Chapter Twenty-Six: Night Raid on the Camp Kiln Gang Delivers Grain

After the captains left, Li Wei said: "Don't worry, our ships are not only moving, but also have many cannons, we just need to suppress them and let them not fight back." ”

Li Zicheng's officers and soldiers were full of confidence, as if they were facing Dai Zai's lamb. Although the top and bottom are also saying not to be careless, but in action is another matter. Catching up from behind, the artillery positions were set up on the shore facing the Yellow River, and the shells and ** were piled up next to the artillery, because they were afraid of the artillery strikes on the Tongguan City, they did not dare to arrange it forward, so they waited for tomorrow's attack, and the artillery was lifted forward, and the artillery could be shelled into the preset position.

Not only are the artillery crowded here, but the army camp where Liu Zongmin and the others arrived first is also stationed here. Unbeknownst to these proud soldiers, the speedboat that drove over the Yellow River had seen them all clearly through the telescope, and they were all marked on the map.

At night, because they were tired all day during the day, Li Zicheng's officers and soldiers had already fallen asleep. As soldiers, they know that tomorrow there will be a war, and today they must sleep well and sleep well.

Fan Chengkun commanded the warships, set sail from the Fen River into the Yellow River, and by the moonlight, lined up along the Yellow River downstream, for the suddenness of the attack, all the searchlights were not lit, and the fleet kept the lights silently advancing. When the fleet reaches its intended position, all the ships turn their bows so that the bow faces the current. The top water, the powered boat is well stable. After the ships in the fleet, according to their assigned positions, stabilized against the water, the command ship suddenly turned on the searchlight, and the snow-white light shot onto the shore, which was also a signal to attack. The other ships saw that the lights on the command ship were on, and they all lit their searchlights at the same time. These lights illuminated the camp of Li Zicheng's army on the shore.

Li Zicheng also had a lot of soldiers on duty at night, and they also heard the sound of the Yellow River roaring, but how did these soldiers know that it was the sound of a steam engine, and they couldn't report it to their superiors. But after listening to a sound, a dazzling pillar of light suddenly lit up on the Yellow River, and the pillar of light was as bright as the devil, and no one could open his eyes. At this time, although they didn't know what the pillar of light was, they didn't know well.

But it was too late, and the artillerymen on the ship quickly measured the distance, and at such a close distance, the gunners quickly followed the searchlight to lock on to the target with the gunscope. Then the ships opened fire.

Before Li Zicheng's soldiers, who were awakened by the bright light, could react, they heard the scream of "squeak", followed by the explosion of the "boom" of the shell. The first thing the searchlight locked on was those artillery, so these cannons were quickly thrown aside by the shells, and the ** next to some of the guns was detonated more spectacularly, ** of the explosion, which would blow up a small mushroom cloud. It is especially beautiful to watch in the light of the lights and the explosion of shells. But the mushroom cloud was accompanied by scattered corpse parts and cannons.

The second batch of shells hit the targets with searchlights pointed at the tents. Now the soldiers hiding in the tents suffered. They also flew into the sky with the bombing of their tents, and the entire positions and camps along the Yellow River were ravaged by 300 mortars. This is probably the heaviest artillery bombardment in the history of human warfare to date. According to the plan, the flotilla finally fired a batch of fire oil bombs. As a result, the banks of the Yellow River became a sea of fire. At this moment, the shore is full of struggling figures and screams on fire, and occasionally the explosion of the ** that has been detonated. Li Wei never made a move, just watched the excitement there, occasionally evaluating the effect of his disciples' shelling.

Later, Li Wei couldn't help but say: "It's a pity that Li Yunhe and their machine gun were not developed, otherwise, it would be even more lively." ”

Mu Yi said: "Li Wei, you are too uninteresting, if there is any good news, can't you say it all at once?" Let's talk about what a machine gun is. Why is the machine gun so lively? ”

There was no way, Li Wei said: "Mr. Zhang asked Li Yunhe and them to study another kind of robbery that can shoot continuously for a long time, and the bullet is larger than the bullet of the rifle, and the range can reach one thousand meters." Absolutely useful against shore targets. This kind of gun can fire hundreds of rounds a minute, and you say that if we put this kind of machine gun on our ship, wouldn't it be easier to kill people than to cut crops? ”

Both Fan Chengkun and Mu Yi were stunned by the weapon that Li Wei depicted. After holding back for a long time, seeing that there were not many cities under shelling, Fan Chengkun ordered a signal to retreat, and then turned back to Liu Yun and Li Wei and said: "You say, if we have such machine guns, can we still have opponents with mortars?" ”

Liu Yun said: "The last time I saw Mr. Zhang, when I chatted with him, he said that our mortars are not suitable for ship, and he said that we will develop special marine guns for you, maybe we will have more combat effectiveness at that time." ”

Yaogang's fleet retreated to the mouth of the Fen River, joined the barges anchored here, and all of them broke anchor to rest.

