Driven by the Qing soldiers, tens of thousands of people staggered between the city wall and the moat west of Yangzhou, carrying baskets of soil, carrying arrows flying in the air, full of great fear, towards the moat.

According to Duoduo's siege plan, the water from the moat on the west side of Yangzhou City should be diverted away and the ditch should be filled in before the city wall could be directly attacked. These people were tasked with blocking the moat with mud.

The Qing army's green battalion soldiers, who were in charge of guarding the people, promised that as long as they could throw the earth into the moat three times back and forth, they would not be allowed to attack the city again.

Although I don't know if what the Green Battalion soldiers say counts, for the people who were captured, this is the hope of survival.

Then tens of thousands of people went back and forth between the moat and the Qing army camp, using bamboo baskets, wheelbarrows, and carrying dirt to the moat.

At the head of Xicheng City, Chen Yue looked at this situation, and his face was extremely ugly.

There was such a large-scale battle in the western city that he could no longer sit still in the governor's palace, so he came to inspect the city with his personal guards.

Looking at the Ximen Stone Bridge after the war, the corpses of hundreds of people on the bridge, and looking at the moat water stained red with blood, the corners of Chen Yue's mouth twitched slightly.

The Tartars coerced the people to fill in the trenches, and they didn't care how many people died, and if this continued, the water in the moat would definitely be drained, and the trenches would be filled sooner or later.

After several days of bombardment by red-coated cannons, the city wall of the west city was seriously damaged, the pheasant moat at the head of the city was seriously damaged, and the most serious thing was that a large crack appeared in the city wall on the north side.

Although it prevented the people in the city from rushing to repair, the gap was still getting bigger and bigger under the non-stop bombardment of the Mantar cannons.

It may not be long before the walls will be blown down, and that will be the day when the Tartars will launch a general attack.

In the era when there were no red-coated cannons, a male city like Yangzhou wanted to break through the incomparable difficulties, so it could only use the stupid method of attacking the city or besieging and waiting for the food in the city to run out.

But now in the seventeenth century, it was the era of alternating hot and cold weapons, and the power of artillery in this era was already very great. In history, the Manchu Qing Dynasty attacked the Ming Dynasty, relying on red-coated cannons to repeatedly break through the city walls and conquer the city.

Although Yangzhou City is strong, it can't withstand the bombardment of red-clothed cannons, and it is only a matter of time before the city wall is blasted.

"Fire!" Xicheng commander Li Yi ignored Chen Yue's contemplation and gave the order on his own.

Although Chen Yue is the Marquis of Pingnan and the governor of Jiangbei, the supreme commander of this Xicheng is Li Yi, and he does not need to consult Chen Yue for specific operations.

With Li Yi's order, the artillery and crossbow arrows in the city opened fire in unison, and the barrage of arrow rain erupted from the city and headed towards the city.

Countless people were hit by arrows and projectiles, screaming and falling to the ground, while many more ran to the moat, threw the dirt on their shoulders into the moat, and then galloped back.

At the same time, under the excavation of thousands of people, the diversion ditch quickly approached the moat.

Tens of thousands of people ran between the moat and the Qing army's camp, throwing countless bags of dirt into the moat, and the river overflowed, and the embankment made of soil quickly extended to the middle of the moat at a speed visible to the naked eye, and it didn't take much time to cut off the moat.

Looking at this situation, Chen Yue asked people to call Li Yi and ordered him to stop attacking.

"Master Hou, they're going to cut off the moat!" Li Yi's eyes were red, and he shouted at Chen Yue.

"What can't be stopped is just to increase the number of casualties." Chen Yue shook his head and sighed.

Since it can't be stopped, if you attack again, you will kill more people, but it is not the Mantars who are killed, but the people of the Ming Dynasty, why bother.

"Let Guo Hu and other troops outside the city also retreat into the city!" Chen Yue continued to order.

The moat was quickly cut off, and after the river was diverted, the Qing army could cross the moat everywhere to attack the flank of Guo Huying, and it was no longer meaningful to defend the stone bridge.

Chen Yue's order was quickly passed down, the gate of the west city was opened, and the Ming army that remained outside the city retreated through the gate to the city.

At the same time, the artillery fire at the head of the city also stopped.

"The kindness of a woman!" In the distance, looking at the Ming army retreating into the city through the clairvoyant mirror, Duoduo pursed his lips and said with disdain.

It's just that some people were killed and wounded, and the Ming army at the head of the city stopped the artillery fire.

Since the Ming army cared so much about the lives of the people, Duoduo decided to take full advantage of this weakness. When the siege comes, you may wish to use the people as shields and drive the people to be the pioneers in the siege. Maybe we can gradually reduce the casualties of some Eight Banner warriors, and we can conquer Yangzhou City faster.

At this moment, Duoduo was full of confidence in capturing Yangzhou.

Without the intervention of the Ming army in the city, the people filled the moat much faster. Soon the north and south sides of the moat outside the west city were blocked, and then the Qing soldiers urged the people to dig the aqueduct and the moat, and the water in the moat quickly flowed west through the aqueduct and poured into a depression several miles away.

The water in the moat was decreasing at a rate visible to the naked eye, and Chen Yue knew that it would not take long to be drained. The Qing would then force the people to continue to fill the ditch with earth until the moat was filled, or a large section was filled in large enough for the siege. What followed was the brutal siege war, which was the last moment to decide the fate of Yangzhou.

With mixed feelings, Chen Yue left the city wall and returned to the governor's palace, and he had to think about the next countermeasures.

Chen Yue has no worries about holding Yangzhou. Even if the Qing soldiers used red-coated cannons to collapse the city wall, even if the Qing soldiers drove the people to attack the city. There are tens of thousands of Pingnan troops who obey orders and have no second hearts, there are hundreds of thousands of people who have been organized in Yangzhou City, and there are canals to communicate with the north and south to transport supplies, and it is not a problem at all to hold Yangzhou.

Yan Yingyuan was still able to guard Jiangyin for 81 days with tens of thousands of ordinary people in Jiangyin, and with such good conditions, he couldn't hold Yangzhou anymore, Chen Yue felt that he could commit suicide and apologize.

Chen Yue was not worried about holding Yangzhou, he was worried about how to quickly defeat the Qing army outside the city so that he could return to the division to rescue Nanjing.

Although there were 100,000 Qing troops besieged outside, there was a canal in hand, and the communication between Yangzhou and Nanjing was unimpeded. The news of Nanjing and Jiujiang had reached Yangzhou, and Chen Yue knew that the situation in Daming was already very critical.

The Manchu Beylerbolo occupied Fengyang Mansion with a partial division, and was preparing to cross the river from Pukou to attack Nanjing, and was fighting fiercely with Zheng Hongkui's water division on the river.

Jiujiang Zuo Mengeng led the army to surrender to the Manchus, and the gate on the west side of Nanjing had been opened to the Manchus.

The only barrier is Wuhu, which is guarded by his father Chen Jianghe.

Thinking about Wuhu's independent resistance to hundreds of thousands of Qing troops on the West Road, Chen Yue was so anxious that he couldn't wait to rush to Wuhu to fight side by side with his father.