Wang Xinyu was receiving the surrendered Qing army, and a sentry came back to report the situation: "Report to the marshal, Shang Zhixin and the fake Tartars from Guangdong have run away in the direction of Guangdong!" ”

Previously, the cavalry of the Ming army were chasing and killing the Qing soldiers who tried to flee into Zhangzhou City, but no one chased them in the direction of Guangdong, and as a result, many Qing soldiers were released. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 Hearing the news, Wang Zihao stepped forward to ask for battle: "Big brother, the younger brother is willing to take light horses to chase after the Tartars!" ”

Wang Yuyou said: "There's no need to chase, it's been so long, the Tartars must have been prepared." Those who can run have already run to where they have gone, and those who stay behind can only suffer a loss if they take advantage of the terrain to chase them now, so it is better to divide a part of the infantry to search everywhere, and maybe catch some fish that have slipped through the net and come back. ”

The Ming army divided a part of the infantry to search along the official road leading to Guangdong, and then divided a part of the soldiers to search around Zhangzhou, and sure enough, they caught a lot of Qing soldiers who had no time to run away.

Some Qing soldiers took off their uniforms and hid in the homes of nearby villagers, but they were also searched out and honestly taken prisoner.

The Ming army received prisoners of war on the one hand, and arranged large camps on the other. According to the report from the sentinels who were watching along the way, in addition to the Shang Zhixin brothers, the generals who fled the Qing army also included Xu Erxian, Liu Jinzhong, Li Tianzhi, Liu Hanzuo, Wang Guozhu, Ma Xiong, Liu Yanming, Xu Hongzhen, Zu Zepu and Xu Shangyuan. This also means that there are senior generals and officials of the Qing army such as Li Shutai, Geng Jimao, Wu Liuqi, Huang Wu, Yang Guotai, and Yi Yonggui who retreated into Zhangzhou City.

Not to mention anything else, just say that Geng Jimao's family is a big fish in a big net, although Geng Jingzhong was left in Beijing as a proton, but Geng Zhaozhong and Geng Juzhong of the Geng family are all there, as well as Zeng Yangxing, Liu Bingzheng, Ma Siwen and other generals and masters of Jingnan Palace, each of those people is a big man.

In addition, there are a lot of Manmeng bannermen in Zhangzhou City, although Zhangzhou does not have a special Manchu City, but because Zheng Chenggong has been in Xiamen before, the Qing court mobilized bannermen to deal with Zheng Jiajun, Zhangzhou is the location of Li Shutai's governor's palace, naturally there are many banner families living in Zhangzhou. Later, Geng Jimao withdrew south to Zhangzhou, and also brought a lot of banner people.

In the big tent of the Chinese army, Liu Guoxuan came to report: "A total of more than 6,000 prisoners were captured, of which 2,000 were wounded, and 4,000 were intact. In addition, more than 1,000 injuries were dealt with. The captured captives are already being held in the camp. ”

The seriously injured Qing soldiers were all dealt with in a humane way, that is, to solve the pain with a knife. If you have minor injuries, you will be cured, and you will be able to use them in the future.

"All the captives were screened first, and the most heinous ones were singled out and killed. The rest of the captives, the wounded, were temporarily imprisoned, and they were healed, and when the time came to attack Canton, they could go up. The intact ones were incorporated into the Minzhuang battalion, and some were selected to be incorporated into the auxiliary battalions, and they were prepared, and the siege weapons were built to take Zhangzhou down as soon as possible. Wang Xinyu said.

"No!" Liu Guoxuan withdrew.

Wang Xinyu turned his head again and asked Chen Yonghua: "How many of us have mixed into the defeated Tartar army and entered the city?" ”

Chen Yonghua replied: "There are about 1,000 spies and night guards who have mixed into the city. The Tartar soldiers in the city were very chaotic, in addition to the Fujian Green Camp and the Han Eight Banners, there were also soldiers from Guangdong and Guangxi, and there were also temporarily recruited Minzhuang and auxiliary soldiers. Our men have been infiltrated by the Tartar army in advance and have become general guards who can protect us. ”

"Someone cooperates from the inside, and the city can be broken within seven days." Wang Xinyu nodded.

