Chapter 208: If You Want To Take It, You Must Give It First
In the wind of the Liejiang River at the end of the twelfth lunar month, Zhu Shuren, wearing a mink cloak, stood on the deck of the 800-material battleship, looking at the distant city of Chongqing with binoculars.
This was the first time he came to Bashu in the late Ming Dynasty, and the first time he saw the fortified city that ranked among the top in Bashu in the late Ming Dynasty.
His first impression of Chongqing City was that the city walls were not high, thick and strong, and looked a bit in disrepair - of course, it could also be because Zhang Xianzhong had just breached the place less than a month ago and smashed it.
The place has not been repaired yet and looks even more miserable.
However, Zhu Shuren's second impression quickly turned to Chongqing's terrain. He had to admit that with Chongqing's terrain, even if the city wall was smaller and shorter, it would still be difficult to capture.
Because the city wall here was built based on the mountains.
Even if there is no wall at all, just building a few checkpoints on the mountain, and the siege troops climbing the mountain against the crossfire from the high side of the hillside, half their lives will be lost.
In fact, you only need to look at the Baidu map of later generations to know that the Yangtze River and Jialing River have a distance of fifteen miles before reaching Chaotianmen, flowing almost parallel to the east.
In the Eling Park area in later generations, there is only one kilometer of land between the Yangtze River and the Jialing River, but the rivers cannot merge here and have to flow downstream for another fifteen miles.
It can be seen that along the fifteen miles of road, there are all high mountains. If there is any low and flat gap that can be broken through by millions of years of erosion, the two rivers will have merged in advance.
If the army wanted to invade Chongqing by land, they could only follow the mountain road from Eling to Qixinggang, and finally attack at one or more places from the Dingyuan Gate, Tongyuan Gate, and Jintang Gate on the west side, with each gate separated by several kilometers.
With a hundred steps, the defenders only need to hold the front of the peninsula, which is just over two miles wide.
If you don't want to attack from both sides of this narrow mountain ridge, you can only directly cross the Yangtze River or Jialing River to engage in a landing battle.
Of course, when they were in Wanxian, the army had already fought a landing battle and it was successful, so a landing battle was not totally out of the question.
But Zhu Shuren was cautious by nature, so he carefully observed the banks of the Yangtze River and Jialing River for verification.
Winter is the dry season, and the water levels in both rivers have dropped.
But after all, there is plenty of water in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. No matter how little rainfall there is in Sichuan, the water level cannot drop too much. There are only dozens of feet of muddy shoals exposed on the shore. It is quite troublesome for soldiers to land in the mud. It is easy to get stuck in the mud.
inside.
The water from the upper reaches of the Jialing River depends entirely on precipitation from southern Hanzhong and Brazil, so more than half of it can dry up in winter. In addition, the areas where the Jialing River flows are densely wooded and mountainous, and carry little sediment. After the water level recedes, there is
There is not much silt, but there are a lot of rough rocks and cobbles exposed at the bottom of the river.
This point, even if the readers of 2022 are not familiar with the geography of Chongqing, should be familiar with it - the Jialing River in later generations was almost half dry during the scorching heat of summer, leaving only a narrow main channel in the center of the river.
water.
In fact, summer is supposed to be the flood season, and winter is when the Jialing River has the least water.
"It seems that the terrain on both sides is not very easy to land on. Chaotianmen is flat after landing, but we will soon have to climb mountains to attack the city. The mud on one side of the Yangtze River makes it easy for people to sink.
If you want to carry siege weapons ashore, you can only sacrifice some flat-bottomed boats, run aground directly on the beach, wade through most of the muddy road, remove the bow baffle, and retreat the siege vehicles.
On the Jialing River side, there is no problem for infantry to land, and the rugged area can be overcome by walking, but there are so many rocks and pebbles that it is completely impossible for siege vehicles to land. Even if you are willing to sacrifice your flat-bottomed boat to rush to the beach, I am afraid that it will hit the rocks early.
water leakage.
In this Chongqing city, it is not advisable to attack directly by force, you still have to find a way to outwit it."
After Zhu Shuren read it, he told Zhang Huang that Qin Liangyu understood everything.
