After the city gate of the south gate of Yangzhou was opened, the Chinese sailors and militiamen divided into two groups and attacked along the city wall towards Ximen Wengcheng and Dongguan Lijin Gate. The Ming army that escaped from the barracks in the south of the city broke up and was attacked at the entrance of Nanmen Street. The Chinese army infantry launched a volley bombardment. Among them was a lightning strike honeycomb gun mounted on the south gate tower. It continuously fired at the Ming army officers and soldiers. The Ming army troops dispersed and fled to the north of the city. The few who could maintain their organization planned to resist. As a result, the Ming army was routed and disrupted.
The militiamen were trained with matchlock guns that had been eliminated by the regular army. But Liu Xiang gave them a lot of grenades. So when they rushed to the Lijin Gate of Dongguan, they threw a bunch of grenades at the Ming army guarding the east gate regardless of the situation.
The officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty guarding Lijin Gate were already stunned by the sound of the cannon. They were immediately blown away by grenades. The east pass of Yangzhou City was controlled by the Chinese army. Another group of Chinese navy sailors coming along the canal entered through this. Inside Yangzhou City, they began to attack the center of the city.
In Ximen Wengcheng, the Marine Corps engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a Ming army under the banner of Fengyang T. Then they relied on their fierce pirate style to knock down the Ming army from the city wall. Many Ming soldiers were eager to escape and directly attacked the residents from the city wall. Jumping from the roof of a house. Most of them fell off the roof.
Soon, there was no more resistance from the Ming army in Yangzhou City. All the Ming soldiers were fleeing to the north of the city.
In fact, the troops Liu Xiang had on hand were simply not enough to control the entire Yangzhou City in a short period of time.
If there is a Ming army that can resist resolutely, as long as the melee situation can be maintained until dawn, the truth about Liu Xiang's empty military strength will be exposed.
However, the fact does not exist. If the Ming army in Yangzhou City made a slight resistance that night, it would completely collapse. After Ding Yaomin, the new commander-in-chief of Huaiyang, woke up from the gentle village, he did not even return to his old camp, and did not care about the customs seal. He took dozens of soldiers and fled directly to the north gate. After opening the north gate, he fled. Most of the Ming army officers behaved the same as him. But it was the Yangzhou prefect who led a group of Ming troops to carry out a battle on Fuyaqian Street. He resisted but was later killed by shotgun shells fired from Chinese artillery. Almost all of his troops were destroyed.
By noon the next day, the Chinese army basically controlled the entire city of Yangzhou. Liu Xiang, who had been a pirate since he was a child, had already begun to move things from the Yangzhou treasury. Yangzhou was originally an important base for water transportation. At this time, another It is an important logistics base for the Ming army in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It has a large amount of food, gunpowder, armor equipment, clothing, cloth, etc. prepared for the Ming army and soldiers. In addition, there is a large amount of goods stored in and outside Dongguan, which cannot be transported because of the war. Liu Xiang didn't care about the belongings of each merchant and ordered them all to be moved away.
He did not have enough manpower, so he only rushed to transport gunpowder and high-quality military equipment, as well as valuable items. The remaining food and other items, including various things in the government offices, he directly issued an order: distribute them to the people of the city free of charge. Anyone in Yangzhou City can come to the government treasury or official warehouse to carry anything. This order was announced by Chinese soldiers escorting local government officials and land security guards in the streets with gongs and drums beating at the top of their lungs.
All government offices in Yangzhou City had their doors wide open. Anyone could come in and out. In order to facilitate the transportation of things, the Chinese army soldiers dismantled the thresholds of each government office and removed the gates. As a result, these government offices were completely lost. At first, some bold hooligans followed the Chinese army soldiers into the government warehouses. Then the locals who were caught by the Chinese army began to boldly take action. Soon, at night, this robbery of government supplies The criminal activity became a city-wide carnival.
At the same time, Liu Xiang's hands were itchy. He led the marines and ransacked the homes of several evil gentry with extremely bad reputations. All their property was thrown on the street and was left to the hands of the citizens.
The carnival reached its climax that night: countless silk loom owners rushed into the customs office, looted the place, and burned it to a white ground; the coolies at Dongguan Wharf burned the tax cards here and killed them.
The tax collectors and then some thugs from the local gangs "fighting business" broke into the prison. After rescuing their accomplices, they set fire to the Yangzhou Prison and burned it to rubble.
The firelight shone in Yangzhou City. Some people who took advantage of the fire and looted began to rush into the streets, burning, killing and looting wantonly. However, after someone was shot dead by the Chinese army on the spot at the door of a store with a Chinese flag on a blue background, all the robbers were killed.
Avoid those merchants that carry the banner of the China Company and are protected by the Chinese Army. These merchants and stores all belong to the underground branches of the China Company or are owned by the company's secret shareholders.
That night, the Chinese army completely evacuated Yangzhou City and returned home with a full load. Liu Xiang left numerous posters announcing that the capture of Yangzhou was in retaliation for the soldiers' sneak attack on Guazhou a month ago. He warned the Ming army not to make any more unnecessary provocations.
At this time, many people of Yangzhou, who were originally honest and responsible people, rushed to the streets and carried things out of the government offices and government warehouses unscrupulously. They wanted everything. Even the back house of the prefect who died in the war.
Clothes, shoes, socks and even pillows were also looted by the people. Finally, the government offices and officials began to join the movement of moving government assets.
