At the beginning of September, it was sunny for a while and the temperature rose. However, the sun is getting further and further away from the earth. This is something that mortals cannot change. The sunlight shining on people no longer has the heat of summer. It is the time for autumn to be crisp. Jiujiang City
The nearby dry land and paddy fields are deserted, and only troops can be seen outside the city, but no farmers. This season is not a slack season in the Jiangnan area. Not only can you harvest a variety of fruits and vegetables, but you can also grow legumes, but no one wants to go there.
You are leisurely farming next to the battlefield... Are you a spy to find out the military situation? Maybe it is the time to work in the countryside far away from the town, and the scene will be completely different. After all, unless the army is passing by, no one will be full.
I walked the trails for a few days and wandered around in the countryside.
Zhang Fu was finally willing to attack the city down-to-earth. After several tentative and urgent attacks and secretly sending internal troops to burn food, he failed. Obviously, the "shortcut path" was not so safe. Now he had no choice but to follow the steps step by step.
The comprehensive project of siege of the city began.
One mile away from the rebel earth fort outpost and the city wall, a huge round of civil engineering work is underway. A long fortification is being built, based on a wall made of rammed earth, and then built with wood to build a fence. There are horses outside.
There are piles, with a village gate, an archery tower, and an artillery array in the middle. The fortifications on the eastern front stretch from the Baishui Lake to the Yangtze River.
Construction was going on on the ground, and shirtless men were carrying heavy hammers to pound the earth walls. People's shouts and heavy breathing blended into the fiery scene. Among the people coming and going were craftsmen and civilians.
The strong men, mostly soldiers, were divided into various tasks, such as carrying wood and soil, driving piles and building fences, carrying water, and processing wood. They were mixed together in a chaotic and orderly manner. The soldiers became coolies and the generals became foremen.
What the Han people are best at is defending and attacking cities, because soldiers come from all walks of life. The civilization of the Central Plains is at the leading level of the times in social development. The development of organization and division of labor make people more suitable for fighting such complex wars. The soldiers are very
It is easy to organize and divide the work... just like the nomadic army is better at plundering and field battles, because the herdsmen who make a living on horseback are naturally good at riding and archery, and with a little combination, they can form a cavalry. Each has its own strengths.
In fact, even most of the army is working rather than fighting. Most of the time, the troops on the expedition are walking, transporting things, building camps, collecting firewood for cooking, and doing these things; a war lasts for several months.
, but there are very few times when we actually charge into battle.
However, this kind of labor is naturally different from a pure construction site. From time to time, a cannon fire will be fired from the opposite side, and the iron ball will just destroy the newly repaired things, and often people will die. Not only that, but there are also large groups of infantry and cavalry troops lined up behind the construction site.
, to prepare for the defenders on the opposite side to rush out and counterattack; fortunately, the defenders never attacked, they just set up artillery formations there to deal with cold attacks.
The officers and soldiers are not easy to mess with. They will retaliate if they are bombarded. They find that using heavy artillery to fight back from a long distance is of little use, because they can only fire solid bullets at a distance of close to one mile, and they are thrown at a high angle and hit them.
It was just a pit, and the target was not yet accurate. The government and the army transported the parts of the turret by ship, set up positions in front of the fortifications, and used the turret to throw explosive shells. This thing was used by the Tatars to attack cities during the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties. A hundred years later,
It is still easy to use, especially after the Ming Dynasty made technological improvements and created explosive bullets with a latch mechanism, its power was not limited to throwing stones at city walls.
The explosive bomb is hollowed out from a whole stone and filled with poisons such as gunpowder and arsenic. It is a combination of bomb and poisonous gas. When it hits the enemy's position, the stone will first explode into fragments and hurt people, and then the poison will scatter everywhere. Compared with a
It is obviously better to shoot a solid bullet with a hole in it. The Suzaku Army drank a pot, and then they started to dig ditches and holes. Here, they used the return cannon to jump into the ditch to hide the fragments, and then swept the poison into the hole after the shooting was completed.
buried inside; because the trebuchet return cannon fires very slowly, this method is not enough to have a big impact. The return cannon also faces enemy artillery attacks. The target is too large and cannot be moved. It is stuck there high, unlike
The artillery can be buried on the sandbags of the earth wall; the Suzaku Army uses three cannons to deal with one return cannon at the same time, and usually it can destroy one by continuously adjusting the angle and firing three or four cannons.
You come and go, and the fighting has never stopped, but there has been no high-intensity battle in the past month. Except for the eastern front, the South Route Army has already arrived in the south of the city and is also building fortifications there. Part of the South Route Army went around to the west of Gantang Lake
Set up camp and then build fortifications on the narrow land corridor between Gantang Lake and the Yangtze River.
With such repairs, Jiujiang City has been completely blocked. The only way out is the Yangtze River in the north and the lakes on the east and west sides. However, the Yangtze River is controlled by the army and navy, and there are no boats or navy on the lakes. There is another river that can almost be ignored.
The road that is not included is Li Gongdi. Legend has it that it was built by Li Bo, an official of the Tang Dynasty, to facilitate transportation and to build bridges and gates to regulate taxation. However, this narrow passage is obviously easy to defend and difficult to attack.
...Zhang Fu and his two generals climbed up an earthen hill outside the east gate of the city to observe the scenery inside the city from a distance. This earthen hill is also one of the man-made projects. There are four in total outside the city. The one Zhang Fu climbed up is the tallest.
