As the commander-in-chief of the Jiangyin Anti-Qing Rebellion, Yan Yingyuan lived up to expectations and showed his outstanding leadership skills and military strategy. Yan Yingyuan selected young and strong soldiers and the original people's army, reorganized them, and ordered the prince of Wuju to guard the east gate, the chief Wang to guard the south gate, Chen Mingyu to guard the west gate, and he himself to guard the north gate. In addition, he and Chen Ming met the four gates of the governor and patrolled day and night. The township soldiers outside the city and the civilian army in the city combined, the number was as high as 200,000, and Yan Yingyuan ordered the defense to be divided. The gates of the city were blocked by large wooden stoppers, and each person guarded one battlement, and in case of battle, two people guarded it, and they took regular turns to rest. For every group of ten people, a small flag is given; Hundreds of people are a large group, give a big flag and a red cannon. On the streets close to the city towers, there are logistics points that supply food and water to the troops defending the city.

Due to the haste of the incident, the stock of arrows in Jiangyin City was small, and it had to be manufactured in large quantities for a while, and there was an embarrassment of digging wells on the verge of thirst. Yan Yingyuan then ordered the people's army to bunch grass as people, wearing military uniforms, and each straw man held a bamboo pole in his hand, and picked a dim lantern on it. After it was made, on a dark and windy night, he ordered the straw men to stand upright on the battlements one by one, and the soldiers lay down under the battlements and made a loud noise, making a posture to go out of the city at night to attack the camp, and the Qing army besieging the city hurriedly released arrows, which became the trophies of the people's army in the city.

On July 11, the general offensive of the Qing army began, and the North Gate bore the brunt. At the beginning, the Qing army did not take the small city of Jiangyin into account, these Eight Banners soldiers who swept most of China from Guanwai all the way like a wind sweeping leaves, even the battle-hardened Li Zicheng and the regular army of the Ming government were far from being their opponents, not to mention the civilians in Jiangyin City who had barely received any military training? But the Qing army soon paid a heavy price for their light enemy. The next day, the Qing army continued to attack the north gate, and "the casualties were not counted".

When the Qing army saw that a hard attack could not be done, they sent people to persuade them to surrender. Yan Yingyuan decided to carry out a fraudulent surrender plan, and sent several very old white-haired old men with the flag in their hands, from the city, to the camp of the Qing army general Xue Wang to report, saying that the city was willing to sacrifice silver to buy his life to avoid killing. King Xue was overjoyed, and ordered the camp gate to be opened and the wooden box to be carried into the tent. When he and his generals opened the wooden box to check, suddenly the fire cracked, and King Xue and his two generals, plus more than 2,000 sergeants, all died.

The Qing army general Liu Liangzuo had an old relationship with Yan Yingyuan in his early years, and the Qing army tried to get Liu Liangzuo to persuade Yan Yingyuan to surrender. In this regard, Yan Yingyuan replied: "Jiangyi Shimin, salty is said to have eaten wool and practiced soil for three hundred years, deeply attached to the country's grace, and can't bear to hope that the wind will descend. Ying Yuan is the history of the Ming Dynasty, and he is duty-bound. The general is Uncle Hou, with heavy troops, he can't restore the Central Plains when he advances, and he can't protect Jiangzuo when he retreats. Liu Liangzuo was speechless and silently retreated. The next day, Liu Liangzuo persuaded him to surrender again, but Yan Yingyuan only said one sentence: "There is a surrender general, but there is no history of surrender." As soon as the words fell, rockets were fired in Jiangyin City, and Liu Liangzuo fled in embarrassment.

It is certain that since the day they decided to resist the Qing Dynasty, the people of Jiangyin City knew that their final outcome would be jade shattering. In order to uphold the tradition, they can only choose a tragic death.

On July 21, the end of the fall of the Lonely City finally came irresistibly.

The day before, the Qing army had brought twenty-four huge cannons from Nanjing. At night, the Jiangyin area was full of wind and rain, lightning and thunder, and the Qing army placed huge cannons in the rain and bombarded Jiangyin City for a night. The extremely exhausted Jiangyin People's Army no longer had the strength to repair the city walls that had been bombarded in many places. Early the next morning, the Qing army swarmed into the city along these gaps.

