With the most ultimatum sent from outside the city, Chen Qiao, who had already made up his mind to repay Jun's kindness and die for Jun, naturally scoffed. This No. 1 important minister in Jiangnan originally planned to burn it directly like the previous letters of persuasion, so that Li Yu couldn't even see the ashes. Lest this lord, who has always been indecisive and soft-eared, be frightened by the threat of the Zhou army, or be moved by one or more ministers who are greedy for life and afraid of death, and really ignore the foundation of his ancestors, in order to save the lives of himself, the ministers and the people in the city, he wrote a letter of surrender and accepted the order. If so, what face will he have when he goes to Jiuquan to meet the previous emperors.

It's just that he, Chen Qiao, is willing to give up his life and even the whole family for Jiangnan, but it doesn't mean that other ministers in Jiangnan also have the same thoughts as him. When the army was pressing, there were many courtiers who wanted to save their lives and those of their families. So, before Chen Qiao had time to burn the most important ultimatum, there was already a minister who knew the news, Fei also entered the palace to report the matter to Li Yu, and rushed to Chen Qiao before he burned the letter, ordering him to take the most important ultimatum of the Zhou army into the palace to see him.

Although the ultimatum was not burned, after Chen Qiao, who has always been strong, entered the palace, not only did he not excuse himself for burning the ultimatum sent by the enemy army without asking for instructions, but found that Li Yu seemed to have the intention of surrendering. Among them, those who surrender without a fight, or who surrender without strength, who can be preserved and die a good death, but in vain will be humiliated. The minister asked His Majesty to make an order to stick to it, and the minister was willing to lead the army to fight against the city, and he would not die or return. ”

Although Li Yu was very moved by Chen Qiao's heart-wrenching advice, in the choice of whether to save the lives of himself and the courtiers and the people of the city, or to fulfill his righteous deeds of "the death of the king" and Chen Qiao's "death of the courtiers", the queen of Li, who has always been indecisive and soft-eared, has resolutely and without hesitation chosen the former. So, while holding Chen Qiao's hand, Li Yu said with tears in his eyes: "Gu Su knows that Chen Aiqing is loyal and righteous, but the Zhou army is fierce, even if he fights against the city, it is inevitable that the city will be broken and the country will die." Rather than increasing casualties, it is better to exchange the humiliation of being alone for the safety of the whole city's soldiers and civilians. ”

After speaking, he ordered someone to bring over the letter of surrender that he had written before Chen Qiao entered the palace, hoping that the prime minister of Jiangnan and the first important minister could be a messenger to send his letter out of the city and hand it over to the prince of Song. In this way, he can not only show his sincerity in surrendering, but also suppress those courtiers who are still unwilling to surrender. It's just that Li Yu's desire to give up Jiangshan Sheji and surrender the city has already made Chen Qiao heartbroken, how can he be this messenger who seems to him to be a great shame. So, Chen Qiao, who was already disappointed in Li Yu, immediately refused the decree and said: "If Your Majesty sends a minister to send a letter of surrender for the messenger, why don't you kill the minister outside the palace now on the charge of disobeying the decree and having no king." ”

Chen Qiaoning was reluctant to send the surrender letter, and Li Yu was certainly disappointed. But in the face of this important minister and prime minister of the dynasty, if he really wants to push him out and behead him, Li Yu really can't make this move. So, he could only hold Chen Qiao's hand tighter, and while continuing to shed tears, he shook his head and said: "Aiqing is a loyal minister of the imperial court, how can he kill Aiqing." ”

Seeing that although the lord of the country, Li Yu, did not kill himself because of his resistance to the order, but he did not retract his order to surrender to the Zhou army, Chen Qiao knew that it was no longer possible for him to persuade the other party to change his mind and fight to the death. For a while, his heart was full of disappointment and resentment, he shook his head gently, pulled out the hand that was tightly held by Li Yu, and turned around directly without saluting.

It's just that although Chen Qiao's behavior was rude, Li Yu, who knew that he was wrong, did not punish him for this, but continued to cry there by himself. After a long time, he stopped his sadness, sighed, and returned with a depressed expression, preparing to compose a few poems with Xiao Zhouhou to express his depressed mood. As for sending people out of the city to beg for surrender, it was also shaken because of Chen Qiao's trouble, and it was difficult to make a choice for a while, and he finally put it aside and stopped thinking about it.

Time passed little by little in Li Yu's hesitation, and when the Empress Li, who had written several wonderful words and was in a slightly comfortable mood, remembered the most important ultimatum again, it was already the first hour on the morning of the 27th day of the seventh lunar month of the second year of Jianlong, and there was only less than half an hour left before the deadline given by the Zhou army.

