On 21 May, Li Laosi led a group of gangsters on a steamship to Suzhou to arrest Zhang Pu, the leader of the Restoration Society, and others. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The soldiers took the ship for the first time and boarded the ship from the port of Dagu with trepidation. As soon as the ship went out to sea, the soldiers who had never been on a sea ship vomited profusely, and many of them could not eat anything for several days in a row. Fortunately, the ship sailed very fast, and it took only four days to reach the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Zhang Pu, Zhang Cai and others are from Taicang County, and Chen Zilong is from Huating County, Songjiang Prefecture, which is very close to the mouth of the Yangtze River. Li Zhi hoped that Li Laosi's army would be able to take down these scum in one go. Therefore, Lu Hu directly drove the fleet to the east of Shanghai County, and let the Dangkou group disembark from the port near Chuansha Castle.

When the army came ashore, an informant from the secret guard ambassador Han Jinxin came to report: Zhang Pu, Zhang Cai, and Chen Zilong were all active in Suzhou.

The Dangkou group went straight to Suzhou. Chuansha Fort is 300 miles away from Suzhou City, and the Dangkou Regiment marched 50 miles every day and walked for six days to attack the city of Suzhou.

Along the way, Li Laosi saw the traffic in the countryside, and the chickens and dogs smelled each other. Although the recent years have not been good, the famine in Jiangnan is not serious, and it is still rich.

When the gangsters arrived at the city of Suzhou, they found that the Suzhou Mansion had received the news, the four gates were closed, and the soldiers in the city were guarding the city walls.

Suzhou Mansion is one of the largest cities in the world, and the city walls are all covered with bricks. The city wall is sixteen miles from north to south, twelve miles from east to west, sixty-two miles and thirty steps in circumference, three feet high and two feet high, and five feet wide. There are twenty-one towers, fifteen thousand six hundred and eighty battlements, and twenty-three turrets. Each of the eight gates has an urn city. There is a moat outside the city, the width is different, the widest part is more than 20 zhang, and the narrowest part is also 5 zhang wide.

There are 1,500 soldiers in Suzhou City, which are under the jurisdiction of the prefect. There was also a garrison of the city, with 800 actual soldiers, and a total of 2,300 soldiers defending the city.

The Dangkou regiment surrounded the eight city gates of Suzhou to prevent Zhang Pu from escaping. Li Laosi rode on a horse, looked at the towering city of Suzhou, and said to Cui Changwu, the "ambassador of the shogunate copywriting hall": "Ambassador Cui, the city wall of Suzhou is so thick, we didn't bring heavy artillery, I'm afraid it will take some time to enter the city." ”

This time, after Li Zhi defeated Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng, he helped Cui Changwu report a thousand military attaché ranks. Although Li Laosi is a commander and a fellow intellectual, and his official position is much greater than Cui Changwu, Cui Changwu is Li Zhi's wife and brother, and he became the ambassador of the copywriting hall as soon as he came up, but Li Laosi did not dare to underestimate Cui Changwu.

Along the way, Li Laosi was very polite to Cui Changwu.

Cui Changwu said: "I'm afraid that the siege will be delayed, and there are reinforcements from nearby military towns." ”

Li Laosi smiled and said, "If there are reinforcements, he is not afraid of him, and he will be defeated!" ”

Li Laosi and Cui Changwu rode around the outside of the city, and Li Laosi said: "The moat in the northeast corner is the narrowest, so we will attack the city from here!" ”

Cui Changwu nodded and said, "What Regiment Leader Li said is reasonable. ”

Li Laosi thought for a while, and said to a soldier with a loud voice: "Go up and shout!" ”

The soldier walked to the moat with his shield and shouted to the guards on the city wall: "Listen to the soldiers in the city, I will rejuvenate the country and conquer the criminals who instigated the world, and after attacking Suzhou, I will only punish the criminals, not the innocent!" The soldiers in the city should not be lucky and stubbornly resist, lest the army rush and burn the jade, and the lives of the defenders will not be guaranteed! ”

After the soldier shouted a few times, there was no movement in the city.

