In the barracks outside the city, after Mo Qian rejected the unreasonable demands of the three bandits, he immediately called Qian Dayou over.

"Just now, the three bandits in Ganzhou came to me and said that they would attack Ganzhou City with us, and after the matter was completed, they asked me to give him the Ganzhou Mansion."

"Dashuai, you agreed?" Qian Dayou asked in surprise.

Mo Qian shook his head, "How could I agree, I brought 50,000 horses to fight Ganzhou, why should he have thousands of bandits fighting with me for Ganzhou Mansion, you send a thousand elite soldiers, give me a hand in the passes outside Ganzhou City, if there are bandits to harass us, you're welcome, kill him directly." ”

"Yes!"

Early the next morning, the elongated ladder was completed, and Mo Qian personally transferred 500 earth-shattering thunders from the firearms battalion, which was bound to take Ganzhou City in one fell swoop.

Before the siege of the city, the rebels were still the old tradition, first bombarded with red-clothed cannons, and then cooperated with the projection of thunder on the city wall, and soon the south gate of the town instantly became a purgatory battlefield.

Pan Zenghong never thought that Mo Qian's firepower was so ferocious, and the more than 800 soldiers at the south city gate had no time to withdraw, and they were almost directly reimbursed.

Fortunately, the city of Ganzhou is built very strongly, there are dozens of caves under the city wall, the cave is directly built in the thick city wall, when the artillery fire is fierce, the officers and soldiers all hide in the cave.

The shelling lasted for a full stick of incense, after which the fire became sparse.

Pan Zenghong immediately realized that the rebels were about to attack the city, and as a civilian official, Pan Zenghong personally picked up his sword and shouted to the soldiers who stayed in the cave: "Quick, go to the city wall, the enemy is about to attack the city." ”

More than 1,000 officers and soldiers immediately grabbed their weapons and ran up the city wall, and as soon as they arrived at the city wall, they saw a small 2,000 men rushing towards the city.

There is a guard in Ganzhou, but there are only two or three thousand officers and soldiers in the city, and the remaining two thousand men and horses are all Ganzhou people recruited by Pan Zenghong after he took office.

The people of Ganzhou are much more ruthless than the people of central and northern Jiangxi, most of them speak Hakka, and they are brave and ruthless on weekdays, and sometimes thousands of people can fight between villages for a water source.

Pan Zenghong saw the ruthlessness of this group of Hakka people, and later generations called it Jiangxi Sparta, and Pan Zenghong paid a lot of money to recruit this group of people into the official army.

Pan Zenghong had the courage to defend Ganzhou City, relying on this group of outlaws under his command.

But after all, a fight is just a large-scale group fight, which is completely different from a fight on the battlefield.

The soldiers of the rebel army practiced the formation all day long, a small team of five people, led by the captain, and among the five people were shieldmen, pikemen, spearmen, captains and a person responsible for harvesting heads.

The five people have their own duties, and unless there is a military order from the higher authorities and it is necessary to recruit a certain branch of the army, there will be a shortage of personnel.

However, that kind of recruitment is a temporary recruitment, and it will usually be arranged before the war.

The five-man squad climbed up in order, with the officers going up first, followed by the soldiers.

This is the nineteen beheadings of the rebel army, but it is written into military discipline, the officer must take the lead in the charge, if the officer is afraid of death, when the battle is over, the officer who is afraid of death will be beheaded immediately.

Although this military discipline is very cruel, it has greatly improved the combat effectiveness of the soldiers of the righteous army, and those who are officials are not afraid of death, and they are even less afraid of being soldiers.

The most feared thing in a war is that the officer is commanding from behind and shouting to me to charge, and once this kind of unit encounters an army led by an officer to charge, there is basically no chance of victory.

Only by shouting out to rush with me can this inspire the fighting spirit and courage of the grassroots soldiers.

There are dozens of ladders erected on the city wall of Ganzhou, and every time the soldiers of the righteous army climb up, they have to pay the price of their lives.

Watching those former veterans die one by one, Mo Qian's heart was dripping blood, but he knew that unifying the world was not something that could be achieved just by shouting and shouting, and it would be a success, let alone the birth of an empire.

"Marshal, the defenders of Ganzhou have good combat effectiveness, depending on the situation, we have almost a hundred dead." Qian Dayou stood by Mo Qian's side, and he was very worried about it.

At this time, on the mountain outside Ganzhou City, Mr. Knife was excitedly reporting to President Yama: "Big brother, the one surnamed Mo is fighting, and the spy in front of me said that this man surnamed Mo has lost three or four hundred corpses under the city of Ganzhou, and he has not even gone up the city wall of Ganzhou." ”

Hearing the news, Hades nodded.

"Keep watching, and when they are both defeated, let's go up again, let the brothers sharpen their knives, it hasn't been open for a long time!"

