Although Zhu Di can be called the person with the highest command in the world today, and perhaps the force value is as high as more than 90, Xu Hao does not approve of his attack on Jinan.

At most, if they fail to take the capital of Shandong for two months, they should withdraw their troops and turn to clear and stabilize a large area leading to Beiping. Otherwise, the foothold is not stable, Hebei and Henan alone have more than 200,000 remnants of the imperial court defeated generals, Li Jinglong has returned to Beijing, Guo Ying, Qu Neng and others are not mediocre generals, not to mention that even if the official army is incompetent for so long, they will learn how to kill the enemy.

Zhending and other important towns only left thousands of people to guard, the total strength is only 20,000, and the imperial court has tens of thousands of soldiers and horses in Shandong, and reinforcements will be sent to the front line in an endless stream.

Xu Hao can't remember the details, but he knows why the Battle of Jingyan was protracted, because Zhu Di's strategic direction was wrong, in order to conquer Shandong, he lost a large number of men and horses, and later turned to a long drive of thousands of miles, which took the capital smoothly.

Looking at Cangzhou City, which was cutting down trees to strengthen the city, Xu Hao's eyes were deep, this time he stepped forward in order to end the war as soon as possible, if Zhu Di was really defeated, but he won a big victory, it would mean nothing.

But for the sake of his own net worth, he knew that he would have to die hundreds of thousands or even nearly a million lives in battle, and this was all the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty who were raised by their parents, and he couldn't be indifferent.

Zhang Fu was also intently observing the movements of the enemy, and the two brought more than a dozen personal guards to reconnoiter the enemy. In order to defend the passage, Zhu Di left behind the powerful Shenji Battalion, which made Xu Hao handy.

Due to the fiasco of the Baigou River, most of the officers and troops who had not yet recovered their morale were listless, and Xu Kai, who was stationed in Cangzhou, did not dare to send troops to regain the lost territory, and retreated in the city for months, so that the Yan army did not alarm the other party along the way.

At dawn, Xu Hao sent two thousand cavalry led by Huo Chi'er. Meet the 100 sentinels of the official army on a narrow road, and kill them effortlessly.

After clearing the peripheral officers and troops, the Yan army quietly went to the city, and when the defenders found out that they had arrived in the city, they hurriedly beat the gongs and drums, and in the piercing shouts, Xu Kai hurriedly ran out of the house in a panic.

Xu Hao sent a strictly trained special soldier to quietly and quickly sneak under the base of the city wall, and there were several loud bangs, not only the city wall was blown up by Mu Yi and others, but even the moat that was not deep was blown up to block the river.

The soldiers in the city barely had time to put on their armor and came out with their weapons to meet the enemy in a hurry. The Yan troops who swam over first lined up in a row and fired continuously at the enemy, and hundreds of officers and soldiers fell in a pool of blood.

Xu Kai stiffly shouted: "Everyone rushes forward, and when you get close, the firearm will become a waste." ”

After setting up the ladder and walking into the city, Xu Hao said disdainfully: "The spearmen come forward, the first three teams will shoot in three sections, and the rest will block." ”

At the sound of an order, hundreds of Yan soldiers held spears nearly three meters long and half-knelt at the front. Because of the narrowness of the streets, musketeers in groups of 300 fired shoulder to shoulder, while the other two musketeers loaded their ammunition skillfully, with each salvo firing at intervals of seven or eight seconds.

Although the construction of the musket was not yet perfect. However, after two years of uninterrupted training and many major battles, the soldiers of the Shenji Battalion were very confident, relying on the dense power of flintlock pistols and arquebuses, enough to bring down any creature within sixty meters. Even wearing armor could not withstand the penetrating power of lead bullets, not to mention that most officers and soldiers only wore single clothes.

In addition, Xu Hao also borrowed from the iron cannon blocking method of the historical Wa Kingdom, and fought in groups of four people. When the shooter shoots in front, the person on the left behind him is responsible for loading the projectile, the person on the right is responsible for filling the gunpowder, and the last person compacts the musket with an iron bar and hands the musket to the shooter in front, and so on.

The mature musketeer team is the invincible cavalry terminator in the era of cold weapons, and the terrible lethality of lead bullets is not comparable to arrows, and the most important thing is that the training of musketeers is too easy in comparison, and the soldiers of the Shenji Battalion can be called the weakest in the whole army, but they can shoot the most brave and invincible heavy armored cavalry effortlessly.

