In Xuzhou City, the tragic offensive and defensive battle continues.

The war began on December 14 in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, and has been going on for seven days.

In the past seven days, Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin organized a total of more than 30 large and small offensives, including 24 key attacks with a scale of 10,000 people and 9 all-out attacks with 50,000 or 60,000 people.

Under the frantic attack of the peasant army, the city wall of Xuzhou was crumbling, and almost all the urn city, enemy towers, battlements and nests were destroyed by the fierce artillery fire of the peasant army, and the original garrison army of nearly 20,000 people now has less than 5,000 people left.

Not only the number of defenders has been sharply reduced, but the equipment in the city has also been basically exhausted, of which there are only more than 2,000 catties of gunpowder and cannons left, and the rolling wood and participation, stones and lime bottles have also been consumed, and now there is nothing else on the city wall except for the masonry that has been dismantled.

The defenders suffered heavy casualties, and the casualties of the peasant army were even more serious, and the nearly 500,000 people that Li Zicheng had coerced from Xinyang and Nanyang now had only more than 300,000 left, and even the elite soldiers of the five battalions he reorganized had also suffered nearly 10,000 casualties.

If it weren't for the defenders of the city who set fire to block the attack of the peasant army several times, the corpses of the soldiers killed in battle alone could be stacked on the city wall of Xuzhou, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as a base corpse and a top.

With such a big loss, even if Li Zicheng allowed the cannon fodder army to burn and loot everywhere, and used the women snatched from Zhouzuo in Xuzhou to boost morale, the morale of those homeless people who were used as cannon fodder troops also dropped to the freezing point.

Seeing that the strong attack could not be carried out, Li Zicheng knew that Wang Qiaonian was just a scholar and was not proficient in marching formations, so he pretended to withdraw his troops to the southwest and retreated to Xinyang, intending to lure the defenders in the city to relieve the siege and surprise them when they fled.

The left and right generals saw that the peasant army broke the siege and retreated south, and they all said to Wang Qiaonian: "The thief's momentum is slightly extinguished, it is advisable to take advantage of his slackness, and fight and go, as long as he crosses the Shang River, he may be able to save his life." ”

Wang Qiaonian said angrily: "The head can be broken, the body cannot be moved, I swear to end with this city!" Those who dare to speak up are killed. He immediately ordered the four city supervisors to fill the city gates with salary trucks to calm the cowardice of the generals.

Li Zicheng couldn't make a plan, he had to return to Xuzhou, continue to transfer troops to attack, while attacking the city, Li Zicheng found that the northwest corner of Xuzhou City, compared with the other three city walls are a few feet shorter, plus these days of continuous heavy artillery siege, the battlements of the city wall have also been flattened by artillery, at first glance, the actual height of the city wall is only two zhang.

So Li Zicheng immediately ordered Liu Zongmin to select more than 10,000 soldiers, and selected more than 10,000 young men from the coerced cannon fodder army, and ordered the selected young men to each carry a bag of soil for the siege.

At the end of the day, under Li Zicheng's strict orders, the peasant army once again launched a comprehensive attack on Xuzhou City, but while besieging on all sides, Liu Zongmin personally took a selection of more than 10,000 military horses as the lead, covering the cannon fodder army with negative soil and went straight to the northwest corner of Xiangcheng.

In the face of the siege of the peasant army on all sides, the defenders in the city will inevitably lose sight of one or the other due to the insufficient number, and Li Zicheng's banner has been set up in the east of Xuzhou, and the heavy artillery positions of the peasant army are also arranged in the east city.

Wang Qiaonian finally won the plan, and Liu Zongmin used the method of filling the earth to climb the city and attack the city wall in one fell swoop.

The remnants of the defenders in the city were already struggling to support under the siege of the peasant army, and when they saw the banner of the great thief Liu Zongmin hanging on the head of Xiangcheng, the army's heart suddenly collapsed, and they could no longer have the intention of resisting, so they threw down their weapons in their hands and ran to the city one by one.

Yang Shien, the general soldier of Huguang, did not dare to retreat to Xiangcheng City, he was born in a family of military generals, and he knew that at this moment, if he chose to enter the city, there was only a dead end, in order to save himself, he had to take the remnants of hundreds of Ding to go to Nancheng to break through in the direction of Luoyang.

