In Jiujiang City, the first batch of supplies transported by the imperial court finally arrived.

"My lord, the imperial court has brought a thousand thunderbolts from the city of Nanjing." A soldier came to report it.

"Thunderbolts? Okay, hahahaha, the emperor is really generous, I Huang Huang thanks the emperor for his grace, with this sharp weapon in hand, he will never be able to break through Jiujiang. Huang Degong said happily.

Thunderbolt is one of the heavy weapons of the Ming Dynasty, comparable to the red-coated cannon, if the red-coated cannon is a siege weapon, the thunderbolt is a weapon to defend the city, each thunderbolt is ten pounds heavy, once the explosion can shoot dozens or even hundreds of pieces of broken iron, the power is huge. However, the cost is very expensive, each one costs dozens of taels of silver, extremely expensive, from the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the imperial court has no money to build, otherwise Li Zicheng would not have been able to build Beijing City from Shanxi all the way.

In the past, the Ming Dynasty was silver, and he didn't dare to make anything expensive, but now it's different, Zhu Cihong copied out tens of millions of taels of silver when he destroyed the Wei Mansion and the Donglin Party, which can be said to be wealthy, not to mention the thunderbolts of dozens of taels of silver, and even the red-coated cannons of tens of thousands of taels of silver Zhu Cihong made forty in one go, plus the sixty red-coated cannons that the imperial court originally had, which was enough for the training of the artillery battalion of the Yinglong Army.

Originally, if the red-clothed cannon was used to defend Jiujiang City, the effect was also very large, but the red-clothed cannon was too heavy, not to mention how to use it in Jiujiang City in a short time, but after it was transported, it was also a lot of effort to get the city wall, and it was impossible to do it for more than three months, and Jiujiang could not afford to wait for such a long time.

Now after twelve days of fierce attack and defense in Jiujiang City, the defenders of Jiujiang City have suffered a total of 50,000 casualties, and Zuo Liangyu's army has suffered nearly 200,000 casualties as the besieging side, but more than half of these 200,000 are Zhuangding cannon fodder, and Zuo Liangyu is far from breaking his muscles and bones.

If such casualties continued, it would be difficult for Huang Degong to hold Jiujiang City for a month, but now there are 1,000 thunderbolts.

"Kill"

Suddenly, there was a city wall that was killed by a soldier of Zuo Liangyu, this soldier was quite brave, and under the fierce slashing, he actually emptied the place with a radius of three meters around his body, so that the soldiers of Zuo Liangyu behind him had to climb up from the ladder in a steady stream, and soon more than ten Zuo Liangyu soldiers came up here.

Seeing that he could break through the city wall from this ladder, there were constantly Zuo Liangyu soldiers gathered under this ladder.

"Dashuai, there are soldiers attacking there, and this time the city will definitely be broken!"

Beside Zuo Liangyu, a general pointed to the breakthrough on the city wall and said happily to Zuo Liangyu.

However, before Zuo Liangyu could say anything, a violent explosion suddenly sounded under the ladder at the breakthrough, and the bottom of the entire ladder was blown into pieces several meters long, and the rest of the ladder above had no support at the bottom, and collapsed instantly, and several Zuo Liangyu soldiers who were still climbing on the ladder also fell down, and the bottom of the ladder was emptied of a large area, and the whole place had stumps and broken arms, and flesh and blood were flying, because the number was too dense, more than 20 Zuo Liangyu soldiers were killed on the spot, and some soldiers who were blown up with missing arms and legs were screaming, The other Zuo Liangyu soldiers around him were all stupefied.

"Shoot the arrows!" Dozens of archers on the city wall held bows and arrows and shot arrows at the dozen or so Zuo Liangyu soldiers who climbed the city wall.

Dozens of arrows flew over, hitting ten of Zuo Liangyu's soldiers.

"Kill" dozens of Ming soldiers defending the city and killed the remaining few Zuo Liangyu soldiers, facing dozens of steel knives, those Zuo Liangyu soldiers were instantly cut into meat sauce.

"Thunderball!" Zuo Liangyu stared deadly, he had been the general soldier of the Ming Dynasty for more than ten years, so he naturally knew what was exploding just now, and he also knew the power of that thing, with the thunderbolt as a sharp weapon to defend the city, the difficulty of him wanting to break through Jiujiang had almost doubled.

"Huang Degong actually has such a thing, God won't help me!" Zuo Liangyu looked up to the sky and roared, because he was too angry, he once again pulled the old wound on his chest, and another burst of colic struck, Zuo Liangyu's face turned pale instantly, and he hurriedly suppressed the anger in his heart, not daring to be angry.

Zuo Liangyu recently felt that his body seemed to be getting worse and worse, he couldn't wait, in the past ten years, he had worked hard to finally form an army of millions, even if he couldn't take them to sweep the world, he had to break through Nanjing City and sit on that dragon chair!

Zuo Liangyu gritted his teeth, suddenly thought of something, and immediately turned around and returned to the handsome tent.

"Come on, bring pen and ink!"

"Yes, Dashuai!"

Soon a soldier presented the pen and ink.

Zuo Liangyu wrote for a while, and finally signed his name with his own hand and stamped it with a thumb seal. This is a letter he wrote to Gao Jie, the general soldier of Shaanxi, and now Gao Jie was sent by Zhu Cihong to Luzhou to replace Huang Degong to defend against the thieves in Henan and enter Jianghuai.

