Chapter 67: Rescue Kaifeng

Zhang Zhimu found the three people who came out of Kaifeng and told them about the grain goods raised. When the three of them heard this, they were about to kowtow again, but Zhang Zhimu hurriedly stopped them. Zhang Zhimu said: "The key to the problem now is how to send these things into Kaifeng. Gao Jianfeng said: "That's what I'm worried about, if there is no escort from the imperial army, these things will be like those sent to thieves." Zhang Zhimu asked: "Since you can come out, you must be able to go back, and it is best to go back and report to the city." The cargo of more than 100 of our ships needs to be transported by people from the city. ”

"One or two people go in and out, we have a way, the so-called siege, there will always be loopholes."

"If we bring the grain in and block the thief army, how many people will come out of the city to carry the grain?" Zhang Zhimu asked.

"Now. In Kaifeng City, men, women and children are all in battle. If you tell everyone that you are transporting food, it will be no problem for 150,000 people to come out together. Now in the city, when it comes to food, your eyes can be red. Gao Jianfeng said.

Zhang Zhimu said: "If there are so many people, and some horse-drawn carriages, they can transport goods into the city in one night." As long as we take advantage of its unpreparedness, we will attack suddenly and disrupt the besieging bandit army. Taking advantage of the night, it should be no problem to stop the thief army for a night. The key is to organize the personnel who carry the grain, don't cause chaos, and guard the city gate, so as not to let the thief army take advantage of the chaos to enter the city. ”

Zhang Zhimu drew a map of the vicinity of Kaifeng, summoned everyone over, and held a meeting together. Zhang Zhimu pointed to the map and said that the only successful possibility was a sneak attack. In order to deal with the Ming army on the north bank of the main opponent, Li Zicheng's elite troops were mostly outside the north gate of Kaifeng City, because it could not only deal with the Ming army coming from the north bank, but also block the north gate of Kaifeng. The siege of the east gate and the south gate of Kaifeng is basically a second-rate army composed of displaced people, we take advantage of the unpreparedness of the army at night, disrupt them at once, the soldiers and civilians in the city take advantage of the chaos to kill, bring food into the city, we take offensive defense, so that the army does not know the truth at night, we succeed.

Chen Yufeng said: "There are two problems, one is confidentiality, and the other is that we still don't have enough manpower. Zhang Zhimu said: "The issue of confidentiality is very important, but with such a large-scale preparation, it is difficult to block the news, but our specific action methods and action time must be kept secret; The second is manpower, it must not be enough to rely on us completely, I want to go to Zhizhou to borrow some soldiers, all the materials do not need him, he will agree to borrow some soldiers, otherwise he will not be able to explain afterwards, and if he does not make a little effort, it is likely that his black gauze hat will not be guaranteed. And we can spend some money, hire some people, and there will be brave men under the reward. Even if there is no money, there are many people in Xuzhou who will stand up to help Kaifeng people. Liu Yun said: "I talked to those boatmen, if we go to Kaifeng, it is against the current and the wind, and the boat against the current can not be loaded too much, otherwise the boat draft is too deep, and if the wind is small, I am afraid that it will not be able to go up." A shallow ship of 400 stone can hold a maximum of 600 stone. ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "This is a very important question, I want to hire 20 more people on each boat, if you need to speed up when sailing, as pulppers." Can be used as a soldier when ashore. Regardless of whether they fought or not, each person was given twenty taels of silver. Let Liu Qin help implement this tomorrow, Liu Yun, you are responsible for organizing the training, and the blades we captured all the way are almost enough. ”

The personnel and materials are ready, Zhang Zhimu and Chen Yufeng took Yang Yulin to the Zhizhou Yamen again, and told Zhizhou about the situation, Zhizhou was very happy, because he was a great achievement regardless of success or failure in this matter, so Zhizhou said, send you 500 cavalry and 500 infantry troops to guard the city. They must all obey your command, even the emperor knows the Huwei Dart Bureau, I sent them over, no one dares not to listen to your orders. Zhang Zhimu was so good when he heard it, he said that this matter was kept secret. No one can say anything about the specific course of action. Zhizhou said: "I don't ask about the specific plan, I just hope that you must be careful, take care, and if you can't do it, you will go backstream." ”

With a thousand officers and troops, Zhang Zhimu's heart was a little low.

