"What? The person in charge of defending the city is actually Zhang Huangyan, the Sichuan soldier? How dare this barbarian kill? Someone, order the whole army to prepare for the siege early tomorrow morning! This king is going to set foot in Nanyang, and the chickens and dogs will not stay! ”

In the evening of the same day, when Azig saw that the messengers he had sent out, only a group of people with bloody faces and severed ears and noses were released, screaming and crying about the tragic situation in Nanyang City, he suddenly felt a burst of blood rushed to his brain—it had been a long time since I had heard that the dog official of the Nanban dared to be so arrogant and offend him to death!

This dog official is going to force the whole city to accompany the funeral! Then Prince Ta Ying is of course going to fulfill the other party!

Those few servants cried carefully, saying that even the deputy envoy was killed, and Gong Dingyu was an impostor Gu Rong failed and was recognized by Zhang Huangyan, Zhang Huangyan knew that Gong Dingyu, Hou Fangyu and others had a holiday with Zhu Shuren back then, so they tortured him and then detained, saying that he would be pulled back to Nanjing in the future, and he would be used for another purpose.

Azig is also a bit of political wisdom, and after combing through all the information brought back from the people, he basically determined that Zhang Huangyan was angry, and most of what he said was true, and Zhu Shuren estimated that he really wanted to completely defend Huguang with heavy troops, especially the Nanyang-Xiangyang line.

Zhu Shuren even put his most trusted cousin and left arm and right arm in such a lonely city, it is impossible to retreat.

But Azig still didn't understand one thing, that is, could Zhu Shuren ignore the safety of Nanjing?

Do you really dare to leave the main force in Huguang, is it because he is very self-contained in Nanjing's river defense line? Do you think that even if Duoduo takes Yangzhou, it is impossible to form a fleet to cross the Yangtze River in a short time?

This problem is like a bone in his throat, so that Azig can't rest well at night, but he can't attack the city at night, everything has to be prepared to move tomorrow morning, and he has to consume it.

At the end of the watch, a new civilian staff member in charge of the artillery unit under his command saw that the lights were still on in the big tent of the Chinese army, so he cautiously asked for a meeting, saying that he wanted to report on the artillery preparations and ammunition planning for tomorrow's siege.

Azig's heart moved, remembering that this staff member was quite brainy and good at camping, so he invited him to chat, and asked the attendant to prepare drinks to refresh himself.

The staff member was soon summoned, and Azig raised his eyelids and said in his heart: "Tong Tulai, come forward and sit down and talk, and drink two glasses with this king." ”

Tong Tulai, who came, was a Han man about 30 years old, to be exact, a Han man who was full of people and dressed with yellow flags.

His uncle Tong Yangxing was the most veteran-level artillery supervisor in the Qing Dynasty, and cast hundreds of Hongyi cannons for Huang Taiji, which once made the Qing artillery surpass the Ming army (excluding Zheng Zhilong)

After Tong Yangxing's death, his position was inherited by his brother Tong Yangzheng, but Tong Yangzheng was old after all, and the specific work was handed over to his son Tong Tulai, and the Tong family has always maintained its dignity.

Originally, the Tong family did not have to go to the front line to command the artillery troops, but when Huang Taiji died last year, a struggle within the Qing court involved the Tong family-

Tong Jiashi, the daughter of Tong Yang and Tong Tulai's cousin, was originally married to Dai Shan's second son, Yue Tuo, the lord of the red flag. Yue Tuo was killed in the struggle for Shunzhi's accession to the throne, and the status of the Tong family became delicate for a while.

In order to appease people's hearts, Dolgon asked Tong Tulai to follow the two red flags to send troops to show that "there is no doubt in employing people", and it seems that the Tong family will not be affected by Yue Tuo's death and the replacement of the main person with the red flag.

Azig also knew Dolgon's thoughts, so since Li Zicheng went west, he has been intentionally or unintentionally giving Tong Tulai a chance to perform, and gradually found that this person has some ability, especially the political sensitivity of the power struggle, which can indeed be used.

At this moment, encountering this kind of mystery within the Southern Ming Dynasty that he himself couldn't figure out, Azig naturally thought of letting Tong Tulai serve as a staff officer.

