The upstream Ming army assembled at Wuchang and launched an attack on Jiujiang, Nanchang and other places. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Originally, there were not many Qing army defenders in Jiujiang and Nanchang City, only local green battalions and Minzhuang, which were not considered regular troops. The Qiongzhou army was like a bamboo, and everywhere it went, the county orders of the counties either came out to surrender, or resisted and were killed.

The current Qiongzhou army is not a problem at all to attack a small county town, and as soon as the cannon is fired, the city gate will be broken, and the battlements of the city wall will be bombarded in all directions. There were not many defenders in the city, and the Ming army formed a formation of musketeers and sharpshooters to suppress under the city, and then sent cannon fodder ants to attack the city, which could be taken in a blink of an eye. encountered a county order that refused to take the initiative to open the city and surrender, and after being caught, they were immediately killed.

The Ming army attacked the city of Jiujiang, the prefect of Jiujiang surrendered, and the Ming army conquered Jiujiang without blood.

When attacking Nanchang, he encountered stubborn resistance from the Qing army. Dong Weiguo, the governor of Jiangxi Province who was born in the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty, Tong Guozhen, the political envoy of Jiangxi, the commander of Manchuria in Nanchang, Zhao Dengju and Wu Youming, the commanders of the Green Battalion, and Xu Sheng and Yang Yisong, the deputy generals of the Green Battalion, organized stubborn resistance. There are more than 500 people in the city, more than 1,000 people in the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty, more than 5,000 soldiers in the Green Battalion, and Dong Weiguo also recruited more than 20,000 people, trying to resist to the end with the strong city defense of Nanchang City.

The Ming army besieging Nanchang reached 120,000 troops, including 10,000 soldiers of the Qiongzhou army, 20,000 soldiers of the Guangdong army, 20,000 soldiers of the Fujian army, 20,000 naval divisions, and 50,000 auxiliary soldiers.

Since Geng Jingzhong returned to the Ming Dynasty, he became the commander of the Fujian army, and a number of former Fujian army generals such as Zeng Yangxing, Ma Jiuyu, and Bai Xianzhong were also under the jurisdiction of Geng Jingzhong, plus Geng Jingzhong's generals Xu Wenyao and Wang Shiyu brought from Nanjing, the Fujian army was also a not weak army at this time.

Because Wang Xinyu intended to cultivate the strength of the Fujian army and use it to suppress the Guangdong army, Geng Jingzhong's strength exceeded the Guangdong army. Within the Guangdong army itself, there was an infighting between Shang Zhixin and Shang Zhixiao.

And a group of people led by Geng Zhongge originally wanted the throne. But now that Geng Jingzhong is here, Geng Zhongge saw that he had no hope of taking the throne, so he simply took his headquarters to break away from the Fujian army and directly joined the Qiongzhou army.

Attacking Nanchang, Wang Xinyu did not lead his own troops, but just asked the general Wang [Fu] Chen and his younger brother Wang Zihao to lead the troops, and Yao Qisheng was the military division, leading the army to arrive at the city of Nanchang. However, Wang Xinyu himself and Wang Yuyou, the military adviser of the headquarters, sat in Wuchang City, responsible for collecting grain and grass, preparing military salaries, and preparing for the upcoming major battles such as Xiangyang and Anqing.

Under the city of Nanchang, the cannon roared, and the Ming army began a siege battle.

The defenders of the city, Dong Weiguo and Tong Guozhen, refused the persuasion of the Ming army to surrender, and after the Ming army gave three hours of ultimatum, the Ming army began to siege the city.

The Qiongzhou army concentrated more than a hundred cannons and bombarded the city fiercely. After that, the Cantonese and Fujian armies scrambled to attack the city wall. The auxiliaries pushed the shield carts to the city and filled the moat.

However, the moat of Nanchang City is built on the basis of the East Lake and the Ganjiang River, the moat leads the water of the Ganjiang River and the East Lake to inject, the width of the moat reaches 11 zhang, and the water depth is 1 zhang and 5 feet. Although it is not as good as the moats of Xiangyang and Beijing, the moat of Nanchang is also relatively wide and deep, and it is living water, so it is more difficult to fill in.