As soon as the mortars outside Tongguan City rang out, Sun Chuanting and Ning De and other generals ran to the city wall to look out, the successive explosions and the effects they brought were so shocked that they didn't dare to say a word, they had also seen too many battles, but they had never seen such earth-shattering artillery fire. As if they didn't cost anything, these shells ploughed the camp Li Zicheng had set up along the banks of the Yellow River, and then set fire to one side. Finally, seeing the fleet raging and slowly leaving, Sun Chuanting and the others high-fived each other, Sun Chuanting said: "I think the people of the world, that is, the people of Yaogang, can afford such a battle." There are also people in the DPRK and China who say that the kiln gang people want to rebel. They are glad that the kiln gang people did not rebel, right? ”

Sun Chuanting went up and down, watched a wonderful mortar show, and couldn't sleep, they knew. The kiln people speak the truth. When they heard that Yaogang was going to send warships to help defend Tongguan, they didn't believe it from their hearts. This time they learned that the kiln people really don't tell lies. With such firepower to support Tongguan, it is no problem to hold Tongguan. Sun Chuanting and his generals could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Ningde said: "No wonder the Mongol cavalry and the Manchu iron cavalry are not opponents of the Yaogang people. ”

Sun Chuanting suddenly asked a question that no one dared to answer: "Look, can we be the opponents of the kiln people?" ”

Everyone knows that even if it is the artillery fire just now, no one can bear it, isn't this Governor Sun sincere for everyone?

Sun Chuanting didn't wait for everyone to answer, laughed and said to himself: "Haha! We're not iron-struck either. Ha ha! ”

Gao Jie still has palpitations and said: "Even with that burst of artillery fire, even iron can't be beaten." ”

Sun Chuanting said: "I said everyone, we have been happy for a while. Let's go back and sleep for a while, it's dawn, maybe the kiln people will send us food. We'll see how they perform then, shall we? ”

The men went back to sleep.

They went back, but Li Zicheng made people feel it.

The sound of cannons like rolling thunder, it is impossible for Li Zicheng's side not to hear it. He got up and asked what was going on, and the answer was that he didn't know, but that he heard the sound coming from the river. Li Zicheng knew that it was not a good thing, so he led people to ride horses and ran to the river.

Before they reached the river, Li Zicheng and the others had already seen the fire and smelled the special smell of coal tar. But when they rode forward again, the tragic scene in the riverside camp made Li Zicheng, who had crawled out of the pile of dead people many times, feel his heart pricked, and by the light of the fire, Li Zicheng saw corpse parts everywhere, and the overturned artillery fell to the side. In particular, the burnt smell of the charred corpse made people sick for a while. Li Zicheng himself endured it and didn't vomit, and he also knew that the people behind him also couldn't swallow it. Li Zicheng dismounted and went to ask what was going on with a soldier who was not dead, and the soldier's eyes were straight and he didn't speak. Li Zicheng knew that he was scared stupid. It's hard to find a little boss who can talk. The little boss said that he was on duty at night, and he found that it was not good, so he jumped into a puddle and escaped.

He said: "When we were on duty at night, we heard a roaring sound on the river, and some people said that by the moonlight we could see a big boat on the river, but before we could figure out what was going on, a dazzling pillar of light suddenly lit up on the river, and after we looked at it, our eyes could not see anything. Then I heard a strange "squeak" scream, followed by a series of explosions. When we finally survived the explosion, there was another batch of ** who set fire to the river, and it would have been over if I hadn't hid in a puddle. ”

After Li Zicheng heard this, he closed his eyes all of a sudden, and really thought that everything in front of him could be a nightmare. That hateful nemesis Zhang Zhimu came again, which reminded him of the scene in Kaifeng again. That time, Zhang Zhimu made a thousand catties and suddenly sent grain to Kaifeng, so that his siege plan failed completely. However, this time the kiln gang man showed himself this hand, but it clearly showed his strength, it seems that this Zhang Zhimu is already full-fledged, and it is difficult to deal with this person again.

