"Fixed-shot loading, a distance of one mile and three hundred paces, pre-firing a round, ready to ...... Beep! ”

"Boom-"

On the twentieth day of the winter month of the second year of Yongle, accompanied by the sound of artillery, Jingbei Town, which was thirty miles away from Thang Long City, had a full 40,000 soldiers and horses stationed inside and outside the city, but the number of people did not bring them any advantage.

Since Fu Rang conquered Langshan on the 16th, he did not encounter an opponent like Hu Yuancheng, so he chose to lead his troops south and attack Shenglong.

After his purpose was seen by Hu Jichen, Hu Jichen hurriedly mobilized soldiers and horses from Taiyuan and Haiyang towns to aid Jingbei Town, preparing to resist stubbornly.

Jingbei Town is the last barrier in front of Thang Long City except for the Red River, if Jingbei Town is uprooted, then Xuanguang Town will lose the official road to Thang Long, Hu Yuancheng will lose the main source of materials, and then he can only lead his troops to retreat to Guihua Town south of the Red River.

Not only that, Thang Long City will also be exposed to the Ming army, and only one city, Duobang City, can respond.

Because of this, after the Ming army launched an attack on Jingbei Town, Hu Jichen immediately dispatched 5,000 soldiers and horses to help garrison Duobang City, so as to wait for the retreat of the army in Jingbei Town.

However, he overestimated the defense of Jingbei Town, or underestimated the speed of the Ming army's breakthrough.

From the time of the bombardment to noon, the town of Gyeongbuk, whose defense was not as strong as Lang Son Castle, was crushed in less than two hours, and large pieces of earth and stones were washed down, and the faces of the defenders in the city turned pale.

Compared with them, the Vietnamese troops who built sheep's horn walls, trenches, and horses outside the city were even more miserable.

The sheep's horn wall they spent several days building lasted less than an hour, and it was completely reimbursed under the shells of a base number of Ming troops.

Without waiting for them to react, the artillery positions of the Ming army advanced one by one under Fu Rang's flexible command.

By the time they reacted, the Ming artillery position was less than 200 steps away from them, and at this time, the Ming army had also begun to shell with shotguns.

The 200 guns were loaded with nearly 1,000 kilograms of shotguns, which was more than 200,000.

When they were fired out in the roar of artillery, the entire Vietnamese position was instantly filled with miserable shouts.

"Uhh

"The Ming army is in front of you!"

"The whole army went out of the trenches and formed a formation to engage the Ming army in a short battle!!"

A round of shotguns caused hundreds of thousands of casualties among the Vietnamese troops, and Li Miao, who was in charge of commanding the troops outside the city, had no choice but to launch a military order to form a short army.

At the sound of his whistle, tens of thousands of Vietnamese troops hiding behind the broken fortifications rushed out, but the formation was very slow.

When the Ming army had already cleaned the chambers, they were able to form a formation and attack the artillery position.

"The infantry retreated left and right, after the solid shelling was completed, the infantry returned to their original position to form a formation to kill, and the cavalry made a detour to the left and right flanks to attack, don't give them a chance to breathe!"

Fu Rang, who was observing the battlefield with a telescope, quickly passed on the military order, and calmly gave the order when the Vietnamese army was still 200 paces away from the Ming army.

Soon, the infantry corps blocking the artillery positions withdrew left and right, exposing the artillery positions of the Ming army to the front of the Vietnamese army.

However, in the face of the exposed artillery positions, the Vietnamese army at this moment was not excited, but the blood became a little colder.

At a distance of less than 100 paces, they could see that the soldiers of the artillery position were not cleaning the chambers, but were already standing quietly around the guns, which meant that they had completed the cleaning and loading of the chambers, if nothing else......

"Boom-"

The dull sound of artillery rang out again, but at such a distance, the Ming army did not use shotguns, but solid bullets.

"Bang!!"

The sound of flesh exploding sounded, and a five-pound iron cannonball pierced the bodies of more than ten people before falling, and the flesh and blood flew to the ground.

"Ah!!h

Looking at that tragic scene, many Vietnamese soldiers who had been pulled to the battlefield began to collapse, and the military formation that had finally been formed was instantly chaotic.

"Brethren, blow the trumpet and rush with me!!"

On horseback, Meng Ying and Zhang Fu each led a thousand cavalry to launch a roundabout surprise attack on the left and right flanks of the Yue army.

The sound of trumpets and screams of fear filled the entire battlefield, and the scattered more than 10,000 infantry regiments under the command of Lin Su and Zhang Chun returned to the artillery position to form a formation.

