In the fort of Gaizhou City, a round of shelling has just ended, and the smoke has not yet dissipated, and a large white flag is waving on the castle wall, which is so eye-catching and conspicuous.

From below the city came the sound of the latch being pushed open, followed by the creaking of the gates of the fort.

After the shield array of the Chu army more than 100 steps away, endless cheers broke out in an instant, "The rebels have surrendered, and the rebels have opened the city gates!" ”

Hearing this cheer, Liu Jun, who was talking to the three brothers Zu Dale, Zu Daming and Zu Dacheng who came from Jinzhou, couldn't help laughing. Zu Dale and the three were all brothers of Zu Dashou, the general of the Liao Expedition, who were besieged and surrendered together at the Daling River, and later returned to Jinzhou with Zu Dashou to continue to fight against the Qing army, and this time they were besieged in Jinzhou. After the siege of Jinzhou was lifted, Zu Dashou immediately sent three brothers to Liaodong to meet Liu Jun.

The three brothers of the ancestral family came on the orders of their elder brother and wanted to buy a batch of firearms from Liu Jun.

For this matter, Liu Jun promised to build a batch of firearms for Jinzhou Town, but none of them were the most advanced guns. At first, the three Zu brothers were very happy when they saw the sample, but when they found that the firearms used in the Chu army were more advanced, they looked down on those firearms.

They wanted these cannons in Liu Jun's army, especially those large-caliber heavy artillery targets directly under Chu Junzhen, but unfortunately Liu Jun didn't sell them. No matter how they offered, Liu Jun didn't pay attention to it at all. Selling some ordinary artillery can not only make a lot of profits, but also relieve some pressure from the imperial court, so that Liu Jun can sell the most advanced artillery to the Jinzhou army, but Liu Jun will never do it.

Liu Jun sold a batch of riding guns to Wu Sangui in exchange for 10,000 precious war horses, which was already the bottom limit.

"The three traitors of Shandong have surrendered in Kaicheng?"

Zu Dale looked at the shaking white flag in shock, and the door of the Inner Fort that slowly opened.

Zu Da Leke not only relied on the reputation of the ancestral family to become a guerrilla general, but also in the first year of Chongzhen. Because of the long-term arrears, the Ningyuan mutiny broke out, and the thirteen battalions of Ningyuan were in chaos at that time, but only the unified battalion of Zu Dale did not move. When Chongzhen was three years old, he led his troops to recover the cities of Luanzhou with Sun Chengzong.

After that, Zu Kuan led the Guanning Iron Cavalry south to suppress the Central Plains bandits, and was subordinate to Lu Xiangsheng. After being praised by Lu Xiangsheng as aiding and suppressing, only the Liao soldiers under the command of Zu Dale Zukuan were the strongest, and they killed the most thieves.

Among the brothers and nephews of the ancestral family, Zu Dale is the best at generals, has the way to be the emperor, and is brave in battle and commanding.

But now, it only took half a month for the Duke of Chu to take down Gaizhou City, which was defended by Kong Youde's 50,000 people, which is an amazing achievement. And what shocked him the most was not that the Chu army broke through the city guarded by 50,000 troops with 30,000 soldiers, but that the battle has been fought until now. I heard that none of the more than 30,000 people in the Chu army were killed in battle, only a few were wounded.

It's hard to believe that 30,000 people broke a city of 50,000 people, and Kong Youde, who had not broken a single soldier, went out of the city and surrendered. This is not a bandit, not a rabble of farmers in the Central Plains, this is the soldiers and horses of the three rebel generals in Shandong. When he was in Dengzhou that year, Kong Youde killed the officers and soldiers who were encircled and suppressed. After the surrender of Liaodong to the Qing Dynasty, the soldiers and horses became stronger. It was an elite group in the Qing Dynasty that was equipped with a large number of firearms and heavy artillery, and had elite cavalry, but now, it surrendered in only half a month.

It's hard to imagine.

"The strength of the Chu army's artillery fire is indeed unstoppable." Zu Daimyo also muttered on the side. In the past two days, they have also witnessed the artillery fire of the Chu army.

In the case of a town in Jinzhou with only a dozen Hongyi cannons. The artillery fire of the Chu army is alarming. The Chu army had an artillery battalion in each association, and six artillery companies under its jurisdiction had 120 large and small field artillery. A town has six field artillery battalions plus two heavy artillery battalions plus a heavy artillery battalion, and a heavy artillery battalion has twenty huge guns.

The field artillery and siege artillery under a town of the Chu army combined with two hundred and twenty artillery pieces. All of them are cannons, and the lightest four-gun field short cannon is far more than the thousand-pound Hongyi cannon.

And in addition to these cannons in the Chu army. There are also many mountain grenades, which are equipped with a lot of infantry standards, and even the baggage battalion and the engineer battalion, which they seem to be auxiliary battalions, are equipped with mountain grenades. And that kind of mountain grenade is extremely light, but it is far more powerful than the Francophone and general cannon equipped in Jinzhou.

