The Merkava main battle tank is about eight meters long, four meters wide, two meters and a half meters high, and is estimated to weigh about 60 tons.

"Good guy, even if such a guy doesn't open fire, he can crush a large piece of the Qing army to death!"

Lin Yu circled around the tank, patting the barrel of the gun for a while, and touching the tracks for a while, and the excitement in his heart was overflowing.

Lin Yu had served in the army for five years before, although he had never driven a tank, but ordinary guns would be used, not to mention that the plug-in elf said that the weapons drawn could be controlled by the computer, just like playing a game to control the screen, so he was not worried about not being able to control this "beast".

Lin Yu climbed into the cockpit of the tank, and sure enough, he saw a screen about thirty inches in front of him, and reached out and clicked the switch button at the bottom, and the screen lit up.

The first thing that pops up is the introduction of the "Merkava" tank: the Merkava main battle tank was produced by Israel in the seventies of the twentieth century, and this one is the MK3, that is, the third generation of Merkava.

The main armament of this Merkava tank is a smoothbore gun that can fire 120 mm shells, the barrel is about five meters long, can rotate 360 degrees without dead angles, and has a range of about 2,500 meters.

The secondary weapon is a coaxial machine gun that fires 7.62 mm rounds and can rotate with the barrel, or rotate 360 degrees freely on its own.

In addition, this main battle tank can reach a speed of up to 48 kilometers per hour, which is already far more than the war horses of this era, and the cruising range of a fully loaded fuel tank is 400 kilometers.

"Such a powerful beast, it is simply not the same as the weapons of this era, and it is not an exaggeration to call it an ironclad lion!"

Lin Yu was amazed after reading the introduction, he was just an ordinary soldier before he crossed over, and most of the tanks he saw in the army were old-fashioned tanks, which naturally could not be compared with the world's top Merkava.

After reading the introduction, Lin Yu checked the tank data again, and saw that it was clearly written on the screen:

At present, there are 46 rounds of 120mm shells, 1800 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, and 900L of fuel ammunition.

"Bang!"

Another cannonball fell from the sky and landed on the top of the temple courtyard.

This time, the Qing army fired solid bullets to destroy the walls of Yangzhou, which were different from the flowering shells used to kill and injure the defenders before.

This large-caliber cannonball is made of iron or lead, a small amount of stone is ground into a sphere, mainly used to penetrate the city wall fortifications, the range is long, but the damage to personnel is small, unless it directly hits the target or hits other buildings, causing it to break and splash, and indirectly kill.

This solid bullet landed on the roof of the temple door, and suddenly smashed a large hole, dust flew and rubble splattered everywhere.

Lin Yu, who was checking the screen, was taken aback, frowned and scolded: "The Manchu Tartar raised by the son of a bitch, Lao Tzu will give you five shells to appetize first!" ”

Lin Yu exited the data interface, entered the control interface, clicked the start button, and the engine started instantly.

A normal Merkava tank needs to be controlled by four people, but the Merkava that Lin Yu drew only needs one person to control the screen to realize the tank's advance and fire.

Lin Yu clicked the forward button, drove the ironclad lion directly into the courtyard wall of the temple, rolled forward, and went straight to the wide street, and then rotated the barrel angle to face the sky, ready to fire outside the city.

"What's that?"

The Ming army on the city wall was suppressed by the artillery troops led by the Qing army with red-coated cannons and could not raise their heads, and suffered heavy casualties.

When the Ming army on the east city wall suddenly saw "a huge iron-armored monster" slowly driving towards the east city gate, they were all stunned and shocked, and they couldn't figure out what was going on?

"Lord Commander, what kind of monster do you think is there at the East City Gate?"

Liu Zhaoji, the chief military officer who was supervising the battle at the north city gate, heard the shouts of the soldiers, so he touched the "clairvoyant mirror" from four or five miles away to check the city, and when he saw it clearly, his complexion could not help but change suddenly.

"Shhh...... What kind of monster is this? Ben will live for more than 40 years, unheard of, unseen! It seems to be made of steel, and there are no wheels, it is simply copper and iron. ”

The guerrilla Ding Fenwu next to him touched the telescope with a slightly lower magnification and followed Liu Zhaoji's line of sight, and was also surprised: "Oops...... This iron-armored monster actually came out of the temple and broke through the courtyard wall, what the hell is it? Mo is not the inner response of the Tartar? If this is the case, Yangzhou City is afraid that it will be over. ”

Just when Liu Zhaoji was observing the "monsters" in the city, Sadu, the deputy commander of the Qing army who commanded the attack on the north gate of Yangzhou, also stood on the high slope and watched the Ming army on the city wall, and keenly captured Liu Zhaoji's whereabouts.

"Open fire on Lao Tzu and set fire to the central section of the northern city wall!"

Sadu shouted at the top of his voice, "There is a Ming army commander over there, not a general soldier but also a general!" ”

Under the command of their respective leaders and under the leadership of 12 red-coated cannons, the Qing army under the city surrounded Yangzhou City with a total of more than 600 artillery pieces such as Franc machine guns, tiger squat cannons, sub-mother cannons, and tassel cannons.

After capturing BJ, Dolgon reused Fan Wencheng, Hong Chengchou, Wu Sangui and other Ming generals to reform the Qing army's troop formation, and at the same time captured and manufactured a large number of various types of artillery, which greatly increased the strength of the Qing army.

Dolgon selected elites from the surrendered Ming army to form the Han Eight Banners, and other miscellaneous armies were formed with "battalions" as units and green flags as symbols, so they were collectively called "green battalions".

On the way south, Duoduo added special arms such as artillery battalions and cavalry battalions, the cavalry battalion was commanded by Bel Aisin Kyoro Wakda, and the artillery battalion was commanded by Bel Aisin Kyoro Nikan.

