Xu Shiyang feels more and more that in this era, population is the most valuable wealth.

If there are people, you can grow food, produce weapons, and form an army.

It is useless to have no one, and it is useless to have a lot of wealth, because others can rob you at will.

It is a pity that Xu Shiyang is now very short of population, and now under the jurisdiction of the entire Qi Provincial Governor's Office, the total population of men, women, and children is only less than 1.5 million.

Therefore, Xu Muhe and Xu Shiyang father and son have been encouraging childbirth, especially Xu Shiyang, not only distributing poultry eggs to all women to increase nutrition, he has also been acting as a matchmaker, holding many large-scale group blind date activities, and matching New Army soldiers and female textile factory workers.

However, no matter what is done, there are relatively few women of appropriate age in Qi Province, and Xu Shiyang cannot even guarantee that all the soldiers of the New Army will find a suitable wife.

Not to mention ordinary people, such as ordinary militiamen, workers, peasants, etc.

It is a tragedy that there is a shortage of women and therefore a lack of population.

Therefore, Xu Shiyang had to use the captured foreign women, in the final analysis, the policy he formulated in southern Liaoning was simply "grabbing money, food, and women".

It doesn't sound like it, but it's actually a job that has to be done.

Xu Shiyang hoped to digest two to three thousand of the 5,000 foreign women captured by Lushun, so that these foreign women could give birth to Han children and increase his own population.

Of course, these things are not urgent for the time being, and this is a long-term work.

……

On March 20 of the first year of Longdao, the fleet of sailors returned with booty and captured population, and because the fleet of the Li family to transport New Year's coins to the Tartars last time and the fleets of Goryeo and Fusang in Lushun trade had not yet left, Xu Shiyang captured hundreds of large and small ships at one time.

He picked out some of the best and put them directly into the sailors to help with shipping.

The addition of these capacities has made Xu Shiyang's maritime capacity expand rapidly, and it has also allowed him to gain a firm foothold in southern Liaoning faster.

On March 25, the fleet returned, and the Zhenyuan Brigade and Jingyuan Brigade arrived in Lushun, and at the same time a large amount of grain and grass supplies were transported.

Now that he has lost the opportunity to attack Jinzhou quickly, Xu Shiyang plans to gather a powerful force and directly use his strength to occupy Jinzhou.

On March 27, after another day's rest, three infantry brigades of the Qi army and one mounted infantry brigade poured out of the nest and launched the Jinzhou attack with the might of more than 6,000 troops.

According to the information provided by Xiao Fonu, there was a real female real Meng'an stationed in Jinzhou, but that Meng'an didn't like this errand very much and didn't bring all his subordinates to Jinzhou.

At this time, there were about 400 true Jurchens in Jinzhou, about 500 slaves of various ethnic groups, and a little more than 100 raw Jurchens captured from the deep mountains and old forests of northern Liaoning.

The strong men who can go into battle, counting all the slaves who have little combat effectiveness, are only about a thousand, only one-sixth of the Qi army.

The number of Tartars in the direction of Fuzhou may be a little larger, but the number of mobile troops that can come over to reinforce Golden State will not exceed a thousand.

Xu Shiyang has a double absolute advantage in terms of strength and firepower.

Therefore, Xu Shiyang did not intend to play any tricks, and the army marched directly north along the west side of the Jinzhou Isthmus, accompanied by a supply fleet of 20 small boats on the seashore not far away.

The flotilla carried food, meat, forage, and even fresh water, firewood, and a medical team for the attacking troops.

This is also the reason why Xu Shiyang can be bold not to bring auxiliaries in this march - logistics completely rely on sea routes, which is not only convenient and safe, but also relatively small consumption on the way.

Without the drag of logistical convoys, the high-quality new army marched extremely fast.

On 27 March, the Qi army marched north for nearly 100 miles in one go, until it reached 20 miles south of Jinzhou City and set up camp.

