The rumbling sound of artillery was earth-shattering, and hundreds of artillery pieces were scattered and arranged, launching a fierce bombardment towards the city of Guangzhou. The artillery on the city wall lacked range and power, and was soon destroyed by the Ming army's naval heavy artillery, completely losing the ability to fight back. Once the threat was removed, various small artillery pieces began to move forward, joining the siege roar.

The bricks and stones flew sideways, the towers collapsed, and the city walls in the northwest corner trembled and trembled in the smoke of dust. Although the Ming army's action of arranging artillery was already known to the Qing army, this sharp and fierce artillery bombardment still made the Qing army tremble.

More than 10 years ago, in order to break through the city of Guangzhou, Shang Kexi stepped up the casting of cannons in Conghua, plus 27 cannons brought by Ganzhou in Jiangxi Province and captured on the way, a total of 73 cannons were violently bombarded, and the city wall collapsed more than 30 zhang in one day. And the artillery made and used at that time, both in terms of quantity and power, was a far cry from the one that roars and spits flames now.

The casting process of the artillery, the size of the caliber, the formula of gunpowder, the level of shooting...... What goes beyond is all aspects, and then forms a big advantage overall. Shang Kexi, who was originally good at firearms, finally appreciated the power of the Ming army's firearms today.

The shelling began in the morning, which had been going on for a whole morning, during which there was a break from the artillery to cool down, but the layering of the artillery ensured the overall uninterruptedness. The city walls were flattened, the small gaps became large gaps, the bombardment gradually showed the effect, the speed of the collapsed walls became faster and faster, and the shadows in the hearts of the Qing troops defending the city became heavier and heavier.

Dozens of meters of the city wall had been smashed open and collapsed, and the slope formed by the remnants of bricks and rubble was enough for soldiers to climb the city on foot. And the shelling continued, and from time to time shells came out of the dust and smoke and entered the city.

The walls can't be saved! Chief soldier Miao Wenxiu and deputy general Wu Qizhen glanced at each other, and read the same meaning from their eyes and expressions. I couldn't help but sigh for myself.

It was not only the arrival of Zhu Yongxing that put pressure on the Qing army defending the city, but also the political offensive dominated by Xu Erxian and other generals during the preparation of the attack. The Ming army shouted a fierce slogan, and those who committed blood debts in Xinhui will not be forgiven, and although Yunlong, Xu Chenggong and others were killed, their families in Guangzhou could not escape the death penalty. After the city is broken, it will be full of slaughter. Similarly, in the siege of Canton, the diehards were punished in the same way.

This was a tough posture that the Ming army had never had, and it showed that the Ming army had a strong confidence in attacking Guangzhou. Perhaps such a threat could make the Qing army desperately resist while it was still possible to hold the city. However, if the loss of the city is a foregone conclusion, in order to protect the family, is there any other choice but to make meritorious service anyway? It is not for nothing that they abandon their families and die with the city. But how could there be fewer people who think differently?

The threat on the city wall has been eliminated, and the Tianwei cannon and the sky-bombarding cannon have quickly pushed closer, setting up positions, preparing to cover the infantry breakthrough. Dozens of heavy guns began to raise their muzzles, preparing to fire an extended fire at the gap to kill and injure the enemy in the city.

The infantry threw away their excess equipment, checked their guns and ammunition, and loaded their bayonets. Staring at the gap in the smoke. The rapid-fire Franc machine was mounted on a wooden frame in groups of ten. Eight people carry it, two correct the ignition, and will accompany the infantry charge, opening the way with a rain of bullets.

The extended fire was sudden and violent, and the shells whizzed through the gaps and suddenly appeared in the smoke and dust. Slammed into the city. The Qing soldiers near the city wall were caught off guard, and their flesh and blood were blown up, and the houses near the city wall collapsed with a loud bang.

"Enemy, enemy siege!" The hissing shouts made Miao Wenxiu and the other generals cramp for a while, and they only felt a layer of sweat on their foreheads and vests for a moment.

Miao Wenxiu stabbed his hands. He shouted in a hoarse voice: "Stand up and block them!" ”

Blocking the attack of the Ming army can force the people gathered from the city to carry bricks and stones forward to plug the gap, and the city can still hold on. If the Ming infantry broke into the city, how could the Qing army, which was inferior in strength and equipment, resist?

The artillery fire gradually stopped, and the city walls were blasted open, but the breakthrough of the city still required the heroic assault of the infantry, and at the time when the artillery accuracy was not high, continuing to bombard the Hongyi artillery with a long range could only bring difficulties to the besieging troops. The Qing army thought so, but they didn't know that the Ming army's curved artillery had advanced to the firing range, and the damage to the Qing soldiers would be even greater than before.

The Ming siege infantry did not rush to charge, but slowly pressed up in a neat queue, waiting for the Qing soldiers to line up at the gap to resist.