It is also the farthest. Putting a cannon here can directly hit the city head, and the height is slightly higher than the city wall. It could have been built closer so that small artillery such as bowl-mouth blunderbuss can also fire, but unfortunately the enemy also has cannons, so when we get closer, we can build it.
No.
"The rebels' heavy artillery can hit a distance of up to two miles. There is danger here, so the British officer should go down quickly." A general advised.
Zhang Fu waved his hand to stop him. The two armies had been fighting for more than a month. Zhang Fu had almost a comprehensive understanding of the performance of the rebels' firearms. The distance was more than two to three hundred steps. No matter what kind of gun it was, it had no particularly accurate aim.
Probably; you can repeatedly fire and adjust to hit the target, but it is almost impossible to suddenly hit the mountaintop a mile away. Zhang Fu felt that if he was afraid of this risk, it would be better not to go to war and go home to retire.
He looked at it for a long time and first discovered that the rebel troops had some characteristics. There were many "real bandits" on the top of the city. Before, on another hilltop, he saw that there were many Han soldiers surrendering bandits on the ditch wall fortifications, especially the official troops in the northwest.
In areas where the troops were relatively weak, almost all of the rebels were surrendering inside the ditch walls. Zhang Fu guessed at least two things from this discovery: First, after the internal strife in Wang Zhiyuan's department, the rebels' trust in the surrender of the Han Dynasty had dropped significantly.
, the vigilance is very high, and the loyalty and morale of the surrendering army should also be extremely reduced... In addition, the Jiujiang Army is outside the city, and they can make good use of it to continuously induce surrender to further weaken the rebel forces. Secondly, due to the completion of the siege fortifications, the rebels
The earthen fort ditch wall fortifications were no longer of much use, and their defense gradually shifted towards the city wall, so a large number of surrender troops were deployed on the ditch wall fortifications.
At this moment, Zhang Fu found a group of people walking up to the city wall, and one of them walked to the edge of the city wall surrounded by people. The weather was clear, the air was clear, and the visibility was excellent. Zhang Fu could almost see the people on the city wall from a distance.
General movements... Although he couldn't see his face or appearance clearly, based on his guess based on the situation, he felt that the person on the wall might be the thief leader Zhu Wenbiao.
Zhu Wenbiao's former name was Zhang Ning. He passed the imperial examination and became a capital official. It's a pity that Zhang Fu, who was also in the officialdom of the capital, had never seen this person and didn't know what he looked like. Maybe he had seen him on some occasions, but Zhang Fu was very
Zhang Ning had long been an important minister in the imperial court, and when he became an official, Zhang Ning was a rank-6 or 7-rank sesame official. There were so many such officials in the capital that it was impossible for Zhang Fu to pay attention to him.
But now Zhang Fu has to pay great attention to this person. In addition to his separatist rule in Huguang and disturbing the world, Zhang Fu even has some respect... Such an opponent deserves respect. In Zhang Fu's view, this person is absolutely outstanding in some aspects of military affairs.
They are not ordinary people, and they are also rare in the Ming Dynasty where there are many talents, such as the application of weapons, running the army, and even some strategies. Wang Zhiyuan's arrangement as an internal affairs officer was impeccable, and the timing of his actions was very decisive. Just when the troops came to Jiujiang City,
Soon, although Zhang Fu thought this method was a trick beforehand, he also thought it was a sure thing, but it failed in the end. Moreover, even Yang Shiqi defected to him, whether voluntarily or forced. Who is Yang Shiqi?
Zhang Fu concluded that Yang Shiqi would not give in even if he was cornered.
The other person seemed to be looking this way too. Zhang Fu couldn't see the man's face clearly, but he could feel that he was looking at him. The two looked at each other from a distance, and Zhang Fu even thought that he was Zhu Wenbiao.
Zhang Fu, who was usually very serious and rigorous, accidentally developed a stubbornness. He raised his hand and deliberately pointed to a place in the east many times.
In the direction pointed, there is a beautiful scenery that Zhang Fu had discovered before, beside Baishui Lake. There is an antique pavilion there, with orange-red trees, and the ground is covered with a layer of beautiful fallen leaves. From a distance, the clear water,
The exquisite pavilion and bright leaves seem to turn into a wonderful picture.
The meaning of Zhang Fu's pointing there was obvious, he just wanted to tell Zhu Wenbiao: The scenery is beautiful. When the troops were approaching the city with their swords drawn, Zhang Fu told him that he still had the heart to see the scenery, which was to show a kind of calmness and confidence, which was inevitable.
A state of mind in which victory is certain.
Overwhelming the opponent in terms of momentum. Zhang Fu touched his beard and continued to observe. The general next to him also followed Zhang Fu's movements and looked at the pavilion with interest, but he didn't know why and was dumbfounded.
He hoped that a cannon would be fired on the city wall to hit him, which would reveal Zhu Wenbiao's angry mood. Young people cannot withstand "teasing" and it is human nature to be competitive.
Unexpectedly, it was extra quiet at this time. Normally, the other side would fire a cold shot from time to time, but today there was no cannon fire. Zhang Fu waited for a long time, but there was no movement. The two of them continued to look at each other, as if they were communicating silently.
.
"Alas..." Zhang Fu finally sighed slightly, turned around and called his followers to leave Tushan together.