1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Officials at the level of government judges and guard commanders may have a little influence in the local area, but in Yan Chujie's view, the power they hold cannot influence the situation of the battle, and it is far from enough to negotiate terms with him .

After all, it is not them who can really make the decisions in the city, but someone else.

As for the local richest man, Yan Chujie believes that his value does not lie in mediating the ongoing war.When local order needs to be restored after the war, letting such people come forward will come in handy.

Of course, it would be beneficial to Hai Han if he could use some relatively small price, or even an empty promise, to instigate the rebellion of these people whose positions have already begun to waver.

But Yan Chujie would not pin his hope of breaking the city on them, he had to be strong himself to strike iron, and if he wanted to conquer Zhenjiang City, he had to show the ability to make the defenders despair.

After dismissing these lobbyists, Yan Chujie decided to continue to strengthen the offensive in the afternoon, and let an artillery battalion as a reserve force also join the battle, increasing the suppression of the fortifications on the top of the city, and creating conditions for the infantry to approach the city wall.

In the afternoon, the fighting between the two armies continued.

The defenders in the city suddenly discovered that the shelling from the east of the city was more violent than in the morning.

Taking advantage of the truce at noon, the defenders made urgent repairs to several collapsed gaps in the barbican city. However, after suffering more intensive shelling, a larger collapse soon occurred again.

The gap in the collapse of Wengcheng this time is several feet wide, and the Chaoyang Gate that was covered by it has been exposed.At this time, the artillery of the Haihan army outside the city can finally hit the city gate directly.

During this period, the defenders in the city also tried to go out of the city to fight, interfering with the artillery tactics of the Haihan Army.However, the Haihan army had been on guard against this for a long time, and deployed defensive positions outside the artillery positions. Even if the Ming army invested cavalry repeatedly to attack, it still failed to achieve its goal. On the contrary, it lost nearly a thousand cavalry outside the city.

At sunset, the Chaoyang Gate in the east of Zhenjiang City was already in a mess, and the two heavy gates had been bombarded into dilapidated state. If the city had not been filled with a large amount of earth and rocks in advance to hold the gate, it would have collapsed long ago.

The tower on the Chaoyang Gate was shot and caught fire shortly after the start of the battle, and it was almost burnt out at this time, leaving only the ruins of the wall still smoking.

Although the city gate has not been lost yet, according to this progress, it seems that it is only a matter of time before the Haihan army breaks through the city defense.

Yan Chujie didn't plan to continue the offensive after nightfall, as the reduced visibility would affect the efficiency of the shelling, and it would also make it difficult for the infantry to climb up the city wall.The offensive has been going on for a whole day, whether it is weapons or combat personnel, it is necessary to hurry up and rest at this moment.

However, the attack did not stop completely. Yan Chujie had already arranged for a team of engineers to sneak into the city at midnight, try to plant explosives in the ruins of Chaoyangmen, and wait for an opportunity to blast them tomorrow.

At the same time, thousands of people gathered near Xiangshan where the two armies fought fiercely the day before.

After the Haihan army took Xiangshan yesterday, Yan Chujie thought that this place was very close to the river bank and that there were mountains as a cover, so he set it as a temporary logistics base to store food, grass and combat supplies.

Today, when the Haihan army attacked Zhenjiang City, the logistics department temporarily recruited more than a thousand civilians in the towns near Xiangshan to carry all kinds of materials from the Yangtze River ashore.

After hearing the news, many people flocked to this temporary base. They were not vying to work for Haihan, but they wanted to take advantage of the opening of the waterway to escape by boat.

It was reported that at this time, Changzhou in the lower reaches and Jintan, Yixing and other places in the south were fighting, so the people's preferred escape direction was Yangzhou on the other side of the Yangtze River.Yangzhou was assigned to Haihan after the last war between the two countries. Since the two countries have extremely important commercial interests in the area, Yangzhou has become a buffer zone between the two countries. Many cross-border trades are completed in Yangzhou. .

This time Haihan once again raised troops to attack the Ming Dynasty. Although the Yangzhou garrison was not mobilized to participate in the war, as one of the Haihan ruling areas closest to the battlefield, the local area also undertook a considerable part of the material supply task.

After the Haihan fleet took control of the lower reaches of Zhenjiang, Yangzhou began to send ships to transport supplies to the Haihan army, which mainly attacked the areas along the Yangtze River.There is a peaceful world over there in Yangzhou, this is the consensus of everyone.In the eyes of refugees, these boats naturally become escape routes to save their own lives.

As soon as the two black-covered boats docked, the people waiting by the river rushed forward and surrounded the docked area with water.

If it weren't for the heavily armed Haihan army maintaining order, these people would have rushed onto the ship regardless.

It took the soldiers a while to drive away the people who wanted to board the ship to escape.The people on the boat lowered the gangplank when they saw that the situation on the shore was under control.

A Haihan officer boarded the awning boat with a book in his hand.

A man who looked like a master on the ship quickly stepped forward and took the initiative to report: "Master, we are from the Dai family. The ship is loaded with raised military rations. Are we going to handle the handover procedures with you?"

The officer nodded and said, "That's right, report the goods on your ship, and I'll make a record here, and I'll write a receipt for you to take it back to hand over when it's clear later."

The man quickly took out a list of goods and read aloud: "Twenty live pigs, two live cows, ten live sheep, two hundred chickens, ducks and geese, three hundred catties of fresh fish and shrimp, and five hundred catties of various fruits and vegetables. One hundred catties, three thousand catties of rice, five hundred catties of flour, twenty bolts of gauze, forty catties of various medicinal materials..."

The supplies brought by these two awning ships cannot be said to be large, but there are indeed many types, with thirty or forty items scattered here and there.

Of course, these things are not provided to the Haihan army for free, but are priced as combat materials purchased locally by the army, and the cost will also be settled later.

The weapons and equipment of the Haihan army were supplied from Hangzhou, Zhoushan and other places during the battle, but a considerable part of the supplies such as grain and grass were supplied from the nearest state capitals along the way to save transportation capacity as much as possible.

Taking on such an errand will naturally bring you a certain amount of profit, so local merchants in Yangzhou are also very active in this.

However, the Dai family itself is one of the wealthiest salt merchant families in Yangzhou. It is not an exaggeration to say that the business under their name is making a lot of money every day, and there is no shortage of such benefits.

For the Dai family, earning more or less from it is second to none. Taking this opportunity to maintain the relationship with the Haihan military is its real value.

Taking advantage of the unloading time, the escort of the ship quietly took out a few banknotes and handed them to the officer in charge of receiving the goods: "Mr. Jun, some kindness is not a respect."

The officer stared at him, then pushed him back: "Are you kidding me? I'm under Commander Dai, and I'm all my own. I can't take this money!"

The Second Regiment of the Lu Qi Division, headed by Dai Chengrong, a descendant of the Dai family, was one of the troops that landed at Xiangshan to attack Zhenjiang City.If the quartermaster dares to accept this money, Dai Chengrong will find out later and he will not be able to deliver the goods.