"Yes!"

The siege lasted from morning to noon, and the rebels left 400 corpses under the south gate of the town, but the city of Ganzhou remained unmoved.

As soon as Mo Qian saw that this battle was being fought, he stopped the siege at the beginning of noon.

He convened a pre-battle meeting and said to the generals: "This Ganzhou is like an iron city, we have more than 400 dead, and we can't even go up the city wall, this battle can't be so big, this kind of fighting, that is to take the lives of the brothers to fill the moat, everyone quickly find a way!" ”

The generals all drooped their faces at this time, the siege was not smooth, and the big guys were holding their breath in their hearts.

Especially Yi Jiu, who came out with the idea of attacking the city yesterday, still chattered and said: "This son of a bitch, we lost so many thunderstorms, why are there still so many officers and soldiers in the city, and they can also dodge our bombs on the city wall?" ”

Hearing this, Mo Qian immediately signaled to his subordinates: "Go, find a few local people to ask." ”

The rebels traveled twenty miles to find a village and bring a few elderly people, and Mo Qian personally set up a banquet to entertain this group of old people.

After some politeness, Mo Qian quickly figured out the truth in the city of Ganzhou, there are not too many people in Ganzhou City, only less than 10,000 people, but there are a lot of officers and soldiers, Pan Zenghong in order to ensure the safety of Ganzhou, all the officers and soldiers moved into the city to protect the city, in order to prevent bandits from stealing the city.

A few years ago, this kind of thing happened in Anyuan County, south of Ganzhou Prefecture, hundreds of bandits climbed the city wall by night, killed the officers and soldiers guarding the city, and kidnapped Anyuan Zhi County, and used Anyuan Zhi County to demand ransom from the squires of Anyuan.

At that time, that vote was extremely beautiful, and the court still can't do anything about that group of bandits.

After Pan Zenghong took office, he learned that this kind of thing had happened in the county under his rule, so he didn't dare to be careless at the moment, and in order to save his own life, he put all the troops in the city to guard Ganzhou City.

Mo Qian also learned that the city defense of Ganzhou City is very different from other cities, one side of the city, the city wall is built on the pedestal, the above is the city wall aisle, and the bottom is a solid base.

But Ganzhou is different, the city wall of Ganzhou in the Northern Song Dynasty Jiayou years by the forty-sixth generation of Confucius grandson Kong Zonghan served as the governor, in order to solve the problem of river water irrigation, Kong Zonghan with molten iron to pour the stone foundation of the city wall, with bricks and stones to rebuild the city wall, and later there was the Northern Song Dynasty Zhizhou Liu Yi, he built a very scientific drainage system for Ganzhou, in one fell swoop to solve the dilemma of river water irrigation, so far the Ganzhou city wall has played a role in flood control.

Under the city wall, there are many brick holes of large and small size more than one person high, and when the shelling is carried out outside the city, the soldiers hide in the holes, and when the enemy shelling is over, they immediately come out of the cave and go up to the city to resist.

After listening to the words of several old men, Mo Qian suddenly understood in his heart, why he threw hundreds of thunderbolts up, but he didn't kill the defenders of Ganzhou, it turned out to be a problem with the design of the city wall.

Mo Qian had to admire the command of these ancients, and even took into account the artillery bombardment, although the city wall had been completed in the Northern Song Dynasty, but at that time, some were only stone cannons, and the artillery was not as mature as it is now.

After understanding the situation in the city, Mo Qian had a plan in his heart.

It seems that if you want to attack from the south of the city, I'm afraid it's not so easy, and the cost of attacking from this direction is too great.

However, the other three sides were full of water, and the soldiers could not start the siege at all, and the officers and soldiers only needed to put two or three hundred men on the other three sides, which was enough to resist the siege.

Since it is difficult for a strong attack to work, it is only necessary to outwit.

Mo Qian came up with the old method of attacking Wuchang, that is, shooting at the city to persuade him to surrender.

In the afternoon of the same day, the rebels hurriedly wrote 500 letters of surrender and shot them into the city with bows and arrows.

The officers and soldiers defending the city soon found the letter, and the literate soldiers picked it up and began to read it.

"Jiangnan Governor Mo asked the Ganzhou military and civilian letters..... Yu heard that the land of Ganzhou, bandits are rampant, the rogue is raging, the governor of the provinces south of the Yangtze River, now the special lead troops to suppress the bandits, but the governor of southern Jiangxi Pan Zenghong, actually refused to enter the city, so he led the troops to surround it, but the heavens have the virtue of a good life, the governor does not want to make more killings, so I specially inform the soldiers and civilians of Ganzhou, if there are those who are willing to surrender, each person will be rewarded with five taels of silver, and the officers will range from ten taels to one hundred taels....."

