scourge the qing dynasty

Chapter 405 Attacking Qingdu

On the first day of July, fifty Hongyi heavy cannons and 120 sub-cannons were transported to the city of Beijing, and they were lined up three miles away from Chaoyangmen. The traitor is still the usual taciturn person, with his eyelids shrugged as if he is not awake, but from his unusually careful attitude of personally checking and checking each cannon, it can be seen that this hardcore old traitor is already too excited. Freed up, the skinny old hand who calculated the abacus trembled slightly with nervousness when calculating the ruler.

Jiexuan was not the only one who was so excited, and Jiexuan's reaction was quite calm. Countless literati with backbone who volunteered to join the fat army burst into tears on the spot, and some literati cried while telling the formation to wait. The soldiers of the Fat Man Army said that this was the second time that the Han Chinese attacked Beijing, the capital of China, which was occupied by Huawai barbarians. The last time it was Xu Da and Chang Yuchun, this time it was the Fat Man Army. The end of the Yuan Dynasty is over, and this time the Fatty Army breaks through the city of Beijing, it can also be declared that the mite, which is more brutal, vicious and cunning than the Yuan Dynasty, is finished, and every soldier of the Fatty Army who participated in the siege will be remembered forever .

Driven and brainwashed by these traitorous literati, to be honest, the fat army officers and soldiers who are not highly educated and class conscious are gradually excited and excited. My name and deeds are printed on the book and written on the painting.But it is a pity that the defenders of the Qing army in Beijing did not have the courage to go out to fight in the field. Even after seeing the fat army's artillery transported outside the city for adjustment, no Qing army general and soldier dared to go out of the city to destroy the fat army. This is true of the artillery formation, including Jie Shu.

The artillery calibration is over, and the artillery battle is about to begin. According to Fatty Lu's request and the habit of the Fatty Army, Fatty Lu, who served as the vanguard of the siege, sent two envoys, one Han and one mite, to trot to the foot of Beijing city with a white flag in their hands. He mite language called for surrender and publicized the policy of the Fat Man Army.The Han envoy shouted, "Han compatriots in Beijing, don't blame us for not reminding you in advance that the prince of the Great Zhou Yue has a grand decree. , Keep it for the official position! Dare to follow Man Gou to fight, want to be a hardcore traitor to be buried with Man Gou, catch one and kill one! The whole family will not stay!"

"Brothers of Mizhou in Beijing, you heard me clearly." The messenger of the Miren shouted in ugly language, "Kaicheng surrendered, and the people of Mizhou in Beijing only killed Aixinjueluo, Niu Gulu, The four surnames of Hesheli and Tong Jia! Dare to resist, the people of Mizhou in the city of Beijing will not spare any chickens or dogs!"

The answer to the Fat Army envoy's surrender was, of course, the rain of arrows and bullets that fell overwhelmingly. The two Fat Army envoys fled back in embarrassment with injuries. Since the Han mite soldiers and civilians in Beijing refused to appreciate it, they had long been suffocating to eradicate the mite legacy from Beijing. Fatty Lu and the Fatty Army can also do it freely.Hu Tongchun gave an order, and 170 light and heavy artillery were ignited immediately, and the extremely fierce offensive and defensive battle of Beijing City also kicked off.

In addition to shocking the defenders and shaking the morale of the enemy, the artillery volley of the Fat Army's army also had another important purpose of destroying the fortifications on the city wall of Beijing, especially the Chaoyangmen Tower, which was four stories high and full of arrow holes. The primary target of the heavy artillery is to destroy the enemy. In order to deter the enemy more effectively, the Fat Man Army also used high-precision shells equipped with three good explosives this time. More than half of the 170 shells hit the Chaoyangmen tower accurately, and the earth-shattering explosion sound followed. Echoed on the walls of Beijing.

Amid the deafening explosions, the brick and wood Chaoyangmen tower was struck like an invisible sledgehammer, the bricks, stones and tiles were splashed immediately, the roof was smashed through, the walls were smashed, and the windows were directly smashed through. Now, every arrow hole in the window was spraying flames and smoke. The violent explosion shook the soldiers of the Qing army on the city wall to stand unsteadily. A few shells happened to hit the window of the Tibetan barracks and directly smashed into the room and exploded. Countless flesh and blood spewed out of the window, and the screams of dying made every defending soldier and civilian feel terrified.

The violent shelling continued, and the defenders on the Chaoyang Gate were also in bad luck. The shells of the Fat Man Army fell almost every moment, and they exploded as soon as they hit the ground, blowing up countless Qing soldiers who were caught off guard and had no time to escape. The tall and mighty Chaoyangmen city tower collapsed and crumbled. The soldiers and civilians who defended the city ran for their lives, crying and screaming.