Compared to the slackness of the Vietnamese army, they completed the formation in less than a word and launched a frontal attack on the Vietnamese army.

"Woo-woo-"

The horn was melodious, but it came from three different directions.

The cavalry on the left and right flanks, and the tens of thousands of infantry on the front attacked in three ways, Li Miao had never dealt with this situation, and it was difficult to unite the tens of thousands of soldiers and horses in his headquarters for a while.

"One general is incompetent, killing the three armies, it seems that this Hu clan is useless."

Looking at the Vietnamese army with no trace of command in the telescope, Fu Rang shook his head, revealing his disdain for the Vietnamese army.

It is no wonder that Zhu Gaoxu would choose to let him lead the Eastern Route Army, which was full of young generals, and without the cooperation of Mu Chun of the Western Route Army at all, they could take Thang Long City by themselves.

Although the number of the Western Route Army was large, it was not the main force, and the credit for pacifying Annan was destined to fall on the generals of the Yanfu and Bohai systems of the Eastern Route Army.

"Wealth comes first, and Annan's merit monument is destined to have our name on it!"

"Brothers, kill me!!"

"Bang Bang Bang

The two armies were about to be short-armed, and the corps led by Lin Su and Zhang Chun spread out a one-mile-wide length on the wide Jingbei Town Plain, accompanied by the sound of fried beans and the thick rising smoke, the position that the Vietnamese army had finally stabilized under the command of Li Miao was broken again.

Knife players and pikemen charged after three rounds of guns, disrupting the Vietnamese positions and emptying the left and right lines.

Seizing the opportunity, the cavalry led by Zhang Fu and Meng Ying launched a surprise attack and attacked the flanks of the Vietnamese army from the left and right.

When the difference between the two armies was less than 5,000, the Ming and Vietnamese armies were quickly strangled by Zhang Fu, Lin Su and others.

However, in front of the cavalry of the Ming army, they did not even have the opportunity to escape back to the moat of Jingbei Town, and they were all killed on the way to escape.

In the space of one hour, 10,000 garrisons in the northern outer city of Jingbei Town were slaughtered.

Such a miserable scene was clearly seen by the generals of the Vietnamese army at the head of the city, and they were extremely frightened.

"In less than an hour, 10,000 troops were wiped out......"

I don't know who said this, which made the faces of the generals in the city pale, and they no longer had the courage to defend Jingbei.

It's just that at this moment, even retreating is a luxury, because after solving Li Miao in the outer city, Fu Rang let Zhang Fu and Meng Ying lead the cavalry to patrol the periphery, obviously not preparing to let go of the 30,000 defenders and the people in the city in Jingbei City and the other three city walls.

"After an hour and two quarters of an hour of fighting, the enemy army was nearly 10,000 defeated, our army was less than 272 people, 897 were lightly and seriously wounded, and there were still more than 13,700 people to fight."

Outside Jingbei City, when Lin Su and others spent an hour counting the results of the battle, Fu Rang also arranged for the artillery position to move forward one mile and set up camp less than a mile away from Jingbei City, ready to shell at any time.

"There are still nearly 14,000 people available, which is not bad, but the logistics have dragged too many troops."

Fu Rang glanced at the merit reward book, and had a headache about the supplies that needed 16,000 troops and 50,000 people to maintain and recover the city in the rear.

Fortunately, his goal is Thang Long City, as long as all the troops of Jingbei Town are surrounded and annihilated, the Duobang City with only 5,000 people is not to be feared, and the remaining Thang Long City, which has only a few thousand people, is in the pocket of the Ming army.

Take Thang Long City, and the rest can be handed over to the Western Route Army.

"Prepare for artillery bombardment and take Jingbei Town in two days!"

Fu Rang closed the book, and his eyes only looked at the Jingbei Town, which was already a little dilapidated.

With 15,000 against 40,000, more than 1,000 were killed and wounded, and a quarter of the enemy was killed or wounded.

The scene just now was definitely seen by the Vietnamese generals, taking advantage of their low morale and constantly expanding the results of the battle is what Fu Rang should do as the commander-in-chief.

"Fixed-shot loading, pre-...... Put! ”

"Boom, boom—"

Heavy artillery fire hit the town of Jingbei, and at the same time, it was also staged on the South 5th Road in Annam.

As the western capital, Qinghua was originally a gathering place for the Hu family, but at this moment it is full of devastation.

In the early morning, the navy raided the unsuspecting Thanh Hoa port, and hundreds of warships emerging from the dense fog launched an artillery attack on the port, destroying the defenders on the port in an instant.

If it weren't for the fact that Thanh Hoa City was thirty miles away from the coastline, I am afraid that the walls of Thanh Hoa would have been in ruins in a few hours.

