"Let's go and take Gaizhou!"

Gaizhou is 220 miles away from Fuzhou, which is about the same distance from Fuzhou to Qingni Port, but Gaizhou, like Fuzhou, is also built along the coast of Bohai Bay, and if you take the waterway, it will only take half a day to take a boat.

However, Gaizhou is already very close to the mouth of the Liaohe River, and it is only more than 200 miles away from Jinzhou, facing each other across the sea. Now that the Qing army is gathering troops and horses to besiege Jinzhou, Liu Jun feels that to fight Gaizhou is to touch the tiger's buttocks.

Fu Shan thought it was okay to give it a try.

"I estimate that the news of the loss of Jinzhou Fuzhou has just been transmitted back to Jianyu, and Gaizhou is not far from Liaoyang and other places where Tartar troops are stationed, so it is likely that there will not be many soldiers and horses here. They definitely didn't expect that we would dare to fight Gaizhou after fighting Fuzhou, and we could still be so fast. We crossed the sea by warship, and after landing, we bombarded the city of Gaizhou with cannons, and left after grabbing it, even if the Tartar wanted to chase him, he would not be able to catch up with him from the sea. ”

Liu Jun admitted that he was a little moved.

"Bring me the map." Liu Jun beckoned to the staff officer.

The map is spread out, this is not an ordinary map, but a map that has been collected and confirmed by the members of the Nine-headed Bird Intelligence Team, and the information on the mountains, rivers, cities, fortresses, etc., is very accurate.

After looking at the map for a while, Liu Jun found that Gaizhou was only twenty miles away from the suitable sailor landing ground, and it was originally a wharf, which could dock ordinary merchant ships, and there was a very good road from the wharf to Gaizhou City.

"I think it's okay, it's worth a try."

"Do you know the reality of Gaizhou?" Liu Jun cautiously asked again.

A staff officer immediately replied, "Gaizhou City originally only had a few hundred Tartars, and there were hundreds of clothed minions, etc., and the number of troops was not more than a thousand. The city is also a traditional city wall like Fuzhou Jinzhou, and our cannons can easily blast through the city wall. ”

In the face of the powerful firepower of the nine-headed bird, it is difficult for the city of the traditional city wall to withstand this kind of firepower. Only after the power of the artillery is revealed, the defense of the castle will be changed, and the defense of the artillery will be strengthened by adding earthen walls, moats, and bastions. For example, in the Netherlands and other places, countless new fortresses have greatly reduced the threat of artillery, and siege warfare has returned to a war of attrition of long-term sieges.

As for the sea power of the Qing army. Liu Jun and the others didn't pay attention to anyone. At most, they have some ordinary small boats such as fortune boats, and they don't even have red cannons, and they rely on traditional tactics such as rocket jumping.

Since it is going to be fought, it is without further ado. The staff officers immediately began operations, selected landing sites, worked out plans for operations, and so on. Liu Jun made a request to everyone, "We have so many soldiers and horses to fight a small Gaizhou, and there is some surplus. In my opinion, I personally led 10,000 people to Dagaizhou. The rest of the people were divided into multiple groups and took boats, landed along the coast of more than 200 miles from Fuzhou to Gaizhou, and took down more than ten small fort post stations such as Wuzhai Station, and by the way, those village and town markets were also served in a pot. Remove all the people, livestock, grain, etc. that can be removed. ”

"Now the Tartar is so angry."

"Haha, it's good to be angry, when they come to their senses, even if they send a large army, we will return to Jinzhou. Then they will dare to come hard. Just let them pay for the power of the fort, haha. ”

The Qing army invaded the pass several times. Thousands of miles along the way, countless cities have been broken. This time, the Nine-headed Bird also wanted the Tartars to pay for this, and took advantage of the Tartars to mobilize troops and horses to besiege Jinzhou, and when they were not prepared, they smashed him with a stick, and by the way, they helped them to carry out demolition.

"The Tartars entered the customs last year. robbed more than 400,000 of our people, and this time we will snatch him back. ”

Half a day later, the first brigade of 10,000 people led by Liu Jun had arrived at the 20 miles west of Gaizhou and the seaside wharf. Along the way, the journey went smoothly, and only a few fishing boats were encountered. The fishermen were also shocked to see the huge boat, and the sun and moon flags on board, when the fleet's clippers had rushed up and brought them back with men.

"I beg the adults to spare their lives, and the small ones are also the people of the Ming Dynasty."

On the deck, the fishermen who were brought on the boat saw Liu Jun and others coming, and hurriedly kowtowed.

"Old man, please get up." Liu Jun stepped forward to help the fisherman, "Liaodong has been lost for many years, so that the fathers and elders have been ravaged by the Tartars for a long time, and some dereliction of duty is late to today, and it is too late." Guoqiang, take the old man to dinner. ”

The old man stood up tremblingly and asked the guards next to him, "Which marshal is this, are you here to recover Liaodong?" ”

"Old man, this is the son of the emperor today, the Marquis of Zhennan, who gave the name Zhu Ciye, the official commander of Huguang and the chief military officer of Hubei, hung the seal of the general, the young master and the prince Shaobao, this time he was ordered to cross the sea to conquer Liao, and now he has recovered Lushun, Jinzhou, and Fuzhou, and is now about to send troops to recover Gaizhou." The guard said loudly to the old fisherman.