The Chu army did not have a large number of main artillery pieces, tiger squat guns, general guns, and Franc machines, which were equipped in the Jinzhou army, not because the teams did not, but because they didn't look down on these at all, and they were all eliminated.

The three Zu Dale brothers couldn't understand Chu Jun and Zhu Ciye, how he did all this.

There was no tragic tearing and killing, no ants attached to the siege, no desperate trenches, no ladders, no city rushing cars and no siege rams, the Chu army did not even die a single person, besieged the city for 15 days, shelled for 15 days, the Chu army did not fill it with human lives, but used a cart of shells to plow Gaizhou City over and over again, and finally bombed and surrendered Kong Youde.

A smile appeared on the corner of Liu Jun's mouth, "I thought Kong Youde could hold out for ten days and a half months." ”

Zu Dale shook his head slightly, thinking, insistence? How can you insist, this kind of battle that is passively beaten but can't be repaid, can last for half a month before descending, Kong Youde is already worthy of the name of a fierce general. In the exchange of ordinary troops, it will collapse in three or five days at most. However, he also disagreed with Liu Jun's tactics, since there was such a sharp cannon, such a battle should have ended in three or five days, but Liu Jun had to drag on for half a month.

Countless shells were wasted.

White consumes the life of the cannon, such a sharp cannon has a service life, I heard that the best cannon is only 1,000 rounds, and the general iron cast cannon is only 600 rounds, and after that, the accuracy will be greatly reduced, and it is unbearable to use.

How could such a precious cannon be used so indiscriminately. After concentrating their firepower to open the city, they should send troops to fight for the gap and enter the city. In the eyes of the Zudale brothers, artillery was obviously more valuable than the lives of soldiers.

Besides, it is very important that the soldiers are so fast that they can end the battle a day earlier, and it is quite dangerous and undesirable to delay such a long time for the sake of the lives of some soldiers.

This Liu Jun doesn't know how to fight at all, just by taking advantage of artillery fire.

The city of Gaizhou has calmed down in and around it.

The sky began to rain lightly.

The weather is getting colder and colder, and Kong Youde feels that his heart is also cold. turned to fight desperately for half a life, but in the end it was such an ending. He remembered that he defected to the Dongjiang River from southern Liaoning, fled Dengzhou from the Dongjiang River, and thought of raising the anti-flag in Shandong. Thinking of the defeat of Shandong, he crossed the sea and surrendered to the Qing.

The past was like smoke, and in the blink of an eye, he was defeated by the Ming army again and had to open the city and surrender.

Kong Youde is not willing to surrender, if he can, he would rather fight to the death than surrender. He knew that if he surrendered, the Ming Dynasty would not treat him leniently. But he also knew very well that no one under his command was willing to fight, as long as Liu Jiye said a word, some of the generals under his command were willing to cut off his head and surrender to the city.

In this case, Kong Youde was disheartened, especially after judging that the Qing army could not come to the rescue.

More than 50,000 people and horses in Gaizhou City died in the siege of more than half a month. There are still more than 50,000 remaining. Among them, there are more than 20,000 soldiers, more than 20,000 auxiliary soldiers, and more than 10,000 people.

In addition to them, there were no other people in Gaizhou City, and the people had already moved away after the Ming army broke through Gaizhou for the first time.

One by one, the rebels walked out of the inner fort, throwing their weapons in the open space on both sides of the fort gate, and the weapons fell like a mountain.

They laid down their arms. The armor was also removed, and only the blackened military robes remained.

Kong Youde took Geng Zhongming, Shang Kexi, and Shen Zhixiang to lead hundreds of officers above the garrison to finally walk out. They carried their flags.

Fu Zonglong was extremely excited about this result, and neither of them thought that Liu Jun could really capture Gaizhou and capture tens of thousands of rebels.

The eunuchs Wang Kun and Lu Weining had already built a temporary earthen platform on the open land outside Gaizhou City as the site of the surrender ceremony.

A large tent was improvised on the earthen platform. All around are lined with dazzling soldiers of the Chu army, Taichung is placed in a row of tables, Liu Jun and Fu Zonglong, Fan Zhiwan, Li Chunjiang and Wang Kun, Lu Weining, Qu Shiyun, Fu Shan and other supervisors and supervisors of the army patrol are seated, and a row of tables and chairs are also placed on both sides, where are the generals of the divisions of the eighth town where the Chu army broke the city.

Wang Kun and Lu Weining knew that they had not contributed much to this victory. Therefore, he took all the things of the surrender ceremony on his shoulders. They also specially seconded many staff officers who could draw from Liu Jun's staff and gave them an important task.

"Record today's surrender ceremony completely, and then show the Son of Heaven." Lu Weining confessed over and over again, "You must paint the whole scene, try to be as detailed as possible, and draw each character clearly, their clothes and even their expressions."

