The two governors Chen Qianfu and Qian Sule and the two inspectors led a group of sub-inspectors out of their tents early and patrolled outside Yingzhou City. Behind them were the flag officials, some holding the King's Order Flag and some holding the Shang Fang Sword.
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This group of civil servants were all of third rank or above, all wearing purple robes and jade belts, and everyone was highly educated. As they walked, they talked endlessly about the history and inheritance of Yingzhou.
Chen Qianfu praised Yingzhou as the inner screen of Huaihai and the hub of the southeast. Qian Sule said that Yingzhou led the Huaihe River and controlled Chen Cai.
Another tour guide said that Yingzhou has a long history, starting from Ruyin County in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and has a history of nearly two thousand years.
In the past two thousand years, the site of Yingzhou City has basically remained unchanged, and it has always been the political, economic, cultural and transportation regional center of the Yinghuai River Basin.
The city has four gates and thirteen floors surrounding the city.
The last two renovations were in the eighth year of Chongzhen and in the third year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, but they are still not very big. It can only be said that the defenses are complete, with moats, urns and watchtowers.
Several civil servants praised the Yingzhou City Wall, believing that after solidifying the earth city, rebuilding the brick city, expanding the north city, increasing the south city, building city gates, adding watchtowers, etc., the city's military defense capability was very strong.
Governor Zheng Zunqian came over with a group of generals. Hearing this, he smiled and said, "In terms of military defense, Yingzhou City is very average."
The person in charge of commanding the heavy artillery was Deputy General Nicholas of the Tokyo Artillery Academy, and he was even more disdainful of Yingzhou City.
"The two half-moon cities in the north and south surround a city that is half brick and half earth. It is still a very traditional and backward city. As a residential town, it is okay. As for military defense, it is too backward. In front of the artillery, the defense of this city is weak.
The backwardness is terrible. The only real defense in this era is the bastions built by His Majesty the Emperor on the Denglai Peninsula. Although they may not look big, in terms of defensive capabilities, they are better than a dozen streets in Yingzhou!"
Nicholas is an old mercenary from the Thirty Years War in Europe. He later came to Macau to make a living and became a soldier of the Ming Emperor. He gradually became the deputy general soldier now. He became a Ming citizen early and even married a Ming woman and gave birth to a child.
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"Don't believe it, this old-style city is vulnerable to siege artillery."
Chen Qianfu did not argue about this.
He is somewhat knowledgeable about military matters and has participated in the construction of the Denglai bastions. He is relatively familiar with these bastions. They are purely military fortresses, not residential, industrial and commercial cities, and each has its own characteristics.
The bastion is only suitable for garrisoning and guarding, while the city is suitable for housing, industry and commerce, each with its own merits.
It is not surprising that Yingzhou City was able to hold on for almost two years. The main reason was that the Ming army did not attack by force, and the defender Luck Dehun had a strong will after all.
Of course, defending a city for two years is nothing. When the Turks besieged a city, they defended it for twenty-one years.
Zheng Zunqian was the commander-in-chief of the siege of Yingzhou, and he was the main force in the siege in the past two years.
In the cool breeze of the early morning, Zheng Zunqian briefly introduced the situation of the siege to Chen Qianfu and other purple-robed civil servants.
In the past two years, it's certainly not just Wai.
From setting up camp to going down to the village, we then started digging a circular trench one mile away from the city. Finally, we dug three trenches around the city two miles away, one mile away, and two hundred steps away.
Stumping trees and resisting horses, etc.
Between the three trenches, Z-shaped trenches were dug to keep moving forward. These trenches were dug to a very high level and were used to build bastions to prevent shelling. They were overkill when used to deal with traditional Chinese-style cities.
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When advancing the Z-shaped trench, there is another detail, that is, the horizontal section of the Z-shaped trench will be extended and protruded in all directions to serve as a firepower point, to pull the cannon up, and to pile up sandbags to cover the artillery.
