Outside the city of Quzhou, a group of Qing troops marched in the direction of Quzhou. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoThis Qing army has about 5,000 people, all of them are Eight Banner Cavalry, under the banner of Prince An and Gushan Beizi.

"Lord Wang, the front is Quzhou! There are no clear dogs on the road ahead. A Qing army sentry came back to report to Yue Le.

Gushan Beizi Zhangtai laughed and said: "The southern barbarians are cowardly, and they don't dare to fight a decisive battle with our army at all!" ”

Yue Le, who had always been steady, did not rush forward, but ordered: "Set up camp on the spot, wait for the green camp and the Han army flag behind to come up, and let them enter the city." ”

Chamukana patted a sycophant and said, "The prince is wise! We have few soldiers, if we go deep alone, I am afraid that the thieves will be tricky! It's better to wait for those dog minions to come up and let them enter the city. ”

The Qing army waited for a long time, and the Green Camp army led by Tong Guoqi, Li Ruchun, and Yang Xiang, Zhang Guoda, He Ziyang, Gao Yingqi, Yan Guodong, Li Tingzhi and other Qing generals arrived. There are 8,000 Han and Eight Banners and more than 30,000 green battalion soldiers, who are here to "recover" Zhejiang.

"The main force of the thieves is still in Fujian, and the troops in Jinhua in Quzhou are empty, so our army can take the opportunity to break through it in one fell swoop and regain the lost territory!" This is the battle plan arranged by Ao Bai before Yue Le set out on the expedition.

In the past, the Qing army attacked Suzhou, Huzhou and Hangzhou, but suffered enough in front of the strong fortresses of the Ming army, but could not capture a city or a place. Later, the Ming army went south to Fujian, and Quzhou, Jinhua, Yiwu, Shaoxing and other cities that had just been conquered were empty, and the Ming army had not had time to build city defenses, so Aobai sent people to take advantage.

The Qing army did not dare to attack Xianxia Pass, Wang Xinyu left a thousand people to garrison in Xianxia Pass, if the Qing army came to attack, because the mountain road was narrow, the force could not be used, even more than ten people could not attack Xianxia Pass, which was garrisoned by only 1,000 people. Because of this, Ao Bai gave up the idea of entering Fujian from Xianxia Pass and uniting with the Qing army in Guangdong and Fujian to flank the Ming army.

Since Xianxia Pass can't go, then recover southern Zhejiang, which is also a credit.

"Who wants to enter the city first? The first one to recover Quzhou City was promoted to one level! Yue Le looked around and said.

Deputy General Zhang Guoda stood up: "Lord Wang, the last general is willing to go!" ”

Yue Le said: "Okay, you go!" Beware of Nanban cunning! ”

"Thank you, Lord Wang!" Zhang Guoda turned around and retreated.

Then Zhang Guoda ordered 3,000 troops and went straight to Quzhou City. When the Qing army arrived at the city of Quzhou, they saw that the city gate was wide open, and the city was empty, without even a single flag. Standing outside the city gate and observing from a distance, you can see that the city is frighteningly quiet, and it seems that there is not even a person.

Zhang Guoda was worried that the Ming army would deliberately sell flaws and set up an ambush in the city, after all, his troops were too small, only more than 3,000 people, if there were 5,000 ambush soldiers in the city, Zhang Guoda's more than 3,000 people would not be enough for the Ming army to eat.

"General, what do we do now? Is it waiting outside the city? One of the guards asked.

Zhang Guoda said: "Send a hundred people into the city!" If the thieves are not ambushed, they will raise the banner and our army will enter the city! ”

One of the Qing soldiers who was drawn nodded his officers and soldiers and approached the Quzhou City Gate. When I approached the city gate, I always felt like my clothes were soaking wet. At this time, it was already the end of November, and the weather was a little cold, and the Qing soldier was obviously frightened.

"My lord, do you think there is an ambush in this city?" A Qing soldier asked.

"Damn, we've been named, and we've got to go in if there's an ambush!" The general scolded him.

More than 100 Qing troops entered the city, but saw that the city was empty, and the silence on both sides of the street was terrifying. A bold soldier kicked open the door of a house and entered, only to find that it was empty.

"Search! Find out all the hidden dogs! Finding that there was no ambush, the Qing army emboldened the general force.

The Qing army in the back also entered the city and searched everywhere in Quzhou City, but did not find a single Ming army, and finally only found more than 100 local people. Most of these people are elderly. As for the gold and silver treasures, they didn't even see a shadow. There was not even a grain of grain in the city, and nothing useful could be found.

"You cunning people! Say, what's going on here? Why is there no one in the city? Zhang Guoda personally interrogated an old man with gray hair.

The old man knelt on the ground and cried and pleaded: "My lord, the grass people have lived here for generations, and after the Haikou captured Quzhou, they said that they could not hold Quzhou, so they forcibly moved the people here. The grass people did not want to be thieves, so they stayed and waited for the king. ”

Originally, he planned to enter the city to loot and make a windfall, but now all of them have come to naught. Zhang Guoda was furious: "Bold! You are all thieves! Someone! Kill all these people! ”

"Spare your life! Spare your life! The people fell on their knees and pleaded.

