Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 358: Jiaxing Surrender
In this Chongming naval battle, Fang Guozhen was defeated and suffered heavy losses, but in fact, the 1st Regiment of the Shengwu Army Navy also suffered heavy casualties.

The total number of missing, sacrificed, and seriously injured people was nearly 14. Eight large three-masted river ships were also lost, two of which were gunboats that sank, resulting in the loss of six howitzers and eight swivel guns, a total of guns were lost.

The other six ships were set on fire by the Yuan army's navy during the close combat siege of Fang Guoying's fleet. The crew members had to abandon their ships and escape. All six ships were burned, along with the besieged Yuan army ships.

The casualties in a large-scale naval battle were actually more than those in Lu Jin's crossing of the river battle. However, it is understandable that naval battles have always been much more brutal than land battles.

As long as you win the land battle, the enemy will flee, and you just need to chase them and capture them. But in a naval battle, both sides are on the boat, and there is such a small space that there is nowhere to run. Especially when boarding the boat, if you don't kill the enemy, the enemy will kill you. It's a fight between trapped beasts, and the fighting is extremely fierce and cruel.

As for the wounded, if the wounded in the land battle win, they can at least wait for treatment. But once the soldiers in the naval battle are injured and fall into the water, they will either be washed away by the water and put on the missing list, or their wounds will be infected by the river water, and the success rate of treatment will be very low. In addition, it is still winter and the water temperature is very low. If they are not quickly fished out after falling into the water, they will soon suffer from hypothermia, and die faster.

To sum up, this ultimately resulted in such a huge sacrifice.

However, despite such heavy casualties, the spoils of war were naturally very gratifying. Before this battle, the 300st Regiment of the Navy had only six medium-sized sea vessels with a displacement of about 168 tons, which were captured in Tongzhou during the Jiangbei Campaign. But after this battle, there were sea vessels captured.

There were 30 four-masted ships over 37 meters in length, 42 three-masted ships, a total of 79 ships, with a displacement of 800 to 10 tons, and the largest could even reach 12 tons. Such large ships could be equipped with at least to cannons, not counting small swivel cannons, five on each side, and perhaps two rear-firing cannons at the stern.

It’s a pity that this is not a specially designed warship, otherwise this 30-meter-long hull and 600-ton displacement would be able to carry at least 20 guns.

There are also three-masted medium-sized sea vessels with a length of about 20 meters, with a displacement generally below 400 tons, totaling 82. Such medium-sized ships can be equipped with at least eight guns.

There are also 7 small two-masted liaison ships with a displacement of more than 200 tons. They are mainly fast and can be used to transport personnel, materials and messages between large ships. They can also be used as sentry boats.

In the end, there were still four ships that were entangled with the ones that were burned by the Shengwu Army. They were all burned and had to be abandoned.

Just relying on the more than 100 ships seized this time, the navy regiment instantly became qualified to roam the sea, which shows how large the plunder was.

In addition to the seized supplies, more than 2,000 Yuan army sailors were also captured. They were temporarily arranged to dig pits on the shore to bury the bodies and clean the ships.

The Shengwu Army's navy was fighting relatively well, but the army was also paying close attention to the war here.

The main force of Yu Tonghai's 40th Army, which was resting in Shanghai, also received news of Fang Guozhen's naval invasion in the afternoon, and they were also very nervous when they heard the news.

Mainly in order to save manpower, the 40th Army only left one battalion of 900 people to garrison each of the three cities of Changshu, Kunshan and Jiading, which were responsible for attacking. With such a small number of troops, it would be no problem to suppress the local tyrants. But if Bai Guangtai lost the naval battle and allowed Fang Guozhen to land along the river, these cities would not be able to be defended at all.

Once the navy was defeated, the 40th Army would most likely turn around and fight Fang Guozhen who had landed. If Fang Guozhen went straight to Jiankang City, the 40th Army would even most likely be transferred back to support Jiankang. In other words, the victory or defeat of the navy was directly related to their next move.

