Ma Cheng got up very early today, ready to go to the front of the battle to watch the siege of Suzhou. Ma Cheng was a third-rate college student in later life, although he had fought a few battles in this era and won the title of the god of war, but Ma Cheng knew his level, which was really not good.

Although Ma Cheng served as the commander-in-chief in Nanjing, the basic battlefield command was fought by Ma Bao and Zhang Guozhu. In the final decisive battle of Longtan, Ma Cheng only led the army to attack the Longtan camp by taking advantage of the defeat of the Qing army. It's like cooking, the ingredients are good, no matter what kind of chef can make a good dish, but if you can make a good dish with ordinary ingredients, then you need to study the chef's skills.

Ma Cheng is such a chef who is not very high-level, but Ma Cheng is different from other chefs in that he has the best ingredients of this era.

Ma Cheng used the characteristics of his traverser to train an army far beyond this era, although it may be inferior to the British army of later generations in terms of weapons and equipment, but it has reached or surpassed the British army during the Opium * War in terms of training. Such a strong force, coupled with powerful firearms, is a bit too much to defeat the Qing army.

Therefore, the well-trained new army was the key to Ma Cheng's victory in the Battle of Nanjing, and Ma Cheng's personal ability did not play a big role. When the battle of Nanjing began, Ma Cheng has been leading his own soldiers to rush to the front, although this kind of bravery has a certain improvement in morale, but it has little effect on the overall trend of the battle. Therefore, at that time, Qi Biaojia questioned Ma Cheng's military exploits, and when it came to personal command ability and battlefield adaptability, Ma Cheng may not be as safe as Qi Biaojia.

Ma Cheng also knew his shortcomings, in the battle of Lucheng half a month ago, according to the strength in Ma Cheng's hands, no matter how Fang Guoan moved to make an illusion, Ma Cheng could completely break it with force, after all, Fang Guoan's strategy was perfect, and it was useless in the face of absolute strength. However, Ma Cheng knew that his ability was very average, so for the sake of safety, after winning Qi Biaojia, he would shrink his defense and avoid giving Fang Guoan a chance.

There were many modes of warfare in ancient China, such as field battles, encounter battles, ambush battles, water battles, etc., but among them, the most difficult and most exquisite commander's ability was siege warfare. Because the attacker needs a lot of siege weapons and a lot of casualties to capture a city, it is mentioned in any war book that if there is no way, never attack a well-defended city.

Ma Cheng also knew that his ability was not good, so the attack on Suzhou must be handed over to the experts. Zhang Guozhu had served as Ma Shiying's Chinese officer before, plus he was born in a military household and performed well in the defense of Nanjing, so with these Ma Cheng decided to let Zhang Guozhu serve as the commander of this battlefield.

Ma Cheng stood on a hill five miles away from Suzhou City, watching the rows of siege troops advance slowly, and admired in his heart that this Zhang Guozhu was really a talent, managing the siege troops in an orderly manner, all kinds of siege equipment in front, siege artillery in the back, and the main force of the siege battalion was ready to go one by one with heavy armor, which was really orderly and not chaotic at all.

Ma Cheng said to Wang Xian beside him: "Mr. Wang, this Zhang Guozhu has good means, and he commands tens of thousands of people in an orderly manner!" ”

Wang Xian and Zhang Guozhu have a deep blood feud, listening to Ma Cheng's praise Zhang Guozhu felt uncomfortable, and he bowed his head

Speak. Ma Cheng knew Wang Xian's little Jiujiu, sighed and said: "Mr. Wang, don't take it to heart if the matter is over, this governor will reward you with a few more beauties, hurry up and start a family!" ”

After Ma Cheng finished speaking, he saw Wang Xian's appearance and knew that he had said it in vain, but there was no way, Ma Cheng could only sigh and not care about the bad things between the two.

At this time, the siege troops had come to the moat outside Suzhou, and the river was more than 20 meters wide, but this was not a problem, because the siege troops had special equipment to build bridges.

Of course, this kind of equipment is not as fine as the bridge building vehicles of later generations, but the basic function is still about the same. The men who accompanied the army took off the wooden planks from the cart with bows and arrows like rain, and asked the latter few people to work together to put up the shelves on both sides of the moat, and then lay the wooden planks, and a simple pontoon bridge was completed. However, this kind of pontoon bridge can only be passed by personnel, and those heavy siege equipment still need to fill the river and pave the way to pass.

The pontoon bridge is erected and the next step is to attack the city, and after Zhang Guozhu, who was not far from the rear team, saw it, he said to his younger brother Zhang Guoyi: "Brother, you take a thousand death battalions forward, and you must get the first merit of this first climb!" ”

Zhang Guoyi is also a ruthless person, he will not be soft when he kills people in the defense of Nanjing, and naturally knows that the heaviest credit in the army is Xiandeng, and now he heard his brother say this and nodded and said: "Please rest assured, the younger brother will not embarrass the eldest brother!" ”

There are three major merits in the ancient Chinese army, according to the ranking, they are the first to ascend, to capture the flag, and to behead the general, and the heaviest of these three merits is the first to ascend. This first is not the elite first camp under General Yuan Shao in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, although the first camp is also the meaning of elite, but first is a kind of military merit, not the name code of the army.

