stubborn thief

Liu Chengzong couldn't imagine how chaotic Liaoyang City would be after Sun Long surrendered.

This group of people originally wanted to surrender, but Bai Yunlong and Kong Youde were afraid of both sides, so they became strangely loyal to Dai Qing and pretended to defend to the death.

Sun Long's surrender broke this balance and threw the seemingly impregnable Liaoyang City into chaos.

As soon as the scene of Sun Long leading his troops to force the Liao people to fill the trenches appeared outside the north city, all the people defending the city became panicked.

Of course he knew why Sun Long surrendered, and he also knew that Sun Long would definitely tell Liu Chengzong about the false surrender plan. Therefore, during the time of filling the trench, he secretly sent people to occupy the warships at the water gate, and ordered that the families be sent to the ships one by one at dusk.

The number of defenders in Liaoyang was already small, and was not enough to guard the streets and prevent outsiders from entering the streets when defending the city.

However, the idea of ​​Gongshun King Kong Youde was to send his family on board first.

He didn't want to abandon the city directly. Among all people, Kong Youde was the one who was most reluctant to leave Liaoyang City. This was his base. Without Liaoyang and the soldiers and population, he, the obedient king, would be nothing in the Daiqing Empire.

It's just a backup plan so that if something goes wrong, you can still escape on board the ship.

Even this matter was a decision made after Kong Youde and Bai Yunlong discussed it.

Bai Yunlong was not optimistic about defending the city in the first place, so when he heard that Kong Youde had come to his senses and wanted to keep a backup plan, he was overjoyed. However, he did not dare to show it too obviously, and still looked loyal as he checked for omissions with Kong Youde.

He was told not to just take care of his own family, but also to transport the families of Geng Zhongming and Tianyou's soldiers and officers out as well.

In this regard, Bai Yunlong also faithfully fulfilled his duties as a guard.

What's the point of Kong Youde running away by himself? By then, not to mention that Huang Taiji will kill him because Liaoyang was lost, even if Huang Taiji doesn't kill him, Geng Laoer and his gang have left their families in the city, and you, Kong Youde, are still alive. If things go wrong, the soldiers may kill you first due to internal strife.

However, in this way, the original secret plan for transporting family members became a blatant one.

There are so many people, it would be inappropriate to leave anyone behind.

Honestly, this plan was perfect.

The Marshal's Army had no ships and could not control the Taizi River. They did not even send troops to the east bank of the Taizi River to block the ferry.

The Marshal's army will definitely stop the siege at night. As long as they fail to climb to the top of the city, the battle will not resume until tomorrow morning.

There are dozens of boats of different sizes in the city, which take turns transporting goods outside the east gate. With just a few trips back and forth, the families of the officers of the Tianzhu Army can be sent to the other side. Then they can sail east at night, even leaving an empty city for the Marshal's Army.

It just so happened that Quanjie was also sending people to look for a boat, and the two groups of people looking for a boat met each other.

Bai Yunlong's guards wanted to mobilize a boat to transport all the people to the other side, while Quanjie's soldiers wanted to seize the boat and escape themselves.

When two men meet in a narrow road, the ruthless one wins.

Bai Yunlong's guards had not yet reacted and thought that Kong Youde had sent all his soldiers to mobilize the ships. He also ordered the Han army to move all the ships over in a domineering manner. As a result, most of them were chopped down.

Bai Yunlong was furious when he received the news.

Damn it, the traitor dog bit his master.

Quan Jie robbed more than 20 large ships. He not only took his family with him, but when leaving the city, his soldiers also went through the streets and alleys and robbed the shops in the southern city of Liaoyang. The black smoke seen outside the city was the fire set by his people during the robbery.

A convenient thing.

Because Quanjie had thought it through. If he stayed in the city, Liu Chengzong would not forgive him; if he escaped from the city, Huang Taiji and Kong Youde would not forgive him either.

So this guy decided to go all out and robbed large ships. He brought more than 800 soldiers with him and headed northwest on board.