The soldiers of the Shenji Battalion can become an army in three months, and even pull farmers into battle in a day, and it takes at least two or three years to train a good archer, and relying on handmade zuò bows and arrows is also expensive.

When the three hundred ironclad cavalry, which Xu Kai was most proud of, all fell on the street with men and horses, the morale of the officers and soldiers completely collapsed.

30,000 officers and soldiers fled from the city gate, but unexpectedly there were 30 swarthy tiger squat cannons erected in front of them, the body of which was no more than three feet, weighed 44 pounds, equipped with iron claws and iron stumbling, and the cannon body was fixed with large iron nails. Each shot was filled with 100 buckshot or pebbles weighing five coins, and the boulders or pebbles of 30 taels were pressed against them for killing and injuring dense formations.

Ten Fengtian general cannons are proudly located in the rear, pig iron casting is five feet five feet long, weighing thousands of catties to five hundred catties, ranging from one hundred and eighty catties, the cannon body has multiple reinforcing hoops, firing lead bullets weighing seven catties, three catties and one catty, carried by a carriage, the wheels are high in front and low in the back, and can be fired directly from the car.

In addition, Xu Hao also brought a new type of artillery, made of pure copper, weighing more than 500 catties, with a huge belly and a long neck, and a hole in the abdomen, that is, the short cannon of later generations, with a range of more than 1,500 meters, and the highest hit rate at six or seven hundred meters.

Almost all of the shells were made with flowering shells, and Xu Hao proposed that the building was developed by craftsmen. Even if there is no Xu Hao, the Ming Dynasty has also invented it in history, and even some craftsmen have invented the built-in arsenic, which will explode after landing, and the terrifying flowering bullet that kills the enemy at the same time with medicine and iron shell fragments, its power can be called unique in the world.

Xu Hao walked up to the city under the protection of his own soldiers, and did not pay attention to the poor officers and soldiers covered by artillery fire, but thought that the flowering shells of the Manchu era were lost, and they were not introduced until after the Opium War.

I still remember Zuo Zongtang's biography, when the Xinjiang counterinsurgency dug up more than 100 flowering shells from the ruins of an ancient fort in the Ming Dynasty, I couldn't help but look up to the sky and sigh: "Three hundred years ago, China had this thing, but now it has been lost, so that it has been bullied by foreign powers." ”

The flintlock pistol and artillery were invented so many years in advance, and they must not just become the god machine battalion used to defend the emperor and show off and the defensive weapons erected on the pass. If Britain could conquer India, the Caribbean, and Africa with flintlock pistols and establish an empire on which the sun never sets, why couldn't the Han people hold on to their homeland and expand their territory?

At this time, Xu Kai, who was caught in the sea of fire, found in despair that the four city gates were blocked by the Yan army, and when the Yan King was leading an army of more than 100,000 to besiege Jinan City, how could there be an army of 40,000 or 50,000 powerful troops? In fact, except for the 18,000-strong firearms battalion, which is still an elite firearms battalion, the remaining 20,000 people are all new troops who have just been recruited from Beiping Prefecture this year. Cold weapons are still used, just because the production capacity of firearms is too weak.

In the first battle of Cangzhou, the commanders Xu Kai and Cheng Xian, and the commanders Yu Qi, Zhao Hu, Hu Yuan, Li Ying, Zhang Jie, etc., were captured. More than 10,000 officers and soldiers were killed in battle, 9,000 horses were all gained by the Yan army, and 15,000 were taken prisoner.

After capturing Cangzhou, Xu Hao led his army to capture the two important towns of Hejian and Dingzhou one after another, and Guo Yingqu Neng was forced to retreat to Zhending with the remnants of 100,000 horses.

Xu Hao sent Zhang Fu to lead 20,000 people south to clean up the county seat, completely open the road connecting Dezhou, and seize the time to recruit soldiers to consolidate the defense line.

In a series of battles. The supreme general of the Yan army is neither Xu Hao nor Zhang Fu, but Zhu Gaochi, the son of the king of Yan, leaving his younger brother Zhu Gaosui to guard Beiping Mansion.

Under the city of Jinan, Zhu Di, who got the news, was stunned, and then forcibly suppressed his anger, Yao Guangxiao and other generals couldn't help but look at each other, who would have thought that the honest son who had been obedient and stayed in the base camp. Unexpectedly, with the assistance of Xu Hao, nearly 200,000 officials and troops were broken, and Guo Yingqu, who was able to fight well, was blocked in Zhending Mansion?

