The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

On September 29, Liu Sheng led an army of more than 60,000 land and sea troops to the outskirts of Zhongxiang City.

In the handsome tent.

He Lianyue, Zhang Ao, Mao Chengguo, Li Niu, Li Dingguo and other generals gathered together, lined up on the left and right, waiting for orders.

"According to Xunfengwei's information, there is a mausoleum guarding army in Xianling, with a nominal number of more than 8,000 people. However, the total soldiers were selected and paid empty wages, and in fact, they only supported more than 5,000 people.

The Xianling Tomb is located more than ten miles northeast of Mochou Lake. If left alone, it will inevitably threaten our army's retreat. Mao Chengguo, let you lead the troops to defeat this Ming army. "

Mao Chengguo stepped out of the queue, cupped his fists and said: "The last general takes orders!"

There was joy on his face.

Because in his opinion, this is just to take credit - if a brigade of standing army attacks more than 5,000 Ming troops and cannot win, he might as well find a piece of tofu and kill him.

After Mao Chengguo received the military order and went out, Liu Sheng said again: "With the strength of our army, it will be easy to capture Zhongxiang.

However, there are many officials in the city, including the Governor of Ming Dynasty and Huguang. If we can persuade them to surrender, it will greatly increase the political prestige of our tribe and save the people in the city from the ravages of war.

So let's persuade them to surrender first, and if that doesn't work, then we can storm the city by force. "

All the generals were thoughtful after hearing this.

The meaning of Liu Sheng's words is obvious. For siege warfare, if the enemy defending the city can be made to surrender, a double political and military victory can be achieved.

In addition, even with the current combat power of the Yi army, attacking the city will cause casualties and consume a lot of military supplies, so persuading surrender is still the priority.

However, this time Liu Sheng did not send an envoy to persuade him to surrender. Instead, he placed the letter of surrender in a special iron bullet slot and hit it into the city.

It is both a letter delivery and a demonstration.

···

Song Yihe stood on the north city gate, with deputy patrol envoy Zhang Fengzhu and prefect Shen Shouchong beside him.

As for the imperial envoy Li Zhensheng, he left the city with the general Qian Zhongxuan before the arrival of the Yi army on the grounds that he needed to guard the Xianling Mausoleum.

The three of them looked far into the distance and saw that more than three miles away, the Yi army's flags were like a forest and the military formations were one by one. Looking at it from a distance gave people a lot of pressure.

After watching for a while, Song Yihe said with an ugly face: "I'm afraid the bandits have 50,000 or 60,000 soldiers and horses, including at least 30,000 combat soldiers."

Yicheng was defeated too quickly, so they only knew that the Ming army had tens of thousands, but they did not know the exact number of thousands. It is unavoidable to have a sense of luck, thinking that the Wei army actually only has 20,000 to 30,000, or even 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers, and the rest are just refugees or civilians.

But now the military formation outside the city has wiped out any chance they had.

Zhang Fengzhu frowned and said: "Qian and Li refused to lead the tomb-protecting troops into the city. Now there are only more than 3,000 battalion soldiers and more than 5,000 rural soldiers in the city. How can we hold it?"

Shen Shouchong said: "I have asked the county magistrate Xiao Han to recruit young people. There are 60,000 to 70,000 people in Zhongxiang City, and we should be able to recruit 10,000 young people.

Zhongxiang City is a tall city. As long as we can withstand the rebel bombardment, it is still possible to defend the city. "

Zhang Fengzhu couldn't help but said: "The question is, can you withstand it?"

Shen Shouchong responded tit for tat, "How will you know if you can't stand it if you don't try?"

Zhang Fengzhu was about to say something more, but he heard Song Yihe next to him say: "Stop fighting, the bandit army has moved."

The two of them looked around and vaguely saw what seemed to be artillery carts being pulled out of the Yi army's formation.

Among the three, Shen Shouchong had the best eyesight. He looked hard and said solemnly: "It seems to be the Hongyi Cannon!"

Zhang Fengzhu's lips trembled slightly and said: "How can we withstand so many Hongyi cannons?"

Just as a few people were watching, they heard a series of roaring sounds, and all three of them were startled.

"not good!"

"The thieves opened fire!"

"Hide now!"

Under the protection of their personal escorts, the three of them hurriedly hid behind the city gate tower. This gate tower was made of brick and wood and was not anti-cannon. If they hid inside, they would probably be buried and killed by the collapsed gate tower.

Fortunately, there is a circular corridor in the city gate tower. Hiding behind it is blocked by two walls, so it is much safer.

Bang bang...