His plan was to sail all the way to where Sancha River flows into the sea, and then go to Dongjiang Town with the warships.

As for whether Shen Shikui in Dongjiang Town can be accepted, let’s not talk about it for now. At most, he can occupy a small island and plan for the future. Anyway, he can’t stay in Liaodong anymore.

His fleet was in a hurry because its route passed through the north city. They saw Gao Yingdeng's troops attacking the city wall, which made the whole department tremble with fear.

What he was afraid of was not the marshal's army that would rush up to the top of the city wall and engage in hand-to-hand combat, because everyone could do that.

But the siege positions of the Marshal's Army were too regular.

There is an earthen rampart along the outer edge of the moat, behind which is a row of small cannons, behind which is a row of trenches, in which are the long gunners; further back is the position for the cannons.

Between these three positions, there was an earthen hill under construction every few dozen steps. It could be seen that once completed, the hill would be taller than the city wall. Next to it were rows of large wind-chasing spears.

The gun that Liu Chengzong raised was originally the Da Zhuifeng Gun of Liaozhen.

The only difference is that the big wind-chasing gun uses a fuse to directly push into the firing port to fire, while the Marshal's army's rifle is improved in shape and replaced with a flintlock mechanism, using flint to ignite.

I have never seen any army in the entire section equipping itself with this kind of huge gun on a large scale.

He was afraid that the Marshal's army would turn its guns around and bombard the river fleet, so the ships sailed as hard as they could, heading northwest around the Marshal's army's shore positions.

This fleet caused quite a scare to Gao Yingdeng, who was commanding the siege.

At first he thought that the defenders were sailing out to shoot him with cannons, but when no cannon fire came and the boat moved away, he realized that the enemy was escaping and quickly ordered his cavalry to chase them.

The fleet was running in the river and the cavalry was chasing on the shore.

Can't catch up.

But the whole section was really unlucky.

If he had taken his fleet eastward, nothing would have happened.

However, he led the fleet westward and sailed ten miles. Just after passing the river bend, the small exploratory boat was fine, but the larger flagship ship hit the hidden piles and the bottom of the ship was cracked.

Even more unfortunate was the darkness, in which they could not see the ships behind them clearly. Two of them crashed into the flagship, making terrible noises in the night.

Several other ships tried to avoid the collision, but the river section where the piles were buried was narrow to begin with, and the three ships were blocking the middle. If they didn't want to collide with the other ships, they had to sail on dry land and rush to the shore.

To be honest, the twelve marshals hiding in the reeds were frightened.

This team was composed of Ningxia soldiers under the command of Bu Yingdi, the former Lieutenant General of the Ming Army. They were originally assigned to watch for mines and were quite resentful, thinking that the military achievements they had obtained were slipping away from them.

What they never expected was that while they were staring at the quiet river channel in the west, a fleet actually came from the east and ran straight into the hidden stakes they had set up, with some ships even rushing directly onto the shore.

The twelve marshals had been divided into three groups, each with four people, to set off the mines. They were immediately frightened by this sudden change, and they didn't know whether to move or not, and they froze in the reed marsh.

The nearest ship was only twenty steps away from the nearest marshal's army.

However, the soldiers of the entire section were even more panicked. They did not even search the coast. The bottom of the large ship was leaking and they had no time to repair it. It was only a matter of time before the ship sank.

A group of people hurriedly launched their boats, unloaded their goods, and quickly moved to the shore.

After all, they were all veterans. Although it was a sudden change, the overall command was still there. People landed in a messy and hasty manner, gathering people to prepare for defense, and trying to remove the hidden stakes in the river while preparing for defense. Then someone heard a fatal "chi chi" sound.

The sound moved on the ground, and the veterans who were familiar with the sound dispersed and ran, but before they could run far, the first buried mine exploded.

As the first explosion sounded, explosions followed one after another on the 200-step-wide river beach. Iron balls and pebbles flew everywhere, and smoke rose up on the river beach at dusk.

The vast majority of explosions are just makeshift land mines that make people's heads buzz. Unless you are extremely unlucky, you will not usually be hit by the exploded rubble.

