Xiangcheng, the name of Xiangcheng in the Spring and Autumn Period, because King Xiang of Zhou once took refuge in this place, and later when King Chu Ling built a new city in the northwest of Xiangzhi, it was named Xiangcheng.

Geographically, it is the head of the Funiu Mountains in the east and the eastern edge of the Huanghuai Plain in the west. The southwest of the county border is a rolling shallow mountainous area, and the terrain of the county is high in the west and low in the east.

This is a very ordinary small county in Henan, a small agricultural town.

The intelligence officers of the Chu army have already made the bottom of Xiangcheng clear, Zhang Shan is not underestimating the enemy or arrogant, he is confident, after mastering detailed information, the kind of confidence in controlling the situation.

There are more than 3,000 bandits in the city, and there are only 1,000 warriors who can barely be called, and about 500 strong families. Although there are some preparations in the city, such as wooden ramming poles on the head of the city, their defense cannot even reach the level of the most ordinary officers and soldiers.

The weakest point of Xiangcheng's defense is that although there are more than two zhang of city walls, there are no cannons on the head of the city, and there is no urn city. The bandits didn't have a single general cannon, let alone a Hongyi cannon.

"The bandits only have a few tiger squats, and I sold them for a hundred taels of silver each." Chen Guanyu reports.

However, the tiger squatting in the Chu army has long been completely eliminated, and it is not a cannon at all. The Chu army's weakest firepower of the four-pound mountain grenade was also far superior to these old-style tiger squats countless times.

The staff officers of the General Staff Office quickly deduced several times and soon came up with several operational plans, and Zhang Shan and his subordinate officers discussed the operational plan, made several revisions, and finally selected the simplest plan.

Directly concentrate cavalry artillery to bombard the south gate, the cavalry infantry is ready to attack the city at any time after the city is broken, and the light cavalry is responsible for surrounding the rest of the gates, preventing the thieves from escaping, and making some attacks on the city head.

Outside the south gate, the cavalry guns and mountain grenades brought by the army were concentrated, and the gunners quickly set up artillery positions and prepared under the command of the artillery staff officers and non-commissioned officers in an orderly manner according to the artillery drills.

The mounted infantry had already dismounted, and their horses were in the rear. They lined up in columns. This formation is quite weaker in firepower than horizontal formation, but it is easier to maintain the formation, especially suitable for charging, and it is not easy to spread out in formation. However, this column also has some disadvantages compared with horizontal columns, that is, the firepower is slightly weaker, and it is most afraid of enemy artillery.

A horizontal column, hit by a solid shell, casualties at most one or two people. But when a column is hit by a solid shell, sometimes a column can be destroyed.

There is no artillery to deal with such a city as Xiangcheng. In a small county town where there are no fortifications such as urn cities, moats, and sheep and horse walls, the Chu army does have a feeling of killing chickens with a knife.

One by one, the artillery trucks were pushed to the positions demarcated by the artillery staff.

Because they clearly knew that there was a lack of long-range weapons at the head of the city, the artillerymen confidently pushed the artillery directly to a distance of 200 paces below the city, and after reaching this distance, the slightly weakened range and firepower of the cavalry artillery and mountain grenades were also compensated.

With a roar, more than a dozen cavalry cannons and mountain grenades roared one after another, blasting shells into the city wall. Solid iron bullets smashed against the city walls, and the rammed earth walls immediately peeled off large chunks of earth.

Cavalry guns fire solid iron bullets. Bombarded the walls. The mountain grenades began to change to shrapnel shells, and one after another the shrapnel was reduced and fired, and they flew over the south gate city and burst in the air. The thieves at the head of the city immediately cried and called their mother.

Although standing at the head of the South Gate City were the family members led by Wang Jie himself, many of them were his old subordinates when he was in Qianhu. But even at the beginning, they were just a group of peasant soldiers. He has ever seen such an elite and such a new method of warfare as the Chu army.

The rammed walls of loess were not strong, and after withstanding a fierce bombardment from the Chu artillery. Finally collapsed with a bang. The smoke dispersed, and a large gap appeared.

"Don't stop, go on, and make the mouth wider." Zhang Shan put down the clairvoyant mirror and turned his head to the herald and said, "Inform the infantry, let them get ready, it's time for them to attack soon." ”

After receiving the order, the artillerymen continued to open fire, and these artillerymen were trained in live ammunition for a long time, and under the guidance of experienced instructors and artillery staff officers and non-commissioned officers, they were able to fire an artillery shell in an average of two minutes.

In particular, this kind of bombardment at a distance of 200 paces has greatly improved the accuracy of the originally low level.

Half an hour later, a large opening forty or fifty steps wide had appeared in the wall of the south gate.

When the whistle sounded, the artillerymen covered in whistle smoke finally stopped, and everyone gasped for breath, their faces were covered with black soot, and white air was still rising above their heads.

The trumpet of the charge has sounded.

The mounted infantrymen, who had been waiting a little impatiently, came to their senses, and under the leadership of their respective superiors, they lined up in a column and began to trot towards the gap.

Wang Jie lay behind a pile of masonry and earth slag on the city wall, and finally waited for the cannons to stop.

"General, the officers and soldiers are gone, they sent people to rush up." A bandit with blood on his forehead came running to report loudly.

Wang Jie shook the soil on his body, clenched the big knife on his body, and shouted at the back, "Brothers, follow me and plug the gap." ”

A group of bandits shouted and rushed forward.

