At the same time, outside the Fucheng Gate in the west of Beijing, the soldiers of the Eighth Division of the Capture Army, under the leadership of the division commander Chen Tianshi, began to attack the city wall. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

Although the number of Qing troops guarding the city wall is much smaller than in the past few days, there are still quite a few. Moreover, the most important thing is that there are still many large and small artillery pieces on the city wall. On a section of the city wall more than 1,000 meters long on both sides of the Fucheng Gate alone, there are more than 40 artillery pieces, and on average, every 20 or 30 meters of the city wall, there is an artillery defense.

In every two or three shooting holes behind the battlements, there were at least one or two Qing soldiers, armed with shotguns, aiming there.

Chen Tianshi fought very fiercely, but when he encountered a strong city like Beijing City, he was helpless. The city wall is not only ten meters high, but also more than ten meters thick, and four horse-drawn carriages can pass side by side on the top of the city wall alone. Moreover, the foundation of the Beijing city wall is five meters deep below the underground sand layer, and the foundation is made of solid stones, and even the method of the crypt is difficult to work!

This made Chen Tianshi very depressed!

He imitated the experience of the captives in the past siege and dug the crypt, but before he reached the city wall, he began to be poured into the crypt by the water in the moat, and almost drowned in the cave of the captive army who dug the hole. Digging deeper, I wanted to bypass the moat, but as soon as I reached the bottom of the river, I came across a very large square stone foundation under the city wall, which was difficult to shake.

I don't know how much it cost to build the city of Beijing in the Ming Dynasty to make the stone foundation of the city wall stretch to the bottom of the river! At this time, Chen Tianshi realized that this Beijing city was not at all comparable to the so-called big cities such as Changsha and Wuchang, this was a giant Mac, and if he wanted to blast the foundation of the city wall, he was afraid that it would be possible to dig for a few more months.

Helpless, Chen Tianshi could only stare at this slightly thinner Fucheng Gate, and wanted to attack Beijing City by blowing up the city gate.

The reason why he chose to conquer Fucheng Gate is because although the moat in front of Fucheng Gate is 30 meters wide, there is a simple stone bridge in front, but Chen Tianshi sent the soldiers of the capture army, carrying explosives bags, lighting twists, and trying to blow up the city gate, but although the Qing army on the city wall has poor marksmanship, it cannot stand up to many people and guns, and the soldiers of the capture army are shot and killed several people in a row.

Only then did Chen Tianshi realize why the Qing army dared not blow up this stone bridge, it turned out that on the city tower, there were more than 100 muskets aimed at this bridge. Maybe the Qing army deliberately kept the stone bridge, so that the soldiers of the captives could use this bridge to attack the city and send them to shoot. Chen Tianshi didn't dare to send soldiers to blow up the city gate anymore.

The sky slowly darkened, and it was even more difficult to attack such a strong city wall in the dark, so in desperation, Chen Tianshi had no choice but to withdraw his troops and stop the battle.

The same is true for the 1st Division in the east of the city, which seems to be in trouble, although it has not yet been attacked on a large scale.

In addition to the offensive in the south of the city, it continues.

Because the outer city in the south of the city had long been occupied by the captive army, it was originally only a marine regiment of the naval division led by Luo Xuan, but later the Ninth Division led by Tan Shaoguang joined the ranks of attacking the inner city from the outer city, and quickly blew up dozens of heavy artillery pieces on the two towers of the inner city Chongwen Gate and Xuanwu Gate next to the Xibian Gate and the Dongbian Gate.

However, the Qing army immediately strengthened its defense, although it could not carry heavy artillery up the city tower, but it was guarded with light firearms such as guns and shotguns.

In the first half of the night, there was a sensation in the north of Beijing. First of all, Prince Gong Yixun led the palace guards and 2,000 infantry battalions loyal to him, hurriedly left the city from Deshengmen, and went straight to Zhangjiakou in the northwest. The news soon spread throughout the city.

Tong Qingjun, the Xiaocai battalion who was packing up in the house and preparing to escape, heard the news and scolded fiercely: "Damn Yixun, yesterday he kept saying that he wanted to live and die with Beijing City, but it turned out that he was just stabilizing us and waiting for him to defend the city and work hard!" Let's go, let's go now!" Immediately, with a large family member, he led a battalion of 6,000 horsemen to open the Anding Gate and flee north.

