In the east of the city, the width between the city wall and Xiangshui is between 100 steps and 300 steps.

To the north of the city, the Aoba Bridge has been broken, and the width between the water and the city wall is more than a mile.

It seems that the southeast of the city is not easy to be hit by the arrows and projectiles of the defenders on the city wall when it lands, but on the contrary, there are also the defenders of the south of the city and the defenders of the Leiyang camp in the southeast.

And if you cross the river from the north of the city and land, there will be an attack on the walled fort on Shizui, which goes deep into the intersection of Haoshui and Xiangshui.

Therefore, Pu Zitong's center of gravity must be the west of the city, in his opinion, if Gu Shilong wants to successfully conquer Hengyang City, the most rational way should be to let Tang Peiyu fight for his life and take the north of Haoshui after consuming the Haoyang camp, cross the river from the northwest of the city and join forces with Zhu Qi, and mainly attack the west and north of the city.

After all, there is still relatively open space for a relatively open ranking in that direction.

It is very unwise to cross the river and attack the east of the city.

But the development of things was beyond Pu Zitong's imagination, and the first to attack was actually in the direction of the south of the city.

The one who guarded the "escape gate" back to Yanmen was Pu Zitong's most trusted right-hand man, the former commander of Chang Dewei, Tongzhi Chi Fuyong.

Now he actually left the south gate and personally ran to Pu Zitong, who was patrolling the northwest city wall of the city.

"How did you get here!"

Pu Zitong's heart twitched, could it be that there was something wrong with the south gate?

Chi Fuyong ignored the others, pulled him aside and whispered, "I will take care of the messenger first." Governor, a large number of warships have come to the Xiangshui River! Shuikou Cottage Fort is above the enemy army and Xiangshui, and the waterway is advancing. ”

“…… Warship? ”

He didn't understand, but he was shocked.

Chi Fuyong was so anxious: "The ship is not big, but the cannon is big!" The village closest to Shuikou Mountain lasted less than a quarter of an hour before it was destroyed by warships from the Hunan River. I'm afraid our boats on the dock southeast of the city won't be able to withstand it. The Metropolitan Governor, they attacked Changning in order to straighten out the upper reaches of Xiangshui! These warships came from Guangdong through the Lingqu! ”

"Just a mere spiritual canal, how big a warship can you come? Do you already have the heart to retreat? ”

Pu Zitong has lived in Huguang Changde for a long time, he knows that the imperial court already has a new cannon, and Tang Peiyu hates it; But no matter how much he paid attention to it, he didn't think that the warships built in Guangdong would travel so far that they would be able to destroy it when they arrived here, and he also let Chi Fuyong leave the south gate where he should be guarding and run here.

But in response to him, there was a loud noise faintly coming from the southeast.

Chi Fuyong's face changed suddenly: "They have already captured another walled fort. Dadu Governor, listening to the voice, I'm afraid that I'm almost near the southeast dock of the city, Dadu Governor quickly makes a decision, I'll go to the south gate! ”

Pu Zitong's mouth opened slightly.

The imperial army, which has always been surrounded on three sides, let the south go alone, and originally thought that the selection of the five military camps was a surprise soldier.

These days, what Zhan Huabi said about Chenzhou Wei and Baoqingwei did not exist at all, in fact, there was only a total of five military battalions in the south, three hundred Jinyi guards led by Luo An, and one thousand and five people from Zhaonian, as well as two thousand Guangxi soldiers left by Zhu Qi as his followers.

In the vicinity of Hengyang City, there were less than 2,000 troops, so they only stuck to Shuikou Cottage Fort.

Only now did I find out that Zhan Huabi had been guessing that Gu Shilong and others were actually this sailor?

The important thing is not how strong this water division is, but if this water division controls Xiangshui in the east of Hengyang City, then the supply from the direction of Leishui and this retreat will be cut off.

Hengyang City will truly become a lonely city!

Chi Fuyong hoped that Pu Zitong would make a decision as soon as possible, and Pu Zitong understood what he meant: either take the south of the city as the main direction, and must first cripple this water division; Either you have to consider retreating to Chenzhou.