Chen Yonghua said again: "More than 500 people have mixed into Shang Zhixin's army, and we still have 1,000 in Guangzhou City. When Zhangzhou is taken, it will attack Guangzhou directly. Along the way, Yunxiao, Zhao'an, Chaoshan, and Huizhou did not have many Tartars stationed, and our army could reach Guangzhou like a bamboo. ”

The circumference of Zhangzhou city is 1,971 zhang, it has four city gates, Wenchang in the east, Taiping in the west, Shifu in the south, Taichu in the north, the city wall was originally seven feet high, and later because Zheng Chenggong attacked Zhangzhou many times, Zhou Lianggong increased the Zhangzhou city wall, increased to two zhang and eight feet. The city wall of Zhangzhou is not high, but there are many artillery pieces in the city, and the firepower of the defenders is fierce.

Zheng Chenggong had failed to attack Zhangzhou many times before, mainly because the Ming army was unable to suppress the firepower of the artillery at the head of Zhangzhou.

The Zheng Jiajun was not without artillery, and there were also Hongyi cannons with a long range, but they were inconvenient to carry, and the Hongyi cannons would be preemptively attacked by the artillery fire of the Qing army at the head of the city before advancing to the firing position. Moreover, although the city of Zhangzhou is not high, it is very strong. The outside of the castle wall, which has been repeatedly rebuilt, is reinforced with glutinous rice and mud, and the inside of the castle wall is made of bricks and rammed earth left over from many constructions, which is so strong that it is difficult to destroy with heavy artillery alone.

But now that time has passed, the Qiongzhou army has a one-sided firepower advantage over the Zhangzhou defenders.

The Hongyi cannon at the head of the city of Zhangzhou is heavy, inconvenient to transport, and is a sharp weapon for defending the city, but the mobile twelve-pounder siege cannon of the Ming army is a kind of artillery that is quite advanced in this era, with a long range, high accuracy and great power, which can suppress the Hongyi cannon of the defenders of the city. The mortars and other small cannons of the Ming army could cover the firepower of the Qing army at the head of the city.

Before making preparations for the siege, Wang Xinyu asked people to go to the city to shout and ask Li Shutai and Geng Jimao to surrender, declaring that as long as they took the initiative to surrender, they could not blame the past, Li Shutai was still the governor of Fujian, and Geng Jimao could maintain the title of prince.

However, both Li Shutai and Geng Jimao refused to surrender, saying that they would fight to the death.

The auxiliaries and minzhuang, who were formed from captives, began to dig fortifications and cut down trees under the leadership of the original auxiliaries and minzhuang. Craftsmen and militia auxiliaries work together to craft a variety of siege weapons.

The city of Zhangzhou is not very high, there is no need to build too large siege weapons, and the most important thing is that it can suppress the opponent in artillery fire. In response to this characteristic, the Ming army built brick and earth forts behind the mounds of earth. The auxiliaries and the men dug the trenches, and the excavated earth was piled up in front of the trenches, and the back was compacted with mud to form a fort higher than the head of the city, and the earth was bound with bricks on the outside.

With cement, a new building material, it is very useful to fix bricks, laying bricks outside the mound forts, and fixing the gaps between the bricks with cement. When the cement was dry, the improvised battery was very strong, and the recoil of the heavy artillery fire would not cause the bricks to fall off, causing the battery to collapse.

When the Ming army auxiliaries and Minzhuang were carrying out civil construction, the Qing army opened artillery bombardment. But the shells were all absorbed by the dirt and sandbags, and except for a few extremely unlucky unlucky ghosts who happened to be hit by the shells, the auxiliaries and civilians suffered little losses.