Nanchang City is also quite a strong city, Nanchang city wall is called Zhangjiang embankment, one zhang five feet high, is made of stone piled up, using tung oil, lime and glutinous rice to glue together, the city wall is very strong, it is difficult to collapse with cannons. The battlements at the head of the city were made of wood-fired stone bricks, and it was difficult to blow up the battlements when field artillery under 12 pounds was bombarded. There is an urn city in each city gate, and there is a jack gate inside the city gate.

On the head of the city, birds, bows and arrows, tiger squatting cannons, and Buddha machine bullets rained down like arrows, and arrows were like locusts. Dong Weiguo and Tong Guozhen also asked the people in the city to build a lot of seven-small cannon trebuchets, throwing a large number of stones in the city, which could cross the city wall and smash outside the city.

A large number of auxiliaries fell under the city, but the moat was only filled a little, and the sandbags that were easily thrown were opened by the Qing army and washed away by the water. The Ming army's offensive was stalled and was blocked under the city.

Yao Qisheng found that the Qing army relied on the sluice gates connecting the East Lake to provide water to the moat, and the sluice gates could be opened at any time to release water. So Yao Qisheng ordered to send 10,000 sailors, 1,000 cavalry and 3,000 musketeers to seize the sluice.

The officers and men of the Ming Army Army Army landed on the boat, crossed the East Lake, and went to attack the sluice.

The first to attack was the large-caliber naval guns of the Ming Army's naval divisions, and all kinds of vehicles, ships, inland river gunboats, and small gunboats spewed fire and fired overwhelming shells.

The artillery shells of the Ming army's naval divisions fell like hailstones, bombing the Qing troops stationed at the sluice. Then the 3,000 Qiongzhou musketeers jumped out of the boat and attacked in the direction of the sluice. Before they got close to the Qing army, 100 stragglers took the lead in firing freely, taking advantage of the long range of rifled guns to beat the Qing army to the point where they did not dare to take the lead. After the 3,000 musketeers arrived, they lined up to fire a volley, but only two volleys completely blindfolded the Qing troops stationed at the sluice.

Then a thousand cavalry stormed, and the two East Lake sluices fell into the hands of the Ming army.

To the southwest and northwest of Nanchang, there are two sluices connecting the Ganjiang River. The Qiongzhou Army relied on the methods of naval divisions and infantry landing battles to conquer two sluices in succession.

The four sluices all fell into the hands of the Ming army, and the water of the Nanchang moat became stagnant water, so that the progress of the auxiliary troops filling the moat was much faster. Under the cover of the heavy fire of the Ming army under the city, the auxiliaries approached the moat and threw a large number of sandbags. After three days and three nights of landfilling, three sections of the moat were finally filled.

While filling in the moat, Yao Qisheng also ordered the construction of a fort outside the city of Nanchang.

After seven days and seven nights of continuous operation, outside the Yonghe Gate and Desheng Gate in Nanchang, the Ming army built two forts with a height of two zhang, a length of 100 zhang and a width of five zhang. Cannons were erected on top of the forts above the city walls, and they were heavily shelled directly at the head of the city. On the anti-slope of the battery, sixty-four-pounder and thirty-two-pounder mortars were arranged, constantly firing flowering shells.

With two forts higher than the head of the city, the Ming army set up cannons on the forts, and they could see the movements in the city at a glance, and the shells smashed down were ruthless and accurate, and the Qing troops defending the city suffered heavy casualties.

Yao Qisheng also ordered to send a hot air balloon into the sky over Nanchang City.

The hot air balloon using Xu Zhengming's propeller is driven by the Ming sergeant's pedal, and with the rudder, the hot air balloon can fly freely in the air. Although it is not fast, at least you can reach any place at will, and as long as it is not windy, the hot air balloon can be used.

The hot air balloon entered the sky over the city of Nanchang, and the Ming army dropped cans of oil and gunpowder, burning the Qing army hiding behind the city wall to avoid artillery bombardment. At the same time, the hot air balloon also dropped bombs, destroying the Seven Minor Cannon trebuchets in the city.