As the weather gradually became hotter, Chongzhen gradually became anxious.
Because the Ming army had been besieging Beijing for half a year, but the "critical point" he expected had not yet arrived, Jiannu's tenacity and tenacity were indeed somewhat beyond his expectations.
"Long live the Lord, let's have a piece of watermelon."
Gao Qiqian presented the cut watermelon.
Chongzhen felt a little thirsty and immediately picked up a piece of watermelon.
As soon as I took a bite, I felt the coolness in my heart, as if it had been iced.
Chongzhen's face fell instantly, and he said angrily: "Where did you get the ice?"
Ice cubes in summer are extremely precious and should be reserved for the wounded to apply ice to stop bleeding.
Gao Qiqian was so frightened that he knelt down and said, "Long live my lord, it was sent by the hypocritical envoy. It came with the watermelon. It was not ice cubes that the old slave took from the army on his own initiative."
"It won't happen again." Chongzhen said with a straight face.
"Even the ice cubes sent by hypocritical messengers must be sent to the wounded barracks."
"Oh, by the way, the remaining watermelons are also sent to the wounded barracks for the wounded."
"Yes." Gao Qiqian responded respectfully, and quickly signaled the little eunuch to send the cut half of the watermelon and the other two intact watermelons to the wounded barracks, but he felt a little unhappy. Why were these Qiu Ba?
Chongzhen asked again: "Gao Banban, where is that hypocritical messenger? Where did he go?"
"He went to fight outside Chaoyang Gate." Gao Qiqian responded, "Do you want to stop him?"
"It's not necessary. If he wants to see it, just let him see it." Chongzhen said nonchalantly.
Chongzhen had no idea that his family's scandal should not be made public, and he even felt that it was not a bad thing for the hypocritical envoys to see the Ming army defeated outside Chaoyang Gate, because this might cause the hypocrites to misjudge the strength of the Ming army.
By the way, the Ming army fought really badly outside Chaoyang Gate.
As early as the end of March, the Ming army had already blasted a huge gap more than ten feet wide in the city wall on the left side of Chaoyang Gate, and then Chongzhen drove the Korean army to attack.
But the results of the first attack were disastrous.
Because Jiannu has learned Qi Jiguang's "guns and lake face" tactics.
Long before the cannons of the Ming army destroyed the city wall, the Jiannu had demolished the residential buildings in the gap in advance and cleared an open space of nearly a hundred paces in radius.
Then nearly a hundred forts were built around the open space.
It's almost like a cannon with one step, and the intensity of firepower is abnormal.
When the Korean servants roared through the gap, they were greeted by hundreds of cannons in the gap, all of which were loaded with shotshells. Each gun was loaded with an average of 300 lead bullets.
Therefore, the final attack result can be imagined.
The hundreds of North Korean troops who rushed in were directly shot into a sieve.
Chongzhen had actually anticipated such a result.
Because the battles in the age of firearms were more cruel than those in the age of cold weapons.
This can be concluded by looking at the trench warfare in World War I.
In the critical battles of the Cold Weapon Age, killing thousands of people in one battle was already outrageous.
Basically, after thousands of people have died in battle, it is time to decide the winner of the tough battle, either victory or failure.
However, in World War I, it was not uncommon for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people to die in a battle, and its cruelty was two orders of magnitude higher than in the cold weapon era.
Just because the killing efficiency of firearms is much greater than that of cold weapons.
The battle in the age of firearms really cost lives.
If not for this, Chongzhen would not have mobilized the Korean army.
The reason why the North Korean troops were brought to Beijing was to be used as cannon fodder.
In short, Chongzhen did not expect that Jiannu would collapse immediately after demolishing the city wall.
Therefore, after the North Korean army's first wave of attacks failed, Chongzhen decisively stopped the attack and ordered the Ming army's artillery to continue bombarding the city walls on both sides of the gap and continue to expand the gap in the city wall.
Chongzhen planned to demolish all the city walls from Chaoyang Gate to Dongbian Gate.
Chongzhen did not believe that Jiannu could fill the gap of more than 400 steps with artillery.
It's just that using cannons to demolish a city wall that is more than 400 steps long is undoubtedly a big project. In addition, Jiannu will not just wait for the Ming army to demolish the city wall, but will also repair it, so sometimes it needs to be reworked.
So up to now, the Ming army has only demolished the city wall less than 200 steps long.
Of course, the Ming army did not just demolish city walls, but occasionally launched raids.
Sometimes it's during the day, sometimes it's at night, sometimes it's the Korean army, sometimes it's the Ming army.
Just this morning, the North Korean army launched another attack. It was probably seen by the hypocritical envoys, but Chongzhen was not worried about it at all and just watched it.
…
But the hypocrite is a discerning person.
After observing the entire offensive operation of the Korean army, he ran back to Fangshan County overnight to report to Li Zicheng.
That's right, Li Zicheng left the puppet army, Li Yan, Li Guo and others in Datong Mansion, but he himself took Song Xiance and Gu Junen with 20,000 cavalry to fight all the way from Zijingguan to Fangshan.
From Zijingguan to Fangshan County, there was almost no resistance.
After arriving at Fangshan, Li Zicheng's army stopped moving forward.
Instead, he sent Ma Bao, who was only in his early twenties but had already experienced hundreds of battles, as an envoy, carrying a few watermelons as gifts, and went to Chaoyang Gate Camp to meet with Chongzhen.
