Zhu Cijiong has been depressed in the past two days, he has been on a personal expedition a few times, and he has never encountered such a hard bone as Gelanza City, he used to rely on hot weapons to crush others, but this time he encountered the Netherlands, which is also advanced in thermal weapons, he simply felt a little unable to speak.

The city of Geranza is a typical "fortress", this kind of fortress is a great invention of the European Renaissance, characterized by the city wall is extremely irregular, full of edges and corners, and the height is staggered, there are many fire points, and there are many dead angles of muskets and artillery attacks, unless your artillery range is two or three miles away from the enemy in the fortress, and the edges and corners of the fortress are all flattened with dense shells, otherwise, it is really super difficult to break.

Daming's current artillery can naturally be farther than Houjin, but compared with the Dutch, it is still far behind, the Dutch like to build cannons with a long range, and Daming's howitzers are not two or three miles away from them, but two or three miles closer!

Of course, it is impossible to say that 150,000 people could not attack the fortress garrisoned by 500 men, even if these 500 Dutchmen were hiding in reinforced concrete fortifications, and 150,000 people would pile them to death.

Now Zhu Cijiong is ready to use people, what makes him depressed is not that the soldiers are unwilling to use their lives, but that he wants to use the lives of the soldiers to pile down a strong fortress, which are the elite of the Praetorian Guards who have followed him for several years, thinking that he will lose at least a few thousand people this time, not to mention how uncomfortable he is.

If you want to say that the Dutchman's ability to build a fortress is better than Sun Chengzong, the location chosen by the city of Gelansha is called a poison, which just chokes the mouth of the Taijiang Inland Sea, if you want to attack from the front, you don't know how many people will be killed by them just by grabbing the beach and landing. Fortunately, with the route map provided by He Bin, the Ming fleet was able to enter the Taijiang Inland Sea from the abandoned Luermen channel, so that the ground troops could go around the flank of the city by land, and the losses were more than doubled. But even if this is the case, if you want to attack hard, you will have to accompany at least a few thousand lives.

In order to minimize the losses, Zhu Cijiong thought of ways both on the sea and on land, and on the sea, he planned to let the super battleships approach the city of Gelanza from the inland sea of the Taijiang River, and bombard the batteries in the city to distract them; On land, try to make as many siege equipment as possible, especially siege vehicles, scattered bombs cannot smash siege vehicles, if it is live ammunition alone, it will kill dozens of rounds of death, as long as the scattered points, you can't hit a few vehicles at a time.

Just as Zhu Cijiong ordered people to cut down trees everywhere to make siege equipment, Chen Zhang rushed to Putmans and more than a thousand Dutch prisoners, Zhu Cijiong was very excited, and immediately asked Chen Zhang to escort Putmans to the audience.

Putmans was honest this time, because along the way, Chen Zhang kept warning him that this time he was going to see His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Empire, and if he dared to be a little disrespectful, it would be Ling Chi's execution!

Death, he is not very afraid anymore, but Ling Chi is still very afraid of executing him, at least three thousand knives will be cut, and he will be let wail for three days and three nights, everyone is afraid! Therefore, after he saw Zhu Cijiong, he took the initiative to kneel down, without making noise or making trouble, just kneeling there with his eyes closed and waiting for the death sentence to be announced.

Zhu Cijiong hadn't thought about sentencing Putmans to death, he looked at the goods with interest, and then asked, "Is he willing to persuade the defenders of the city of Geranza to surrender?" ”

Hearing this, Putmans opened his eyes and looked at Zhu Cijiong blankly, not knowing what His Majesty the Emperor was talking about.

Chen Zhang, who was kneeling next to him, hurriedly pressed his head down and reprimanded in Dutch in a low voice: "Fool, don't stare at the emperor, this is disrespectful." ”

After pressing Putmans' head down, Chen Zhang replied respectfully: "If you go back to the emperor, our Admiral has already asked him, and he is unwilling to persuade the defenders of Geranza to surrender, and he will not die." ”

Zhu Cijiong was not discouraged, he continued to say to Chen Zhang: "Tell him that if he is willing to persuade the defenders of Relanza City to surrender, I will not only let him go back, but also reward him with 10,000 taels of silver." ”

Chen Zhang immediately translated it in a low voice, and Putmans didn't bother to speak, just shook his head.

Seeing this, Zhu Cijiong added: "One hundred thousand taels of silver." ”

Chen Zhang translated it again, but Putmans still shook his head.

At this time, Zhu Cijiong was a little impatient, and he said angrily: "One million taels, tell him that this is his last chance, if you don't agree, I will cut off his head and bombard the city of Geranza with artillery." ”

Chen Zhang translated it in a stern tone, Putmans still shook his head vigorously, no matter how much money he has, he must have his life to spend it, what is the use of going back, not only will he die but he will also be charged with betraying the country, and even his family will suffer, it is better to die here as a hero!

Zhu Cijiong couldn't help but be a little angry, and shouted, "Don't I dare to kill you?" Someone's coming. ”

Immediately, two brocade-clothed guards walked in and knelt there respectfully waiting.

Seeing this scene, Chen Zhang hurriedly saluted and said: "Your Majesty, please calm your anger, when Wechen comes, our Admiral asked Wechen to give the emperor a word, he said, if Putmans is really unwilling to persuade the defenders of Geranza to surrender, then push all the captured Dutchmen to the front of the battle to be meat shields, and see if the Dutch in the city dare to open fire!" ”

When Zhu Cijiong heard this, his eyes lit up, and he nodded and praised: "Well, this is a good idea, then let's take him down first." ”

Putmans thought that he would definitely die, but he didn't expect that this Ming general who took him here would intercede for him, and he didn't know what he said, His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty actually let this general escort him out again. Although he knew that there was little hope of his survival this time, if he could not die, how many people would seek death, so he was still very grateful to this Ming general.

