On August 27, under the command of Xiao Tianjian, a large number of men and horses of the Xingtian Army finally gathered around the city of Nanjing, and when you look down from above, you can see that in the areas on the southwest side of the city of Nanjing, dense camp tents have appeared, and all kinds of banners are waving in the wind, and there are also men and horses that continue to drive outside the city of Nanjing from various main roads, merging into this sea of people.

On the river in the north of Nanjing, there is a large number of boats, one after another from the upstream, gradually docked at the riverside controlled by the vanguard troops, and many people and sappers are urgently building temporary trestle bridges for ships to dock and unload goods on the riverside, and countless people have also gathered from all directions, joined this working army, cut down the available timber around the area, and then carried them on their shoulders to the places where they are needed for the use of the army.

A large number of materials were unloaded from the ships and quickly transferred to the large camp of the Xingtian Army, and the large battalions were set down one by one, forming a camp that spread for twenty or thirty miles.

A large number of Xingtian soldiers stood in the temporary school field in the camp with their chests stacked, listening to the generals giving them tasks, and many craftsmen led the people who helped the war in the camp to build various siege equipment.

The long-awaited Battle of Nanjing, as the Xingtian Army marched to the outside of Nanjing, began immediately.

The morale of the Xingtian Army outside the city is like a rainbow, but the officials and soldiers in the city looked panicked one by one when they saw a large number of Xingtian troops coming, although the barracks in the city were also shouting and neighing, it was very lively, but the expressions on everyone's faces showed a strong look of worry.

There are more than a dozen city gates in the outer city of Nanjing, so these officers and soldiers from all walks of life were assigned by Ding Qirui to garrison at each city gate, and each army and horse controlled two or three city gates respectively, which can be regarded as the responsibility of the people, considering that the direction of the main attack of the Xingtian Army should be in the west and south of the city, so Ding Qirui deployed heavy troops on both sides of the southwest, but in order to prevent the Xingtian Army from attacking the other two gates, Ding Qirui also left a certain number of troops in the other two gates, in short, it was only the outer city, Ding Qirui arranged most of the troops.

With the help of the sand table, Xiao Tianjian could clearly understand the defense of Nanjing City, so he was very aware of the current weakness of Nanjing City, so he was not very anxious to launch an attack on Nanjing City, but after he arrived, he waited for the army to arrive.

It seems that in order to strengthen their own courage, the Xingtian Army has just set up camp outside the city, and several Hongyi cannons on the outer city wall began to shoot aimlessly towards the Xingtian Army, a distance of several miles, although it does not pose any threat to the Xingtian Army at all, but it can more or less bring some comfort to the defenders, and there is a gunpowder bureau in Nanjing, and there is no shortage of gunpowder, and the defenders do not have to worry about the consumption of gunpowder too much, and from time to time they will shoot a few cannons outside the city, one is to interfere with the camping of the Xingtian Army, The second is to give yourself courage and boost the morale of the defenders.

Xiao Tianjian sat in the big tent, listened to the sound of artillery coming from the city, and couldn't help sneering: "The defenders can be said to have no fighting spirit at all, and it shows that they have no organization at all, so they don't have to worry about not being able to break through the outer city!" ”

Li Xin then nodded in agreement with Xiao Tianjian's opinion, and said with a smile: "Although there are many defenders in the city, the key to fighting Nanjing City is not in the outer city, so it is only a matter of time to take down the outer city, but the inner city is a little headache, and the other is that there are hundreds of thousands of residents living in the outer city. ”

Xiao Tianjian was actually thinking about this problem, and nodded: "That's true!" Ding Qirui transported most of the grain into the inner city, once the outer city was taken down, these hundreds of thousands of people eating and drinking would become a burden outside, this is probably Ding Qirui's most ruthless move! He wants to use these hundreds of thousands of people to drag us down! It's really dampening!

However, although this trick is tricky, we also have to go next, otherwise, we don't care about the lives of these hundreds of thousands of people, it is really dry! In any case, we must make sure that they are not allowed to starve to death after the city is destroyed, and at least maintain their minimum needs to get through this difficult time!

In particular, those officers and soldiers in the outer city who asked to surrender must be properly resettled, and they must not be allowed to become rogues, and they will become a great harm to Nanzhili in the future, otherwise, even if we take Nanjing City, we may not be able to sit here firmly! Fighting Nanjing is not the most critical, the most critical thing is to stabilize the situation here and lay a good foundation for the next Northern Expedition!

By the way, did Luo Bin from the Logistics Department arrive at Wuchang Mansion? Did the people from the logistics department keep up? ”

Li Xin immediately replied: "Lord Qiqi, Luo Bin left Luoyang and rushed to Wuchang Mansion a month ago, and now he has begun to preside over the affairs of providing support for the army in Wuchang Mansion, and his men have also rushed over with the ship, and are now responsible for dispatching supplies by the river!" Luo Bin sent someone to deliver the news that he was mobilizing more grain from the Huguang area to transport it here by water, and it cost a lot of money to requisition this grain!

