Wu Chaoyue sneered and said nothing, Lu Jianying, Qi Suzao and Fuzhu Hong'a and other Jiangning civil and military officers also had gloomy faces and were silent, only Xianghou was roaring with a horsewhip, whipped an unlucky flag soldier while roaring wildly, "Dog minion!" Dog minions for bad things! General Ben asked you to order to check the jack gate, and you dared to forget it to General Ben! The rare enemy destroyer was wasted by you! Dog minion, you've ruined the general's big deal! ”

The banner soldier who had been drawn and covered in blood did not dare to cry out for injustice, let alone say that he had never received this order from Xianghou - he would be dead! So the unlucky flag soldier could only beg for mercy with tears in his eyes, begging Xiang Hou to spare his dog's life, but unfortunately Xiang Hou for the sake of face and shirk responsibility, he refused to show mercy at all, a whip was heavier than a whip, and a whip was more severe than a whip, almost the unlucky flag soldier was cut off on the spot, and finally Fuzhu Hong'a opened his mouth to intercede for the flag soldier, Xiang Hou hated to pull the whip on the ground, stomped his feet and yelled: "Drag this dog slave out!" When he is healed, he will be beaten with forty more sticks! ”

The unlucky flag soldier covered in blood was dragged out, and Lu Jianying, who was sitting in the middle, also asked: "General Xiang, how many of our gains did we have last night?" ”

"Thirty-five." Xiang Hou looked helpless, and said: "If the jack gate is not rusted to death, and it falls in time to cut off the way of retreat, none of the bandits who were deceived into Wengcheng by us will definitely not be able to escape!" But ......, alas, what a pity! ”

Lu Jianying, who was already disappointed, was even more disappointed, and also sighed, and then said: "Forget it, it's a matter of luck, the long-haired life is lucky to run away, no wonder anyone, forget it." ”

"Yes, it's just a matter of luck, Longhair is lucky this time, and ours is unlucky." Qi Suzao also coughed and agreed, and said: "And we are not completely without gains, this incident in addition to killing thirty-five long-haired soldiers, but also proves that the bandits are not as terrible as the legend, they are also in a hurry to break the city, and they will also make the mistake of being greedy and underestimating the enemy, as long as our Qing civil and military officials and Manchu and Han soldiers are united and work together, they will definitely be able to repel the bandits and persist until reinforcements arrive from all over the country!" ”

What Qi Suzao said was pure nonsense, but almost all of the Jiangning civil and military forces present applauded, coaxing themselves with the wrong words, and Lu Jianying, who had the highest official position, also said: "Not only that, this battle also helped us find a Wolong Xiao Zhuge - Wu surpasses Wu in charge!" Master Wu, don't be too disappointed, there is any clever plan to break the enemy, although it is said that this governor will definitely adopt it! ”

Everyone's eyes shifted to Wu Chaoyue's thin face, and this time, even the Eight Banner generals such as Xianghou and Fuzhu Hong'a, who had seen Wu Chaoyue unpleasantly from the beginning, began to look forward to it, but unfortunately, Wu Chaoyue replied helplessly: "Thank you for the false award of the Lord of Taiwan, the lower official is ashamed and dare not be, in addition, the lower official has to be guilty, and the plan to break the enemy is temporarily gone." ”

"This is by no means a sign of modesty." Wu Chaoyue added: "It's because Long Mao has already suffered a loss, so he will never be fooled a second time, and in addition, the lower officials haven't found any weaknesses in Long Mao's military camp, and there is really nothing to do with Long Mao." But please rest assured, the lower officials will definitely do their best to find the enemy's fighters, and if they find anything, they will definitely report to you. ”

Lu Jianying finally had a little trust in Wu Chaoyue, and ordered: "Okay, then if you come up with any strategy to break the enemy, no matter when, you can immediately come to see the governor." ”

Wu Chaoyue is not modest, he really has no way to take the Taiping Army, the friendly army is not strong, the boss is more greedy and stupid than the other, the only thing that can be relied on in his hands is a battalion he brought from Shanghai, and it is not enough to stuff the teeth of the Taiping army with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses. Therefore, Wu Chaoyue didn't waste any more time trying to think about what strategy to break the enemy, and he had already calculated how to escape with Shanghai Lian Yong when the city was broken.