For the Ming army's concentrated fire bombardment, the Qing army was of course able to estimate the direction of the Ming army's breakthrough and made corresponding preparations. At the sound of an order, the three thousand soldiers, each armed with a weapon, rushed into the smoke and dust, and lined up at the gap, in order to prevent the Ming army from breaking through the city.

The smoke and dust slowly dissipated, and under the sunlight, the bayonets and gun blades flashed with cold light, and the distance between the two sides became closer and closer, and the hand-to-hand combat that the Qing army expected seemed to be about to happen.

"Boom, boom, boom......" Plumes of smoke rose from the Ming army's position, and large and small shells flew up in the air, swept over the heads of the Ming infantry, and smashed fiercely around the gap.

The shell landed, bounced, tumbled, and exploded. The smoke and dust that rushed into the sky were lifted, shrapnel flew sideways, rubble was splattered, earth was churning, and people were choked by the hot air currents and gunsmoke.

All vision was blurred, and the smoke and dust from the explosion blocked the gaps, creating chaos. The unprecedented artillery concentrated bombardment of the city, the unprecedented intensive bombardment, even the participants of the Ming army looked at it in amazement, looking at the dense Qing army at the gap covered by gunpowder smoke and dust.

The Qing soldiers were all hidden in the chaos, unable to distinguish which was the dust and which was the smoke of the explosion. The surviving enemies were so shocked that it was difficult to breathe, and the air seemed to be burned and squeezed away, and they struggled to open their mouths, but with each gasp they breathed into their bodies was choking the smoke of gunpowder. The hot smoke burned in the throat and between the lobes of the lungs, as if it were about to explode in the chest again.

In the violent explosion, the soil layer on the surface was strongly pushed and squeezed by the explosives, and the large and small stones could be ejected from the soil under the pressure of the form of earthquake, bursting high and smashing people's heads and bleeding.

A strong white light flashed, more dazzling than the sun, and more deafening than the thunder. The big explosion exploded violently not far from Miao Wenxiu, the earth trembled violently in the explosion, and Miao Wenxiu and several people around him lost their sight and hearing in an instant.

The explosions came and went in screams and exclamations for a long time before they stopped. But the chaos of the Qing army did not stop. The hundreds of curved guns deployed near and far were just a round of bombardment, which shattered the delusion of the Qing army's 3,000 elite soldiers to plug the gap.

The drums of war rumbled, replacing the sparse explosions, and in the midst of whistles and roars, the Ming army continued to advance, this time at an accelerated pace. To the smoke that has not yet dissipated, to the gap of chaos.

It's over, it's over! Miao Wenxiu regained her eyesight, but she couldn't hear a sound. He saw that the Qing soldiers were constantly struggling to escape from the smoke of gunpowder, and their expressions were sluggish and sluggish, and he was terrified to the extreme.

The shaking earth calmed down, and the smoke gradually cleared in a cloud of cries and screams. One could see the craters scattered all over the place, surrounded by corpses and wounded soldiers, some curled up in the rubble. Some of them poked out of the rotten bricks. The ground was a mess, some black, some charred, and the ploughed dirt was mixed with broken weapons and tattered rags.

The bright light flashed, a row of bullets shot over, the white fog did not dissipate, and the figure of the Ming army with the top armor appeared in the gap. With a burst of screams, the Ming soldiers mercilessly poked the wounded soldiers who stood in the way and rushed to the top of the slope. With a shout, he rushed down. Another line of Ming soldiers rushed up the slope. Raise your gun at the whistle and shoot......

Hand-to-hand combat was there, but it was not fierce, and the Qing soldiers, who had been blown up and lost their souls and panicked in confusion, were even more frightened under the platoon of guns and bayonets, and almost lost their organized resistance. More and more Ming troops broke in, and several Franc cannons were also brought up. Under the dense rain of bullets, the Qing army suffered heavy casualties.

The superiority in numbers and firepower became more and more obvious, and the melee around the gap was still going on, but the Ming army's front was constantly pressing, so that more follow-up Ming troops could join the battle group.

Miao Wenxiu's waving arm was suddenly grabbed. Several of his own soldiers dragged him and began to retreat. In the line of sight, the city walls on both sides of the gap have been occupied by the Ming army, and the light is continuous, it is the musket shooting. There are also some Ming troops who are putting something in place and pointing to this side......

"Boom!" There was a cloud of black smoke on the city wall, and then Miao Wenxiu saw a black thing flying over and smashing into the ranks of the Qing soldiers, with a deafening explosion, and the smoke enveloped a human body.

The artillery of the Ming army, the kind of artillery that can open the flower shell. Miao Wenxiu stopped screaming, stopped struggling, his heart continued to sink, sinking into the abyss, and letting his own soldiers drag him farther and farther.

After a series of battles, especially the Battle of Xinhui, the Ming army's arms became more and more proficient in coordination. Well, now it can only be infantry and artillery coordination, but this is already an irresistible tactic for the Qing army.

Furlong machines, bombardment cannons, or the first to open the way, or fire support, coupled with the accumulation of muskets, the breakthrough has been irreversible, the battle has extended in all directions, and the advantage in numbers and firepower has become more and more obvious.