After listening to the doubts in his heart quietly from the prince, Tong Tulai thought carefully for a long time, and finally got something occasionally, and said energetically:

"The prince actually wondered if it was possible for Zhu Shuren to really put the interests of Huguang first and neglect to reinforce the Jianghuai defense? I wonder if Zhu Shuren is overconfident in the Yangtze River natural danger, so he feels that he doesn't need to defend Duoduo to ensure that Nanming loses the least amount of territory?

The subordinates think that this kind of thing is very reasonable, and there is nothing incredible - please think about it, inside Nanming, is it really everyone united and wants to protect the court in Nanjing? Not necessarily!

It is possible that Zhu Shuren wants to keep his father-in-law, the emperor, but he may not want to keep Nanming's entire plate! Whether it is other Donglin or eunuchs, they naturally have more interests.

What other vassal kings who were previously concentrated in Nanzhili by Zhu Shuren and around Nanjing, but were not allowed to enter Yingtianfu, they had no idea?

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For example, I heard that when Prince Yu (Duoduo) conquered Yangzhou last month, Shi Kefa ordered in advance that the nine northern and southward vassal kings who had been placed in Yangzhou should all cross the river and relocate. But in the end, it seems that there are still several northern Zhu Ming vassal kings who did not make it for various reasons, or were captured by our Qing Dynasty, or voluntarily surrendered in order to avoid disaster.

It can be seen that Zhu Ming's internal situation is now full of contradictions! It seems that Zhu Shuren has helped his father-in-law to take the throne, but in fact, this kind of governor with hundreds of thousands of heavy soldiers is unwilling to coerce the Son of Heaven to order the princes for the rest of his life! His father-in-law is alive, and he may be willing to wait, but after his father-in-law dies, he will never give up his position to other feudal towns!

Even if he let the son he will give birth to in the future be his father-in-law's grandson and inherit the throne, and he himself is like ...... Prince Rui is like that, when he is the 'regent of the imperial father', he may not be reconciled! This kind of person must have thought of conspiring to kill all the Zhu Ming royal family, so that his father-in-law has no one to pass on, so he can only let his son-in-law do it!

In this way, it is not impossible for him to rely on the benefits of his sailor to temporarily abandon Nanjing, as long as he picks up his father-in-law in advance at the last moment, and the other Zhu Ming vassal kings who were summoned by him in advance to Nanzhili will all throw me to the Qing Dynasty to kill me under the pretext of 'it is too late to rescue'. When the time comes, won't he borrow our knife and do what he wants to do all his life but does not dare to do! ”

The conscience of heaven and earth, Zhu Shuren tried every means to deceive Azig and Duoduo, making them feel that they would value Huguang and Zhu Shuren's own descendants, which was of course a conspiracy and strategic deception by Zhu Shuren to deceive the enemy.

But on the other side, there is an opponent like Tong Tulai, who has been fighting in the camp palace all his life, and he has figured out and de-transformed everything that seems to be a little unreasonable in the direction of the most insidious and vicious, which is really wronged Zhu Shuren!

How could Zhu Shuren be so despicable, he just wanted to take the opportunity to underestimate the enemy and harm Duoduo. I never thought of taking the opportunity to borrow a knife to kill someone, borrow the butcher's knife of the Qing soldiers to kill other vassal kings surnamed Zhu around Nanjing, and cut the grass and eradicate the roots!

But Tong Tulai wanted to live the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain, and he also made Azig believe it, which in fact, helped Zhu Shuren's strategy a lot.

Azig was stunned when he heard this, and couldn't help but gasp: These Han dog barbarians, are they really such insiders and outsiders?

If Zhu Shuren is really so frustrated, for the sake of maximizing the interests of a small group, he can temporarily give up the maximization of national interests, then this enemy is not so difficult to deal with.

What the Qing State feared the most was that Nanming was united and united, and what he liked most was that Nanming was full of factions and infighting.

It's just that this kind of speculation is too unbelievable, and Azig still has the last trace of doubt in his heart, so he said: "That's it, what you said, this king was also the words of the family at that time, and listen to it first." Anyway, the siege is going to be tomorrow, so let's see the real chapter on the battlefield first.

Let's take a look at the Ming army that Zhu Shuren stayed in Huguang to defend, how large the scale of the battle power is, whether the materials are abundant, and whether Zhu Shuren really left all his blood in Huguang. If you don't do a real battle, no matter how much you think about it, it's all false. ”

With that, Azig waved away Tong Tulai and went to sleep with the lights out.

