The mutual shelling between the two sides started at noon on October 17th and ended with heavy snowfall on the evening of October 19th. It lasted for three days.

For three days, the Qing Dynasty's heavy artillery bombarded the city in turn, not only destroying the tower on the Tangshan Gate of the west gate of Zhenjiang Fort, but also leaving holes and bruises on the urn outside the west gate of Zhenjiang Fort and the west wall.

The musketeers and grenadiers who were waiting in Xiaweng City caused some casualties.

However, after three days of bombardment by the Qing Dynasty, the west gate urn and the west city wall of Zhenjiang Fort City were still standing tall and tall. The city wall, which was built with rammed earth and covered with bricks and stones, showed no signs of impending penetration or collapse.

Correspondingly, the counterattack carried out by the heavy artillery battalion of the Eastern Expeditionary Army commanded by Yang Shen on the top of the city also caused considerable losses to the Qinglu artillery array that entered the siege long fortress and repeatedly approached and opened fire.

The heavy artillery used by the Qinglu Artillery Battalion and the Yang Shen Artillery Battalion were both Tianyou Zhijun heavy artillery cast by the Qinglu Shengjing Artillery Foundry. The material, length and caliber of the heavy artillery of both sides were all the same specifications.

Therefore, in terms of the quality and range of the heavy artillery itself, no one is much better than anyone else, and no one is much worse than anyone else. They are on the same level.

In the past few years, the Qing heavy artillery had an absolutely overwhelming advantage when attacking the Ming army's castle. This battle in Zhenjiang Castle no longer existed.

Of course, in the artillery battle between the two sides that lasted for three days, the Qinglu artillery battalion still had a numerical advantage, which was almost twice the number of heavy artillery deployed in the west city of Zhenjiang Fort.

It stands to reason that before Yang Zhen's raid on Zhenjiang Fort, when he set out from Lushunkou, he ordered his fleet to go north with forty heavy artillery pieces. After he entered Zhenjiang Fort City, he harvested ten more from Jin Yukui.

God bless the general and help him with his heavy artillery.

Calculated in this way, Yang Zhen's army should now have as many as fifty heavy artillery. If you add some of the heavy artillery that Qiu Zhenhai's fleet was originally equipped on the ship, then at least in terms of the number of heavy artillery, Yang Zhen's defense side should

Have certain advantages.

However, war is complicated, and the actual situation is not entirely like this.

After capturing the Zhenjiang Fort, the large fleet of naval ships that followed Yang Zhen could not completely go ashore to fight. In order to allow the naval warships to play an artillery support role when cruising on the river, Yang Zhen sent ten of the heavy guns and dozens of

The sky cannons were allocated to the fleets of Lin Qingye, Yu Liangtai, Qiu Zhenhai and others, and dozens of large gunboats with powerful firepower were equipped.

As a result, out of the fifty heavy artillery pieces, only forty were finally equipped in Zhenjiang Fort.

In fact, a limited-scale Zhenjiang Fort equipped with forty heavy Hongyi cannons was enough. At least among other city defenses in the Ming Dynasty, such powerful defensive firepower was rare.

But even so, once the east and west cities of Zhenjiang Fort were allocated, they were stretched again.

After the artillery battle began, someone suggested that Yang Zhen transfer the heavy artillery deployed in the East City to the West City for centralized use, but Yang Zhen rejected this proposal.

Since mid-October has entered, the light snow solar term is approaching, the climate is getting colder, and the Yajiang River may freeze at any time. Qiu Zhenhai, who is responsible for the defense of Dongcheng, has begun to suggest that Yu Liangtai lead the naval fleet to retreat in batches to the direction of the river mouth.

Under such circumstances, Yang Zhen did not dare to easily concentrate the heavy artillery originally distributed in the East City to the West City.

Not to mention that the heavy artillery is too heavy and it is difficult to move from the lower city to the upper city. If the Yajiang River freezes and the navy fleet is forced to retreat to the Jiangkou area, will Dongcheng still be needed?

This is the disadvantage of the defensive side of the city, and it is also a problem that the defensive side has to consider and a price that it has to pay.

Of course, in an artillery battle, the defensive side is not without advantages.

The disadvantage of Yang Shen's heavy artillery battalion is that the heavy artillery is relatively scattered and difficult to use centrally. When the Qinglu artillery battalion attacked the West City, the heavy artillery in the East City was ineffective. He could only counterattack with the heavy artillery at the top of the West City. The number of heavy artillery was at a disadvantage.

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But after all, the defenders were condescending and used the same heavy artillery and the same bullet weight, but their range could hit them farther than the Qing prisoners.

In addition, Yang Shen's heavy artillery battalion used finely processed granulated gunpowder from the Lushun Beicheng Ammunition Factory in Jinhai Town. Its quality and power were much more powerful than the ordinary black powder the Qing Dynasty and Han army artillery battalions were accustomed to using.

The two advantages superimposed together made the range of the heavy artillery commanded by Yang Shen, both the maximum range and the effective range, much greater than that of the heavy artillery commanded by the Qinglu artillery battalion Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde.

It was precisely because of this that when Yang Shen directed the heavy artillery fire on the west wall of Zhenjiang Fort to counterattack, he forced the Qinglu artillery array that had entered the siege long fort to close the shelling to retreat again and again.

