On the Pearl River in the south of Guangzhou, warships coming from the downstream slowly passed by. The oars paddle and make a splash, and the sunlight shines through, revealing a thousand colors. The fleet was swimming against the current, and some of the ships had a deep draft, which seemed to be very slow.

The river was already occupied by the fleet, and the owners, helmsmen, sailors, and all sorts of people on the docks who had nothing to do stopped and craned their necks to look at the fleet.

"Have you heard, Chen Fujun has recovered Yingde County and is about to go to Shaozhou Mansion."

"Hey, it's really Chen Fujun. After recovering Shaozhou Mansion, our Guangzhou Mansion is the hinterland, and there is no need to face the Tartar soldiers. ”

"Yes, Chen Fujun must be bound to win this time. You all see, those ships have such a deep draft that they can't hold tens of thousands of troops? ”

"What an army, no. I've heard that the ship was loaded with Hongyi cannons, which were used to bombard the city walls. ”

"Shhh

"Hey, what are you afraid of, with Chen Fujun here, even if Tartar knows, he can't help his old man's clever calculations!"

The stains on the wharf and on the banks of the river lasted for a long time, until the fleet slowly passed by, and then gradually passed away as the river was restored, and replaced with the usual busyness.

For the people of Guangzhou, this is just a casual conversation after tea and dinner, at most, there is an extra layer of barrier in the north, and you can have more sense of security. In contrast, for those high-ranking officials, this has a very different meaning.

Chen Kai explained in a letter to Li Dingguo that it was after he arrived in Hong Kong that Hao Shangjiu had news that the two counties of Changning and Wengyuan were empty, so he mobilized a large army to go on the expedition and captured these two county towns in one fell swoop. Next, according to the information obtained from these two places, it seems that the morale of the Qing army in Yingde County is not very high, since this is the case, he is not polite, and he took this place with the army.

The recovery of Yingde and Weng Yuan was not a whim, in fact, Chen Kai also intended to build a defense line in northern Guangdong to ensure the safety of this province. In this way, it is not enough to only make a down payment of Yingde and Weng Yuan, at least to take the capital city of Shaozhou, and confront the Qing army between Shaozhou and Nanxiong, threatening the Meiling defense line of the Qing court, so as to ensure the safety of the rear.

To this end, Chen Kai hopes to be able to use the rivers of the Pearl River and the Beijiang River to transport food, weapons, and soldiers. Because, taking the route of Longmen, Changning, Wengyuan and Yingde, not only the river is relatively narrow and the traffic capacity is limited, but more importantly, there is still a need to take the land route in the middle, and even go over the mountains and mountains, which is very unfavorable to the front work of the Ming army.

Traditionally, going north from Guangzhou, or from southern Jiangxi to the south, it has to pass through this place, because there is a waterway in the Beijiang River, and the military transportation of the army will be much easier. Chen Kai did the opposite this time, inserting Shaozhou Mansion from Changning and Weng Yuan, which is actually a special case. In this regard, everyone who knew the soldiers had a consensus, so Li Dingguo responded to this request.

This move, on the surface, is only Chen Kai obtained the right to use the river, but in fact, anyone with a discerning eye can see that this Guangzhou can be said to have become Chen Kai's bag.

The fleet sailed slowly, passed through Guangzhou, went north to Sanshui, passed Qingyuan, Yingde, and continued north. At this time, the army led by Chen Kai has arrived outside the capital city of Shaozhou, but compared with the three counties of Changning, Wengyuan and Yingde earlier, the Qing army in this capital city finally showed the courage of the soldiers, not only harassing the Ming army along the way to the north, even if the army came to the city, it was completely a posture of strict defense.

The capital city of Shaozhou was built in the Southern Han Dynasty of the fifth dynasty, and there were many additions and expansions in the Song Dynasty. To the Ming Dynasty, Hongwu, Tianshun, Chenghua, Jiajing, Tianqi Dynasty repeatedly added, repaired, to now is already a circumference of nine miles and thirty steps, two zhang five feet high, surrounded by moat and Wushui, the city on the enemy tower, the string of towers, the city gate tower on the third floor of the strong city is located.

Compared with Wengyuan and Yingde, the scale of this city is far better, and it is already similar to Xinhui. Although the last large-scale renovation was 130 years ago in the fourth year of Jiajing, this city, which has already won the top spot in Guangdong, still seems to be by no means so easy to take.

Before the arrival of the army, news had been received that after the Ming army invaded Shaozhou Mansion, the Southern Jiangxi side sent an adjutant general to rush to the aid in advance, and the follow-up troops may follow up at any time. Chen Kai came to this point, persuaded to surrender as usual, but the defenders were very faceless, and they answered with random arrows. In this regard, he was not in a hurry, he simply besieged the city, slowly, but blatantly made siege equipment under the noses of the Qing army, and did not take the Qing army in the city as a matter at all.