Pu Zitong didn't want to give up Hengyang City so easily, at this time, he had to find out what the combat power of the new sailor was.

"Order General Lu to send half of the naval army to the south to meet the enemy!"

Changde is on the west bank of Dongting Lake, and Changde is not without a navy under Changdewei. After determining Shouheng Prefecture, Pu Zitong did not ignore the safety of the water.

Shortly after his order had passed, a clearer sound of artillery could be heard coming from the west of the city.

Zhu Qi finally began to move, and it was just the right time to cooperate.

The Battle of Hengyang began!

……

Standing on the largest ship to command this Northern Expeditionary Naval Division, it was Ma Yong, the father of An Concubine.

His original position was the chief soldier of Jizhou and the governor of the department, and he himself had already entered the sequence of the second rank of the general.

The daughter was canonized as a concubine, Ma Yong and Sun Jiao, in fact, the two strongest in the field of Chinese martial arts of the Jiajing New Dynasty.

He knew the army, but when he arrived in Guangdong, he was only in charge of a public security department.

Now he knows that Guangdong's transition period has passed. This time, he had to send another sailor who he was not familiar with to the north, the emperor just wanted him to get a credit, and the next step must be to reuse the merit.

On the Xiangshui River at night, this group of nearly 30 sailors of the Northern Expedition fought such a battle for the first time.

And Ma Yong also found the feeling of commanding a real army, rather than the group of shrimp soldiers and crab generals of the Department of Public Security.

"After two rounds, continue to go down the water!"

After Ma Yong finished speaking, he didn't look at the walled fort on the left.

After the Battle of Tuen Mun, the new warships built under the continuous purchase of Huang Ming Kee and Guangdong Haiphong Province are no longer comparable to the combat power of the Ming warships three years ago.

At the request of His Majesty, the battleships have become more focused on artillery bombardment, and the hand-to-hand combat mode of hand-to-hand combat has gradually weakened. What's more, what is to be bombed now is a walled fort that will not move at all.

Ma Yong only needs to let them complete two rounds of bombardment, blast the wall of the walled fort to the ground, and bombard the defenders in the walled fortress into panic, and then they can be handed over to Luo An and Dan Zhaonian.

His task is to break through the water blockade in the southeast of Hengyang City, reach the east of Hengyang City to join Gu Shilong, and cover Gu Shilong's army to cross the river.

Less than four or five miles further north, I finally saw the rebel sailors who came to meet the enemy on the water.

Under the light of the fire on the ship, Ma Yong also took out his binoculars and looked at it, with a playful smile on the corner of his mouth.

It was the familiar ship he saw when he was in Jizhou.

The Cao army was always the only Cao army in the Ming Dynasty that had to transport grain from Tianjin to Jizhou in eastern Liaodong through a sea route, and the ships they escorted were the same, nothing more than a slight change to adapt to the sea.

The style of the Ming Dynasty ships is really not much different from the north and the south, there are only three or four in total.

But the ships built in Guangdong have been changing, and what Wei Bin and Zhang Fujing spent the most time on before included this matter.

Ma Yong said when he heard Zhang Fu Jingla's relationship: Your Majesty will sooner or later enter the land and water to restore Jiaozhi, and there is a grand plan to pass through the South Seas!

Looking at the attacking ships, Ma Yong just handed the telescope to Zheng Qianhu, who was promoted from Haiphong Road in Guangdong: "I'll give it to you." ”

Ma Yong doesn't have to worry about the command of the specific water battle, and he is not proficient.

The thousand households took the telescope steadily, glanced at the number and shape of the ships lit up in the distance, and then calmly ordered: "Light the lanterns, send the message to the front ship, and the dragon will swim in the array!" ”

The mast, which carries the message at night with a lantern, begins to rhythmically block the lantern.

The so-called Dragon Formation is a new tactic studied after the number of guns on both sides of the new warship was increased.

The ships of the defenders of Hengyang saw the attacking sailors, only to see the other party swaggering down the water.

