On the third day of the seventh month, outside the west gate of Fuliji, the artillery position of the Ming Huai Army.

The 12-pound red-coated cannon and the 24-pound cupola cannon had already been pushed or carried into the two just-repaired forts. The shells and gunpowder were all carried to the designated positions in the fort, and the gunners were all in position, nervously waiting for the order to reload and fire.

These two forts were actually rebuilt from the ones that broke the head of Gustair's Eight Banners, that is, the barricades were dismantled and moved forward, and two new ring barricades were piled up on the farther forward positions with the dismantled vehicle straw bags. One of the first ones built is far away from the west gate of Fuji, about two miles away. The other one is much closer, just over a mile away.

The fort far away from Fu Liji was placed in the twelve catties of red-coated cannons, a total of eighteen, all of which were cast in Nanjing, and then painstakingly transported to the Huaibei front.

And in the fort that is relatively close to Fu Liji, there are twenty-four pounds of cupola cannons used to fire flowering shells, that is, mortar cannons, and the number is also eighteen. Although the projectile fired by the twenty-four-pound mortar cannon was very heavy, it was twice as heavy as the twelve-pound red-coat cannon. However, the mortar gun is also much lighter because of the short barrel and thin barrel wall. However, it is still not very convenient to carry. The gun carriage of this thing had no wheels, so it had to be pulled by a large cart, and it took a lot of effort to transport it from Puzikou.

These thirty-six cannons were originally prepared for fortified cities such as Fengyang and Xuzhou, but these two first-class fortified cities in the Huaisi region were taken lightly and fraudulently. Now it was the turn of the cannonballs that were shelled, but it was the small but sturdy earthen enclosure of Fu Liji.

Behind these two fortifications, 45,000 Huai officers and men from the heads of 30 battalions north and south of the Huai River had already lined up one phalanx after another, each prepared a long ladder to ascend the city, and they were all holding their breath and waiting for the victory of the crucial battle that would determine the fate of their own lives and the lives of many generations of their children and grandchildren.

It is no exaggeration to say that this battle of Li Zhongtang's acquisition of Huaixi is a war in which their group of Huaixi people restore some of their former glory.

After this battle is fought, their Huaixi Wuren will be shareholders of the Ming Dynasty again!

And this war is also of great significance to Li Zhongshan and Li Zhongtang!

If this battle is successfully fought, it will be able to successfully recover the source of Huaixi's troops. With this source of soldiers next to Nanjing, Li Yat-sen can become the man who coerces the Son of Heaven and orders the princes in the Ming court!

At the same time, the new Ming Dynasty, which has the Huaixi soldiers, has become a great force that can keep pace with the Western Wu and the Northern Qing Dynasty and divide the world into three parts!

Li Zhongshan walked into a very strong headquarters built of civil engineering between two artillery forts, which was less than two miles away from the west gate of Fuliji, and there was no cover in the middle, and the entire battlefield outside the west gate of Fuliji could be seen with the naked eye.

There were already many officers waiting in the headquarters, and they were all together. Seeing Li Zhongshan coming in, they all stood up and saluted. Wang An, Wang Quan, Luo Dawei, Shang Shuying, and a number of staff officers from the Jiangbei Governor's Mansion were all waiting for the arrival of the total.

The previous days of rain had ended, the weather had cleared, but the ground was still a little muddy, and the battlefield was still filled with light veil fog in the early morning.

Through this layer of veil-like mist, Li Zhongshan could still see more clearly the west gate and earthen wall of Fu Liji, which had been surrounded by his Huai army for more than ten days, to be precise, the west gate of Fu Liji was gone, and there was only a hole left, and straw bags and sacks were blocked. The wall of Fu Liji is rammed earth, two zhang high, and two zhang thick. A sheep and horse wall and battlements were also built on the wall, which could be used for defense.

Now there are a lot of colorful flags planted on the city wall of Fuliji, and there are vaguely some patrolling soldiers, but there are not many people, they should all be squinting in the market town!

Thinking of this, Li Zhongshan asked again: "Geste still hasn't replied?" ”

In the past two days, he has asked people to shoot into the Fu Liji every day to persuade him to surrender. Although he knew that it was impossible for Gustai to surrender, he still had to do superficial work.

"No," Wang An said with a smile, "Geste can probably see Mu Zhan's soldiers and horses now, how can he be willing to surrender to us?" ”

It turns out that Mu Zhan is still moving slowly and slowly!

