Under the city of Gaizhou.

The Chu army was already digging the sixth trench and had also begun to build the third earthen wall. This time, the earthen wall is no longer just chest-high, but full of feet, and this earthen wall is less than fifty steps away from the Gaizhou city wall.

This earthen wall is taller and thicker, and it is more like a levee. Moreover, this embankment is still wavy, not straight, and has many prominent edges and corners. At each corner, there is a higher bastion with cannons on it.

Between the protruding angular forts, there is a road at the head of the wall, on which a female wall is built on the side of Gaizhou, and behind it stands a lot of light infantry musketeers.

The soldiers have been besieging Gaizhou for half a month, and the artillery of the Chu army has also been fighting for half a month, and the sappers have instructed the infantry to dig six trenches outside Gaizhou and build three earthen walls until the encirclement is approaching fifty paces below the city.

At this time, the city wall of Gaizhou was already full of holes, and there were gaps everywhere. Kong Youde's rebels had completely given up on plugging the gap a few days earlier. Earlier, they also tried to put their cannons on the head of the city and fight back against the Chu army. But every time their artillery fired, they would immediately receive ten times more fire, and in the blink of an eye, their artillery company artillery was blown to slag, and after a few times, Kong Youde's few artillery pieces were all gone.

By now, Kong Youde's artillery has been blown up, and the artillerymen are almost dead. The city walls were also blasted out of countless gaps, and they were powerless to stop the Chu army from approaching step by step, and the enemy towers and city towers on the city walls of Gaizhou were all collapsed, and the defenders on the city head could not stand.

"What kind of tactic is this?"

Li Chunjiang, who had just arrived from Beijing, looked at Gaizhou City in surprise and asked Liu Jun in confusion. He has just been appointed as the governor of Liaodong Imperial History, originally the imperial court had Liaodong Patrol, but now Liaodong and Liaoxi are divided into two major towns, so Liaodong also appointed a set of officials such as the governor and the governor and the army.

Li Chunjiang is the champion of the new department, and he has served in the Hanlin Academy for less than half a year. The emperor appointed him to come to Liaodong because he took a fancy to him when he single-handedly established the nine-headed bird, and he had a good relationship with Liu Jun. Although the Liaodong patrol is only seven products, it is a patrol on behalf of the Son of Heaven, and major events are judged and small things are decided. The official is low but powerful. It is one of the officials of the newly established town in Liaodong.

Liu Jun, who was standing beside him, said, "This is called boiling frogs in warm water, step by step, so that the enemy is invulnerable." ”

Li Chunjiang nodded, "Boiling frogs in warm water is really accurate." At first, the water was not hot, and the frog swam in the pot, and when the water slowly warmed up, he couldn't jump even if he wanted to. Kong Youde was so besieged by his brother. There is no other way but to wait for death. ”

Governor Fan Zhiwan felt that Liu Jun was doing too much.

"In fact, under the artillery bombardment, the city wall of Gaizhou has been breached many times, and the rebels are also demoralized. If you had launched a charge to capture the city earlier, Gaizhou City would have gone down earlier, and it would have taken you half a month. ”

"Fan Futai has never heard of the trapped beast fighting? 50,000 rebels is not a small number, especially the rebels under Kong Youde are still very strong, and they are very fierce in battle. If it is only a city wall, it will be charged. Do you know how many lives you have to fill in such a gap battle? Even if the gap is taken. Just because you go into the city doesn't mean you've won the war. In the chaotic fighting in the streets and alleys of the city, our artillery will not be able to support it, because when the melee is together, the artillery fire will easily hurt our own people. ”

Liu Jun shook his head and explained to Li Chunjiang, which can be regarded as explaining to Fan Zhiwan and a group of civil officials and ministers.

"Our army is 30,000. The rebels are 50,000, and our army is still weak in numbers, and in this kind of city attack and defense battle, we are actually in a disadvantageous situation. If there is chaos in the streets of the city, our artillery will not only be useless. And the firebolt we rely on the most has been greatly diminished. ”

Street battles in the city are very unsuitable for musket formations to line up to shoot, and flintlock smoothbore guns, which always have accuracy problems, are difficult to fight against those cold-armed soldiers if they are not large-scale.

It is precisely because of these reasons that Liu Jun never planned to use the traditional siege method from the beginning.

The rebels are stubborn and fierce in battle, and will not collapse and surrender as soon as the city is broken. And Liu Jun never thought of filling it with his life in exchange for this victory.

"Of course, there will be these troubles, but the soldiers can still win in one fell swoop." Fan Zhiwan insisted.

"But Futai knows that if you follow the tactics you said, although you can take this city and win, how many people will die? Three and five thousand or ten thousand? Liu Jun asked rhetorically.

Fan Zhiwan said disapprerovingly, "The battle array is always inevitably casualties, and Ci is not in charge of the army." ”

Liu Jun let out a cold snort from his nostrils, "The battle formation is indeed inevitable to suffer casualties, and the soldiers under my command are indeed not afraid of death." But that doesn't mean I can ignore the casualties and squander the lives of the soldiers at will. As the commander of the first army, the soldiers entrusted their lives to me, and I have a heavy responsibility for the lives of each and every one of them. When it's time to go, none of our nine-headed birds will be afraid of death, and when it's time to rush, they will definitely rush. But if it weren't necessary, then we wouldn't be reckless to send us to death. ”

Fan Zhiwan didn't expect Liu Jun to contradict him so much, and he was unhappy.

