Zhu Nengdao, the imperial court is assembling a large army, and now it can't fight a decisive battle with the rebel army, Jingzhou City has been a strategic place since ancient times, the city fortifications are relatively tight, and the rebels are not so easy to capture, you send another 5,000 to help defend the city, you should defend it.

Zhu Neng's meaning is exactly what Zhu Di means.

The Yan army rarely attacked the city in Jingjing, and Zhu Gaoxu suddenly wanted to attack the city, which made him surprised and delighted.

Since Zhu Gaoxu raised his troops, he has heard the wind everywhere, such as Chengdu, Chongqing, and other big cities without a strong attack.

Zhu Di wished that Zhu Gaoxu would attack Jingzhou, and he would inevitably suffer heavy losses at that time.

Moreover, their sentry cavalry observed that Zhu Gaoxu's soldiers and horses were not enough, only tens of thousands, which was not enough to attack the city.

In the Jing disaster, Zhu Di first attacked Zhending City, but did not go down for three days and three nights, and suffered heavy losses.

Later, more than 200,000 soldiers and horses besieged Jinan, Jinan and Jingzhou City are about the same size, and there are slightly more defenders, but Jingzhou is an ancient city, which is much more difficult to fight than Jinan.

Therefore, Zhu Dijue said that Zhu Gaoxu was going to fight Jingzhou and begged for hardship, which just consumed his soldiers and horses.

According to his order, Zhu Neng sent 5,000 soldiers and horses to support Jingzhou from the waterway, and then left him alone.

On 20 March, Zhu Gaoxu's soldiers and horses crossed the river from Zhijiang County, the only place where there was a bridge, hundreds of miles of rivers nearby.

Almost at the same time as he crossed the bridge, from the direction of Guizhou, Chen Wen stayed in Guizhou, and Zhao Gui took 30,000 soldiers and horses and a large number of ships (all from Sichuan), first broke through Yiling, and then came to Zhijiang.

The two armies combined 60,000 troops and arrived at the city of Jingzhou on March 22.

Zhu Gaoxu ordered archery and proclamations to the city, calling for the surrender of the city.

However, Zhu Zhi has been stationed in the border fortress, and he is very experienced, he is a cronie who strictly guards the city gate, and the people are not allowed to gather in the city to discuss matters, and there is a curfew every day as soon as it gets dark, and no one is allowed on the street, and the defense is very tight.

At the same time, Zhu Zhi replied and shot out of the city, scolding Zhu Gaoxu for being disloyal and unfilial, and persuaded him to surrender, saying that he would help you intercede in front of the fourth brother.

Zhu Zhi's bad attitude also annoyed Zhu Gaoxu.

Early in the morning of the 23rd, Zhu Gaoxu came to the south gate of Jingzhou City.

The south gate of Jingzhou City is on the edge of the river, and there is usually a wharf, and ships from the south to the north can dock.

Although there were no binoculars, Zhu Gaoxu could see that there were two Hongwu cannons on each side of the wharf, and there were still cannons in Jingzhou City.

Zhou Hu reported to him at this time that he had already sent a sentry to investigate and draw a picture.

Then hand over a simple diagram.

The sentinel chose the one who knew how to swim and swam directly outside the south gate to observe it up close.

The wharf outside the south city gate was about twenty steps wide, and it could have been used to dock warships, but Zhu Zhi was a ruthless man, smashing and sinking several four-hundred-hundred-material ships, and also driving wooden stakes, which was within a hundred steps of the city gate, and it was no longer possible to sail.

Zhu Gaoxu originally wanted to use a boat to approach the south gate and then bombard the city gate with artillery.

Now it seems that the ship cannot get close to within a hundred paces, even if it blasts open the city gate, it has to swim past, and the boat cannot pass.

Of course, in this way, the people in Jingzhou will also not be able to come out by boat, Zhu Zhi is going to fight Zhu Gaoxu to the death?

"Special mother, my fifteenth uncle is also a ruthless person." Zhu Gaoxu looked at it and scolded with a smile.

Zhu Zhi was one of the kings of Jiusai back then, and he was stationed in the border like Zhu Di, so he really had some ability.

The south gate can't work, so you can only hit the idea of other doors.

Jingzhou City is divided into three layers, easy to defend and difficult to attack, this is the most complicated city that Zhu Gaoxu has encountered at present.