Since it had been more than ten days since the Qi army conquered Lushun, the Jurchen defenders of Jinzhou had long known that the Qi army was not good, so they abandoned the strongholds south of the Jinzhou Isthmus such as Muchangyi, Qingniwa, and Nanguan all the way, and the whole army shrank in Jinzhou City.

The Jurchen Meng'an, who was stationed in Jinzhou, was also reinforced by 700 armor soldiers from Fuzhou, so that he had about 1,700 people in his hands, including 800 cavalry, and went directly out of the city to lurk in the north of Nanguan, waiting for the opportunity to give Xu Shiyang a fatal blow.

The remaining more than 900 infantry gathered in Nanguan City to defend, in order to strengthen the defensive force, Jurchen Meng'an also ordered to give knives to the families of the soldiers, and mobilized the strong women in the city to defend the city together.

On March 28, the Qi army poured out, and three infantry brigades rushed directly towards Jinzhou City.

Meng'an, who was defending the city, thought that the Qi army should wait for two more days to at least build some siege equipment, but he didn't think that Xu Shiyang didn't have that idea at all.

He's going to do it quickly.

All 24 artillery pieces of the three infantry brigades were concentrated near the south gate of Jinzhou City, and since the Shenji artillery accounted for the majority, these light artillery pieces were probably of limited effect on the brick-covered city walls of Jinzhou, so Xu Shiyang simply strengthened the two cavalry artillery companies of the Jingyuan Brigade and prepared to replace quality with quantity.

At around nine o'clock in the morning, the Qi army launched a fierce assault on Jinzhou.

The attack naturally began with the artillery debuting to speak, and 30 2-pound magic cannons and 6 general guns (2 8-pound lieutenant generals and 4 4-pound junior generals) opened fire on the Jinzhou city wall at the same time.

The artillery of the Qi army first tested three cannons, and the first shell directly hit the Jinzhou city wall, but the 2-pound iron bullet did not have any effect on the thick brick-clad city wall, and was directly ejected.

The second cannon flew a little higher, directly over the Jinzhou city wall, and flew into the city.

The shell destroyed a wooden house and killed two people.

The third shell was an 8-pound iron bullet, which also hit the city wall directly, this time the city wall of Jinzhou could not be indifferent, the moment it was shot, the city wall of the south gate of Jinzhou shook violently, and it was learned that Suosuo sprinkled countless pieces of masonry.

"Made! So many cannons! ”

Meng'an, who was guarding the city, cursed, and was extremely uneasy.

He participated in the battle against Qi Province last year and had seen the strength of the Qi army's artillery, so he knew very well that once he was hit by a cannonball, no matter how thick the armor he wore or how many shields he had, it would be useless.

Meng An estimated that the cannon was more powerful than a trebuchet, and in the face of so many artillery, the city wall would probably not last long.

The Qi army didn't give him much time to guess, and after the three test projectiles, the commanders of each artillery company loudly ordered the gunners to adjust the gun mount scale.

In this attack, the Shenji artillery mainly bombarded the head of the city, killing and wounding the enemy defenders and suppressing the counterattack force.

The main target of the general artillery is the city gate and the root of the city wall, and the staff of the new army in Dengzhou hopes to obtain the data on the damage of the general artillery to the regular city wall in actual combat, so as to make a reference for attacking larger cities in the future.

Therefore, artillery company commanders also have to work part-time to observe, record, and other tasks.

Fortunately, artillery is a technical branch, and most of the artillery company commanders are literate and numeracy, so there is not much problem in recording first-hand information on the battlefield.

Half an hour later, all 36 guns were aimed at their respective targets.

The company commanders turned their heads together and looked in the direction of Xu Shiyang's Chinese army.

There was a guard on horseback, holding a small triangular red flag in his hand.

Xu Shiyang nodded lightly at the guard.

The triangular red flag was waved down heavily.

"Fire!"

All the artillery company commanders roared together.

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