At this time, the Tatars were still regretting that they had not protected the cannons at the beginning, but they did not know that the bastion itself was built to defend the city from artillery sieges.
On the European battlefield, there is no shortcut to deal with a bastion, and it is impossible to expect to rush down at once. The most effective methods are to encircle and dig.
A siege is a long-term siege, cutting off supplies, blocking reinforcements, and trapping the defenders in the fortress.
Digging is civil engineering work, digging trenches, complex trenches, which can avoid the deadly artillery on the bastion to the maximum extent, allowing the siege troops to reach the city.
Especially the outer fortifications of the bastion, if they fall into the hands of the siege troops, they can provide the attackers with a comfortable foothold, even good cover, and most importantly, a fort with cannons, which can become a good counterattack platform.
Of course, if there is water in the trench or if it freezes in winter, its defensive performance will also be reduced.
Europe also tried its best to deal with the bastion, and the method finally concluded was not very tricky.
It is necessary to have superior troops, besiege the city, and cut off foreign aid.
Then set up camp.
Then send troops to take advantage of the darkness and wait to build a fortress to set up artillery and cover the soldiers as they continue to move forward. They advance to the outside fortifications and dig trenches outside the range of the musketeers, build earthen walls, etc., until the dug trenches can be deployed with siege cannons.
Next, dig a zigzag passage to avoid artillery while getting closer to the enemy's bastion.
The further you go, the more dangerous it becomes, so the tunnel construction becomes more skillful. You have to twist and turn to avoid the artillery, and you even have to build wooden walls to block the sight and shooting of the musketeers.
It is necessary to dig until twenty or thirty meters away from the enemy's trench, then dig a trench to the left and right at the same time, and build walls to serve as a safe position and a gathering point for assault troops.
Wait until everything is ready.
When officially launching an attack, you can deploy your own artillery directly to the front, and then equip musketeers to concentrate firepower on the attack and open a gap.
Or after the commandos opened a gap in the city defense, they provided fire cover for the breach.
Basically, it is an attack mode. The key idea is to use magic to defeat magic, use bastion to defeat bastion, approach with civil engineering work, then build an attack platform against the enemy's castle, and finally use artillery and guns.
Provide enough firepower to break through.
But even with this attack method, the casualties will be very high.
The key to attacking a bastion is to prepare everything in the early stage, especially when digging tunnels, a large number of soldiers will die. When a bastion is conquered, two-thirds of the soldiers may actually be killed while digging tunnels.
The Qing army did not know this method.
Fortresses are only found in a few places in China, such as Macau and Taiwan, and are used as strongholds by the Portuguese and Dutch.
The Ming army played this game because there were a large number of mercenaries in the army who came out of the European wars, and they played this game very professionally.
The Tatars didn't know that. They just thought that the Ming army had many artillery and firearms, and the terrain was unfavorable, making it difficult to get close to the defense. They felt that they needed more soldiers, more shield vehicles, and even more cannons and more weapons.
courage.
So the Tatars tried various methods repeatedly.
Attack again and again.
In front of the narrow bastion, cannons and cannons were fired continuously for three days.
In the end, more than half of the more than 10,000 Tatars were lost.
The Ming army defending the fort was in no hurry to fight back.
Just let you attack as you come, fight as you come, retreat and rest and ignore them.
The Tatars were hoping that the Ming army would attack the camp in the middle of the night so that they could counterattack in one fell swoop. As a result, no Ming army came to attack every day. However, after a while, Ming army cavalry would suddenly approach and fire a few shots at them.
, which makes people panic and makes them restless at night.
The Tatars, who had suffered heavy losses, had no choice but to request the auxiliary Wang Shuosei, who came to Ningyuan to supervise the battle, to increase the number of red cannons and deploy more shield vehicles.
Shuo Sai went to the front line in person.
Then they fell into a long siege without attacking. The Tatars mobilized artillery, shield vehicles, gunpowder, muskets, etc. in western Liaoning, but the weather was freezing and transportation was inconvenient.
It took almost a month before more than a hundred large and small artillery pieces were mobilized, as well as 20,000 Mongolian and Han people. These new reinforcements were not even from the Eight Banners and the Green Camp at all. Many of them were temporarily recruited herdsmen and strong Han men.
Come with the artillery to build up momentum.
There are really a lot of shield vehicles this time, and some of them can even be called siege towers.
There are also many cannons.
About thirty heavy artillery pieces weighing seven to eight thousand kilograms were obtained.
everything's ready.
Shuosei personally directed the siege.
The preparations this time were not enough.
However, even if their artillery weighs seven or eight thousand kilograms, they have no range advantage compared to the long artillery and heavy artillery of the Ming army's bastions, and they are even still weak in terms of numbers.
The Tatars had to place the artillery a little further back, build stronger fort defenses, build turrets for the artillery, and hide them inside.
But the problem is, even if you hide, will you still have an advantage over the cannons on the bastion turret?
The two sides started an artillery battle back and forth. The Tatar infantry and cavalry coordinated, the cavalry provided cover, the archers fired arrows, and the musketeers fired. Then the shield vehicles and siege towers slowly advanced. The soldiers wore double-layered thick armor and also
Follow with a large shield raised.