This is not because Li Zhongshan can't get rid of Mu Zhan - Xuzhou has been taken by Zhou Chang, and the family members of Xuzhou Green Camp are also controlled by Zhou Chang, as long as they send a little to Mu Zhan's army, the hearts of Mu Zhan's subordinates will be in chaos.

It's just that Li Zhongshan ordered Zhou Chang and Ma Weixing to block the news and not let Mu Zhan know, so that he could continue to climb towards Fuliji.

There are so many colorful flags planted on the Fu Li set, and it is estimated that Geste wants Mu Zhan to know that he is not finished yet, and he and his subordinates still have horse meat to eat, so they are still full of vitality and extremely cruel, just wait for Mu Zhan to climb across the Suishui, and everyone will join forces together, and they will not be afraid of anything.

And Mu Zhan's troops had now climbed to a position where they could see Fu Liji, so Geste could see the 23,000 troops slowly crawling when he stood a little higher.

Thinking of this, Li Zhongshan snorted: "Since he wants to be a loyal martyr of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, then let's fulfill him!" ”

"Do you want to fire now?" Wang An asked.

Li Zhongshan nodded: "Open the gun. Hit hard! ”

"Yes!"

Wang An bowed, then took a red order flag from a personal soldier beside him, handed it to an artillery staff officer who came from Guangdong, and then ordered: "All the red-clothed cannons immediately open fire, and concentrate their fire to bombard the right side of the west gate of Fu Liji!" ”

"Order!" The staff officer took the red flag and turned out of the headquarters.

Li Zhongtang guessed correctly, Geste was standing on the north gate tower of Fu Liji at this time, looking north at the king's master!

Master Wang is a little slow!

More than 20,000 people formed five large phalanxes, one next to the other, and slowly climbed on the plain north of Fuliji, and it looked like they could not climb ten miles in a day.

And the reason why Mu Zhan wanted to put out five large phalanxes was, of course, afraid of the impact of the Ming cavalry around him.

Mu Zhan is really miserable now. He obviously left the Jiangdong camp with 10,000 elite cavalry, but somehow there is no cavalry to use now! Moreover, he was bullied by thousands of uneven Ming cavalry, and he did not dare to pose in the shape of an army, but only dared to use the phalanx to wrap up the baggage and artillery, and then slowly marched in.

Seeing Mu Zhan's army crawling all the way, Geste remembered the incident of fighting Hong Chengchou with Dolgon, and Hong Chengchou climbed all the way in order to rescue Zu Dashou in Jinzhou. As a result, it was still an inattentive person who copied the back road, Zu Dashou was not rescued, and he became a coated minion (don't think Hong Chengchou has any courtesy, it is a coated minion)!

Wait, how did you think of such an unlucky thing? Geste thought about it wrong, if Mu Zhan is Hong Chengchou, then I won't become Zu Dashou? Then aren't these 30,000 Qing Heavenly Soldiers going to be wiped out?

That's impossible!

"Boom Boom"

As soon as Gustai thought of the impossibility, there was a tremor under his feet, accompanied by the roar of the earth shaking the mountain!

"Dutong. It's a red-clad cannon! ”

"Dutong, go down to the city to avoid the cannons!"

As soon as some of Gestey's goshkha heard the cannonballs, they pounced on their boss to help him under the city walls to avoid the cannonballs. However, he was pushed away by Gustai, and the old man stomped his feet and said, "What are you panicking about? The rebels are bombarding the western city wall, and the old man is on the northern city wall, what is there to be afraid of? ”

Don't be afraid. At least there is no need to be afraid before the city wall to the west of Fuliji is bombarded by the red-clothed cannons of the Ming army.

"Quick, go and give orders to the leaders of the 1st, 2nd, 1st, and 2nd, 4th battalions on the left. Let them be ready to send out the Eight Banners Warriors to gag them at any time! "Gustai is not so confused that he really believes that the walls of Fu Liji can withstand the onslaught of more than a dozen red-coated cannons!

It's a matter of time before the walls are blown down!

And once the walls fall, the real decisive battle will begin!

Now the Ming army besieging the city has tens of thousands, several times the strength advantage, which is going to let the Ming army rush in, that is a finish!

