By three o'clock in the afternoon, the Second Brigade of the Fourth Division of the National Defense Force had already besieged Cangzhou City.

Although Cangzhou City had been completely surrounded, Luo Jian did not order his troops to attack immediately, but asked one of the captives to send a letter of persuasion to Tan Tai in Cangzhou City.

The letter of persuasion was written by a Xiucai staff officer of the General Staff, which roughly means that now the Qing soldiers in Cangzhou City are completely surrounded, and now surrender is their only way out, and the Wehrmacht gives priority to prisoners, even if it is Tan Tai himself, the Wehrmacht will treat him in accordance with the Wehrmacht's prisoner policy, and will not kill him.

There are two versions of the letter of persuasion, one is addressed to Tan Tai, and the other is addressed to the soldiers in Cangzhou City.

Luo Jian also read the letter of persuasion written to Tan Tai, and it seemed to be brilliant, anyway, when the staff officer read it to Luo Jian, he read it in a low tone, which was very good, but Luo Jian didn't understand it too much.

The letter of persuasion written to the soldiers was dictated by Qin Huzi, just a few sentences, but anyone who can understand Chinese can basically understand the meaning.

"Brothers soldiers of the Han army, Cangzhou City has been surrounded, you surrender, as long as you surrender, not only will you not be killed, but you will also be able to eat well." That's it for a few words anyway.

The city wall to the south of Cangzhou was pulled up by the Qing soldiers in the city with baskets, and all the gates of Cangzhou had been blocked by sandbags.

What Tan Tai didn't know was that in addition to the captives who were hung on the city wall at the south gate, there were also many people on the city wall in several other directions.

The 100,000 Qing soldiers outside the city were all killed by the Wehrmacht in one morning, which was not unexpected by Tan Tai, and he knew that the real soldiers of the troops outside the city were only 30,000 or 40,000. The others are auxiliaries. And the morale of the army is completely gone. In the face of the strong Wehrmacht, it was not bad to hold out for a morning.

When the pro-soldiers brought the captives on the city wall to Tan Tai on the tower of the South Gate, Tan Tai took the letter of persuasion from the pro-soldiers, and looked at it but couldn't understand it.

"Go and find the Hou Governor's Mansion!" Tan Tai said to his own soldiers.

The pro-soldier agreed, and the pro-soldier who was watching the captive next to him glanced at Tan Tai, not knowing what to do with the captive who sent the letter, Tan Tai waved his hand and let the pro-soldier take the prisoner down.

The soldiers saw that Tan Tai had no intention of killing the captive, and took the prisoner who delivered the letter down to the castle tower and took him into custody.

Actually, at this time. Tan Tai is already like ashes, he doesn't want to surrender to the Wehrmacht, he is used to being the master, now let him be a slave, it is better to die, anyway, what he should have enjoyed in the past few years, he has already enjoyed it, this is Tan Tai's true thoughts in his heart.

The rest of Cangzhou City is almost all the Han army, and the real Manchus are probably less than a hundred people, including themselves, and the eight thousand Manchu cavalry in the city have already asked him to send them to Qingxian to collect grain. In fact, before these cavalry set off, Tan Tai had already called the cavalry commander to his side. Quietly told him that he should lead these cavalry and never return to Cangzhou.

After a while, Tan Tai asked the soldiers who went to find Hou Fangyu to come back, but there was no Hou Fangyu by his side, obviously he failed to find Hou Fangyu.

Glancing at a pro-soldier who came back alone, knowing that he hadn't found Hou Fangyu, without waiting for the pro-soldier to speak, Tan Tai, who was sitting on the chair, waved his hand and let the pro-soldier retreat.

On the entire South Gate Tower, only Tan Tai and the captain of the personal soldiers who were sitting on the chair and watching from a distance were left, Tan Tai stood up, knelt down towards the north, and muttered in his mouth: "Your Majesty, if Tan Tai is unwilling to fight to the death, it is useless to fight, but I am afraid that I will anger the Wehrmacht and bring the disaster of extermination to my people!" After saying that, he kowtowed a few more times, and then stood up.

Tan Tai pulled out the waist knife hanging beside him, carefully wiped it with his sleeve, and when the captain of the pro-soldier saw it, he hurriedly rushed over, "Master, it's not like this!" The captain of the pro-soldier knelt in front of Tan Tai.

Tan Tai glanced at the captain of the personal soldiers, thought for a while, and then said: "You get up, when I die, you will come down with them, you can't wait for ordinary soldiers, I think the governor will not embarrass you, if you have the opportunity to escape in the future, report to the emperor and the regent on my behalf, please take my people back to the customs as soon as possible, so that there may be a glimmer of life, just say that this is my Tan Tai's dying words, I hope the emperor and the regent will think twice." ”

The captain of the pro-soldier wanted to say more, Tan Tai's face sank, and he roared in a low voice: "Don't you retreat?!" ”

The captain of the pro-soldier hesitated for a moment, but slowly retreated.

After a while, seeing that there was no movement on the city tower, the captain of the pro-soldiers led a few pro-soldiers to run up to the city tower to take a look, and saw that Tan Tai was already lying next to the chair, and the waist knife was also thrown aside.

"Master..."Several pro-soldiers stepped forward to help Tan Tai, but found that he had been dead for a long time.

Ma Yingkui, the commander of the 10th Division who served as the main attack on the South Gate, was still ordering the 10th Division to make preparations before the siege, and this time the logistics department sent a lot of ZHA medicine, and there was no problem at all with these ZHA drugs to blow up the city wall, but the artillery was not completely in place, and before the siege, the artillery on the city wall must be cleared.