It was not until the evening of the 30th that Bai Guangtai sent a small boat upstream from the mouth of the Huangpu River to inform Yu Tonghai in Shanghai of the battle report that Fang Guozhen had been driven away.

Bai Guangtai's battle report also said that the certain results of this battle were that at least one of Fang Guozhen's brothers was killed and nearly half of his fleet was annihilated. If Fang Guozhen had any brains, he would not cause trouble again in the short term, and would let the 40th Army decide on its own what to do next. The navy would resolutely defend the mouth of the Yangtze River and prevent the enemy from invading.

After receiving this good news, Yu Tonghai and Zhang Desheng finally breathed a sigh of relief. In this way, they didn't have to worry about the rear and could boldly save manpower. Then the two of them boldly continued their previous operations, leaving only one battalion of troops garrisoned in Shanghai County, and then continued to advance towards Songjiang Prefecture with the main force.

At this time, they still had five main regiments and two supplementary regiments reorganized with prisoners along the way. The seven regiments with a total of more than 30,000 troops continued to attack Songjiang Prefecture where Fang Jianu was stationed with 20,000 troops. It was also the last target of their eastern expedition as the northern detachment.

After the 40th Army has captured Songjiang Prefecture, it can go directly to Hangzhou to join forces with Yang Jing.

At the same time, on the same day, Yang Jing also arrived at the city of Jiaxing. After surrounding Jiaxing, Yang Jing immediately ordered Zhang Long's cavalry regiment to attack from all sides. He sent a cavalry battalion to each of the three cities of Chongde, Haining and Haiyan to try to persuade them to surrender and see if he could directly surrender these small cities. In addition, he sent another cavalry battalion to scout in the direction of Hangzhou to see if there were any Yuan troops coming to support.

The main force led by Yang Jing himself also began to build artillery as usual and shot letters into the city to persuade them to surrender. Letters of surrender were shot into the city from all directions, and some Yuan army generals could not help but open them and read them.

On the top of the Jiaxing South Gate, the guard general Sun Chaozong opened a letter handed to him by his subordinates and read it over and over again without saying a word. His trusted centurion Wang De beside him asked carefully, "Brother Sun, what did the enemy army say in it?"

Sun Chaozong shook the letter and said, "What can I say? Let's just say how powerful they are. They started the Eastern Expedition on the 15th, and it's only been half a month. They have basically taken over the entire area around Taihu Lake north of Hangzhou. No city can hold out for a day since they started attacking it. Ask ourselves, how much stronger do we think Jiaxing is than the previous cities that asked us to open the gates and surrender the city.

"The enemy army will begin attacking the city at the beginning of the morning at 9:00 tomorrow. If you do not surrender before then, after the city is captured, ordinary soldiers can survive if they surrender, but generals like you and me will all have our heads chopped off!"

"." With a gurgling sound, Wang De swallowed his saliva and said worriedly, "What should we do? Can we hold on, or do we really have to surrender?"

Sun Chaozong could not help but curse, "We can't defend it, others may not know, but you don't know, the more than 10,000 soldiers in this city are all rookies, they can't even tell left from right, and they can't even kill people with knives.

"And the Jiaxing city wall was only built last year, and it's only less than two meters high. How can we defend it?"

It is no wonder that Sun Chaozong complained that Jiaxing, as an important town in the south of the Yangtze River and a large city near Lake Tai, had no city walls since the Yuan Dynasty.
In the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, the Jiaxing city wall was demolished under Kublai Khan's order to destroy the city. It was not until last year when Liu Futong rebelled that Yuan Shundi Xiao Tieguo ordered all localities to rebuild the city. From last year to now, it has only been built to a height of more than five meters. If you find someone with good skills, you can climb to the top of the city in two steps.
"Then, what should we do?" Wang De said a little panicked.

Sun Chaozong looked at the Shengwu Army outside the city, then looked at the surrounding Yuan army, and then whispered, "It's too bright now, let's wait until it gets dark."