Even if hit, for the soldiers wearing armor, it is just like being pushed. After all, the power of explosives does not depend entirely on the amount of charge or the size of the fragments. The prerequisite is the shell that carries the gunpowder.

The power of the explosive is determined by the pressure of the gas generated by the burning gunpowder inside at the moment the outer shell is blown open, and how much of this pressure can be transmitted to the fragments.

Like a hastily put together pottery jar, it exploded before one-third of the gunpowder had burned out. The gas expansion was very small, so the power of the pottery fragments flying off was naturally very small.

But buried in this minefield were the warheads of twelve Marshal's Mansion rockets. Those things were iron shells specially made by the Marshal's Military Industry Office after repeated verification. Each of them carried fifty-three tiny iron pellets, which penetrated the air and flew everywhere during the explosion, creating a puff of blood mist.

There was chaos on the shore for a moment, soldiers and their families fled in panic, officers shouted loudly, but their voices were suppressed by the explosion.

At the same time, the Marshal's cavalry who were chasing the ships on the shore also hurriedly arrived at the periphery.

Before the smoke cleared, large arrows with eagle feathers pierced through the smoke and shot at the figure standing in the smoke.

Quan Jie was hacked to death by the marshal's army lurking nearby because he was commanding the soldiers and shouted the loudest.

When Quanjie's head was sent to the central army, the fire in Liaoyang City illuminated half the sky red.

The fire was set by the soldiers of the whole section when they were trying to seize the boats. As the defending generals scrambled to cross the river to escape, the marshal's army chased them all the way into the city and missed the best opportunity to put out the fire.

"General, when our army turned back to put out the fire, everything east of the Drum Tower in the south city had already caught fire. We could only demolish the houses on two streets to prevent the fire from spreading to the west."

Gao Yingdeng looked guilty and said with his head down: "Kong Youde also ran away."

"He ran away, so he ran away. We didn't come here specifically to kill him. What about the loss of people, animals and property in the city?"

Liu Chengzong didn't care that Kong Youde hadn't been captured. He just searched for the defense map on the map hanging in the main hall of the temple. He looked at it and said, "I remember there were a few large warehouses in the east of the city. Were they burned down as well?"

"Yes, it was burned. There were two granaries and a warehouse to the east of the Drum Tower, as well as Kong Youde's residence. The warehouse was next to the street. A lot of guns, cannons, and armor were looted before it burned. The two granaries..."

Gao Yingdeng shook his head, then raised his head and said, "On the shore, Li Baliang, the captain, seized three grain ships carrying more than a thousand stones of rice, more than three hundred sets of armor and weapons, and ninety-three boxes of gold and silver utensils and valuables."

There were only a thousand dan of rice. Liu Chengzong thought that the three ships were small enough, and either the evacuation was in a hurry and the rice could not be transported, so they were only concerned with loading gold and silver.

But these ninety-three boxes of gold and silver objects are quite a lot.

This is why we came all the way here.

"What ninety-three boxes? Give them to your military craftsmen in the main camp and have them melted into ingots in a furnace right there. Don't keep them idle in the city."

Liu Chengzong calculated the time and said, "After checking the number of people, livestock and property, they can be transported to the border. Send a message to Wang Chengen along the road to the border and ask him to send troops to pick up the people and livestock."

As he spoke, Liu Chengzong pointed to the West City on the map and asked, "I see that the area east of the Drum Tower only occupies 30% of the city. There are three warehouses and one storehouse west of the Drum Tower. Are they empty?"

"Reply to the commander, it's not empty."

Gao Yingdeng immediately shook his head and reported: "The three warehouses are very large, with many granaries, but there is not much grain stored, only about 30,000 dan, and a lot of old rice, but there are also a lot of cloth, furs and sundries."

"In fact, there are quite a few firearms stored in the God's hangar. Including the cannons on the city wall, there are currently 120 large general cannons of three types. Most of them are old cannons from the Wanli period, but there are also new ones. There are also four red cannons weighing more than 2,000 kilograms on the city wall."