When the old man heard that this was actually the emperor's righteous son, and that he had actually recovered Lushun, Jinzhou, Fuzhou and other places, he was shocked, and suddenly knelt down again.

"The imperial court has not forgotten Liaodong and has not abandoned us. The good day is coming, when the Tartars have driven away, we can live a good life again, Dashuai, can the fields stolen by the Tartars be returned to us? The old man said excitedly, "At that time, my family also had more than 100 acres of land, but after the Tartars occupied Liaodong, they took away all the fields, and we became tenants of the Tartars, but we worked hard but couldn't eat enough." ”

Liu Jun sighed, "Old man, we are here to fight Gaizhou this time, but we won't stay for long." After the city is broken, it is necessary to return to the Golden State immediately. When the time comes, please bring your family to move with us to Golden State. ”

"Moving to the Golden State? Why move? The little old man has lived here for generations, and the ancestral grave homestead is here, and the roots are here. ”

"Sooner or later we'll call back, but now we can't stay here. But please rest assured, when you go to Jinzhou, we will give you land and rations, and when you get there, you will only have better days. At the very least, you can eat enough every day. Liu Jun said.

The old man let out a long sigh and stopped talking, but there was reluctance to leave in his eyes.

In the city of Gaizhou, at this time, I didn't know that the city of Fuzhou was broken, and I only knew that a large number of Ming troops came from the sea and broke through Lushun Jinzhou. The people in Gaizhou City were also panicked, and the garrison generals hurriedly sent people to report to Liaoyang for help.

When Liu Jun's fleet set off from the coast of Fuzhou, there were no less than 20,000 people, and from time to time a small fleet broke away from most of it and landed on the coast. Each team has about 1,000 people. When they arrived at the west wharf of Gaizhou, there were nearly 10,000 horses.

The water at the wharf is shallow, and it is impossible to stop building large warships, but it is still no problem to rely on flat-bottomed sand boats and ordinary boats. A door gun was transported ashore, and in addition to ordinary field artillery, Liu Jun also transferred several siege guns from the heavy artillery regiment ashore.

8 lb. 12 lb long tube canon. 24-pounder and 32-pounder cannon howitzers, in addition to eight-inch howitzers and ten-inch mortars. Although some of these artillery belonging to heavy artillery regiments reached three or four thousand catties, there were still no major problems with sufficient horses.

Twenty miles away, the team marched for two hours, and finally arrived at the foot of Gaizhou City.

Knowing that a large number of Ming troops had landed on the seaside, there was a great chaos in Gaizhou City.

The garrison guards did not dare to go out of the city to intercept it, so he ordered the city gates to be closed and the defenders to go up to the city to defend. and brought all the young men of the city to the city.

But when the nine-headed bird arrived at the city, the defenders were still desperate.

At least tens of thousands of Ming troops, if only the number is not enough to make him desperate. To despair, the force was clearly well-trained and well-equipped, with half of the men and horses in firearms, especially since they had come with many cannons.

Facing the Qing defenders in the city, the nine-headed bird turned a blind eye.

The artillery regiment didn't even pull the cannon down, just watched as the men of the heavy artillery regiment pulled the big guys to a distance of three hundred paces from the city.

The guns of the heavy artillery regiment have a range of at least one mile, but they know that there are no guns in the city. They arrogantly pushed the cannon to a distance of three hundred paces, this distance. The accuracy of the artillery is better.

"Try our ten-inch mortar first and see how it works!"

Compared with the six-inch grenades and eight-inch mortars equipped with ordinary artillery regiments, the heavy artillery regiment is an authentic siege heavy artillery unit, and their guns are all one size bigger than the ordinary artillery regiment.

The mortar is one of the four major artillery types of the nine-headed bird, and the four major artillery types are cannons, howitzers, cannon howitzers and mortars, which is a new system established by the nine-headed bird for all its artillery. Different cannons have their own merits. Although the mortar cannon is said to have a short range, it has a larger firing angle, which is a sharp weapon for siege, and the cannon body is lighter, and the caliber of the mortar cannon under the same weight is larger.

It's like this ten-inch mortar. The weight is only 2,200 catties, but he can fire a 100-8-pound cannonball, and the range can reach 2,700 meters, a real siege weapon.

And the cannon field gun, which is more than 2,000 pounds, is less than 12 pounds.

Forty-nine kilograms of huge cannonballs were pushed up, and the people of the city turned white with fright when they saw the huge ball. It took a while for the shells to finally load.

"Launch!" After a loud bang, the ten-inch mortar cannon with a large bronze bell was fired, as if a big toad had spit out, and the giant cannonball roared towards Gaizhou City.