However, Niu Jinxing and others rushed over, and the words made Li Zicheng feel a little relieved, he said: "King Chuang is very lucky, Liu Zongmin, the general of Xinqiquan, is not in the camp, otherwise the consequences will be unimaginable." ”

It turned out that Liu Zongmin went to King Chuang's camp for a meeting, but he didn't come back when he was late, otherwise he would not have escaped this difficulty. Because Liu Zongmin's big tent is the target of everyone's attention, I don't know how many shells I have received, and there is no chance that the people inside will survive.

After Liu Zongmin came back from his horse, he looked at his camp and wanted to cry without tears. It turned out that the terrain of this camp was relatively flat, and he set up his elite and personal guards here, but he didn't expect to leave for a day. He could not believe that his invincible team would be wiped out in less than an hour, which was nearly two thousand men.

Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing felt that it was a pity for the lost artillery, because the artillery training was too difficult. It's not just a cannon, it's something that needs to be practiced with cannonballs.

Niu Jinxing judged: "It is estimated that the Yaogang people took advantage of our unpreparedness at night to carry out a sneak attack, which shows that they are also afraid of being attacked by our artillery during the day." They fired so many shells at once, most likely they finished all the shells and left. For a while they did not dare to come back. ”

Li Zicheng said: "In any case, if we transfer our other artillery pieces over, we can't stand up to the beating, otherwise what else will we fight in this battle?" ”

Li Zicheng sat on a dirt bag, watching the soldiers search for the living soldiers by the light of the fire, no matter how everyone persuaded Li Zicheng not to leave.

His generals and military advisors thought that Li Zicheng was uncomfortable because of the loss of soldiers and horses, but in fact, they all looked down on Li Zicheng too much, and Li Zicheng's cultivation had already surpassed this stage. Li Zicheng's heart was blocked, because he couldn't understand why this Zhang Zhimu appeared like a devil at a critical time. Every time, he poked hard in his soft underbelly. Could it be that this Zhang Zhimu is really my nemesis?

In fact, Zhang Zhimu was detained by Chongzhen when he entered Beijing, and Li Zicheng also got the information, he thought that he could get rid of Zhang Zhimu with Emperor Chongzhen that time, but he didn't expect this Zhang Zhimu to get out. But why haven't you turned your face with the emperor after getting out, what a weirdo. With Zhang Zhimu's current strength, is he still afraid of Chongzhen's useless emperor? Why are they working so hard to protect this emperor? All this made Li Zicheng puzzled.

Li Zicheng couldn't sleep, and Sun Chuanting couldn't sleep. He also lay on the collapse and couldn't fall asleep repeatedly, so he simply got up and sat on the couch thinking about his thoughts.

The thing that Sun Chuanting regretted the most was that he had seized the opportunity to send troops this time, and he could defeat Li Zicheng in one fell swoop, but the sky was not beautiful, so he failed in success. What is hateful is those civil servants in the court, if they hadn't forced themselves to rush into battle, no matter how well prepared, they wouldn't have been like this. In fact, although Sun Chuanting is a generation of famous generals, he should also be regarded as a civil servant.

Sun Chuanting, born in the twenty-first year of Wanli, is a boya. In the forty-seventh year of Wanli, the twenty-six-year-old Sun Chuanting was promoted to Jinshi. During the Apocalypse, he was transferred from Shangqiu Zhixian to the head of the Ministry of Officials, when Wei Zhongxian was in turmoil, and Sun Chuanting, who was strong-blooded, resigned and returned to his hometown to live in seclusion. After the fall of Wei Zhongxian, in the autumn of the eighth year of Chongzhen (1635), Sun Chuanting returned to the capital to ask for reinstatement, and was promoted to the title of Langzhong, and later changed to Shuntianfu.

In March of the ninth year of Chongzhen (1636), Sun Chuanting took the initiative to ask to go to Shaanxi, where bandits were serious, to be the governor and be responsible for exterminating the peasant army. When he arrived in Shaanxi, Sun Chuanting only spent a few months building an army in Yulin, known as the Qin Army. Soon Sun Chuanting fought fiercely with Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, in Heishuiyu in the Meridian Valley for four days, and finally captured Gao Yingxiang and sent him to the capital to be executed. Only then did Li Zicheng succeed King Chuang.

