Ma Cheng took the dozen or so peasant churches, and then stood on the ground and watched the gang plant. After looking at it for a while, he was very satisfied, and Ma Cheng said to Su Yuling of Shangyuan County, who was following him: "Old Su, you must send someone to take care of it, this corn and potatoes are a big killer to ensure our food supply!" ”

Su Yuling was born in Gongsheng, and he was much more sleek than those officials who were born in Jinshi, so after hearing Ma Cheng's words, he hurriedly bowed down and promised: "Please rest assured, Master Hou, the next official will send someone to wait day and night after a while!" ”

Coming with Ma Cheng was Ying Tianfu Tongzhi Xu Zhan, this guy was awarded military merit by Ma Cheng because of his meritorious work in collecting surplus grain, and he became a five-grade Tongzhi. Although Xu Zhan was raised by Ma Cheng, Xu Zhan looked down on Su Yuling's demeanor of licking chrysanthemums. said on the side: "Su Zhixian is very good at sycophants!" ”

Xu Zhan was Su Yuling's top boss, so he naturally didn't dare to say anything, so he had to smile wryly.

Ma Cheng saw that his subordinates were dog-eat-dog-eat-dog, and he was about to persuade him, when the drum tower in the distance sounded, which was a warning that the enemy was coming.

Nanjing's bell and drum tower is located in Huangnigang Street, the geographical location is in the middle of the city, if there is nothing important will never ring, now there must be a big event. Now that the Manchu Qing Dynasty is besieging the city, what can be a big deal? Naturally, the Manchus came to attack the city again.

As soon as the bell and drum tower rang, all the residents in Nanjing went home to hide, and Ma Cheng didn't have time to deal with Xu Zhan and Su Yuling, and went to the yamen with his own guards.

As soon as Ma Cheng returned to Yamen, he received news from Jubaomen that the Qing army brigade outside the city had made a move and was assembling a team to attack the city again.

Ma Cheng changed into armor and came to the treasure gate again, and the Qing army on the opposite side had already completed the whole team and resumed the siege. In the past six months or so, the Ming army has fought countless battles with the Qing army, and they are very familiar with the routines of the Qing army, so the officers of the Ming army on the city wall do not need to be urged by their commanders at all, and they have restrained their subordinates to start preparations.

This siege is similar to the previous one, Jubaomen here is 10,000 Zhengyangmen and there are 10,000, this group of Qing troops pushed a large number of siege equipment, slowly came to the city wall. After entering the range of the artillery, the Ming artillery began to fire, and the Qing troops under the city began to suffer casualties.

All the procedures were proceeding step by step, and after half an hour, the Qing army filled in a section of the moat, and then began to siege the city.

Seeing that the Qing army was coming, Ma Cheng took his own soldiers to prepare, and when the first Qing army just appeared, Ma Cheng stabbed this unlucky guy, this guy screamed miserably and fell down the ladder.

With the first Qing army on the city wall, the bloody siege battle officially began, this time the strength of the Ming army defending the city was greatly strengthened, in addition to 5,000 new army veterans, Ma Cheng's newly recruited 20,000 new troops also entered the battle, so there are a total of 10,000 new troops here in Jubaomen.

This time the battle was extremely fierce, from noon to sunset, Ma Cheng looked at the setting sun, and then looked at the Qing army under the city, and scolded: "Your mother, it seems that you are going to fight at night!" ”

In ancient times, because of the lack of food, many people suffered from night blindness, so there were basically no night battles in ancient wars. Of course, it was not without exception, and in order to illuminate the night battle, both sides had to light a large number of torches.

The supplies on the city wall were well prepared, and with the orders of the battlefield commander, bonfires were lit on the city, and the Qing army under the city was the same, lit at a distance of fifty meters

A large fire was used to light the Qing army besieging the city.

The Ming army defending the city was sufficient, so they could change shifts to eat. Ma Cheng was already tired from noon to evening, so he handed over the battle line to the reserve and followed the other soldiers to the city to eat.

The rice on the battlefield is naturally simple, with big meat steamed buns and cabbage soup, Ma Cheng wiped the blood on his hands, took the steamed buns handed over by Gu Yong, took a bowl of cabbage soup and sat on the ground with his mouth open and chewed.

Ma Bao also went down to the city at this time, took a steamed bun and sat next to Ma Cheng, and asked while eating: "My lord, you see that these northern captives are like crazy, it's been seven or eight hours, and they don't have the slightest intention of retreating, is there any intention for these guys?" ”

"Sixth uncle, you're right, these guys weren't like this before, they all finished work after dark, there must be some reason for working so hard today!"

After Ma Cheng finished speaking, he called a personal soldier: "You go and give Luo Bingran and Ma Xi an order, so that they must pay attention, especially the Taiping Gate in Dongcheng, and you must not let the Beiyu sneak attack at night!" ”

Today, the Qing army outside the Taiping Gate did not move, but Ma Cheng was not at ease, you must know that there are more than 50,000 Qing troops stationed in Xiaoling, and if they are taking advantage of the chaos to attack the city, it will be lively.

The soldiers promised to give an order, Ma Cheng stood up after eating the steamed buns, cleaned up, and led people to the city again.

By the time it was night, the battle of Jubaomen had been fought for nearly ten hours, and the Ming army had taken turns to rest four times, but the Qing army had no intention of retreating. Ma Cheng stood at the head of the city and looked outside, at this time the Qing army outside the city was far more than 10,000, looking at the dense torches outside, Ma Cheng estimated that there were 30,000 or 40,000 people.