Siege warfare has always been the most test of the strength and morale of the army battle, so the first can greatly boost the morale of the army, when you stand under the city and look at the city wall more than ten meters high worry, suddenly someone climbed the city wall, naturally all the siege army morale is greatly boosted, it is likely to take down the city wall in one go.

Therefore, Xiandeng has been the first meritorious person in the army since ancient times, Liu Bang's brother-in-law Fan Xu, just a butcher who kills dogs, why is he ranked fifth among the heroes, this is not something that Liu Bang's brother-in-law can do. The fact is that Fan Xu's military achievements are outstanding, and it is recorded in the historical records that Fan Xu beheaded 176 people and captured 288 people. Don't, the broken army is seven, the city is five, the county is six, the county is fifty-two, there is one prime minister, twelve generals, and two thousand stones have been lowered to three hundred stones and eleven people.

Xiacheng is the first to ascend, Fan Xu has had five first ascending merits in his life, naturally after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was rated as the fifth meritorious hero, and was named the Marquis of Wuyang, who had 5,000 households in Shiyi.

Zhang Guozhu knows that Ma Cheng will definitely be able to become a climate in the future, and when the time comes, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he will definitely have no problem as a general, but his younger brother Zhang Guoyi is not necessarily, and Zhang Guoyi also has a festival with Ma Cheng's cronies Wang Xian.

Zhang Guozhu's actions were naturally reported to Ma Cheng by someone with a heart, and Ma Cheng heard that Zhang Guozhu sent his younger brother up, and said with a sigh: "Brother Zhang is really brave, in this case, the governor can't stay in the back, go to the front line!" ”

Ma Cheng came with two thousand soldiers to a mile away from the city wall

At the command post, Zhang Guozhu saw Ma Cheng coming, and hurriedly stepped forward and knelt down on one knee and said: "Marshal, there are a lot of arrows in front of the army, please pay attention to safety!" ”

"Haha, the governor has also passed through the battle array in Nanjing, and the elite soldiers of the northern captives who died under the governor are not a hundred, and they can be frightened by the small Suzhou City! However, this governor heard that Zhang Guozhu sent your own brother to the death camp, but is it a fact? ”

Zhang Guozhu heard Ma Cheng's question, and hurriedly replied: "Back to the commander, the army naturally attaches great importance to military merits, Zhang Guoyi has to be promoted from a general to a deputy commander-in-chief, and he must have a good military exploit, in order not to let outsiders think that Zhang Guoyi was promoted because of his relatives, so the last general transferred Zhang Guoyi to the death camp!" ”

The deputy chief soldier is not a very important official position, the Zhang family and the Ma family have been friends for generations, Zhang Guozhu was still a Chinese officer of Ma Shiying back then, and it was nothing to give his younger brother a deputy chief soldier. Ma Cheng sighed after hearing Zhang Guozhu finish speaking, helped him up, and then said: "Uncle Zhang's family is really hard work, and when my Ma Cheng is developed one day, I will definitely not forget Uncle Zhang's great achievements!" ”

Zhang Guozhu was waiting for Ma Cheng's words, but he didn't even dare to say it.

At this time, a thousand death battalions had already rushed to the city wall, and the big and small Franc machines on Ma Cheng's side had also toppled the moat and began to cover the shooting for the death battalions besieging the city.

These large and small Franc machines were all captured by the Qing army, a total of more than 2,000 guns, of any material and quality, and the power ranged from more than 300 meters to 20 meters. Although these Franc machines are completely inferior to Ma Cheng's standard artillery, they are superior to a large number of them, and they are not good at long range, and they are still capable of hitting short-range city walls.

With the firing of the Franc machine, the soldiers on the city wall were suppressed and could not raise their heads, and the threat to the death camp under the city was slowly weakening.

Zhang Guoyi stayed at the base of the city wall, and found that there were fewer sleeper stones thrown on the city, so he quickly ordered the soldiers to erect the ladder. After the ladder was erected, Zhang Guoyi was the first to climb the ladder.

The city wall of Suzhou is 18 meters high, and it took Zhang Guoyi half a minute to climb to the top of the city, and he turned over the battlement, and saw several soldiers hiding at the battlement, hiding from the artillery fire outside the city. When a soldier saw someone coming up from outside the city, he was about to scream in fright, when Zhang Guoyi stabbed him in the abdomen, killing him.

When the other Luwang soldiers found that Zhang Guoyi was going to the city, they hurriedly picked up their knives and wanted to go forward to fight, but seven or eight soldiers from the death camp came up to Zhang Guoyi, and they immediately fought with these Luwang soldiers.

The hand-to-hand combat reflects the advantages of Ma Cheng's new army, ordinary soldiers of the new army have three dry meals a day, and they can eat meat every day, coupled with hard training, their physical fitness is naturally much stronger than those guards in the Luwang army. In addition to the death camp, everyone is wearing heavy armor, and Zhang Guoyi is wearing three layers of armor, in addition to the slatted armor outside, there is chain mail in the innermost, and there is a layer of leather armor in the middle.

Under this kind of equipment, every soldier in the death battalion is like an iron can, although there is some lack of mobility ability, but the safety can definitely be guaranteed.

Zhang Guoyi was the first to climb the city wall, and won the first merit, and then a large number of soldiers from the death battalion also climbed the city, and the Luwang soldiers who defended the city did not have the ability of the new army.