In this way, trenches were dug all the way, and artillery advanced all the way.
The Z-shaped trench can effectively defend against the artillery on the city, and the artillery in the trench can also provide cover.
The Ming army besieged the city for two years, and they were doing civil engineering work around Yingzhou City. On the surface, it was an open trench, but there were many underground tunnels, and construction started at the same time.
The engineers and auxiliary soldiers dug trenches here every day, while the artillerymen pushed the cannons forward, and fired live ammunition every day as training. The artillerymen even mastered the ricochet attack technique taught by the instructors, which is to first find a good angle and shoot
Draw the cannon in a straight line with the city wall, adjust the angle, etc., so that after the cannonball is fired, it will land on the city wall. The cannonball will bounce on the solid brick surface of the city roof, and it will bounce all the way over and hit a row.
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The biggest threat of this thing is not that it can kill a few soldiers, but that it will cause huge threats and damage to the artillery, ballistas, etc. deployed on the city wall. There are not many cannons to defend the city.
The artillerymen have been practicing siege on Yingzhou City every day for the past two years, and the various artillery techniques have become more and more powerful as they practice.
What kind of mortar artillery bombardment inside the city, what kind of city wall ricocheting method, what kind of trench fire strikes, coupled with the bombardment of the Weng City and the enemy towers by the heavy siege artillery, after two years, the current Yingzhou City can be said to be scarred, even several times.
Sections of the city wall were directly destroyed by the bombing, and they were quickly repaired and filled up afterwards. The newly repaired city wall was as ugly as the patches.
As for the trenches, moats, sheep and horse walls and other defensive fortifications outside the city, they have been filled in long ago.
Zheng Zunqian was really not exaggerating. If the emperor had not repeatedly asked not to rush to attack Yingzhou City, Yingzhou City would have been captured more than a year ago.
We have been conducting actual combat drills around Yingzhou City for two years.
The engineers have developed extremely professional skills in digging trenches, digging tunnels, and building castles and fortresses. The auxiliary soldiers have also become professional engineers, and are even very experienced in building various siege equipment.
The artillerymen have fired countless rounds of artillery shells in the past two years, and the artillerymen have become very skilled.
Even the infantry musketeers practice shooting at the city every day.
The Yingzhou camp even built a special arsenal. There were cannon makers, gun makers, and lead makers for cannonballs. There were heavy siege artillery, ranging from twenty-four to thirty-six pounds.
There are also short-bodied and large-caliber siege mortars, etc., which are cast directly under the city, and then test-fired. After passing the test, they are handed over to the artillery, and they start training with Yingzhou City.
When the siege of Yingzhou City began two years ago, Zheng Zunqian only commanded Yixing Town, with 5,000 soldiers, only 2,000 gunners, only 30% armor coverage, and basically no heavy artillery.
But now, his seventh town already has 15,000 people, including not only artillery but also cavalry, and even the heavy artillery trainee from the artillery academy is under his command. So far, the camp has been established, and there are three new recruits.
Nearly 50,000 people in the imperial camp were under his control.
His own 15,000 men were fully armored, and all the infantry in the combat troops were equipped with firecrackers. Only the auxiliary troops still had swords, spears, and cold weapons.
Nicholas proudly said to Chen Qianfu and others, "The trenches have long been dug under the city wall, and the forts have been built against the city wall. I have seen that the Tatars in Yingzhou City have no cannons. Even if they have some hidden,
I guess they don’t have any cannonballs and gunpowder anymore, so as long as they give the order, they can break through the city within an hour.”
Chen Qianfu looked up at the sky. The weather was very good today, with no wind and no clouds. For the Ming army, which was installing firearms on a large scale, this was definitely good weather.
Qian Sule smiled and said, "Let's attack quickly while the morning is cool. We can finish the battle early and save time in the sun."
Everything is already ready.
Zheng Zunqian nodded and rode back to the camp.