Clinker, as soon as he got out of the city, he encountered Li Guo, a fierce general of the peasant army, and Yang Shien, who knew that there was no hope of escape, had to kneel down and ask Li Guo to surrender.

"The sin general Yang Shien has long admired Wang Huwei, just because Wang Qiaonian was compelled, please surrender without a way, and now I am fortunate to meet the general, and the sin general is willing to be the general's precursor."

"Hehe, you won't come down sooner? Late or not? But after the city was broken, he asked the general to surrender, someone came, tied up with the general, and sent the king to fall, the sons, with the general into Xuzhou City, captured Wang Qiaonian. ”

Li Guo hated the desperate resistance of the Xuzhou defenders, so that he had lost nearly 10,000 elites, and was naturally unwilling to accept Yang Shien's invitation to surrender, but Yang Shien was the governor of Huguang, and at present, Xinyang, Nanyang and other cities had fallen into the hands of the invading army, and Li Zicheng also had the ambition to compete in the world, Yang Shien, the head of the Huguang army, naturally had his use, so Li Guo chose to hand him over to Li Zicheng.

Wang Qiaonian, who was about to be captured by the peasant army, was no longer the governor of the five provinces at this time, and at the moment when the peasant army broke through the city, he only retreated to the Xuzhou Mansion with his cronies Li Kecong and hundreds of personal soldiers, intending to be dying.

In the melee, Li Ke was killed by a streamer, Wang Yingji, the governor of Xuzhou, hanged himself, Sun Zhao, the governor of Xi'an, committed suicide by jumping into the city, and the brothers Li Yunpeng and Li Yingpeng, who were the staff of the superintendent, both died in battle with Liukou.

Wang Qiaonian, who was desperate, had to carry a sword and fight to the death with the rogue, but he was born as a civilian official, where was the opponent of the peasant army that had been in battle for a long time, and only a few cannon fodder soldiers who wanted to take the opportunity to make meritorious contributions were killed by Wang Qiaonian, who was still fighting as a trapped beast, and his own soldiers because of carelessness.

At the end of the battle, all the soldiers were killed, and Wang Qiaonian, who knew that he was going to die, looked up to the sky and shouted: "First emperor! First Emperor! The ministers were exhausted, and they could no longer kill the thieves, but were killed by the thieves. ”

After saying that, he looked in the direction of Jingshi, bowed, and was about to raise his sword to kill himself. However, before the sword was close to the neck, it was taken away by the nearby peasant army, and the surrounding peasant army swarmed up and tied the dignified governors of the five provinces of the Ming Dynasty into zongzi.

The peasant army knew that Wang Qiaonian's family had damaged Li Zicheng's ancestral grave, and they would be captured alive, so they naturally beat gongs and drums, escorted Wang Qiaonian, and went to Li Zicheng to show their merits.

"It's not about to loosen the ties, Fu Du is defeated, I can't think of the dignified Wang Du, one day I will become my Li Zicheng's subordinate prisoner, sad and sad, but now the Beijing division has been stolen by Li Xingzhi in Shandong, the name of the Ming Dynasty is real, a certain family knows, Wang Du is a loyal minister of the first emperor, why not belong to a certain family, and discuss Li ...... Xingzhi, in fact, a certain family rebelled just because they hated corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and they did not rebel against the first emperor and Zhu Ming, in fact, a certain family was like Song Gongming who gathered righteousness in Liangshan, and was a loyal and patriotic man who did the right thing for heaven. ”

Seeing that Wang Qiaonian, who had dug up his ancestral grave, was captured by himself, Li Zicheng couldn't help but sneer, of course, if Wang Qiaonian was willing to surrender, he would also let go of the grudge that the ancestral grave was dug at this time, after all, Wang Qiaonian was the leader of the Ming Dynasty Shilin, and his protégés and former officials were all over the world.

Wang Qiaonian scolded angrily: "Li thief, are you a three-year-old child named Wang?" I am a minister of the court, and I am ordered to exterminate you and other thieves, and I want to bite your flesh and drink your blood. Now that I am dead, I will become a powerful ghost in the underworld and kill you, so as to fulfill my wish to repay the country and repay the kindness of the emperor. ”