In the distance, the infantry had already rushed dozens of paces away.

"Didi!"

The trotting Chu infantry stopped, they sorted out the formation as fast as they could, and as the whistle sounded again, they pulled the trigger one after another, and rows of lead shot out.

Although the flintlock musket is much more advanced than the arquebus, it still has many disadvantages, first of all, it cannot be fired continuously, and secondly, the reloading time is not short, and accuracy is always a big problem.

Therefore, the infantry combat of the Chu army finally formed a concentrated infantry use, using salvo fire to make up for the problem of poor accuracy, and relying on the number of salvos as much as possible to strengthen the lethality.

A dense burst of buckshot was followed by another round of firing, followed by a third. By the time the third round was over, the first group of musketeers had finished loading.

Forward, shoot, forward, shoot.

After several rounds of shooting, they were close to the gap, and they were already very close to the bandits.

"Get on the bayonet!"

"Get on the bayonet!"

"Get on the bayonet!"

The order was passed down layer by layer, and Shi Yuan, a private of the mounted infantry, hurriedly took out the bayonet from his bayonet holardment, put the muzzle on the muzzle, and turned it in a circle to clamp the falcon tightly.

In the blink of an eye, a firearm immediately turned into a one-meter-eight Sensen stinging spear.

The wind blew, and the smoke dissipated.

There was no more resistance from the thieves in the gap. In the fierce volleys just now, the family led by Wang Jie suffered heavy losses, and they only supported for a moment before collapsing, either dead or wounded, or turned around and fled.

Wang Jie was directly shot to death.

Shi Yuan and the others easily crossed the gap and entered Xiangcheng.

"Abandon your weapons and don't kill!"

"Surrender or die!"

"Report, Xiangcheng has been captured, the thief leader Wang Jie was shot on the spot, and Yu Jieduo has abandoned his weapons and surrendered."

"Good." Zhang Shan heard the report with a smile on his face. Not a surprise, though. This is to be expected. "Send troops to continue to search the whole city, clean up the battlefield, let the rest of the brothers enter the city, maintain order, and start making lunch."

The battle of Xiangcheng ended quickly, and the Chu army only used two targets to defeat the 3,000 Xiangcheng thief army, and the city was broken and surrendered. More than 3,000 thieves, in this battle. More than 100 people were killed in the battle, and the battlefield was less than 10%, but the city wall was blasted open in a short period of time, which was the main reason for their rapid collapse. plus Wang Jie's death in battle. So that they have no heart to resist.

For these captives, Zhang Shan had no killing intent.

"Weapons were confiscated, carefully screened and registered, and then dispersed and put in prisoner camps."

These people. According to Liu Jun's instructions to him, he was to be sent to mine and repair roads, and there was also a special term called labor reform. Similar to the army charge. However, according to the length of time they have been thieves and the degree of crimes they have committed, the final period of labor re-education will be determined. Moreover, in the process of re-education through labor, they will also be given a certain amount of commutation according to their performance.

"Our Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau is now short of laborers, there are a lot of new mines over there, and there is an urgent need for laborers, and now we have caught 3,000, and we have to be happy over there." A staff officer said with a smile.

"What is the use of 3,000 people, I heard that the scale of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau is very large, opening mountains for prospecting, smelting iron and steel, and building ordnance, which is a full set of industries, and there are hundreds of thousands of people up and down the entire Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau. Three thousand people is not enough for them to stuff their teeth. Another staff officer said.

"Don't ramble about that." A senior staff officer walked over, "Hu Shuai has spoken, let them immediately sort out all the official documents and files in the county office, and hurry up to register the seized materials." ”

"Xiao Zhang, you find someone to copy this notice for a few minutes, and bring a few brothers to post it in the city."

"Xiao Wang, you bring a few brothers, according to this list, invite all the gentry and merchants in the city, remember, you must be polite!"

County office.

Originally, Wang Jie occupied this place as his general's mansion, and now it has become Zhang Shan's temporary residence. Zhang Shan sat there, listening to the reports of Chen Guan and several staff officers.

Xiangcheng has been taken, but the situation in Xiangcheng is not optimistic.

The city was short of food and supplies, and especially accommodated a large number of hungry people, both local and foreign, who had no jobs or money.

"We must immediately restore local order, start spring ploughing, and settle these people." After all, this is not the original Liaodong, and it is not just a matter of taking the city and demolishing it. The most important thing is to restore production and order. And these are inseparable from these local gentry and businessmen.

The big families in Xiangcheng soon came, including officials who were famous and famous, as well as landlords and merchants, as well as officials in the original government.

"Please come, first, because Xiangcheng has been recovered, the city and the countryside need to come out to maintain order and resume spring ploughing.

A group of Xiangcheng people hurriedly nodded in agreement.

Zhang Shan took a sip of the teacup, moistened his throat, and continued, "There is one more thing, there are many disaster victims in Xiangyang, who are short of food and clothing, and Ben Shuai needs everyone to lend a helping hand at this time and pull these brothers and compatriots." I know that you still have a lot of food in your family, and everyone has put out the surplus food to help the victims. ”

"Don't worry, we won't levy your grain in vain, two silver dollars and one stone of grain, at this price, we will buy grain with cash, and we will not be less and will not be in arrears."

As soon as Zhang Shan's words came out, the official hall immediately became cold, and the squires and merchants who had claimed to be the ones just now refused to say anything when they heard that they wanted to buy grain. (To be continued.) )