……

Early the next morning, the Qing army camp began to make food and pay for the soldiers on the fourth watch, and all the artillery was deployed and stopped.

Azig was fully mentally prepared, and of course he had to kill him as soon as he came up.

And Tong Tulai, who received his explanation last night, was even more attentive, and personally inspected all the artillery before the war.

Today's main attack mission is supervised by Mandahai, another nephew of Azig and the younger brother of Wadak, who died in battle.

Man Dahai is the seventh son of Dai Shan, he is only twenty-three or four years old this year, very young, with the title of Viscount Bei, and his military position is also another Meler Ezhen with red flags.

The death of his brother made him very vigilant, and he also attached great importance to his uncle's warning, and decided not to be within two miles of the front line when attacking the city! Command with a telescope in the rear - at that time, Hongyi, that is, the Dutch, had already brought the telescope to China, so the Qing army also had it, but the quality was not as sophisticated as that made by Zhu Shuren in the Southern Ming Dynasty.

And the preparation of firepower before the general attack was entrusted to Tong Tulai.

Azig's army brought a total of more than 40 Hongyi cannons to the south this time! accounted for about a quarter of the original Hongyi cannon of the Qing army (the original did not include the capture after the capture of Beijing)

However, there have been many battles with Li Zicheng and other troops before, and there are many damages and failures, and now there are only 30 troops that can still be put into battle, and the rest have to be pulled back to the rear, or slowly repaired after the armistice, and the front line cannot complete such a delicate and complex work.

Azig can't put all his eggs in one basket, so in today's battle, he asked Tong Tulai to concentrate twenty heavy artillery guns to bombard the city, which is already very face-saving.

In the direction of attack, the Qing army chose the north and west of the city, one main attack and one sheep attack, and it can also be switched at any time according to the progress of the battle to contain and disperse the Ming army's defense of the city.

In the south of the city, there were only some suspicious soldiers who shouted and did not attack, which was also the right way to encircle the art of war and shake the morale of the defenders. As for the eastern part of the city, which is bordered by the White River and the Shuishui, of course, there is no way to attack.

With the roar of the Qing army's artillery group, the Ming army at the head of the city also fell into panic for a short time.

It's not that they haven't seen artillery, but the Huguang official army has fought with the enemy for five or six years, and the opponents they have encountered before, whether it is Zhang Xianzhong or Li Zicheng, do not have so many heavy artillery. As for the little garbage that was earlier than Zhang Xianzhong, such as the Fifth Battalion of the Revolution, there was no Hongyi cannon at all, and they could only use the Franc machine.

Previously, only Hu Guangming's army bombarded the enemy, but now it is finally going to be bombed fairly, which still has a little impact on the mentality of the soldiers.

Fortunately, Zhang Huangyan worked very hard, and asked all the high-level generals to go to the city tower to supervise the battle and command, even if they wanted to avoid shelling, they had to at least stand on the back side of the city wall, but they were definitely not allowed to hide in the city.

Both Zhang Huangyan and Li Dingguo toured around to boost morale, and soon the soldiers recovered from the initial shock, and then the Ming army's Hongyi artillery also began to return fire.

Considering that the Ming army was on the defensive side and needed to be fortified everywhere, although Zhu Shuren had a lot of Hongyi cannons on hand, they needed to leave a little at each of the key nodes such as Nanyang, Xiangyang, and Wuchang. Otherwise, it will be very troublesome if the artillery is concentrated in one place, but it is bypassed by the Qing army.

Therefore, the number of Hongyi cannons in this Nanyang City is really not as large as that of the Azig army.

Zhang Huangyan only deployed the four corner forts of the city wall at the first time, two cross heavy guns for each fort, adding up to eight, and eight guns with slightly lighter tonnage and easy to move, as a backup to fill and plug the mouth at any time, a total of 16 heavy guns in the city.

On the opposite side, Azig invested twenty at one time, and there were ten backups, and only used to attack the city walls on both sides, so it was only counterattacked by six heavy guns of the Ming army at the first time (the battery deployed in the southeast corner of the city was far away from the battlefield and useless), forming a three-fold firepower density advantage.

After Zhang Huangyan confirmed the direction of the enemy's main attack, he naturally made desperate arrangements and deployed all the eight relatively light reserve guns to the northwest corners.