In order to boost morale and suppress the fat army's artillery fire, Jie Shu, who was hiding in the blind spot under the city wall, also ordered the Qing army to gather all the artillery on the city wall, aim at the artillery array of the fat army and fire back. The number is almost equal to that of the Fatty Army, but to Jieshu's despair, the artillery of the Qing Army, no matter in terms of range, rate of fire or shooting accuracy, is not even worthy of carrying the shoes of the Fatty Army Artillery Team. As soon as the twenty or so doors on both sides of the city tower opened fire to expose their positions, they immediately drew full-scale retaliation from the artillery team of the Fat Man Army. One after another, the artillery was blown down the city wall, and one gunner after another was smashed to pieces. Misfiring.As for the cannons on the other city walls, if they want to transport them to Chaoyang Gate to help in the battle, they don't know what year or month it was.

After the twenty or so artillery pieces on Chaoyang Gate were completely destroyed, the defenders of the Qing army had no choice but to fight back. However, the artillery formation of the Fat Man Army exploded more and more fiercely, continuously pouring flowering shells and solid shells onto Chaoyang Gate. Above the defenders, the houses and streets inside Chaoyangmen were almost leveled by the artillery fire. The tall and mighty Chaoyangmen tower was also riddled with holes and almost collapsed. , the entire Chaoyang Gate was shrouded in gunpowder smoke.Jie Shu, who vowed to stick to Beijing, was at a loss what to do, and could only secretly pray for the protection of the mite Qing ancestors, and bless the Fatty Army's ammunition to be finished as soon as possible, so that the shelling would end as soon as possible.

Jie Shu's prayers are doomed to have no effect. Thanks to the blessing of the North, Fatty's main force hardly fired a single shot during the Northern Expedition. The ammunition brought from Nanjing is quite sufficient, and there is also the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. With the benefit of water transportation, the artillery team of the Fat Man Army can let go of their squandering hands and feet. The violent shelling has never ended since noon. A large number of artillery continued to fire, destroying the fortifications on the Chaoyang Gate bit by bit.

Even at night, the artillery of the Fatty Army never stopped, roaring non-stop on the city wall of Chaoyangmen, and at half past three o'clock in the night, the battered Chaoyangmen city tower finally couldn't bear the continuous explosions and its own weight, and roared With a loud noise, it turned into a pile of bricks and tiles, buried countless soldiers and militiamen of the Qing army alive, and the defenders of the Qing army on the Chaoyang Gate also completely lost their hiding places.

Immediately afterwards, the fat army engineer swam across the river under the cover of night, touched the bottom of the city wall of Chaoyangmen, and tried to repeat the trick by digging the city wall to bury explosives. The Jue Cave was filled with torches, and the soldiers were constantly lowered with ropes to patrol under the city wall. The fat army engineer was found just after crossing the river. Immediately, arrows were fired from the city wall, and more than a dozen fat army engineers were shot dead. Fortunately, the fat army engineer Before the explosives could be transported across the river, they retreated immediately when the plan failed, which prevented the precious explosives from being snatched by the Qing army.

The plan of chiseling the wall and bombing the city failed, and the Fat Man Army was not in a hurry. The artillery bombardment did not stop until it was completely bright, and then moved to Dongzhimen in the north under the cover of the Fat Man Infantry Brigade, and went there to bombard the fortifications of Dongzhimen City.In this way, Jie Shu, who has accumulated a lot of battlefield experience, immediately understood that the main attack point of the Fat Man Army must be one of Chaoyangmen and Dongzhimen, so Jieshu had to adjust his plan and deploy a large number of troops in Beijing. The eastern part of the inner city is ready to enter the city wall battlefield to kill the enemy at any time.

It took another day to blow down the Dongzhimen tower and destroy most of the city defenses on the Dongzhimen tower. After receiving the news, Lu Fatty led the main force of the Fatty Army westward and joined Hu Tongchun's forward team. , also set up a camp at the best siege distance of twenty miles away, and began to arrange tactical preparations for attacking Beijing.

Considering the difficulty of attacking the city with portable ladders at the height of four feet of the city wall, Fatty Lu rejected the suggestion of a group of fierce generals attacking the city immediately. The bridges over the gate and Dongzhimen moat only allow one ladder car to pass at a time. The ladder car is easily destroyed by the defenders and the siege fails. At the same time, the moat in Beijing is quite abnormal and difficult to fill.Therefore, Fatty Lu had to decide to adopt multiple tactics to attack the city. One is to build floating bridges to speed up the river crossing speed of the siege team; the other is to use ladder vehicles, flying ladders and simple siege tables together; Protect the archers and musketeers, concentrate artillery fire, bows, and muskets to cover the siege team, cover the battlefield with artillery fire, and increase the odds of winning.