They just didn't want to leave their hometown, and they thought that they wouldn't embarrass their old people after the Qing army came, so they were unwilling to listen to the advice of the Ming army and refused to leave Quzhou. But unexpectedly, as soon as the Qing army came, they killed them all.

The Ming army had already warned that because the Ming army was insufficient and could not hold Quzhou, it would withdraw all the people of Quzhou. At that time, many people refused to leave, so the Ming army used Minzhuang and auxiliary soldiers to forcibly drive away and move most of the people away. And these old people who refused to leave, because of their old age, the Ming army couldn't bear to beat them, and they were worried that they would be killed with a few whips, so they no longer forced them to stay here.

Soon after, the main force of the Qing army also arrived.

"Lord Wang, there are thieves in the city to stop it, the last general will lead the army to attack the city, behead more than 100 levels, and the rest of the thieves will abandon the city and flee!" Zhang Guoda reported to Yue Le.

"Well, that's good! The first credit for recovering Quzhou will be yours! This king will report to the court! Yue Le nodded, pretending not to know about Zhang Guoda's killing of Liang and his merits.

After the Qing army "recovered" Quzhou, they searched the surrounding villages on the edge, but the Qing army searched through dozens of villages of various sizes around them, but did not find a single young man or woman, only found a few hundred old people who were unwilling to leave their hometowns, and all the young and middle-aged people in those villages were moved, and all the grain and the like were taken away, and not a single grain was left for the Qing army.

Chamukana was furious and wanted to kill all these old people he caught, but Yue Le stopped him: "They are also my people of the Qing Dynasty, not to mention that it is useless to kill these old people, let them go." ”

Anyway, these old people won't live long when they go back, and Yue Le wants to earn himself a reputation for loving the people like a son.

Yue Le was a truly capable general of the Kangxi Dynasty, but in the early days, his talent was suppressed by Aobai and did not play a role. Later, Kangxi was suspicious of Yue Le again, and found an excuse to deprive him of his military rights.

Thousands of miles away in Quanzhou, the Ming army was violently attacking the city of Quanzhou.

The heavy artillery of the Qiongzhou army was erected and bombarded the city wall fiercely, so that the artillery of the Qing army did not dare to set up the city. After suppressing the firepower of the Qing army, the Ming army auxiliaries advanced to carry out civil engineering work, build forts, and dig trenches. There were also a large number of auxiliaries who cut wood in the mountains and forests behind to build siege tools.

Quanzhou is also a relatively strong city, with a five-zhang high city wall and a circumference of thirty miles! It has seven city gates and one water gate, including Linzhang Gate, Quanshan Gate, Chaotian Gate, Tongjin Gate, Renfeng Gate, Tonghuai Gate, Deji Gate, Yicheng Gate, etc., which is the largest city in Fujian that year. After all, Quanzhou was extremely prosperous in the Tang and Song dynasties, and it was not until the sea ban that the Ming Dynasty began that Quanzhou gradually weakened, but the emaciated camel was bigger than the horse, and Quanzhou was still a big city.

The circumference of 30 miles is already a very large city in those years, the circumference of the Beijing city wall is only 48 miles, and the circumference of Xi'an is 40 miles, which is a large capital. And Quanzhou is just a capital city, with a circumference of thirty miles, and there are really not many cities that can surpass Quanzhou back then.

If it weren't for the fact that Li Shutai did not dare to leave the city of Zhangzhou, where the governor's yamen was located, in order to get the support of the Qing army in Guangdong as soon as possible, the Qing army should have fought a decisive battle with the Ming army in Quanzhou, instead of choosing Zhangzhou.

Since the Qing army chose to fight a decisive battle in Zhangzhou, the strength of the Qing army in Quanzhou was somewhat insufficient.

Liu Xiangzhen had more than 2,000 green battalion soldiers and more than 5,000 people on hand, and the population in Quanzhou City was large, so he could recruit another 5,000 to 6,000 people from them for the Qing army to defend the city.

It took the Ming army seven days to set up siege positions outside this big city, set up hundreds of large and small artillery, and launched a fierce artillery bombardment on Quanzhou City.

The artillery of the Qing army at the head of the city has been withdrawn, and the gunners of the Qing army do not dare to set up artillery at the head of the city. There was once a Qing gunner who pulled the cannon up to the city overnight and set up a cannon to fire shells at the Ming army's position, but immediately attracted fierce fire retaliation, and the cannon mounted at the head of the city was hit by the cannonballs and smashed to pieces.

The Ming army concentrated the fierce fire bombardment, so that the city did not even have a foothold for the Qing army.

The overwhelming cannonballs smashed into the arrow tower on the city gate, and the solid cannonballs continued to drill into the arrow tower, and the arrow tower that was tragically shelled came out with billowing smoke and dust, and finally could not withstand the shell bombardment and turned into a ruin.