Their speed is naturally faster, and the Lu Shen general in Pu Zitong's mouth ordered with nervous eyes: "Wait for them to be within a hundred steps of the front, and then put the bow bowl of the gun, and be sure to break the boat with one blow!" ”

The two sides met each other straight ahead, but they were still a hundred and fifty paces away, and the bow cannons of the ships in front of them came first.

General Lu Shen glanced at the losses on this side, and after being overjoyed, he ordered: "Hurry up the rowing, lean over and open fire, and prepare to take overboard!" ”

Then I saw that the ships in front of me adjusted the direction of their bows, and for a time they were roughly across the water and drove diagonally to the right bank, and their side ships also spit out fire, far more dense than before.

General Lu Shen was stunned for a moment, and then saw that their boat was on the relatively wide surface of the Hunan River, and changed direction again when the water was relatively flexible.

A round of bombardment by the bow cannons was followed by a zigzag on the left bank, followed by a volley of guns on the other side of the ship.

At this time, the Hengyang defender warship finally fought a round, and then entered a relatively long gunpowder projectile loading time.

Drawing on the experience of the centipede boats, the sailors brought by Ma Yong were far more flexible than their boats.

General Lu saw that his car did not intercept the ship on the opposite side to achieve the purpose of broadboarding, and he only saw a row of dark gun muzzles.

"Boom-"

After this round of shelling, he felt that he was floating, his ears were roaring, and his eyes were dizzy.

I vaguely saw that one or two boats had stopped the warship on the opposite side, but then it was as if someone had been hit the belly of the ship, and his own soldiers fell into the water unsteadily.

The sound of cannons, firecrackers, and shouts of killing was everywhere, and Ma Yong's car passed through this small battlefield, and continued to rush straight to the east and west shore docks guarded by the rebels in the southeast of Hengyang City.

At this time, Pu Zitong, who rushed to the southeast corner of the city wall, had already seen Ma Yong's fleet from a distance.

His face was extremely ugly.

His own navy, not to mention the crippled Guangdong sailors who came from afar, couldn't even stop the other party for half an hour?

"Metropolitan Governor, the enemy army in the west of the city can only be bombarded, and the camp outside the city can only be beaten, General He Shen is invited to enter the city!"

The herald rushed over to report, and Pu Zitong looked at Chi Fuyong on the side.

He gritted his teeth and said, "The herald will be sent to the Governor of Pontus!" How many people can be injured by a projectile 300 steps away? No matter how cowardly the war disturbs the hearts of our army, the governor of Pontus has his own military law to deal with it! ”

Chi Fuyong was a little sympathetic to Zhan Huabi's subordinates there.

But is it really okay to do that?

Defend the city, and the casualties will be somewhat less.

Outside the city, the artillery of his own people could not hit that far, but on the opposite side, there was only that kind of new artillery on the dirt mountain, and he did not advance at all, and the camp outside the city could only be beaten passively.

Can they brave the fire of the cannons and the firemen and archers who protect the cannons to attack the mountain?

If Zhan Huabi's subordinates also surrendered in despair, it would be troublesome.

Pu Zitong seemed to see through what he was thinking, but he just said sharply: "If you don't attack the city with soldiers, Hengyang City will not be broken!" The rebel army would rather consume gunpowder and pellets than troops, and the Pontus governor wanted to see how many gunpowder projectiles they had prepared, and how long they could scratch their boots! ”

Chi Fuyong sighed slightly in his heart.

Or do you want to consume it, until the imperial army can't attack it for a long time?

But now that Xiangshui and the south are about to be blocked, Hengyang City can really only rely on the city's food and military reserves to consume the imperial army.

And in this way, the defenders outside the city have become outcasts.

I don't let them in, I'm afraid it's also so that the defenders in the city can hold out longer. Otherwise, the number of defenders will more than double, and the theoretical time for Hengyang City to hold on will be more than doubled.

At this time, I finally heard the big guns on the west side of the city also began to sound.

"Metropolitan Governor, Zhu Qi's army must have moved!"

Pu Zitong perked up when he heard Chi Fuyong say this: "Ling and Yan Daniu will guard the south and east of the city, and the governor of Pontus will go to the west of the city to supervise the battle!" ”

When he reached the west side of the city, he heard a loud bang on the eastern side of the city.