As a result, although the Qinglu artillery battalion had many heavy artillery, the threat to the west gate urn and west city wall of Zhenjiang Fort was greatly reduced. They bombarded for three days in turn. Except for the accidental collapse of the tall west gate tower, there was no damage to the west gate.

The city walls caused fatal damage.

Correspondingly, the heavy artillery positions of the Qing captives were lined up in a row and the heavy artillery was used intensively. Before the artillery battle between the two sides stopped, they were hit twice by the heavy artillery commanded by Yang Shen on the Zhenjiang Fort. In addition to casualties,

A group of gunners also lost two heavy guns.

Although the Qinglu Tianyou's cannon body is rough and thick, made of a combination of copper and iron, as long as it is hit by a huge solid iron bullet flying at high speed from similar heavy artillery, it will deform in some cases and crack in severe cases.

, it must be scrapped on the spot.

If it hadn't been for the heavy snowfall on the evening of October 19th, and Huang Taiji's decree came, ordering Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde to stop the heavy artillery attack on the city and withdraw the artillery battery from the long base, then the Qinglu artillery battery would probably still be there.

More heavy artillery will be hit and disabled by Yang Shen's artillery battalion.

Of course, Huang Taiji would not worry about this kind of problem. The reason why he ordered to stop the bombardment was not because the heavy artillery at the top of Zhenjiang Fort had a farther range than the heavy artillery under Geng and Kong, nor because two of his army's heavy artillery had been destroyed.

It was because of the heavy snowfall on the 19th that he judged that the Yajiang River east of Zhenjiang Fort would freeze in the near future.

"Mr. Fan is indeed very knowledgeable and resourceful. He had already predicted that the weather would be very cold in the past few days and there would be wind and snow. Haha, the wind and snow are coming today!"

More than ten miles northwest of Zhenjiang Castle, at the southeast end of Wulong Mountain, in the middle of the Qinglu camp, Huang Taiji's golden-domed tent was lit with several red charcoal basins at the same time.

Warm as spring.

Huang Taiji was obviously in a good mood, and he called several close servants to accompany him to the meal, including Fan Wencheng, Gang Lin, Tu Lai, and Gang Atai.

"This is precisely the reason why I, the Qing Dynasty, have been blessed by heaven and my emperor has the destiny of heaven. How can I dare to covet the merits of heaven? My master is praising my servant."

When Huang Taiji led his army to the Zhenjiang Fort area, it was already past the beginning of winter, and snowfall was already expected according to solar terms. Fan Wencheng was originally a Han scholar in Liaoyang City, how could he not know this common sense?

Although the Han theory of the twenty-four solar terms is often inaccurate when applied to the Liaodong area outside the Guanhai Pass, over the years, the weather in Liaodong has only advanced and rarely delayed compared to the twenty-four solar terms.

The weather this year was unusual and there was no heavy snowfall at the beginning of winter, which already made him feel that he had miscalculated. At this time, Huang Taiji praised his accurate calculation, so naturally he did not dare to take credit.

"Well, Mr. Fan is right. If the Qing Dynasty had not been blessed by God, how could we have unified Haixi, conquered the Li Dynasty, pacified Mongolia, and created such a foundation!"

When Huang Taiji saw that Fan Wencheng attributed the favorable weather to the blessing of the Qing Dynasty, Huang Taiji felt very touched. He nodded and acknowledged Fan Wencheng's words, and then said:

"Today the wind and snow are raging, dripping water turns to ice, and the Yajiang River is frozen. It is just around the corner. The goal of completely blocking Yang Zhen's troops and horses in Zhenjiang Fort will be achieved.

"Our army has been bombarding the west gate and west wall of Zhenjiang Fort with heavy artillery for three days. I heard that the west gate tower collapsed and the west gate urn and west wall were seriously damaged. Since it is snowing heavily, we can stop for a while."

After Huang Taiji said this, he put down the wine glass in his hand, looked at Fan Wencheng with a solemn expression, and said, "It's time to send someone to see Yang Zhen. Who do you think Mr. Fan would be more appropriate for me to send to persuade him to surrender?"

This question asked by Huang Taiji is difficult to answer. Although there are not many people in Huang Taiji's golden-domed tent today, and the few present are his confidants or close attendants, there are others after all.

Fortunately, regarding this issue, Fan Wencheng had already started thinking about the candidate for the envoy when Huang Taiji made up his mind to try to recruit Yang Zhen again.

Fan Wencheng was not very optimistic about recruiting Yang Zhen, because since Yang Zhen emerged in Liaodong, Fan Wencheng had been thinking about his methods.

Fan Wencheng has never been able to figure out what kind of person Yang Zhen is, but he knows that Yang Zhen is an alternative among the generals of Liaodong, and can even be said to be an alternative among the military generals of the entire Ming Dynasty.

Faced with such a person who did not act according to ordinary things, and faced with such a person whose behavior was different from that of the Ming Dynasty civil servants and generals he knew and was familiar with, Fan Wencheng's heart was instinctively filled with vigilance and precautions.

Especially from the fall of Zhenjiang Fort, Fan Wencheng saw that Yang Zhen was a person who was very good at disguising and playing tricks.
Chapter completed!