When the first and second teams led by Cao Yue rushed out of the palace, they found that there were more people outside the palace, and it turned out to be Sun Chuanting, who followed up, and ordered the soldiers on the warship he led to rush into the city to meet Cao Yue. At this time, the men and horses escorting Empress Zhou had already left the palace, and Cao Yue did not explain too much, and immediately ordered all the horses to quickly evacuate the palace.

I didn't see the emperor, but I saw two people who were covered and lifted out of the palace, and some people were puzzled, and asked Emperor Cao Yue where he went.

"The emperor has committed suicide and martyrdom, we have to escort his body back to Nanjing, go quickly!" Cao Yue shouted the order, and immediately jumped on his war horse and quickly headed towards Chaoyangmen. The others didn't dare to ask more, let alone delay, so they all jumped on their horses and galloped away from the palace.

And when Cao Yue led the army to evacuate the palace, the rogues who entered the city from the direction of Chongwenmen were killing from the direction of Zhengyangmen to the palace. The direction of Cao Yue's entry into and out of the palace is Donghua Gate, which is the nearest passage to Chaoyang Gate, and he just staggered with the Liukou who attacked the city.

When they rushed to Chaoyangmen, the men and horses escorting Empress Zhou had already boarded the front warship. After Cao Yue told Sun Chuanting, who came to meet him, he ordered someone to send the bodies of Emperor Chongzhen and Wang Chengen onto the ship, and then ordered the first few warships to leave first.

Cao Yue led the soldiers who responded and stood on the tower of Chaoyang Gate, ready to meet the two teams of family soldiers who went to rescue Zhu Cizhao and Zhu Cijiong and others.

The defenders at the head of the city did not know what the situation was in the city, but they had already seen that the men and horses led by Cao Yue were ready to abandon the city and flee, and the army's morale was suddenly in turmoil. It's just that the generals defending the city were cut down by Cao Yue's men when they were about to make trouble, and the leaderless defenders were suddenly scattered.

At this time, Liu Zongmin's men and horses attacked in this direction again, and the warships anchored in the canal began to fire artillery again. In the process of Cao Yue leading elite men and horses to rush into the imperial city and rescue the royal family. They had launched two waves of attacks, but they were repulsed by the artillery and muskets of the ships anchored in the canal.

The rogues were actually a rabble, most of them were peasants, and not many of them had received rigorous training. Such a man may perform well when the battle is going well, but when he encounters setbacks or encounters a strong enemy, his performance may be very poor.

The power of the artillery, such a long range. Many peasant sergeants had long been frightened and ran back, only hating their parents for not giving them two more legs. The brave men, after rushing to a short distance from the ship, were again fired upon by the Fran cannons, and a little closer, the muskets came again. In other words, when they couldn't fight back with bows and arrows, they were ravaged by Cao Yue's men and horses several times. The immense power of firearms. The huge casualties they suffered as a result directly led to a plummeting in morale, and after paying a heavy price for several charges, they did not dare to attack Chaoyangmen again.

Liu Zongmin knew that his people had encountered hard bones today. He even guessed that this might be the men and horses led by Cao Yue himself, or that the Datong Army came to rescue Beijing. Only the Datong Army has such a strong combat effectiveness, but the Datong Army does not have naval warships, and he guesses that the biggest possibility is Cao Yue, who was sent to Nanjing to train troops. Led the army to rescue Beijing.

This situation was also reported to Li Zicheng in the shortest possible time, and Li Zicheng was also taken aback when he heard it, and hurriedly mobilized more people. Coming in the direction of Chaoyangmen. Li Zicheng not only asked Liu Zongmin to lead his troops to attack Chaoyangmen from the city gate, but also ordered the rest of the troops to attack Chaoyangmen from the direction of the city, wanting to defeat the defenders of Chaoyangmen by attacking from inside and outside.

Li Zicheng judged that the most fierce resistance took place at Chaoyangmen, and the greatest possibility was that Nanjing's naval warships came from the sea to support, and the number would not be very large, otherwise the other gates of Beijing City would not be so without resistance. Even his advisers judged that it was likely that Cao Yue was preparing to pick up Emperor Chongzhen or other members of the royal family, and did not want to rescue Beijing with all his might.

Of course, Li Zicheng didn't want to see such a situation in the direction of Cao Yue's Chaoyangmen, and he couldn't tolerate the rescue of the Ming officers and soldiers who went freely under his nose, so he immediately sent more men and horses to prepare to intercept this naval division on both sides of the canal.

However, Li Zicheng is still a dirt bun in the end, he and his advisers have never seen the power of the new weapons in Nanjing, and the warships equipped with powerful firepower are like a movable fortress, and the number of artillery pieces parked in the canal is more than on the city wall of Beijing. The sergeants on the warship could hide in the cabin and shoot, and even if the peasant army could rush to the vicinity of the warship, without powerful firearms, it was basically helpless against the warship and the sergeants on the warship. Cao Yue was also very clear about this, so he was not afraid of the attack of Liukou's superior forces, without any panic, and was ready to retreat with all his men and horses.

In the midst of the chaos, a group of men and horses rushed quickly, followed not far behind by a group of pursuing cavalry.

Cao Yue saw clearly from the binoculars that it was his own men and horses in front of him, and the chasing ones behind seemed to be rogues, so he immediately ordered the soldiers guarding the city to attack the pursuing enemy and pick up the two squads.

More than 1,000 sergeants of the Jiading troops and the special guard battalion immediately rushed forward from several directions with muskets in hand, and with the fierce bombardment of muskets, a large number of the pursuing rogues were knocked down, and the rest of the troops were frightened and immediately scattered and fled, not daring to pursue again. The more than 1,000 people who responded, escorting the two rescue teams, quickly rushed through the Chaoyang Gate and rushed onto the warship waiting there.

After all the horses rushed out of the Chaoyang Gate, Cao Yue commanded the other horses, left the city wall, and got on the warship in an orderly manner.

After they all got on the warship, the warship moored in the canal, after putting away the springboard, slowly left the dock and headed for Tianjin.

When the ship was at anchor, the artillery again fired several rounds of shells at the rogue formation that had been assembled in the distance. Because of the raised firing angle, the gun fired a little farther than just now. The rogues who originally thought that they were hiding outside the range of the Ming army's artillery were knocked down again, and they were so frightened that they quickly retreated, not daring to pursue at all. By the time they discovered that the situation was wrong and attacked again, the warships of the Ming army had already disappeared on the wharf and river outside Chaoyang Gate.

However, at this time, the defenders of Chaoyangmen had already dispersed, and none of the sergeants on the city saw that Liu Zongmin's army occupied Chaoyangmen without much effort.

But the heavy blow suffered in front made Liu Zongmin, who finally "easily" occupied Chaoyangmen, unable to be happy. (To be continued.) )