Chapter 62: The Second Attack on Kaifeng

Facts have proved that Ding Qirui's ability to escape is not good at other things, and his ability to escape is first-class, and he doesn't know if the six-trick of the supervising army around him really works, or for other reasons. Anyway, Ding Qirui didn't let Li Zicheng catch up from beginning to end, because Ding Qirui was caught up. It is already under the city of Kaifeng.

Liu Zongmin immediately made a decision, rushed to the city gate, and ran wildly after Ding Qirui's department for a while, Ding Qirui was also the supervisor of the Ming Dynasty no matter how he said it, and the soldiers guarding the city did not dare to refuse it, so they could only open the door to welcome Ding Qirui into the city. However, Ding Qirui's department had not yet fully entered Kaifeng City, and Liu Zongmin's horse team caught up. Seeing that the city gate was about to be lost, Chen Yongfu, the deputy commander-in-chief, led by more than 3,000 soldiers under his command, fought a short and tragic fierce battle with Liu Zongmin under the city. Each of the suicide injuries is offset by each other. Liu Zongmin's lone army threw off the brigade of men and horses, and the distance between him and the follow-up people was more than 100 miles, and he did not dare to stay under Kaifeng City for a long time. and withdrew his troops.

This battle kicked off the prelude to the second attack on Kaifeng.

Liu Zongmin retreated more than 100 miles and camped, on the one hand, he recuperated, monitored the people in the city, and waited for follow-up reinforcements.

After Li Zicheng learned that Liu Zongmin was unable to conquer the city, he did not rush to march, and began to attack slowly and logically, attacking the city along the way. From Xuzhou to Kaifeng, none of the prefectures and counties were spared, and the righteous army divided their troops into several roads, swept the surroundings first, and also wanted to lure the defenders of Kaifeng City out.

However, the defenders in Kaifeng City are like turtles, very stable, but Sven does not move.

On the 23rd day of the 14th year of Chongzhen, the army was surrounded by an iron wall, and Cao Ying and Chuang Camp were set up separately to guard the major city gates of Kaifeng.

Break into the camp and camp in the garden of the king of Yingcheng County, not far from the embankment of the Yellow River. In the north of Kaifeng City, and Cao Ying set up camp in Fanta Temple, in the east of Kaifeng City. In addition to the two large camps, there are also several small camps that block all the gates of Kaifeng City. Surrounded the opening of the seal. The war clouds are thick, the north wind is howling, the weather is cold, and the atmosphere outside Kaifeng is just like the weather, cold and suffocating.

Li Zicheng gathered all the generals, looked at Kaifeng City on the embankment of the Yellow River, and took in the entire Kaifeng City, surrounded by soldiers like clouds, cavalry like rain, he was proud, and felt a faint pain in his left eye, and there was a trace of anger in his heart, pointing to Kaifeng City from afar, and said: "This battle, if you don't conquer Kaifeng, I vow not to collect troops." ”

Li Zicheng sent cavalry to paste notices everywhere at the gate of Kaifeng, and said: "Fengtian advocates the general of the Wenwu Battalion, Li, show: The Chinese and martial arts people in the city know that the army broke Fu Zonglong in September, and today Ding Qirui is under the city, the land of Henan is all over, Kaifeng has become an isolated city, and the heavens have the virtue of good life, such as lifting the city, pondering the grace of the great general, when Kaecheng surrenders, the great general does not remember the old evil, and all take the original position." The people of the city were not harmed. If the sins are serious, they still resist stubbornly, and on the day the city is broken, they will be severely punished. ”

In Kaifeng City, it was also very shaken.

The king of Zhou sent a large amount of money to the inner library and rewarded the people in the city. and compiling volunteers.

Governor Gao Mingheng dispatched troops. With the patrol Ren Rui guarding Cao Gate, the Kaifeng prefect Wu Shi said, and the official Huang Shu assisted. Xiangfu Zhixian Wang guards the north gate, manages the river with Zhisang Kaidi, Zhou Wangfu flatters Cao Kun, and the squire Zhang Wenguang assists in management. Zuo Bu's political envoy Liang Bing guarded the east gate, and Tan Guozhen, the capital secretary, assisted in guarding. Kaifeng soldiers prepare for Su Zhuang to guard the west gate, governor Gao Mingheng sits at the south gate, and deputy chief soldier Chen Yongfu sits at the south gate with the governor.

Governor Gao Mingheng was bent on holding Chen Yongfu's department.

Chen Yongfu's Bianbing is the only division in Kaifeng City, and the other ministries are not recruited by the yamen, after all, after a false alarm in the first month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the entire Kaifeng City is nervous, and all the yamen began to recruit troops for a while.

There are pacesetters in the governor's yamen, and the patrol sets up social soldiers according to Huang Shu, recruits large and small rich households in the city as soldiers, and the food and salary are all out of these rich households, and the forty-eight squares in Kaifeng City set up thousands of social soldiers. The food and salary are self-provided, and even the Daxiangguo Temple has monks and soldiers, and the mosque also has returning soldiers. It looks like the city is full of soldiers.