Seeing that the defenders of the city would not surrender, Li Laosi said to the battalion commanders: "The soldiers of the first, second, and third battalions took shovels and flat shoulders to dig and fill the moat. Soldiers of the 4th and 5th battalions went to the vicinity to cut down logs and make well railings to suppress the defenders on the walls. ”

The battalion commanders sang loudly, and then led the soldiers to go their separate ways.

The soldiers dug up the earth and began to fill the moat in the northeast corner. But as soon as the landfill work began, there was a loud bang in the city.

Li Laosi thought that the cannons defending the city had opened fire, and he was a little worried about the safety of the soldiers filling the trenches. He held his breath to see where the shells were flying from.

But he waited for a long time, but he never saw the shells fall.

Li Laosi was stunned there, but he saw a guard on the city wall screaming and covering his face, rushing on the city wall, and finally fell off the city wall and fell on the ground between the city wall and the moat. The guard fell half to death, but he still covered his face and screamed repeatedly.

Li Laosi smiled and said to Cui Changwu: "The defender's cannon, I'm afraid it's blown up!" ”

Cui Changwu said with a smile: "Since the plague of the Japanese invaders has subsided, there has been no war in Jiangnan for decades, and the soldiers have not practiced drills. I didn't expect the skills to be so unfamiliar. It is said that during the Jiajing period, dozens of Japanese soldiers defeated thousands of Ming troops, and even dared to attack Yingtianfu, and today I know that the rumors are true. ”

Li Laosi smiled and did not speak.

After the bombing once, the cannon on the city did not fire again. I'm afraid that the guards in the city never operate cannons on weekdays, and this time they were blown up and bored once, and no one dared to operate the cannons.

Li Laosi relieved himself and asked the soldiers to increase their efforts to fill the moat.

The soldiers of the Bandit Regiment were wearing full-body steel armor, and they were not afraid of the scattered bows and arrows from the city walls. In particular, after the well fence was completed, the riflemen climbed up the well fence and aimed their rifles condescendingly at the head of the city, killing more than 30 defenders who came out to shoot arrows, and the soldiers defending the city did not dare to shoot arrows.

It took five days for the soldiers of the Dangkou Regiment to fill in a 200-step moat in the northeast corner of the city.

At this time, more than 100 well fences have been prepared, and a thousand soldiers stood on the well fence to suppress the guards at the head of the city, and the guards of Suzhou City did not dare to leave the pheasant moat at all, and hid behind the battlement wall one by one. If it weren't for the officers guarding the city, it is estimated that the soldiers on the city wall would have dispersed in a hurry.

The soldiers of the first battalion made long ladders and climbed the walls to the walls, and no guards dared to come out and shoot arrows.

The soldiers climbed on the ladder, and the two worked together to light the grenades and throw them at the walls one by one.

Only a loud bang was heard, and dozens of grenades exploded on the city walls. The defenders hiding behind the battlements of the city wall were unlucky, and one by one they were stabbed by the slag of iron from the grenades, and they were drenched in blood. Some of those who were close enough to each other were killed if they were only two steps away from the point of the grenade.

Each besieging soldier had three grenades pinned to his waist and plenty of ammunition, and the soldiers of the trap regiment on the ladder kept throwing grenades at the city wall, causing the defenders on the city wall to cry wolf.

The defenders collapsed.

There was no way to fight this battle, and you would be killed by a rifleman as soon as you came up, and you would be killed by a bomb if you hid behind a battlement wall. Look at the equipment of the world's strongest army tiger division, look at those steel armor, how can this city wall be defended?

Some of the defenders threw their legs under the walls. The rout of these defenders soon led to the rest of the defenders, and finally the more than 1,000 defenders who were guarding the northeast corner of the city wall all escaped from the wall and fled into hiding.