It's not so easy to run, and it's not that Li Kaifang and more than 40,000 Taiping soldiers have built twenty-four barracks outside the Shence Gate, and they can send troops to block Wu Chaoyue's escape path at any time, but the abandoned courtyards of the houses outside the Shence Gate are an insurmountable natural danger - the Taiping Army, which is good at hand-to-hand combat, only needs to ambush an army in the courtyards of these houses casually, and suddenly kill it when the Wu army practices Yong out of the city, I dare not say that it will completely annihilate the Wu army and practice Yong, and it is absolutely easy to kill Wu Jun Lianyong to pieces.

The hateful places of these abandoned houses and courtyards are not only this, the narrow street space is narrow, the terrain is complicated, and the Wu army must fight in a formation or in a formation in order to exert the greatest combat effectiveness, and the weapons in his hands can only exert the greatest power in the open area, and the combat effectiveness must be reduced by at least half in such a battlefield. At the same time, these house courtyards are also a good cover for the Taiping army's ambushes and scouts, as long as the last army is ambushed, it can directly threaten the city wall of Shence Gate at any time, which is very unfavorable to the Wu army's practice of guarding the city wall and fighting out of the city. So Wu Chaoyue quickly made up his mind and was ready to completely raze these damn house courtyards to the ground first!

Razing the houses outside the city, this matter is easy to say to Geng Huan, the guard of the Shence Gate-eating Wu Chaoyue's and drinking Wu Chaoyue's every day, Geng Huan will be a little too unkind if he refuses to even agree to this little thing. What is difficult to do is to go out of the city to carry out the task of demolishing the house, Wu Jun Lianyong, who is the only reliable in combat effectiveness, of course can't do such a drudgery, and the transfer of green battalion soldiers out of the city must be agreed by Lu Jianying, so Wu Chaoyue had no choice but to focus on Lian Yong, who was scolded by himself as a waste snack, but what made Wu Chaoyue cry and laugh was that when he found the two gentry of the Preparatory and Defense Bureau who helped guard the Shence Gate to discuss the matter, the two gentry Dong stretched out their hands to Wu Chaoyue together, "Director Wu, how much military salary do you give?" ”

"Isn't your military salary paid by the Preparatory and Defense Bureau? Why do you still ask me for military pay? Wu Chaoyue asked strangely.

"Master Wu, you are a full man, you don't know that a hungry man is hungry." A gentleman Dong sighed and said: "The Preparatory and Defense Bureau has not paid salaries for more than half a month, and we, the gentlemen, have not only been owing Lian Yong's military salary these days, but also have to pay for Lian Yong's food expenses out of his own pocket, barely maintaining the need to prevent Lian Yong from leaving on a mission." This made them pretend to be on the city wall, but they were so-so and could let them do it, but this required them to go down to the city to demolish the house, and there was no silver, so we said that we would not be able to move these Lian Yong uncles. ”

"Yes, Master Wu, it's difficult for us." Another gentleman also said with a sad face: "The food expenses we paid in advance are a big question whether we can get them back in the future." This will go down to the city and demolish the house and risk losing your head, there is no military salary and silver, so it is strange that Yongqiu Ba can listen to us. ”

Wu Chaoyue was so angry that he couldn't find anything to say, and after gritting his teeth and thinking for a long time, Wu Chaoyue had no choice but to make concessions with tears in his eyes, promising to use two thousand taels of silver as a salary to hire Lian Yong of the Preparatory Bureau to demolish all the houses and courtyards outside the Shence Gate that were five miles wide and one mile thick, and promised that Wu Jun Lian Yong would provide fire cover for Lian Yong of the Preparatory and Defense Bureau. But even so, the two gentry directors of the Preparation and Defense Bureau still asked to see the silver before they were willing to start work, and Wu Chaoyue was so angry that he yelled and yelled, so he could only send Wu Dadao to go to the Rishengchang ticket number in Jiangning City with the silver ticket number to exchange for silver.

