For a commander who commands tens of thousands of troops in battle, the most terrible situation is not how strong the enemy is, but the blockage of external information that makes it impossible for him to see the trend of the battle situation clearly, make reasonable judgments in time, and take effective countermeasures. After Zheng Bai led his army south to Hue City, he faced this situation that made him very depressed.

Although the battle plan agreed upon with the Hai and Han sides at the end of last year was that "the two armies will join forces to attack Hue City after the Hue Division," the current actual situation seems to be a slight deviation from the agreement at that time -- this "meeting division" has already arrived, but the "joint attack" seems to be still up for discussion.

For the North Vietnamese court, the conquest of Hue was not only a political reunification of Annam, but also an important means of saving its financial deficit. Before Zheng Bai moved south, Zheng Jie, the king of the Qing capital, issued a secret order to Zheng Bai, asking him to collect as much gold and silver treasures as possible from the city after conquering Hue and transport them to the north. After the end of this Great Northern War, the military expenses that the northern court needed to repay to the Haihan militia were bound to be a considerable amount, and at this time the treasury had already been exhausted.

But it was clear that the North Vietnamese were not the only ones eyeing Hue City, and when Zheng Bai led his army south, he found that his allies had the same intentions. The Hai Han people asked the North Vietnamese to place their troops in the area west of Hue City, saying that in order to prevent the remnants of the army from escaping into the mountains, but they couldn't wait to launch an offensive against Hue City alone, Zheng Bai thought that this was completely the Hai Han militia wanted to eat alone. The information returned by the military observation group sent to the Haihan army to carry out surveillance tasks was basically relayed by the liaison officer of the Haihan side, and it was often only a few figures, with only descriptions such as "today's battle is very fierce, and the two armies are attacking and defending each other" or "our army has killed more than 1,000 enemies in front of the formation", and there is no mention of the specific progress of the siege at all.

Of course, Zheng Bai was not a fool, knowing that the observation group he sent over probably did not have the opportunity to go to the front line to watch the battle, so he sent a lot of spies to the surrounding areas of the Haihan People's League to inquire about the news. However, the information fed back from various channels is varied and inconsistent, and it is difficult to judge whether it is true or false; there is news that the Hai Han militia is storming the northeast corner of Hue City for several days, but no substantial progress has been made; there is also news that the Hai Han militia has broken through the city wall and entered the city, and has even secretly occupied the imperial city; there is even more exaggerated news that the Hai Han has accepted the peace conditions put forward by the South Vietnamese court, and the two sides have secretly reached an alliance under the city, and they may turn back at any time.

For these very different statements, Zheng Bai could not judge the truth or falsehood for a while, and according to his own judgment, the information was not true. The heavy artillery fire of the Haihan people attacking Hue City for several days shook for miles, and this offensive could not be faked, and it was unlikely that there would be no progress in the slightest. But if the Haihan people have occupied Hue City, then there is no large number of defenders who have fled from Hue City. In recent days, a small number of stragglers have quietly sneaked out of Hue City in an attempt to escape, but were captured by patrols of the North Vietnamese Army, and under interrogation it has been confirmed that the Haihan people have indeed attacked the city, but the battle still seems to be in a stalemate.

Judging from the frequency of deserters, the Haihan people should not have captured the core area of the city, and the defenders have not completely given up resistance, which makes Zheng Bai feel a little relieved. If this situation can continue for a while, in fact, Zheng Bai is happy to see it happen - the strength of the Hai Han militia is too strong, and it is actually good for North Vietnam to let them lose a little more in Hue City. Moreover, Hue City is so big, Zheng Bai does not believe that with the existing strength of the Haihan militia group, the city can be completely controlled after the capture of Hue.

As for the rumor that the Haihan people were negotiating peace with the Nanyue court, Zheng Bai did not believe it at all, he knew very well that the Haihan people were not good at stubble, and they had spent so much energy to destroy all the seaports in South Vietnam and drive away the Portuguese, and now that the army was in the city, victory was in sight, how could South Vietnam be able to offer some conditions? Besides, what could be offered by South Vietnam, could it not be opened by North Vietnam? In comparison, the Haihan people would definitely still choose an ally with a solid relationship rather than an opponent who had been fighting for more than a year. (Baidu search update is the fastest and most stable)

According to Zheng Bai's estimation, after the Haihan people invaded the city, they would inevitably suffer a frantic counterattack by the defenders who were forced to a dead end, as long as they fought for a few more days, the Haihan militia would suffer more casualties, and then Yan Chujie would naturally have to take the initiative to ask him to send troops to assist. But what he didn't expect was that there was an organized leading party in the city, which took the initiative to stand up and cooperate with the Haihan people, so that the Haihan militia could easily control a small part of the city, and relatively smoothly set up the forward position in an area just one mile outside the imperial city.