Zhang Huangyan didn't know much about the local situation, so he took it for granted.
Qin Liangyu has been fighting for her whole life, and it is not easy to deal with it, but she has to admit that Mr. Guo Xing still has a very clear understanding of difficulties.
So, leaning on her white-stemmed gun, she asked worriedly: "Guo Xingye said that he wanted to be smart, that is, to besiege temporarily without attacking, and wait for the soldiers and horses of the Tan family brothers on the Hezhou Road to arrive, and then use false surrender.
Lure the enemy?"
Zhu Shuren was stunned for a moment, then smiled. He knew that Qin Liangyu was still worried about his talk on paper.
So he also answered cheerfully: "Soldiers have no constant momentum, and water has no constant shape. How could I have said that you must resort to false surrender in order to use tactics? At first, it was just a casual mention in private.
Although it is difficult to break through with a strong attack at the moment, we can't just wait. We still have to fight when we should fight. You can also try to persuade Bai Wen to surrender before fighting. Only in this way can Bai Wenxuan not think about it. Especially some attacks that are unlikely to succeed based on common sense.
In the city's way, let's hide our clumsiness step by step first, so that the other party will be even more paralyzed."
Qin Liangyu felt at ease after hearing what he said so carefully and discussed it carefully according to the situation, and was willing to carry out all Zhu Shuren's specific instructions.
After inspecting the enemy's defense situation on the river that day, the troops divided their forces and crossed the Jialing River. They simply set up forward camps on both sides of the Jialing River, and then started building siege weapons.
No matter how urgent it is, it is impossible to launch a strong attack in the first day or two. Time must be left to build siege engines.
So that afternoon, after Zhu Shuren had a brief understanding of the development of the relevant work, he took some elite soldiers and meandered from the direction of the land route from the peninsula in the west of Chongqing to Qixing Gang outside Tongyuan Gate.
The officers and soldiers set up some lookout points and a simple camp on Qixing Gang, and set up muskets and rifles. Then they sent cavalry and scolding soldiers to the bottom of the city to try to persuade them to surrender.
As for the Hongyi cannon, it is currently not possible to get it to the Qixinggang camp because it is too heavy. It cannot be pulled up the mountain even if it weighs several thousand kilograms. There are only three to five hundred kilograms of Folang cannons, which can be more flexibly deployed up the mountain. The Folan cannon can be deployed up the mountain more flexibly.
The purpose is not to attack the city, but to prevent the defenders from leaving the city at night to sneak attack this lookout point.
…
Bai Wenxuan was in the city and was busy all day, nervously deploying various defenses.
His judgment on the possible attack direction of the army was similar to Zhu Shuren's idea. He felt that the army would most likely attack the city from the west, with Tongyuan Gate being the most dangerous.
Because the flat and open terrain outside the city gate is relatively the largest, it is suitable for deploying formations and heavy siege weapons.
As for the south of the city and the north of the city, Bai Wenxuan was not familiar with Chongqing's geography at first, but in the past twenty days, he had been sharpening his skills and doing homework every day. He also noticed the silt and jagged rocks exposed after the water levels of the Yangtze River and Jialing River dropped in winter. He felt that those places
Even if they could cross the river, it would be difficult to march quickly in formation and the terrain would be too difficult to navigate.
Such a unanimous view led to the fact that when Zhu Shuren sent people to Tongyuanmen to persuade them to surrender, Bai Wenxuan happened to be at the top of the city inspecting the defenses, so there was no need for anyone to send messages.
As the war drums rumbled, the front line of the official army, protected by cavalry, approached a distance of 300 steps outside the city wall. Some of the heavily armored soldiers carried iron shields and approached more than 100 steps further. This was also bullying Zhang Xianzhong to go all the way to Sichuan.
Maybe he brought heavy artillery, so he could shout when he got close.
"Bai Wenxuan! Do you recognize the banner of my family's Futai! Zhang Xianzhong was so rampant back then that his ears were shot off and his face was pockmarked, and he was as busy as a bereaved dog!
If you were hiding in the deep mountains of Guizhou, my family's support in Taiwan was limited to the imperial court, so it would be hard to kill them all and pursue them! Now you dare to go out of the mountains and into the rivers, and sooner or later the whole army will be annihilated!
