But it turned out to be the cunning Peng Yulin who found out that Jiang Zhongyuan had always liked to engage in sneak attacks, especially night attacks, so he ordered people to quietly set up a fake camp tent, put some straw men, and buried half of the straw in explosives, spread sand, and half exposed it. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The 7th Division dug several deep trenches next to the camp tent to connect the camp with the adjacent woods. At night, the soldiers were led through the trenches in the camp and into the woods, where they hid.

Peng Yulin was also in the spirit of believing what he had, just in case, and was ready to wait for the Qing army to attack. Unexpectedly, Chu Yong is really here!

This is also Jiang Zhongyuan's courage in using troops, if he had changed Zeng Guofan's Xiangyong and the habit of fighting steadily, he would definitely not use troops so bravely. Of course, on the other hand, it was also because Jiang Zhongyuan had just died of his second brother, and the anger in his heart was difficult to suppress, so he had the intention of killing some Cantonese thieves to vent his anger.

In the middle of the night, Chu Yong's men first set fire to the camp as usual, and then broke into the camp tent, at this time, the straw burned, just to the position of the explosives, so there was a continuous explosion sound.

Jiang Zhongyuan's Chu Yong was not injured, and most of the injured were Xiang Yong led by Taqib. On the one hand, Taqib was indeed extremely brave, went into battle with injuries, and led the killing, on the other hand, it was also because Xiangyong was too poor and too short of money, so Taqib thought that he could be the first to rush into the camp of the Cantonese thieves and seize valuable property.

Seeing that he had fallen into the trap of the Cantonese thieves, Jiang Zhongyuan was afraid that he would be ambushed by the thieves like Changyi Town, and hurriedly ordered the Qing soldiers to leave the camp and return to the city. Fortunately, there was no ambush and chasing soldiers, Jiang Zhongyuan led the Qing soldiers back to the city in embarrassment, closed the city gate, and defended it wholeheartedly.

For two days in a row, there was no movement from the captives, and there was no sign of siege.

It turned out that Peng Yulin looked around for some people left behind by the Taiping army, and after interrogation, he learned that the artillery fire at the head of Nanchang City was fierce, and the Taiping army attacked the city several times, but they were all repelled by the artillery fire and bird guns of the Qing army.

Moreover, the Taiping army dug the crypt for the second time and planted explosives to collapse the city wall, but hundreds of people from Jiang Zhongyuan's governor Chu Yong blocked the gap, and strongly blocked it, but failed to enter the city.

Upon learning of these battle conditions, Peng Yulin and Chen Yucheng discussed the strategy of attacking the city. Because neither of the two divisions carried giant siege artillery, only the Third Division had more than 10 field guns and 30 small and medium-sized artillery, and the 7th Division only had more than 20 ordinary earthen artillery, so the two decided to adopt the Taiping Army's approach, digging tunnels, burying explosives, and destroying the city wall to attack the city.

However, the gunpowder in the captive army has a special formula for making explosives, with high nitrate content and dry granules, which is much more powerful than the soil gunpowder of the Taiping Army and the Qing Army in the past, and this time, Peng Yulin, who has specialized in studying the Taiping Army's crypt blasting and siege tactics, carried a large amount of gunpowder and collected more than 20 coffins along the way, which is to test the power of this explosion.

However, Jiang Zhongyuan in the city is also very shrewd.

He handed over all the Xiang Yong led by Taqib, who was wounded and bedridden, to Chu Ruhang, another commander of the Xiang Yong Naval Army. With Chu Yong and Xiang Yong as the backbone, he ordered the green battalion soldiers in the city to cooperate with each other, defend the city in separate stacks, and set up cannons on the city wall to fire cannons at any time to prevent the captives from attacking.

At the same time, because the houses outside the city had already been burned down by him in advance, he avoided the capture army from digging the nearby crypt under the cover of the houses. Moreover, he knew that the captive army and the Taiping army were from the same background, and he appreciated the power of the "cave siege method", so he ordered people to bury the two crypts in the city that had been dug by the Taiping army before.

That's not all, he also ordered people in the city, every more than 100 meters, to dig a pit, install a large vat, let people listen to the sound of the underground day and night, at any time to find signs of the capture army digging tunnels.

In the next few days, the captives outside Nanchang City opened fire on the city head from the southeast and southwest, but the artillery power was small, not only did not hurt the Qing army in the city tower, but was destroyed by the artillery on the head of Nanchang City, and even the artillery killed and wounded more than ten people.

At the same time, under the cover of artillery fire, the two divisions outside the city begged for the capture army, and sent people to dig the crypt in the direction of the city.

