A few days ago, through Mr. Wen's contact, all hidden stakes in the city received clear tasks and started taking action.
Early this morning, more than ten people from all walks of life gathered at the Huaji Iron Shop beside the De Sheng Bridge.
The iron shop is located next to the bridge, which is the busiest place on weekdays. People often rub shoulders at the door. But at this time, the sound of gunfire is heard continuously outside the city, and there are only a few passers-by walking in a hurry on the empty street.
There were several Ming soldiers with stern faces standing at the door of the iron shop. They looked like Jiangxi soldiers in uniform. These soldiers shrank their heads in the cold wind and held their spears in their arms. They said they were standing guard, but in fact they were going back and forth. Stomp your feet to keep warm.
Several officers of the Ming Army were in the blacksmithing yard in the backyard of the iron shop. Facing a dozen men with different clothes and different professions, a leading tall officer stood up and said: "Mr. Wen, there are so many people, there is no way to arrange them." Ah, the person in charge of Wu Shengmen is Yue Ling, the deputy commander-in-chief of Huguang. We Jiangxi soldiers can only obey his orders. I am just a small guard. There is no problem in arranging a few close followers, but I can put more than ten of you at once. It’s not easy to go in…”
Mr. Wen looked exactly like a shopkeeper. He was sitting there with a small bench and said slowly: "There are more than 1,000 Jiangxi soldiers in Wushengmen. How can it be difficult to arrange so many dozen people? Why did you come here?" After ten days in Wuchang City, Yue Ling doesn’t know the details inside your camp.”
After he said this, he stood up, reached out and picked up a cloth bag from the table behind him, and threw it casually to the tall Jiangxi Army guard. The guard officer took the bag and felt it was heavy in his hand, so he opened it. , his face changed drastically, and the two officers beside him leaned over and took a look, and both gasped.
This is a bag full of finely broken gold. The glittering gold almost blinded the eyes of the three Ming army officers. This is about ten kilograms of gold, which comes from the gold mine of the China Company in Borneo.
Mr. Wen said to the three Ming army officers with a half-smile but not a smile: "These golds can be used as salaries for your brothers. We have also prepared gifts for your boss, Fuzhou General Zhang Ji." He said to someone behind him. The man nodded and immediately threw a small box to the tall guard.
"Share certificate of Zhonghua Company, five thousand silver dollars,"
"That's right, General Zhang can receive thousands of taels of bonus every year. If he wants to get cash, he can go to any bank in Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi to exchange for a full five thousand taels of silver."
The three Ming army officers have never seen such huge wealth before their eyes since they were born. All three were stunned by the money and looked at each other. One of them gritted his teeth and said to the tall guard: "Third brother, we have been fighting for the imperial court for more than ten years. We have been injured more than a dozen times, but our family often goes hungry... You are a guard. When your sister gets married, you have to go to the bank to pay for the dowry on credit... Besides, this When the war started in Wuchang, we were promised to give us three months' salary before the year ago, but we were actually paid for only one month. We even had to pay the departure fee ourselves, and the brothers below have long since stopped wanting to work..."
Another officer who was also a famous general who was looking at his uniform also said: "Zhao Shoubei, your family has a lot of land and life is a little easier. I have seven or eight people, old and young, all pointing at me for eating, drinking and defecating. Now I owe two more people." It’s the first month of the month, and the children at home will be hungry during the first month... As the saying goes, the emperor has no shortage of hungry soldiers, you see..."
During this period, the middle and lower-level officers of the Ming Dynasty, especially the small officers of the Ming Army who were not elite troops in the southern regions, were still suppressed by the civil servants. They were short of food and pay, and their lives were only slightly better than those of the soldiers under their command. It is a unit of the Nine-Border Frontier Army, and the middle- and lower-level officers are also in serious pay arrears. There have been many pay mutinies led by lower-level officers.