Seeing the passage of time minute by minute, where did Li Yu dare to hesitate and indecision, he ordered someone to announce another important minister Zhang Xun into the palace, and on the other hand, he called his son, Li Zhongyu, who was only eight years old, to his side. After Zhang Xun arrived in a hurry, he ordered him to immediately accompany his son Li Zhongyu to quickly go out of the city with the surrender letter and beg to surrender to the Zhou army.

Although he has always been a staunch main battle faction in the past, after reading Zhou Jun's hard-lined, non-negotiable ultimatum, and realizing that his own lord no longer has the fighting spirit and is bent on surrendering, this Jiangnan minister, who has always been as famous as Chen Qiao and has repeatedly claimed that he wants to die as the king, has changed his original intention, saying that in order for his lord to surrender in the city and go north to Kaifeng, he would rather bear the infamy of "breaking his word, betraying his oath, greedy for life and afraid of death", and today he is a good messenger for the lord of the country. Tomorrow I will go to Beijing with the lord of the country.

At the third hour of the 27th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar in the second year of Jianlong, Zhang Xun took the letter of surrender written by Li Yu himself, and led Li Zhongyu, who was only eight years old and still ignorant of everything in front of him, out of the palace city, and hurried to the Zhou army camp to beg for surrender, hoping to meet Song Guogong before the deadline stipulated by the Zhou army. At the same time, the 140,000 Zhou-Wu coalition troops outside the city had already lined up under Wang Kunjun's orders and were ready to attack the city in an all-out way. Among them, 72 130mm siege guns from the four siege artillery battalions of the "Flying Dragon Army" outside the south gate of Jinling City had already been arranged and loaded with shells, and they only waited for the commander of the army to give an order, and together with nearly 700 other artillery pieces of various types behind him and in the north and east of the city, they carried out a fierce bombardment of Jinling City.

On the 27th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar in the second year of Jianlong, with the pointer of the pocket watch in his hand pointing to ten o'clock, Wang Kunjun, who was sitting on the watchtower of the camp and still did not see the Jiangnan envoy who came to beg, raised his eyebrows, stood up from his seat, walked to the railing of the watchtower, and while observing Jinling City through the telescope in his hand, he ordered in a calm and unquestionable tone: "Start attacking the city." ”

After receiving the order, the herald on the watchtower waved the yellow order flag in his hand vigorously, and Wang Kunjun's order was passed through layers and finally sent to the ears of every Zhou-Wu allied army soldier who participated in the siege. It took about a minute or two from the time Wang Kunjun's order was issued to the time when every soldier on the front line outside the south gate of Jinling received the order. In the process of this short pause, Wang Kunjun stood motionless on the railing of the watchtower, until the seventy-two 130mm siege guns of the four siege artillery battalions at the forefront roared almost simultaneously, and the seventy-two 130mm siege artillery shells exploded seventy-two gorgeous and dazzling bullets on the city wall near the south gate of Jinling City, and then slowly walked back to his seat and sat down, quietly watching this siege battle that he was not willing to initiate and waited with great patience and kindness, so that he had to delay it again and again.

When the first 130mm siege bomb drilled into the thick walls of Jinling City and exploded with a bang, Zhang Xun led Li Zhongyu to a place about 200 steps away from the south gate of Jinling City. The violent explosion not only frightened Li Zhongyu, who was only eight years old, into crying, but also made Zhang Xun, who had experienced countless military events, had long been trained to be pampered and humiliated, and was old and serious, and fell into the ice cave.

Fortunately, Zhang Xun is an old minister who is accustomed to seeing the world, and after a moment of gaffe, he quickly regained his agility and clarity of mind. was only stunned for a moment, then he grabbed Li Zhongyu's arm, held it in his arms without saying anything, and hurriedly ordered the entourage around him: "This place is dangerous, follow this official back to the palace quickly." After speaking, he took Li Zhongyu and strode towards Miyagi, leaving those young and strong entourages who were accustomed to walking far behind.

Fortunately, Zhang Xun reacted quickly, just a few breaths after he held Li Zhongyu and led a group of entourages to the direction of Miyagi, a row of 82mm** roared and landed near the place where they were standing.

Although before the siege was launched, Wang Kunjun had already ordered all artillery units to target the city wall and its nearly fifty paces to the left when firing, so as to minimize the collateral damage that might be caused by the shelling. But after all, shells don't have long eyes, and even if the gunner's shooting skills are superb, in this era of relying purely on the gunner's experience, feeling, and rudimentary shooting table to ensure the accuracy of the shell, there is a certain error in the landing point of each shell fired by the same gun, due to the slight differences in wind direction, wind speed, barrel condition, and the quantity and quality of the propellant. Therefore, this row of shells, which were supposed to hit the tower above the city gate, deflected nearly two hundred paces to the north and landed on the street. Not only did it kill and injure 178 people, but it also destroyed three houses and shops on the side of the road. Similar incidents were staged near the walls to the north and east of Jinling City. As a result, less than three minutes after the shelling began, the entire city of Jinling was already in chaos.

