Zhu Jiang, who was standing outside the Yangzhou city wall, looked at the crumbling city wall, after three days and nights of uninterrupted bombardment, the Xu Ning Gate section of the Yangzhou city wall was dilapidated, and the ten-zhang thick city wall collapsed in many places. At first, the Qing army was able to organize manpower to repair it, but after being discovered by the Ming army, a battalion of soldiers was transferred to guard under the city wall and shoot at the Qing army who were rushing to repair, killing and wounding many Qing soldiers, and now no one dares to stand on the city wall.

Zhu Jiang was assigned to the second group of siege teams, the first batch was the 3,000 hand-to-hand combat army led by Jiang Pengju, who seized the position after entering the city to protect the musket team that entered the city later. Zhu Jiang's group had less than 2,000 people, led by division commander Zhang Bao.

Zhu Jiang looked back at his soldiers, these people were basically some citizens, peasants, and government servants half a year ago, although they had been training here in Yangzhou for more than a month, but there was still a gap compared with those Han military banners in the city, and I didn't know if they could fight.

Zhu Jiang's five battalions are full of 600 people, but now there are only 400 people, these people look at the crumbling Yangzhou city wall one by one with fear, a company commander Wu Gui is an old soldier, saw the soldiers like this frowned, and said loudly: "Don't be afraid, you all see that the bows and arrows of the Qing army can't get into the armor on your body, as long as you protect your head, it's fine, don't fall behind after entering, follow the big army, and don't want to retreat, you look at the musket team behind, their other task is to be our supervising team, Those who retreat will be killed! ”

The soldiers who were already bottomless in their hearts were even more bottomless when they heard Wu Gui say this, and some people began to wipe the sweat on their hands frequently on their clothes.

However, there were still a hundred people in Zhu Jiang's team who were expressionless, and there was no nervous expression at all, these people were all Zhu Jiang's personal guards, among which fifty were veterans sent by Zhao Guodong, and fifty were sent by Dongchang.

Wu Gui looked at these people behind him and swallowed and spitted, these guys are not easy to mess with, the few in front of them are already colonel-level officers, and they are all battalion commanders in the army, and now they are all sent by Zhao Guodong in order to protect King Qin. Things are just as Wu Gui thought, these people are all old subordinates who have followed Zhao Guodong from birth to death for more than ten years. Those people in Dongchang were all outlaws who had been trained in fighting, and the purpose of their original purpose was to protect Zhu Jiang.

When Wu Gui restrained the soldiers, Jiang Pengju came to Zhu Jiang with a burden on his back. As soon as Jiang Pengju came, he saw the hundred extraordinary soldiers, and the black man led by him was Jiang Pengju's old acquaintance.

"Lao Xu, why are you here?"

The big black man known as Lao Xu saw Jiang Pengju and said with a smile: "Old Jiang, a certain family came on the orders of the Admiral. On the contrary, what are you doing in the back team as a front-line commander? ”

Jiang Pengju laughed: "Lao Xu, this is not your group, this is Lao Tzu's Ten Divisions, you can't be sure what to do!" ”

After Jiang Pengju finished speaking, he pulled Zhu Jiang to the side, took the burden on his shoulders and pushed it into Zhu Jiang's hands: "Your Highness, you take this, you should be careful when the siege battle starts in a while, the old Jiang who is in chaos can't take care of you!" Jiang Pengju thought for a while and then said: "But it should be okay, there is Lao Xu here, and those hundred soldiers are enough to ensure the safety of His Highness!" ”

Zhu Jiang knew that those people were temporarily arranged by Zhao Guodong to protect him, but he didn't expect that the source was so big, and that Lao Xu should still be some kind of officer.

"Sir, what's the origin of that old man, he looks very awesome!"

Jiang Pengju laughed and said: "Your Highness, you don't know, that old Xu is called Xu Dingbang, but this is the name he gave himself, and he used to be called Xu Sandan." This guy is a native of Henan, a former military household, fled to Wuchang to join His Majesty's second batch of teaching groups, and I am still classmates with Lao Jiang. However, this guy is from a military household, and he always feels that he is superior to us from peasant families, and he hates it very much. But this guy is very hard under his hands, and he was one of your father's forty-eight personal guards in Xinyang City back then, you believe he is right! Now he is the head of a regiment under Zhao Guodong, the main force in the main force, but I didn't expect Zhao Guodong to send him here, enough money! ”

Zhu Jiang didn't care about Jiang Pengju's chatter here, opened the package and saw that it was a pair of chain mail inside. However, this pair of chain mail is not an ordinary workmanship, and all the iron rings are made of stainless steel, which is very strong. Zhu Jiang knew that this armor was given to Jiang Pengju by his father and rewarded him for his combat exploits in Xinyang, but he didn't expect that Jiang Pengju would hand over this armor to himself today.

"Sir, isn't this what your father gave you? What do you give me you to wear? ”

"Your Highness, you are a novice, you should wear this suit of chain mail, old. Lao Jiang, I have experienced a hundred battles, and I haven't appeared to kill me, Your Highness, please rest assured! ”

Zhu Jiang was moved by Jiang Pengju's actions and held Jiang Pengju's hand

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said: "Sir, if you take me like this, I will not live up to you in the future!" Zhu Jiang was still young, and he was moved by Jiang Pengju's little favor to tell the truth.

