Chapter 669 Chapter 1878 Breaking Luoyang

Originally, there was also Henan General Soldier Zhang Renxue outside the city, but Zhang Renxue was not born as a military general, he was originally born as a Jinshi during the Apocalypse, and had experienced civil official positions such as Taiyuan Zhixian, and then gradually promoted to Fengyang Patrol, and was put into Henan after returning to the dynasty last year, as a result, he saw that the generals in Henan did not want to train to serve the country, and could not use things, so he angrily reprimanded these generals, and asked himself to turn into a military position, to personally hold the Ge to fight the thief, Emperor Chongzhen finally agreed to his request, said that this person is also a quite upright official, However, after becoming the chief military officer, Zhang Renxue did not have a soldier in his hands, and later he originally wanted to transfer some soldiers and horses from Shanxi to his command, but because of a big fight with the Jinnan Xingtian Army last year, the Shanxi side lost troops and lost generals, and he could not transfer soldiers and horses to him for a while, and finally only cobbled together some soldiers and horses from the area of Zhangde Mansion to him.

Zhang Renxue took this bit of patchwork of soldiers and horses to fight a victory in Henan, relying on a sneak attack to recover Lushan County, although later because Xiao Tianjian defeated Zuo Liangyu and returned to western Henan, he took the initiative to give up Lushan County, but it can be regarded as a rare bright spot in the Henan battle between the official army and the Xingtian army.

After Zhang Renxue gave up Lushan County, he retreated to Kaifeng Mansion, and soon he was ordered to lead his troops to Luoyang to reinforce, but he really ran to Luoyang City with these miscellaneous soldiers, stationed outside the city, and was ordered to supervise the officers and soldiers outside the city, but he didn't want to wait until he arrived in Luoyang to know that the situation here has been rotten to the extreme, Luoyang is short of food, King Fu is stingy and does not pull out a hair, the officers and soldiers have long been scattered, and few people want to fight to the death with the thief army in Luoyang, although Zhang Renxue sits outside the city, But there was no way to restrain these officers and soldiers outside the city, when the officers and soldiers saw the Xingtian Army attacking, they immediately dispersed, although Zhang Renxue tried his best to dissuade them, but they could not stop them from continuing to stay desperately, but even the two or three thousand subordinates he brought, also ran away, and as a result, Zhang Renxue basically became the commander of the light pole again.

Speaking of this Zhang Renxue, the situation has developed to such a point, but he still gathered a very small number of diehards to stay, seeing that the army of the Xingtian Army has come to the city, he took these hundreds of diehards, and actually launched a suicidal attack on the army of the Xingtian Army.

Xiao Tianjian reined in the army, looking at the last group of hundreds of officers and soldiers left outside Luoyang City, and actually came to a decisive charge, he couldn't help but be surprised, and at the same time, together with the generals under his command, he also secretly admired these officers and soldiers, no matter what dynasty, there will always be a group of loyal and brave people loyal to the empire who will be martyred for him, and Zhang Renxue is just one of such people.

Immediately, Xiao Tianjian ordered the troops to stop advancing and line up to meet the enemy, seeing these hundreds of people rushing over like grasshoppers shaking trees, everyone looked at this officer and army with a solemn face, and the rows of firearms were laid down......

All the Luoyang officials and defenders on the city wall witnessed this tragic scene, hundreds of die-hard officers and soldiers under the leadership of Zhang Renxue, without hesitation, rushed to the Xingtian army that was not known how many times stronger than them, and then in front of the Xingtian army's array, like cutting rice, they were cut down in front of the Xingtian army's firecracker, this scene was almost indescribable, and many officials either fainted in fright on the spot, or looked up to the sky and cried.

Zhang Renxue fell to the ground in the first wave of musket volleys, but he still struggled to crawl forward slowly, and finally stopped crawling until the blood on his body flowed, leaving a bloody road more than ten meters wide behind him, and the rest of the two or three hundred officers and soldiers, each of whom was shot several times, fell in front of the Xingtian Army's formation, this suicide charge almost did not cause any casualties to the Xingtian Army, and everyone died under the volley of the Xingtian Army's muskets.

After solving Zhang Renxue's two or three hundred loyal Ming officers and soldiers, Xiao Tianjian personally carried the horse to the front of the army, and dismounted in public, walked in front of Zhang Renxue's corpse, took off his helmet, bent down deeply, bowed his head to Zhang Renxue's corpse three times, and the generals of the Xingtian Army who followed him also silently took off their helmets or wide-brimmed felt hats, and under the orders of the officers, they all bowed their heads to Zhang Renxue and other Ming martyrs, expressing their admiration for these people.

Afterwards, Xiao Tianjian ordered that all the bodies of Zhang Renxue's group of people be properly collected, and personally selected a piece of land, ordered the engineer battalion to bury them outside Luoyang City on the spot, and set up a large stone tablet in front of their group tombs, and asked Li Jinde, who was good at calligraphy, to mention a few words of the tomb of the Ming Dynasty martyrs for the stone tablet, and engraved them on the stone tablet to show his admiration for these people.

It was precisely because of this decisive counterattack finally launched by Zhang Renxue that the Xingtian Army's siege of the city was delayed for one day, and it was not until the day of May 20 that Xiao Tianjian officially ordered the siege of the city.

The artillery units were assembled outside the south gate of Luoyang City, and nearly 100 six-pounder and eight-pounder guns pointed at the south gate of Luoyang City, slowly raising the muzzle of the black hole.