The noise on the street and the huge roar of the shell explosion alarmed Chen Qiao, who was working in the political hall, and learned from the casual mouth of the relatives who went out to inquire about the news that the Zhou army had begun to bombard and siege the city, and Zhang Xun and Li Zhongyu, who were selected by the lord Li Yu as the messenger to deliver the surrender letter Shun Table, had to flee back to the palace in a hurry to avoid the artillery fire before they left the city gate, Chen Qiao, who understood that Jiangnan Sheji had been cut off and everything had been suspended, sighed with emotion. He slowly untied the gold belt from his waist and handed it to the two relatives beside him, instructing them to collect their bones and give them to their families for burial after the city was settled. Then, despite the hard persuasion of his relatives, he locked himself in the inner hall and hanged himself.

At noon on the 27th day of the seventh lunar month of the second year of Jianlong, after nearly an hour of shelling, a section of nearly 100 steps long city wall on the west side of the south gate of Jinling City, which was the key attack area, was completely collapsed, and it had the conditions for rapid climbing. As Zeng Zhilin, who had returned from his wounds and served as the commander-in-chief of the enemy before the siege, all the siege guns and field guns except the mortars stopped firing in order to avoid accidental injuries, and dozens of siege tower vehicles full of soldiers slowly advanced towards the collapsed city wall along the firepower gap specially set aside for them. Under the cover of light and heavy machine-gun fire in the building car, more than 1,000 sappers carried a large number of preset components to build bridges, preparing to rush to the Qinhuai River, which acts as a moat, to erect a simple bridge after the remaining enemy troops at the head of the city were completely suppressed by machine gun and mortar fire, paving the way for the follow-up large army to attack the city.

At the end of the afternoon of the 27th day of the seventh lunar month of the second year of Jianlong, after the intense and orderly construction of more than 1,000 sappers, ten simple temporary bridges were successfully erected on the Qinhuai River outside the south gate of Jinling City. Immediately, with the support of the machine-gun fire on the building car and the mortar fire in the artillery group, all the officers and men of the "Langya Battalion," which was the first assault echelon, quickly passed through the improvised bridge under the leadership of the battalion commander Zhang Zheng, and climbed the 100-step-long section of the collapsed city wall like a tiger descending from a mountain.

On the 27th day of the seventh lunar month of the second year of Jianlong, after nearly an hour of fighting, the southern, eastern and northern walls of Jinling City were broken through, and the Zhou-Wu coalition army had nearly 100,000 troops into the city. The fear of the Zhou army, the shock of the fierce artillery bombardment at the beginning of the siege, and the disappointment of Li Yu, the indecisive lord of the country who fought without fighting and surrendered, made the Jiangnan defenders in Jinling City demoralized and had no fighting spirit. As the artillery bombardment continued, especially the infantry of the Zhou-Wu coalition army began to attack the city, the vast majority of the defenders in the south of the Yangtze River either gave up resistance and captured them, or threw away their weapons, took off their military uniforms, and blended into the city to become "innocent" civilians, or with the intention of taking advantage of the fire to rob, fishing in troubled waters, and going crazy at the end, they turned around and slashed the steel knife at the gentry and people in the city, ** plundering, burning, killing and looting, doing everything. The Jiangnan Army, which really fought back and fought face-to-face with the Zhou-Wu coalition army, only had less than two battalions of 800 strong men led by the generals Yu Yan, Ma Chengxin, and Ma Chengjun.

With 800 people against more than 100,000 people, the result can be imagined. In the face of the more than 800 Jiangnan troops who rushed towards him without fear of death, Zhang Zheng, as the commander of the "Wolf Tooth Battalion", admired the courage and fearlessness of the other side very much, but he was not soft in his hands at all, and immediately ordered the whole battalion to shoot fiercely with crossfire, so that not a single soldier of the other side could advance to a distance that could pose a threat to his own soldiers. As a result, in just three minutes, the eight hundred Jiangnan heroes below the brothers Yu Yan, Ma Chengxin, and Ma Chengjun all fell in a pool of blood, and no one was spared.

At the end of the 27th lunar month of the second year of Jianlong, Zeng Zhilin led his troops to besiege the palace. Li Yu, the lord of Jiangnan, who had previously sworn that if the society was lost, the whole family would go to the fire to death, after learning that Jinling City was breached, although he also pretended to order someone to set up a big pyre, but in the end, under the "strong persuasion" of those family members, cronies, and palace people who had no will to die, he once again "had a soft ear" and "reluctantly" gave up the idea of **, and then led a group of civil ministers and military generals. Holding the copy of the surrender letter that could have been sent in time to save Jinling City from fire and water, he bowed outside the palace gate, waiting for the supreme commander of the Zhou-Wu coalition army, the prince of Song, Kunjun, to accept his surrender on behalf of the Great Zhou Tianzi.