The order was conveyed, and the poor fat army began to suffer, carrying heavy sandbags, and rushing to the moat against the overwhelming rain of arrows and bullets, and piled up small anti-arrow fortifications with sandbags. The arrow stopped and killed a large number of Fatty Army engineers. Fortunately, the artillery cover firepower of the Fatty Army was very strong, which greatly suppressed the firepower of the defenders and caused great casualties of the defenders.

At the same time, the secret operations of the Fat Army who had sneaked into the city before began to make trouble and sabotage. Although these secret operations could not open the city gates to welcome the Fat Army, they posted notices everywhere to shake the hearts of the soldiers and the people in the city. The search and arrest had little effect, and the morale of the low-level defenders continued to drop. There were even cases where soldiers patrolling the city fled into the Fat Man Army and surrendered.

On the fifth day of July, Gao Dejie of the Fat Army, who had been disgraced under Baoding City, finally arrived at the Beijing battlefield and joined forces with the main force of the Fat Army. The total strength of the Fat Army exceeded 14, and the number of artillery pieces exceeded 260.Fatty Lu and Gao Dejie immediately started to organize the cannon fodder for the siege, organized the newly surrendered soldiers and the recruit group into separate teams, and acted as forwards to attack the Beijing city wall.

On the sixth day of July, more than [-] small-scale anti-arrow fortifications were completed. The ropes, pontoons, boats, and planks enough to build [-] pontoon bridges were fully prepared. There were also ten large siege ladder vehicles hurriedly built by the Fat Man Army. It is covered with fire-proof plaster, and countless siege weapons such as light chiseled wooden tables and light flying ladders are prepared.

On July [-]th Qiqiao Festival, under a clear sky, Fatty's army's general attack on Beijing's Jiancheng finally began. Gao Dejie led the attack on Dongzhimen, and Lu Fatty personally commanded the battle of Chaoyangmen.

This was a regular siege battle that was standard enough to be included in textbooks. The experienced Fatty Lu and Gao Dejie were unwilling to take any risks, and they all followed the most traditional tactics to attack the city.The first step is to line up large and small artillery outside the city gate, and concentrate firepower to bombard the defenders on the city; the second step is for the archers and musketeers to step forward, hide behind the small fortifications built earlier and shoot arrows. , is also to suppress the defenders on the city; the third step is the infantry siege brigade of the Fat Man Army dispatched, dispatched a neat queue, shouted the slogan of the Great Zhou, carried the flying ladder and the siege table, and pushed the heavy and huge siege The Chengyun car strode forward and charged towards the city wall of Beijing.

The cannon rang out on the city of Beijing, and the most brutal and bloody battle since the Northern Expedition of the Fatty Army began. The siege brigade of the Fatty Army almost just approached the moat. The walls of Beijing were like a volcanic eruption, shooting out bursts of dense arrow rain. The infantry of the Fat Man Army kept falling down in the rain of arrows, and kept charging. The archers and musketeers of the Fat Man Army hiding behind the small fortifications shot and fired arrows desperately. Unexpectedly, artillery fire was poured on the city wall of Beijing, causing heavy casualties on both the attacking and defending sides.

The first group of fat army infantry rushed across the moat under the cover of long shields, and began to detour to one side to attack, then the second group launched to the other side, and the third group was the fat army's killer siege ladder vehicle. They began to pour rockets crazily, trying to use rockets to burn down the ladder trucks. Although the fat man's ladder trucks were covered with fire-resistant plaster, they couldn't handle so many rocket salvos. In addition, the moving speed was relatively slow, and fire started to rise on the body. head.

The first ladder car on the Chaoyang Gate side finally crossed the moat, and began to approach the city wall on the left side of the city gate at a high speed. The infantry brigade of the Fat Man Army swarmed across the river. The simple flying ladder was used to climb the city wall, and the infantry of the Fat Man Army howled and began to climb up the city wall, expanding the attack surface as much as possible, creating psychological pressure that could break the city everywhere.

Correspondingly, the Qing army defending the city also launched a full-scale counterattack under the command of Qing army generals such as Jie Shu and Li Zhending. The defensive weapons such as sheep's head stone, lei wood, lime bottle, boiling oil, and golden juice were free of charge. They smashed down the city in the same way, and the bows, arrows and firearms have never been broken, and the artillery of the Qing army also fired with all their strength at the risk of being targeted by the artillery of the fat army. , the scene boiled like boiled rice porridge.

The first ladder car finally hit the city wall. The infantry of the fat man stepped on the ladder and charged up. The defenders of the Qing army fought back with all their strength. The charge began quickly, and the fat army engineers also started to charge with boats, pontoons, ropes and other things, rushing to build a pontoon bridge across the river on the battlefield of bullets.There are also a large number of fat military engineers carrying the siege table, sneaking into the city of Beijing like mice, hiding under the table and starting to dig the city.