After Ma Bao delivered the watermelons, he made an excuse and went to fight outside Chaoyang Gate.
Although the North Korean army performed poorly in today's offensive operations, Ma Bao did not underestimate the North Korean army. Instead, he gave the North Korean army a very high evaluation.
"Your Majesty, the morale of the Korean army is very high."
"There was no Ming army using swords to force them to attack, but they all fought bravely to take the lead."
"There were about 500 North Korean troops who participated in the battle today. In the end, all of them died in the battle, and not one of them turned around and ran away."
After a pause, he added: "Of course, it may also be because the artillery fire from Jiannu was too dense. As soon as the Korean army crossed the gap, they were met with gunfire and didn't even have a chance to escape."
Li Zicheng frowned and said: "The North Korean army has become so brave?"
Song Xiance also said: "What kind of **** soup did Chongzhen pour into the Korean army?"
Ma Bao actually asked and immediately replied: "I have asked the Korean army. The Korean army told me that it was because Chongzhen promised that they could naturalize in the Ming Dynasty after annihilating the slaves, so everyone rushed to be the first."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "So, that makes sense." Gu Junen suddenly realized.
"For North Koreans, the Chinese identity is indeed very attractive."
Li Zicheng's eyes lit up and he said: "Can Dashun also attract Mongolians to naturalize?"
"I'm afraid that won't work." Gu Junen said with some embarrassment, "North Korea has been a vassal state of our Central Plains Dynasty since ancient times, and it has been deeply influenced by Confucian culture, which is not the case with the Mongols."
"Forget it then." Li Zicheng was inevitably a little disappointed.
After a pause, Li Zicheng asked Ma Bao again: "Where is the Ming army? What do you think of the Ming army?"
There was a solemn look on Ma Bao's face: "The Ming army is indeed an elite division. Its infantry and battalion soldiers are all elite soldiers. The firearms battalion is even more sharp and extremely sharp. It cannot be compared to our firearms battalion in Dashun."
"How sharp?" Li Zi was a little unhappy when he was established.
Ma Bao did not hide anything because Li Zicheng was unhappy.
"Your Majesty, the Ming army's Hongyi cannon can hit two thousand steps away!"
"What? Two thousand steps?" Li Zicheng simply couldn't believe his ears.
Because Dashun's Hongyi cannon could only shoot a thousand steps away, and its accuracy was very poor.
Ma Bao added: "There is also the Ming Army's self-generated fire blunderbuss, which is not only lighter than our Dashun's self-generated fire blunderbuss, it also hits farther than our Dashun's, and its lethality is also much stronger than ours!"
"When the Korean army attacked, the Ming army was outside the city to provide support."
"The infantry of the Ming army were at least a hundred steps away from the Jiannu on the city wall. The Jiannu were also wearing cotton armor. However, after the sound of gunfire, the Jiannu on the wall fell down row by row."
Li Zicheng's face became increasingly embarrassed.
Song Xiance and Gu Junen also looked at each other.
It seems that the firearms of the Ming army are indeed sharper than those of the Dashun army.
This is actually not surprising, because the person responsible for casting cannons and flintlock guns for Dashun was a Dominican missionary. Compared with Tang Ruowang, this missionary was a dabbler. He supervised the making of Hongyi cannons and flintlock guns.
The quality of the gun can be imagined. To be honest, it is not easy to imitate it.
After a long while, Li Zicheng held back a sentence: "If I have the chance, I want to see the Ming army's weapons with my own eyes."
Li Zicheng simply wanted to see the Ming army's firearms, but Song Xiance and Gu Junen were misunderstood, thinking that Li Zicheng was going to raid the Ming army with 20,000 cavalry.
At that moment, Gu Junen advised: "Your Majesty, this is not allowed."
Song Xiance also said: "No saint can have such thoughts."
Only then did Li Zicheng realize that the two people had misunderstood what he meant, and he immediately smiled and said: "Where are the two military advisors thinking? I just want to see the Ming army's firearms, and I didn't mention fighting with the Ming army. I can't be more arrogant."
, and would never take 20,000 cavalry to raid hundreds of thousands of Ming troops, after all, this is not the past."
"The Holy Spirit has a clear warning." Song Xiance and Gu Junen breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this.
At this time, Li Zicheng suddenly had a whim and asked the two of them: "Two military advisors, what do you think would happen if I took only a few personal followers to meet Chongzhen? After all, I said that I would hunt with him.
In Beijing.”
"Ah?" Song Xiance and Gu Junen were immediately confused. Why do you have such weird thoughts, Your Majesty?
There is nothing wrong with you being the Emperor of Dashun, but in the eyes of Chongzhen and the officials of Nanming, I am afraid you are still the same thieves who went around robbing families and turning the entire Ming Dynasty upside down.
So if you go to see Chongzhen with only a few of your followers, don't you think your life is too long?
Li Zicheng thought to himself again and said: "I feel that Chongzhen will not kill me directly. The two countries are at war and have not killed the envoys. At the moment, Dashun and Nanming are our allies."
"Your Majesty, don't make trouble." Song Xiance really couldn't hold it back.
Realizing that he was speechless, he quickly added: "I mean, Chongzhen is not worthy of the trust of His Majesty."
Gu Junen also said: "When the two countries are at war, we do not kill the envoys. We are talking about the envoys. But you are the emperor. How can the king of a country be compared with the envoys? It is absolutely impossible to meet Chongzhen."
