To advance or to retreat, to fight or to retreat, this is a question.

After converging Wang Pu's fleet, Yang Chao's subordinates were divided into two groups, Wang Pu hoped to enter the army directly, and many men lamented that the fighter plane had been lost, and now even if he turned back, the Qing army had stabilized in Yangzhou for a day, and the road was consuming a day, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty must have stabilized Yangzhou, strengthened the city defense, rectified the soldiers and horses, and fought more with less, I am afraid that there is no chance of victory.

But many men also said that he also wanted to fight, and he had to avenge his brothers who followed him, and those brothers died in front of him one by one, and if he did not avenge this revenge, he swore that he would not start a family in this life.

Yang Chao was silent and asked his subordinates to discuss it first.

Yang Chao didn't waste time, in the cabin, looking at the letters one by one, and there was a woman in front of him.

How can there be women in the army?

This woman is from Nanjing, she is Ge Nenniang, a girl from Jinchai Tower, and she is here to deliver a letter.

There are several letters, including letters from Dong Xiaowan's parents, sister and newlywed wife.

The siege of Yangzhou by the Manchus began on the 18th, and today it is already the 25th, and the news has already reached Nanjing.

The parents naturally knew that their son had gone to Yangzhou, and the news after the war was extremely unreliable, like Haizhou, it was rumored that hundreds of thousands of captives were besieging the city, so it was no wonder that the parents were not worried.

Especially her mother, she is used to discussing with Dong Xiaowan when she has no idea, so she didn't care about the identity of the princess and took Dong Xiaowan to her home.

The princess didn't even care, but asked with the same concern.

Dong Xiaowan was also a master of the six gods at this time, and finally said that he would write a letter to Yang Chao to come back as soon as possible, and it would be good to save himself no matter what.

Dong Xiaowan also asked Chen Yuanyuan to go to Jinchai Tower to inquire about the news, so Chen Yuanyuan and the others also knew Dong Xiaowan's thoughts.

In the end, many people wrote letters to Yang Chao and sent them to the Xinjiang Estuary Water Camp, and they were very uneasy, so they asked Ge Nenniang, who was strong in martial arts, to take it personally, and it must be handed over to Yang Chao, and even entrusted Ge Nenniang to bring Yang Chao back safely no matter what.

After reading the letter home. The family was concerned, and his mother even asked Yang Chao to leave Yangzhou alone and find a way to escape, it's a big deal that we are not officials. It's good to buy some honest local lords, it's too scary to fight all day long.

After recovering from the great sacrifice spirit after being crowned Mrs. Chongzhen, the mother is still a mother who only knows how to care about her son.

After reading these letters, Yang Chao was also emotional, how many such mothers are there on the land of China. One mind only knows to care for one's own children, and as for sacrifice and dedication, those can only take a back seat, or do it for others.

My father expressed some of his opinions, saying that Jiangbei has no danger to defend, and he should retreat to Jiangnan to protect half of the country. Obviously, he learned it by his tongue, and even the specific scope of Jiangnan and Jiangbei, this old blacksmith can't tell clearly.

My sister asked Yang Chao to come back quickly, saying that Nanjing was too chaotic, and I had heard all day that there was chaos there, it was too scary, and that Yang Chao would be fine when he came back.

As for the princess, she said that Yang Chao had been loyal to the country, and he should not do anything with his whole body, and he must not take risks.

Dong Xiaowan didn't say anything, but Yang Chao learned from the words of others. They all saw Dong Xiaowan's thoughts, and obviously what those people said, I am afraid that Dong Xiaowan meant it, that is, he brewed Yangzhou. Let's just live our own lives.

There are also letters from Chen Yuanyuan, Li Xiangjun and others, as well as letters of repentance.

Kang Cheng expressed his worries and hoped that Yang Chao would return safely.

Chen Yuanyuan is also persuading Yang Chao.

But Li Xiangjun didn't say much, only said: If you lose, the concubine will not live alone!

and Gu Mei's letters were also swept one by one, and Gu Mei's letters were still somewhat interesting. She didn't mention the matter of letting Yang Chao retreat, but mentioned the old things that Yang Chao owed her, and asked Yang Chao to swear not to repay her debts.

The subordinates discussed fiercely, and Zhan He's opinions were different, waiting for Yang Chao to make a decision.

After Yang Chao came forward, he only said that everyone would rest all night and start at dawn tomorrow.

At dawn the next day, Yang Chao began to check.

This is Wang Pu's vanguard troops, all of them are the elite brought out by Wang Pu, all of them are spearmen, and Li Wuliu's long-range troops were left by Wang Pu to set off last, and they have some personal vendetta in the communiqué, and they seize the opportunity to grab merit in their own hands.