When the bad news of the destruction of the city was reported to Yan Yingyuan, he was commanding the enemy from the tower of the eastern city. Yan Yingyuan understood that the last moment had come, so he ordered the left and right to take pen and ink, and hurriedly wrote on the door of the Dongcheng Tower: "Eighty days to bring allegiance, the characters of the Seventeenth Dynasty of Taizu; 100,000 people died with one heart and left 300 miles of rivers and mountains in the Ming Dynasty. "After writing, he threw his pen on the ground and led the crowd to kill the west gate. However, due to the disparity in numbers, they soon fell into the encirclement of the Qing army. In the melee, Yan Yingyuan was hit by three arrows in his back and said to his subordinates: "Thank you for me, I will report the state affairs!" After that, he was about to swing his sword to kill himself, when Yan Qingyi, a family member next to Yan Yingyuan, grabbed Yan Yingyuan's hand and shouted, "Look at the Yangtze River, what a big boat!" ”

Yan Yingyuan heard his family say this, and looked at the Yangtze River through the smoke of gunpowder. Because Jiangyin County is on the edge of the Yangtze River, it is very real. I saw five huge Western warships across the Yangtze River.

Yan Yingyuan has been on the Yangtze River for a long time, and he has also seen Western warships like the Franc Machine, but in recent years, because of the friendship between Zheng Zhilong and the Hongmao people in Fujian, the warships of the Franc Robot rarely appear on the Yangtze River. I don't know what I'm doing today, is it reinforcements? This thought flashed in Yan Yingyuan's heart, but it was simply impossible.

A few days ago, Yan Yingyuan also sent messengers and the surrounding rebels to ask for help, but several teams were defeated by the Manchus. I don't know what these five big ships are doing here?

These big ships are the main ship formation of the Guangdong Navy led by Yan Qingshan.

Zhu Hongsan, who was far away in Guangdong, had been preparing for a long time, and originally wanted to come to Jiangyin at the end of June, but he didn't expect Zhu Hongsan to also encounter big trouble.

It's very simple, it's still the same sentence, Zhu Hongsan's bloodline. The surrounding prefectures and counties immediately flipped their covers when they heard that Zhu Hongsan, the king of Chu, had proclaimed himself as a prisoner. Chaozhou Mansion was originally the sphere of influence of Zheng Zhilong in Fujian, and this time, Zhu Yujian, the king of Tang in Fuzhou, was called emperor, and immediately killed the messenger sent by Zhu Hongsan, and sent a letter back to Zhu Hongsan, asking him to immediately remove the title of prisoner.

Nanxiong Mansion on the edge of Chaozhou Mansion saw that it was also the first rat at both ends, and it was neither yin nor yang to Zhu Hongsan. There was no problem with the other prefectures, and they all sent in support documents. They were too close to Guangdong and knew Zhu Hongsan's strength, so there was no surprise.

There was a big trouble in Guangxi, and the governor of Guangxi, Qu Shiyun, even talked about Zhu Hongsan's bloodline and sent a long letter to Feng Ruoshu, telling the illegitimacy of Zhu Hongsan's claim to be emperor.

Zhu Hongsan is in a hurry now, seeing that Ma Mingyuan can't wait to strangle him, the "slow reign" strategy that was originally discussed in Huguang is not implemented, and he has to be this up-and-coming bird now, right?

Ma Mingyuan didn't expect the surrounding forces to react so much, and he was also full of anxiety, and asked Zhu Hongsan what to do now?

Zhu Hongsan sighed, what can I do now? It's all like this, only to fight.

Zhu Hongsan ordered nine prefectures and one prefecture in Guangdong, each of which had to enter a regiment, and the magistrates would let them get out if they did not cooperate. At this moment, Zhu Hongsan's army was immediately overstretched, so the matter of going north was shelved indefinitely.

In addition, there is a great shortage of sailors in the navy, and Li Zhi, the new commander of the navy, takes ships out to catch pirates every day, and this is not enough, you must know that an 800-ton gunboat requires 400 sailors. Now Li Zhi has less than 10,000 sailors under his command, and the three 400-ton gunboats on the Nanyang side cannot move. In the end, Li Zhi had no choice but to find Ma Mingyuan and borrow a thousand sailors on a merchant ship, which was barely enough.