Even learn to be smart and spread out as much as possible.
But even so, they still underestimated the bastion.
Ordinary city wall defense, that is, linear defense, is a line, focus on breaking a hole, and it is basically successful. Those fortified city moats, sheep and horse walls, enemy towers, arrow towers, urn cities, etc. are not without countermeasures.
But when encountering this kind of bastion, the defensive firepower is too strong, especially since the Ming army stationed there is an all-firearms force.
I wanted to find a place to attack in windy and rainy weather to weaken the defender's firearms advantage, but since we were in the castle, the impact would not be great.
In the first round of probing attacks, the Tatars almost never came back.
He even lost a dozen guns, and he had to move the artillery positions back, and at the same time built many fake gun towers, real and fake, to attract the firepower of the Ming army.
But the problem is that the Ming army is not stupid. Firstly, it has the upper hand in terms of the number and range of artillery, and secondly, it has sufficient reserves of gunpowder. They just attack fiercely, no matter what.
Once there is artillery fire in any turret, focus the attack until it explodes.
The Qing army's shield vehicles and siege towers could, on that narrow terrain, reach the fort with artillery fire, but this was a bastion. The closer they got, the fiercer the firepower, and the more crossfire there was, without any blind spots.
Not only heavy artillery and long artillery, but also various types of shotguns, wall guns, heavy guns, firecrackers, grenades, kerosene bombs, etc. are here.
No matter what kind of car comes close, it won't be able to hold it for long.
As many as come will die.
Although some Ming troops were killed and wounded, the casualties were disproportionate and the disparity was too great.
Shuosei called off the attack again and again and re-researched countermeasures, but every time he resumed the attack, he soon suffered heavy losses.
If the fighting stopped and lasted for less than half a month, the Ming army would still be powerful, and the guns and artillery would not weaken at all.
But the Qing army could no longer bear it. Not to mention five or six thousand people died before and after. These newly recruited soldiers had no role other than serving as cannon fodder. They also consumed a lot of food and grass every day, and even began to flee in large numbers, which caused morale to drop.
Big drop.
Finally, before the New Year, Shuosai had no choice but to order his troops to withdraw to Ningyuan.
Returning to Ningyuan City, we found out that during this siege, five to six thousand people were killed or wounded, of which more than three thousand were killed in Eight Banners armor. Countless artillery pieces were damaged and countless grains and fodder were consumed.
If we don't take the initiative to withdraw and continue to fight, Ningyuan City will be left without troops to defend.
Shuosei had no choice but to brave the wind and snow to go to Beijing to plead guilty.
When the news came back to Dengzhou, it was exciting and the whole city was filled with joy.
Even Emperor Zhu Yihai specially held a palace banquet here on New Year's Eve to celebrate the victory.
Zhu Yihai rarely drank until he was half-drunk. At this time, he had no interest in going back to drink. He walked around the Penglai Palace on the cold New Year's Eve.
Penglai Palace is just a temporary redevelopment of the original water city. It is not too big. It may be returned to the old capital of Beijing in the future, but now Zhu Yihai will not build another palace here and will live there for now.
The palace city is not big, and fortunately the palace population is not large either.
I was walking aimlessly in the palace, turning around the corridors and corners, but I was bumped into by someone.
"Be bold!"
The guard came forward to take someone away, but Zhu Yihai stopped him.
He looked at the person who accidentally bumped into him, a young palace maid in palace clothes. Under the dim light and shadow, her slender figure was reflected, with an oval face and delicate facial features.
"You deserve to die, you offended the saint."
Only then did the palace maid realize that she had actually bumped into Lord Long Live. She was so frightened that her face turned pale, and she knelt down and kowtowed in apology.
Zhu Yihai stretched out his hand to pull her, "I'm here unexpectedly. Get up."
The girl trembled under the hand he held and felt very uneasy.
"Today is New Year's Eve, why are you here alone?"
"Slave, slave, I just finished my errand and passed by here. Suddenly I felt homesick. I missed my family, but they all died in the war and famine. I was sad for a while, so I stayed here for a while. Unexpectedly, I collided with Long Live
"Master, this slave deserves to die"
The north wind was blowing loudly, making the place seem particularly deserted.
The palace maid was cold and frightened, trembling all over.
"Who's from your hometown?" Zhu Yihai saw how pitiful she was, and even though he was half drunk, he felt a sense of protectiveness. He took off his coat and put it on her body. The palace maid was so frightened that she tried to push her away and opened her hands but could not.
Dare, but in the end, she became unsteady and almost fell down. Zhu Yihai grabbed her waist and held her shoulder with one hand.
"Do you hate me?"
"No, no," the little palace maid flushed with anxiety, even a little frightened and shy, and it was hard to say anything excited.
"As long as you don't hate it."
Zhu Yihai suddenly felt impulsive, lowered his head and kissed her.
Being drunk, he was holding the young girl's waist, feeling her trembling body, and suddenly there was an impulse of desire in his mind to take possession of him immediately.
"Um"
The girl's eyes were wide open and her mind was blank. The emperor had already lowered his head and kissed her.
The emperor kissed her and gave her the taste of wine, but she didn't feel the taste was disgusting or bad. Instead, she felt it had a sweet taste, which even made her feel soft all at once.