Although the number of artillery on Cangzhou City is not large, this thing has great lethality, especially the artillery equipped with shotguns, which has a great killing range for the infantry, and Luo Jian does not want to consume the lives of soldiers to save shells, so artillery preparation before the siege is essential.

"Report to the division commander..."A soldier hurriedly found Ma Yingkui to report, Ma Yingkui saw his panicked appearance, and scolded a little angrily: "What are you panicking about? Is the sky falling? ”

"Division commander, the sky has not fallen, but the gate of Cangzhou has opened." The soldier was not afraid of Ma Yingkui's anger, and saluted before speaking.

"What did you kid say?" Ma Yingkui quickly ran to the front of Cangzhou City, and saw that the south gate of Cangzhou had really been opened, and a team of Qing soldiers were coming out of it, but the Qing soldiers didn't take anything in their hands.

"Tan Tai is going to fall, damn, I'm ready for everything here, but he has descended!" Ma Yingkui said hatefully, he had fought with Tan Tai before going to Yangzhou, and he had suffered a lot of losses in his hands, and he had long wanted to clean him up, but with the policy of the National Defense Army, as long as he surrendered, he would never have a chance to kill Tan Tai again.

However, Ma Yingkui soon learned the news that Tan Tai was dead, "Damn, it's cheap!" ”

Luo Jian didn't expect Cangzhou City to surrender, let alone Tan Tai to commit suicide, but without siege battles, there were no new casualties among the troops, and Luo Jian was very happy.

"Chief of Staff, let's go, let's go into the city!" After greeting Yi Bangcai, Luo Jian entered the city with the guards and the general staff.

At this time, all the city gates have been opened, and more than 50,000 Qing soldiers came out of the city gate and were placed outside Cangzhou City, but the national defense army did not prepare a prisoner camp for these Qing soldiers.

Tan Tai's body was also collected, Luo Jian felt that Tan Tai would not surrender if he died, and ordered the defenders to surrender before he died, unwilling to kill again, so he ordered someone to use a coffin to collect Tan Tai's body, and let people choose a place outside the city to bury it.

With the withdrawal of all the Qing soldiers from Cangzhou City, the crowded Cangzhou City suddenly became empty.

Luo Jian ordered the Seventh Division to send more than 1,000 people to patrol the streets of Cangzhou to maintain order in Cangzhou City. None of the other units of the Wehrmacht entered Cangzhou City again, and they were still camped outside the city.

Luo Jian and Yi Bang did not live in the Cangzhou Mansion, but chose a clean courtyard to settle down, and a group of staff officers continued to be busy overnight, and the materials seized in the city also needed to be recounted.

When Yi Bang came to Luo Jian with the statistical list, Luo Jian knew why Tan Tai chose to commit suicide and surrender.

There are only three days of food and grass in the city, which is still arranged according to the habit of two meals a day for the Qing soldiers, so it seems that although Cangzhou City has not run out of ammunition, it is already out of food, and Tan Tai has no other choice but to surrender.

Seeing the list in Yi Bangcai's hand, Luo Jian ordered Yi Bangcai to quickly transfer grain from outside the city into the city overnight, and when everything was arranged, it was already twelve o'clock in the evening, Luo Jian hastily washed his face and fell asleep.

Luo Jian was woken up by the noise outside the small courtyard, and looked at his watch, it was only past five o'clock in the morning.

When he woke up, he couldn't sleep anymore, Luo Jian simply got dressed and got up, and after washing, he went outside the small courtyard accompanied by the lock post and a few guards.

When he arrived outside the small courtyard, he found that the noise just now was the people of Cangzhou City receiving food, looking at the people of Cangzhou who were in tattered clothes and yellow muscles, Luo Jian felt that laying the country was the first step, and the next resumption of production and construction was the top priority.

I turned around several streets in Cangzhou City, and the scenes I saw were basically the same, all the shops on the streets were closed, and none of them were open.

Today's arrangement is to continue to hold a combat meeting to arrange the deployment of the next step of the marching plan, Luo Jian ate a bowl of millet porridge in the small courtyard, gnawed two steamed buns, and was about to go out, there was a noise outside the small courtyard.

"Lock the pillars, go see what's going on?" Luo Jian beckoned to the lock pillar.

The lock pillar was about to go out, and Yi Bang hurriedly walked in from outside the door, "No need to go, I know what's going on." Yi Bang said to the lock post.

"Metropolitan Governor, it's Hou Fangyu, this kid, he was pulled out of the city by the Seventh Division last night, he was clamoring to see you at that time, Wang Qiang didn't let him, he started to make trouble again this morning, Wang Qiang couldn't do it, so people brought him to you. Governor, look? Yi Bangcai explained to Luo Jian.

"Hou Fangyu was caught? If you don't mention it, I'll forget about him. Luo Jian said with a smile.

"Grand Duke, can't you see him?" Yi Bang asked.

"How can I have time to see him now, how did you deal with the Manchu officials you caught in the past, and how did you deal with him, you can't treat him differently because he once did something by my side." Luo Jian explained to Yi Bangcai.

"Okay, I see." Yi Bang answered and walked out again, and after a while, Hou Fangyu's scream came from outside the small courtyard, "Governor, I was wrong!" Governor, please see me! The voice faded away until it was completely inaudible.

Hearing Hou Fangyu's scream, Luo Jian shook his head, "I knew now, why bother in the first place?" ”

Ignoring Hou Fangyu, Luo Jian held a combat deployment meeting in the command tent outside Cangzhou City in the morning, and the next step will be to launch a direct attack on Beijing, and the next battle will not be as easy as the Battle of Cangzhou, it must be well arranged. (To be continued.) )