Liu Jun didn't pay attention to Fan Zhiwan's feelings, he led the troops and attached great importance to the lives of the soldiers. Soldiers are the most precious, and unless they have to, they can't fight this kind of life-filling tactic, at least they can't take the initiative to fight this kind of battle. The battle of Gaizhou, as Fan Zhiwan said, has artillery to blast open the wall of Gaizhou, which is indeed a rare progress compared to the traditional siege war.

Under normal circumstances, in the face of heavily guarded cities, siege battles are quite tragic. You have to cut down the wooden stakes outside the city, fill in the ditches, and then climb the city with ants, and every step will cause countless casualties. Now that the Chu army has such a sharp cannon, it can directly blast through the city wall, which has already reduced many casualties.

But for Liu Jun, this is not enough.

The city wall is broken, and the immediate attack will still cause heavy casualties, the gap will be contested, and the streets and alleys will be chaotic, and these will make many important advantages of the Chu army lost, the artillery will be useless, and the fire gun will also be greatly reduced in the street battle, and that kind of chaotic battle will take the lives of countless Chu army soldiers.

And Liu Jun believes that it does not have to be this way.

He would rather let the soldiers sweat more, dig trenches, build walls and forts, and advance step by step, preferring to spend more ammunition. In this way, he had to push under the city wall, take the city wall, and always maintain a defensive attack to minimize casualties.

Liu Jun's tactics are difficult for Fan Zhiwan and other civilian officials to accept, and even Fu Zonglong, a former military secretary who has fought many battles, although he doesn't say it, he also feels that Liu Jun cares too much about the casualties of the soldiers.

In the hearts of many Ming officials, soldiers are actually the least valuable. It is normal to die hundreds or thousands in a battle, and it is normal to die in a big battle like attacking 50,000 rebels in Gaizhou City.

"The siege has been 15 days, the wall of Gaizhou has been riddled with holes, the city towers and enemy towers have been destroyed, our firecrackers can directly attack the city, and the rebels on the city can no longer gain a foothold. Today, we will be able to capture the walls of Gaizhou. Liu Jun announced to Li Chunjiang and the rest of the officials.

Another round of shelling began, this time, mainly mortars, howitzers and howitzers, and shells burst over the city, and more shells exploded over the walls and behind the city.

The counterattack on the head of the city was very weak, Kong Youde knew that the city wall could not be defended, and he didn't want to defend it, so he seized the time these days and rushed to repair an inner city wall in the center of the city, ready to resist stubbornly to the end.

After half an hour of artillery bombardment, under the cover of the fire of the musketeers at the head of the city, the heavy infantry with iron armor and cotton armor and shields, waist knives and spears began to advance towards Gaizhou City in a neat formation, and behind them were groups of musketeers.

Liu Jun and the others stood behind and stared at them, their eyes moving forward with their footsteps.

The Gaizhou city wall, which was already full of gaps, was like a big sieve, and the heavy infantry of the Chu army didn't need any tools, so they directly stepped on the collapsed broken masonry ramp and went all the way.

The red flag fluttered, and under the guidance of the flag, a group of infantry in the eastern city took the lead in crossing a gap in the city wall and entering the city.

"There are no enemies!"

The soldiers who stood on the lookout quickly shouted the latest battle situation, and the group of soldiers successfully entered the city, followed by the second team and then the third team.

"Kong Youde didn't desperately intercept it?"

Fan Zhiwan said with some surprise.

Liu Jun smiled, "Here in this city wall, the rebels have thrown down at least thousands of corpses in the past half a month, and they know very well that they can't hold this rotten city wall full of holes at all." ”

"But if they don't defend this wall, where will they retreat, and where can they retreat?"

"If you don't die in the heart of the Yellow River, if you don't hit the south wall and don't look back, the rebels may still be waiting for Huang Jitai to send troops to rescue."

On the fifteenth day of the siege, the Chu army finally captured the city wall of Gaizhou, and in the process, there were only scattered skirmishes, all of which were quickly repelled by the Chu army.

Kong Youde voluntarily abandoned the sieve-like city wall and retreated his soldiers and horses to the center of the city, where he hurriedly built several new walls and temporarily built an inner fortress, trying to resist to the end.

"Move the cannon to the four walls and bomb the damn man from above." Liu Jun stood on the tower of the city gate, looked at the rebel fortress in the center of the city, and said unceremoniously.

"Stubborn resistance, I still want to linger, daydreaming!"

One cannon after another began to be transported to the city and hoisted to the city, and the Chu soldiers began to strengthen the defenses of the four city walls, further compressing the space of the rebels.

"Dashuai, the rebels have raised the white flag, they are going to send someone to meet Dashuai!"

Liu Jun also saw the waving white flag rising in the rebel fortress.

"Let them come."

Liu Jun personally met with the envoy of the rebels, who was Kong Youde's general, and brought letters from Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and others.

"We are willing to make peace."

"No, I only accept unconditional surrender!" Liu Jun didn't give them any room for bargaining, and directly gave his own conditions, only accepting surrender, or surrendering unconditionally, and not negotiating peacefully. (To be continued.) )

PS: Thank you to the city lord of Baiyun and the scale of all things for your support!