After sweeping away the practice of Yong in the south of the city, Lin Fengxiang led the elite 10,000 people of the Taiping Army in the West Hall to join Li Kaifang, and the Taiping Army concentrated two artillery teams, relying on the barracks built by strong houses in the south of the city, and attacked Nanjing City with artillery. Among these artillery, especially the 3,000-pound cannon newly transported to Wu Sangui was the most powerful, and many buildings in the city were flattened, and even the Jubaomen City Tower where Lu Jianying was sitting was also beaten to pieces.

Although Lu Jianying regarded wealth as his life, when he saw such a fierce offensive by the Taiping army, he also panicked at this time, and almost wanted to abandon the city and flee. After Zhang Bingyuan, the leader of Lian Yong, fled back to the city, this person was humble and subservient, and he had no scholarly temperament at all. Seeing the fierce artillery of the Taiping army, he immediately offered a plan to soak the cowhide in water and wrap the rattan shield, and then erect the head of the city with a fishing net to resist the cannon.

Governor Lu had nothing to do, and when he saw that someone was offering a plan, he naturally obeyed his words, and he was also afraid that the Taiping army's cannon would not grow and hit him, so he immediately ordered someone to do what Zhang Bingyuan said.

Seeing that Zhang Bingyuan's strategy worked, Lu Jianying had a fluke mentality again, thinking that with Zhang Bingyuan, the living Zhuge in charge, Nanjing City was impregnable, so he gave up the idea of escaping and began to calculate the silver in the treasury that was about to bottom out again.

On the third day, Xiao Yungui's Xidian Taiping Army Brigade arrived, Xiao Yungui and Zuo Zongtang discussed, immediately divided troops to occupy important strongholds outside the city, with Yuhuatai as the core, built a large number of camps, and effectively used the forts abandoned by Lu Jianying outside the city, bombarding Nanjing City day and night. As for Zhang Bingyuan's little tricks, Xiao Yungui disdained them, and ordered people to replace them with the newly developed flowering bombs from the craftsman battalion according to Wu Sangui's bequeathed flowering bombs, and bombarded the fishing nets and cowhides at the head of the city. However, this kind of flowering shell still has flaws, and the lead left is very unstable, either it does not explode when it lands, or it explodes in mid-air, but still half of the shells can explode after landing.

Xiao Yungui felt sorry for those cannonballs, you must know that the cost of making a cannonball is not small, the so-called cannon sounds, gold is ten thousand taels, and hitting the cannon is hitting silver, such a success rate makes Xiao Yungui feel painful. At this time, he regretted a little, why didn't he study science back then? turned her head and wanted to ask the four-eyed sister, but Hong Yun'er didn't have a way, she wanted her to say history, people, places of interest, she could count the treasures, but if she wanted to ask her about mechanical artillery, she was also black-eyed. zuihou Xiao Yungui asked in a hurry, Hong Yun'er said angrily: "I'm not an encyclopedia, it's useless to force me to death, sister, I don't know, I just don't know!" You'd better send someone to find Ding Gongchen or another firearms expert as soon as possible, if it really doesn't work, you can send someone to Shanghai to invite some foreign technicians! ”

Xiao Yungui is just dead, it seems that this four-eyed girl really doesn't know, no wonder she, like herself, is studying liberal arts, so how can she read books about science? Although we all know some simple principles, but the knowledge of machinery and chemistry is a thousand miles away, just like **, the subtle differences in the proportion can make the power of the finished gunpowder appear a world apart, and if you don't understand the details, it is equivalent to not understanding. Xiao Yungui could only order Bai Zetang to step up the search for firearms experts, and at the same time let the Baoqing Chamber of Commerce and Guiyun Firm also join the ranks of looking for people, and then let the two businesses or Xiangshang Sea stretch out their tentacles and prepare to start contact with foreigners.

At night, Xiao Yungui did not set fire to the temples and monuments outside the city like Hong Yang did in history, and he ordered the whole army to keep as much as possible. And along the way, the Taiping army did not persecute monks and Taoists as cruelly as in history, if Hong Yang was replaced to fight Nanjing, the temples and Taoist temples in the prefectures and counties along the way were all destroyed, and countless monks and Taoists were killed and driven away. Xiao Yungui did not do this, but the reputation of the Taiping Army was not damaged.

Xiao Yungui told the whole army that those pagans who did not believe in our religion would go to hell to suffer after death, and that God the Father would liquidate everyone when the time limit was reached, and there was no need for the Taiping army to use the sword. Hong Yun'er said that God sent everyone in the mortal world to save these lost lambs, and killing them with a knife could not solve the problem, but it was still necessary to let such lost people feel the gospel of God in order to be blessed in all directions. How can the officials argue with Hong Yun'er? Under the brainwashing of Hong Yun'er's mouth cannon, he thought it was true, and the officials were more active in reasoning and preaching, and the Taiping Army in the West Temple changed the bloody and oppressive preaching methods in the past, which greatly reduced the disgust of the people.

However, at night, Xiao Yungui still ordered the Taiping army to fire artillery continuously, and at the same time ordered all armies to use psychological tactics to intimidate Lu Jianying, divide the soldiers into countless squads of two horses, and carry out tactical harassment maneuvers, lure the Qing army to consume artillery fire, and make non-stop feints day and night, so that the soldiers defending the city could not eat well during the day and could not sleep at night.

