Ivanov's troops were still slowly moving in the direction of Fort Mao, taking every step carefully, and the team led by Kong Youde did not find any opportunity to attack, and it seemed that this Ivanov general was indeed cautious. He himself opened the way in front with the main force, and Chernenko and his little Yermak mercenaries in the back protected the logistics supplies. This arrangement seems to be heavy and light, but in fact it has been carefully studied by Ivanov, and the lesson of the last time is that the rout of the Cossacks and peasant soldiers caused chaos among Tchaikolov's 5,000 men, and as a result, they were wiped out before they could fight directly. This time, although the Stroganov family of Chernenko spent 500,000 gold rubles to hire these 30,000 mercenaries mixed with all kinds of people, but on the condition that the full amount of money would be paid after the end of the war, and only one-third of it was paid at present. In fact, Chernenko's uncle did not intend to pay in full at all, and he pinned his hopes on a large number of deaths for the remainder, and it would be impossible for the dead to share the money. And little Yermak has already seen through this plan, so the task of assigning him to protect the supplies is very much in line with his wishes, and he also needs to save his life, as for the other mercenaries, it is not something he needs to consider.

Kong Youde, who could not find a chance to attack, was not too anxious, but assigned a small number of people to hang behind to reconnoitre, but most of them went to the vicinity of Tomsk to look for the flaws of the Russians. Since the supplies of the accompanying army are tightly protected, but it is impossible to do without subsequent supplies, then I will look for the flaws in the back, and I will you whenever I have the opportunity to harass your logistics.

The team following the Russian team is Zheng Sanpao, this guy was originally a hunter, he has been hunting with his father since he was a child in Liaodong, and he has a superhuman talent for finding opportunities to hunt animals, so he quietly followed behind with his small team of 100 people. While taking out the scouts left behind by the Russians, they are secretly looking for opportunities.

When passing through the mountain side path of the last ambush, the summer rainy season made the path narrower and more muddy, Ivanov had to stretch the team more slender, and Chernenko and Yermak, who were in charge of protecting the supplies, could only wait slowly on the west side of the hill, so the supply team began to gather, and in order not to get wet by the rain, the supplies were arranged on a small hill on a slightly higher ground, surrounded by mercenaries guarding the supplies.

Zheng Sanpao and his team patiently observed all this with binoculars from the top of the hill, and when Ivanov's troops crossed the path between the hill and the swamp, carefully stationed in the open area, and waited for the supplies behind, Zheng Sanpao finally found an opportunity. The muddy roads slowed down the convoys transporting supplies, and they were also very long, the priority was to pass through weapons and ammunition, and the food was still hoarded behind, most of the mercenaries went to push the carts, and there were far fewer people left to guard the food. Today is a good weather, the mercenaries who have worked hard for a day are a little tired, and the careful march these days, I have not seen the Ming army attack, tomorrow they will all set off, and it takes all effort to transport these foods, in order to save physical strength, these defenders are a little lax, and there is no way to do it if they don't relax, they can't eat enough at all now, and the priority is to supply the regular army in front.

Zheng Sanpao led his team, taking advantage of the dark night, quietly touched the small mountain bag, carrying a dozen or so with him*, these things are the great evil stars of food and supplies. * The biggest disadvantage is that the range is too short, and you have to fire at close range, and the food supply of these 100,000 people is not a small amount, and it is piled up in this place nearly three miles away. The Ming army, which had long observed the clear situation from the hillside, cautiously climbed over according to the predetermined best place to set fire. Tonight, there is a slight south wind, just suitable for Zheng Sanpao who came down from the hill, and he can reach the preset location, Zheng Sanpao waved his hand, fifteen * opened a distance of 100 meters, and began to breathe fire one by one, fifteen flames of more than 20 lengths rushed to the grain pile, under the support of gasoline, the fire belt of more than 100 meters quickly formed a sky-high fire, and did not observe the results at all, Zheng Sanpao's team quickly withdrew, as for the bandits blocking the road and intercepting, they had not reacted at all, they were a little vigilant, and they only thought about how to put out the fire, This allowed Zheng Sanpao and them to escape smoothly.