By the time the situation had reached this point, the final outcome had basically been finalized, and the defenders did not know the actual strength of the Haihan militia, they only knew that the enemy had advanced half of the city after breaking through the outer city and arrived outside the imperial city. As soon as this news spread, it was quickly interpreted by some of the defenders as "I am going to finish the dynasty", and then led the large-scale chaos in the city, losing the ability to organize resistance. This also reduces the pressure on the Haihan militia in disguise, otherwise the tens of thousands of defenders in the city really want to press over and fight desperately with the militia army, not to mention whether they can fight or not, but it is inevitable that the militia will have more casualties and ammunition and material consumption because of this, and it will also delay the time for them to attack the imperial city.

When Zheng Bai received the news that the Haihan militia was about to launch an official attack on the imperial city today, his first thought was to send troops to attack Xicheng. Since the defenders in the city want to resist the attack of the Hai Han militia on the imperial city, there is bound to be no way to allocate too many troops to defend the outer city, if this opportunity is grasped well, then the North Vietnamese army should still be able to enter Hue City before the Hai Han militia breaks through the imperial city, with their own military advantage, at least Hue can draw more than half of this fat into their own bowl.

Zheng Bai immediately raised his account and transferred troops, preparing to arrange an attack. However, as soon as the North Vietnamese army had completed the assembly and had not had time to pull the team out of the camp, the gates of Hue West Thanh suddenly opened, and thousands of South Vietnamese troops poured out and rushed towards the North Vietnamese camp.

At first, the North Vietnamese thought that the defenders were attacking on their own initiative, but soon realized that something was wrong - the South Vietnamese army was marching in no line as it should have been, and was almost a swarm of swarms, which was obviously not their normal level of combat. Zheng Bai made a judgment after personally confirming that the South Vietnamese Army was not attacking, but fleeing for its life!

The emergence of this situation is likely to mean one thing, that is, the Haihan militia has broken through the imperial city!

The anxious Zheng Bai couldn't wait to let his tens of thousands of troops fly into Hue City with wings on his hands, but reason told him that he couldn't let go of these rebels who had now abandoned the city and fled, because those big people of the Nguyen family were likely to be mixed with these rebels. If they escaped, they would have left a legacy behind, and perhaps in a month or two they would have formed a new resistance further south. Moreover, among the tasks given to him by Zheng Jie, the first priority was to seize the core figures of the Nguyen family, and the second was to control the wealth in Hue City.

"Array! Stop these rebels, none of them can be let go! But there are those who resist, kill!" Zheng Bai did not hesitate for too long, and made a decision. No matter what the shape of the city is, he must first grasp the people who must be caught. If you don't grab the money, this pot can be pushed to the Haihan people who are *** Dao to carry it, but if the city is broken but no one is caught, then he Zheng Bai will be to blame as the commander.

For these deserters, the defense line on the plain, which was several miles wide, was simply an impassable moat. After the hundreds of rebels who rushed to the front were knocked down by the dense musket fire of the North Vietnamese army, the speed of the rebels behind immediately slowed down. A South Vietnamese officer on a horse began to yell and organize the surrounding soldiers into a military formation, but in such a chaotic situation, it was very difficult to maintain military discipline in the chaos of the army. With the exception of a small number of Imperial Guards who protected the nobles from the Imperial City, most of the other South Vietnamese armies had actually lost their original structure by this time, and there was no effective command at all.

Zheng Bai didn't have the patience to wait for these rebel armies to slowly reorganize on the plains, and entering the city a moment later now might mean that there was less oil and water that could be scraped out of Hue. For the North Vietnamese court, it did not matter whether the Nguyen rulers lived or died, as long as they left people behind, so Zheng Bai decisively ordered the artillery to aim at several places in the enemy formation where the military flag was held and began to bombard.

The sharp artillery fire quickly dispersed the already small number of formed troops among the South Vietnamese deserters, and the chaotic army that fled in panic did not have any heavy weapons that could compete with them - when fleeing for their lives, who could care about bringing out those hundreds or thousands of pounds of artillery.

"Pass my order, the cavalry battalion will attack and drive the enemy army south!" Zheng Bai saw that his army had gained an advantage with long-range weapons, so he issued a new battle order.

The cavalry battalion of the North Vietnamese Army was not large, only less than 500 horsemen, and the horses were all relatively short Yunnan horses. In terms of horse breed alone, it is actually not as good as the Haihan cavalry, which currently has less than fifty horses. However, in the current environment where the scene is superior and the battlefield terrain is relatively flat, this unit can play a very significant role in the battlefield. Hundreds of cavalry led the order to attack and slaughter the South Vietnamese soldiers who tried to flee to the north, and drove the South Vietnamese deserters to the south to the banks of the Xiang River like sheep.

However, although this process was relatively smooth, the operation to eliminate the deserters did not end in a short time, because the city continued to pour out a stream of deserters, and later even the North Vietnamese cavalry troops that rushed too far south were caught in the middle. By the time the North Vietnamese Army cooperated with the infantry and cavalry, most of the deserters were forced to the bank of the Xiangjiang River, and it was already noon, and at this time, it was almost three hours since the Haihan militia attacked the imperial city from the Peace Gate.

"Good things, put it away, be careful not to hurt it!" Yan Chujie admired as he carefully handed a blue and white porcelain vase to the militia next to him.

