After two days and two nights of fierce street fighting, the territory of the Qing-Russian coalition army was compressed, and only one imperial city remained.

The Manchu Imperial City of Beihai City is not large, one hundred and fifty zhang long, one hundred and twenty zhang wide, the imperial city imitates the Forbidden City, and also sets up buildings such as Taihe Gate, Taihe Palace, Yangxin Palace and Cining Palace, the periphery is a circle of city walls and fortresses, the city wall is designed by the Russians, there is a moat on the periphery, the city wall is to take a double city wall, the outermost is a layer of one zhang five feet high outer city wall, and the city wall is a platform above it. Behind the platform, there are inner walls and bastions. The inner city wall is two feet higher than the platform, and the fortress is even more tall and mighty, four feet and five feet higher than the platform.

This means that even if the attacker breaks through the outer walls and climbs the platform, they will be hit by the fire of the inner walls and fortresses. Moreover, the structure of the platform can make siege weapons such as large ladder trucks unable to mount the inner city wall, which increases the difficulty of siege.

At this time, the remnants of the Qing army still had more than 1,600 Manchurian, Mongolian and Han Eight Banner soldiers, more than 1,700 clothed infantry, more than 300 Russian musketeers, more than 400 Cossack soldiers, more than 200 mercenaries from other countries, more than 600 indigenous soldiers, and a total of about 4,800 defenders in the imperial city.

All the remaining bannermen and coats in Beihai City also retreated into the imperial city.

"Organize all the eunuchs, as well as all the bannermen, officials' families, men, women, and children, all take up arms!" Kangxi roared hoarsely.

"If we organize all the people, excluding the children who are too young and the elderly who can't move, we will gather about 20,000 people to defend the city." Tu Hai reported to Kangxi.

"Only more than 20,000 people? What about so many people? Where have the others gone? Kangxi roared and lifted Tuhai's collar.

"The others didn't have time to enter the city, they were either killed or fell into the hands of the Mongols." Tuhai replied.

"How many of us were captured?" Kangxi became nervous all of a sudden. He was not worried about the safety of the lives of those banner men, but worried that the Mongols would take these banner captives to attack the city, in this case, the Qing defenders in the imperial city would not fight, and they would not fight either, especially the families of some defender soldiers fell into the hands of the Mongols, and seeing the Mongols escorting their relatives to attack the imperial city was very likely to cause the morale of the defenders to collapse.

The Imperial City of Beihai was heavily surrounded by the Ming and Mongolian coalition forces, and various types of artillery of the Ming army were also transported into the city one after another.

Zheng Xi stood on a wooden fortress full of holes in the city, picked up a telescope, and observed the imperial city behind him three hundred steps ahead.

The castles of Western countries can be said to be invincible in the era of cold weapons, and the attacking army can be said to have to pay an extremely heavy price if they want to conquer the castle. To deal with the castle, various trebuchets were born in Western countries. However, the defenders are also gradually using trebuchets, which can be set up in the castle to destroy the trebuchets of the attackers.

Designed by the Russians, the Imperial City was a combination of East and West castles, with eight forts and eight forts, each of which housed two eighteen-pounder cannons cast by Russian craftsmen. Six pounder cannons were also placed on top of the twelve bastions on the periphery of the wall, with two cannons above each bastion. Although the Russian army's artillery casting technology is not as good as that of Nanyang Company, the artillery has a short range and is much less powerful, but the artillery fired condescendingly can also pose a great threat to the Ming gunners who are besieging the city.

Cheng Gon, who was standing on the side, stepped forward with a cruel smile and said, "Lord Wang, we have captured a lot of banner people and clothed prisoners. The castle in front of us is so difficult to attack, we can let the captives go up first. ”

"We took prisoners in total?" Zheng Xi turned his head and asked Cheng Gon. Although Zheng Zheng did not approve of using captives to attack the city, Zheng Zheng Zheng couldn't find a solution to this Western-style castle that was easy to defend and difficult to attack, so he agreed to the Mongols' proposal. Historically, when the Mongol Empire was strong, it often used this trick to break through the hard-to-attack Arab castles.

The castles of the Arabs are actually similar to Western-style castles, with closed fortresses on the castles, densely packed with shooting holes in the walls, and bastions around the walls, which are no less solid than Western-style castles. However, the Mongol Empire used captives to attack the city, destroying many of the Arabs' castles.

"Go back to the prince!" Cheng Gon replied respectfully, "We have captured more than 30,000 banner people, 55,000 clothed people, and more than 600 Rakshasa people. ”

"Good!" Zheng Xi nodded with a smile on his face, "These captives can come in handy!" The prince is right, this castle built by the Tartars and Rakshasas is easy to defend and difficult to attack, if our army attacks it, I am afraid that it will suffer heavy losses! We can push out the captives and let them go ahead of the siege, with our men following behind. ”

In the harem in the imperial city, there was a cry, Kangxi's queen Hesheri held the newly born prince Yinren and cried, Kangxi's concubine Hui Concubine Na Lashi held the two-year-old emperor's eldest son Yinren and cried, and Bumu Butai comforted his granddaughter-in-law and great-grandson in the harem.

Outside the city, the Ming-Mongolian coalition army lined up in a neat formation, three hundred steps away from the outside of the city. At the front of the procession, there were captured bannermen and coats.

The crying shook the sky, and the lamentations were repeated, and the banner people and Bao Yi who were pushed to the front knew very well what kind of fate they were about to face, and they didn't know how many people would be able to survive after they went up. Behind the battlements, stretched out, rows of muzzles and bows and arrows aimed at them, who had once been their relatives, but now were about to die at the hands of their own people.

Tu Hai stood at the head of the city, looking at the captured banner men outside the city, he didn't know what he should do when the Mingmeng coalition army began to attack the city for a while. The cries of the bannermen upset the Qing troops defending the city, and many of those defenders had their families outside the city, and now they fell into the hands of the Mongols.

"Damn Mongolian dogs! They're using this trick again! Heto, who was standing aside, scolded.

The Qing soldiers at the head of the city looked at the captives outside the city in amazement, and their hands holding bows and muskets trembled a little, because many people found that their relatives were among the captives!

Kangxi didn't know when to walk up to the city, he looked at the captives outside the city, and his heart was a little desolate. Originally, he still dreamed of reviving the Qing Dynasty with the help of the Russians, but the population of the banner people was too small, and after this battle, I don't know if the Qing Dynasty would have a chance to recover.

At this moment, a Mongolian envoy from outside the city rode to the city at a gallop.

"Shoot this Mongolian dog with arrows!" Kangxi roared.

"Your Majesty, you must not!" Tu Hai and others hurriedly persuaded Kangxi.