The strategic decision has been made, and the next step is to prepare the army for the battle.

After more than a year of preparation, Zhu Guoqiang now has more than 120,000 troops in his hands, not including the naval division.

As the ancestor of Cheng, the first clan to hold military power, including the position of "General Pingyu", is temporary, as for other positions...... One doesn't.

Also, the Pingyu Army does not have the establishment of the imperial court now, and it is still a township soldier, just like the regimental training of the late Qing Dynasty, it belongs to temporary workers without "establishment", but this "temporary worker" has a real army of more than 100,000.

And such a temporary worker, but he was led by General Pingyu, who was not a regular army, but he defended the country and the border like a regular army. Similar things may be found in Chinese history, but in the Ming Dynasty, it was the only one of the scorpions.

Although the Pingyu Army is a temporary worker without a "formation". However, he was the only army in this era that practiced day and night, but even so, it still took half a month to complete the preparations from mobilization to expedition.

On the ninth day of the sixth month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, when the five towns of Pinglu, Pingdi, Zhenglu, Huben and Yingyang, plus the troops directly under the General's Mansion, and 60,000 troops attacked Gaizhou, Mei Chun, as the vanguard, led nearly 12,000 officers and soldiers in Huwei Town, and had arrived in Gaizhou.

Although there were less than 5,000 Qing defenders in Gaizhou City, Gaizhou City at this time was not the old Chinese-style city, but a fortress-like city. Heavy bastion fortifications protect the fortified city.

"This wall is really thick......"

From the binoculars, looking at Gaizhou City, which had changed its appearance, Mei Chun muttered to herself.

On the surface, he seemed to be calm, but he was actually muttering in his heart, after all, this was his first battle in the Pingyu Army.

In the past, he was the commander of Xiaolingwei, and now he is the chief soldier of Huwei Town, as one of the chief soldiers of the nine towns, he is extremely eager to prove himself through a war, after all, in the outside world, his only merit as a general soldier is Nanjing's "dedication to the city".

Now is your chance to prove yourself.

It's just the city in front of you......

This is Jiannu's most important stronghold on the front line of the confrontation between the two armies, how can we take him?

"Thick, not the point."

Staring at Gaizhou City, Li Yunkun said with a serious expression.

"According to the information we collected before the war, Jiannu deliberately learned the experience of the artillery bombardment of the Sifang Mountain City, in addition to thickening the city wall and building a buffer slope to resist the bombardment of solid shells, he also built a camp behind the city wall, and the camp was all built with a large wooden block with thick legs, covered with a thick soil as thick as one zhang, and there was a soil slope in front of the door to resist the fragments, unless the cannonball directly hit the door hole less than three feet wide, otherwise the cannonball would not cause any damage to Jiannu even if it entered the city, otherwise, it would have to hit the city directly!"

Kennu's response was very fast!

Whether it was Zaohuang Taiji or Dolgon, in the face of powerful high-explosive grenades, Jiannu's reaction was extremely fast, even beyond the imagination of the world.

In fact, as far as the reaction after being beaten is concerned, Jiannu's reaction is indeed very fast, and even after the end of the Opium War more than two hundred years later, when building the Dagu Fort, in view of the killing and wounding of the British grenade, they deliberately built the barracks into a semicircle, so that when the grenade hits the barracks, it will roll to the ground, and the barracks are also separated by a few feet, even if the shells that roll to the side of the barracks explode, it is impossible to blow up two rooms at a time, and the two-foot-thick earthen wall itself is enough to resist the shock wave when the black powder grenade explodes.

Now, they simply turned the barracks into fortifications. This kind of reaction speed is that Zhu Guoqiang was also amazed after knowing it, how many people can leave a famous name in history?

"Is it possible that we have to use human lives to force a strong attack?"

When Mei Chun said this sentence with a worried face, in Gaizhou City, the Hun Pagoda on the city wall stared at the Ming army outside the city, and said quite proudly.

"These Ming troops, if they want to take the city, they have to exchange their lives, there are 5,000 defenders in my city, and if they want to go down the city, they have to let the Ming army die 50,000!"

As the son of Tong Jia Erhan, the so-called "minister of the king" of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Hun Ta is not as good as his father, although in terms of generation, because his father was adopted by Nurha as an adopted son, and he is surnamed Jue Luo, he is also half of the emperor's relatives, but the Huerhan family in all this, the most declined, and now Dolgon uses him to defend Gaizhou, so that he will never surrender to the Ming army.

At this time, Hunta seemed full of confidence, he believed that he could hold Gaizhou, of course, now he and many Manchu generals, no longer use "Ming dog" to call the Ming army, in fact, this is probably a change in mentality, just like when Nurhach rebelled, he must be called "official army", and later prevailed, he changed his mouth to "Ming army", after the battle of Salhu, they contemptuously called the Ming army "Ming dog", and now, they were beaten one after another, and once again changed their words to "Ming army".

In fact, even they themselves are not aware of the change in tone, which even the person concerned cannot perceive.

"My lord, the Ming army is now outside the city, although we have a strong wall in Gaizhou City, but blindly defending it is not a way, this still has to ask the prince to send troops over immediately!"

Listening to Zhao Andong's report, Hunta just laughed and said.

"The letter to the prince has already been sent, but the reinforcements will definitely not come for a while, let's just defend, let the Ming army attack, I want to see if it is their artillery, or our city!"

Just as his words fell, the cannon suddenly rang out!

Standing on the top of the city, they could see from a distance that clouds of white smoke were spewing out from the trench in front of the city, and in the smoke filled, they only saw dozens of black dots sweeping through the air, whistling and flying over.

As in the past, the first round was an eighteen-pound mortar gun, compared with the straight trajectory of the field artillery, its ballistic detour is more suitable for siege, and the rate of fire is fast, but the biggest problem is that the accuracy is too poor, but this does not prevent it from being in addition to the nine-pound mountain howitzer, the Ming army's favorite cannon, after all, its light weight, fast rate of fire, and when firing a grenade, it is extremely deadly.

Whether it is under the city of Nanjing or on the Jinzhou defense line, it has proved its ability again and again to blow up the camp of Jiannu again and again, turning every fresh life into pieces of minced meat.

Now, it roared again, trying to prove its power once again.

At the moment when it roared to the ground, the iron heavy ball in the universal fuse rolled directly and squeezed the firing pin below to fire the fire cap, and the eighteen-pound cannonball instantly exploded into a ball of flames, but it was only an instantaneous effort, Gaizhou City was shrouded in a group of fierce cannonballs, some of the cannonballs fell directly on the city wall, some fell behind the city wall, and some fell into the city, however, even so, the Ming army was not worried about causing casualties to civilians There are no Han people in the city.

The Han people, except for a few clothed minions who have won the trust of their masters, are not even qualified to stay in the city!

However, the current situation has also opened the door for the Ming army to rain cannonballs into the city without any scruples.

：。 ：m.x