The outside is the water city, there are six gates, they are the southeast gate, the east gate, the south gate, the west gate, the big north gate, the small north gate, each city gate is built with a city tower, the outer wall is more than 20 miles long, more than three zhang high (more than nine meters).

There is a moat outside the water city, the moat leads to Taihu Lake in the west, connects the long lake in the east, and is connected with the canal, the total length is more than 20 li, it is to surround the city wall outside the water city, the widest place reaches ten zhang (30 meters), the narrowest place also has eight meters, and the average water depth is about four meters.

But Zhu Gaoxu only knows the width, and the depth of the water is not yet known, but Mao estimates that compared with the moats of Chengdu, Chongqing, Changsha and other important cities, he can guess at least about four or five meters.

Behind the water city is the brick city, the brick city is about 1 meter thick, the inner wall of the wall is rammed with earth, the lower part is about 9 meters wide, the wall is built with strip stone and city bricks, the brick city is 9 meters high, and the circumference is also more than 20 li.

If after breaking through the two cities, the official army can still retreat to the innermost Tucheng, the circumference is a little smaller, about less than twenty miles, the Tucheng was originally the shortest, but later in Lao Zhu's hands the city is the highest.

The original earth city was built during the Three Kingdoms, and was later demolished and repaired, and the old Zhu helped it to increase its height, and the brick city was rebuilt when the old Zhu called the king of Wu during the Hongwu period.

Among them, there is still traffic between the earth city and the brick city.

In addition, on the water wall of the outermost city, Jingzhou has a total of eight cannons, and there are many other firearms.

Therefore, from the perspective of Jingzhou City's city defense, it is indeed more difficult to attack than Jinan City.

This is probably one of the reasons why Zhu Zhi dared to defend the city with 2,000 soldiers and horses.

Now Zhu Neng has given him more than 10,000 elites in two guards, counting the young men he recruited, the number of people guarding the city is close to 20,000, which is more than the prince who guarded Beiping back then.

Zhu Gaoxu was not far from the south gate, discussing with Zhou Hu, Song Meng, Zhao Gui, He Ruhu and other generals.

Before he raised his army, Zhu Gaoxu's caravan had already explored some important cities and towns in the Ming Dynasty, such as Changsha, Wuchang, Jingzhou, Xiangyang and so on in Huguang.

If nothing else, at least the basic data such as the size, shape, and height of the city should be required.

After looking at the picture, except for Zhu Gaoxu himself, the other generals felt that this Jingzhou city was not easy to fight.

Song Meng said that before the rebel army fought with Zhu Neng in Guangxi, he sent a team of people to enter Jingzhou in the name of a caravan, but Jingzhou City soon carried out an early curfew, that is, after the sun set, no pedestrians were allowed on the street, and they were killed if they saw it.

During the day, there were at least one hundred officers and soldiers at each city gate.

So it is almost impossible to open the gates inside, there are too few people.

The only thing they could do was to set fire to the city when they were in the middle of their siege.

The signal to set fire inside is the long sound of a horn outside, and then add three cannons.

Zhu Gaoxu listened and watched, he came over with 60,000 soldiers and horses, if he didn't fight and went back, Zhu Zhi wouldn't die of laughter.

Moreover, Jingzhou must be fought, and if Jingzhou does not fight the grain, grass, baggage, soldiers and horses that he came from Sichuan, he will not be able to take the waterway.

Waterways are safe and time-saving, and cannot be compared to land routes.

In ancient times, those who could take the water route would not take the land route.

"Fight, in front of me Zhu Gaoxu, there is no city that is not easy to fight." Zhu Gaoxu said in an unquestionable tone at this time: "Just hit Ximen." ”

The generals have no objections, although they think that Jingzhou is not easy to fight, but Zhu Gaoxu's image of winning every battle and strategizing in front of them for a long time has been indestructible, and everyone spontaneously believes in the king.

"Let's go. Go to the West Gate. Zhu Gaoxu soon led the generals to the west gate again, about a mile away, to prevent shelling.

The moat on the west gate is slightly narrower, about eight meters in front of the city gate, which is the narrowest in the entire Jingzhou City.

There are two cannons on the west gate, one is at the head of the city, and the other is more than twenty steps away from the city gate.