The content of the letter of persuasion is very simple, that is, to spend money to buy.

There were so many letters of persuasion in the city at once, Pan Zenghong was shocked when he learned about it, and immediately ordered his henchmen to start collecting the letters in the city.

Of the 500 letters of persuasion, more than 300 were received in the evening of the same day, but more than 100 were in the hands of officers and soldiers.

That night, there were many soldiers in the city who were sneaking around, gathering in twos and threes, communicating in small voices.

"It turned out that King Mo of Yuanzhou came to fight Ganzhou, and I knew that he was coming, so I wouldn't have joined the official army and went to the righteous army."

"What's so good about joining the rebels?"

"You don't even know that? As a soldier in the Righteous Army, not only does he have a salary of one or two or a half dollars of silver every month, but his family can also receive rice and grain every month, and his family members also enjoy preferential treatment, I have a few distant relatives who are from Taihe, and they all participated in the Righteous Army, and each family has been allocated to the field, or according to the head, at least one acre of paddy field per person! ”

"What? One acre per person, my God, my family of five, can't it be divided into five acres? ”

"Not only that, five acres is just a high-quality paddy field, and there are dry fields, at least three or four points, and you don't have to worry about growing vegetables!"

"I can't imagine that the treatment of the righteous army is so good, much better than our official army, what do you think of us, Commander Yao has not paid us money for seven months."

"It's only been seven months, I heard that the border army in Shaanxi has not been paid for three or four years, and those who are soldiers can't survive, and they have to bring their own food and weapons to fight, and they don't pay military salaries. I heard that all the multilateral armies in Shaanxi have joined Li Zicheng's team. ”

"Shhhh

That night, many people in the defenders of Ganzhou began to waver.

Some soldiers were in groups of three, and when they were on duty at night, they went straight out of the city to surrender.

The rebels accepted more than 20 people who came down from the city wall that night, and three of them were found by the defenders, who had been shot with bows and arrows, and their lives were not in danger.

When Mo Qian learned that more than 20 people had come to surrender that night, he was overjoyed, and it seemed that his bribery plan was still very successful.

Early the next morning, the rebels did not prepare to attack the city again, but lazily camped outside the city, and continued to shoot into the city to persuade the surrender letter.

Pan Zenghong was so angry that he almost ran away, and last night he escaped 27 soldiers, all of whom were guards who lived outside Ganzhou City.

Pan Zenghong directly questioned Yao Xi and asked him to punish him.

Yao Xi was also extremely dissatisfied with the defection of his subordinates, so he immediately found the superiors of the twenty-seven soldiers who had escaped, and gave each of them twenty lashes as an example.

Looking at the grassroots officers who were beaten all over his body, Pan Zenghong felt a little more satisfied.

He gathered the soldiers together and shouted: "Listen to me, everyone, if anyone dares to defect again, he will be punished for treason, not to mention the raid of the house, the whole family will have to be buried with him, you officers, take good care of your subordinates, and if you pick up those blank pieces of paper with words written on them, you must hand them in immediately, and whoever dares to hide them privately will be killed!" ”

Pan Zenghong put down his cruel words, he thought that he could kill chickens and monkeys and deter his group of officers and soldiers.

But what Pan Zenghong never expected was that that night, there were more soldiers who defected, and this time it was not only ordinary soldiers who escaped, but also officers.

The seven officers who had been whipped all ran away, and they ran with one of their men.

As for those who didn't run, their families were all in the city, and they wanted to run, but if they did, their families wouldn't be able to save their lives.

For the sake of their families, many soldiers had to suppress the desire to defect and stay in the city honestly.

That night, Mo Qian received the officers and soldiers who had escaped from the city, and found that there were more than five times as many people who escaped the next night, including more than a dozen low-level officers.

Some of these officers didn't want to run, but their subordinates ran away, and if they didn't run, they would have to be whipped, anyway, their families were not in the city, and sooner or later Ganzhou would not be able to hold it, so they simply followed their soldiers and became traitors.

As the saying goes, if you choose a good path, you can't run the future, anyway, the whole Jiangxi will soon be King Mo's, how can a mere Ganzhou Mansion resist the siege of tens of thousands of troops.

An officer said to Mo Qian: "Your Majesty, there is only 1,000 stone of grain in Ganzhou City, and there are more than 10,000 people in the city, which will not last for a few days. ”

"A Ganzhou, why is there so little grain in stock?" Mo Qian asked curiously.

The officer replied: "Since the king of Damo occupied Ji'an, the grain from the north could not be transported, Ganzhou has many mountains, there is not so much rice to produce grain, and the rice in the city is transported from Nanchang and Guangdong. ”

Mo Qian was determined in his heart, and it seemed that the day of breaking the city would not be more than half a month.

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