But it is said that after Yang Zhen succeeded in his surprise attack on Zhenjiang Fort, people on the Ping'an Road on the east bank of the Yalu River headed towards the city. One after another they raised their flags, and soon the whole place was on fire.

Jierhalang withdrew his troops to Phoenix City, and after temporarily settling down, while reporting the military situation to Shengjing City, he successively sent messengers to various places within his jurisdiction to recruit soldiers and horses, and sent a large number of sentinels to the vicinity of Zhenjiang Fort to inquire for information.

Of course, Yang Zhen himself cannot be idle.

At the same time that Huang Taiji was recruiting the Eight Banners Army in Shengjing City and then vowing to go out for battle, Yang Zhen was also constantly moving in Zhenjiang Fort, making various preparations for the upcoming defense battle of Zhenjiang Fort.

Of the forty heavy guns brought with the army, except for ten that remained in Yu Liangtai and Lin Qingye's fleet to equip ordinary warships into heavy gun ships, the remaining thirty were all transported to Zhenjiang Fort.

in.

In addition to the ten heavy cannons captured by Yang Zhen and others in Zhenjiang Fort, the number of heavy cannons possessed by this small Zhenjiang Fort has far exceeded that of all the castles within the jurisdiction of Jinhai Town.

If we add the Soaring Artillery Battalion that accompanied Yang Shen, Zhang Guogan and others into the city early, then the firepower output of the Zhenjiang Fort defenders at this time was already the most powerful since Yang Zhen led the army out of Ningyuan.

Correspondingly, the southern section of the east gate of Zhenjiang Fort was blown down and more than two feet wide of the city wall was destroyed. On the second day after Yang Zhen captured the city, repair and reconstruction work began.

The current Zhenjiang Fort has neither manpower nor bricks, stones, earth, and wood. In just a few days, the gap in the city wall was filled up again.

Although the newly built part is not as solid as the original one, it can only be so in a short period of time.

Fortunately, the Qing rebel counterattack that Yang Zhen was worried about did not appear for a long time in the few days after he took Zhenjiang Fort.

In this way, on the evening of September 25th, Qiu Zhenhai led the fleet that won at Yanghekou. After a day's sailing, he finally arrived at the river outside Zhenjiang Fort carrying the Grenadier Regiment commanded by Li Lu.

The arrival of Li Lu and his grenadiers made Yang Zhen, who had been worried that Jierhalang might lead his army to counterattack Zhenjiang Fort in the near future, immediately feel relieved.

The musketeers, grenadier regiments and artillery regiments of the Eastern Marching Army gathered in Zhenjiang Fort, giving Yang Zhen the most elite twenty-odd men in Jinhai Town.

This not only gave him greater confidence in defending Zhenjiang Fort, but also began to look forward to Jierhalang launching a counterattack against Zhenjiang Fort.

Because of this pure firearms team, which has as many as six to seven thousand people and is well-equipped and good at defending the city, Yang Zhen will not worry about losing even if he faces the same predicament as Songshan City did at that time.

Moreover, as long as the supply of ammunition for the self-armed firearms team that relies on the city is not interrupted, then the Zhenjiang Fort will become a new cemetery for the Qing army.

Of course, Yang Zhen was somewhat worried about the ammunition supply issue in the days after Li Lu led the Grenadier Regiment to Zhenjiang Fort.

On the one hand, Zhang Chen, Zhang Guogan, and Li Shouzhong had consumed a considerable amount of ammunition in the previous battles, and Li Lu's Grenadier Regiment also consumed a large number of flying generals accompanying the army when they attacked Chengzi Mountain in East Korea.

On the other hand, although the large amount of ammunition seized in Zhenjiang Fort was piled up in mountains and the quantity was quite large, it did not meet the common ammunition specifications of the musketry regiment and artillery regiment of the Eastern Conquest Army.

In addition to the heavy artillery captured from the Qing Dynasty, which can continue to be used, the musketeers of the musketry regiment and the gunners of the Soaring Artillery Battalion have long been accustomed to the sub-package ammunition models produced by the army's ammunition factory.

They were accustomed to the range, smoke and power of their own army's special ammunition types, and they looked down upon the unclassified and unpackaged inferior gunpowder used in the large quantities of captured Qing Han army heavy artillery Niulu.

Although these ammunition can be used as a last resort, and they are piled up in sufficient quantities, these unsifted, ungranulated and insufficiently pure gunpowder is still not as useful as the one produced by your own ammunition factory.

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However, the facts proved that Yang Zhen's worries about the supply of ammunition for his own army were unnecessary and showed that concern leads to chaos.

Because this faint worry in Yang Zhen's heart soon disappeared with the return of Yuan Jin's fleet.

On the first day of October in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Yuan Jin and his naval fleet, who had previously escorted the prisoners back to Jinhai Town, returned to Lushunkou. After completing the task of transporting the prisoners, they brought a large amount of newly-made ammunition from Lushunkou and the ammunition harvested from Jinhai Town.

A large number of sweet potatoes returned to the river outside the east gate of Zhenjiang Fort.

With the return of Yuan Jin's fleet, the ammunition supply problem that Yang Zhen was worried about was suddenly solved.

It was also at this time that Yang Zhencai learned from his conversations with Yuan Jin, Qiu Zhenhai, Lin Qingye and other naval generals that the ice-freezing problem of the Yajiang waterway that he was vaguely worried about was too early.

Zhenjiang Fort is located on the bank of the Yalu River to the west. Zhenjiangmen Wengcheng is very close to the pier on the river bank, only a few hundred steps away.

