When Yu Xiaotian heard this, he put the pipe on the case, his eyes had lit up, and he immediately asked Liu Tong: "Then can this Gao Minghu persuade Yang Guozhu to defect?" ”

Liu Tong shook his head and said: "I'm afraid this won't work, Yang Guozhu has a loyal personality, although he also hates Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian, but it's probably impossible to convince him to defect!" ”

Yu Xiaotian touched his chin, leaned back in the chair, picked up the pipe again, took a puff, and then asked, "What about Gao Minghu?" ”

Liu Tong showed a treacherous smile at this time, nodded and said, "There is hope for this!" This time, the lord entered Beijing under the banner of the Qing monarch, named Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian, as well as Xue Guoguan, Liu Yuliang and others, and made it clear in the text that he wanted to complain about Lu Junmen, which made Gao Minghu quite happy.

Although Gao Minghu did not explicitly say that he would open the city to surrender, he obviously had a very ambiguous attitude! The subordinates have already sent people to contact our people in the city yesterday, and asked them to inform Gao Minghu that as long as the lord enters Beijing, then the first one will kill Gao Qiqian and Yang Sichang to avenge Lu Junmen!

Now there is no news in the city, but according to the lowly estimate, Gao Minghu is very likely to defect, this time the lord takes Chaoyangmen as the main target, and feints to attack Dongzhimen, and it is indeed in the hands of the lowly position!

But the humble duty should remind the lord that once he starts to attack Dongzhimen, don't fight too fiercely over there, try to suppress the shooting, and don't make more killings, otherwise the humble duty doesn't know what will happen! This Gao Minghu is rumored to be very sympathetic to his soldiers, but don't let the guys of the Fourth and Seventh Brigades fight the wind and kill Gao Minghu! ”

After hearing this, Yu Xiaotian immediately laughed, stood up and walked to Liu Tong's side, slapped Liu Tong on the shoulder, and said with a smile: "If the siege is successful this time, you Liu Tong should be the first to take the lead!" Good! Just do as you say, come here, and let Qiu Qinghui, the commander of the Fourth Brigade, come and see me immediately......"

With the launch of the Yujia army's offensive, the entire capital was suddenly shrouded in a rumbling cannon, more than 100 cannons of various types, outside the Chaoyang Gate and the Dongzhi Gate, lined up, built a solid artillery position, one cannon after another, and the muzzle of the black hole pointed directly at the head of the city.

With Yu Xiaotian's order, the general offensive was launched, and the Yu family army once again showed their best tricks, first bombarding with artillery, and then charging with infantry.

Outside the Chaoyang Gate, more than a dozen twenty-four-pounder siege guns began to roar at the same time, spitting out dazzling lights, flashing clusters of flames, and then raising a large area of gunsmoke.

The huge sound of cannons immediately resounded over the entire Beijing Division, and the rest of the twelve-pounder field guns and a small number of six-pounder long cannons, not to be outdone, began to fire alternately after them.

Dozens of cannons, one after another, smashed all kinds of shells into the city wall of the Beijing division like hail, and the bricks and stones on the city wall flew wildly, and the defenders screamed in amazement.

Careful observation can find that although the artillery fire of the Yu family army is very fierce, it does not concentrate on one point and bombard the city wall, but concentrates all the firepower between the battlements of the city wall, as if shooting a target, knocking out the battlements one by one.

The battlement is an important part of the ancient Chinese city wall, also refers to the female wall, mainly for the defenders to hide or lookout, and through the lower part of the guò perforation to the city to release arrows, has a very important role.

This time, the whole army of the Yu family reached a consensus on the way to siege the city, and they all realized that it was basically impossible to rely on the artillery they currently had at hand to collapse a section of the city wall, and they didn't have that much ammunition, let alone waste so much time.

Therefore, they must break the will to fight of the defenders on the city wall as quickly as possible, and also eliminate the various types of artillery placed on the city wall, which will pose a huge threat to the siege troops, and must be knocked out as soon as possible to clear the way for the next siege troops.

And if you want to do this, you must first knock out these dense battlements, knock out the battlements, and the defenders on the city wall will lose their support and cover, and then they will become the hunting target of the Yujia army musketeers, otherwise the defenders will hide behind the battlements, which can not only be convenient to look out of the city, but also with the help of the battlements cover, from the holes under the battlements to the city to release arrows or guns.

In addition, a large number of artillery will also use the cover of the battlements to fire at the city, which will severely weaken the lethality of the muskets in the hands of the infantry of the Yu family, and cause incalculable casualties to the attacking soldiers of the Yu army.

Therefore, before the general attack began, Yu Xiaotian ordered the artillerymen to concentrate all their firepower, first hit the battlements, look for the artillery on the battlements, and knock out these artillery pieces before the infantry attack began.

Therefore, before the start of the war, the artillery had already divided the area of their responsibility by company, and even each battlement was assigned to each artillery to be responsible.