Geste turned his head to look at the reinforcements who were still crawling slowly on the plain, and he complained a little in his heart: Mu Zhan, Mu Zhan. Can't you just be faster? Saving soldiers is like fighting fire! If you are not happy, I will be burned to death, you just look at the Qing Dynasty, hurry up!

The power of eighteen twelve-pound red-clothed cannons aiming at one place is quite amazing, and I only saw the side of the west gate of Fu Liji, constantly being hit by cannonballs. It was said to be a cannonball, but in fact it was a solid iron ball, which was blown out by gunpowder, and a dozen of them hit the earthen wall of Fu Liji at high speed at a time. The city wall of this Fu Liji is not as good as the city of Nanjing, and the pedestal of the people is made of boulders, which is hard! Fu Liji is a rammed earth fence, and the waterproof bubble is still improvised, where can I afford so many cannons to be aimed at the bomb at close range?

The city could not bear it at that time, the clods of earth on the wall fell straight down, and the cannonballs hit the wall and produced a lot of dust, and in an instant a large section of the city wall was enveloped, and at first you could see the shaking flags on the city wall, and then it gradually blurred, and soon only smoke and dust remained.

Li Zhongshan stood in his headquarters, just looked coldly at the city wall wrapped in smoke and dust in front of him, and after looking at it for a while, he turned his head and said to Luo Dawei: "General Luo, it seems that Fu Liji will not be able to support it for long, and he will take over the battalions in the east of the city. Just arrange two battalions to block the east gate, and the others will cross the water, put on a posture of blocking Mu Zhan's department, and at the same time prepare for the pursuit! ”

"Yes!"

When Luo Dawei saluted, there was already a staff officer sitting at a desk next to him who was taking shorthand and wrote the order according to Li Zhongshan's words. Wang An took it and looked at it, nodded his satisfaction with it, and returned the fold with the order to the staff officer and asked him to copy a copy of the archive. By the time the staff officer finished copying, Wang An had already taken the Great Seal of the Supervisor and used the seal for the two identical orders. In the end, he took one of them, plus a token for transferring troops, and handed it to Luo Dawei, asking him to take it to the east of Fuliji to transfer troops.

Seeing Luo Dawei leaving, Li Zhongshan said to Wang Quan: "Quan'er, after the bombardment is over in a while, you will lead the Shanzi Battalion Infantry to take the lead, and you must snatch the breach and let the Huaixi brothers kill it." ”

"Yes!"

"Sookyoung!" Li Zhongshan instructed Shang Shuying again, "You go to the Yongzi camp and Chang Yong together with the family members of the green camp captured in Xuzhou to block Mu Zhan. Once the cannon was fired, let the family out and let Mu Zhan know that Xuzhou was gone. ”

"Yes!"

Li Zhongshan's skill in using soldiers is really getting higher and higher, this time not only used "luring the enemy to go deeper", "encircling the point to send reinforcements", "stealing home", "three missing one" and other high-level tricks, but now he has to give the Qing army a heart!

At the right time, in the right place, put the most suitable bad news to Mu Zhan and Geste - Mu Zhan's army will definitely collapse when he learns that Xuzhou has fallen. And when Gestet's army was bombarded on the city wall and the enemy attacked Fuliji, they learned that the reinforcements had collapsed, and they were naturally also collapsed

"Dutong, look, the traitors in the east of the city have withdrawn!"

"It must be Chief Mu's army that is near!"

"Thank goodness."

When Luo Dawei began to move towards the north bank of Suishui with most of the troops in the east of Fuliji, the Gohash of Geste almost cheered as if they saw the hope of victory.

Gustai also felt hopeful, his old eyes were a little moist, and he said in a loud voice: "There is salvation, there is salvation. Now there is salvation! ”

As if to save the front, the Ming artillery, which had been rumbling non-stop, also came to an abrupt end.

The noisy battlefield suddenly became quiet.

Guste vaguely felt that something was wrong, and hurriedly ran to the northwest corner of the Fuliji city wall, where the line of sight was very good, and he could see the situation of the battlefield in the west of the city. But as soon as he was halfway there, the drums of the march sounded outside the city.

Then I heard a heart-rending roar: "The spearmen and pikemen of the rebels have come up!" ”

Then Guste heard someone in the city shouting: "The wall has collapsed, the wall on the right side of the west gate has collapsed, stop it!" ”

The city is broken? Gustoy's head buzzed, and it felt even worse.