You don’t know yet, my Futai temporarily let you go, but His Majesty asked him to rescue Kaifeng first to deal with Li Zicheng! Now Li Zicheng’s 300,000 troops have been completely wiped out by my Futai, and Li Zicheng himself has been beaten into a one-eyed dragon and abandoned.
The army fled back to Shaanxi! The intruder Zhang Ni was a one-eyed dragon with one ear, which was a perfect match! Sooner or later, he would die without a complete body!
You asked Zhang Mingzhi to guard Wanxian, but he has already wiped out his entire army! It didn’t take a day to break through! This Chongqing city has been opened early, and you can be spared. If the city is broken, no chickens or dogs will be left behind!"
The words of the Ming army scolding the formation soldiers seemed a bit lengthy, but they really could not be deleted, because each one was a real achievement. These soldiers under Zhang Xianzhong had been trapped in the mountains for a long time, and they did not know the outside world.
It’s not easy to feel a sense of awe when it comes to news.
This makes it necessary to forcefully pull their ears, open their eyelids, and force them to know what is happening in the outside world, thus making them fearful.
Sure enough, under the repeated display of force by the officers and soldiers, the morale of the defenders at the top of the city was really shaken. When Bai Wenxuan saw this, he had to go to the city tower with his close guards who were supervising the battle to suppress the rumors, and tried to refute the rumors.
After a while, the anxious Bai Wenxuan had to come forward in person and let his scolding players follow suit and clarify:
"Shen Shuren, you work as a lackey for a foolish king and try to harm the people. It is impossible to succeed! Chongzhen is self-willed and abuses corrupt officials. The people of the world are in dire straits and the common people cannot be killed! As long as we have a breath, we will kill the corrupt officials and the foolish king.
…”
It has to be said that the theoretical system of Bai Wenxuan's scolding players has collapsed a bit, and Zhang Xianzhong has no action plan. Once the strength cannot be compared with fists, it is simply a fool's dream to think about the plan again.
Therefore, as long as we do not gain the upper hand militarily, all we can do in a verbal war is to scold our ancestors for eighteen generations. It is impossible to sow discord and shake the morale of the military.
Bai Wenxuan was able to make people say these words. He had already worked with Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo before he came up with it. Under Zhang Xianzhong, the person with the most political vision is actually Sun Kewang. Li Dingguo is still a bit of a political novice. Zhang Xianzhong broke through
When Chongqing decided to massacre the city, it was Sun Kewang who mainly dissuaded him from massacre.
Of course, this does not mean that Sun Kewang has a better conscience than Li Dingguo, but that Sun Kewang is more politically savvy and knows how to establish a base and win over people's hearts and capital. Zhang Xianzhong currently has no such idea at all.
Historically, after the summer of the 16th year of Chongzhen, both Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong briefly had the germs of political thinking in their minds, but later they were extinguished by themselves due to the unfavorable war.
In this life, due to the butterfly effect, Zhang Xianzhong probably has no chance to grow this thing in his mind, and there is not much growth period left for him.
As a result, at this moment, the two armies were scolding each other, and the defenders could not tell any facts that could shake the enemy's morale except for a few curse words.
The only gain was that when the officers and soldiers heard Bai Wenxuan mention Zhu Shuren's name, they loudly ridiculed Bai Wenxuan for his lack of knowledge and lack of information. They didn't even know that Lord Futai had been killed by His Majesty for annihilating an army of 300,000 thieves.
He was given a national surname and named Krupp.
When the officers and soldiers scolded the soldiers for revealing the news, of course there was evidence, as evidenced by Zhu Shuren's banner and the earl's guard of honor.
However, this revelation by the officers and soldiers made the defenders panic.
Wanxian County was lost in one day, and Li Zicheng's 300,000-strong army was wiped out. Zhu Shuren also gave the country a surname and made him an earl because of this...
If he really frees up his hands and rushes into Sichuan so quickly, can the Eight Kings be his opponent?
