The Wuchang city in front of him was built by Zhou Dexing in the fourth year of Hongwu.

The city is 1,980 zhang on Wednesday, with 4,168 battlements, thirteen towers, and nine gates.

Wuchang City starts from Shuangfeng Mountain in the east, Changchun Temple, west to Huanghao Jitou, south from Pangasitao, north to Tangjiao Xiaxin River Bank.

There is a moat in the east, south and north of the city, and the west of the city is close to the Yangtze River.

In the Ming Dynasty, Wuchang City is not only the county seat, the capital city but also the royal city.

The palace of the king of Chu was built in the center of the south of the city, and on both sides of it were the palace of the county king and the yamen of each division.

The entire Chu Wangfu plus the Junwang Mansion occupies almost half of Wuchang City, which can be described as a city within a city.

After the Qing army took control of Wuchang, it did not carry out large-scale renovation of Wuchang, except for the demolition of the walls of the Chu Palace.

Hong Chengchou, the governor of Huguang at that time, felt that this was the bad policy of the former Ming Dynasty and must be removed from the root.

Although the walls of the royal city were demolished, the buildings were not wasted.

Hong Chengchou converted it into a military camp. The troops stationed in Wuchang were concentrated here.

Hu Quancai learned that the Ming army had approached the city, and came to the barracks as soon as possible to boost morale.

Zhou Peigong also followed him and gave advice to Hu Quancai.

Snake Mountain is in the city of Wuchang and is the boundary county between the north and south cities.

Climb high on the top of the mountain and look far away, you can see the panoramic view of Wuchang, and you can also see the movement of the Ming army outside the city.

Zhou Peigong found that the Ming army was mainly concentrated in Jinshazhou, south of the city, and just looking at the scale of the naval division's warships made people break out in a cold sweat.

It seems that if you want to hold Wuchang, the key is to hold Nancheng.

In the south of the city, there are three gates of Wangze, Baohe, and Zhonghe, of which the Zhonghe Gate is the most important.

At the suggestion of Zhou Peigong, the army was invited to take the moat as the first line of defense and the urn city as the second line of defense, and strive to block the Ming army outside the city.

Because Zhou Peigong had experience in fighting with the Ming army, he knew very well that the Ming army would not attack the city according to the rules, so he suggested to Hu Quancai that more people should be sent to keep an eye on and reconnoiter at all times to prevent the Ming army from sneaking attack.

"Your Excellency the Governor, you must be careful of the thief's Kong Ming lantern! This thing directly burned down our army's granary last time, and it's really hateful! ”

Zhou Peigong gritted his teeth with hatred.

He made thousands of calculations, but he didn't calculate that the Ming army could go to heaven.

If the granary was not burned down and the morale of the army was not weakened, he would still have the confidence to hold Baling.

But now it's too late to say anything, what Zhou Peigong has to do is to make meritorious contributions, strive to perform more in the defense of Wuchang, and regain the trust of the governor.

"Well, it's always better to prevent it before it happens. As for the thief digging the tunnel you mentioned last time, as long as you find it and stop it immediately, you must not let the thief's trick succeed. ”

In fact, there was a very wide moat outside Wuchang City, and the Ming army had to cross the moat first if they wanted to dig a tunnel.

Hu Quancai also considered the worst from the worst point of view, in case the Ming army broke through the first line of defense, they would stop the Ming army from digging tunnels at all costs.

Judging from all known signs, the Ming army is likely to make this move, and Hu Quancai will never be Zhou Peigong's second.

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After a period of observation, Zhu Youlang found that the construction of Wuchang City was different from the general Central Plains City, which was completely built in accordance with the mountains and waterways.

The highest Snake Mountain is enclosed in the middle of the city, and the city walls are also built along the Snake Mountain, forming a high inside and low outside.

It is very irrational to storm from the front, and the problem of the moat must be solved first.