The mountains shook and the cannonballs fell into the city behind the city walls, and even the people at the head of the city felt a huge tremor under their feet.

Liu Jun stood aside and shook his head, "This cannon looks scary, but the accuracy is a little worse, if you just want to smash into the city, it's no problem." But it still can't be done to smash the city wall. ”

"It's already good." Paul, the Dutch adviser, said to Liu Jun, "Get a few more of these cannons and smash dozens of them into the city, who can withstand it?" You can just smash them into surrender, or even smash them all! ”

"This Gaizhou City is about to belong to me, and I feel distressed when I smash it." Liu Jun said, "Tell the heavy artillery regiment not to use a ten-inch mortar anymore, use thirty-two pounds and twenty-four pounds of cannon to bombard the city wall, and directly blast the city wall open." ”

The 3,000-pound 24-pound short cannon and the 4,000-pound 32-pound short cannon were pushed up, these two models were only equipped by the heavy artillery regiment, and compared with the same type of long cannon on the battleship of the naval division, the weight was reduced by nearly half. The 24-gun cannon reached more than 5,000 catties, and the 32-pound cannon even reached more than 6,000 catties.

However, although these two are weakened versions of naval guns, they can be used to siege cities, especially the traditional walls of Gaizhou City, there is no problem.

One thirty-two-pound, three twenty-four-pound, a total of four heavy guns pushed to the designated position. The four guns, each with thirty-five gunners, had specialized ammunition wagons.

The four cannons lined up, and the gunners began to observe the distance, adjust the firing angle, and reload the solid iron bullets.

"Put!"

The four cannons roared in turn, and the smoke of gunpowder was filled in front of the artillery array, and when the gunpowder smoke dissipated, everyone clearly saw that there were already several gaps in the city wall of Gaizhou, although the city wall had not been collapsed, but there were large pieces of stone rammed earth that were smashed down.

"Go on!"

The gunners began to push the cannon back to the position with great difficulty, and then began to carry buckets and shabu-shabu, and began to clean the chamber of the cannon.

"This retreat is too serious, if you can make this gun carriage retreat a little less, reset faster, and also make the shooting more accurate." Liu Jun pointed out an important shortcoming of these artillery. This is also a common disadvantage of the retreating artillery.

"I can't find any good way to improve it for the time being, maybe I can think of something from the gun truck in the future." Several Spanish advisers replied.

While the men were talking, the artillery continued, and a twelve-pounder long canon, two eight-pounder and a four-pounder cannon also began to join the fire at this time.

The city of Gaizhou was like an earthquake, and the poor city wall was bombarded with cannon after cannon.

And the defenders of the city were simply powerless and could not do anything.

When the fifth round of bombardment passed, the city wall collapsed, and in the rumble, a large gap of at least seven or eight feet was revealed.

The defenders had already left the city, and they stood helplessly and blankly behind the wall, and when the wall collapsed, no one stepped forward to plug the gap.

With their little people, they will be killed as many as they go up.

Although the Tartars are brave, no one wants to die in vain.

Many people began to turn and flee, and when they could not get out of the city, they began to hide in all directions, hoping to escape.

After the nine-headed bird outside the city blasted the city wall open, the bombardment stopped, and everyone waited for a while, but did not see the expected Qing army come out.

Waited a little longer.

"Don't wait, enter the city."

Groups of Hydra infantry entered the city, while the cavalry remained outside to keep guard, and some infantry guarded the artillery outside the city.

The nine-headed bird infantry that entered the city moved quickly, no one resisted, and not a single Qing army could be seen.

"Go ahead with the plan!" An officer looked at the empty streets and could feel the frightened eyes coming from behind the windows of the houses on both sides.

This did not hinder the action of the nine-headed bird, according to the steps of the city occupation operation carefully formulated by those staff officers of the general staff, these infantry had already divided the tasks, occupied several city gates at the first time, and at the same time occupied important places such as yamen, grain warehouses, armament warehouses, and silver warehouses.

Then take control of the streets, and when the whole city is under control, they begin to clear out the people from house to house, take them to the open places, and find out who is waiting for the officials in the city.

Get the account book and storage account book as soon as possible, and check the personnel. Then, he commanded the people who had checked their identities and began to move things like sweeping the floor. The first to move to the public's house, then to the officials.

For the officials who cooperate with the nine-headed bird, their property can be kept first, and the property of the people can also be retained first. But after the inventory and relocation of official property were completed, the officials and ordinary people also had to start packing their luggage and moving.

"I really didn't expect that the robbery could be robbed so orderly and not chaotic at all." When the Western advisers saw the movement of the nine-headed bird, they were amazed, and there were no fires everywhere, no crying and scolding everywhere, and no screaming and wailing, although the common people and officials were trembling one by one, but they were all under control.

"It's not a robbery, and the nine-headed bird won't rob!" Liu Jun said. (To be continued......)