However, these young and strong guards in the city are acceptable, but they fight hard with the camp and Cao Ying's department, and there are still only thousands of Chen Yongfu's soldiers.

On the 24th day of the 14th month of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng gave an order, and hundreds of thousands of people rushed to Kaifeng City.

In Kaifeng City, the whole army is on alert and has long been ready for battle. Everyone in the world knows that Cao Ying is good at fighting, and breaking into the camp is good at attacking. Moreover, in the past few months of breaking into the camp, it has expanded rapidly, there are hundreds of thousands of people, but among them, the elite is only 350,000 people, and Luo Rucai's elite soldiers are still more than 20,000 horsemen around him.

Therefore, the battalion team pressed the battle, and the people near the Fengfu were requisitioned, and the food was used as a reward, and there were crowds of people for a while, and there seemed to be millions of people. Scattered everywhere, the main attack was at the east gate and the north gate.

For a while, long arrows came and went, and cannons roared.

Li Zicheng ordered that anyone who entered the city and took a brick and returned it would be free of war today without a fight and full of food. If you can't get a brick back, you will be beheaded.

Kaifeng city wall is extremely strong, originally is the Song capital Bianliang, the city wall is extremely strong, after the gold capital, when it is, Jin lost Yanyun, to Kaifeng as the capital, day and night can not rest on the pillow, so strengthen the city wall, do everything to the extreme. Hit the city wall with an iron cone, and kill the craftsman if you trap it. When Ming Taizu opened the country, there was the intention of moving the capital, and the candidate place was Kaifeng City, and Xi'an City, so the specifications of the two cities were large, and other prefectures and counties were far away, and now Kaifeng Mansion was built on the specifications of Song and Jin.

Therefore, the Kaifeng city wall, within the territory of the Ming Dynasty, is also the only one in the north and south of the capital, under the stone as the base, the soil is several zhang thick. Four feet high and five feet high, looking at it like a mountain, when Li Zicheng attacked Kaifeng for the first time, he tried to dig tunnels, but all dug up the stones, and had to abandon them, mainly digging the city.

The people first stripped off the bricks of the city wall, and then sent elite soldiers to dig the earth.

When the people of the city saw it, they dug up with the city. When it was just dug through, the elite of the city came out of the hole, caught off guard, and often broke it. Then he stopped and guarded the cave, as if he had opened a small gate. The elite of the camp competed with it, and the upper part had to bear the firepower of the city, and the lower part had to fight in a narrow place, and fought bloody battles step by step, often not resisting.

In this way, the camp changed its tactics, began to dig into the city wall, dug on both sides, and after digging through the opposite side, it was a big attack, and there were also people who could take the cave. But the caves are so small that not many people can get in. Therefore, they occupied the cave and did not dare to attack the city. Therefore, the city often recruited warriors and attacked in a big way.

The cave is narrow, and the brave wins. Brave in the camp, often able to hold on.

There are people in the city who offer advice. Smoke it with fire. Under the fire, the heat in the cave was unbearable, and the camp was helpless, and they often retreated.

Seeing that this could not be done, Li Zicheng erected a high platform outside the city, and bombarded the city with artillery. The people in the city also set up a high platform, and the high platform in the city is based on the city wall, which is higher than the camp, condescending, and the soldiers who break into the camp do not support, and often do not support.

The two sides fought back and forth, not leaving an inch. The blood flowed like a river, day and night.

Viewed from a distance, the beacon fire under the city head is endless, stretching for dozens of miles, it is almost dyed red at night, and it is magnificent. No matter how cold the weather is, it will snow and the siege will not stop. Breaking into the camp and fighting bravely, although the dead and wounded were pillowed, they would never withdraw their troops.

Of course, although Li Zicheng's elite has been dispatched several times, there are still few casualties, and there are too many casualties, all of them are newly recruited soldiers and horses, and their combat power is inevitably a little insufficient, but if they can come back alive from Kaifeng City, they will be regarded as elite soldiers and horses by the whole camp. This is also Li Zicheng's means of military training.

It's brutal, but it's also effective.

Kaifeng city, fierce battle like fire, Henan governor Gao Mingheng sent a fast horse, to the Quartet to report urgently, Chongzhen learned, ordered again and again, all kinds of soldiers and horses to help, for a time Henan became the center of the entire Ming concern.

The Ming officials and troops are ready to move. And these news, the officials and the army knew, the rebels knew even more, and Li Zicheng knew that there was not much time left for him, so he urged the strong attack, and the bloodiness of the war rose again and again. The city got Yang Wenyue's book, and when reinforcements were coming, he could grit his teeth and hold on.

However, all this has nothing to do with Zhang Xuan, when the city of Kaifeng was in the midst of a series of battles, Zhang Xuan was on the verge of Ying, about to prepare for his first Spring Festival in the Ming Dynasty.

Yes, in a trance, Zhang Xuan has been in Daming for nearly a year. He was the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, and he crossed over in the first month, and now the fourteenth year of Chongzhen is about to end.