In the eleventh year of Chongzhen (1638), Li Zicheng was ambushed and defeated by Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting in the south of Tongguan, and fled to Shangluo Mountain in Shaanxi with the remnants of 17 people, and Li Zicheng was almost destroyed. At this time, the situation of the Ming army was very good, but the Qing army attacked the Great Wall at this time, and Emperor Chongzhen urgently transferred Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting back to Beijing for defense.

After Lu Xiangsheng's death, Sun Chuanting took his post, but because of discord with Yang Sichang and others, he was very inhibited. In the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Yang Sichang impeached Sun Chuanting for pretending to be sick and asked to step down, and Emperor Chongzhen was angry and sent Sun Chuanting to prison.

In the spring of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Sun Chuanting was the governor of Baoding, Shandong, and Hebei military affairs. He wanted to bring the enemy to Emperor Chen in exchange for the emperor's support and trust. But it was obstructed by Yang Sichang and failed to materialize. Maybe it was because of the urgency, or maybe it was because of the anger, Governor Sun became deaf again, and Emperor Chongzhen didn't believe it. Not surprisingly, Yang Sichang wrote again to impeach him for his illness. Chongzhen got angry and was demoted to the people, but later Chongzhen was still angry when he thought about it, and arrested him again. This time the sentence is relatively long, three years!

Three years later, Yang Sichang died, Li Zicheng besieged Kaifeng for the second time, Emperor Chongzhen remembered Sun Chuanting, released him from prison, and was used as the right attendant of the military department, and was ordered to aid Kaifeng. Soon Sun Chuanting replaced Wang Qiaonian as the governor of Shaanxi, and killed the domineering He Renlong, and then Chuanting turned to the land of Henan, and won consecutive battles, Li Zicheng then transferred to Zuntouzhai (in today's Nanyang Realm), on the way, a large number of property was abandoned, and the Ming army competed for each other and was chaotic, "the day was raining heavily, the grain did not arrive, and the soldiers picked green persimmons to eat, and they were frozen and discouraged, so they were defeated" [1], resulting in the "defeat of the persimmon garden". In this battle, the Ming army lost more than 70 generals and thousands of cavalry. This was also a famous defeat in Sun Chuanting's military career.

In May of this year (1643 (1643), the imperial court ordered Sun Chuanting to supervise the military affairs of Henan and Sichuan, and then promoted to the secretary of the military department, renamed the superintendent, and supervised the military affairs of Shanxi, Huguang, Guizhou and Jiangnan, and the north. Emperor Chongzhen couldn't listen. Sun Chuanting didn't want to rush into battle, but under the urging of the imperial court, Sun Chuanting had to personally lead Bai Guangen, Gao Jie and other 100,000 troops to Tongguan in August, and at the same time ordered Zuo Liangyu to go west, and Chen Yongfu, the general soldier of Henan, and Qin Yiming of Sichuan respectively turned Henan and Sichuan soldiers into horns.

For today's defeat, Sun Chuanting was mentally prepared, because Li Zicheng had successively annihilated several main forces of the Ming army, and he had been in battle for a long time, and his soldiers were strong and strong. Sun Chuanting knew that fighting with such a powerful opponent would be more than lucky, and he couldn't help but sigh: "What's the matter! I know that I will not return, but how can my husband be to the prison officials again! This also expresses the determination to die on the battlefield. Otherwise, he would not have sent his family to the kiln.

But what now? As for how the emperor deals with himself, he can't control it. The question is, if Li Zicheng marches into Shaanxi from the back road first, if Xi'an is gone, what is the point of Tongguan as a lonely city. But now that I have returned to Shaanxi, I have no food and grass for military expenses, and I am afraid that if I can't get to Xi'an, the soldiers will run away. I don't know how much grain and grass Zhang Zhimu from that kiln can support. I didn't expect the Ming Dynasty to be mixed up with the extent of relying on a merchant to receive help. But no matter how you look at it, I can't understand what kind of person this Zhang Zhimu is, saying that he is a businessman, right? How can there be such a merchant who gives away his wealth? Isn't it a businessman, is there a man who can earn more money than him?

