"Gone, all gone......"

At the end of July, buying and selling the north gate of the city, this sigh echoed, and the people around closed their eyes and bowed their heads, sighing secretly. Who's gone? Of course, Muravyov and most of his Russian soldiers, as well as the Russian merchants who bought and sold the city, and of course some women and children from the noble families of the Eight Banners also went with them. Just now, Yi Xin personally led people to bid farewell to these people who had fled from the dangerous city, and then climbed to the north city of the buying and selling city to look at their backs, which was now completely invisible.

Now this exclamation is also the Mongolian Boktor Khan Aixin Jueluo who was left behind as cannon fodder in the trading city. Yixin - he is not the commander-in-chief of the Russian coalition forces in the city, Muravyov also left hundreds of Russian officers and artillerymen, and a Russian colonel named Karsakov served as Yixin's military adviser, and the entire defense of the city was also responsible for the Russian adviser.

In addition to hundreds of Russian officers and soldiers, there are about 28,000 flag soldiers in the main force of the Yixin Eight Banners New Army, all of which are new army trained by Russian military advisers in accordance with Western France, and are divided into 7 flags, each with 4,000 people, equivalent to a brigade in the West. Coupled with the 6,000 Zhenghuang Flag Horse Team that was taken away by Fu Fang, it is the entire lineup of the Eight Banners New Army under Yi Xin.

In addition, another 24,000 officers and soldiers of the Eight Banners were incorporated into the Russian army, mixed with the Russian army of almost 16,000 people, forming the main force of the Russian army in East Siberia, all of which were deployed in Russia. It is mainly stationed in the three large fortress cities of Irkutsk, Nebuchu and Petropavlovsk, as well as three medium-sized fortress cities of Nikolaevsk, Chita and Verkhniy Udinsk.

"He dismantled the army of 80,000 into pieces so that it was concentrated in the city of Buying. It may not be that there is no power to fight! ”

It was Gualga who spoke. Shengbao. He is now the commander of the Eight Banners New Army with yellow flags. After Fu Fang and Zhenghuangqi set out, he was responsible for Yixin's own safety and was also Yixin's military staff officer. In his opinion, if the 80,000 troops of Yixin and the Russians were gathered together and fought a battle with the Ming army in Maimaicheng, not to mention a complete victory, they could also be equal. But Muravyov dismantled the army and scattered it all over the country, didn't he wait for the Ming army to break them one by one?

His voice is also the voice of the many banner generals in the city. Yi Xin also asked Muravyov the same question privately, but the answer he received was: in the Mongolian-Baikal battlefield, the coalition forces simply did not have the capital to afford a defeat in a battle, and even a crushing victory would cause a complete collapse of the overall situation.

A dull rumbling sound came, and Yi Xin turned her head a little irritably to look at the south of the city, and several columns of blue-black smoke had risen! A few days ago, when the two sides were in a tentative firefight in the field, Yi Xin had already seen the firepower of the Ming army, and the power of the opponent's flowering bullet was extremely powerful, and it could blow up big craters on the hard ground! I really wonder how long the outer walls of the trading city and a few triangular forts made of timber and rammed earth can withstand it?

However, the north of the city is still safe for the time being. Because the geographical location of the buying and selling city is very special, it is located right on the border between China and Russia. The north of the city is right next to the border. Now the Ming and Russia have not yet declared war, so the Ming army that came to attack the city did not enter the territory of Russia to establish a position, so the siege of the city was not formed. So Yixin's "Imperial Palace" and Karsakov's city defense headquarters were both north of the city.

But who knows when this battle will be announced? Maybe in the next moment, the Ming army gathered in the south of the trading city will march north in a big way and surround the three layers of the trading city and the outer three floors......

Reluctantly, he glanced again at a winding road north of the city that passed through the great forest, and beside the road was a small Russian barracks with a pan-Slavic flag, where there were still 100 Russian soldiers demonstrating the sovereignty of the Russian Empire.

Once war is declared, they will probably also be cannon fodder, right? Yi Xin thought sympathetically, so he took his courtiers down the city wall and returned to the city defense headquarters to sit down.