The tall guard shook his head, then nodded again, raised his head and said to Mr. Wen: "With these arrogant things arranged up and down, it should be no problem for these dozen strong men to be placed in our military camp, but what should we do then?" action,"
Mr. Wen glanced at the look of someone behind him, waved his hand and said: "This matter needs to be considered in the long term. We will notify you in advance before the incident occurs. When the time comes, these brothers will help you."
At this time, there was a loud thunder-like sound in the sky in the north, which made the ground beneath people's feet and the roof beams above their heads tremble. The expressions of everyone present changed drastically: "The attack on the city has begun."
…
The Chinese army's Lei Zhenzi cannon has pulley hoists installed on both sides. Because the shells it fires are too heavy, a manual crane is required to load them.
This six-thousand-pound iron bar-reinforced bronze smoothbore gun requires three or four people to turn the base winch to adjust the shooting angle. There is a ten-meter-long rope tied to the fuselage ignition device at the rear of the gun. After everything is in place, the gunners are nervous He hid in a newly dug trench five meters away, leaned down and covered his ears. The rope gunner covered his head with a cotton hat, plugged his ears with cotton, and then pulled the rope hard.
After the loud noise like earth-shattering, fire and thick smoke immediately enveloped the surroundings of the giant cannon. After the cannonball was fired, the huge thunder cannon was pushed back nearly five steps by the huge recoil, and just stabilized on the edge of the trench. The rope gunner was blown away by a hurricane Hat, no matter what, he rushed forward to see the launch effect.
The Chinese sailors and marines who were hiding behind the earthen wall on the river bank all cheered: "Hit,"
Digging trenches along the river is prone to water seepage, so the Marines only dug an earthen wall as a bunker. Behind the earthen wall where they were waiting to rest, they could clearly see the shells from the Lei Zhenzi cannon hitting the left side of Zhonghe Gate heavily. , an obvious big hole was made in the city wall.
This was the first firing of the Chinese army's siege cannon, and it also announced that the Chinese army had begun its attack on Wuchang City.
The siege on this day was just an artillery display by the Chinese army. Various cannons from 6 pounds to 46 pounds on the naval battleships, the heavy mortar "Hangtian Lei" on the bombardment ship converted from a sand ship, and the cannons moved ashore Infantry field artillery, dozens of heavy artillery... The Chinese army participated in the artillery bombardment in the Hemen area, including the Lei Zhenzi cannon, totaling as many as three to four hundred. Three observation balloons of the Chinese army took turns rising throughout the day. Kong, has been keeping surveillance on Wuchang City.
Within one day, the Chinese army fired nearly 11,000 artillery shells at Wuchang City, half of which were solid shells and the other half of which were explosive shells, shrapnel, grapeshot, etc.
Lin Yu, the governor of Huguang, Jiang Yue, the prefect of Wuchang, and Du Xiancheng, the commander-in-chief of Huguang, who hid far away on Snake Mountain, were silent all day and looked at each other in silence until evening.
"This is just a waste of money. With so many shells fired in one day, how can the pirate army get so much money?" Du Xiancheng, the commander-in-chief, became increasingly pessimistic about the prospect of defending the city.
Lin Yu, the governor of Huguang, had calmed down at this time. With the idea that he would be successful or die, he asked: "General Du, has the inner wall inside the Zhonghe Gate been built?"
In order to prevent pirates from rushing into the city through the Zhonghe Gate, starting yesterday, Du Xiancheng requisitioned a large number of civilians inside the Zhonghe Gate, demolished several hundred feet of civilian houses, and temporarily built a new inner wall of the urn city. Driven by this, he braved the shells dropped by the Chinese army into the city and worked desperately to complete the construction of the inner wall before nightfall.
At this time, the Chinese army's shelling gradually ceased.
Only the giant cannon is still firing regularly. Every time the siege cannon is fired, it cleans the barrel, loads the propellant, hoists the shells, adjusts the gun position, adjusts the muzzle pitch angle, and then launches...the whole set of launches. The procedure usually takes half an hour, and the fastest can take twenty minutes. Therefore, during this whole day, the cannon was fired a total of 19 times.