He stopped running, but quickly stopped and looked to the right side of the west gate. At this moment, a gust of wind blew some of the soot and dust that shrouded there, and vaguely revealed a breach that was thirty steps wide due to the collapse of the wall!

At this moment, the blocking troops arranged by Geste had already rushed over the gentle slope formed by the collapse of the wall at the breach with their rifles.

But as soon as these people rushed halfway, the sky suddenly exploded with a bang!

Why did the sky blow up? Gustai didn't react for a moment, and then several dazzling fireballs suddenly appeared near the breach of the wall.

"Blossom Bomb!"

There are already more clever people who have figured out what's going on?

It turned out that the flowering bullet of the Ming army fell.

Of course, the accuracy of the flowering bombs in this year is poor, and the fuse is not very reliable, either it is blown up early or it is simply fried, and there are very few who just happen to come at once. However, today, there was still a 24-pound flowering bullet that landed impartially in the middle of a group of Eight Banner soldiers carrying a horse rejection gun, and exploded violently.

Although it was only a black powder explosion, it was a twenty-four pound flowering bullet after all, and one could explode an unknown number of fragments, plus the projectiles in the body of the bullet, flying all over the sky together, shrapnel and lead bullets formed an impenetrable net, and all the Eight Banners covered by it were beaten into a blur of flesh and blood, and there were casualties!

Now there are eighteen cupola cannons firing together, the shells are falling one after another, constantly exploding one fireball after another, this scene is really terrifying, those who are about to carry the horse rejection gun to pounce on the eight banners to block the mouth, are also instigated, not only no one dares to rush into the sea of fire, but also one after another to avoid.

Guste was also knocked down by his own soldiers, and one of the guys fell on top of him, as if he wanted to use his body to help him block the cannonballs.

I don't know how long this round of shelling lasted. Anyway, it's been quite a long time for the bombed Eight Banners. And when the shelling stopped, the Eight Banners soldiers who were dizzy from the explosion and were responsible for blocking the door were still quite brave, raised their horse repellents, raised their waist knives, horse pistols and bird guns, and threw themselves towards the gap.

But what awaits them is a wave of bullets that is accurate and ruthless. The first batch of Eight Banners soldiers who rushed into the gap were almost all killed, and they fell in the middle of the fatal gap.

However, the Eight Banners of the four battalions responsible for the plugging did not give up, and in the next quarter of an hour, there was still a steady stream of people carrying horse rejecting rifles and holding various weapons to fill the gap.

And what awaits them, without exception, is a musket shot with deadly accuracy!

By the time Guste realized that something was wrong, the commanders of the four battalions had already filled in two or three hundred men in the gap in the wall. The corpses of the Eight Banners were almost closing the gap.

And when this kind of battle to fill the gap with people's heads finally could not continue, the pikemen of the Shanzi battalion, wearing cuirasses, arm armor, and iron helmets, had already launched a charge with shouts.

However, this is not the most terrible thing that happened on the battlefield of Suishui-Fu Liji today.

The most terrifying thing happened on Mu Zhan's side, when Mu Zhan had just adjusted his formation and set up five square formations, preparing to resist the attack of the Ming army, the Ming army pushed out a group of women, old people and children.

What's going on, Mu Zhan thought that the Ming army had also learned the stunt of the Qing Heavenly Soldiers - when he used the common people as shields, Shang Shuying had already appeared among those "common people" on horseback, and shouted loudly: "The Qing soldiers on the other side, don't shoot. They are all the family members of Xuzhou Green Camp! Xuzhou has been occupied by the Great Tomorrow soldiers! Now I will be ordered by the middle hall to return them to you! ”

Mu Zhan also heard this in the middle army formation, and he was immediately dumbfounded.

Co-authoring "home" is stealing!

The family is gone, how can this battle be fought?

Those Eight Banners soldiers and the green battalion soldiers sent by the Jiangdong battalion are okay, after all, they don't have any family members in Xuzhou, but what about those Xuzhou green battalions? Their family is gone, and their family members are detained by Li Yat-sen, what should they do?

He was anxious for the green battalion soldiers in Xuzhou, and a phalanx composed of the green battalion in Xuzhou unsurprisingly became chaotic, and some people shouted: "Don't kill our dependents, we are willing to surrender."

(End of chapter)