After some careful consideration, Zhu Youlang felt that he could make some fuss on the Shuangfeng Mountain outside Wuchang City.

The Twin Peaks Mountain is facing the Zhongxiao Gate, and the distance between them is about 100 meters.

Although the height of the remaining veins of the snake mountain in the city has been raised a lot because of the inward retraction of the city wall, the height of the Shuangfeng Mountain is not much lower than that of the Zhongxiao Gate Tower.

If you set up a cannon here, you may be able to have an unexpected effect by bombarding the city.

Zhu Youlang left those guns until now in order to fight Wuchang.

He knew that Wuchang was easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the tactic of shelling up the city was indispensable.

If you really want to take Wuchang, you have to rely on hard power.

After consulting with Li Dingguo, Zhu Youlang decided that the main direction of attack of the Ming army was the south and east of the city.

As long as one of the walls is taken, the advantage is great.

However, Liu Xingming was very proud after learning that the Son of Heaven had given up the coffin tactic.

Isn't it time for him to perform?

The first few hot air balloon surprise attacks worked very well, and Liu Xingming naturally wanted to strike while the iron was hot, and then let Wuchang Dongyu drink a good pot.

Who knew that the Son of Heaven did not order him to take off in a hot air balloon at the first time, but asked him to obey orders at any time.

Liu Xingming was puzzled, but he didn't dare to ask or say.

There must be a reason for the Son of Heaven to ask for this, he can't question the Son of Heaven face to face, right?

This is against his father's request of him.

In fact, the reason why Zhu Youlang asked Liu Xingming to be on standby was because of the topography of Wuchang.

Due to the presence of Snake Mountain in the city, the danger of hot air balloon liftoff is very high.

Due to the mission, the hot air balloon will definitely have to go to the center of the city and then lower to a lower altitude.

At that time, if Dongyu had stationed an army in Snake Mountain, wouldn't it have been easy to find Liu Xingming?

As the commanding heights in Wuchang City, stationing troops in Snake Mountain should be a routine operation.

Zhu Youlang didn't plan to take this risk.

But it's not necessarily that hot air balloons can't be used, they just have to be used in a different way.

Switching from a decapitation operation to transporting soldiers into the city to assist the main force of the Ming army in seizing the city gate may have a good effect.

It's just that at this time, Zhu Youlang got a bad news.

There was an urgent report from Yiling, and Ao Bai led the main force of the Eight Banners from Guizhou to kill, and was attacking Yiling and other cities.

However, judging from the current situation, Liu Tichun and Yuan Zongdi are still guarding well.

But this still made Zhu Youlang's mood a lot heavier.

His worst fears had happened.

The most feared thing in the fierce battle ahead is a fire in the backyard.

Ao Bai chose to rush to help, so he compressed the time for Zhu Youlang to attack Wuchang, and reduced his tolerance for error to a very low level.

Zhu Youlang must take Wuchang as soon as possible to reassure the army.

The problem of the expedition was actually there all along, but the Ming army's winning streak overshadowed it all.

If there is a defeat, it is likely that the morale of the army will change. At that time, don't say it's Zhu Youlang, I'm afraid that Li Dingguo won't be able to suppress it even if he personally plays it.

This is just fighting Huguang, if it is fought further east, the battle line is longer, and the supply will be guaranteed.

So at least Zhu Youlang in the northern part of Huguang should be firmly held in his hands, no matter whether it was Ao Bai or Hong Chengchou, he didn't want to take these cities back from his hands.

The frequent movements of the Qing army in Guizhou made Zhu Youlang a little worried about Yunnan.

In the past few days, when he dreamed, he could always dream that Wu Sangui led his troops to attack Kunming, and Mu Tianbo and Feng Shuangli led his troops to resist desperately.

Although it was just a dream, Zhu Youlang felt that there was still a chill down his spine.

Wu Sangui has every reason to send troops, it depends on whether he has the courage to do so.

Hopefully, it's just a dream.

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