Chapter 286 Qian Qianyi: You said that if I grit my teeth again, wouldn't I survive it!
November 14th, morning.
It had only been two nights and one day, about sixteen or seventeen hours, since Duduo crossed the river. In such a short period of time, Duduo certainly had not realized how determined the Ming army in the south of the Yangtze River was to resist.
His expectations for the combat power of the "Southern Barbarians" in his mind were still at the level of the puppet troops in Lianghuai who had surrendered directly under King Fu, so his current goal was very clear - to attack Nanjing City directly, and first use all the military strength
Give it a try and try to make a difference.
As for Zhenjiang and Changzhou, he still doesn't like it at all. If you can have the opportunity to take Nanjing directly, why should you distract your attention to those small and worthless places first? It's like when playing chess, you can directly kill the opponent's general to end the battle.
Only a fool would pick a car to tease the enemy.
It is human nature to use all his strength even when a lion fights a rabbit. Only when he was frustrated in Nanjing could he consider more.
This also gave Shi Kefa a few more days of precious time to transfer Chang, and the town's soldiers and civilians received more money and food.
Therefore, Duduo almost made a desperate move with all his troops to crush Nanjing. Early on the morning of November 14th, he had his troops prepare siege weapons and spent a whole morning deploying artillery positions and unloading artillery.
While waiting for the Hongyi artillery to be deployed, the cavalry was idle, so they sent out heavy troops to surround Nanjing in all directions, cutting off all internal and external communication. At the same time, they also sent out scolding soldiers to clamor for surrender and attack the Ming army defending the city.
morale.
Fortunately, Shi Kefa had sent out all the letters he was supposed to send and got all the replies he was supposed to receive. Even if he was temporarily surrounded, he didn't feel panic.
He turned a deaf ear to all these attempts to persuade him to surrender. If he dared to get close to the city wall, he would use muskets, Folang machines and powerful crossbows to blast him back. As for the Hongyi cannons guarding the city, he was not in a hurry to use them for the time being. The Hongyi cannons were too clumsy and could not be aimed at.
The slow launch is also slow, and it is basically impossible to have any impact on moving cavalry targets.
Of course, only Shi Kefa, Shen Tingyang, Zhu Changzi and a few other major generals did not panic.
Some of the other weak-minded civil servants had too much imagination. Even though Shi Kefa told them that King Qin's army in Huguang was coming soon, they thought Shi Kefa was lying to stabilize the morale of the army, and they were worried and wanted to leave a way out for themselves.
Fortunately, the army has always been firmly controlled by Shi Kefa and Shen Tingyang. The guards at each gate are all Shi Kefa's confidants who have been tested repeatedly and know the basics.
Even if these feeble-minded civil servants try to figure things out, the most they can do is quietly fall into the city and surrender, without any chance of surrendering.
And the Ming Dynasty has never been short of civil servants. It has to have the weaklings of Donglin or the eunuchs, and doing this short-sighted thing of "turning to Germany for 45 years" is just to free up a few official positions for more loyal and reliable people.
People will fill it in the future.
…
In the afternoon, after the Qing army completed the siege and the artillery was deployed, Duduo saw that his efforts to persuade him to surrender were fruitless, so he began to order artillery bombardment of the city.
Because there are no Tong Tu Lai-level artillery experts on Duduo's side, the siege technical officers in his army are slightly weaker, and they did not expect to use such tricks as building earthen dams and deploying artillery on reverse slopes.
Instead, the cannon was directly set up on the fort on the ground and fired.
In fact, even on Azig's route, Tong Turai didn't bother too much at first. It was only later that he realized that the losses in the confrontation were too great, so he started to change his tactics. Duduo was currently trying to grab time, so naturally he had no time to take it easy.
Repairing the earthen dam will take at least several days of delay.
Naturally, the Ming army at the head of the city was not to be outdone. Shi Kefa personally patrolled the city to inspect the defenses, boost morale, and ordered the Ming army's Hongyi artillery deployed on the city towers, horse faces, and turrets to fire back.
The Hongyi cannons of the Nanjing defenders were all stock of the Ming Dynasty and were not manufactured by Zhu Shuren's Daye Arsenal, so their performance can only be said to be quite satisfactory.
The performance parameters are inferior to those of the original Dutch naval guns of the same weight, and even slightly inferior to the Hongyi cannons cast by the Qing army.
Fortunately, the Ming army's artillery can be mounted on the city tower turret and fire. It has a slight height advantage and is easier to reach. In terms of range, the two sides are evenly matched. The Qing army's artillery can blast into the city wall, and the Ming army's artillery can also reach the Qing army.
Artillery positions are just less accurate.
The Nanjing city wall in the Ming Dynasty was very strong, much stronger than Yangzhou in the north of the Yangtze River. It not only had a rammed earth core, but also had large stones surrounding the outer foundation, and was covered with large, solidly fired blue bricks.
Bricks are almost as strong as paving stones.
After the Qing army came to the north of the Yangtze River, Shi Kefa learned the fortification reinforcement method previously taught by Zhu Shuren, and focused on strengthening some soft soil slopes outside the city wall to buffer and absorb impacts, further increasing the defense against artillery attacks.
Therefore, in history, Duduo was able to blast open a half-collapsed gap in the Yangzhou City Wall one day after blasting it with all his strength. However, when facing the Nanjing City Wall, a whole afternoon of blasting only destroyed the surrounding soil and bricks.
There was no large-scale collapse of the main part of the city wall.
In contrast, under the continuous counterattack firepower of the Ming army, the Qing artillery suffered hundreds of casualties and damaged several cannons.