Li Shutai stood at the head of the city, watching the construction of the Ming army, he got inspiration from it, and suddenly thought of a way: "Take soil from the city, make sandbags, and put sandbags at the head of the city, which can reduce the power of Ming dog artillery fire!" ”

After seven days and seven nights of construction, a large number of mounds appeared outside the city of Zhangzhou, and behind them were forts three feet high.

The height of the city of Zhangzhou is only two zhang and eight feet, and the three-zhang high fort is already higher than the height of the city wall, and the cannons erected on the fort can bombard the Qing army condescendingly. And these improvised batteries were outside the range of the Qing army's artillery, and the Qing army could only stare dryly.

The Ming army built two winches that could be pushed, and the twelve-pounder siege cannons were hoisted one by one onto the improvised battery one after the other. After that, the gun wheels were removed and the gun was fixed on the turret to increase the stability of the launch.

The nest car was set up, and Li Rui boarded the nest car to observe the movements of the Qing army in the city.

"The Tartars have also piled up a large number of sandbags at the head of the city, which seem to be used against our shelling." Li Rui put down the binoculars and thought about it in his heart.

The situation of the Qing army was reported to Wang Xinyu, and when he learned that the Qing army was piling sandbags, Wang Xinyu decided to bombard them with cannons first to destroy the artillery of the Qing army, and then use mortars to fire flowering shells to blow up the sandbags.

"Fire!" Gong Xiaoda, the commander of Shenji Town, gave an order.

The twelve-pounder cannon on the improvised battery outside the city spewed out clouds of fire, and the shells whistled and smashed into the Qing artillery at the head of the city. Because it was a condescending shot, the artillery position of the Qing army at the head of the city was clear at a glance, and the gunners could fire it by aiming directly. Coupled with the new ballistic calculation method, wind direction and wind speed calculation, all the data are accurately calculated, and the hit rate of heavy artillery is quite high, with an average of ten shells fired, and one or two rounds can hit the target.

Wang Xinyu used the expensive wooden tray flowering cannonball regardless of the cost, although the destructive power of this cannonball to the city wall is very small, but the cannonball fell on the head of the city, and the coverage area after the explosion was large, which was the best weapon used to destroy the Qing army's artillery.

After an hour of firing, the Ming army's 20 12-pounder guns fired more than 400 shells, blasting all the six Hongyi cannons of the Qing army at the head of the north gate into scrap copper and rotten iron.

After destroying the long-range artillery of the Qing army, the Ming army pushed various six-pounder guns and four-pounder guns forward, concentrated the fire of hundreds of guns, and fired a large number of solid shells at the head of the city, destroying the small cannons arranged by the Qing army at the head of the city.

The current Ming army has sufficient gunpowder, and there is no need to think about ammunition at all. The shelling began in the afternoon and continued into the evening, and the siege did not cease except for a brief pause in the intermediate-cooled barrels.

In the evening, the auxiliaries and Minzhuang pushed the shield cart and slowly pushed it out of the city. When the shield cart arrived at the city, the auxiliaries braved the projectile arrows fired from the city to throw down the sandbags on the shield cart and fill in the obstacles such as deer barricades and wooden stakes under the city. After a night of construction, the auxiliaries and the people paid the price of more than 500 people, and the road to the moat was paved.

As the shield cart advanced under the moat, the fire at the head of the city became more intensive, and after the auxiliary soldiers and people who filled the river dropped their sandbags, most of them did not have time to retreat behind the shield cart, and were hit by the random arrows and projectiles fired by the head of the city, and fell into the moat.

Behind the shield cart, the archers and musketeers of the Ming army counterattacked the city, and the sky was full of feather arrows and bullets like locusts, and countless corpses fell at the head and under the city.

The mortars of the Ming army also began to exert their might, and the flowering shells pulled out arcs and continued to fall on the city and explode. There were no dead ends in this kind of shells that fell from the sky, and the carefully calculated shells landed accurately on the head of the city and exploded. Although many shells also fell in the moat and even fell in the crowd of auxiliaries, those auxiliaries were originally prisoners, and Wang Xinyu would not care about the losses of the auxiliaries at all. (To be continued.) )