After the assault troops of the Third Army of the Tang Army paid a certain price to occupy the gap in the ruins of the city wall and cover the large-scale entry of the Fifth Infantry Division, the Battle of Yangzhou City was basically a decision between the two sides.

After the 5th Infantry Division entered the scale, it quickly swept across the walls on both sides.

Half an hour later, the Fifth Infantry Division had already controlled a section of the city wall hundreds of meters wide, and sent troops to begin to advance deep into the city, continuing to attack the Ming troops in other directions of the city wall through a roundabout pattern.

Two hours later, most of the city walls of Yangzhou City had been captured by the troops of the Third Army, and the Ming army began a large-scale retreat.

However, Hao Bonian did not send troops to intercept it.

Because the siege war is originally a siege, you have to let go of an opening to let the enemy escape, otherwise, the more than 100,000 Ming troops in the city will definitely have greater resistance if they cannot retreat.

What Hao Bonian has to do now is to quickly conquer Yangzhou City, as for those Ming troops who escaped from the city, he naturally will not let go easily.

Although it will not be intercepted for the time being, it does not mean that it will not be pursued!

The direction of the Ming army's escape is easy to determine, that is, to the north, to Gaoyou, and even to Huai'an, and it is not so easy for them to get rid of the pursuit of the Third Army along the way.

Besides, even if they let them escape to Gaoyou or even to Huai'an!

The urban defense systems of Gaoyou and Huai'an are not as strong as Yangzhou.

The Ming army stayed in Yangzhou for so long, and after the fall of Jinling City, it strengthened the city defense of Yangzhou City, and also deployed so many heavy artillery.

Huai'an City, but there is no such condition, and Hao Bonian will not leave them enough time to prepare the city defense.

In addition, whether it is defending or attacking the city in these years, the role of artillery has been irreplaceable, these Ming troops have retreated, but the artillery they deployed in Yangzhou City before can't take much away.

These artillery, even if it is a five-pound field gun, it is a big guy, and it is almost impossible to take too much artillery away in a hurry.

Therefore, Hao Bonian was not in a hurry in the face of the retreat of the Ming army, and did not even send cavalry troops to block the city gate in the north, he sent an order to the third cavalry detachment to continue to maintain vigilance, beware of the Ming army escaping from the city to kill a horse gun, such as turning around to attack the artillery position deployed by the third army outside the city.

At the same time, it also allowed a small number of its cavalry units to be sent to track the Ming army outside the city and provide intelligence support for the next move of the Third Army.

As for the main infantry unit of the Third Army, it was to further intensify the offensive against the Ming army in the city, occupy the four city walls and important buildings in the city as soon as possible, and prevent the Ming army from jumping over the wall in a hurry, setting fire to the armory, grain warehouse, and even burning down the entire city.

At the beginning, Hengyang was burned by a fire, and the Tang Army still remembered it, so naturally it didn't want this kind of thing to happen again, you must know that Yangzhou City is now a city belonging to the Tang Dynasty, and every tile and brick in it is a precious wealth of the Tang Dynasty.

Yangzhou belongs to the Tang Dynasty and belongs to Li Xuan, the Son of Heaven!

Hao Bonian wanted to dedicate Yangzhou City to the Son of Heaven, so it was naturally impossible for the Ming army to burn it down.

The Tang Army continued to advance to various important places in the city, and continued to attack the northern city wall guarded by the Ming army, and the Ming army also resisted fiercely in order to keep the last retreat channel.

However, the resistance of the Ming army was in vain!

Three hours after entering the city, the Tang Army announced that it had completely occupied the four city walls, blocking the remaining Ming troops in the city, and at the same time, the troops also controlled an important area of part of the city.

In the afternoon, the Tang Army launched a new round of large-scale onslaught against the remaining Ming troops in the city, and a large number of armored soldiers marched in groups on various streets, completely strangling any Ming troops who intervened and resisted.

By this time, the resistance of the remaining Ming troops in the city had lost its organization, and there were only small troops, hundreds or even dozens of people resisting on a large scale.

At this time, the Ming troops who remained in the city were basically abandoned sons, and many senior generals had already led their descendants out of the city.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, the Third Army initially took control of all the main roads in the city, and controlled important buildings such as yamen and warehouses.

An hour later, Hao Bonian led the senior generals of the Third Army into the city and successfully fulfilled his wish to have dinner in Yangzhou City!

Of course, having dinner is just a joke, after Hao Bonian entered the city, it was naturally impossible to drink and eat, and he still had a lot of things to do after entering the city.

The most important thing is to hold a post-war conference!

After the post-war meeting, Hao Bonian immediately sent a good telegram to Jinling City.

Li Xuan received this good news in the evening of the next day, and the content of the good news was very detailed, not only a simple report on the siege, but also a list of the casualties and results of the battle, and even the next move Hao Bonian reported on the good news.