However, the next day he could not be grateful, because the next morning he was escorted by this Ming general and all the captured men to the front of the besieging army, looking at the familiar city of Geranza in the distance, Putmans couldn't help but ask with annoyance: "Didn't I say that I would not persuade us to surrender, what are you sending us here for?" ”

Chen Zhang didn't bother to reply, and directly led his subordinates to escort more than 1,000 Dutch prisoners to the front siege vehicles, and then ordered loudly: "Tie them all, and each siege vehicle has five or six tied on it." ”

Chen Zhang's subordinates immediately dispersed, and Putmans was also escorted to the front of the siege vehicle, at this time there were already two Ming soldiers standing on the siege vehicle, and the two soldiers who escorted him directly carried him and threw him up, and the two soldiers on the car immediately put him in a posture of facing the sky, and then took out the rope and tied it up.

Putmans finally knew what the Ming army was going to do, and he shouted, "You are torture and killing prisoners, you barbarians, let me go quickly......." ”

Such a big movement on their side, the defenders of the city of Geranza naturally saw it, and at this time the two lieutenants under Putmans were in charge of defending the city, although they couldn't see the specific appearance of the people tied to the siege vehicle in the telescope, but they could see the clothes, which were the same as what they were wearing!

Lack of ke, the Ming army is so shameless, using prisoners as meat shields, now they are entangled, whether they can open the cannon or not, if they open the cannon, a cannon may not be able to destroy a siege vehicle, but the people tied to it will definitely be blurred by the bombardment, that is their colleagues!

One of the tall lieutenants counted the siege vehicles of the Ming army, and said with a little hope: "Their kind of siege vehicles are only 200 in total, even if there are ten people squeezed below, there are only 2,000 people, if they only use that kind of siege vehicles to attack the city, we don't have to fire artillery at all, they will always come out to climb the city wall under the city wall, and then shoot at them, such a close distance, as long as 300 people, I can kill all 2,000 of them, I just don't know if they will rush with the siege vehicle." ”

The Ming army didn't give them much time to think about it, and the prisoners here were tied to the siege vehicles, and the ten super battleships on the sea over there were already slowly pressing towards the city of Geranza.

Seeing this scene, another short lieutenant hurriedly said: "Okay, leave 300 people for you, I will take the other 200 people to open fire, if they just use that kind of siege vehicle attack, I will not fire this side, if there are other people following then I can only try to fire at other people, I hope not to hurt the people above." ”

When the tall lieutenant heard this, he nodded and said, "Okay, that's it, I hope they only use that kind of siege vehicle attack, and we still hope to save the captain and them all." ”

As soon as they had discussed on their side, the battleships at sea had already entered the range of some of the turrets, and the short lieutenant hurriedly ran to the side of the battery and ordered loudly: "Ignite the fire of the No. 10 battery and open fire." ”

After a while, there was a roar of "boom boom", more than 20 shells flew towards the Ming warship, this to the tenth battery are the longest-range 32-pound cannon, 30 pounds of shell damage is very terrifying, as long as the Ming battleship is hit by all sawdust flying, if the ship's side and gun door are hit, it will be a big hole, and the deck will be smashed out of a big hole, but they have a total of less than 30 32-pound cannons, and only a few shots can be hit, and the Ming army's battleship is not much damaged, It is still moving closer to the city of Geranza.

The battleship of the Ming army just entered the attack range of the eighteen-pounder cannon, and immediately began to turn the rudder to hit horizontally, the cannon on the Dutch side had just ignited, and the battleship of the Ming army over there had already sounded a roar, "boom boom" A scattered bomb smashed into the city of Geranza like raindrops, and the Dutch soldiers in the city immediately began to dodge, the fortress is this good, there are edges and corners everywhere, you attack from any angle, and the soldiers defending the city can find the corresponding dead angle to dodge, so the Ming army did not hit anyone in this round of shelling, However, more than 20 18-pounder cannons that roared immediately afterwards smashed several large holes in the battleships of the Ming army.

The short lieutenant ran out of the hiding place proudly, and was about to call the artillery to continue loading the shells, when the Ming warship on the opposite side suddenly remembered the roar again, "Boom, boom", and another piece of scattered bombs flew over, and the frightened lieutenant hurriedly ran back to the hiding place and scolded: "Oh, shoot, how is it possible, why are they loading ammunition so fast!" ”

The artillery fire of the Ming army was so fast, almost every ten seconds, and more than that, the ten battleships in front had just finished firing ten rounds of rudder and left, and ten more ships appeared in the back, with an interval of only a few minutes, and the short lieutenant saw this scene, so he had to name all the artillery to run to those batteries that were in the blind spot to load the shells and return fire, so that the number of shells they issued was less than doubled.

Not long after the artillery battle began, the Ming army on the flank began to attack the city, and they really only pushed about 200 siege vehicles, with human shields, rushing over!

Seeing this scene, the two lieutenants in the city of Geranza couldn't help but show a surprised expression at the same time, there were only about 2,000 people, and there was no need to fire artillery at all, and when they climbed the city wall, they would directly shoot with guns and bayonets, and it would be impossible for them to attack at all, and it would really be possible to rescue all their captured colleagues at that time!

Will these two thousand men take the city of Geranza? Are they really here to return the captives? The answer will be revealed in the next chapter.