Such a loud momentum and noise, of course, can't hide from the outposts of the captive army who have been monitoring outside the city and the people in the city. Hearing that Prince Gong had fled, the whole of Beijing was in an uproar.

Tazid is the head of Chongwenmen, and he is on duty in the second half of the night. But when he came to the tower of Chongwenmen City as usual, he found that there were many fewer Qing soldiers on duty.

"What's going on? Why are there so many people, and also, Lord Qibei, the leader of the city gate? Tazid asked.

"I don't know!"

"Mr. Qian, you really don't know?" A Qing soldier said loudly: "The city gate leader Qi Bei led them with red flags and ran away with Dutong Qingjun, saying that they went out of the city from Andingmen in the middle of the night. The other brothers on duty also fled with Zibei! ”

"What? Qingjun also ran away? Another Qing soldier's face changed: "I just heard a rumor from the alley that Prince Gong, who was in charge of the defense of the capital, had left the city in the middle of the night. ”

"Isn't it all gone! Damn, are we little soldiers still guarding a shit city, obediently waiting to die here? Mr. Qian, let's run away too! ”

"Yes, Mr. Qian, maybe, the entire city of Beijing has run out, and even a hundred of us can't hold it!"

"But we are the Red Banner Soldiers, this is our Qing Dynasty's Beijing Division, and we abandoned it like this?" One hesitated to raise objections.

"Whew! Silly dick! Those princes and nobles have all run out, leaving us bitter flag soldiers to accompany the funeral in Beijing City? A Qing soldier shouted angrily: "Our money is only seventy percent, and we can't even support our families, so why sell our lives for them?" It's better to go back to hunting outside the customs. As soon as he said this, everyone became excited, and they all agitated to flee out of the city.

As a result, under the leadership of Tazid, the only remaining defenders of Chongwenmen also fled cleanly, and the entire Chongwenmen was empty and unguarded.

The next day, that is, on the morning of the 10th day of the first month of October, a letter came from Tanma, saying that a large number of Qing troops had left the city north of Beijing last night, and the entire Beijing city wall was sparsely populated.

Feng Yunshan was overjoyed when he heard it! He deliberately left the north of the city not to besiege it, the purpose was to keep it for the Qing army to escape. A few days ago, the Qing army fled from the north of the city, and he did not send a captive army to pursue him. On the one hand, the troops are really insufficient, and on the other hand, there are not many cavalry, how can they catch up? But now, he decided not to let him escape, and ordered the horsemen of the three infantry regiments of the Ninth Division, which were composed of 4,000 newly captured horses, to intercept them.

Immediately afterwards, Feng Yunshan ordered a comprehensive siege of the city in the three directions of the east and west and the outer city in the south.

Chen Tianshi personally led the two main infantry regiments of the Eighth Division, bypassing the Yanfa Temple in front of the Fucheng Gate, passing the stone bridge, and rushing to the Fucheng Gate. Originally, he wanted to bear hundreds of casualties, and he desperately wanted to put a long ladder of more than ten meters on the city wall.

Unexpectedly, to Chen Tianshi's surprise, there were only a few sporadic gunshots on the city tower.

As soon as he was shot by the smoothbore gun in the hands of the infantry regiment soldiers under the city, he retracted back into the wall battlement, and never dared to come out again.

There was only enough space on the side of the tower to hold five or six ladders, but even so, the captives managed to climb the tower all the way.

To the surprise of the soldiers of the captive army, the tower of Fuchengmen City was empty, and even the only Qing soldiers just now fled in panic.

Chen Tianshi didn't expect to occupy Fuchengmen so smoothly, and almost thought he was dreaming. He hurriedly ordered to go down to the city tower to open the gate of Fuchengmen and let the main force enter the city.

At the same time, Luo Xuan and Tan Shaoguang each led their subordinates to fiercely attack Xuanwumen and Zhengyangmen.

Dozens of Qing soldiers on the city tower were soon shot and hid behind the wall, never firing back. Tan Shaoguang ordered people to shoot more than ten rounds at the city tower with Congreve rockets, the entire city tower burned, the Qing army scattered and fled, and the entire city tower was not too fortified, and now it is completely undefended. Soon, the soldiers of the captive army climbed the city wall with more than ten ladders and easily opened the city gate.

The city of Beijing was like child's play, and it was not tragically breached at all.