Headquartered in Pingyao, the Rishengchang ticket number is the largest money bank ticket number in China in this era, and the credit is barely okay at present, but because of the flames of war, Wu Da exchanged two thousand taels of silver, and was blackmailed by Ri Shengchang to take away the five hundred taels of silver ticket before he got the cash, Wu Da Da cried and reported the situation to Wu Chaoyue in front of him, Wu Chaoyue couldn't help but scolded again, "The son of a bitch!" is worthy of being the descendants of the Eight Great Locust Merchants, and you deserve to be ruined in the future! Remember to Lao Tzu, when Lao Tzu will be prosperous in the future, see how Lao Tzu cleans up you unscrupulous profiteers! ”

Still saw the white flowers, and the brave men of the Preparatory Bureau cheered and jumped down the city with ropes, and carried an axe to the other side of the moat to demolish the houses, and the result was that a few Taiping scouts hidden in those abandoned houses were shocked, but those Taiping scouts were also afraid of the strong firepower on the Shence Gate City, so they didn't dare to come over to stop the trouble, but they hurriedly returned to the camp to report to the officials.

The angry people are still behind, after the demolition project began, the Taiping army has not yet reacted, some demolition households first ran to find trouble, ran to the Shence Gate to protest loudly, saying that the houses in the city are theirs, and if they demolish their houses, they will pay them silver, otherwise they will go to the Yuan County Ya to sue! Geng Huan had no choice but to find Wu Chaoyue to discuss, Wu Chaoyue was even more angry when he heard it, and he didn't even want to call those demolition households to the city wall, asking them to immediately point out where their houses were. Those demolition households also complained that they had a door, so they unceremoniously pointed out the courtyards of their houses outside the city, and couldn't wait to offer compensation conditions.

It's a pity that the answer to these demolition households is not the silver with white flowers or the silver ticket with the seal and the secret letter, but Wu Chaoyue's roar, "Come on, take down all these dark and long-haired Diao people for me!" ”

When Wu Jun Lian Yong rushed up to get people without saying a word, those demolition households suddenly scattered, and shouted loudly: "Wronged!" Wronged! It's time for us to grow hair? My lord, when did we secretly grow hair? ”

"Human and material evidence, dare to shout injustice?" Wu Chaoyue pointed to those houses and shouted: "Last night, Long Hair was ambushed in your house to attack the Shence Gate, and you lent the house to Long Hair Tibetan soldiers, isn't it secretly long hair?" Don't talk nonsense, send these secretly long-haired Diao people to the county office, and hand them over to Liu County to punish the crime according to the law! ”

More than a dozen demolition households shouted injustice when they heard it, but when Wu Chaoyue pulled out his revolver and fired a few shots into the sky, several demolition households who were even scared out of urine also closed their mouths, and Wu Chaoyue directly used them as a punching bag, and ordered Wu Jun Lian Yong to beat these demolition households violently first, all of them were tied up with ropes, and asked Geng Huan to send some green battalion soldiers to escort them to the county government to ask for guilt!

Not to mention, Wu Chaoyue's hand is quite effective, seeing more than a dozen demolition households who were beaten with blue noses and swollen faces and bleeding heads being escorted to the Shangyuan County Ya, those demolition households in the city who want to wait for the compensation of money will not have the courage to make trouble in Shence Gate anymore, just run to the county government to watch the excitement together. And Liu Tongying, the commander of Shangyuan County, and Qi Suzao, the political envoy of Jiangsu, are the same as Qi Suzao, although they are both loyal Manchu lackeys that Wu Chaoyue dislikes very much in his heart, but they are both Manchu officials who are barely able to do some serious things, and as soon as he heard the situation, he immediately understood Wu Chaoyue's intentions, and unceremoniously put all the dozen or so demolition households in prison and ordered them to investigate their crimes of banditry. As a result, seeing the result of the county government, most of the remaining demolition households lost the courage to continue making trouble, and only a few demolition households who felt that they had a background and backers refused to give up, and ran to their backstage for help, but there would be no result for a while.

Zou Minghe, the general office of the Preparatory and Prevention Bureau and the former governor of Guangxi, also ran to Wu Chaoyue to protest after hearing the news, accusing Wu Chaoyue of not privately calling his hard-working Preparatory and Prevention Bureau to demolish the house, but he wanted to extort money. Wu Chaoyue couldn't bear it anymore, and roared: "Okay, you think I shouldn't call your Lian Yong, then call all your Lian Yong back, and Lao Tzu will hire someone else to demolish the house!" Lao Tzu didn't believe in silver, and he couldn't hire anyone to work! ”

Zou Minghe's face immediately became extremely ugly, knowing that if he dared to call back those Lian Yong who were demolishing the house to earn money, those Lian Yong, who had been in arrears for more than half a month, would be able to chew him alive on the spot! You don't even need to dip soy sauce! Under the secret hatred, Zou Minghe had no choice but to grasp Wu Chaoyue's swear words to make a fuss, sink his face, and shouted: "Bold! You are a little principal, and you dare to be presumptuous in front of this official, and speak ill ....... ”

"Shut your mother's beak!" Wu Chaoyue scolded even more ugly, and pointed at Zou Minghe's nose and scolded: "What are you?" Don't say that you are just a governor of Guangxi who has been dismissed, that is, the Minister of Military Aircraft and the Six Shangshu, and two of them have also been brought down by Lao Tzu! Get out of the way for Lao Tzu immediately, otherwise Lao Tzu will treat you, a rising grass man, for the crime of disrupting the military, and shoot you on the spot! ”

Seeing that Wu Chaoyue was really angry, Zou Minghe, who had no official position, really didn't dare to fight Wu Chaoyue, so he had to go to Lu Jianying, Qi Suzao and others to complain. Wu Chaoyue was even angrier in his heart, and he felt that his current official position was too small - otherwise, would he be able to bear these birds?

In the evening, the Taiping army really sent an army to prevent Jiang Ning Lian Yong from demolishing the house, Jiang Ning Lian Yong of course did not have the courage to fight with the Taiping army, and he just hurried to the city to escape for his life, when the Taiping army chased over, Wu Jun Lian Yong, who had been prepared, immediately met with muskets and artillery, and the bullets and shells combined to beat the Taiping soldiers so that they did not dare to raise their heads, and finally broadened their horizons, and killed and injured many Taiping soldiers with high-precision Mini guns, which proved that Wu Chaoyue's tactical plan was correct and effective.

The next morning, Jiang Ning Lian Yong continued to use ropes to go down the city to demolish houses, after the Taiping army scouts reported the situation to Li Kaifang, although Li Kaifang wanted to do his best to obstruct the destruction, but because the army was too tired and needed to rest, and had to cut down wood to build siege weapons and build various fortifications, and at the same time divided troops to meet the Taiping army fleet that transported artillery, Li Kaifang finally gave up this plan, and chose to harass and destroy with a small number of troops in batches, delaying the progress of Wu Chaoyue's project.

In this way, a very lively picture appeared under the Shence Gate, Jiang Ning Lian Yong was digging the root of the wall, bulldozing the wall, cutting trees and demolishing houses, a team of Taiping soldiers suddenly killed, Jiang Ning Lian Yong turned around and ran down the city, the Taiping Army just chased to the open area, the Shence Gate immediately was a gun and cannon, and the bullets and shells were quite accurate, the Taiping Army was beaten to the head of the rat, and ran north, and then Jiang Ning Lian Yong ran over and continued to demolish the house and push the wall, and then the Taiping Army turned around and killed, Jiang Ning Lian Yong ran down the city again, Waiting for Wu Jun to train the Taiping army away and then go to demolish the house, so repeatedly, there were more than a dozen similar processes a day.

Not to mention, with the passage of time and the repetition of the process, Jiang Ning Lianyong, who is a waste of snacks, has really made some progress, and has learned some experience, and when he escapes, he no longer flees directly back to the city every time, but only flees to the open area to seek the protection of Wu Jun's artillery and muskets, and when Wu Jun Lianyong runs away from the Taiping Army, he will go back and continue to demolish the house, which not only greatly accelerates the progress of the project, but also indirectly plays a role in luring the enemy, helping Wu Jun snipers kill and wound quite a lot of Taiping soldiers. It also gave many Wu Jun the opportunity to practice his marksmanship with a mini gun.

There is no need to worry about Wu Junlianyong's ammunition problem, in fact, as early as the first day of the demolition project, Wu Chaoyue had already considered this important issue, and ordered that it was forbidden to use a pin gun that could not be replenished by ammunition to cover the demolition of Jiangning Lianyong, and only high-precision Mini guns were allowed to shoot. At the same time, Wu Chaoyue took precautions to find the source of ammunition supply for the Mini gun, while sending people to find the craftsmen in the city to imitate the lead Minny bullet, and at the same time secretly purchased gunpowder from the Qing army at other city gates through Geng Huan, but after seeing the silver in vain, the Qing soldiers in other city gates in Jiangning naturally tried their best to steal the gunpowder and sell it to Wu Chaoyue, and in less than a day, they got more than 2,000 catties of gunpowder for Wu Chaoyue, helping Wu Chaoyue completely solve the gunpowder problem of the Mini gun. Of course, the quality of the gunpowder of the Qing army was naturally not as good as that brought by Wu Chaoyue from Shanghai, but it could also be used improvised.

The demolition of the Shence Gate side was barely smooth, but the war in other city gates in Jiangning was completely one-sided, especially on the Jubaomen side, Shi Dakai, who presided over the war in the south of the city, did not wait for the water division to send the artillery to the battlefield, so he took the lead in moving the artillery abandoned outside the city by the Qing army to the third floor of Bao'en Temple, and bombarded the Jubaomen indiscriminately, beating the Jubaomen tower to a thousand holes; He also arranged dummies on Yuhua Mountain, forged the illusion of a night attack, and deceived the Qing army into constantly opening artillery to block the Taiping army's roads, consuming countless ammunition of the Qing army; Then he built a fort on the hill outside Chaoyang Gate, preparing to set up artillery to bombard the city directly, so frightened that Jiang Ning's general Xianghou concentrated artillery fire on the fort that was still under construction without waiting for the Taiping army's artillery to arrive, and continued to waste precious gunpowder and shells.

On the same day that the demolition project of Shence Gate began, the Taiping Army Naval Division also divided an army to attack the Pukou Town in the north of the Yangtze River, and the Qing Army's defender Feng Jingni fled without a fight, and the general contractor Dingguo was killed in battle, and the Taiping Army won the strategic military location Pukou City, opening the road from the Taiping Army's naval division to the north of Jiangning City. Also on the same day, another division of the Taiping army also successfully captured Jiangpu City, which is directly west of Jiangning, not only completely controlling the Yangtze River route in the Jiangning area, but also completely cutting off the connection between the Qing army in Jiangning and the outside world. After receiving this news, Qi Suzao vomited blood again and fell unconscious to the ground again.

On the third day of Wu Chaoyue's demolition project, the sailors of the Taiping Army, who had opened the way forward, poured eastward, with 10,000 floating boats, densely covering the surface of the river, and the momentum was extremely amazing, and they also arrogantly drove directly to the area of Xiaguan Wharf, which was less than a mile away from Yifengmen. And when the soldiers of the Taiping Army landed on the shore, the red-headed soldiers on the south bank of the Yangtze River were all over the mountains, stretching for more than ten miles, and they had not yet begun to formally attack the city.

When the news reached Shence Gate, Wu Chaoyue was unmoved, but only urged Jiang Ning Lian Yong to step up construction and desperately open up his own combat space, and relying on Wu Jun Lian Yong's Mini gun cover, more than 1,000 Jiang Ning Lian Yong took turns to go down to the city to demolish houses, and gradually completed more than half of Wu Chaoyong's project requirements. At the same time, under the reward of Wu Chaoyue with a hundred taels of silver, Jiang Ning Lianyong seized the opportunity of this windy day to set fire to a large number of houses outside the scope of the project.

On this day, the Taiping army was very surprised that they did not send troops to harass and delay the demolition project of Jiangning Lianyong, and Wu Chaoyue felt very strange at first, and he suspected that this was a conspiracy of the Taiping army, so nervous that he never dared to go down to the city to rest.

What Wu Chaoyue, who is inexperienced, did not know that in the demolition project two days ago, his high-precision Mini gun had killed more than 30 Taiping soldiers and injured more than 60 people, all of whom were elite soldiers of the Taiping Army who had experienced a hundred battles. The losses were too heavy, so Li Kaifang had to grit his teeth and give up being a nail household, and his gnashing hatred for Wu Chaoyue increased by three points again.

In addition, there is an important reason, that is, the existence of these houses and courtyards will also hinder the Taiping army's siege weapons and troop deployment, Wu Chaoyue's demolition only made the Taiping army lose part of the individual bunkers, and indirectly opened the way for the Taiping army to enter the army, and could barely lose the east corner and harvest the mulberry elm, so Li Kaifang did not care much about Wu Chaoyue's demolition plan.

Of course, if Li Kaifang could know that the real purpose of Wu Chaoyue's demolition of the Shence Gate was to facilitate his escape, then Li Kaifang would definitely reconsider this sabotage plan.

Next, when Wu Chaoyue was strange and worried about the Taiping Army's sudden cessation of obstructing his demolition plan, Hui Zheng, who had not shown up for a few days, came to Wu Chaoyue with a tired face, first showed a notice to Wu Chaoyue and Geng Huan, and then said in a hoarse voice: "Geng Garrison, Comfort Pavilion, you paste this notice on the city wall, and tell the soldiers of the whole army that the land system Taiwan Constitution, from now on, whoever dares to go out of the city to kill a long hair, reward ten taels of silver, and cash it on the spot!" ”

"The reward is so high? Really? ”

Wu Chaoyue and Geng Huan were both surprised, and hurriedly took the notice to watch, and saw that it was indeed clearly written that one person who went out of the city to kill the enemy was rewarded with ten taels of silver, Hui Zheng also nodded and said: "In order to reverse the situation, Lu Zhitai was ruthless this time, and he also set aside 200,000 taels of silver from the treasury as a reward. (It is not an exaggeration, in history, Lu Jianying's reward was even higher, and he was rewarded with fifty taels of silver for one person who went out of the city to kill the Taiping army, and also attached a six-grade crown.) ）

"Aren't we making a fortune then?" Geng Huan's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he hurriedly pulled Wu Chaoyue, and said quickly: "Brother Wu, quickly find a way to trick Changmao to the city, and use your magic spear to fight, and you will be able to earn a hundred taels of silver a day!" ”

"General Geng, killing the enemy in the city doesn't count." Hui Zheng shook his head and said: "It must be to go out of the city to kill the enemy, and Lu Zhitai must boost the morale of our Qing soldiers, so that in the future, go out of the city and fight a decisive battle with Changmao, so killing the enemy on the city wall does not count." ”

Geng Huan was disappointed when he heard this, but Wu Chaoyue's eyes lit up, and he said to Hui Zheng without thinking about it: "Brother, immediately you tell Lu Zhitai, just say that I dare to go out of the city and fight with Changmao!" ”

"Brother Xian, you're not joking, are you?" Hui Zheng was taken aback, and hurriedly said: "Foolish brother, this reward is not easy to take, your Lian Yong can fight again, and hundreds of thousands of long hairs will be killed out of the city, what will you parry?" Also, your family is not short of silver, and your grandfather only has you as a grandson! ”

"I'm not in it for the money!" Wu Chaoyue shook his head categorically, gritted his teeth and said viciously: "I just want to let Changmao know how bad I am!" ”