Li Chunjiang sat next to Liu Jun, also full of sighs, and said that Shibei should be impressed for three days. But in fact, he and Liu Jun have known each other for a long time, when he established the nine-headed bird and pulled Liu Jun to his team as a deputy, at that time they fought side by side, he was responsible for raising salaries, Liu Jun was responsible for training, and then suppressed bandits together.

Later, Liu Jun did the inspection of Hutou Pass, and Li Chunjiang also went to Nanjing to prepare for the imperial examination. He left the nine-headed bird for just over a year, a year later, he participated in the imperial examination, became the new champion of the department, elected Shu Jishi, entered the Hanlin Academy, and now he is released to serve as the Liaodong Patrol Imperial History, the speed of this promotion, can be Qingyun straight up.

can be compared with Liu Jun, but it is not worth mentioning.

The little martial arts of the year, Liu Jun, who went to Liu Qiao's house to celebrate his birthday and was still despised, was already famous in the world in the blink of an eye. It is the emperor's righteous son, the governor of Liaodong, the general of the conquest, and the title of Duke of Chu plus Zhuguo.

Li Chunjiang is still only a seventh-rank official, but Liu Jun is already a very popular minister.

"Jiye, what are you going to do with Kong Youde and the others?" Li Chunjiang waved away those thoughts in his mind, looked at Liu Jun and asked.

"Kong Youde took the initiative to open the door and surrender, I can spare them to die."

Li Chunjiang said in a low voice, "Kong Youde is a heinous traitor and traitor"

Liu Jun waved his hand, "Kong Youde and others are indeed traitors and traitors, but their surrender has also avoided many casualties. In the future, we still have a lot of battles to fight with the Qing army, and there are still many traitors and rebels in the Qing army, such as Kong Youde and other traitors and rebels, such as the Han army of the Four Banners of the Han Dynasty, such as the Mongolian Eight Banners, and even many enslaved Han people in Liaodong, those Han people in Liaodong who submitted to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Today, we are releasing Kong Youde, and we also want to send a message to these people, as long as they are willing to change their minds and abandon the darkness and turn to the light, then we can give him a chance to not blame the past. ”

"If it's just a blind liquidation, it will only push those people to the Manchu Qing and make them follow the Manchus to fight against the imperial court to the end. Dividing the enemy as much as possible and isolating the enemy will be of great help to us to recover Liaodong and defeat the Qing Tartars. ”

Li Chunjiang's expression also became serious, "I naturally understand the bones of the Qianjin City, but this matter is very important, and I am afraid that the officials of the DPRK and China will not support it." ”

"No matter what they do, they just sit in Beijing, pointing fingers, and they don't know that state affairs are difficult. After a few battles and victories, do you really think that our situation is very good, and we can completely crush the prisoners? No, one mistake can undo all the work. There are priorities, and the priority now is to deal with the Tartars, not to rush to settle Kong Youde's accounts. To put it mildly, if you really want to liquidate, you should endure it and wait until the situation in Liaodong is really calm. ”

"What about these soldiers? Disband? Or co-optation? ”

Liu Jun shook his head, "I don't need these surrenders, but I won't release them easily." For the time being, we don't have the ability to immediately counterattack deep into the heart of the Tartars, and if we let these people go, it is very likely that they will turn around and be recruited by the Tartars again, and then turn around to deal with us. ”

"That?"

Liu Jun smiled slightly, "Kong Youde, Shang Kexi and other officers above the guerrilla general level should temporarily stay in Liaodong as temporary advisers, they know more about the reality of the Tartars." The officers who went to the garrison level were sent to Qiongzhou, Hainan for resettlement, and the rest of the war auxiliaries were all sent to Taiwan, scattered and resettled, and let them settle in Tuntian. In the future, if Liaodong is recovered, their families can also be moved. ”

"That's it?" Liu Jun's disposal plan surprised Li Chunjiang. This disposal is also cheaper for those rebels, if you treat those soldiers with leniency and say the past, after all, they generally only pursue the first evil, and do not ask about coercion. But if Liu Jun doesn't kill Kong Youde and others, at least he has to be exiled or imprisoned.

"I'm afraid that such a disposition will lead to the impeachment of the official of the science and road."

"Since you want a thousand gold bones, of course, you have to make a good posture, since Du Rao Kong Youde and others are dead, then imprison or confiscate the army, wouldn't the effect be greatly reduced? Besides, Kong Youde and other officers were placed in the camp and were also watched. And, they do have some value.

"I always feel that this matter should be cautious, and it is best to consult Your Majesty first, and Your Majesty will make a decision." As a patrol officer, Li Chunjiang also has the responsibility of supervising Liu Jun's impeachment.

"I will, but until Your Majesty's will is given, I will still dispose of them according to my decision." (To be continued.) )