Heavy artillery shells bombarded the city gates, and the city gates were so smashed, if it weren't for the large number of sandbags behind the gates, I am afraid that the city gates would have been blasted open long ago.

"My lord! The thieves' artillery fire is fierce! The brothers who stood at the head of the city suffered heavy losses. "There are Qing soldiers who report to Liu Xiangzhen.

"Hey! Lord Lee! The imperial court should fight the thieves in Quanzhou! Liu Xiangzhen looked up to the sky and sighed.

At this moment, someone shouted: "Minggou has begun to attack the city!" ”

Outside the city, the Ming army auxiliaries pushed shield carts and slowly advanced in the direction of the city wall.

"All to the city! Stop the pirates! The Retreater, Slash! Liu Xiangzhen shouted.

The Ming army auxiliaries pushed the shield cart slowly, and when they were about to reach the moat under the city, obstacles such as deer and wooden stakes under the city wall blocked the way of the shield cart.

"When Minggou leaves the shield cart to cut the stakes, he will shoot arrows!" Liu Xiangzhen gave the order.

But something happened to him dumbfounded: the Ming army auxiliaries did not leave the shield car to destroy the obstacles in front, but directly threw the sandbags on the car between the wooden stakes and the deer!

The shield cart that dropped the sandbags immediately retreated, withdrew to the Ming army camp and continued to transport the sandbags. The shield cart behind pushed forward and threw bags of sandbags into the obstacles. In a short time, the sandbags were piled up, gradually forming a two-foot-high mound, burying obstacles such as wooden stakes and deer bars underneath the mound.

The Qing army in the city was helpless about this, and could only watch as the Ming army destroyed the obstacles outside the city.

The only weapons that can destroy shield carts are trebuchets and cannons. There is no need to consider the old-fashioned weapon of the trebuchet, the artillery of the Qing army cannot go to the city, and it will be destroyed by the artillery of the Ming army.

According to the Qiongzhou Army's artillery drill code, the first thing artillery has to deal with in a war is the opponent's artillery. Only after the threat of the enemy's artillery has been solved, the task of the artillery is to storm the city, break through the fortifications, and kill and wound the opponent's infantry...... Because the greatest threat to artillery is the artillery of the opposing side.

Wang Xinyu also paid the most attention to artillery, and his Qiongzhou Army had the highest proportion of artillery among all armies that year, and the Qiongzhou Army had all kinds of field artillery, heavy artillery, mortars, howitzers, and firebox vehicles. It can be said that as long as there is no threat from the opponent's artillery, even cavalry will be difficult to break through the fire interception composed of hundreds of cannons and dozens of fire vans. The infantry of the Qing army was even more cannon fodder in the face of such powerful artillery fire.

The Qiongzhou army attached much more importance to artillery than muskets, and most of the infantry were infantry with cold weapons, but the proportion of artillery accounted for one-fifth of the soldiers.

It was precisely because of the suppression of artillery fire that the artillery of the Qing army defending the city could not play a role, and they could only watch the Ming army destroy the obstacles outside the city.

Obstacles such as wooden stakes and deer bars set up in front of the moat outside Quanzhou are two feet high and are used to block the advance of various siege weapons. If the Ming army sent auxiliaries, using axes to chop and shovel digging to destroy obstacles, then the Ming army auxiliaries would not know how many people they would have to lose to clear the obstacles under the fire of the Qing army at the head of the city. The use of shield wagons to transport sandbags directly to fill in the heights to destroy the obstacles has reduced the casualties of the auxiliaries.

It took two days for the Ming army auxiliaries to fill in the obstacles outside the city. From the third day, the auxiliaries pushed the shield carts and began to fill the moat under the city. At this time, the archers and bird gunners at the head of the Qing army played a certain role, shooting feathered arrows and projectiles from the top of the city, causing some auxiliary casualties.

Because it was close to the head of the city, the Qing army at the head of the city shot condescendingly, especially the feather arrows thrown at the head of the city, which could pass the protection of the shield car and shoot the auxiliaries behind, which caused casualties among the auxiliaries.

"Fire!" The musketeers and archers of the Ming army stepped up and used the shield cart as a cover to shoot at the Qing army at the head of the city.

Bullets and arrows were fired from under the city, and they rained down on the city. The female wall and battlements at the head of the city have been damaged by the artillery bombardment of the Ming army for several days, and the female walls in many places have been destroyed, and the Qing army at the head of the city has lost cover. As a result, he was shot and killed by the city, and the Qing soldiers at the head of the city suffered heavy casualties.

"Quick, get the sandbags! Shields! Stones move this way! "The Qing army officers commanded the people to carry all kinds of things and build new fortifications at the head of the broken city.

At this time, the soldiers on both sides were very close, and if the Ming army bombarded the city with artillery, the accuracy of the artillery was too poor, and it was likely to injure their own auxiliaries by mistake. The Qing army also took this into account, so at this time repaired the fortifications at the head of the city. (To be continued.) )