In the end, the total amount of grain was 80,000 stones, and the ships that loaded the grain in this way were 134 shallow ships of 400 stones, and 10 ships loaded with oil, salt, and other substances. There is also 10,000 catties ** sent by Zhizhou, which was specially loaded into a boat. In addition to the two captured warships, there were also two warships of similar size but poor firepower in Xuzhou. The officers and soldiers of Xuzhou took these four warships, Zhang Zhimu's personnel took five armed ships, and Zhang Zhimu's command center was set up on the warship commanded by Mu Yi. Before leaving, Zhang Zhimu said to those hired people: "If you don't want to go now, you can leave, if you don't leave now, everyone will have to obey the order." When he saw that there was nothing to leave, he ordered him to board the ship. Then Zhang Zhimu's command ship took the lead, followed by three other warships, and then followed by four armed ships led by Liu Yun, and Li Wei still led an armed ship to press the formation.

According to the plan, when the fleet advanced to Guide Fu (Shangqiu, Henan), Zhang Zhimu ordered the fleet to stop, and in the second half of the night, Zhang Zhimu ordered the fleet to sail. Taking advantage of the night, the fleet drove through Guide Mansion (Shangqiu, Henan), and it was this stop that made Zhang Zhimu's fleet evade the surveillance of Li Zicheng's army and ensure the suddenness of the sneak attack. In fact, Li Zicheng has a huge military intelligence system, and the news that Zhang Zhimu plans to reinforce Kaifeng has long been reported to Li Zicheng's camp by flying pigeons, but Li Zicheng's generals have no one and take Zhang Zhimu's actions seriously, because he has hundreds of thousands of troops, and he can't get into the eyes of these people for the affairs of 180 people. However, the intelligence officers still ordered the Guide Mansion (Shangqiu, Henan) to monitor the river, and a fleet came up to report to Pegasus. Because a boat that goes against the current will never be able to outrun a horse. In fact, even if a horse reported that there was such a fleet going up, it would not attract Li Zicheng's attention, because compared with his own army of hundreds of thousands, this person was too small, and at most he told the artillery on the shore to pay attention. When Zhang Zhimu's fleet was about to reach Kaifeng, Zhang Zhimu stopped the fleet again, and stopped all the boats that wanted to surpass him and went upstream, so as not to expose his whereabouts. Just let Li Jing take a few people, put on makeup, take a fast boat, go out to reconnoitre, find a place, and send the three people from Kaifeng ashore. In the evening, on the southeast corner of the city wall of Kaifeng City, billowing smoke came out, and it could be seen clearly from more than ten miles away. Zhang Zhimu was overjoyed in his heart, it turned out that this signal was that Gao Jianfeng took Zhang Zhimu's letter to King Zhou, successfully sneaked back to Kaifeng, and was ready to respond. When it got dark, Li Jing's boat carried more than a dozen people and quietly rowed forward. These dozen or so people are all Li Jing's usual favorites and often trained, and they are all as light as a swallow and have extremely accurate marksmanship. Fan Song and Liu Jun are among them. The boat came to a quiet stop in front of a fort on the shore, leaving one to watch the boat, and the rest of the people went ashore gently. Easily wiped the neck of the unwary sentinel, and dodged the nearby soldiers who were still active and broke into the king. Li Jing took advantage of the light work and slowly climbed onto the fort. At this time, there were two sentries on the fort, and the two sentries seemed to be idle, and they were bragging about it there, Li Jing gently came behind the two, patted the two of them on the shoulders with both hands, and the two of them had not completely turned around, Li Jing touched their heads together with both hands, and the two of them were soft, Li Jing quickly reached out to catch the two and slowly put them down. Just as he was about to take something out of his arms, he heard the sound of two people talking, and two people came up the steps. Li Jing stomped her feet angrily, she was so careless, these two people must have come to change the guard, and they should wait until the change of post is over. But it was too late, so he put the hat of the fallen soldier on his head, obviously, the two people who came to take over the post were very familiar with the two people who stood guard just now, and they came up and asked: "Second stunned, you fucking ......" Before the words were finished, they felt that something was wrong. But it was too late, Li Jing shot out two darts and pierced them directly in the throats of the two of them, so that they didn't even have a chance to shout, but Li Jing was still very polite, and at the same time as the darts shot, he immediately rushed over and helped the two of them to fall down slowly. At this time, Li Jing hurriedly took out two ** from his arms, stuffed them under the ammunition box of the fort, connected a long fire twist, hit the fire sickle, lit the fire twist, and looked at it, the fire twist was completely ignited. Li Jing got up and slid down the edge of the fort, beckoning to the few people waiting below, and the few people disappeared into the night. When you come to the boat, you immediately sail down the river. As soon as he walked a short distance, he heard a loud bang behind him, followed by fire. Li Jing's ** ignited and detonated the ammunition pile on the fort, and the explosion directly blew up the fort, and the artillerymen below were killed and wounded. Originally, Li Jing wanted to go to the fort and plug all the artillery ignition holes, so that the artillery could not be fired, and he also made preparations for the detonation of ** on it. Because this battery is too threatening to the fleet, the other batteries are far away and cannot threaten their own fleet.