Iron bullets fell on the city wall one after another. A few unlucky ones were hit, and either died suddenly on the spot, or lost arms and legs. They rolled on the ground in pain and wailed miserably.

The three of them hid at the back door of the city gate building. They felt that the city gate building had been hit several times and several holes were smashed in the wall in front. They could not help but turn pale with fear.

Only then did they understand that knowing the power of the Hongyi cannon and feeling its power under the shells were completely different things!

At this moment, Shen Shouchong, who was the most determined among the three to defend the city, was a little scared.

When the sound of gunfire stopped, the three of them did not dare to come out immediately, but waited for a while.

Then they saw Wang Jiamo, the general of Fubiao, hurried over with an iron bullet in his arms and said: "Futai, there is a letter hidden in the thief's shell!"

When the three of them heard this, they immediately gathered around and saw that a thin bamboo tube was inserted into the iron bullet and a letter was stuffed in the bamboo tube.

Song Yihe took out the letter, read it quickly, and sighed, "It's a letter from the bandits to persuade them to surrender."

Shen Shouchong and Zhang Fengzhu also read it and found that the content was very simple.

Just tell them that there are more than 60,000 troops outside the city, and Zhong Xiang will never be able to defend it.

He also said that Chongzhen was mediocre and incompetent and the Ming Dynasty was corrupt. In order to prevent the war from affecting the people in the city, he asked them to surrender directly.

He also told them that if they did not open the city gates and surrender within half an hour, they would attack the city.

The only thing that surprised them was that the letter did not use high-ranking officials or generous salaries to tempt them to surrender.

You know, generally when trying to persuade a city to surrender, the generals and officials who defend the city will be promised high-ranking officials and generous salaries as bait.

Song Yihe asked: "Are there letters of surrender on other iron bullets?"

Wang Jiamo said: "They are all there. The last general has sent people to collect all the iron bullets shot by the bandits. There were only more than a hundred iron bullets that fell on the city wall or inside the city just now. It is not difficult to find them all."

Song Yihe sighed after hearing this and said, "The rebels are not trying to spread the message of surrender in this way, but they are trying to scare us with shelling. What do Magistrate Shen and Deputy Zhang think?"

Shen Shouchong said with a cold face, "Do we still need to ask about this matter? Could it be that Futai wants to surrender the thieves?"

Zhang Fengzhu thought to himself: How about we surrender? But after opening his mouth, he didn't dare to say anything.

Song Yihe didn't bother to explain to Shen Shouchong and said, "Then let's each supervise our troops and defend the city."

···

Liu Sheng waited for an hour and saw that Zhongxiang's city gate had no intention of opening, so he ordered an attack on the city.

The circumference of Zhongxiang City is more than twelve miles, resembling an irregular pentagon. There is Mochou Lake in the northeast and Jingyue Lake in the southeast.

Taking into account the outstanding artillery superiority of the Wei tribe, Liu Sheng simply concentrated his forces to attack the northern city wall. As for the east, south, and west sides, he let the Xiaoqi guards watch.

Sure enough, facing the Wei tribe's attack, the Ming army defending the city was forced to concentrate its main forces on the northern city wall.

As a result, two hundred army artillery pieces fired several rounds with explosive shells, and the morale of the Ming army fell to the bottom, and some battalion troops fled.

Although Song Yihe and Wang Jiamo cut down the defeated troops and controlled the situation in time, preventing the rout from spreading, they gave the Yi army an opportunity to attack the city.

Under the fierce artillery fire from the Kuaibu Department, many parts of the wall collapsed.

The soldiers on the city wall suffered many casualties, and those who survived did not dare to show their heads to fight back.

Just like that, the Yi army was able to scale the city wall in one wave!

That day, Zhongxiang fell.

Song Yihe, governor of Huguang in the Ming Dynasty, committed suicide in the north city gate tower. Shen Shouchong, the prefect of Chengtian, died in battle, and Wang Jiamo, a general in charge, was shot to death.

Xiao Han, the county magistrate, organized a street fight in the city and was captured by Shengjie Guards. Zhang Fengzhu, the deputy patrol envoy, ran east out of the city and was captured by the Xiaoqi guards.

Li Zhensheng, the censor guarding the mausoleum, and Qian Zhongxing, the general of the mausoleum guarding army, surrendered...

Then the Yi army divided into two groups.

He Lianyue and Zhang Ao led the 7th and 8th brigades of the standing army and two militia regiments to go southwest by land, preparing to capture Jingmen, Dangyang, and Yiling.

Liu Sheng led the Guards, the 9th Brigade of the Standing Army, and two militia regiments to continue down the Han River. After capturing Qianjiang and Jingling, his troops were directed towards Hanyang and Wuchang!

First update.