This siege, which should have ended long ago, has been dragged on until now. It is not that the Ming army is incompetent in command, but that it has completely controlled the situation. After two years of siege, the Tatars lost all their energy and even ate all their horses due to hunger.
Finally eat people.
At this time, the total number of people in Yingzhou City was less than 20,000. They were all members of the Eight Banners and the family members of the bannermen who had evacuated into the city. Apart from this, no other living person could be found.
Either they were eaten, or they were hunted and salted and dried into dry food.
Because the Tatars were cannibals, there were several rebellions in the city. Later, the Tatars simply killed all the people and marinated and dried them if they couldn't finish eating. This not only prevented rebellion, but also prevented these people from starving to death without food.
Thin.
This is already an army of the living dead, struggling and resisting by eating people.
But if the Ming army hadn't rushed to attack the city, they wouldn't have been able to defend it at all.
The trumpet sounded and the drum beat.
The long-awaited Ming army soldiers finally received the order for a general offensive.
The Eighth Town led by Liu Mu and his son and Liu Shixun began to launch feint attacks from the north and east sides of the city. They said it was a feint attack, but in fact they were holding back their energy and planned to fake it and attack directly into the city.
Although Zheng Zunqian was the governor, whoever entered the city first would certainly be the first to do so.
"boom!"
From the forts in the south of Yingzhou City, the artillery fired one after another.
The artillerymen manipulated the cannon skillfully. They didn't even need to calculate or aim. They were already familiar with it.
As the smoke filled the sky, the blasting artillerymen in the tunnel immediately lit the fuses and then retreated. The blasting chamber was filled with gunpowder barrels, and there were bricks outside to seal it, leaving a fuse to come out. Even the blasting chamber was dug.
It is also a folded corner, which not only ensures airtightness, but also increases the power of blasting.
Rumble.
Almost at the same time, the powder barrels in the tunnels detonated in the blasting chamber.
The earth was shaking violently, and many people felt like they were deaf and could not hear anything.
Then came the brick-clad Yingzhou South City Wall. Suddenly, many sections collapsed, revealing large gaps. Rotten bricks and broken earth fell to the ground.
Countless artillery bombarded the city walls and gaps, pouring out artillery fire to their heart's content, not caring about the consumption of gunpowder and shells.
In the trench, the infantrymen who had been fully armed and on standby for a long time also burst into cheers after seeing the city wall collapse.
The officers raised their arms and shouted, "Charge!"
Behind them, countless soldiers followed the officers and jumped out of the trench with muskets in hand and rushed towards the gap.
At the gap created by the explosion, a group of Tatars rushed over desperately, carrying wood and other materials removed from the houses, hoping to block it quickly. The city wall had collapsed several times before, and they had blocked it in this way.
But today, as soon as they rushed onto the rubble, they saw countless Ming troops coming in like a tide from the opposite side.
Then, a sharp whistle came.
A cannonball came and directly smashed the group of Qing troops standing on the rubble in the gap into bursts of blood mist. It continued to roll over. After flying into the city, it hit the ground and knocked down another piece. It continued to bounce and smash into the inside.
Go, hit a few more unlucky people, and finally hit a wall, smashing the wall into pieces before finally falling to the ground. After rolling feebly for a few times, it stopped there, on the bright red iron ball.
There was also a lot of minced meat.
More artillery shells kept coming, and the gap became the first target. The Tatar soldiers who rushed to block the gap were bombarded into bloody mist by one shell after another almost instantly.
When the infantry rushed in, the artillery had already cleared the gap for reinforcements.
A flag bearer held high the sun, moon and red flag in the blue sky and on the ground. He stood on the rubble and the flesh and blood of the Tatars and waved the flag excitedly. Countless Ming troops poured into the city.
Zheng Zunqian put down his telescope and said to Chen Qianfu and other civil servants with their mouths wide open, "Look, the Tatars are nothing more than this!"
