April 20, 1652, light rain.

The 12 8-pound and 12-pounder cannons placed under the makeshift canopy continued to spray flames, smashing the hollow iron bullets with powerful kinetic energy into the rammed earth brick city wall. They had been bombarding here for a day or two, and the wall facing them had already collapsed a small part, and now the people only needed to work harder to uproot the first nail in their path.

"Report! With the assistance of our navy, Cai Huaze's division of the Shun army has conquered Pingyangsha, annihilated more than 200 officers and soldiers of the Qing Chongming Naval Division, and captured one member of the Qianjiang Army. On behalf of Shao Shude, Lieutenant Júnior, who had gone down from the southeast of the mountain, took a good report from the navy and personally reported to Liu Haiyang.

"Very good!" Liu Haiyang clapped his fist and said happily: "It's only been two days since the start of the war, and our army has already achieved a lot of results. ”

When everyone landed a few days ago, the 2,500 men of Hao Shangjiu's army, who were in the vanguard, landed ahead of the main force, and then defeated the 300 township soldiers led by the Chongming County Lian Commander with lightning speed. These people had just been summoned in the villages, and they wanted to enter the city in a hurry to help defend it, but who wanted to be surrounded by Hao Shangjiu's troops who had landed halfway, and nearly 100 of the 300 township soldiers were killed and wounded, and the rest surrendered, and the unknown Lian General Ze was killed on the spot, which was considered a victory.

"In the two days since the landing, we have won two battles in a row, and although the number of enemies killed is only 500, the good news is that our troops have suffered very few casualties, and the morale of the troops is also very high, which is the most important point. Isn't fighting a war just morale! Liu Haiyang said with a smile. And at the moment when they said this, the city wall of Chongming Qianhusuo had collapsed with the cheers of all the soldiers, and according to the advance plan, the Pingxi Dynasty led thousands of officers and soldiers to break into the gap and compete with the Qing army.

Wang Chaoxian had a rough temperament, and most of his officers and soldiers were scattered Ming troops who were exiled from Jiangbei, and their combat power was much stronger than the 3,000 mud legs of Zhang Huangyan, another general under Zhang Mingzhen. At this moment, I saw them all fighting bravely. According to the plan formulated in advance, with the support of the 4-pounder small artillery on the east bank, the strongholds held by the Qing army were swept away one by one until noon. It has already broken into Chongming County.

More than 1,000 Qing troops in Chongming County could not resist, and some of them fled outside the city, and were attacked by 2,000 people led by Yuan Bao of Liu Guochang's department of Dashun, and most of them were captured, and Chongming County was also conquered in the evening. The battle seems so simple.

Of course, Zhang Mingzhen, Hao Shangjiu, and Liu Guochang fought very well this time, and that was because they had the navy and artillery on the east coast to assist in the battle, plus they had been training in Dinghai County for four months before the war, and their combat effectiveness had improved. Isn't what happened to Zhang Mingzhen in history illustrative of the problem, their so-called sailors could not completely block the rescue of the Qing army on the mainland, so that the Qing army reinforcements entered Chongming City, which strengthened the determination of the people to defend the country; At the same time, they hastily pulled it up, and the army couldn't do anything about the small Chongming Sha Qianhu. It could not be defeated at all, and could only be besieged -- in fact, a few years later, Zheng Chenggong's parallel army could not be attacked like an ant-attached siege city.

However, at this time and space when the warships and gunboats on the east coast firmly blocked the nearby river, Zhang Mingzhen's troops, who had been training for four months (with good food, good training, and better equipment than in history), with the support of the army artillery on the east coast, took only three days to conquer Chongming City, and the cost of casualties was also minimal, and people couldn't help but sigh at the stark contrast.

After conquering Chongming County, Liu Haiyang did not rush to move in, but entered the city the next day after the army carefully cleaned the city. Chongming City is said to be a county seat, but in fact, it is just a city that guards thousands of households, and the person in charge of the defense of this place is Li Kui, the deputy general of Wusong Town in the Qing Dynasty. There is also one guerrilla in the city, one person in a thousand households, a total number of generals, more than 1,200 soldiers, and a number of strong people, and in general it is a local county town with very average strength -- if it were not located in Chongmingsha, a key place on the front line. If it is survived here, it will only be two or three hundred people to defend it, and it will not be necessary to work to defend it by middle and senior officers such as adjutant generals and guerrillas.

It's just that no matter how much the Qing army attaches importance to this place, their strategic disadvantage (isolation) cannot be made up, and when the navy on the east bank blocks the nearby river, this Chongming city will become a turtle in an urn, and there is no possibility of sparing it at all. Therefore, speaking of this Qing Wusong Town's deputy general Li Kui. is also an unlucky guy, usually ironclad popularity, otherwise he would not have been sent to this dead place to defend the city. It's just that Li Kui himself had died under artillery fire in yesterday's siege battle, and one of his guerrillas was also killed, so it seems impossible to ask how these unlucky guys felt when they were sent to defend the city in Chongming.