However, even though they were thirty miles away, when Zheng He and the three commanded nearly 20,000 navies to land at the dock, they quickly began to gallop towards Thanh Hoa City with a few horses pulling 200 field guns.

Soon after Fu Rang completely annihilated Li Miao's subordinates, Zheng He and the three of them led a large army to arrive outside the city of Qinghua lightly and began to launch an artillery bombardment.

Despite the early warning and preparations, the Vietnamese army did not expect the Ming army's offensive to be so fast.

In the case of the Vietnamese army, their normal marching speed was only 30 miles a day, less than half of the Ming army.

Therefore, they originally thought that the Ming army would arrive in Thanh Hoa early the next morning, but the fact was that the Ming army arrived outside Thanh Hoa in the afternoon.

Outside the city, Yang Zhan and the three have a clear division of labor.

Zheng He led 500 cavalry from the navy and 200 horses with artillery to collect grain and grass around Thanh Hoa, while Yang Zhan and Cui Jun surrounded Thanh Hoa and launched an artillery bombardment.

By dusk, Thanh Hoa had been bombarded for two hours, and the city's less than 10,000 defenders had not organized a successful counterattack.

"I am afraid that these Vietnamese soldiers are all people who have been forcibly conscripted for a short time."

Looking at the dilapidated Qinghua wall battlements in the telescope, Yang Zhan regretted: "It's a pity that Hu Jichen managed the Qinghua city wall like this, but no one could command the counterattack. ”

"That's good news for us." Cui Jun didn't feel sorry, but dealt with the generals with a smile.

The worse the quality of the Vietnamese army on the South 5th Road, the faster they attacked the city and plundered the land.

Taking advantage of the fact that the main force of the Vietnamese army is in the north, as long as they quickly fight and take the southern 5th road, then the 70,000 or 80,000 Vietnamese troops in the north will fall into the battlefield of the North Vietnam Plain, which is less than 400 miles from east to west and less than 200 miles from north to south.

Fighting them in such a "small" strategic space can only say that the prospects of the Vietnamese army are already doomed.

"It's our luck and their misfortune."

Putting away the binoculars, Yang Zhan glanced at the stalled artillery position, and turned back to ask Cui Jun: "How long will it take for gunpowder and iron shells to arrive?" ”

"With the strength of the people's feet, it is estimated that it will be late at night." Cui Jun replied without thinking, and Yang Zhan also bowed:

"As soon as the ammunition arrived, the shelling continued."

"In addition, Zheng Zheng was sent to inform him to collect iron materials and blacksmiths and smelt them into iron cannonballs, and in addition, it was enough for the people to transport gunpowder, and it was too slow to transport cannonballs with their feet."

Yang Zhan said that, and walked to the camp that had been built, and Cui Jun also conveyed the news in time.

Soon, the sky was getting dark, and the Annan Hu clan Dayu Dynasty looked precarious at night.

The news from all over the world arrived in Thang Long City quickly, which made Hu Jichen have to summon the ministers to the Qinzheng Hall in the middle of the night.

He was wearing a middle coat, and a simple robe was draped outside, and he was anxious to cross back and forth.

The ministers in the palace were all dead, because they all knew how great the impact of the siege of Thanh Hoa was.

"Lone should have thought that since the Ming army could use the naval division to take Nanjing, of course, it could also cross the sea to cut off the back road of our army, it was my mistake, it was my mistake......"

Hu Jichen's voice was anxious, and he claimed to have changed from being a lonely person to an ordinary me.

He is not personally good at war, but he is good at driving generals.

The reason why the conquest of Cham was successful in the early years was that the metallurgical technology of Annam was stronger than that of Cham and the iron output was higher than that of Cham.

It's just that these advantages have become disadvantages in the face of the Ming army, and the artillery power of the Ming army has made Hu Jichen dare not recall it to this day.

Judging from the letters from Jingbei and Thanh Hoa, the city defense of the two places is already in jeopardy, and the city will be broken in the next few days.

Jingbei is okay, if it is really breached, there will be Duobang City, and there is also the Red River......

But once Qinghua is breached, then he is really finished.

But what can he do?

Xuanguang's soldiers and horses are too late to be dispatched now, and the soldiers and horses in Thang Long and Duobang City are less than 10,000, and the soldiers and horses in Jingbei Town are surrounded by the Ming army.

At this moment, his Dayu seemed to be at the end of his rope, and it was only six days before the start of the war.

The strength of the Ming army was far beyond Hu Jichen's imagination, he had obviously studied Mu Chun's battles against Luchuan and Yunnan Tusi, and expected that the Ming army would be deflated for a long time in Langshan and Wang Nongshan, but these two places did not even last for more than three days.