Pu Zitong had a pain in his flesh: Yan Daniu, what the are you ...... Bandits are used to it, right? Can this hit the water? Fight the Guangdong sailors in the Hunan water?

It's just that Yan Daniu is defending the city after all, maybe he has very good archery skills, and he can also command the soldiers to bombard the enemy ship two hundred paces away with a bowl gun?

Pu Zitong only watched Zhu Qi's army approaching step by step, coming down from the dirt mountain and both sides to approach the west of the city.

After uprooting the out-of-town camp by the city wall, the siege of the west of the city can begin.

At this time, the east side of the city ran to the west of the city to report: "Governor, there is movement of the enemy army in the east of the city. The group of sailors shelled the defenders on the shore in Xiangshui and Haoshui, and Gu Shilong's side was already starting to board the boat and prepare to cross the river. ”

Pu Zitong nodded: "Let the strict capital be guarded, the east of the city is the easiest to guard!" ”

He stayed in the northwest corner of the city wall, and the north and west sides were the places where the enemy army had to take the landing, otherwise how could the city be attacked?

When the fierce battle reached the light of day, Zhu Qi's army in the west of the city still seemed to be unwilling to suffer too much damage, but only approached a hundred paces, shelling the defenders outside the city two hundred steps away. The frequency of artillery shelling by the imperial army has also been significantly reduced.

Although the walled fort in the south of the city was uprooted, they also stopped back to the south of Yanfeng and did not approach again.

At this time, the main battlefield seemed to have shifted to the east and north of the city.

Pu Zitong, who had not slept all night, came to the east side of the city wall, and his eyes were solemn and puzzled.

The sailor also docked on the east bank of Xiangshui, as if it was resting and replenishing.

And from a distance, it can be seen that the soldiers led by Gu Shilong are really still boarding all kinds of warships and civilian ships that have been requisitioned.

Is he really going to cross the river to attack? Just a cover for a new ship with more guns?

"Dadudu, don't worry, they are attacking the city like this, if I Yan Da Niu can't hold it, it won't be like it! The Governor didn't close his eyes all night, so he rested for a while. The opposition army took turns attacking from the southeast, south, and northwest, just to exhaust you. The night has passed, isn't it? The thunder is loud, the rain is small! ”

Pu Zitong was silent.

The rain is not small, and Hengyang has become a lonely city.

Now either hold on, or concentrate your forces and break through from the south gate. Only in that direction, there are only less than 2,000 people in Luo An and Dan Zhaonian.

But this Hengyang City must be defended after all, and the longer it is guarded, the better.

Otherwise, wouldn't he Pu Zitong also collapse at the touch of a button?

"You are reasonable, Gu Shilong's skills are stopped." Pu Zitong pretended to be confident, "Crossing the river to attack the east of the city, he can figure it out!" ”

But he still instructed his generals in the north of the city: "Add 1,000 troops and five bowls to the north city wall and Shizui, and beware of the sound of the rebel army attacking the north." ”

In any case, the east of the city is not a reasonable main direction of attack.

Don't look at Gu Shilong, it is unlikely that he is now gathering a large army to board the ship in the east of the city and go around Shizui to attack the north of the city, but isn't there that sailor now?

Pu Zitong always firmly believes that the west and north of the city will be the main direction of the final siege.

And in these two directions, the troops outside the city are the most, and the city walls are also the people they trust the most.

Cheng......

Pu Zitong took a deep look at Yan Chunsheng, and then said: "Yan Dudu, as long as Gu Shilong's army really moves, you immediately order the defenders in the east of the city to meet the enemy." I have already sent a message to the Leishui camp that as long as Gu Shilong's army moves, they will go north and cut off the back road of Gu Shilong's camp. In this battle, the king will win! After the deed is completed, the governor of Yan will be crowned a duke! ”

"The king will win!"

In Pu Zitong's eyes, the firm belief in victory on Yan Chunsheng's face was no less than his.

So he went down the city wall with peace of mind and prepared to go and rest for a while.

(End of chapter)