Therefore, as long as the river surface does not freeze for a day, the waterway between Zhenjiang Fort and other areas of Jinhai Town, especially behind Lushunkou, will not be interrupted for a day.

Yang Zhen was vaguely worried about the Yalu River freezing or even freezing. In any case, it would only happen when we enter the twelfth lunar month.

Although the current severe cold climate in Liaodong is more severe than in other periods, and the freezing or freezing of the Yalu River is likely to come earlier than in the past or in winter hundreds of years from now, no matter how you calculate it, it should be the beginning of winter.

Something that can only happen after the winter moon.

The so-called winter month is the eleventh month of the lunar calendar.

In this way, at least until the end of October or early November, the Yalu River waterway outside Zhenjiang Fort will not be interrupted.

With the continuous waterway of the Yajiang River, the supply of food, ammunition, and even the replenishment of troops from the rear of Jinhai Town will not be interrupted.

After Yang Zhen inquired about these situations from the navy generals, his hanging heart completely dropped.

With his elite men and horses at his disposal, enough food to eat, and a steady stream of ammunition, not only would there be no problem in defending Zhenjiang Fort, but he could also rely on this Zhenjiang Fort defense battle to achieve another setback.

The Qinglu's vigor once again wiped out a group of Qinglu's effective forces.

According to the intelligence provided by Jin Yukui after his surrender, Jilhalang's Xianglan Banner troops had lost almost all of their heavy artillery.

In the absence of heavy artillery to assist them in the battle, no matter how many troops they come to counterattack Zhenjiang Fort, they will only become a living target for Yang Zhenzheng's Eastern Army Musket Regiment, Grenadier Regiment and Artillery Regiment.

Even if Huang Taiji personally marches and leads the two yellow banners and even the entire Eight Banners army in the Qing Dynasty, Yang Zhen is confident that he will fight them to the end.

Of course, when Yang Zhen saw Yuan Jin, who had returned again, on the evening of the first day of October, he did not know that Huang Taiji had decided to lead the expedition himself, and had ordered the recruitment of almost all the heavy artillery and gunners of the Eight Banners Han Army inside and outside Shengjing.

Therefore, the morning after Yang Zhen met Yuan Jin, he confidently accepted the advice of Liu Lin and other newly attached court generals, and ordered several court soldiers stationed in the city, including Cui Xiaoyi and Che Liliang.

He, Cai Menheng and others led their respective troops out of the city and across the river, and went to various places in Yizhou, Dingzhou and Anzhou in the east of the Yangtze River.

In fact, as early as the day after Yang Zhen captured Zhenjiang Fort, the civil servants in the city, such as Huang Yihao and others, left the city, crossed the river eastward, returned to their posts, and launched an uprising against the Qing Dynasty and the Japanese invaders.

After these people returned, they did well. At least anti-Qing uprisings broke out in many places on Ping'an Road to the east of the Yalu River and Xianjing Road to the north. Many cities suddenly changed their banners and launched campaigns to expel the Qing Tatar barbarians and restore the Ming Dynasty.

Shuo's flag was very impressive.

However, when they launched the banner of expelling the Qing Tartar barbarians and restoring the Ming Dynasty to Zhengshuo, they did not get the recognition from the Li court in Hanyang City.

The Li court in Hanyang City neither sent anyone to contact them, nor mobilized troops to suppress them, nor did they raise troops to respond to their actions. They were in a wait-and-see state, as if what happened in various places on Ping'an Road was different from what happened in Hanyang City.

The Li family's court has nothing to do with it.

Faced with such a situation, Huang Yihao and others, who originally only thought about resisting the Qing Dynasty and resisting the Qing Dynasty but rarely thought about what to do after raising the flag of anti-Qing Dynasty and resisting the Qing Dynasty, were a little confused.

After they returned to their posts, they successfully mobilized the people of the DPRK who were oppressed by the Qing Dynasty to resist. They issued proclamations and killed the Qing Qing and Qing traitors in the city with high spirits and great commotion. However, after the incident, they began to feel afraid.

After all, Huang Yihao, An Kecheng, Zhang Houjian and others were civil servants, and the people who were mobilized by them were all a mob. Once the Qing army arrived, the consequences could be imagined.

So in the few days at the end of September, messengers from Yizhou, Anzhou, Dingzhou and Pyongyang City came to Zhenjiang Fort almost every day, asking Yang Zhen to send troops to take over the defense of those cities.

But Yang Zhen already had some plans of his own in his heart.

At the same time, he also knew very well that he could not take over those cities yet.

Therefore, when faced with envoys from several major cities on the east bank of the Yalu River requesting Jinhai Town to send troops to garrison, Yang Zhen declined on the grounds that the Qing army was about to counterattack Zhenjiang Fort and his army could not divide its troops.

Yang Zhen's actions naturally aroused dissatisfaction among the court generals who were from Ping'an Road.

In their view, since the fathers and sons in their hometown have raised the flag of righteousness and resisted the Qing Dynasty, they should of course join them. How can they stay out and stand aside?

So the court generals headed by Cui Xiaoyi began to lobby their Shangguan Liu Lin, as well as Lin Qingye and Shen Qizhou who could speak in front of Yang Zhen, and asked these people to help propose that Yang Zhen let them go out of the city and return to their original garrison.

city.

Of course Yang Zhen disagreed at first. After all, he still wanted these people to follow him to guard Zhenjiang Fort.
Chapter completed!