Seeing that the defense of Nanjing City was so tenacious, Duduo became angry and began to urge the soldiers to prepare for a storm. He first drove forward the strong men of the Ming Dynasty captured from the nearby Longtan Guards and Jurong County, Zhenjiang Prefecture, and asked them to carry the earthbags.
Or they might carry a pole loaded with earth and use it as cannon fodder to fill in the moat outside the city wall of Nanjing.
Anyone who disobeys or resists will be directly killed by Duduo's supervising troops, and thousands of innocent people can only be driven forward to fill the river.
Shi Kefa also saw this scene, and he couldn't bear it, but he knew that he could not be soft at this time, and must use force to deter these people from committing robberies, so he also ordered the defenders to open fire with all their strength with bows, crossbows, and muskets, and dared to get close to fill the river.
Just call back.
For a time, hundreds of innocent people fell by the Qinhuai River, or their bodies rolled into the river and became part of the mud that filled the moat, or they fell dead on the ground and were forced to push their bodies into the river by the people behind them.
The bag of earth and the bag of earth decay together.
Duduo's cruelty made many people in the city feel angry with the same enemy. However, there were also a few weaklings who were frightened by it. They always thought, "Whoever wants to be the emperor is not a good person. Let's finish the fight as soon as possible and stop harming the people."
…
The siege on the first day continued until late at night without ending.
After the sky darkened, Duduo felt that this would affect the defenders' aiming field of view and would not be conducive to their shooting of the strong men filling the river, so he urged the captured Jurong County people to continue filling the river.
It was only because Nanjing's city defense was so tight that even the moat could not be secured on the first day, the direct combat troops of the Qing army were unable to engage in direct combat, and could only continue to strengthen the fortifications and siege and blockade fortifications.
In the second half of the night, the sound of guns and crossbows stopped. Both sides were exhausted and stopped fighting.
Shi Kefa had been worried about the situation of the war and dared not sleep for a long time. He patrolled the city in person until the end of the night, and then he replaced Shen Tingyang, who slept in the first half of the night and got up in the second half of the night, to continue the patrol.
Shi Kefa only slept for about two hours, and woke up again at the beginning of the morning. He hurriedly went to Shen Tingyang to take over the shift again. Shen Tingyang had dark circles under his eyes, and when he saw him waking up so early, he looked complicated and guilty. Worry again:
"Xianzhi, you have only slept for two hours. Could it be that something happened here that alarmed you? Alas, I am incompetent..."
Shi Kefa was startled and thought that something had happened during the two hours he was sleeping in the middle of the night. He quickly asked: "But where is the defense problem? I woke up on my own and was not disturbed by any news. Tell me quickly!" "
Shen Tingyang sighed: "In Chou and Yin Shi just now, I mainly stared at the gates and towers of the city that were besieged by the Tatars. I was worried that the soldiers would be shaken and wanted to open the door, but I neglected to inspect the wall sections and turrets without city gates. …”
Shi Kefa didn't think there was a problem: "Uncle Ji Ming, you are also very busy. There is nothing to apologize for. As long as there is no problem with the city gate at night, there will be no problem."
Shen Tingyang shook his head, indicating that the problem was not that simple: "I only focused on keeping an eye on the main generals, but I didn't pay attention to the fact that there were some scholarly scum among our civil servants! They are simply not worthy of being members of my famous religion!
At the Yin period just now, Wang Duo, the Minister of Civil Affairs, was afraid of the enemy, so he bribed several disciples and former officials who had connections in the army. With dozens of followers and rebels, he secretly fell into the city with ropes from the northwest corner tower and surrendered overnight! In the past, there have been several such situations where they secretly fell off the rope and left the city!
Xianzhi, you and I have told them the news that the reinforcements are about to arrive, but they still think that we lied to them! This kind of person has too many tricks, no one believes it, it is really...sigh."
Shi Kefa was also shocked when he heard this. He didn't expect that Wang Duo, who was in such a high position, could only hold out for more than a day when the city was besieged. After listening to the fierce battle of Hongyi artillery for a day, he was frightened and surrendered to the enemy. Traitor to survive!
In fact, in the original period of history, Wang Duo and Qian Qianyi were also the main leaders in the "bloodless expansion of the city" by Nanjing civil servants after Duduo crossed the river.
Although most of history has been changed by the butterfly effect, a few weaklings, because they are suspicious and do not believe in Shi Kefa's guarantee, insist on being traitors. It can only be said that it is God's will.
Who makes the chain of suspicion in their minds more complicated? When Shi Kefa told them the truth, they all thought that Shi Kefa wanted to trick them into joining them in loyalty and sacrifice for the country.
As long as you are a little less cautious and a little less suspicious, it won't be like this.
After dawn, Shi Kefa quickly asked the emperor to summon the officials in Nanjing and hold a temporary meeting in front of the emperor to confirm how many people had escaped.
As a result, out of six ministers and twelve ministers, four of them complained of illness and did not come. In total, eleven of the fifty doctors did not come.
Those who did not come may not have crossed the city overnight to join the enemy and become traitors in order to survive. Some of them may have really wanted to run away but did not. They claimed to be sick and hid to wait and see before leaving the city.
But this number is enough to illustrate the problem.
How many of these rabble-rousing civil servants in Nanjing were disloyal and unjust! After being bombarded by the Qing army for only half a day, they were frightened by the sound of the artillery! Shi Kefa told them that there were reinforcements, and they thought Shi Kefa was trying to deceive them. They died for their country together!
In this way, in the last 30 hours before Zhu Shuren's reinforcements arrived, Wang Duo and a small group of literati led by Qian Qianyi made one wrong move and became traitors and national scum.