"Your Majesty, the minister suggested moving the capital to Tuojiang Town Xinghua."

"Seconded by the Minister"

"Ministers seconded the ......"

Facing the Ming army that was close at hand, more than a dozen Hu ministers suggested moving the capital, and Hu Jichen did not immediately refuse when he heard this, but thought for a while before he spoke: "In this case, move the capital to Tuojiang Xinghua." ”

"Your Majesty Shengming ......"

Tuojiang Xinghua, it is not far from Thang Long City, only one hundred and forty miles west of Thang Long City, but its advantage is that it is located in the Changshan Mountains west of Annam, easy to defend and difficult to attack, before it was usually the Vietnamese army suppressed the Tuojiang Road Che Man's forward position, but now it has become Hu Jichen's lifeline.

There was no way, in the face of the situation of the north and the south, he could only choose to retreat to Xinghua in the west.

If he is really defeated, he can at least escape into the Changshan Mountains and wait for the resurgence of the East Mountain in the future.

"Don't alarm the people, the soldiers and horses in the city will go out of the city at night, and the lord Hu Hancang will stay behind."

When Hu Jichen said this, Hu Hancang, who was the lord of Dayu, turned pale, and the ministers also looked at each other, but in the end he didn't say anything, just sang His Majesty's wisdom, and then retreated under Hu Jichen's instructions.

After they left, Hu Jichen walked up to Hu Hancang and comforted him: "I will leave a thousand guards for you, if Jingbei Town is lost, don't hesitate, flee to Xinghua immediately, I will arrange everything." ”

Although Hu Hancang was the lord of the country and used him as a puppet, in fact, Hu Jichen still paid attention to this child, otherwise he would not have handed over the position of the lord of the country to him.

If Jingbei Town is really lost, then it is useless to defend Thang Long City, it is better to flee directly to Xinghua.

The reason why he fled to Xinghua without Hu Hancang now was because he was worried that the Chen Dynasty immigrants would cause chaos after learning the news.

Although Hu Hancang could guess his father's intentions, he still couldn't help but feel chills in his heart.

"Father, even if we retreat to Xinghua, can we really make a comeback?"

Hu Hancang's forehead was covered with fine sweat, and his eyes were full of hope, eager to get a hopeful answer from Hu Jichen's mouth.

It's just that in the face of his words, Hu Jichen didn't answer for a long time, but replied after a while: "There will be a chance." ”

After that, Hu Jichen patted him on the shoulder, and Hu Hancang also left the Qinzheng Hall in despair.

Not long after, mule carts loaded with grain, grass and goods left the city under the cover of night, and in one of the carriages sat Hu Jichen, who was dressed in the usual clothes of the lord of the country.

He reluctantly glanced at Thang Long City at night, and finally went to Xinghua Town, one hundred and thirty miles away, under the protection of more than 3,000 guards.

He knew very well in his heart that if Jingbei and Xuanguang could not hold it, it would only be a matter of time before Xinghua fell.

Therefore, escaping into Changshan is the only way out for him, and he must now hurry up and set up in Changshan.

Thinking like this, he gradually moved away from Thang Long City, and the sky was also flushed with a touch of fish belly white.

"Boom, boom—"

On the 21st of the winter month, the seventh day of the Ming army's advance into Annam, accompanied by the sound of artillery, it was not only Thanh Hoa and Jingbei that were shelled, but also Xuanguang Town, which was located in the northwest of Annam.

Sheltered by the surrounding mountains and hills, Xuanguang Town has been a place that has been easy to defend and easy to attack since ancient times.

Relying on the pass, Hu Yuancheng was ready to fight a protracted war with the Ming army, anyway, there was enough arable land in Xuanguang Town, and he also forcibly recruited more than 70,000 men to reclaim here, and he could replenish the damaged soldiers at any time.

As long as he blocks Mu Chun's troops and horses, and Jingbei blocks Fu Rang who is going south, then they may still have hope of peace talks with Daming.

I have to say that Hu Yuancheng thought very well, but the passes he relied on were not much better than the barracks he set up in Wanglongshan in the face of heavy siege artillery.

More than a dozen ten-pound heavy iron cannonballs and dozens of five-pound heavy iron cannonballs rained down on the pass city wall of Xuanguang Town, making cracks and white spots.

The 3,000 Vietnamese troops stationed here could only hide behind the pass, and when the Ming army stopped each round of artillery, they used ballistas and catapults from Madao to counterattack.

Although they could not damage the Ming artillery at a distance of one and a half miles, at least they showed the attitude of the Vietnamese army in Tuyen Quang Town to counterattack.