The siege battle has been intensified from the very beginning, and the city wall of the East City of Beijing has also been turned into a huge meat grinder from the very beginning. Hundreds of flying ladders are continuously built on the city wall. Bearing the dense hail-like stones, the ramblings kept rushing up the city wall, and then kept falling from heights, screaming and falling into the dense crowd of siege teams.Bows, arrows, bullets, and artillery shells came and went like locusts in the sky, and the sound of explosions continued to resound above and below the city, merged with the shocking shouts of killing, and resounded through the sky.

The first ladder car finally ignited a fire, gradually collapsed and lost its siege effect, but fortunately, the sharpening of the knife did not miss the woodcutter, and the previous artillery bombardment of the fat army was not a waste of ammunition. After the upper tower completely collapsed, the rocket launch density of the Qing army defenders was weakened by at least two-thirds, and the second siege ladder of the Fat Man Army was able to rush through the moat and lean against the right wall of Chaoyang Gate. More soldiers of the Fat Man Army were able to rush up the city wall on the wide and sturdy ladder carts.

In the melee, swords and guns were exchanged, and every soldier on both sides of the war was red-eyed. Because of this, the soldiers on both sides did not understand a detail, that is, the fat army's sub-cannons gradually adjusted their firing angles. In addition to the Qing army artillery and the Qing army reserve behind the bombardment of the city wall, there were still a lot of flowering shells that gradually fell on the city wall battlefield where soldiers from both sides were intertwined, killing more Qing soldiers and suppressing more defenders. The firepower of the army's bow, arrow and musket also killed and injured a large number of Fatty's own people.

When arranging the siege tactics in advance, the old Qing traitor Jiexuan was very opposed to this cruel tactic of Lu Fatty, but Lu Fatty told him quietly, "Don't worry, the siege vanguards all surrendered from the Mangou side. Most of the soldiers who surrendered are full of dog bannermen, so I can fight at ease." Then Jiexuan Laoqing did not object, and when the battle entered a fierce battle, taking advantage of the opportunity of the soldiers on both sides killing their heads, Lao Qing Jian began to command skilled gunners to bombard the melee battlefield with flowering bullets.

Of course, the new recruits are not fools, and they will not be foolish as cannon fodder, but after hearing the order to break Beijing and disband military discipline in the inner city of Beijing for seven days, these new recruits who have not received a penny of military pay for more than half a year are also concerned. Not so much.In addition, there are some new recruits who really want to serve their lives for the Fat Army, and want to perform well to get high-ranking officials and generous salaries and win the trust of the Fat Army. The charge was naturally more valiant, so although the Fatty Army suffered heavy casualties, their morale remained good.

The bloody battle lasted for more than an hour and a half, and more than half of the 5000 forwards who rushed to the city of Beijing suffered more than half of their casualties. The second siege team, also with [-] people, also carried two siege ladder vehicles, and one of the two ladder vehicles of the Fat Man Army had been completely burned, and the other was also burned. Almost all the infantry of the Fat Man Army who rushed up the city wall were killed by the outnumbered Qing army and failed to seize the position on the city wall.

Seeing this scene, the main generals of Fatty's Army were all anxious. Hu Tongchun, An Jiarong, Yao Yi, Li Xiongfei and other fierce generals flocked to Fatty Lu to fight, hoping that Fatty Lu would agree to let them lead the elite charge and break the deadlock as soon as possible. But the fat man flatly refused, and folded his hands on his chest with a relaxed expression, and said shamelessly, "What are you in a hurry for? All you have are elite soldiers from our team. What are you rushing to do at this time? Sending you to death for nothing?"

"But my lord, if we can't attack the city continuously, it will have a great blow to the morale of our army." Li Xiongfei reminded: "Please be careful, my lord, the morale of our second wave of siege teams is not as high as that of the first wave."

"Normal, that's how siege warfare is. We must be prepared for heavy casualties and long time-consuming." Fatty Lu looked more relaxed, and said with a smile: "Don't worry, there will be a turning point. At the very least, our engineers are already in Beijing. A hole has been dug under the city, and more than half of our pontoon bridge has been built. When our engineers succeed, the battlefield will turn around."

Li Xiongfei, Hu Tongchun and other generals were skeptical, so they had to temporarily suppress their nervousness and eagerness, while Fatty Lu looked at the blood-stained battlefield of Beijing City Wall in the distance, and said to himself with great confidence: "Also, I want to help Mangou!" The people in Beijing guarding the city should probably have a guilty conscience and want to run away, right? A country doesn’t know that there are people, and the people don’t know that there is a country. Regardless of the former Qing Dynasty and the later Qing Dynasty, since the people are treated like assholes, they don’t want to win the sincere support of the assholes. support."

(End of this chapter)