Because it was the vanguard, the number was only 10,000.

There are not many boats, only more than 100 ships, all of which are suitable for running the Yangtze River, these brigs can go all the way to Yangzhou, the sails of Yangzhou are unreliable, they need to pull the fiber, and the locks of Huai'an can not go at all, so most of the boats running in the canal are small boats, at most there is a sail, and more are sailless shallow boats.

Among the more than 100 ships, except for more than 50 to pull people, the rest of the ships were loaded with supplies, and to Yang Chao's disappointment, there were no cannons, and the cannons were on the boats behind, acting with the artillery.

Among the gunpowder weapons, the only one is only a few thousand enemies, which is a flat cast iron canister with gunpowder in it, but it cannot be regarded as a pure gunpowder weapon, because the principle of killing the enemy is that there is poison, anesthetic, and even chili pepper, and the gunpowder explosion spreads these powder out, which is a torment for the enemy, which is a kind of biological weapon.

But Yang Chao doesn't agree with these things, Qi Jiguang doesn't agree with this poison weapon, Qi Dashuai said that this kind of weapon, although it can poison people, but the reaction is too slow, even if the enemy is poisoned, but he can still defeat himself on the battlefield.

Yang Chao did not believe that there was a poisonous gas that could kill people on the spot in the Ming Dynasty, and the most common thing in these 10,000 enemies was some iron slag and other things that had been boiled in dung, and the so-called killing of the enemy was just relying on the microorganisms in the dung water, which was the same as the horse dung soaked arrows used by the Mongolian and Manchu people, which was not enough to kill people on the spot.

And Yang Chao even suspects that he can't kill people afterwards, microorganisms can't exist for a long time, and the Ming army's weapons are stored for a long time, I'm afraid that the microorganisms will die early, at most, chili powder and other things may make the enemy uncomfortable, but when the wind direction changes, I'm afraid it will be self-inflicted.

However, the group of 10,000 enemies on the ship was different from the ordinary 10,000 enemies of the Ming army, because there was no powder and pepper in it, but pure granule gunpowder, mixed with an inch long, sharp diamond-shaped arrows on both sides, once exploded, these arrows scattered in all directions. The killing effect is good.

To put it bluntly, this is just a black powder version of a grenade.

But it was still too far from the cannon, although each grenade was made like a small watermelon, weighing five or six pounds. However, the power of the explosion was only lethal within three zhang, and outside the three zhang, the fragments and diamond-shaped iron arrows produced by the explosion could not pierce the iron armor and cotton armor of the Qing army.

As for making it bigger, it loses the meaning of the grenade, because people can't throw it at all.

In fact, the West has similar weapons. So Westerners have formed a kind of army called grenadiers, and the grenadiers are often the strongest and the strongest people in the arm, and they are often the elite of the army.

The reason for the production of this weapon was that after Haizhou, Yang Chao found that the blasting was very effective, so he had this idea, and at first it was used as a blasting tool, hoping to use these things to blow up the wooden door and other things, but found that the city gate could not be blown open at all. It could only deal with small doors like private houses, and there were several of them, so after a little production at first, it was discontinued.

However, this time through the battle against Zuo Liangyu's army, Wang Pu felt that this thing was very useful, he formed an array to start the battle, and after throwing a row of grenades in front of him, the other party was immediately in chaos, and it was a victory to kill while he was in chaos.

So when he went back this time, he brought all the remaining thousand grenades from the Shuiying warehouse.

The reinforcements consisted of only 10,000 vanguards. And without artillery, to attack a fortified city like Yangzhou, as long as he is a sane person, he probably won't feel hopeful.

Yang Chao thought so. That's why he let the soldiers rest for the night, in fact, today he plans to return to the army.

But early in the morning, Wang Pu asked for battle.

"Everyone else agreed?"

Yesterday, Wang Pu was asked to discuss with others, but in the end there was no consensus.

Wang Pu shook his head: "They all said that they would definitely not be able to beat it." ”

Yang Chao said: "Then you still want to fight?" ”

Wang Pu sighed: "I'm just unwilling, it's all here, and I can get there in half a day." But if you don't fight, you won't be convinced! ”

Yang Chao sighed: "Everyone can imagine that even if they go to fight, there is no result, so they can only make senseless sacrifices in vain." ”

The sacrifice is enough, he has paid more than 300 elites, more soldiers died in Yangzhou City, the rest of Gao Jie was killed at least tens of thousands of people, and the other defenders estimated that the casualties were greater, of course, compared to civilians, it was nothing, slaughtering the city! The whole city is destroyed!

Thinking that the Manchu Qing Dynasty was slaughtering the city at this time, Yang Chao hated the same idea as Wang Pu, so he simply rushed up and beat it, it was really unwilling not to fight.