As soon as he entered the headquarters, the Colonel Karsakov stepped forward to salute and reported: "Your Majesty the Great Khan, the Ming army is bombarding Triangle Fort No. 2 with artillery!" We condescendingly returned fire with artillery......"

Although the city is a civil castle, it is a Vauban-1 bastion system carefully designed and supervised by Russian engineers, and it is not composed of simple fortifications such as city walls, city gates, moats, etc., but a complex system of a series of fortifications including solid bastions, hollow bastions, concave forts, triangular forts, middle embankments, inclined embankments, moats, No. 2 moats and hidden passages.

The so-called triangular fort is a triangular fort located outside the main fort, slightly lower than the main fort, and can be used to deploy foreign guns and artillery on it. The firepower on the triangular fort can also overlap with the firepower of the main fortress, posing a great threat to the attacking forces. Therefore, after Luo Junqi took a hot air balloon and carefully observed the defensive situation of the trading city from the air, he knew that the fortress was very difficult to deal with, and if he forcibly attacked the city, he was afraid that the Ming army would suffer heavy casualties, and the only way was to patiently besiege the city with tunnels and trenches, and then use firepower to slowly destroy a part of the defense system of the trading city and open the offensive channel. After the last time, concentrate all your efforts on storming the core fortress to be able to capture the city.

"What a turtle shell! It seems that we are mentally prepared to spend the winter outside the trading city. ”

In the south of the city, on the position of the Ming army, General Luo Junqi stood on a high slope and held a telescope to observe the results of the shelling. The effect of the bombardment was not ideal, and the triangular fort in the Vauban Type 1 bastion system was a solid fortress made of rammed earth and logs, and although one corner was half destroyed by flowering shells, it was still a very difficult stronghold to capture and not difficult to repair. Moreover, the firepower of the opponent's counterattack is not weak, because it is condescending, and there are several artillery pieces with larger calibers, so it poses a great threat to the artillery positions of the Ming army. After a few rounds of bombardment between the two sides, two 12-pounder steel cannons were destroyed by the other side! As a last resort, the artillery of the Ming army had to be withdrawn from behind the front line.

"Grandpa, this is a Vauban Type 1 fortress, built very strongly, and equipped with not weak firepower, there may be several 24-pound cannons, because of the high frame, so the range is very long."

Several staff officers of the Ming army also began to discuss.

"And the area of this fortress is huge, and the defenders stationed in it may be as many as tens of thousands!"

"It seems that it is impossible to storm it, otherwise the casualties will be too large to bear."

"Our logistics can't support high-intensity operations, and we don't have enough large-caliber artillery to destroy the fortress, so it seems that we can only dig trenches to besiege the city."

"But the location of the trading city is too close to the Russian ......"

As the name suggests, the trading city is a mutual market between two countries to do business and trade, and the location is naturally on the border line, which is a border trade port. The current fortress was built on the site of the bulldozed castle.

Luo Junqi thought for a moment and asked his subordinates: "Is Lao Maozi's garrison in the north of the city still there?" ”

One of his subordinates replied: "There may still be a small number of garrisons in the Russian barracks north of the city, but there are more than 100 people. ”

Another said: "These hairy bears are helping the Tartars openly and secretly, and they refuse to simply join the war, which is really hateful!" ”

Luo Junqi was very angry: "I have already given them a chance to retreat, and they haven't withdrawn yet!" Leaving only 100 people to stop us from besieging the city? Think beautifully! Send a regiment of soldiers over and drive them all away! ”

"Grandpa, we haven't declared war on Russia yet, so it's not appropriate to enter Russia like this, right?" A staff officer reminded him.

Luo Junqi snorted: "What's inappropriate? I'm afraid there are a lot of Russian officers and soldiers in the city, right? Why doesn't he Muravyov feel inappropriate? Hurry up and do what I say! Send another division to establish a position in the forest northwest of the city, and if Muravyov dares to send troops to relieve the siege of the city, he will resolutely attack! ”

Luo Junqi was the commander of the Mongol legion, and the Ming army that bought and sold the city naturally respected him. His order was quickly carried out, and the 15th Army, under the command of Li Wenmao, commanded an infantry division and another infantry regiment to quickly pass through the open steppe east of the city and enter Russian territory in a grand manner. (To be continued......)