In the First Battle of Yangzhou, the Third Army of the Tang Army and the Canal Fleet of the Tang Navy cooperated with each other, using more than 230 artillery pieces of more than 5 catties, and more than 50,000 rounds of solid ammunition and grenades of more than 5 catties, creating a record of ammunition consumption in a single battle of the Tang Dynasty's division.

More than 3,000 soldiers were killed, more than 2,000 were wounded, and a number of artillery, muskets and other ordnance were lost, but the loss of materials was not a big problem, and the loss of 5,000 personnel was also within Li Xuan's estimate.

Conquering Yangzhou City, Li Xuan's psychological bottom line is that there are 10,000 casualties, and now 5,000 dead and wounded are completely acceptable.

After all, what they want to attack is Yangzhou, and it is also Yangzhou defended by 100,000 Ming troops, which is already the last main force of the Ming army in the Jiangbei region, and it is also a new army equipped with a large number of guns.

In the siege operation, the Third Army estimated that more than 30,000 Ming troops were killed or seriously wounded, and countless were lightly wounded, and about 50,000 people were captured, of which at least 20,000 were uprisings before the battle.

And the Ming army that successfully escaped from the city is estimated to be about 20,000 people!

In addition, about 300 shotguns of various types, such as bowl guns and Franc machine guns, more than 40 five-pound field guns, more than 10 seven-pound field guns, and six nine-pound field guns, were seized.

About 30,000 arquebuses of various calibers were seized, why do they say that they are of various calibers, because the arquebuses used by the Ming army today are of different calibers, with 14 mm as the center, the small ones are 12 mm and 13 mm, and the large ones are 15 mm or even 16 mm.

Of course, the Ming army is not stupid, they will also select, and then concentrate on the use of muskets of roughly the same caliber in a unit to facilitate unified training and combat.

After the Tang army captured these muskets, it would also classify them, classify them of different calibers, and then equip different troops according to different calibers.

Then the other things seized, all kinds of cold weapons are not worth mentioning, swords and spears are not lacking in the Tang Dynasty itself, bows and arrows are no longer equipped on a large scale in the Tang Dynasty, and those traditional iron armor are also replaced by plate armor.

The only thing that is of greater value is the large amount of military food hoarded by the Ming army in Yangzhou City, which is enough for 100,000 troops to eat for three months, even if this three months are according to the standards of the Ming army, put on the side of the Tang Army, and eat for a month at most.

However, with such a batch of grain, the Third Army will not have to worry about military rations in the next two months, and the logistical pressure can be greatly reduced.

After taking Yangzhou, Li Xuan was in a very good mood, and that night, it was rare to accompany Empress Dowager Bai and Empress Dong to have a family banquet, and everyone else could see Li Xuan's joy during the banquet.

Li Xuan can not be happy, taking Yangzhou means that the door to the north has been opened, even if there are 20,000 people in Yangzhou City, even if there are tens of thousands of Ming troops in Gaoyou and Huai'an, but it is impossible to stop the pace of the Tang Army going north!

In the good news, Hao Bonian had already explained the follow-up battle plan to him!

The follow-up operations did not have too many bells and whistles, that is, they continued to go north along the canal, taking Gaoyou, taking Baoying, capturing Huai'an, and entering the Yellow River and Hongze Lake basins.

Immediately afterwards, it continued to go north, and at the same time went west along the Huai River to enter Fengyang Mansion, completely laying the overall situation of Jiangbei.

And this follow-up combat plan, in fact, does not need Hao Bonian to take the initiative to put forward, he can also guess it, because as long as you look at the direction of the canal, the Yellow River, and the Huai River on the map, then it is basically not difficult to determine the offensive direction of the Tang Army.

The large-scale strategic offensive of the Tang Army was basically carried out along the river, even if the Ming army knew about it now, otherwise they would not have tried to hold on to Yangzhou at the beginning.

During the family banquet, the Empress Dowager Bai was the same as an ordinary old lady, chattering, but what she said was homely, and for military affairs, the Empress Dowager Bai had not been very involved in the past two years.

And Empress Dong doesn't care about this.

Of course, in fact, even if they wanted to meddle in military affairs, it would be impossible, because Li Xuan would not allow it!

After dinner, Li Xuan did not go to the other concubines, but accompanied Queen Dong, who was naturally sensible, and directly called Zhu'er over, and then the three of them tossed for half the night.

After tossing, Li Xuan lay at the head of the bed, let Zhu'er lie on his body and clean up, and then turned his head to talk to Queen Dong. ”

Li Xuan's father-in-law, that is naturally Dong Yunyun's father, the reason why he suddenly talked about him tonight is because Li Xuan heard that his father-in-law is not honest and is moving up and down, trying to re-emerge!