Among the soldiers under Bai Wen, the most direct and confidant brothers from the old camp also participated in the Battle of Hengzhou. When Zhang Xianzhong was beaten so badly, he fled from western Hunan to Qianzhong Road in a hurry. Everyone has experienced the suffering.
In the head.
As a result, he had only lived in peace for a few months, and his old enemy was still pursuing him. He was simply suppressed by his bloodline.
If there is anyone here who understands English, I am afraid he will ask frantically: "Why is it always you?"
Bai Wenxuan also forced himself to bite the bullet and let the scolding player shout back:
"Zhu Shuren, if you have the guts, don't talk nonsense! If you want to attack the city, just come and attack it! So far, have you ever attacked any city that the eight kings swore to defend to the death? It wasn't because our army took the initiative to move in that we gave you the chance.
Yes, today I will live and die with the city!"
Of course, Zhu Shuren would not be agitated. He had not prepared any siege weapons today, so he just asked the musketeers to secretly prepare the formation while scolding the formation players to attract the attention of the defenders, ready to step forward at any time, and pulled out a few more Buddhas.
Lang Ji, prepare to steal another one.
Because it was stealing, the number of people used could not be too large, just a few hundred musketeers and a few French guns.
Bai Wenxuan cursed and realized that something was wrong in the atmosphere. Thinking of Zhang Xianzhong being beaten into pockmarks, he quickly retreated and warned the soldiers to be careful.
However, they were still attacked by a burst of artillery fire from the army, killing dozens of defenders. Bai Wenxuan was so angry that he shouted that the enemy was despicable and shameless.
The officers and soldiers prepared some more firepower and beat the city walls until the towers collapsed, several superficial defenses were damaged, and dozens of soldiers were killed and wounded. Having made enough of a scene, they slowly retreated, not forgetting.
Put down the words and let the defenders wash their necks and wait. Once the siege weapons are built, it will be their doom.
…
After suffering an initial setback and losing his morale, Bai Wenxuan was inevitably depressed after he returned. The key was that he had to be made things difficult by Zhang Xianzhong's advisers who had left him to supervise the army.
That night, after Pan Duao learned about what happened outside Tongyuan Gate, he did not forget to accompany Xiaolian to Bai Wenxuan to make some insinuations and find out the rumors.
Of course Bai Wenxuan knew that this was the other party's attempt to test the possibility of betraying the Eight Kings. So he could only bite the bullet and pick out what the other party was willing to hear. He also said that he would definitely deploy heavy troops near Tongyuan Gate in the future, layer by layer.
Even if Zhu Shuren finished building heavy siege weapons, he would not be able to break through such a dangerous terrain.
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However, Pan Duao had already had a thorn in his heart. The more Bai Wenxuan talked about everything, the more worried he became, so he asked again and again:
"Right Governor, do we only need to take strict precautions at Tongyuanmen and the west side of the city? The Jialing River is not wide and deep now. There is a full ten miles to the north of the city. It is possible for officers and soldiers to cross the river everywhere. Do you want to take strict precautions as well?"
Bai Wenxuan wanted to follow what the other party said, but he still had military common sense and could not ignore his conscience, so he showed off: "The Jialing River is shallow and slow in the twelfth lunar month, but the exposed bottom of the river is rugged and rugged, and the officers and soldiers
How can we drive from here for a sneak attack? We can't even get up the ladder, so don't worry, Commander Pan."
Pan Duao said suspiciously: "Zhuge must be cautious in using his troops. Now that the enemy is strong and we are weak, the key is not to leave any loopholes. Since the Jialing River can be crossed, it should be tightly fortified. The right commander will not take any chances..."
Pan Duao originally wanted to say "half-hearted", but he was not stupid. He knew that if Bai Wenxuan said this word really half-heartedly, he would not be able to take advantage of it.
So, let’s just say we were lucky.
Bai Wenxuan and he were also wary of each other. He was left here to lead the army by Zhang Xianzhong, but Zhang Xianzhong was not stupid. Since he would think of leaving a military advisor to supervise the army, of course he would also bring Bai Wenxuan's relatives and friends with him, and Bai Wenxuan once
As he was a subordinate of Li Dingguo, he also had to worry about involving old friends.