But as the coach, Yang Chao's first consideration is naturally victory or defeat, and the second consideration is, of course, the lives of soldiers.

"Everyone thinks that they can't win, but it's not necessarily, how do you know if you can't win if you don't fight!"

Wang Pu obviously felt that it was pointless to attack the city, but he still muttered twice unconvinced.

Yang Chao shook his head and smiled, but suddenly his smile froze.

That's right, everyone thinks that they can't win, and it's pointless to go up and fight, and the Manchus must think the same way.

Then attacking at this time, attacking under a situation that no one could have imagined, wouldn't it be unpreparedness to attack it by surprise!

But another voice came out in my heart again: Don't take risks easily, the reason why you think so is because your heart is blinded by hatred, and you want to fight the Manchu Qing in your heart, but now is really not the time, the Lord does not raise troops because of anger!

Another voice said: Try it, how do you know if you can't win if you don't try, maybe the enemy is defenseless, and the attack can get miraculous results.

"My lord, if I didn't lead the troops to the test, my lord, you would sit in the back, if there was a advantage, we would fight, if the enemy army was heavily guarded, it would be a big deal for us to withdraw. We have an army of 10,000, afraid that the enemy will not be able to pursue us? ”

What Wang Pu said made Yang Chao's heart move, but he was really afraid of the enemy's pursuit, the Qing army had many cavalry and troops, and if he was entangled by their cavalry, he was afraid that he would not be able to get out.

Thinking of this, Yang Chao wanted to give up even more.

"Is this cowardice!"

Suddenly, he was vigilant, he seemed to have always been afraid of the Manchu cavalry, even if Haizhou fought such a big victory, but from beginning to end he tried to avoid a decisive battle with the Manchu cavalry, when Wang Pu rashly marched into the army, charging the cavalry with infantry, Yang Chao even had the intention of punishing him.

Infantry naturally does not have an advantage over cavalry field warfare, but this is not a reason to fight with cavalry, the disadvantage is not a reason to avoid war, as an agricultural civilization, you can never bridge the gap in mobility with the nomadic civilization, but can you use this as an excuse not to fight with the opponent.

If you don't fight in the field today, you won't fight in the field tomorrow, so how to forge ahead.

Don't you dare to fight in the field, do you dare to attack the opponent's city?

Thinking of this, Yang Chao knew that he had to fight this battle, and there must be many officers and soldiers who thought like this, if they couldn't erase the fear of cavalry in their hearts, they would still not be a mature army.

So Yang Chao nodded lightly, but if you want to fight, you can't simply hit a dozen as Wang Pu said.

If you want to fight, you must really fight, opportunism is unacceptable, the regular army is not a guerrilla force, and it is impossible to recover the country with a single shot to change places.

So he said to Wang Pu: "It's okay, then fight!" If you want to fight, you have to be resolute, you go and inform the soldiers, tell everyone that you must have the determination to fight to the death, once you start to attack the city, it will be a hard battle! Let everyone be ready to sacrifice, this siege, anyone can die! ”

Yang Chao couldn't help but think that although the Qing army drove the troops to attack the city at the beginning last night, the will to fight was very strong.

Later, Yang Chao caught the captives and asked, only to know that the Manchu Qing Dynasty had given an order to fight to the death, and those who dared to retreat would be beheaded, and the soldiers who died in their hands were no less than those who died in the hands of Yang Chao.

Of course, the casualties are indeed very large, and when forcibly occupying a critical place such as a gap, it is really impossible to spare the casualties, and at that time, we must be prepared to exchange human lives for advantages, and it is not okay to be hard-hearted.

Therefore, since he was going to fight, Yang Chao had to be prepared for a large number of casualties among his men, and even prepared to sacrifice two-thirds and then attack the city.

Then the 10,000 people are a little insufficient, so let Wang Pu go down to convey his thoughts, Yang Chao waited for another day, but not a single ship waited, the news from Guazhou is that many ships are temporarily docked by the river wind to avoid the wind, none of them can not reach Guazhou for two or three days, only one ship arrived in the wind, but the ship was seriously damaged.

This is really God's help, this kind of news made many soldiers start to mumble, saying what is the mandate of heaven.

In this army, most of them are refugees, and the battle formation they experienced is actually the battle against Zuo Liangyu, the real veterans, that is, many soldiers led by men, as well as their own personal soldiers, but this time they lost three hundred, and the losses were heavy.

Hearing the soldier's mentality, Yang Chao not only did not plan to retreat, but became more determined to attack the city.

The soldiers must be let know that in front of the army, no destiny can be used!

Only courage is the key to victory or defeat!

So overnight, Yang Chao ordered the camp to be pulled out and marched towards Yangzhou at night. (To be continued.) )