The tall and neat city gate of Zhonghe Gate is now so dilapidated that it is unbearable to see it. Broken wall bricks and solid bullets are everywhere on the ground. The entire wooden city gate covered with iron has been broken. The Ming army used to block the door inside the city gate. The rubble of rubble and bricks had already been blasted with a big hole by the artillery fire outside the city.
The weapons research department personnel holding telescopes estimated that with the same intensity of artillery fire for another day, the Zhonghe Gate and the city walls within fifty steps around it would be completely in ruins.
"There is no need to completely collapse the city wall. Just collapse part of the city wall to create a slope for our Marines to walk up. That will be enough," Yang Qi suggested.
"In this case,..." Lin Qing, the boss of the four-person firearms group, scratched the ground with a small stick. After calculating for a moment, he said: "It is safer to be safe. I think it is safer to fight for another day. The observation balloon has found the neutralization gate. Later, a temporary city wall appeared. The gap was made wider, which will be beneficial for you to rush into the city."
…
In the Wuchang Prefecture's Yamen, more than a dozen Ming army officers such as generals, staff generals, and deputy generals gathered in front of Lin Yu, the governor of Huguang, Jiang Yue, the prefect of Wuchang, and Du Xiancheng, the general in charge of Huguang. Among them, the general of Fuzhou, Jiangxi Province spoke first: "In Lin Junmen (called the governor in the Ming Dynasty, and the general soldier was called Junmen), it is normal for us to be loyal to the country. However, the soldiers below are hungry and cold and unable to fight. Outside the city, the artillery fire of the sea pirates is fierce. Within one day, our Jiangxi soldiers have already More than 80 people were killed by shelling. The morale of the army is terrible. We can no longer let the soldiers starve to defend the city."
The troops of Guizhou General Soldier guarding the south and west of Wuchang City suffered no losses in today's artillery battle. They just complained about the food problem. Next, Huguang General Soldier Du Xiancheng said: "Let me tell Mr. Lin that the inner wall of Zhonghe Gate has been built. I had people demolish civilian houses overnight to collect local materials for reinforcement. However, in today's artillery battle, our army lost more than 30 general cannons, large-scale cannons, and prisoner-killing cannons. Firearms that can shoot long distances were basically destroyed by the pirates... … If we fight again tomorrow, should we transfer other artillery guns to Zhonghe Gate?”
Lin Yu lowered his eyebrows and sighed: "Du Junmen, can your cannon hit the Chinese pirates?"
Du Xiancheng also sighed and stopped talking. In the artillery battle during the day, the Ming army's general cannon and other miscellaneous firearms could fire back at first, but their range could not reach the river bank. Even if they fired There was nothing to be sure of when they arrived. Under the surveillance of the Chinese Army's hot air balloon, any Ming Army firearms positions that dared to open fire were covered by dense raindrops of artillery fire. In just half an hour, they could threaten the Chinese Army's attack. All the Wuchang Ming Army's cannons in the city's heavy artillery had been destroyed. Therefore, the giant cannon was only three hundred steps away from the city wall, but it was able to fire shells slowly, and it is still firing non-stop.
Unable to hit the enemy, they can only be beaten and unable to fight back. This is the current situation of the Ming army in Wuchang. This military meeting convened by Lin Yu, governor of Huguang, ended without any results in the dull air. Lin Yu only promised that he would immediately
Go to the King of Chu's Mansion and ask the King of Chu to donate food and salary.
The artillery battle on the second day repeated the scene of the first day. By night, the city wall near Zhonghe Gate had been completely completed and turned into several gentle hillsides piled with rocks.
On the third day, all the cannons of the Chinese Army that could fire explosive shells raised their muzzles and began to bombard the city with explosive shells and shrapnel shells. The Marine Corps began to move under the city wall of Wuchang through the trenches that had been dug urgently in the past two days.