Ever since Zhang Xianzhong was strongly remonstrated by Sun Kewang after the massacre in Chongqing, he has become more and more suspicious, always feeling that the people around him are unreliable. After all, if he doubts both Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo, then who can he trust?
Therefore, at this moment, Bai Wenxuan was beaten, and he had no choice but to rely on Pan Duao for the time being, and chose to readjust his deployment, using the few troops to strengthen the west and north equally like pepper noodles.
The next day, the officers and soldiers did not come to attack the city. They only prepared formations and firepower. They were probably still building equipment.
But in the early morning of the third day, the situation finally changed.
At about the end of Yinshi, dozens of medium-sized troop transport ships quietly appeared on the Jialing River, each carrying nearly a hundred people, and a total of thousands of soldiers.
The defenders at the city head only relied on torches for illumination, and of course they couldn't see far away. So until the boats on the river put down most of the soldiers and lined up to prepare for a sneak attack, the city head didn't know anything.
In the end, the landed officers and soldiers carried flying ladders and began to charge, and the warships on the river also began to use Folang aircraft and musket fire support. Only then did the defenders at the city head react and quickly organized resistance. The two sides had a short and fierce battle.
A bloody fight.
Unfortunately, due to the lack of siege weapons and the fact that the official's Fo Lang machine gun had insufficient range to hit the city wall from the remaining waterway of the Jialing River, the official army retreated decisively after a bloody battle for most of the update.
The defenders enjoyed a small victory and immediately cheered.
They were on alert until dawn. Only then did the defenders see several stranded warships with their bottoms broken at the mouth of the Jialing River. They seemed to be larger than the troop transports that the army had penetrated deep into the Jialing River to sneak attack last night. It was also because they were too big.
, the channel was too shallow to open, so it hit a rock and was damaged, so it was temporarily abandoned.
The soldiers on board were apparently rescued by other small and medium-sized warships.
Seeing this scene, the defenders became more and more excited, and the soldiers in Beicheng began to underestimate the enemy.
After learning about the battle in Beicheng at dawn, Bai Wenxuan and Pan Duao also rushed here as soon as possible to check the situation.
However, the two people clearly had differences regarding their interpretation of the battle situation.
Pan Duao wore a feather fan and a silk scarf, waving the fan lightly, chatting and laughing there. He said that if he hadn't "Zhuge was only cautious in his life" and reminded Bai Wen to focus on defense in the north of the city, he might not have been attacked by the army last night! In the future, right
The governor should listen more to the teachings of this reincarnated Zhuge!
Bai Wenxuan rolled his eyes when he heard this, and could only endure it. He thought that with the way the officers and soldiers used flying ladders to steal last night, they could defend without strengthening their troops!
But Pan Duao acted like he was thinking of the future, so he couldn't make assumptions at all, so he had no choice but to admit it and continue to deploy his troops evenly here.
Precisely because the defenders spread pepper on the front of the city more than ten miles north and insisted on dividing their troops, the official army that broke out in the west of the city attacked the city for the first time during the day, but it made it extremely difficult for the bandits to defend the city.
Bai Wenxuan was at Tongyuan Gate, and the troops at Dingyuan Gate were completely insufficient. However, Zhu Shuren launched a full-scale attack, and even used Hongyi artillery to bombard the city. Bai Wenxuan's troops were stretched thin, and the death-to-injury ratio was no lower than that of the attackers. As a defender, Bai Wenxuan's troops were stretched thin.
Chengfang, such a number is really embarrassing.
Bai Wenxuan repeatedly asked Pan Du'ao to be true. After repelling a sneak attack in the north of the city, the officers and soldiers should have retreated and not come back. He moved all the brothers from the old camp to the two west gates of the city to defend them to the death.
However, Pan Duao always doubted Bai Wenxuan's intentions and insisted that he would only increase the recruitment of strong men and new soldiers in the city and go to the west of the city to fill holes. Bai Wenxuan had no choice but to do so.
Under such circumstances, the Sichuan Army's North Route Army, which Zhu Shuren had been waiting for, finally arrived belatedly.
The troops of the three Tan Wen brothers passed through Hezhou in a roundabout way, followed the Jialing River, and met in the west of Chongqing.