However, whether it was the Third Division A on the southwest side outside Nanchang City or the Seventh Division on the southeast side, the four tunnels secretly excavated were all discovered by the Qing soldiers who specialized in listening to the cylinder in the city.

After Jiang Zhongyuan received the report, he hurriedly sent soldiers to dig from the sound in the city, digging four tunnels to pierce each other, and then, Jiang Zhongyuan, who was familiar with the art of war, called hundreds of people in the city, lit cow and horse dung, poisonous herbs, sulfur and arsenic and other miscellaneous materials, made a thick poisonous smoke, and let people use bellows to blow wind in the direction of the outside of the tunnel.

Jiang Zhongyuan was very confident in this trick of using poisonous smoke to deal with the thieves digging tunnels. Since ancient times, all kinds of military books have been like this, creating poisonous smoke, using a fan into the crypt, poisoning or forcing the enemy to dig the crypt to death, and then entering the ground ** in the enemy's crypt to blow up or bury, it will be destroyed successfully.

Jiang Zhongyuan stood on the city tower, trying to see where the smoke was coming from outside the city, and the appearance of the Yue thieves fleeing from the hole in panic, half loud, but there was no movement.

Jiang Zhongyuan was surprised, and suddenly poisonous smoke rose from several parts of the city behind him.

A personal guard hurriedly came to report: "Lord Futai, for some reason, the poisonous smoke was not sent into the crypt, but was blown out of the crypt, making the city full of poisonous smoke. ”

"What! Why does the poisonous smoke not enter the hole and spew out? Jiang Zhongyuan was surprised and said: "Take this official to have a look!" ”

As the guards went down the city tower and came to the city, they saw poisonous smoke coming from more than ten places, which was obviously blown out by the wind from the tunnel.

How so? Jiang Zhongyuan saw that hundreds of Chu Yong and the people in the city were coughing again and again because of the poisonous smoke, and ordered the people to pull the bellows with all their strength and blast the wind with all their strength in the tunnel.

Unexpectedly, the poisonous smoke no longer came out of the several places where the blower box was pointed, but several other cracks in the city, as well as the cracks at the root of the newly repaired city wall, began to smoke in large quantities.

It turned out that the crypt excavated below was actually connected to the city wall that was blown down by the Taiping army a few days ago. It seems that the Cantonese thieves must have spotted the weakness of this newly restored city wall, and deliberately excavated tunnels under this section of the city wall.

Jiang Zhongyuan immediately thought of this reason, and couldn't help sweating: This Cantonese thief is too ruthless, and the tunnel is dug so accurately!

He hurriedly ordered more people to be sent to pour poisonous smoke into the tunnel and increase the fan fan. At the same time, he ordered thousands of people to go to the homes of the people in the city to search for buckets and basins, prepare to carry water, pour water into the tunnels and drown those Cantonese thieves.

…….

Two miles to the southeast of the city, two steam engines mounted on four ox carts roared, driving four cast-iron blowers, humming and turning rapidly, rolling up a strong wind, collecting them through a cast iron pipe, connecting several air ducts made of wooden planks the same size as chimneys, entering the tunnel, and blowing wind into the underground caverns in the city.

Peng Yulin said to a young staff officer of the Seventh Division: "Deputy Chief of Staff, fortunately, you have a good idea, and you can actually think of borrowing two steam iron oxen from Guiyang City to blow the wind. ”

The young deputy chief of staff smiled shyly, but did not speak.

Peng Yulin continued: "The Steam Iron Ox has been driving for so long, the sound should be able to drown out the sound of the other two brothers' excavations, right?" Deputy Chief of Staff, have you really calculated clearly, through these two tunnels next to the city wall that the Taiping Army blew down last time? ”

"Division commander, I have calculated many times under my post, and there will be no mistakes." The young deputy chief of staff affirmed.

"Jiang Zhongyuan, the head of the Qing demon in the city, knows about the military affairs, and if he can't smoke my soldiers with poison, he will definitely be flooded with water or buried with soil." Peng Yulin speculated, turned his head to the guards beside him and ordered: "Quickly notify Division Commander Chen of the Third Division, and ask him to order to approach in the direction of our side and prepare to attack the city!" ”

"Order the brothers in the tunnel to immediately find the location of the city wall that collapsed last time, place a few more coffins, and set them on fire immediately, this time to blow up more city walls. In addition, the coffins filled with poison should be lit first, so that they will continue to produce poisonous smoke! Peng Yulin ordered, and said again: "Lead the water of the Qing army in the city to the low tunnels, delay some time, and let the ** brothers withdraw immediately after lighting the fire." ”

The guards took the order and left. (To be continued.) )