Such arrogance, the Qing army in the city was naturally filled with righteous indignation, so they simply blocked all the cities except the north gate and the west gate with big stones, and showed their unshakable strong will to defend the city to the people in the city with practical actions.

After the Ming army achieved a great victory in Guangzhou, Shaozhou Mansion became the frontier position of the Meiling defense line of the Qing court, so it increased the necessary troops, and expanded the establishment of the deputy general to the chief officer. In addition to the troops stationed in the five counties of Yingde, Wengyuan, Ruyuan, Lechang, and Renhua, there were still 2,000 soldiers in Fucheng to support various places. In addition, there are 2,000 soldiers from the deputy general of Nangan who entered the city, and there are no less than 4,000 green battalion soldiers in the city.

There are a total of nine towns on the side of the Ming army, with nearly 20,000 troops, and the side defending the city can drive the people in the city to serve as auxiliaries, or even cannon fodder, which is also the most common thing. The Ming army was making siege equipment with great fanfare outside, and the Qing army inside the city was also in full swing to strengthen the city walls and carry the guards, and both sides were making the most adequate preparations for the arrival of the siege war.

"Fu Jun, in the opinion of the last general, it is better to keep the artillery team and give Nanxiong's Tartars a ruthless blow. This time, just pounce on it. ”

"The lion fights the rabbit, and he uses all his strength. This time it is enough to only take the capital city of Shaozhou, and we do not have the strength to start a full-scale war with the Tartars of Southern Jiangxi for the time being. ”

A few days later, the fleet slowly approached and docked at several Ming-controlled docks south of the capital city of Shaozhou. The Hongyi cannon was unloaded from the ship and then transported directly to the camp in the south of the city. After a day's rest, on June 11 of the ninth year of Yongli, the Hongyi artillery team in eastern Guangdong, which had made great achievements in Xinhui and Guangzhou, was assembled outside the city of Shaozhou Mansion.

The persuasion was carried out again, and with these artillery as endorsements, the chaotic arrows at the head of the Qing army became sparse and weak. The persuasion to surrender still ended in failure, and since this is the case, then it is the turn of the artillery to speak.

After a long period of training, and with the tempering of the two battles of Xinhui and Guangzhou, this siege artillery team has long been integrated, and the tacit understanding is very good. The order was issued, and each artillery group began to reload and aim in numbers, and then only waited for everything to be ready, and the roar that overwhelmed everything resounded in the south of the capital city of Shaozhou like a tsunami.

The roar was accompanied by the release of the cannonball's energy in the distance, which was enough to crush the gold stone. Chen Kai held the binoculars, carefully observed the effect of the shelling, the first round of test firing, basically few can bombard the city wall, but the limited two shells hit the city wall, Chen Kai especially observed the bombardment, those two places, the wall bricks are broken, falling off, accompanied by cracks and the cracks of the wall bricks are even more fine powder is sliding down like a stream, blown by the wind, it deviates the trajectory.

"Keep banging, this official will go to make up for it first, and then call me when the city wall collapses."

Sleeping is just a pretext, there are still a lot of things to come, Chen Kai doesn't realize how meaningful it is to listen to the sound of the cannon in a daze. Instead of being in a daze, it is better to find a clean place to think about the next things, and always do more preparation to get closer to success.

Thinking about it, I carried it out on the bed in the tent, and sometimes I had to get up and sit down at the desk, and re-read some reports sent from various places, so that I could think more comprehensively.

The sound of the cannon continued, like the ticking of a clock, and occasionally there was a moment of pause, when the fire was too frequent and the gun needed to be cooled. In this way, after the shelling lasted for a few hours, there was a burst of cheers from the direction of the Ming army's large array, and Chen Kai, who had just eaten lunch, was there with his eyes closed and recuperating his eyes, and soon ushered in the guards who reported the news.

"Fu Jun, the city wall has collapsed!"

"Hmm."

Nodding, Chen Kai stood up and strode out of the tent. There seemed to be a little rustic air in the air, but I didn't know if it was a psychological effect, but when he galloped forward, where he could see, the dust in the distance had not yet completely settled, but the huge gap that was difficult to repair had already appeared in front of his eyes.

At this time, the people who want to come to the city to assist in the defense have collapsed, and the gap between the strength of the offensive and defensive sides inside and outside the city is too large, as long as the Ming army in front of the front holds the gap, the follow-up troops continue to pour in, and it is only a matter of time before the resistance in the city is extinguished.

"The city wall has not been repaired for 130 years, and it seems that the original repairers are still attentive to it if it can last for such a long time."