Jiang Pengju saw Zhu Jiang's true feelings, and this is what he wanted.

"Your Royal Highness, it is estimated that the city wall will not be able to hold on for another quarter of an hour, you have to be careful after entering the city, you must follow Xu Dingbang, although this guy has a nasty character, but he is old in the battle array, he will definitely be able to protect the safety of His Royal Highness King Qin!"

After Jiang Pengju finished speaking, he let go of Zhu Jiang's hand and returned to his front team. After Zhu Jiang saw him leave, he put on this pair of chain mail under Wu Gui's service, and put on the plate armor outside. This is good, Zhu Jiang is protected by two layers of armor, and he has completely become an iron can. The original plate armor was thirty pounds, plus the chain mail, this body was fifty pounds, fortunately, Zhu Jiang had followed Jiang Pengju to exercise in the past six months, or he really couldn't hold on.

After three days of uninterrupted bombardment, the Yangzhou city wall finally could not hold on, and at more than 10 o'clock in the morning of the fourth day of the first month of the second year of Shenwu, after a cannonball hit the dilapidated city wall, it finally collapsed.

Jiang Pengju saw the city wall collapse at the front, and shouted: "Everyone prepare, stand in formation for a while, take the shield, rush in for me, and kill all the people with braids for me!" ”

These soldiers of the 10th Division were originally Qing troops, and they liked this kind of city-breaking battle the most, so when they heard Jiang Pengju say this, they hurriedly asked: "My lord, what about the people with braided hair?" ”

Jiang Pengju knew that these guys wanted to slaughter the city, but the military discipline was there, and he didn't dare to agree casually, but if he didn't agree, the combat effectiveness of these guys would be gone, so Jiang Pengju had to say loudly: "It's not allowed to slaughter people for no reason, but no one's property can take half of it!" "Taking their own property is already the best means to ensure the combat effectiveness of these guys, so Zhang Bao and Jiang Pengju also found Zhao Guodong and asked him to finally make up his mind. Zhao Guodong did not dare to agree to this de facto massacre, and finally reported to Ma Jiyuan, who reluctantly agreed to this in order to occupy Yangzhou as soon as possible, and repeatedly asked not to kill people for no reason. But Jiang Pengju knew that it was easy to say things and difficult to do, and when the city was in chaos, the one who could control these bandits.

However, as soon as the order was issued, the listless soldiers came to their senses, and their eyes were full of light, as if they had smoked a big cigarette.

Jiang Pengju's front team was five hundred meters away from the city wall, and after the city wall fell, Jiang Pengju led the front team to leave the starting position and rush to the breach.

After the dust dispersed, Jiang Pengju saw that the city wall had broken a gap five or six meters wide, and the Qing army was quite well prepared, and now he saw a faint figure in the breach, probably the defending force of the Qing army.

Jiang Pengju shouted to the soldiers behind him: "Shield, hit shield!" The Qing army is going to shoot arrows! The soldiers behind him took out the big wooden shields they were carrying to block the front. As soon as Jiang Pengju finished speaking, the first batch of arrows had been shot in front of him, these bows and arrows were all shot from the back, and they were very powerful, and they were shot on the shield with a bang, and from time to time there were unlucky guys who were shot by bows and arrows in their limbs, lying on the ground and wailing.

Because of the bonus of gravitational acceleration, this kind of back-shot bow and arrow can still shoot through the plate armor worn by the Ming army. Jiang Pengju knew that this kind of time was the most dangerous, and he could only rush up and mix with the Qing army.

"Damn it, it's all for Lao Tzu to rush, get mixed up with the Qing army, don't let them release arrows!" After speaking, Jiang Peng came up fiercely, threw the wooden shield in his hand, and began to run towards the city wall. The other soldiers saw that the commander was like this, but they really had no choice, and under the leadership of the grassroots officers, they also threw the wooden shield and ran wildly with Jiang Pengju.

Zhu Hongsan's three magic weapons for governing the army are harsh training, brainwashing and loyal education, and the other is qualified grassroots officers. In the melee of cold weapons, the junior officers can definitely play a decisive role, people are group animals, and when danger comes, they instinctively want to be gregarious, and at this time, if there is one or more cool-headed and well-trained officers in a group of people, a large-scale rout cannot be formed.

In fact, the weapons and equipment of the Anglo-French alliance were not much stronger than those of the Qing army, and they did not form a generational advantage in the Gulf War.

However, it was precisely because the junior officers in the British and French armies were well organized that they were able to organize the soldiers to form a whole when the war was unfavorable. On the other hand, the Qing army, the Mongol cavalry's individual force is definitely not inferior to those Indian Gurkha soldiers and Algerian cavalry, but precisely because there are no qualified grassroots officers, the army is still the kind of commander-in-chief and guerrilla in the Middle Ages, with unclear responsibilities and unclear tasks. The Battle of Bali Bridge is a clear proof of this, 30,000 Mongol cavalry against 8,000 Anglo-French* allied troops, the Qing army suffered more than 5,000 casualties, while the Anglo-French* allied army suffered only five killed and 46 wounded.