There are 30,000 or 40,000 people here in Jubaomen, and about the same in Zhengyangmen, plus 50,000 people in the direction of Xiaoling, so the Qing army has mobilized half of the people, what does Duoduo want to do? Do you want to fill it with human life?

Just when Ma Cheng was suspicious, a burst of white light suddenly came from the direction of Taipingmen, and a deafening sound came after a few seconds. Ma Cheng's face was like ashes when he saw this scene, and he knew what he was worried about just now, that is, the tunnel.

In ancient times, there were only a few ways to siege cities, among which the most used flooding was to attract river water to collapse the city walls. Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army during the Three Kingdoms period, and Li Zicheng dug up the Yellow River and flooded Kaifeng in the Ming Dynasty were all such means. In addition to this, there are tunnels, but this method is time-consuming and laborious, and it is easy to let the defenders appear, and no one has used this backward means since the Ming Dynasty artillery.

Nanjing City is located on the bank of the Yangtze River, the water network is dense, and at the same time, Nanjing relies on Zhongshan to build the city, the terrain is higher than the south, so the Qing army will never use the Yangtze River water to attack the city, that will only flood themselves.

As for the tunnel, it is not very realistic, Ma Cheng also considered the tunnel at that time, but Nanjing is located along the Yangtze River, the groundwater is abundant, and it was filled with groundwater after digging less than three meters, so Ma Cheng did not pay attention to the Qing army digging tunnels to attack the city.

In fact, Duoduo also considered digging tunnels when attacking the city, and there were miners in the Han army banner of the Qing army, but the problems encountered by the Qing army were similar to those of Ma Cheng, and the tunnel was filled with water after digging a few meters.

But the bad thing is the bad thing in the traitor, and China has lacked everything since ancient times.

There is no shortage of traitors. During the siege of the city, Duoduo visited the terrain around Nanjing, and learned from the locals here in Xiaoling that the weakness of Nanjing City was in the area of Taipingmen.

Taiping Gate seems to have the danger of mountains and lakes, but is actually located at the junction of Zhongshan and Xuanwu Lake, built between Longguang Mountain and Zhoushan Mountain, which extends to the west of Zhongshan, and is the nearest passage leading to the city from Zhongshan to the city, and it is also the only city gate in Nanjing City without water protection.

When Zhu Yuanzhang was building the city, some people had already pointed out that Taipingmen was too dangerous here, and if someone put artillery on Zhongshan Mountain, it would be easy to hit the city. But at this time, Nanjing City had already been half completed, and Zhu Yuanzhang absolutely could not choose a new site, plus the power of artillery at that time was as strong as it was later, so Zhu Yuanzhang thought about it again and again and decided to follow the original plan. However, in order to ensure the safety of Taipingmen, Zhu Yuanzhang stationed a team with strong combat effectiveness in Zhongshan, that is, Xiaolingwei.

At that time, Xiaolingwei was not as good as the end of the Ming Dynasty, Xiaolingwei's soldiers were all elite, and the first commander of Xiaolingwei was Zhu Yuanzhang's son-in-law, so there was nothing to say about combat effectiveness and loyalty.

However, with the development of time, after Zhu Di moved the capital, all the elite troops in Nanjing were withdrawn, and Nanjing was peaceful for hundreds of years, and the originally heroic Xiaolingwei now has only more than 300 people left.

So at the beginning, Duoduo's strategy was to send troops to occupy Tianbao Mountain in Zhongshan, and then bombard the city walls with red-coated cannons. But what Duoduo didn't expect was that there was already a Ming army stationed on Tianbao Mountain, and the combat effectiveness was not weak.

In the multi-day battle, the Ming army focused all its energy on Longguang Mountain because it wanted to support Tianbao Mountain, and the Taiping Gate far away from Longguang Mountain was very weak.

At the same time, there is a section of the Taipingmen city wall next to Zhongshan Mountain, the terrain is very high, and the influence of groundwater on this place is very small. After looking at it, Dordor decided to dig a tunnel here, then fill it with gunpowder and blow up the walls.

However, this work had to be carried out under the noses of the Ming army, and the difficulty can be imagined, so the Qing army stopped fighting in the past two months, and the capture of Tianbao Mountain was no longer the goal, but the ultimate goal was to cover the Qing army digging tunnels.

In addition, the Ming army concentrated most of the artillery in Longguang Mountain, and every time the Qing army was bombarded, the ground shook and the sound of the underground Qing army could not be heard at all, so the Qing army finally completed a 300-meter-long tunnel after two months of excavation.

After the completion of the tunnel, Duoduo sent a new annex army, under the leadership of Li Shutai, the banner general of the Han army, to feint to attack Jubaomen and Zhengyangmen, in order to attract Ma Cheng's attention. And Duoduo himself, with the elite 5,000 people of the two white flags that can still move, as well as 10,000 Mongolian eight banners and 10,000 Han army flags lurking at the location of Xiaoling, waiting to blow up the city wall, and then kill into the city.

The elite led by Duoduo was the last force in his hands, and after more than half a year of hot and humid climate invasion in Nanzhili, the Manchurians and Mongols from the bitter cold land suffered heavy casualties. The Manchurians were worse as the ruling class, and the Mongols were unlucky, and there were more than 30,000 Mongols who followed Duoduo to the south with Azig, and so far there were less than 20,000 left, and only 10,000 were able to stand up and fight.

Therefore, Duoduo knows that this battle is the last battle, and it is easy to say anything if he wins, but if he loses, he can only retreat to Jiangbei, and it is not certain whether he can keep Yangzhou or not.