: "If our Pingxi Palace does not break through the Wuchang city wall, can you come here obediently and ask for negotiations, Mr. Zhongtang? If we stop the attack and withdraw from Wuchang City, your army will take the opportunity Repair the city wall and reorganize the defense line, will you, old man in Ye Zhongtang, stay to negotiate?"

The three of Ye Bilong were silent, with depressed expressions, while Fatty Lu smiled triumphantly: "Yi Zhongtang, you should thank the lower officials, right? If the lower officials hadn't reminded you, would you still think of negotiating and seeking peace?"

Ye Bilong really thanked Fatty Lu very much—thank you so much that he wanted to strangle Fatty Lu to death!But now that the situation is critical, Ye Bilong didn't bother to argue with Fatty Lu. He just sat up straight and said solemnly: "General Jinwu, after careful consideration, this old man has decided to change the compensation standard of your army to 200 million taels of military salary, food and grass. 50 shi, and 50 taels of silver to redeem our prisoners of war, unconditionally return Pingxi’s daughter-in-law and second grandson, and unconditionally hand over the whole family of the old thief Oboi who killed Pingxi’s son.”

"However, your army must immediately stop the attack and withdraw from Wuchang City! As for the specific provinces that Prince Pingxi is also in charge of, we can discuss it slowly."

"Yifeng, learn poetry, let's go." Hu Guozhu stood up, yawned and said, "Ye Zhongtang still doesn't have the sincerity to negotiate, let's go first, after we capture the outer city of Wuchang, and then surround the inner city of Wuchang, It will not be too late to negotiate with Ye Zhongtang who has shown sincerity."

"General Jinwu, why is this old man not sincere in negotiating?" Ye Bilong panicked, got up and grabbed Hu Guozhu's sleeve, and asked as if begging: "General Jinwu, if you feel that this old man is not doing enough, please point it out bluntly." That’s it, why bother?”

"Yi Zhongtang, at this point in the matter, you still imagine buying vegetables in a vegetable market, bargaining with our Pingxi Palace for a penny. Isn't this a sign of no sincerity in the negotiation?" Hu Guozhu asked with a sneer.

"Then you can ask for a price!" Ye Bilong begged: "This old man is asking for a price, General Jin Wu, you can pay back the money, why bother to end the negotiation immediately?"

"Okay then, please listen to Ye Zhongtang." Hu Guozhu said unhurriedly: "Our price is the same as last time, and we will compensate us with 3000 million taels of military salary and 300 million shi for food and grass , the prisoners of war were redeemed with 500 million taels of silver, and the Pingxi Palace also managed the four provinces of Sichuan, Guangxi, Pianyuan, and Huguang. All military and political rights were owned by the Pingxi Palace. Grandson, unconditionally hand over the whole family of the murderer who killed our Pingxi Prince's son."

"In addition, we now have another new condition, that is, all the troops in Wuchang City lay down their weapons and live in our prisoner-of-war camp with the bannermen in Wuchang's inner city. Release. Of course, we will do our best to ensure the safety of the prisoners."

"It's impossible!" Ye Bilong jumped up, and said with a pale face: "It is absolutely impossible for the army in Wuchang to lay down their weapons, and it is impossible for us to pay so much money and food for the army. The annual revenue of the imperial court is only more than 2000 million taels, where can you go and find 500 million taels of silver to give to you? There is also grain and grass, 300 million shi of grain, that is the grain we transported by water for a year in the Qing Dynasty!"

"Yi Zhongtang, I didn't ask you to take out so much all at once." Fatty Lu said with a smile, "You can pay in installments. You can pay [-]% first, and the remaining [-]% ​​can be paid next year."

"Furthermore." Fatty Lu couldn't help gritting his teeth and added, "The price we asked for is also very generous. At least, we didn't ask you for military compensation of 5000 million taels or [-] million taels of silver, did we? Didn't you ask you to dedicate the whole of Siberia?"

Ye Bilong's face became even paler, and he sat down slowly. After bowing his head and thinking for a long time, Ye Bilong said tremblingly: "General Jinwu, military pay and food can be discussed, and the provinces that Prince Pingxi also manages can also be discussed, but we The army must not lay down their weapons, and Huguang must not let the prince take care of it."

"The old man proposes that with the boundary of Wuchang Mansion as the border, Pianyuan in the south can be managed by Prince Pingxi, but your army must immediately stop attacking and withdraw from Wuchang Mansion! As long as your army agrees, you can negotiate about military pay and food! "

"Absolutely not! We don't want to sleep in Pianyuan without daring to close our eyes." Hu Guozhu is not like his father-in-law, old man Wu, who is short-sighted in strategy, and resolutely shook his head: "We can give up the state capital north of Wuchang, but The army and bannermen surrounded by us in Wuchang Mansion and Wuchang City must surrender, and you will release them to cross the river after you hand over the military pay and food you promised to us."

"This is also our final limit, please stop haggling!"

"This..." Ye Bilong covered his face with his hands, climbed on the table and thought for a long time, finally he still couldn't make up his mind, he just said hesitantly: "Please allow me to think about it again."

"Then Ye Zhongtang, please think carefully. After Ye Zhongtang has considered it, you can ask us to re-negotiate at any time. We are waiting for you at any time." Hu Guozhu nodded, and pointed to the direction of Wuchang City in the northeast, which was full of murder, and said with a smile: "But I have to remind Ye Zhongtang, now in Wuchang City, soldiers of your army are dying on the battlefield every moment, if Ye Zhongtang thinks about it for too long, the casualties of your soldiers may not be a small number .”

Ye Bilong didn't speak, but closed his eyes and calculated nervously. Fatty Lu smiled again and said, "Yi Zhongtang, by the way, if your army wants to escape by water, don't even think about it. Our airship is already loading. The ammunition is ready to go, and when it dawns, our airship flies to the pier, and a few cluster bombs are thrown down, the casualties of your army will not be ordinary."

Ye Bilong opened his eyes suddenly, glared at Fatty Lu with resentment, then turned to Hu Guozhu and asked, "General Jinwu, I have a personal question, I hope General Jinwu can answer it truthfully."

Hu Guozhu nodded, and Ye Bilong then asked: "May I ask General Jinwu, who came up with your army's wonderful siege tactic yesterday evening? I am very interested and would like to know about this expert's strategy." name."

"It's far away in the sky, but it's close in front of you." Hu Guozhu smiled, pointed at Fatty Lu casually, and said with a smile, "That's him."

"What?" Ye Bilong, Zhe Erken and the others all jumped up, staring at Fatty Lu dumbfounded, they couldn't think of anything, the fat man with a deer head and mouse eyes and mean eyes was actually the chief culprit of Wu Jun's attack on Wuchang City. The culprit is evil!
"Yi Zhongtang, don't blame me." Fatty Lu said with a wry smile, "Just like what a person from the Pingnan Palace I captured said, everyone is their own master."

"Sure enough, a hero born a boy." Ye Bilong sat down weakly, as if suddenly aged ten years, and murmured to himself: "You have modified the tactic of attacking the city pioneered by the great ancestor of the Qing Dynasty. Come to attack our important town in the Qing Dynasty, Grandpa Taizu knows, what kind of reaction will he have?"

(End of this chapter)