readx; Zhu Youzhen hasn't slept a whole night for four or five days. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

In this era, men generally have to grow beards, and the so-called "bearded eyebrows" are a symbol of masculinity, and they must be carefully taken care of every day. But Zhu Youzhen has always shaved his chin clean every morning in accordance with modern habits in the past, which made many ministers shake their heads.

But now, Zhu Youzhen is full of chin and beard, and his eyes are black due to staying up late, and he looks extremely haggard. On the one hand, he was worried about Qi Meifeng, who had undergone a caesarean section, after all, the operation was too simple, and even anesthesia was unsuccessful. He has already lost Chongyao and Zhenyan, and he is really afraid of losing Meifeng again.

However, despite being the emperor, he was still powerless in this matter, so he had to silently beg the heavens so that Meifeng could survive this hurdle!

Fortunately, all the good news came from the palace. The little prince Zhu Cizhao is now taken care of by Empress Rui'er herself, two nursing mothers who have undergone strict physical examinations breastfeed the child, and a large number of palace maids are waiting. Now the little guy is no longer "shedding fat", his mouth is also very strong, and he sleeps contentedly when he is full, very pink and cute, and Rui'er is so happy that he can hardly close his mouth.

And Qi Meifeng, under the careful care of famous doctors such as Bao Yulian, Chen Sicheng, and Zhao Mingde, has already woken up, but her vitality is seriously injured, and she is still bedridden. She also asked someone to bring a message to Zhu Youzhen, saying that she had been practicing martial arts since she was a child, full of qi and blood, and she would definitely recover soon.

But how could Zhu Youzhen not be concerned. In order to set an example for the soldiers and civilians in the city, he couldn't return to the palace now, so he had to order Yan Ling and the others to send him a letter every half an hour, telling him in detail about Qi Meifeng's situation and talking about lovesickness.

On the other hand, the strong pressure of the Qing army's siege also made Zhu Youzhen unable to sleep at all. Although it was his own strategy to stick to the Beijing division and firmly attract the Qing army here, he knew that the war was full of accidental factors, and the strength of the Ming army defending the city was far less than that of the Qing army.

And Huang Taiji was also very cunning, during these three days, he kept the Qing army launching harassing attacks, of course, mainly the Han army flag. Since discovering that digging pits could effectively evade the Ming army's shots, the Qing army approached the city wall one pit after another, and many of the earth pits had advanced to only thirty steps from the city wall. They spend most of their time hiding in dirt pits and only occasionally shoot an arrow at the city.

In order to deal with these "lurkers", the Ming army's birdmen also had to maintain a high degree of vigilance at all times, as long as they saw the Qing soldiers showing their heads, they immediately opened fire. After a few days, although many Qing soldiers were killed, the Ming army was also exhausted.

During this period, Zhou Yang and other generals repeatedly suggested that the city gate be opened suddenly, and a group of infantry rushed out, killing the Qing army by surprise, and besieging and killing these Qing soldiers scattered in the pit one by one. Zhu Youzhen rejected this suggestion, in fact, this method is not impossible, his intention is to conceal his strength and attract the Qing army to continue to attack the city.

Another annoying thing is that there are ministers who keep coming up to him, and even find the city tower and ask him to quickly dispatch all the officials and troops to come to King Qin. Especially the Donglin Party, now even Han Yi and other ministers can't suppress them, one day Zhu Youzhen was actually entangled by several imperial historians for a full hour. Although they give high-sounding reasons, in fact, they are afraid of death in the final analysis. Later, Zhu Youzhen couldn't stand it anymore, so he had to let Zhou Yang forcibly bomb these people down the city.

Of course, in these three days, Zhu Youzhen did not blindly wait passively. He received a letter from Yuan Chonghuan and Lu Xiangsheng and replied, agreeing that Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong Army would move freely and seek opportunities to destroy the enemy.

Of course, Zhu Youzhen knew that in history, Lu Xiangsheng was forced to fight a decisive battle with the main force of the Qing army, and was finally outnumbered and martyred. But now it is different, and the order he gave to Lu Xiangsheng was actually to let him carry out guerrilla warfare. Under the mountainous terrain in the northwest of Beijing, as long as Lu Xiangsheng was not stupid enough to fight hard with the Qing army, he would not repeat the mistakes of history. Therefore, Zhu Youzhen specially told Lu Xiangsheng to "not fight in waves", and to accumulate small victories into big victories, which is the intention.

In addition, there was another factor that greatly boosted Zhu Youzhen's confidence, that is, the batch of artillery imported from Portugal had already completed the necessary inspection and test firing work in the military factory, and could be put into actual combat.

Sun Yuanlong, Wei Zhen and others from the military factory were full of praise for this batch of artillery. They were all connoisseurs, and it was clear at a glance that the Portuguese were much more skilled at casting cannons than they were.

The cannons were all cast in bronze. The Ming Dynasty imitated the Franc machine gun, because China's copper ore is relatively scarce, many of them are cast iron cannons, such as the rapid-fire guns produced by the military factory, all of which are cast iron cannons.

Although iron is much more abundant than copper and is easier to produce on a large scale, the disadvantages are also obvious due to the limitations of the level of smelting and casting. First of all, pig iron, that is, iron with a relatively high carbon content, is relatively brittle, has poor thermal conductivity, and is easy to explode; Although wrought iron has good ductility, it is not hard enough, and it requires a very high furnace temperature to smelt, if the furnace temperature is not reached, the performance will be greatly reduced.

Bronze, on the other hand, is an alloy of copper and tin, which can produce different effects depending on the ratio of copper to tin. The bronze used for this kind of casting cannon, the copper-tin ratio is about eight to one, which has good ductility and is not easy to explode; The melting point is relatively low, making it easier to smelt and cast.

In fact, as early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, ancient China mastered the technology of casting bronze, and cast a large number of bronze sacrificial utensils and weapons, far earlier than Europe. Unfortunately, since the Warring States period began to use iron tools in large quantities, bronze casting technology has stagnated, and some have even been lost. However, Europe is constantly improving, this batch of bronze artillery casting technology is exquisite, the gun chamber is smooth, the gun wall is relatively light and thin, whether in the range, accuracy, or in the longitudinal, mobility, are far superior to the Ming army's existing Hongyi cannon and Franc machine gun.

Of course, the military factory only conducted a small-scale test launch, and the specific effect still needs to be tested in actual combat. Therefore, Zhu Youzhen immediately ordered 12 large-caliber cannons and 50 shipborne cannons to be put in front of Yunshang City, just waiting for the Qing army to come to test the artillery.

In the early morning of the next day, it was not surprising that the Qing army camp outside the Yongding Gate was full of horns, and it seemed that a large-scale attack would soon be launched. In this regard, Zhu Youzhen and other generals such as Jiesheng were really looking forward to it for a long time, so not only were they not nervous, but they talked and laughed with Yuan Keli, the secretary of the military department who was responsible for guarding the southern city.

But soon, Zhu Youzhen couldn't laugh!

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