The Ming Dynasty, and even the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, was an era of alternating hot and cold weapons for the world and China. If there is an attack, there is a defense, just like the ancient Chinese city walls, just like the castles in Europe, in the face of huge cannons and mortars, it is not like papier-mâché, but it is really not much better. This is not that it is not strong enough, Chinese cities and European castles can be very effective in protecting the people and buildings in the city in the era of cold weapons, but these defensive facilities designed for cold weapons warfare will inevitably appear backward in the era of hot weapons, and backwardness will be beaten.

The army entered the city, and soon, news came from the north, saying that the Qing army of the brigade had left the city from the north gate and fled in the direction of Nanxiongfu. In this regard, Chen Kai had already prepared an army to ambush at the official road leading from Shaozhou Mansion to Nanxiong Mansion, and he didn't dare to say the word "total annihilation", but the fleeing Qing army wanted to flee back with all the mustaches and all shadows, but it was also a fool's dream.

The resistance of Shaozhou Mansion was quickly suppressed, and the army controlled all the key points in the city, Chen Kai appointed Xiao Gongchen, the chief military officer of the left town, and the chief military officer of Shaozhou Mansion, and assisted Hou Chong Town, the front town of Guard, the right town of Guard, and the Iron Cavalry Town to sit here, and the first task given to them was to restore the city defense of Shaozhou Mansion.

Everything was ready, the ambush troops in the north also came with good news, the Qing army's Shaozhou general soldiers were killed in the battle, the Qing army of the brigade was intercepted by the Ming army, and the rest escaped a little, but compared to the capture of the Ming army, it was already very few.

The form here was settled, and Chen Kai took the other departments back by boat, among them, Houzhen, Zhongquan Town, and Houchong Town had to stay in Shaozhou Mansion and sit in Yingde and Wengyuan counties, and Hao Shangjiu naturally went back and forth from there, and continued to live his comfortable little life.

The boat followed the current of the Beijiang River all the way south, and turned east when it reached Sanshui. Soon, Chen Kai returned to Li Dingguo's camp outside Guangzhou. There, there's some finishing touches to be taken care of.

"When I went to Shaozhou Mansion in a war, I can rest assured about the overall situation of Guangdong's war and defense."

"The old relatives have an overreputation, and the three counties in the north, I think it is inconvenient to go deep at this stage, so as not to fight with the Southern Jiangxi Division, which will affect the overall situation of the rescue. In addition, after this battle, I feel that the captives of Shaozhou Mansion are indeed basically discouraged, but the green battalion in Nanjiang is still relatively combative, blindly going deeper, and the odds of victory are not easy to estimate. ”

"It turned out to be too modest, with the capital city of Shaozhou, there was a barrier to the north of Guangzhou. I don't know what to do next? ”

"Let's give priority to restoring local people's livelihood, and only by taking deep roots can we last for a long time."

determined the next military and political policy, and Chen Kai also learned from Li Dingguo that he and Guo Zhiqi jointly wrote a letter asking him to be reappointed as the governor of Guangdong tomorrow. The king of Xining plus the superintendent scholar, and he has the blessing of the Zheng group, the Yongli court must not be denied.

With this identity, Chen Kai could more justifiably control the military and political affairs of Guangdong Province, and Li Dingguo also said that he would hand over control of the western part of Guangzhou Province to him to better ensure the defense line in northern Guangdong. This includes not only Guangzhou Fucheng, Sanshui County and Qingyuan County involved in the Beijiang Waterway, but also Xinhui County, Shunde County and Xiangshan County in the south. Only that Xinning County had been assigned to Chen Qice before, so it was not within the scope of the division.

After going around in circles, Xiangshan County returned to his hands, and Chen Kai couldn't help but laugh secretly. However, there is only so much Li Dingguo can do, and for the few places in his hands in Zhaoqing Mansion, they are handed over to Lian Chengbi to be responsible, because the seat of the governor of Liangguang is in Zhaoqing, which he has no intention of changing.

"This is the right thing to do." Chen Kai expressed a positive attitude towards this, and then calmly said that the grain, grass, and weapons that he said would continue to be shipped over in the next period of time, and some of them had already arrived in the warehouses of Hong Kong, and could soon be transported to Guangzhou and delivered to Li Dingguo for use.

"The siege artillery team can temporarily borrow the old relatives for a while. In addition, I have instructed the Ordnance Bureau to cast some Hongyi cannons, and when they are ready, I will send them to you. ”

"That's great."

Li Dingguo's first target was Wuzhou Mansion, which was the passage connecting the two Guangzhous, and it must not be placed in the hands of the Qing army. After Chen Kai returned, grain, grass and weapons began to be delivered to Li Dingguo's army one after another. Soon, as a secret report from Yungui arrived in Li Dingguo's hands, he set off with his army. Even with him, there is also the supervisor Guo Zhiqi who also has to go to Guangxi with the army to sit in the town.

Set a small goal first, such as 1 second to remember: Book Keju mobile version reading website: