On October 15 of the sixth year of Yongli, the siege of the city has passed for a month, a few days ago, the land outside the city and the river of the moat after several days of exposure, the Ming army began to dig tunnels for cave attack and blasting. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Because the tunnel is too wide will affect the quality and progress of the project, and will also affect the effect of blasting, so Chen Wen ordered three engineering teams from Nantang, Yiwu and the battalion directly under the town to excavate separately with some people, and at the same time, it was also to guard against some of the Qing army's methods of defending the city, and strive to break the city wall directly at one time.

Relying on the abundance of human resources, the Ming army continued to dig forward day and night in three shifts for twelve hours. And the defenders in the city seem to be not as good as the last time they besieged Longyou, and they didn't even open artillery bombardments, if it weren't for the fact that there were still people patrolling and guarding the city every day, what was the difference between this Quzhou capital city and the dead city.

As the first engineer captain under Chen Wen, Zhao Qian, who has entered the staff department, has participated in the engineering operations of the Ming army's previous operations.

It's just that, compared with other engineer operations, he is no different from other engineer officers and non-commissioned officers in the collapse method, and he has only undergone relevant training in the old camp of Jinhua, and has never really blown up the city wall garrisoned by the Qing army.

In fact, the last time he besieged Long You, the engineer team he personally led had dug a gap in the underground part of the city wall, and even the coffin loaded with gunpowder had been placed, and it was only necessary to seal the detonation chamber and arrange the lead to blast it. But who knew that the Qing army actually killed each other in the city for the ships that escaped from the city, and as a result, not only did they not blow up the city wall, but also had to refill the tunnel, which was in vain for so many days of hard work.

Afterwards, although Chen Wen still rewarded the military merits, he consciously missed the first merit of breaking the city because of Ma Jinbao and those Qing troops anyway, and most of the engineers from the officers to the non-commissioned officers held their breath, so this time they blasted Quzhou City, they put a lot of effort into it, and the progress of the project was a little faster than expected.

After several days of earthwork, the three engineer teams have approached the target to varying degrees, according to the summary of the three engineer captains and Zhao Qian personally went down to the tunnel to check, if nothing else, you can dig a gap under the city wall by staying up all night today, at noon tomorrow at the latest, and early tomorrow morning at the earliest, it should be possible to light the fire and break it.

Victory was in sight, and according to the regulations, Zhao Qian needed to rush back to the camp after completing this inspection, and report the situation to Chen Wen and the General Staff, so as to arrange the order of attack of the infantry team responsible for entering the city and crushing the resistance.

Today should be the last night of living in a tent outside this fortified city, once he thinks of this, Zhao Qian thinks of his daughter-in-law who is pregnant with a child at home, after taking this city, the army will try to expand some of the occupied areas, and he should be able to return to his home to reunite before the year.

………………

At this moment, it is already night, the city of Quzhou is as silent as death, and the occasional patrolling defenders only take those avenues, after all, no one wants to go to those secluded places at night, what if they encounter some unjust souls who come out to ask for their lives.

It's been ten days, it's been ten days since I stopped giving porridge, I tightened my belt, tried to eat less porridge and drink more water every day, even so, by today, Rong Qian's family has eaten the last meal of gruel. In fact, there are still some rare items that can be taken out at home to exchange for food, but the grain in the current Quzhou capital city is priceless, and the siege does not know how long it will last.

In fact, the vast majority of the people were not as lucky as the Rong family to be able to save some food. It is not uncommon to sell children and daughters in this prosperous Quzhou capital city, and many people do not hesitate to let the yellow flower girl in the boudoir at home go out to pick up guests in order to get a bite of food, and there is even a rumor that Yi Zi eats.

The scoundrels in the city began to rob at night, and even some of the defenders and co-guards became strongmen and thieves after they were off duty. It is said that some robbers not only kill people, rob food and money, but also kill people, and even cook and eat the killed people to save food for a few more days.

Although Rong Qian's home is not too far from the county government, and there are occasional organized guards patrolling, he and his father, the only two men in the family, do not dare to take it lightly, and have to hold a kitchen knife and a flat shoulder every night to keep vigil to prevent thieves from entering the house to do evil.

Since the night before, his mother and sister have stopped eating, and only rely on drinking water to survive, if it were not for his wife and nursing children, they would probably have begun to open the valley. All this is to let his father and him eat more, otherwise this family will become someone else's food if it doesn't work, and end up with no bones.

The government is not credible, this is the experience he had already summed up when he was the soft-spoken staff of the Huguang Governor's yamen.

If there is a bite to eat in the government, the people will not be hungry, and those big officials have food at home every day, and even drink and have fun in light songs and dances, even those small officials and officials are not hungry. As for the defenders and the co-defenders who were taken away, they were already good people if they didn't eat people.

Perhaps, escaping from the city, or changing the owner of this city, may be better for the common people. As for the rumors of the corruption of the Ming army's military discipline, Rong Qian had thoroughly characterized them as rumors, and as far as he knew, many of the people he knew could not believe these remarks that were obviously from the government.

The reason why no one has come out in tandem to let the Ming army enter the city is nothing more than that the defenders and those Ding Zhuang who assisted in the defense are still under the control of the government, and at the same time they are taken by the combat power and barbarism of the Eight Banners, otherwise this city would have changed hands long ago. After all, most of the defenders and people in this city were Quzhou natives, and the group of outsiders in the government were too few in number after all, and their authority could not withstand the needs of survival, so they were no match for the natives in their own towns.

Now the situation in the city, Chen Jin can be said to know it well. As he and his staff had predicted, the resistance in the city had been weakened by the collapse of hunger, and the tens of thousands of people had become two-legged sheep, with only a swing of a butcher's knife.

In Chen Jin's memory, at the end of July before the Battle of Dalinghe, there were more than 30,000 people in the city, and by the beginning of November when Zu Dashou surrendered, there were only 11,682 people and 32 horses left. For three and a half months, it was only reduced by two-thirds, and the defenders did not suffer too much damage, but only the merchants died.

At present, Chen Jin has not conducted a detailed survey of the total population of Quzhou's capital city, but it should be at least twice as large as that of the Daling River. He has 3,000 Qing troops and 10,000 people in his hands, and if he eats slowly, it should be much longer than the time that Daling River lasts, and it should not be impossible to think about it in four or five months.

By that time, the bribes should have already been sent to the magnates of the Beijing Division, and even if the reinforcements could not be relieved, there was still hope for escape by taking advantage of the fact that the Ming army was not familiar with the hydrological conditions. (To be continued.) )