At this time, the Ming army had few city defense artillery, but also because Huguang was relatively stable and there was no war, so the Hongwu cannon was not built in the later period, and now the city of Jingzhou is estimated to be the old Hongwu cannon.

However, there are few cannons in Hongwu, and there are many other guns such as bowl-mouth guns and lamp-mouth guns, but Zhu Gaoxu does not have a telescope at this time, and he can only see the artillery from a distance, and it is difficult to see other guns.

Zhu Gaoxu looked at it for a while, and felt that he couldn't see anything else in the city, and he wanted to move forward.

"The king shall not." The generals discouraged one after another, beware of the officers and artillery.

"It's just two cannons, the accuracy is poor, don't worry, you can look at the shells and then dodge, and Zhu Zhi may not hit me." Zhu Gaoxu really didn't take the Hongwu cannon in his eyes.

There are only one or two Hongwu cannons, and if you want to hit one person, it all depends on luck.

He ignored the dissuasion of the generals to move forward, and only brought He Ruhu and Zhou Hu with him.

The fewer people there are, the fewer the target, and He Nahu and Zhou Hu are both as tall as him, and the three of them stand together, and they can't see who is who in the distance.

Zhao Gui and the others were moved, King Han was really bold, and he dared to go over.

But Zhu Gaoxu's courage is surprising.

Before deciding to move forward, Zhu Gaoxu rode a war horse, and decided to go back and forth, and immediately asked Yang Lei to lead his thousand-mile horse shadow.

He got on the Maxima, and then he and He Ruhu and Zhou Hu passed.

The three of them soon approached two hundred paces.

Sure enough, there were no cannons at the head of the city.

As Zhu Gaoxu said, the main role of artillery in this era in wartime is to hit the morale of the other side and improve the morale of the other side.

When Zhu Gaoxu and the three of them walked forward, Zhu Zhi at the head of the city had already seen it.

Zhu Zhi will also be wearing full armor and standing at the head of the city.

He was originally at the North Gate, because many people used to attack Jingzhou from the North Gate.

Later, when he heard that the main force of the rebels seemed to have arrived at the West Gate, he immediately rushed over, and at this time Zhu Gaoxu was exactly two hundred steps away.

Although it was a bit far away, after he looked at it, he felt that there might be three people inside, and there might be Zhu Gaoxu.

Then I thought to myself, Zhu Gaoxu is too bad, these three people are about the same size, it is really difficult to distinguish.

"King, the main force of the rebels seems to be concentrated in Ximen, and I don't know who the main general is?" Yan Neng, who came from Yuezhou, was the commander of the Jingshi Hu Benwei and the former general of the Northern Army.

At this time, a large number of Jingshi guards had already arrived in Wuchang, and he was the first to come to support Yuezhou, and then he was sent here.

"Don't you know my good nephew Zhu Gaoxu?" Zhu Zhi said with a smile.

Yan Neng disturbed his head: "It's a little farther away, I can't see it, the three of them are about the same." ”

"Hey, hey." Zhu Zhi smiled, turned around, and asked a subordinate beside him: "Hongwu cannon, can you hit that side?" ”

"Yes." The subordinate hesitated: "But it may not be hit." ”

"Hit him, miss, and scare him to death." Zhu Zhidao.

"Whoa." The subordinates responded with the order and prepared to open fire.

Zhu Gaoxu, who was in the distance, didn't know that Zhu Zhi was really ruthless, so he fired directly to kill him.

After two hundred paces, the cannon on the city wall was obvious, and he also saw Zhu Zhi at the head of the city.

There is no way, Zhu Zhi's clothes and armor are different from ordinary sergeants, they are very obvious, and there is a royal flag behind him, which is not small.

This kind of person can't survive more than three episodes on the battlefield, Zhu Gaoxu thought secretly, and then turned back to Zhou Hu and said: "In the future, on the battlefield, if you see this kind of royal flag, you will directly bombard it with artillery." ”

Let the servants pretend to be forced, Zhu Gaoxu scolded secretly.

Zhou Hu grinned.

Of course, the accuracy of Zhu Gaoxu's cannon is also extremely poor now, but if there are enough cannons, there is still a chance to hit.

The uncle and nephew will have a heart, and they both want to kill each other with shelling.

(End of chapter)