In addition, there is also good news, that is, the dragon coins of our Xingtian Army have been under the auspices of the master mother, and have begun to be implemented in the jurisdiction, Wuchang and other prefectures and cities, the Xingtian Military Office Bank has been built, and the big dragon banknotes have also begun to be issued. So everyone rejoiced!

This time I also brought a few dragon coins, but I didn't take them at this time, and after a while, I ordered someone to send them to the lord to see! ”

In order to issue the Chinese dragon currency and dragon banknotes of the Xingtian Army, Xiao Tianjian has asked Fan Yutong to prepare for a long time, so this implementation is also a matter of course, Fan Yutong has her own team, and she has been busy with this matter for this time. At the beginning, the people and merchants definitely did not like to use this kind of banknote, and they would definitely exchange it for genuine silver coins or copper coins as soon as possible, but after the credit of the dragon banknote was established over time, the people and merchants would definitely because of the strong credit of the dragon banknote, and gradually adapt to the storage and carrying of this kind of banknote, and then the paper money will replace the precious currency and gradually become the mainstream of market circulation!

The reason why the Ming Dynasty failed to issue banknotes at the beginning was because they did not grasp the number of banknotes issued, so that the initial banknotes had been depreciated, and no one wanted to use them, and finally had to be eliminated from the market, so if Xingtianjun wanted to do this, he naturally had to learn a lesson, and he could not cause a large depreciation of banknotes, which is also the reason why they issued banknotes for so long.

Moreover, the issuance of currency by the Xingtian Army also has great political significance, although it has not been established, but the issuance of currency also represents the imminent establishment of the Xingtian Army, which will be self-contained economically, so the issuance of dragon banknotes and silver coins this time will undoubtedly score a lot for the Xingtian Army.

Not long after someone sent a few dragon banknotes for Xiao Tianjian, Xiao Tianjian unfolded and took a closer look, immediately laughed, this kind of dragon banknote face value when one tael, there are also when five taels and when ten taels of three denominations, the shape and later generations of banknotes have been quite close, in the middle is a coiled dragon, the pattern and the pattern on the dragon coin is similar, the use of engraving color overprint process, the paper is also special, full of toughness, shake in the hand and rattle, feel quite good, It's just that the banknotes are larger than those of later generations, and the printing is quite exquisite, and it will be very difficult for ordinary people to imitate them, and a group of people can't get this kind of banknote paper alone, so in a short period of time, there is no risk that someone will imitate a fake one.

"Good! Pretty! Ha ha! In the future, we should use this kind of dragon money to distribute the military salary of the Xingtian Army, and implement it in the army first, and I believe that a good credit will be established in the future, and the people who are willing to use the soldiers will naturally rest assured! Let's do it according to the current method! But I can't talk about these things now, right, Jiang Qin? Where is he now? After Xiao Tianjian put down a few dragon bills, he changed the topic after a compliment, and asked where Jiang Qin was.

"Jiang Qin is in the camp, so I'll look for him!" Li Xin put away the money and handed it over to his subordinates for safekeeping, and replied.

Not long after, Jiang Qin was allowed to enter the tent after passing through the tent, and saluted Xiao Tianjian: "See the lord for his humble position!" ”

Xiao Tianjian immediately asked him, "How is the matter of surrendering now?" Tell me more about it! ”

Jiang Qin immediately replied with a fluttering eyebrow: "Congratulations to the lord, things are going well in this regard, the fine work sent in the city in advance has contacted a lot of officers and generals, and now many officers and generals have expressed their willingness to surrender to the commander!"

Among them, Li Shutang, the deputy general of Changde Mansion, has clearly promised that as long as we start to attack the city, he will lead the troops to surrender and sacrifice the Fengtai Gate for our army to enter the outer city, and Zhang Yunlong, the general of Songjiang Mansion who guarded the Jinchuan Gate, also promised to surrender and sacrifice the Jinchuan Gate, and Li Xiandong, the general of the Huai'an Mansion who guarded the large and small elephant gates, also expressed his willingness to surrender, and several thousand generals guarding the fence gate also intended to surrender, of course, there were some generals who did not agree to surrender to the lord, but for the brothers who went to contact them, most of them were not embarrassed. Obviously, they want to leave a way back for themselves, so once our army enters the city, these people will not resist desperately.

At present, most of them are just worried about their resettlement after surrender and the safety of their families, hoping to get the guarantee of the lord, and then Ding Qirui is keeping a close eye on them, and all the doors are stationed with soldiers from Ying Tianfu to monitor them! ”