The Qing army went south this time under the general command of Prince Yu Duoduo, Nikan led the artillery battalion as the vanguard, and Nikan ordered his brave and warlike general Sadu to command twelve red-coated cannons to storm the north gate and east gate of Yangzhou.

In addition to the 10,000 artillery battalions composed of Manchurians, the Qing army besieging the city also had 60,000 surrendered Ming troops, including Kong Youde and Li Jiucheng, who had surrendered to the Qing Dynasty for many years in the "Wuqiao Mutiny", and the Zhang brothers who had just surrendered.

These officers and soldiers of the green battalion were armed with bird guns, three-eyed guns, thunderbolts, and various bows and arrows to surround Yangzhou City, and constantly fired guns and arrows at the city wall and the city, attacking the defenders on the city wall, and assisting the artillery battalion to attack the city.

With Sadu's order, at least 40 pieces of Qing artillery gathered fire towards Liu Zhaoji's place, and for a time the shells rained down from the sky.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

"Boom...... Bang! ”

These shells included solid shells used to break the city, and there were also flowering shells used to kill and injure the defenders, and the sound was terrifying.

Compared with all kinds of artillery with average power, the red-coated cannon with a range of more than two kilometers showed great lethality, and the solid projectile flying up the city wall would inevitably cut a hole, and stone chips would splash and be filled with dust.

The flowering bullet was scorching under the explosion of black powder, and the fragments that burst out could form a killing radius of about two and a half meters. Those who were hit by the fragments were all flesh and blood, and their skin was open, and basically a flowering bomb could kill and injure five or six Ming soldiers.

"Get down!"

The telescope in Liu Zhaoji's hand was shaken off, and he hurriedly instinctively pushed the deputy general Zhuang Zigu next to him, and shouted at the same time.

The Ming army around him was dizzy by the sudden fire of the Qing army, suffering heavy casualties, and stumps and broken bones continued to fly into the air.

Standing a few meters away from Liu Zhaoji, the guerrilla Ding Fenwu watched a solid bullet fall from the sky, unable to dodge, and was knocked to the ground on the spot, turning into a blur of flesh and blood, and carved an irregular hole in the city wall.

The splashed rubble flew everywhere, and a sharp stone grazed Liu Zhaoji's ear, cutting a long wound on his right cheek, and the blood flowed in an instant.

"Protect the Commander-in-Chief!"

The deputy general Zhuang Zigu roared, crawled in front of a Huzun cannon, and fired a cannonball at the city.

Liu Zhaoji got up suddenly, jumped more than ten meters east along the city wall, raised his arms and roared: "I'm fine, the soldiers will return fire to me, and shoot back at the location of the Tartar red-coated cannon!" ”

After Shi Kefa came to Yangzhou City, he used this city as the gateway to defend Nanjing, gathered 8,000 troops in the city, and transferred 70,000 Gaojia troops to the north of Yangzhou after Gao Jie's death, plus Liu Zeqing's 50,000 soldiers and horses stationed in Huai'an, thought that he could block the southward movement of the Qing army.

Who knew that Liu Zeqing, who was stationed in Huai'an, surrendered without a fight, led 50,000 soldiers and horses from his headquarters to surrender to Duoduo, and was immediately relieved of his military power, granted an idle position, and transferred to BJ for another appointment.

After Liu Zeqing surrendered, the Qing army drove straight in, and it took only three days to approach Yangzhou City. Gao Jie's old department Li Chengdong, Li Benshen, Yang Chengzu and others led their troops to surrender one after another, and the Yangzhou defense line built by Shi Kefa suddenly collapsed.

Shi Kefa, who was still full of ambition and determined to block the Qing army's southward movement, was suddenly dumbfounded, and on the one hand organized the Ming army to defend Yangzhou City, while repairing books to ask for help from the Nanjing Imperial Court and the surrounding Ming armies.

Emperor Hongguang, who was so frightened in Nanjing, did not send a single soldier, Liu Liangzuo, who was stationed in Fengyang, and Huang Degong, who was stationed in Hefei, did not move, and only Liu Zhaoji, the chief soldier, led 4,000 soldiers from Gaoyou to Yangzhou to help.

As the Qing army approached Yangzhou, some Ming troops in the city would flee or surrender out of the city every day, and even the general soldiers Zhang Tianlu and Zhang Tianfu planned to kidnap Shi Kefa to surrender to the Qing Dynasty.

After arriving at the city of Yangzhou, the Duoduo soldiers were not in a hurry to attack the city, but first surrounded the city, and then waited for the slow red-coated cannons to arrive before starting the siege.

By noon today, the Qing army officially bombarded Yangzhou City, and the Ming army on the city wall was only about 5,000 left. In addition, there are 12 tiger squat cannons and more than 30 Franc machine guns.

Most of the remaining Ming troops were patriots, or had a deep enmity with the Qing army, and under the command of Liu Zhaoji, they braved the Qing army's bullets and bullets to fire back.

"Bang, bang, bang......"

White smoke rose from the city wall, and more than 20 artillery pieces on the north and east city walls fired at the Qing army's position, and gunpowder smoke rose everywhere.

However, the range of these artillery guns of the Ming army was limited, only about 1,500 meters, while the range of the Qing army's red-coated artillery was about 2,500 meters.

Seeing this scene, the commander of the Qing army, Sadu, laughed loudly: "Haha...... These barbarians are really stupid, our red-coated cannons were taken from the Ming army, and now they don't have this kind of magic weapon. Now I can only be bombed obediently like a lamb to the slaughter, what a pitiful! ”

As he spoke, Sadu waved the command flag in his hand and roared: "Give me more strength, you must break through the gate of Yangzhou before sunset, and I will come to Prince Yu to ask you for credit at that time!" ”