"Boom Boom"

The rumbling sound of cannons shook for dozens of miles, and one after another cannonballs crossed the air for miles in an arc, smashed the city wall, and landed on the city.

The entire city wall shook a few times, and the bricks where the cannonballs hit it flew together, and small craters appeared. The battlements of the city wall were also smashed in many places, and the top of the battlements, which was more than a foot wide, was full of brick and stone debris.

However, this level of damage is very small for Yangzhou City, which is three feet high and five feet thick, and is two feet thick.

Yangzhou has the old and new two connected cities, the west side is the old city also called the palace city, in the Jiajing period in order to prepare for the new city between the old city and the canal in the east to build a new city, is the county seat of Jiangdu County, also known as the county seat.

Between the old and new cities is an inner canal, with stone bridges to communicate the gates on both sides.

Since Chen Yue was the governor of Jiangbei last year, he rebuilt the city wall in order to prepare for war. Thousands of people were recruited to renovate the city walls, especially the old city to the west. The dilapidated places were relaid, filled with rammed earth and breaded bricks, and dozens of forts were built on the city walls in various places. Therefore, the phenomenon of Qing soldiers collapsing the city wall in a few days like another time and space will not occur again.

As for the artillery bombardment of the Qing army, Yangzhou City naturally launched a-for-tat shooting.

More than 40 red-coated cannons and more than 60 Franc machines were placed on the forts of the city wall on the northwest side, and launched a counterattack against the Qing army camp. In terms of the number of red-coated cannons, Yangzhou artillery was more than that of the Qing army. After all, the Qing army was a long-distance attack from the north, and it was not convenient to carry thousands of pounds of red-coated cannons. It's good to be able to carry twenty or thirty doors.

Chen Yujie, secretary of the military department, was appointed by Chen Yue as the commander of the artillery, and commanded the gunners to launch a fierce bombardment of the Qing army camp every day.

The Qing army's camp was too far away from the city wall for the red-coated artillery to threaten its camp, so they could only turn to the Qing army's artillery array. However, the accuracy of the artillery in these years was too poor, and the red-coated cannons were loaded with solid shells, although it was not so easy to destroy the Qing army's artillery array. Moreover, each launch requires more than ten catties of primer, and the lead-iron projectile weighs ten catties and four taels, and each launch consumes several taels of silver, and there are very few gains. In the end, Chen Yue ordered that only a few red-coated cannons should be kept to fire back at the Qing army's artillery array, while the others stopped and waited for the Qing army to fire during the siege.

Standing in the enemy tower in the north city, holding a clairvoyant mirror to observe the camp of the Qing army in the distance, and looking at the thousands of strong men who were forcibly captured by the Qing soldiers in the field digging a ditch, Chen Yue's face fell into contemplation.

Yangzhou, an important town, is not comparable to Sizhou County, and it is not so easy for the Qing army to easily break through, and the commander of the Qing army must also know this.

And the movements of the Qing army are clearly preparing for a long siege of the city.

Thousands of strong men dug ditches in the field, clearly trying to divert the water from the moat in Yangzhou. The moat of Yangzhou is ten zhang wide, and it communicates with the canal, and the moat is not solved, and the Qing army does not want to attack the city of Yangzhou.

Of course, the Qing army can also come through the stone bridge erected on the moat, Yangzhou's important town of Dayi, with a large population and prosperous commerce, naturally will not rely on any suspension bridge to communicate inside and outside, outside each city gate, there are stone bridges erected on the moat. However, the stone bridge is narrow, Chen Yue sent a battalion of soldiers to garrison outside each city gate, stationed on the city wall and the moat, only a few artillery pieces are needed, the stone bridge can be completely blocked, the Qing army wants to attack the city wall through the stone bridge, then endure the huge casualties first.

It is clear that the Qing army had no intention of storming the stone bridge, but wanted to divert the water from the moat and attack from other places. As long as the moat can be easily crossed, and only the 20,000 or 30,000 Ming troops stationed outside the city wall can ignore such a long city wall, then the Qing army can choose the place to attack at will.

First drain the water in the moat, and then kill the Ming army stationed between the moat and the city wall, this should be the plan of the Qing army!

It can be seen that Duoduo, the prince of Manchu Yu, is very stable in his use of troops, and he does not look impatient at all. Encountering such an opponent, Chen Yue was under a lot of pressure.

Although the army and people of Yangzhou City are united, although there are 70,000 Pingnan troops loyal to themselves, and there are far more artillery and tall city walls than the Qing army, in terms of the situation, it is countless times better than when the other time and space Shi Kefa defended Yangzhou, as long as he defended it carefully, there was no problem in holding it.

But time is not on your side now! The Qing soldiers outside the city are just one way, and there is another way down the river, presumably the Shun army should be defeated by the Qing army at this time, right? Will Zuo Liangyu's army still surrender like another time and space?

If the left army also surrendered, the Qing army on the west road would definitely take advantage of the situation to attack Nanjing, and his father would bear the brunt of it at that time.

Chen Yue didn't think that with his father's tens of thousands of Beijing battalion soldiers, he could stop the advance of the Qing army on the West Road. There are a lot of soldiers in the Beijing camp, but most of them are guards of the Nanjing Guard, and the combat effectiveness of such an army is inferior to that of a miscellaneous army like Huang Degong.

The news of Huang Degong's death had already reached Yangzhou, and it was reported that the Boluo Department had captured the entire Fengyang Prefecture and was collecting ships to prepare to cross the river from Pukou to attack Nanjing.

The situation of the Ming Dynasty is already extremely critical, even if Yangzhou can hold it, what can it do? If Nanjing falls, what is the point of leaving only a lonely Yangzhou?

At this moment, Chen Yue knew that time was not on his side, and if he couldn't quickly defeat the Qing army outside the city and return to the division to rescue Nanjing, everything he did would be meaningless. The Ming Dynasty will perish like another time and space.

However, what should he do to defeat the Qing army outside the city? At this moment, Chen Yue was at a loss.

What Chen Yue didn't know was that at this moment, Duoduo, the commander of the Qing army, was also anxious.

Since leaving Tongguan, Duoduo led his troops all the way to destroy and wither, sweeping dozens of prefectures and counties in several provinces, and the Ming army fell one after another wherever he went, and he did not experience many battles along the way.

However, since arriving in Nanzhi, he first encountered a lot of setbacks in Sizhou, losing thousands of troops but gaining nothing. And now it is blocked by Yangzhou Jiancheng.

Looking at the flags fluttering on the city of Yangzhou, and then looking at the deployment of the Ming army guarding the bridge outside the city gate, as well as the roar of the red-clothed cannons that never stop at the head of Yangzhou City, Duoduo knew that Yangzhou was a hard nail, and it was not so easy to break through Yangzhou.

If you can't break through Yangzhou, you can't go south to Nanjing, and the work of destroying the Ming Dynasty won't fall on your head. Now I can only hope that Bolo can successfully cross the Yangtze River and come to the city of Nanjing, as long as Bolo can capture Nanjing, he can still share the credit of destroying the Ming.

Ping Nanjun, Chen Yue! I, Duoduo, would rather not destroy the merits of Ming, but also break Yangzhou and annihilate you all!

Looking at the giant city of Yangzhou in the distance, Duoduo thought viciously.