Luoyang City as a famous ancient capital in Chinese history, is its important position, and has always been in the control of the Central Plains of the dynasties and generations, are very valued, although several destroyed in the war, but have been rebuilt, and to the Ming Dynasty, Yangcheng has been rebuilt again, the current city wall is as high as four zhang, the whole is a brick and stone structure, there are moats around. The circumference is eight miles and three hundred and forty-five steps, and the trench is five zhang deep and three zhang wide. Four city gates in the east, west, north and south, build a heavy building on it, build a moon city outside, build four corner towers, 39 enemy platforms, and in the Ming Chenghua, Hongzhi, Zhengde and Wanli years, the city has been repaired many times, to the recent Chongzhen four years, due to the reason that the peasant army attacked and disturbed the Central Plains at that time, Henan Mansion built a turn of the earth wall on the side of the moat, one zhang high. And he extended the earthen wall thirty-three miles, and drew water into the moat.

Therefore, Luoyang City can be said to be impregnable, if it were not for the fact that the Xingtian Army formed an encirclement posture in Luoyang for a long time in advance, which made Luoyang's Henan Mansion seriously lack food reserves, and triggered a mutiny among the officials and soldiers, it was only the 20,000 officers and soldiers left outside the city, as long as they were stubbornly guarding the horse barrier outside the city, and the Xingtian Army wanted to attack Luoyang City, I am afraid that it would not take ten days and half a month, and it would be difficult to clean up these defenders outside the city before paying a huge price.

At this time, the officers and soldiers stationed in Luoyang no longer intend to fight to the death, and there may be a very small number of officers and soldiers in the city who want to die with the city, but the vast majority of officers and soldiers have long lost their fighting spirit.

Under the unified deployment of Xiao Tianjian, the artillery of the Xingtian Army bombarded Luoyang City outside the south gate of the city for three consecutive days, and the result was that the city wall of the south gate of Luoyang City was riddled with holes, and even the city gate tower was also collapsed by the fierce artillery fire of the Xingtian Army.

Originally, when the officials in Luoyang City saw that the official army outside the city had been dispersed, they also divided the responsibilities of defending the city, Wang Yinchang, the deputy envoy of military garrison, guarded the west gate, the prefect Kang Menghui guarded the south gate, the county magistrate Zhang Zhengxue guarded the east gate, and Bai Shangwen was sentenced to guard the north gate, and the official Wei Jingzhong sent guerrillas to patrol the city, and ordered all men over the age of fifteen and forty in the city to come out to help defend the city, trying to make the last desperate struggle.

But today, not to mention that the people in the city will follow them to resist desperately, even the soldiers don't want to do it for a long time, everyone knows very well that this time the Xingtian Army is bound to come here, and it can be said that it is a matter of time before Luoyang City is captured, and there are not many people who want to die with these officials in Luoyang City, let alone fight to the death for the dead fat man in the city, Zhu Changxun, so the hearts of the army and the people have long been scattered.

On the fourth day, Xiao Tianjian ordered the army to begin to organize the infantry to use a variety of newly created siege equipment to start the siege, in addition to the south gate, Luo Li and Li Xuanzhu also led their own troops, and launched a siege battle at the east and west gates, and even the north of the city also transferred some soldiers and horses, and attacked on the back, in short, this time to besiege Luoyang City, the Xingtian army did not intend to let go of anyone in the city at all, so it adopted a siege on all sides, and did not use the strategy of encircling three and one commonly used in siege warfare in peacetime.

At first, when the Xingtian army attacked the city, the officers and soldiers in the city still had some meaning, resisted a few times, put a few cannons, and released a few arrows, but when a large number of Xingtian army's troops attacked the foot of the city, the resistance became sparse, and the officers had the intention to order resistance, but the soldiers turned a deaf ear and didn't buy their accounts at all, not to mention the people who were forced to go to the city to assist in the defense, they wished that the Xingtian army would attack the city quickly! Where is it possible to resist to the death!

As a result, on the afternoon of the day when the Xingtian Army began to attack the city, the hundreds of defenders at the west gate mutinied under the leadership of some low-ranking officers in the army, and directly cut down a thousand generals who led them on the city wall, and tied the Henan Mansion Counselor Wang Yinchang, who was supervising the war here, to the city gate tower, and set a fire to the city gate tower.

Not long after the defenders of the West Gate opened the city gate, put down the suspension bridge on the city gate, Luo Li immediately took the lead and led the troops to rush across the suspension bridge, the tide poured into Luoyang City, and at the same time as the West Gate defenders mutinied, the main defender of the East Gate Luoyang Deputy General Liu Jianyi and the thousand general Luo Tai also announced in public to give up resistance and surrender to the Xingtian Army, and the officers and soldiers under his command were even more responsive, immediately opened the East Gate, and at the same time tied Zhang Zhengxue, the county magistrate who was responsible for supervising the battle at the East Gate, into zongzi, It was also handed over to the headquarters of Li Xuanzhu, who led his troops into the city.

As soon as the east and west gates opened, the officers and soldiers on the north and south sides also suddenly surrendered, the prefect Kang Menghui immediately changed into civilian clothes, and hid in the common people in the city, as for other officials also ran around, after the Xingtian army entered the city, it quickly controlled the four city gates, did not let anyone out of the city, and sent troops to quickly start cleaning up the last diehards in the city, and transferred out the iron battalion to the Fuwang Mansion in the city.