After Zuo Liangyu wrote the letter, he ordered dozens of soldiers to change into civilian clothes, and secretly rushed to Luzhou with the letter to hand it over to Gao Jie, who was in Luzhou.

"Father." Zuo Mengeng suddenly frowned at this time and walked in.

"Is something wrong?" Zuo Liangyu asked.

"Back to my father, the army's military rations were enough for twenty days, but we attacked all the way from Wuchang to Jiujiang City, and spent twelve days in Jiujiang City, and the army's military rations were not much left, if we can't break through Jiujiang as soon as possible, the army is very likely to run out of food, and the consequences are unimaginable!" Zuo Mengeng said worriedly.

Zuo Liangyu's eyes narrowed slightly, revealing a ruthless expression: "This little thing, what is there to worry about, how did the army's military rations come from, how to raise them." ”

Since he has done it once, Zuo Liangyu doesn't care about doing it a few more times, as long as he can sweep the south of the Yangtze River, sit on the dragon chair, and realize his dream of the Spring and Autumn Festival in the past ten years, he can't care about anything, no matter what, military food can't be lacking.

"Yes, Father!" Zuo Mengeng gritted his teeth and did not object at all, to say that the two of them are worthy of being father and son, and their hearts are as vicious as they are.

Zuo Liangyu immediately ordered the plundering of the people again for the army's military rations, and suddenly the people of dozens of miles around Jiujiang were tragically robbed, hundreds of thousands of people died, and more than a million people relied on the food to survive were robbed, and the hungry people were everywhere.

"The left reverse should be cut with a thousand cuts! I want to drive the expedition and take the left reverse dog's head! Zhu Cihong announced angrily.

Since his rebellion, hundreds of thousands of people have died because of him, millions of people have been robbed of the food they rely on for survival, and almost half of Hubei has been destroyed.

"Your Majesty!" Ma Shiying hurriedly jumped out to object.

"Wechen doesn't agree either!" Liu Zongzhou also resolutely objected: "The front-line soldiers are in danger, the safety of the emperor is related to the life and death of the Ming Dynasty, and there is no room for loss. ”

Liu Zongzhou's advocacy of ending the war with war is not false, but the emperor is the king of a country, and he is not yet sixteen years old, he has no battlefield experience at all, and the emperor has just gotten married and has no heirs.

The corners of Zhu Cihong's eyes twitched, Liu Zongzhou, this old guy, in order to prevent him from driving the expedition, said that he was like a fairy, and he could destroy thieves thousands of miles away if he sat in the imperial city, so he really thought he was an immortal.

The battle with Zuo Liangyu is related to the fortunes of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Cihong must also be personally recruited no matter what.

"Zuo Liangyu's army is numerous and powerful, if it can't be wiped out in a battle, it will also endanger the life and death of the Ming Dynasty, so I must personally supervise the battle and boost morale!" Zhu Cihong was resolute.

"Your Majesty, the ministers will never agree to the emperor's personal conquest." Ma Shiying, Liu Zongzhou and all the other courtiers knelt down, and none of them agreed to Zhu Cihong's personal expedition.

Throughout the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the Yongle Emperor's many personal expeditions, only Emperor Yingzong and Emperor Zhengde had personal expeditions, but one of these two was taken prisoner, and the other was almost taken prisoner several times, there are two examples of Yingzong and Zhengde, how dare the ministers let the emperor personally conquer, according to their thoughts, the emperor should sit high in the imperial city, and the personal expedition is simply a chaos.

"I have made up my mind, for the sake of the Ming Dynasty, I must personally conquer." Zhu Cihong was unmoved, his attitude was extremely resolute, and after finishing speaking, he brushed his sleeves away, not giving Ma Shiying, Liu Zongzhou and others a chance to oppose.

Ma Shiying, Liu Zongzhou and the others looked at each other, extremely helpless, the emperor was too stubborn and insisted on going his own way, if something really happened, what should I do. The courtiers did not give up persuasion, and discussed going back to write the recital, and the emperor must change his mind no matter what.

With the experience of the Donglin Party, Ma Shiying, the first assistant, did not dare to learn from Gao Hongtu to force the palace, not only for fear that the emperor would be angry and hate him, but also for fear that it would backfire and make the emperor rebellious.

Zhu Cihong ignored it, and immediately issued a holy decree after returning home, setting the time of the personal expedition at 20 days later, and ordering the household department to start preparing military rations for hundreds of thousands of troops.

As early as when Zuo Liangyu first began to rebel, Zhu Cihong issued a holy decree to gather soldiers and horses from all over the world in Nanjing City, in addition to Shandong, Luzhou, Sichuangui, which must stay to prevent the Manchu Qing Dynasty and Liukou, as well as those places in Yunnan that are too far away, Jianghuai, Nanzhili, Liangguang, Fujian and other places all gradually gathered in Nanjing City, and they can all come in more than ten days, just wait for Zhu Cihong's order to go to the decisive battle with Zuo Liangyu.

Zhu Cihong has confidence in the Ying Long Army that is about to be trained, but the battle with Zuo Liangyu is related to the national fortune of the Ming Dynasty, for the sake of safety, Zhu Cihong cannot only take the Ying Long Army over, he will bring the soldiers and horses that can be gathered in the Beijing camp and the whole country, even if it is useless, it is still possible to be strong and powerful.

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