Hearing the explosion, Zhang Zhimu knew that Li Jing had succeeded. Signaling to the rear, the flotilla continued to move forward, and came to the black smoke of the battery, the guns of the four warships opened fire together, the bow mines on the armed ships fired at the army of the king on the embankment, firing an explosive thunder wine firing a fire oil mine, and the bed crossbow was fired at the camp a little farther away, and an explosive mine was also fired at an oil mine. The explosion of a bow thunder and oil mine can ignite several surrounding shacks, because the shacks made of bamboo poles and mats are set on fire. The oil mine fired by the bed crossbow can ignite a large shack, and the wooden explosive mine launched by the bed crossbow is even more terrifying, one is fifteen catties of black **, and one goes down, and the nearby shack will be blown up. There was a sudden chaos in the camp, Zhang Zhimu ordered the ship to dock, set up a springboard, first the infantry went ashore, and then covered the cavalry ashore. Taking advantage of the chaos in the camp, five hundred cavalry rushed to kill, rushed out of a road in the direction of Kaifeng City, Zhang Zhimu ordered Liu Yun to lead the way, with muskets and bows and arrows, bow mines, crossbow mines, **, to drive the army on both sides, the army of the king of Chuang has never seen this kind of fighting, and was scattered and fled for a while. Kaifeng City, at this time also opened the city gate, a team of cavalry rushed out first, with the cavalry from the direction of the river bank, together with the rush to kill. After the cavalry on both sides had met, they agreed to rush to both sides, to open a passage to facilitate the transportation of food. Followed by a large number of infantry troops rushed out, a long line of carriages, all the vehicles in Kaifeng City came out, followed by the people who carried the burden, and then the women and children. The carriage in front has already arrived and begun to load, and the flow of people in Kaifeng City is still going out. Fortunately, at this time, King Chuang's army was already in chaos, and there were fires everywhere, explosions and gunshots everywhere. At this time, the camp of King Chuang had already heard the sound of a roaring explosion from a distance, but because it was night, the situation was unknown, and he could not act. Thinking about it again, there are hundreds of thousands of troops on that side, and if the Kaifeng defenders break through and leave the city wall, it will be right in the middle, and their own hundreds of thousands of troops will be able to drown them at once. Here, the people of Kaifeng, who have been tested for many years, are fighting on both sides, methodically, unhurriedly transporting food and other materials, although everyone is tired and sweaty, but they know that this is their own life-saving food, and there is hope for transporting it back. In fact, with the addition of car transportation, the people are one person at a time, and it is miraculous that the materials are transported into the city before dawn. The cavalry of both sides inside and outside the city broke off, and those who retreated into the city quickly entered the city and closed the city gates. When the cavalry from Xuzhou came to the shore, it was Liu Yun who took the musketeers to cover their boarding, and when they all got on the boat, Zhang Zhimu ordered the boat to start immediately and go down the river.

At this time, in Kaifeng City, the people who had been busy all night, none of them slept, and the cauldron was set up all over the street, and King Zhou ordered that the Kaifeng people have a full meal. But tragedy still happened, and although the order was to cook porridge only, someone still died. After eating, the people all recited a name in their hearts, and that was Zhang Zhimu.

Zhang Zhimu didn't know this at this time, he couldn't rest for a few days, and he slept soundly. However, before going to bed, Zhang Zhimu said a word that made everyone baffled. "I finally took the reins of history," he said. ”