On the morning of the second day after arriving in the broken city of Yangzhou, Liu Xiang and the Chinese army had already begun to evacuate. They moved everything they could to the canal outside Lijin Gate in Dongguan, and put them on various collected and confiscated ships.
They were all piled up, and the waterline on the ship's side had reached its limit.
The carnival of the people in the city has not stopped yet. Originally, the Chinese army could only maintain order in some areas of the city. Now, almost the entire Yangzhou city is in a state of anarchy.
Not all the original bureaucrats in Yangzhou City were killed. Liu Xiang just captured them and put them in jail. However, after gang members from Yangzhou's "fighting gang" broke into the prison to save people, they set the prison on fire. As a result, those Yangzhou gang members
The officials were basically burned to death. Therefore, after the Chinese army completely evacuated Yangzhou, there were basically no figures in Yangzhou city who could represent the authority of the empire.
Some of the shops and merchants protected by the Chinese Army have followed Liu Xiang and temporarily evacuated Yangzhou. As the Chinese Army left the city and took refuge in the countryside, the Chinese Army also recruited some craftsmen. Even their families were moved onto the ship and taken away.
All the honest people in Yangzhou City are jealous. More and more people rush to the streets to rush to the government warehouses to transport anything: food can be eaten, iron tools can be used, cloth, silk and silk can be used to tailor clothes...those
At first, those who were timid and hiding at home saw people returning home with loads of goods. They began to regret it and joined the robbery process in an even crazier manner. The doors and windows of various government offices were torn down. Tables, chairs and benches in the government offices began to be moved.
Of course, more people died during robberies. Many people were killed in various businesses. The rich and gentry stayed behind closed doors. They gathered together to guard the gates. From time to time, they clashed with various robbers.
Several blocks were set on fire by looters. Thousands of people in the city were made homeless.
When Xu Guangqi and others came to the north of Yangzhou City, they encountered a city in a state of complete anarchy.
Xu Guangqi's recruitment operation did not go well from the beginning. They waited in fear for two days in the Banzhu Garden in the north of Yangzhou City before the soldiers from the Beijing Camp arrived. Then, the troops from the Beijing Camp set out to "recover" Yangzhou City. The result was the same as that of "recovering" Yangzhou City. There was a "misunderstanding" among the Ming army led by Ding Yaomin, the Huaiyang general who had recaptured Yangzhou, and he almost started a fight among himself.
Ding Yaomin was eager to use his achievements in "recovering" Yangzhou to clear up his capital crime of abandoning the city. After he escaped from Yangzhou City, it didn't take long for him to learn some details from his subordinates who were escaping one after another, and he began to wake up. He collected the scattered troops in Baoying and gathered more than 5,000 people before marching to Yangzhou City. He entered the city almost at the same time as the soldiers from the Beijing camp.
In order to seize the first opportunity of "recovery", the two armies collided head-on at the gate of the government office. Almost immediately, they clashed with each other with swords and guns.
At this time, the turmoil in Yangzhou City had not stopped. However, the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty did not maintain order. Instead, they joined the ranks of looters and arsonists. They had a more solid excuse: to assist the pirates and aid the enemy.
Many Yangzhou people who reacted slowly were caught and beheaded on the spot by the Ming army who entered the city. Many businesses that had not attracted robbers in the past few days were now openly robbed by the Ming Empire government troops.
Xu Guangqi had to come forward. As a second-rank high-ranking official in the imperial court and with the authority of the governor of Jiangnan, he ordered the Beijing camp to enter the city to maintain order. Ding Yaomin's troops withdrew from Yangzhou City and set up camp outside the south gate to defend against the Chinese army in the direction of Guazhou. At the same time. He temporarily appointed some local magistrates in Yangzhou and ordered that those who committed robbery and murder should be punished immediately, whether by soldiers or civilians.
At this time, reinforcements from all directions sent by the imperial court also arrived one after another. The Ming Dynasty used its best efforts to transfer Shanshan-Shaanxi border troops and Shandong troops south to Yangzhou. It also transferred barbarian troops from Guizhou and southern Hunan to the north to Wuchang. At this time, the imperial court An edict has been issued to increase the share and collection scope of Hai and Liao rates. The already exhausted rural society of the Ming Dynasty will once again bear the burden of the entire empire.
Xu Guangqi did not wait for the situation in Yangzhou to be completely stable before he planned to continue southward to carry out his mission of appeasement.
The Deputy Envoy of the Recruitment, the Minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing, the Imperial Envoy Sheng Yihong, and the leader of the mission's guard Qianhu Jinyiwei all persuaded him not to risk his life: Chinese pirates are still active around Guazhou. The road is not safe. This recruitment. The imperial court did not issue an explicit edict in the imperial newspaper. In other words, the operation to appease the pirates was still kept secret.
After setting off from Beijing, You Wenhui had been standing behind Xu Guangqi in a low-key manner. At this time, he stood up and claimed that he had contacts with Catholic believers among maritime merchants and that he could go to Guazhou to inquire for information on behalf of the ambassadors.
Previously, You Wenhui had been wearing Confucian robes with a silver cross hanging around his neck, praying with Xu Guangqi. The court officials had always thought that this man was a believer or student of Xu Guangqi, and they did not pay attention to him.
At this time, no one in the team to appease the ambassador dared to take the risk to contact the pirate camp. Everyone had to hope that You Wenhui could make a trip for them.
Thus, the Ming Empire's second recruitment operation against the most powerful rebel pirates along the country's coast finally kicked off with the help of the bold action of a Chinese Catholic.