"There's a Enma Temple next to the Shinji Hangar. There are over 600 horses there. It looks pretty good."

"Besides that, there are plenty of single-eye and three-eye guns. We don't need those old things, right?"

"Yes, why not!"

Liu Chengzong glared, raised his hand and pointed in the direction of Liaoyang City, and said, "Look at the time. First, transport the livestock, money and grain in the city out. After the money and grain, transport the guns and sundries. Tomorrow afternoon, if there is still no news from the east, bring all the people out as well."

"Before leaving the city, tear down both walls and throw all the bricks into the river. If Huang Taiji is slow to come, start a big fire and don't leave him a single grain of gunpowder, lead bullet or piece of wood."

Liu Shizi thought that these guns and cannons were in Liaoyang City before and will still be in Liaoyang City in the future, so wouldn’t his trip be in vain?

To put it bluntly, the three-barreled gun is still a good thing if sold to the Mongolians in the northern desert. The general cannon can be placed in the Songmo Prefecture City. Even if the gun holes are nailed, the gun doors are blocked and sunk into the river, it is still better than leaving it to Huang Taiji.

In the early morning of that day, at several city gates of Liaoyang, there was an endless stream of horse-drawn and mule-drawn carts transporting food, fodder, and valuables.

Outside the Suqing Gate, more than ten large furnaces were set up to refine gold and silver.

It only took a few moments for the huge silver winter melon to cast rows of silver bars using the mold for casting lead ingots.

Liu Chengzong could foresee that the legend that the Later Jin Dynasty was rich in silver would definitely be confirmed in the Marshal's Office in the future.

In Liaoyang city alone, the population search had not yet been completed, but the property seized from the families of Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming was worth at least 200,000 to 300,000 taels.

On the three ships that Li Balian robbed, there were twelve large silver melons with the word Geng stamped on them. No one knew what he wanted to do with these things, but each one weighed three thousand two hundred taels.

Liu Chengzong could imagine that Geng Zhongming would be so angry that he would vomit blood when he received this news.

By noon the next day, a report came from outside the city that more than 17,000 small silver bars weighing one pound and more than 1,200 gold bars had been refined.

Before the military craftsmen who were refining gold and silver had time to rest, Zhang Xianzhong came back with more than 3,000 people, driving ox carts, mule carts and a large number of livestock, and unloaded more than 200 boxes of wealth and goods looted from the nearby villages outside the west gate.

The fire in the big stove was still burning and more charcoal was added.

Zhang Xianzhong was so excited that his eyes turned red. He didn't care whether Grand Secretary Qian Shisheng wanted to listen or not, and just kept sharing his experiences of looting.

Liu Chengzong disliked his talkativeness, so he waved his hand and told Li Hongsi to take the soldiers to Xindi to rest. He also assigned Tang Tong's reinforcement battalion to Zhang Xianzhong, and told him to lead his men across the Taizi River to Dongjing City in the east of the river to rob whatever they could.

The most important thing is to guard against Huang Taiji's sudden attack from the east.

However, just as he was counting the days and estimating that Huang Taiji would arrive before Wang Chengen's support in the north, the cavalry scattered along the Taizi River brought the alarm in the dust raised by their galloping.

"General, urgent report, a fleet is coming from the west, carrying armored soldiers and cannons, thirty miles away!"

It is still gratifying.

Ever since he heard from Sun Long that Shang Kexi was a speculator who was good at seizing opportunities, Liu Chengzong had been thinking that Shang Kexi would most likely use the navy to cause trouble for him at a critical moment.

However, Liu Chengzong could only consider it bad luck that he came at this time - the Taizi River had been blocked, and the navy could not cut off his route to transport grain to the north.

If Shang Kexi wanted to cause trouble, he could only land and fight twenty miles away.

"Tell Gao Yingdeng and Zuo Guangxian to have the mobile battalion bring a brigade of 1,000-jin field artillery to meet Shang Kexi's fleet!" (End of this chapter)