"Bang-"

Looking at the stone throwing that fell more than 200 steps away, Mu Chun, who was standing on the camp sentry box, said to Mu Sheng below: "How long will it take to break the pass?" ”

"Uncle Zhen said at least two days." Mu Sheng responded to his eldest brother, and Mu Chun also bowed his head after hearing it, without revealing too many thoughts.

He naturally knew where the main direction of the expedition against Annan was, so it was not difficult to guess the idea that Zhu Gaoxu and Zhu Di's father and son wanted to give the main credit to Fu Rang, Zhang Fu and others.

But even if he guessed it, he wasn't ready to do anything, after all, he was now the Duke of Qianguo, and he was at the point where he couldn't be promoted, so there was no need to fight for merit.

Therefore, all the way south, he wrote his credit to Qu Neng, Gu Cheng, He Fu, and even Qu Yu, Qu Tao and others.

Therefore, the generals were very convinced of him, and the toasts ......

Mu Chun glanced back at the noisy corner of the camp, Mu Sheng looked back when he saw this, and then said, "Do you want me to remind them?" ”

"No" Mu Chun walked down the sentry booth and walked towards the big tent with Mu Sheng, asking as he walked: "How much did they slaughter and plunder along the way?" ”

"The slaughter is hard to calculate, anyway, many towns and villages have not escaped their plunder, and the women who have been captured and sent back to the southwest are probably tens of thousands."

Mu Sheng answered his eldest brother's question, and he was also very nervous, after all, although the Yunnan Dusi also had the move to drive Miao Tuoye, most of them were aimed at the rebellious Tusi and Tuguan, like this kind of thing that directly attacked the people, even he was rare, and he was naturally nervous.

"Have you turned in all the captives?"

Mu Chun walked into the big tent, washed his hands and sat back in his position, and Mu Sheng also sat down on the right side of the head after washing his hands: "I handed in a lot, but I don't feel clean." ”

"Big brother, do you want me to take someone to pick a few thorns and clean them up?"

Mu Sheng said tentatively, but Mu Chun picked up the brush and shook his head: "No, these are all evidence and excuses for crusading against them in the future, the more they hide, the easier it will be for us to crusade against them in the future." ”

"In addition, let people write down all these things they have done, compile them into books, and when Annan is stable in the future, they will sell these books in the streets and alleys, so that Annan will have conflicts with them."

Pulling one hand to fight the other, supporting one faction and suppressing the other, this is the local policy throughout the Ming Dynasty.

Whether it was in the northeast or southwest, or in Wusizang, the Ming Dynasty used this method to maintain the peace of the Han minority ethnic groups for most of the time, and at the same time co-opted small suppressors and suppressed them, constantly leaving local forces in a situation of scattered sand.

The reason why the Shapu Rebellion occurred at the end of Yunnan was mainly because the three generations of children after Mu Changzuo's death failed to play this hand well.

Otherwise, with the Mu family's control of Yunnan, there will be no drama of Tusi defeating Kunming and driving the Mu family out of Kunming City.

Mu Chun had the same attitude as his father Mu Ying, as long as Tusi showed the slightest restlessness, he would regard it as a factor that shook the foundation of the imperial court in Yunnan, and planned to solve them.

But now Mu Chun has a better target, that is, the robbed Annan people, and the raiders of the southwest Tusi.

It will not take many years for the Annan people to deal with the Tusi in the southwest, and the strength of the two sides will continue to increase, and the proportion of the Han people will gradually increase, and the foundation of the imperial court in Yunnan will become deeper and deeper.

Thinking of this, he put pen to paper and wrote down the reluctance to attack Xuanguang Town, his eyes firm......

"Ming Taizong Record": "On the seventeenth day of the winter month, the governor Fu asked the seven counties of Taiyuan and Haiyang two towns, and the soldiers surrounded the north of Beijing. On the twentieth day of the winter month, Zheng He went from the sea, surrounded Qinghua with soldiers, Mu Chun, the prince of Qianguo, surrounded Xuanguang, and Hu Jichen, the lord of Annan, fled west to Xinghua. ”

"Southern Expedition": "The public news of the Guizhou State that the native soldiers had taken captive and plundered the people, punished them by military law, released the women and men captive by the native soldiers, compensated them with money and food, and escorted them home. However, the local officials and Tusi were arrogant, and there were many captives in Annan, and the prince of Qianguo said: "The local soldiers are arrogant and ignore the imperial court, and the people of Annan know the royal way and abide by etiquette and righteousness, and it is my sin to suffer this calamity." ”

(End of chapter)