Miao Wenxiu fought and walked with the defeated army, and retreated to the north gate, hoping to get the support of the friendly forces there and stabilize his position. But before they arrived, a fierce burst of gunfire came from the opposite side, followed by a group of defeated wolves.

"Adjutant General Li Youcai rebelled, assassinated the general soldier company, and surrendered." Another thunderbolt hit Miao Wenxiu's head on a sunny day, and his mind went blank all of a sudden, and he completely lost his ability to think.

"My lord, let's go this way." The deputy general Wu Qizhen was out of breath, beckoned his own soldiers, and set up Miao Wenxiu, who looked stupid, and turned to the inner city.

Guangzhou has two cities, the inner and outer cities, and it is impossible for Shang Kexi to put all his troops in the outer city, and there are still quite a few men and horses left in the inner city. In charge of the outer city are four general soldiers, Miao Wenxiu, Lian Decheng, Ban Zhifu, and Gao Jinku, with a total of 20,000 soldiers. Miao Wenxiu lost the West City, Li Youcai surrendered at the North Gate, and the outer city of Guangzhou can be said to have been in the pocket of the Ming army.

If Shang Ke was happy to send troops from the inner city to reinforce the outer city, the battle might have been more intense, but it was welcomed by the Ming army. Shang Kexi was naturally not so stupid, and when he saw that the outer city was already difficult to protect, he urgently ordered the people and horses in the outer city to retreat and shrink to the inner city to resist stubbornly.

As soon as the retreat order was given, the Qing army in the outer city suddenly lost the heart of resistance and rushed to flee to the inner city. The Ming army pursued and killed, guns and stabs, and the streets and alleys leading to the inner city were full of corpses of Qing soldiers, and only six or seven thousand people finally fled into the inner city.

The inner and outer cities of Guangzhou are two sides, each other is a horn, and if the Qing army loses one of them, the defeat is decided. Cowering in the inner city, although the defensive range is small, it is still lingering, and destruction is only at hand. The Ming army quickly cleared the remnants of the enemy in the outer city, set up cannons in the outer city forts, and began to bombard the inner city.

As soon as the sunset receded, the heavens and the earth turned silvery-gray. And in the outer city of Guangzhou, where the sporadic fighting has not stopped, the milky white cooking smoke has risen one after another, blending with the gray twilight, like a thin layer of mist on the walls, roofs, tree tops, and street masks.

From the beginning of the morning bombardment to the capture of the outer city, it was only a day. Of course, there is an element of surrendering generals, but it cannot be denied that the Ming army of the Eastern Expedition has made great progress in its ability to attack fortifications and fight in the streets. The combat strength of the Qing army in Guangdong declined rapidly, which was somewhat unexpected by Zhu Yongxing and others.

The reason for this is that Shang Kexi's feudal soldiers, that is, the backbone of his establishment and contributions, were completely lost in the war. And for a long time in the rich land of Guangdong, arrogance and lasciviousness are even more corrupting poisons.

After Shang and Geng Er counterattacked Guangzhou, until the ninth year of Shunzhi (1652), the whole territory of Guangdong was gradually settled. When the war subsided, the old city of Guangzhou was stationed for the "vassal kings", and "the city was surrounded by his sons, nephews and feudal officials", and as for the large and small yamen of the original local government, they were all driven to the outer city. In the old city of Guangzhou, a large number of construction projects were built, and the "extremely majestic" feudal prince's mansion was built.

In Guangdong, Shang Kexi, the vassal king, was a native emperor under one person and above ten thousand people. can be controlled "(Governor), Governor (Governor), (Patrol) Governor, Town (Taiwan)"; It is possible to "dispatch troops and horses"; You can "dig mountains and open mines, boil sea salt, send tax collectors from counties, and go to foreign countries"; It is possible to establish a feudal secession-style manor "Wangzhuang"; It can control rivers and lakes, as well as coastal fisheries. It can also manipulate the province's market and commerce, organize the "head office", and integrate Guangdong's political, economic, and military powers.

Power and money, the lights are glamorous, and eating, drinking and having fun are naturally indispensable. Taking the "eagle dog room" of the palace as an example, it is divided into four major places: insect and ant room, bird room, eagle harrier room and dog room. The insect and ant house raises crickets, grasshoppers, autumn cicadas, and bees; The bird house raises quails, thrushes, white pigeons, and fighting cocks; Eagle harrier house to raise sea east green, blue harrier, hemp eagle; The kennel houses Oto hounds and pugs. There are full-time officials such as "dog supervisors" everywhere, and there are nearly 100 breeding personnel. Other royal brothers, young masters, young ladies, and ladies are not among them.

In the Pingnan Palace, "the cat is called Miss and Niuniu, and the dog is called Xianggong and Little Brother". and often go out with dogs, which can be described as "people and dogs congested". The butcher shops they pass through must "honor" the pork and the dog, and passers-by are afraid to avoid it, but they are afraid that they can't. (To be continued......)