"Is this bottle valuable?" Qiao Zhiya looked at the militia with a blank expression, took out the bottle as if he was holding a treasure, and asked Yan Chujie.

"Well, it's worth the money. Yan Chujie nodded and said: "That's the blue and white entwined branch lotus pattern bottle in the Xuande period, which is all tribute for the court, and it can't be bought on the market." Look at this, this is a blue and white seawater white dragon pattern flat pot, which is also from the official kiln...... There is also this seawater banana leaf pattern, this dragon pattern bowl...... Tsk, this time it's really a treasure! Move away, move away, move away!"

"I didn't see that Mr. Yan was still a porcelain expert!" Qiao Zhiya couldn't help but say with admiration when he saw that he was right.

"Experts can't say, in fact, they have made up for it in recent times. Yan Chujie said with a smile: "Since the matter of attacking Hue was decided at the end of last year, this guy from Ningqi has grabbed me and forced me to make up lessons and give me knowledge of evil supplements. He said that there are a lot of valuable good things in Hue City, and he is afraid that we will not know the goods, and it will be a pity to smash them as ordinary altars and jars. ”

In addition to supplying the refined porcelain produced by the official kilns of the Ming Dynasty to the imperial court, an important destination was to give it to some client states as a reward. During Zheng He's seven voyages to the West in the early 15th century, Annam and Champa were the areas visited by Zheng He's fleet, and both countries each obtained a lot of fine porcelain from the official kilns of the Ming Dynasty. These treasures in Hue City are all genuine, and the source is well-documented, Ning Qi greeted Yan Chujie early and asked him to collect these good things as much as possible and transport them back to Shengli Port.

Although these porcelains are not as valuable as later generations at this time, and can easily fetch tens of millions of sky-high prices at auctions, they are also rare objects that are rare among the people, even if they are used to display in some external places, such as the Guangzhou Office, Haihan Bank, etc., it will still have a very significant effect on the promotion of the forced style.

In addition to these porcelain, there are also a lot of exquisite handicrafts from the Ming Dynasty and celebrity calligraphy and painting works in the palace. Although this is just a small court in a corner of the country, it is also a strong party after all, and the maritime trade with the Ming Dynasty has always been close, and it has also collected a lot of good things. Although Yan Chujie has made up for two months of material knowledge, after all, he only looks at pictures and knows things, and those who have seen pictures can roughly say one, two, three, and those who have not seen it can only rely purely on blindness. It is difficult for him to identify things like calligraphy and painting, although there is the author's signature seal behind it, but most of them are words, numbers and the like, Yan Chujie doesn't recognize a few at all, so he can only let the soldiers put away these things regardless of three, seven and twenty-one.

Wealth is important, but for the Haihan militia, the most important thing is more practical things such as gold, silver and jewelry, after all, when dividends are distributed after the war, there is no way to use vases, plates, banners and other things to send the militia. Although it is a negotiable note, it also requires real money to be used as bank reserves. Several bigwigs of the Military Commission had already summed it up before the war, and if they couldn't get a hundred thousand taels of silver from Hue City on this trip, it would be a real failure.

However, the day before, when the treasury of the household department was cleared, the scene made Yan Chujie and the others almost feel cold, the official treasury of the dignified Nanyue Imperial Court, the treasury in it was less than 50,000 taels of silver, and the gold was only more than 3,000 taels, such a small amount of money could not even be compared to the Haihan Bank Exchange Center in Shengli Port. Looking at the empty storeroom, several senior officers at that time were a little skeptical that the expected harvest of this cross-sea operation before the war was a little too high.

At the beginning of last year, the Hai Han militia destroyed the Dong seaport north of Hue, and in the second half of the year, Hoi An south of Hue was turned into a ruin, destroying the two largest seaports in South Vietnam one after another. At the same time, the huge military expenditure did not decrease at all, in order to maintain the military confrontation with North Vietnam, the South Vietnamese court could only squeeze out the military expenditure as much as possible from the financial expenditure, which led to the rapid emptying of the treasury, even if the Hai Han militia did not come to attack Hue at this time, as long as this situation continued for a few more months, the South Vietnamese court would also fall into a situation of bankruptcy. Fortunately, the raid on the homes of the powerful families in the city did not disappoint the military leadership, and only in the home of Nguyen Thong, who was in charge of commerce and trade in South Vietnam, the militia seized 130,000 taels of silver, more than 7,000 taels of gold, 100 catties of various jewels and jade, and hundreds of handicrafts. Yan Chujie couldn't help but sigh that this South Vietnam is in the same vein as the Ming Dynasty, and it has also achieved "hiding wealth from the people", the treasury is empty, but the magnates are all fat. Seeing that the state power is about to collapse, these people are still reluctant to take out the money to use it for military operations, and they deserve to be copied by the invaders. With this kind of example in front of them, the enthusiasm of the militia to raid the house was high, and the day before the attack on the imperial city, the property stolen by the Haihan militia from the homes of the big families in the city was worth more than one million taels of gold and silver alone. This also allowed Yan Chujie to have plenty of time to slowly identify various art collections in the Nanyue Imperial Palace after entering the imperial city, so as to show his artistic accomplishment.