When the team led by Xiao Xuan won a great victory in Shaanxi and took the opportunity to sweep the entire northern Shaanxi region to prepare troops in the Guanzhong area, after more than two years of severe drought, the first spring rain also came to Jianghuai and even the whole of North China. It seems that the drought in the past seven years has lasted too long, and this first decent spring rain is more like a heavy summer rain, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, lasting for two or three days. The canal has not yet been fully navigable north of Linqing, but it has begun to be fully navigable on the distance from Xuzhou to Yangzhou. Moreover, in the central and southern sections of the Grand Canal, not only some small boats that can only transport baggage, but also some decent large ships can pass through.

When the news of Shanxi's sensational defeat reached Nanjing, Zhu Changying could no longer sit still, and he finally made up his mind to immediately send troops to lead his army to Xuzhou. The hole card that dared to be personally recruited not only lies in the main force of the pro-army that has expanded to a scale of about 10 people after nearly a year of training, but also includes the success of recruiting Zhengjia Haikou in Fujian at a huge cost, and 20,000 decent sailors ensure the safety of the back road from Nanjing to Xuzhou.

At the same time, the war preparations made by various localities at any cost for more than half a year and nearly a year have also given a new look to the entire southern Ming army. Man is such a creature, when there is no profit to be made in doing the right thing, and even when he can only get rich by embezzling the right thing in the right way. The investment of resources in various aspects such as military affairs and even fortifications will become "Tang monk meat", and when one's own interests are inevitably threatened and one has to be forced to build an army to surround one's fundamental interests, the "vitality" of the entire society will be thoroughly stimulated at this time.

Therefore, although the main force of the Ming army going north this time was only about 100,000, it was equipped with at least 1,000 decent ships with more than 100 materials as logistics and baggage, and there were more than 60 "Hongyi cannons" participating in the war, more than 200 heavy artillery pieces of one or two thousand catties such as 1,000 catties of Furlong machines, more than 1,000 general cannons of 3,500 catties, and more than 3,000 light field guns of 100 catties. The 100,000-strong group had more than a third of the strength of the artillery and related forces alone. At the same time, there were also a large number of high-quality black powder and tens of thousands of heavy arquebuses obtained from the Portuguese and even the Spaniards at a cost. The quality of firearms has also undergone earth-shaking changes from before, and more importantly, it is also necessary to learn from the previous combat experience, and many iron shields and even shield trucks, as well as many specialized personnel for blasting purposes, and related equipment and ammunition are also more complete. Compared with the team that attacked Beijing last year, although it was inferior in terms of strength, it was not inferior in terms of firepower.

At this time, the defenders left in the Xuzhou area of the South Road only had one army and three brigades, and about 15,000 regular military personnel. It seems that even if you attack with a main force of 100,000, you will have a clear advantage in terms of troops. Therefore, when the heavy rain allowed the southern section of the canal to sail together, the Ming army, which had already been prepared, launched the Northern Expedition under the personal leadership of Zhu Changying, and soon approached from Yangzhou to Xuzhou by water.

Although Zhu Changying heard that the defenders there had moved many people in Xuzhou to the city, which seemed to allow the defenders to get sufficient manpower support, but he still felt that for Xuzhou, a city with a circumference of less than ten miles and not too big, I am afraid that the morale of the defenders could plummet just by artillery attacks.

When the main force of the Ming army of the Northern Expedition besieged the city of Xuzhou, Zhu Changying did not waste much time, but immediately ordered the gunners to launch a fierce artillery bombardment of the city first. The large Western cannons, mainly the Hongyi cannons, were only tested from a long distance, and the main orders were to bombard the city from all directions.

Zhu Changying knew very well that this offensive should not be delayed for too long, and that a decisive result must be achieved before the enemy's elite main force in the northwest region returns to help, and it is best to decide the outcome within a month or so.

In the past, because the quality of the Ming army's artillery was not very good, the short-barreled light field artillery could at most launch seven or eight catties of projectiles to the muzzle velocity of the bow and crossbow level, and the maximum projectile range would not exceed a distance of about one mile. However, this batch of artillery put into use seems to have used artillery boring machines imported from the West, and the shells have also begun to be manufactured using special molds, which has greatly increased its power. In the case of reinforcing the barrel with leather or even copper skin, even a field gun of about 100 catties can throw seven or eight catties of heavy ammunition to a distance of three miles, which does not damage the life of the artillery too much.

The frequency of fire from each artillery team was not intensive, and only twenty rounds of fire were fired every hour in order to get enough cooling of the barrels, but even so, on the first night after the arrival of the army, more than 300,000 rounds of heavy shells of about seven or eight pounds were fired into the city from all directions.

At this time, as many as 130,000 people were transferred into Xuzhou City, which was only about one square kilometer in size, not including the 20,000 defenders and the defenders' auxiliaries, and the 150,000 soldiers and civilians suffered tens of thousands of casualties in just one night in the face of such a fierce artillery attack. Again, a lot of cellars were prepared to avoid shelling, and the results of losses were largely avoided. Some cellars, which were not dug very deep, completely collapsed under the impact of seven or eight pounds of heavy bullets falling from a height of several hundred meters, and still brought a lot of casualties. The distribution of casualties was not completely even, and the death and casualty rate was as high as about 20% in the area near the base of the city wall and even in the center.

As the weather warmed up and the heavy rain had just passed, many of the corpses had begun to show signs of decomposition in a short period of time, which also put tremendous pressure on the city's epidemic prevention, and even though the city's defenders were prepared for epidemic prevention, people began to die sporadically due to the disease.

Although most of these Xuzhou people who entered the city were more active "activists" in the turbulent land reform in Xuzhou before, that is, in a place like Xuzhou, there would be a two-percent risk of enemy pressure and those who took the initiative to follow the team without too much compulsion, but when they felt the pressure of artillery bombardment that they could not imagine before, the morale in the city began to slump.

Zhang Fan, who was in charge of defending Xuzhou, also felt the tremendous pressure and had to step up the construction of anti-artillery cellars at the risk of still existing during the day, so that the soldiers and civilians in the city would not completely lose their morale under the enemy's artillery fire.

(End of chapter)