Yao Guangxiao secretly observed the prince's face, he knew too well that King Yan was a person, and he had been in the domain for many years. Almost every battle was commanded by him personally, never pretending to others, and every time he had to take the lead, and after the Jingjing, he did not send generals to lead the troops alone.

So. The advantage is that he has won all battles and won all battles, and the disadvantage is that there is no general under the command of King Yan who can be reassured to be in charge alone.

Yao Guangxiao pretended to be relaxed and said: "Congratulations to the prince and the tiger father for having no dogs, and now there is a son who takes the initiative to share his worries." The prince doesn't have to go north and south in person. ”

Zhu Di smiled reluctantly: "Yes, with Xu Hao helping Gao Chi, it really makes our army have no worries." However, Beiping must not be lost, Zhang Yu, you immediately set off to the north to take over the Shizi to guard Cangzhou, let Zhang Fu's Shenji battalion confront Zhending in Dingzhou, and do not fight without a military order, so that Shizi and Xu Hao can return to Beiping. ”

"Yes!" Zhang Yu didn't say a word and came out.

Yao Guangxiao said: "I have besieged Jinan City for nearly two months, and there is still no intention of surrendering in the city, right?" ”

"Hmm!"

Stimulated by Xu Hao's victory, Zhu Di couldn't continue to wait, and even had a vague bad feeling that the eldest son who was assisted by the Xu family already had the capital to stabilize the position of the prince.

After such a long campaign, Zhu Di currently trusts and values nothing more than Zhu Gaoxu, in order to motivate his son, he has said more than once that the son of the world is sick. Thinking that the eldest son is weak and sick, he will probably walk ahead of him, so it is logical for the second son to inherit the inheritance.

It is also because Zhu Gaoxu and the generals on the front line get along day and night, and have fought side by side several times to establish a deep sense of comradeship. If it weren't for Zhu Gaochi's hard fight against 200,000 officers and troops in Beiping, his reputation might not even be comparable to that of his third brother Zhu Gaosui.

In the past, Zhu Di did not say that he had long intended to abolish the identity of the eldest son, but now there is even more such a tendency, that is, Zhu Gaochi did his duty without any fault, and had the natural inheritance right as the eldest son, so that Zhu Di had no excuse and could not find any excuse, so he could only go with the flow.

Zhu Di glanced at his second son, who was also suppressing his anger, and said in his heart that Xu Hao's son was too bold and reckless, and he dared to pull his eldest son out of the war without permission. I don't know when I will support Zhu Gaochi and raise troops to rebel.

Zhu Di got up and said in a deep voice: "The herald ordered to attack the city overnight!" ”

At the same time, Zhu Gaochi, who was far away in Cangzhou City, complained with a wry smile: "This time I was dragged into the water by you, and you are not unclear about your father's temper, so we have to be blamed." ”

Xu Hao smiled: "Are you tired of living?" Trembling, I don't dare to do anything wrong, I have to ask my aunt first to issue a decree in Beiping, don't you know that Gao Sui has gathered so many strategists in private? ”

Zhu Gao said angrily: "So what, that's a mother's compatriot, my closest sibling." ”

Xu Hao sneered: "Pull it down, you have read more books than I fart, and you know too well the consequences of not having military merits." We have no selfish intentions, are you still afraid of being blamed? ”

Zhu Gaochi couldn't help but rejoice: "Fortunately, Lao Tzu trusted your ability and won the battle, otherwise I would have strangled you first, and then found a rope to hang you." ”

Xu Hao said with a smile: "Lao Tzu is for your good, to establish enough prestige to be invincible, to be able to subdue your two younger brothers, in the future you still have to deal with Wenchen as much as possible, after all, you can't rule the world right away, and you should insist on exercising for a long time, look at this fat body, don't bother to talk about you." ”

Zhu Gao said angrily: "Do you want to take care of it?" According to the ancestral system of my dynasty, the three princes and six kings have to kneel on the ground to salute the feudal kings in a proper manner, and they dare to openly call themselves Lao Tzu to me at every turn, and I don't bother to pay attention to you. ”

Xu Hao sneered: "I advise you to change this rotten and disgusting rule, even the ministers and generals who assist in governing the world have to kowtow to a royal family, and lose their dignity and backbone as a human being, so when facing a rebel or a foreign race, do you expect the soft bones all over the world to kill the enemy for your Zhu family?" Dream on! (To be continued......)