At the same time, Bai Zetang had already made contact with the Heaven and Earth Society in Nanjing, Tong Qiangsheng led people to sneak into the city pretending to be refugees before the siege, and together with the Heaven and Earth Society in the city, they continued to sabotage in the city, and pasted the proclamation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Western King to recover Jinling everywhere at night, which made the people in the city panic, and the soldiers were bowed and snakes. Although the Qing army knew that there were spies in the city, the attack outside the city was very urgent, and the generals in the city had their own selfish intentions, and no one cared about cracking down on the spies in the city. With the increasing expansion of Bai Zetang's activities in the city, he even posted a notice outside the yamen of the governor of Liangjiang, which made Lu Jianying even more panicked, and transferred a large number of people to defend his mansion, and at the same time, the will of the Qing army in Nanjing City to defend the city continued to collapse, and the morale was completely gone.

In addition, the Taiping army showed benevolence and righteousness outside the city, and many Nanjing people looked forward to the Taiping army entering the city. Under the anticipation of such a people, even if the Qing army forced the young people to go to the city to help defend it, the young people did not contribute to the work, and they ran backwards as soon as the cannon sounded, and the Qing soldiers could not stop it. Several times the Qing soldiers could not stop it, so anxious to draw a knife to kill, which increased the resentment of the people against the Qing army, and there were incidents in the city from time to time that the Qing soldiers were left alone and the flag soldiers were assassinated by the people, and the Qing army also said that it was done by the spies in the city, but in fact, a large part of it was done by the people. With the people's will turned against this, it is inevitable that the city of Nanjing will be broken.

Looking at the morale in the city, Xiao Yungui knew that the time was ripe to break the city, so he ordered the Taiping army to dig tunnels in Jinghai Temple, Tian** and other places, preparing to carry out the siege of the city. It's a bit of a trick, but it's extremely effective. Xiao Yungui believes that when the more powerful flowering shells and cannons are developed, this tactic will be withdrawn from the stage of history, and at the same time, the city walls that have been stretched across the land of China for thousands of years will also be completely useless.

The shameless Zhang Bingyuan and Liu Tongying, the magistrate of the county, found that the Taiping army had begun to prepare for the siege of the city, so they proposed to dig an inner trench, build street barracks at the entrance to the city, and build artillery fire on the houses on both sides of the traffic arteries in the city to prevent the Taiping army from blasting into the city and preparing to start street fighting. The idea of these two men has to be said to be extremely clever, they want to put the Taiping army into the quagmire of street fighting, just like the tactics used in the south of the city to train bravery, and drag down the Taiping army in the street fighting.

But somehow, this strategy was rejected by Lu Jianying, maybe in his opinion, once the city wall is breached, it is best for him to pack up and flee first, and what are you going to do in the street fight?

Seeing that his plan was rejected, the shameless lackey Zhang Bingyuan proposed to bombard Jinghai Temple with artillery to remove the stronghold of the Taiping army digging tunnels, and the deputy general Tang Yifen personally lit artillery to attack Jinghai Temple, and the first cannon hit Jinghai Temple, and the secondary beam of the main hall collapsed, but the artillery fire failed to destroy the tunnel dug by the Taiping army.

In the city, Bai Zetang, Tong Qiangsheng and others heard that the Qing army bombarded Jinghai Temple, so they spread rumors in the city, saying that the Qing army did not respect the Buddha and was about to be defeated. The Qing army has always preached that the Taiping army destroyed Buddhism and destroyed religion, but all everyone saw was that the Taiping army did not destroy the temple, but the Qing army shelled the temple, and the distrust of the government reached an unprecedented level.

Two days later, the tunnel of the city wall near Jinghai Temple was blasted at the same time, and the city wall in the direction of Lion Rock was blown open by two zhang, but the city wall of Nanjing was quite high and thick, although the city wall collapsed, but did not form a path.

The Taiping army spent another day digging and blasting, and the artillery bombarded the gap fiercely, and finally the tunnel and the cannon fired at the same time, and there was a shock up and down, and the front of the Lion Rock was walled, and several layers of bricks and stones were removed.

The vanguard of the Taiping Army, who had long been hiding in the private houses outside the city, held a big sword and rattan card, poured out from the hidden place, desperately rushed into the gap, and the Yifeng Gate was broken.

Nanjing City is the first important town in the south of the Yangtze River, there are a lot of Eight Banners garrison troops stationed in the city, these people know that the Taiping Army will not let go of the Manchurians, the flag soldiers, is to fight to the death, actually showed unprecedented combat effectiveness, the will to fight under the persecution of death broke out a rare firmness, in the support of the regimental training led by Zhang Bingyuan, and the Taiping Army that broke into the gap fought fiercely.

On the one hand, you have to fight to enter the city, and on the other hand, you have to desperately block the gap, and on top of the short ten-zhang gap, there is already a sea of corpses and blood at the time of a stick of incense. The Taiping army took turns to attack the gap, and the Qing army stepped forward to block it like a desperate one, with human heads and stumps flying everywhere, blood splashing everywhere, and screams everywhere.

Lin Fengxiang, who was in command at the front, saw that although the blasting of Yifengmen was successful, the Qing army did not break up as usual, but swarmed to plug the gap.

Fortunately, at this moment, Li Kaifang's ministry reported that Bai Zetang saw that the city was broken, and ordered the people in the city and the people of the Heaven and Earth Association to pick up all kinds of weapons and rush to kill the Qing army in Jubaomen. At this time, most of the defenders of Jubaomen had been transferred to Yifengmen for reinforcements, and the remaining soldiers were quickly killed and dispersed by the rebel army in the city led by Bai Zetang.