According to the original plan, Ivanov planned to completely trap the Ming army in Maobao, and with the superior forces, surround Maobao, build a good position, and leave enough mobile troops to block everywhere. In particular, the combat effectiveness of the Ming army in winter will definitely be inferior to that of Russian soldiers, Ivanov wants to drag the war into a harsh winter, when the Ming army is so cold that they can't even hold their guns, how can they fight against the fierce Russians? However, Zheng Sanpao's hundred-man squad burned nearly half of his grain with a fire, which made Ivanov, who was already short of food, even worse, so he had no choice but to reorganize his troops and quickly rush to Maobao for a quick victory.

The army of 100,000 people finally arrived at the city of Maobao at the end of July, and in order to completely attract the 100,000 troops of Russia, Mao Wenlong directly gave up the defense outside the city and put all 30,000 troops into the city. After the arrival of the Russian army, they began to besiege the city on all sides, and then concentrated all their artillery on the western gate. The current Russian artillery and the artillery equipped with the Soviet artillery ideology of later generations are not of the same level at all, especially the artillery carried by the long-distance march is light, and the artillery cast in the defense of the city is much different, so the effect of the artillery is also very different. On the contrary, under the counterattack of the Ming artillery, the Russians suffered heavy losses in artillery.

In order to punish the mercenaries, who could not even protect them with food, Ivanov ordered them to attack the city first. In the siege without artillery suppression, under the attack of modern weapons, the casualties can be imagined, although these mercenaries are very good at fighting, but now under the firearms of the Ming army, they can still only lose a corpse, after the casualties of more than 3,000 mercenaries, Ivanov finally swallowed this bad breath and returned to the camp.

After collecting the troops and returning to the big tent, Ivanov snorted and turned around, the plan he had thought of was messed up by these mercenaries, and he had to urge the rear for food, but the long supply line made it easier to transport food here.

Chernenko was also very depressed, he was still taken advantage of by the Ming army, and he was very responsible for the burning of grain. Little Yermak quietly crept into his tent, walked up to him and said to Chernenko: "Don't worry about the problem of food, I heard that there are still many Tatars in the west who have not listened to the words of the Ming army and withdrew, should we go to them to borrow some food, so that we can solve the problem of food, and in the future, we will collect less taxes as compensation for them, and solve the difficulties we are currently facing first." ”

Chernenko thought about it and had no other good way, so he went to Ivanov to discuss, Ivanov is a Russian army official, as long as the army has food, he doesn't care how Chernenko goes to get food. In this way, the Tatars in the west were completely unlucky, and the bandits of the little Yermak began to wreak havoc on looting, burning, and raping, and engaged in a miasma of smoke and chaos. After discovering this situation, the team led by Kong Youde, who was active in this area, immediately began a rescue operation, in addition to helping some tribes to move to the east, but also constantly attacking these bandits, gradually gathering the hearts of the Tatars, and also organizing them to start resisting, gradually making these bandits suffer.

In order to make a breakthrough, Ivanov put the main direction of attack on the south side of Fort Mao, first concentrated all the artillery that could be used to bombard the city wall, and then let the soldiers rush upwards like a swarm. The artillery of the Ming army was also bombarding the enemy's artillery, and both sides suffered mutual damage, but the losses of the Ming army were much smaller. When the city wall finally couldn't stop the long-term bombardment, and finally was blown out of a two-wide opening, wave after wave of Russian soldiers rushed towards this gap, Geng Zhongming, who was guarding here, immediately ordered ten hand-cranked machine guns to be placed in front of the gap into a fan shape, and kept shooting at the gap, and the Russian soldiers fell down like harvested wheat, and then they kept rushing in, and kept being shot, and in the end, the corpses of people filled the gap.