As soon as the order for the general attack was given, the artillerymen immediately aimed at their pre-selected targets and began the first round of heavy shelling.

The first round of artillery salvo fire, the accuracy is not very high, the artillerymen need a calibration process, so part of the shells fell on the city wall, smashed a large pit on the city wall, collapsed a lot of city bricks, peeled off some city bricks, exposed the main body of the rammed earth city wall under the city bricks.

In addition, some of the shells hit high, flew directly over the city wall, flew into the city, and then after exhausting their strength, they fell heavily into the courtyards of some houses in the city.

Among them, several shells of 24-pound guns flew directly out of the distance and landed far away in the city, destroying several houses on the spot, and a scream of astonishment resounded in the city.

As long as it is a war, it will inevitably cause civilian casualties, which is also an inevitable thing, and it just puts pressure on the people in the city, after all, this time Yu Xiaotian played the banner, but on the side of the Qing monarch, what he wants to deal with is not the emperor on the surface, nor is it to overthrow the Ming Dynasty, but to target some of the courtiers in the court who eat people and do not do personnel.

Even yesterday, Yu Xiaotian specially ordered his subordinates to carry out some propaganda on the defenders in the city in the areas of Chaoyangmen, Dongzhimen, Guangqumen, and Zuo'anmen, ordering the defenders to give up resistance, or asking the current saint by name, tying up more than 40 ministers such as Yang Sichang, Gao Qiqian, Chen Xinjia, and Xue Guoguan, and sending them out of the city to be disposed of by the Yu family army.

If the current saint agrees to the conditions proposed by Yu Jiajun and hands over these traitors who have brought disaster to the country and the people, then Yu Xiaotian expressed his willingness to immediately withdraw his troops and return to Fujian.

In fact, these words are only said to ordinary generals and ordinary people, and the purpose of this is to divide the relationship between ordinary officers and soldiers, ordinary people and these ministers, so that they feel that it is really not cost-effective to fight with the Yu family's army, and they are tantamount to working for these officials and masters, which is really not worth it.

And the result of Yu Xiaotian's doing this has indeed played a very good effect, and the influence of public opinion during this period of time has been widely spread by Yu Xiaotian in advance of what these ministers usually do, as well as their bad deeds.

It can be said that these people have long since become some stinky fish and rotten shrimp in the minds of ordinary officers and soldiers and ordinary people, and their reputation has long been made to stink.

So now Yu Xiaotian proposed to kill these guys on the side of the Qing monarch, which can be said to be in line with the will of the people, and it is quite marketable among the ordinary low-level classes.

Of course, Yu Xiaotian also knows very well that he is forcing the palace so much, and the Chongzhen Emperor in the palace today will definitely not agree, if he agrees to Yu Xiaotian's request, what dignity does he have as an emperor? Isn't this world just Yu Xiaotian having the final say? Yu Xiaotian said that whoever he caught, he would arrest whomever he said, and he would kill whoever he said, what kind of thing is he, the emperor?

Therefore, the ultimate goal of such hype is just to break the fighting spirit of the defenders, and make the defenders feel that it is really not worth it to defend the city like this and fight to the death with the Yu family's army.

Moreover, Yu Xiaotian also had to copy the loudspeaker under his subordinates, and constantly preached to the soldiers and generals defending the city, saying that the Yu family army entered Beijing just for the sake of the Qing monarch, and would never kill innocents indiscriminately, as long as the defenders opened the city and welcomed them into the capital, their safety would be guaranteed, and their property would be protected.

And this kind of propaganda is obviously very lethal, because after a day of continuous preaching, the court did not react, but the morale of the defenders was getting lower and lower, and many people complained in private, thinking that this battle was too worthless.

They fought with Jiannu, that is because Jiannu is a foreign coward, a robber, if you don't fight him, he will kill you, so you have to fight, but Yu Jiajun They all know that this time they went north to really fight Jiannu, and they really wiped out the Jiannu army, and the people rebelled, that was the court forced to have no way, and now people want to come to the side of the Qing monarch, what do they do? Working hard with Yu Jiajun is even more unworthy.

And Yu Jiajun made it clear that if they don't do their business after entering the city, they will never kill innocents indiscriminately, they are just eating food and getting paid, and they are innocent people, so it is better not to tear their faces with Yu Jiajun, or not to tear their faces.

But the defenders didn't want to fight in their hearts, but Gao Qiqian was Wang Ba's heart to fight! Because this time Yu Xiaotian attacked the capital, he said it too clearly, after naming and entering Beijing, he had to talk about his head first.

So once Yu Xiaotian is allowed to attack the city, then his life will be difficult to protect immediately, which is something that he can't agree to, he will be gone below, and if the top is cut off again, it will be too sad, so he still takes the head of Xiang Shang very seriously.

(Thank you for the tip from Sword Dance Fragrance friends!) ）