"Transfer 1,000 spear-wielding soldiers to occupy the county seat, and send another 500 soldiers to guard the wharf, and at the same time count the county government treasury." Liu Haiyang sat in the county government and instructed his subordinate generals: "In addition, send someone to find Hong Xishan, and ask him to gather his men to be stationed in the old camp of the Pingyang Shaqing Division, and by the way, there to subsidize the military." Grandma's, Zheng Sen is not authentic, so he sent three or five thousand old, weak, sick and disabled people to come over, and he could only use it for logistics. ”

"In addition, we will search for weapons on the island, disband the people, and let them all go home to farm and grow vegetables. The estuarine impact plains here are so fertile that it would be a shame not to use them. By the way, let's go find Zhang Mingzhen again, I see that there are a lot of young people and gray-bearded old men in his army, and they are all cut off from this kind of dish to supply military supplies, so as to save these people from losing their lives on the battlefield. ”

"Also, didn't you surrender two Qing army generals yesterday, what's it called, uh, by the way, the guard of the thousand households is Changchun, right, and the other is the general Hua Bende who surrendered to the outer sand! Yes, just these two people, they brought their troops to surrender, which is very good, but this place cannot be stayed, send them to Ningbo, to suppress the gentry and landlords there. Hmph, I want to see if they really descend or fake, so let Hong Xishan send someone to escort them, anyway, their small boats are not useful, and they are just right to transport people and goods. By the way, if the troops of these two people are reorganized, more than 300 people under Chang Chun's hands will be organized into the Tianyou Army, and more than 200 people under Hua Bende will be organized into the Tianzhu Army, and they will get a good luck. ”

Although the two rabble that were incorporated added up to only five or six hundred people, Liu Haiyang did not dare to stay, but sent them back to his hometown Ningbo Mansion to guard them, and let them suppress the local gentry. Nowadays, as the scale of land reform in Yinxian County is getting bigger and bigger, the feelings of the landlords and gentry are getting stronger and stronger, and it is urgent for a large army to suppress the localities, otherwise there will be an uproar in the localities.

As for the sand banks at the mouth of the Yangtze River, such as Chongmingsha, Liu Haiyang also planned to transform them into a general logistics base for the battle of the Yangtze River, and a large number of salted fish, dried meat, rice, vegetables, gunpowder, arrows, and other military materials that had been temporarily stored in the Dinghai Port of Ningbo Prefecture would be transferred over one after another, so that they could supply the "Allied Army" brigade up the Shuojiang River nearby.

At the same time, Liu Haiyang will also order the head of the military team left behind on the sandbar to requisition local masters, while repairing the city wall and consolidating the war defense facilities, and on the other hand, renovating the wharf that has become somewhat old, so that in the future, the transport ships loaded with supplies from the southeast of the mountain can get close to the anchorage and improve the efficiency of unloading at the wharf.

Liu Haiyang's order was quickly carried out. Xu Zheng Chenggong felt guilty, so he sent to "help the war" (didn't he make up the numbers?). Hong Xishan was very low-eyed, and as long as Liu Haiyang's order was not sent to death, he would not obey it, so he readily agreed to the task of going to Pingyang Shajun Tun and patrolling the river, and of course he also fully complied with sending some personnel and boats to escort the Tianyou Army and Tianzhu Army back to Ningbo.

According to the predetermined plan, after the capture of Chongming, the "Allied troops" totaling about 40,000 soldiers and auxiliaries will rest on this sandbar for three days, and by the way, help the remaining personnel build camps, warehouses, docks, and forts. During this period, Liu Haiyang also summoned the generals to discuss the next step: according to his idea, the "Allied Army" should gather at least 20,000 elite soldiers (of course, relatively speaking), go straight to Zhenjiang, the node of the Qing army's transportation, and then rely on the sea and land advantages to storm and conquer it.

However, his idea obviously could not be agreed by the various families of the alliance, such as Wang Chaoxian, Ruan Jin and others advocated fighting the Suzhou Mansion that was close at hand, and first getting a vote in this world-famous and wealthy place; Zhang Mingzhen and Zhang Huangyan advocated a direct attack on Nanjing, first causing political influence, and then speaking, as for military success or failure, to be honest, it was not the first consideration of the two of them; and Hao Shangjiu built yì to fight the empty Yangzhou Mansion in Jiangbei, so as not to collide with the main force of the Qing army; Hong Xishan, who was present, said that he didn't care, but looking at his own attitude, he seemed to agree with Wang Chaoxian and Ruan Jin; Perhaps only the more than 4,500 people in Dashun Liu Guochang's department had a more deferential attitude and were willing to obey Liu Haiyang's orders.

"It's really a group of uncontrollable rabble, either pirates and thieves who don't change their habits, or extremely pedantic remnants of the royal party, or old warlords who are afraid of the enemy like tigers and have a deep twilight spirit, can such a group of people with different minds really achieve the predetermined campaign goal?" Liu Haiyang looked at the generals who were arguing in public because of different ideas, and for the first time he was uncertain about the prospects of the Yangtze River Battle that he had planned and organized, he really doubted whether these people would be able to succeed.

But there is no turning back when you open the bow, the matter has come to this point, and no matter how difficult it is, you have to go on! (To be continued.) )xh118R1052