Liu Yun and Fan Chengkun had a good sleep after waiting for the boat to get off the cat. After waking up, after breakfast, Liu Yun said: "There are a lot of things today, we have to send grain to Tongguan, and we also have to cover the defenders of Tongguan and transport the grain away." ”

Fan Chengkun said: "I think we use artillery fire to support the brothers in Tongguan for a day, and this grain should be able to be unloaded." ”

Liu Yun reminded: "Li Wei, you have to pay attention, Li Zicheng suffered such a big loss last night, he will not be unprepared, and he must not let their artillery fire pose a threat to us." ”

Li Wei said: "Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on some." They didn't go far to the river, and they were all within range of our artillery. Their long-range artillery can't be aimed at us without being placed here, and when they do, we'll be able to hit them. ”

Fan Chengkun said: "Anyway, we will go over and clear the field for them first, and then our barge will go over." ”

At dawn, Liu Zongmin commanded the soldiers to start cleaning up the camp that was attacked yesterday, and this scene made Liu Zongmin scratch his heart like a hundred claws. Many of his good brothers didn't even know what the enemy was, so they died in a daze. The busy soldiers were also frightened by the tragic scene. No one dared to mess with Liu Zongmin, who was already red-eyed and hadn't slept all night. Liu Zongmin looked like he was going to eat people at any time.

But what he didn't expect was that as soon as the morning dawned, they came out to work, and the kiln people also came to join in the fun. One of the frightened soldiers heard the sound of a "booming" steamboat coming from the distance on the Yellow River, and shouted, "Here it is, here it is!" Then he ran off into the distance.

Liu Zongmin thought it was the soldier who was scared stupidly yesterday, but the sound of "boom" could be heard by himself soon. The guards beside him reminded Liu Zongmin: "General, it's the warship from Yaogang that is coming." Let's hide. ”

Liu Zongmin is a brave general, but the brave general who can survive until now is definitely not a fool, he got up and surrounded by the guards and hid backwards. When the soldiers saw that the commander was gone, they all ran madly to the back.

By the time Fan Chengkun and his warship came to the battlefield last night again, Li Zicheng's soldiers had run out, leaving only a few newly built tents. For the sake of safety, Li Wei ordered the tents to be blown down. This time, in order to train the novices, several shells were used in each tent, so that the tents were blown up.

Seeing that the situation was okay, Fan Chengkun ordered the speedboat to go back and inform the barges to be towed over, and a warship here first leaned on the horse's head, landed 200 musketeers, and arranged a defensive position on the periphery of the dock.

This time, Fan Chengkun's fleet towed a total of five barges built by Yaogang himself. Considering that the barges had to walk in the canals, these barges were basically made from shallow ships of 400 stones, but without sails and rigging, the loading capacity was much larger. Since there was no need to run in the canal this time, each barge was loaded with a thousand stone of grain. This time, a total of 5,000 stone of grain was transported.

When the barge was dragged to the dock by a steamer, Fan Chengkun saw Ningde appear at the head of Tongguan City from the telescope, and he also used the telescope given to him by the kiln gang to look this way, and it is estimated that Ningde also saw himself. Fan Chengkun waved his hand to Ningde, and Ningde also waved his hand in response. Then Fan Chengkun pointed to the barge on the dock, and Ning De waved his hand downward, and the meaning was understood.

Fan Chengkun said to Liu Yun: "Ningde means that I know, it is estimated that they will come to unload the grain immediately." ”

Liu Yun said: "Let's prepare too, Li Zicheng won't care." ”

At this time, Sun Chuanting, Ningde, Bai Guangen, Gao Jie and other generals also saw the fleet of Yaogang at the head of Tongguan City.

The preparations for transporting grain in the city were still very sufficient, whether it was loading or transporting grain, and the places where grain was loaded in the city, etc., were all arranged according to the arrangement. When the soldiers heard that they were carrying food, they were very enthusiastic. They were all hungry and afraid.

As soon as the drawbridge on the city gate was lowered, Bai Guangen rushed out with two thousand cavalry, and Ning De also led people out of the city with chariots and horses and went straight to the dock.

Li Zilai finally fell asleep at dawn, but he didn't sleep long before there was news that the kiln gang people were coming again. The people below didn't dare to delay, so they had to wake up Li Zicheng. After getting the report from the kiln gang people again, Li Zicheng's heart was tight again. Military advisor Niu Jinxing said: "Hurry up and send the artillery over, I didn't expect them to come back so quickly." ”

Before they could give the order, they reported again: "The boat of the Yaogang people has docked on the dock, and the people and horses in Tongguan have also rushed out of the dock and headed straight for the dock. ”

"Grain, it must be food." Niu Venus shouted.

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Mechanics of Materials, Theoretical Mechanics, Elastic Mechanics, Fluid Mechanics. --Progress of "Memories of the Southern Song Dynasty".