On the other side, Liu Ji and Dalan Temur also saw the letters of persuasion shot in, and confiscated a lot of them from the soldiers below. Dalan Temur asked with some concern, "Liu Dushi, what do you think about this?"

Liu Ji immediately said, "If someone in the army reads this letter, it will surely spread among the army. It is impossible to stop it at this time. We should find a way to appease the soldiers and reward them with money and goods.

"Also, the enemy army said in the letter that they will attack the city at noon tomorrow, but we cannot rule out that this is a deliberate attempt to confuse us. We should be on guard against fraud. Perhaps the enemy army is trying to paralyze us and then attack the city in the dark. We should arrange for soldiers to change guards at night, firstly to make the soldiers more vigilant, and secondly to prevent anyone in the city from voluntarily surrendering to the enemy army."

"What Liu Dushi said is absolutely right." Dalan Temur frowned and nodded, then asked, "But now the enemy army is at the gates of the city, and there is no news from Lord Pingzhang and Fang Guozhen. How long do you think we can hold out here?"

"That's hard to say." Liu Ji shook his head and pointed to the Shengwu Army camp outside the city and said, "According to common sense, if the bandit army wants to attack the city, they must at least fill up the moat and prepare large-scale equipment, such as battering rams and ladders, but the Luzhou bandit army obviously does not respect common sense.

"Right Prime Minister, look at the front of their team. They only have some long ladders, not even a ladder truck, and no large equipment. They have built a few towers outside the city, but they are so far away, more than a mile away, and they don't look like watchtowers. I really don't understand."

Dalan Temur said, "Maybe it's the rebel army's big fire gun. Didn't they say before that the rebel army's fire gun could shoot several miles away?"

Liu Ji was stunned when he heard this. "If that's true, then how can we defend against it? The enemy army is firing muskets from a mile away, and it's difficult for our army to fight back even with fennel cannons. No wonder they attacked the city so quickly."

Dalan Timur also said worriedly, "At this point, there is no point in saying more. We can only do our best to defend the city. If we hold on for a few more days, maybe we can wait for changes. Otherwise, you and I will both wait for the city to fall and die."

However, Liu Ji was not optimistic about the defense of the city. The weapons of the enemy army were sharp, and they had not yet thought of a countermeasure. Jiaxing City was not strong, and the defenders in the city were all new soldiers. There were also spies lurking in the city, and they didn't know whether they had been caught. In this situation, what could they use to defend the city? They could only leave it to fate. At the end of the evening of that day, just as the sun was setting, the Shengwu Army outside the city moved again. The 12 artillery batteries in the northwest, northeast, and southeast corners of the city were built. Immediately, dozens of soldiers in a team dragged the artillery with long ropes, and pushed the heavy howitzers onto the artillery batteries. The gunners of each gun adjusted the guns for a while and immediately began to test fire.

boom--

A thunderous explosion sounded a few miles away. A grenade with a diameter of 155 mm and several kilograms of explosives drew a parabola in the air and came straight towards the city wall, exploding near a large pot of boiling hot oil on the top of the city.

With a loud bang, the people on the top of the north city were blown to pieces. Three or five people were blown to pieces on the spot. More than a dozen people around were hit by shrapnel, dead or injured, and lay on the ground in an instant. The big pot for boiling hot oil was also blown over, and the hot oil in the pot was blown more than ten meters away, scalding the Yuan army soldiers on the top of the city and causing them to roll on the ground in pain. The hot oil flowed to the piles of firewood and ignited a raging fire. In the thick smoke and flames, the confused soldiers knocked over the boiling golden juice again.

In an instant, the entire city wall was filled with wounded soldiers, fires, confused soldiers, and foul-smelling gold juice. Just one test grenade caused chaos on the city wall of Jiaxing.

However, this was not the end. The other eleven artillery batteries also opened fire in succession, each adjusting their own trajectory. After firing a round of grenades, they began to test-fire solid bullets. This time the chaos caused was even more serious.

Solid iron balls bounced along the top of the city wall, and few defenders were killed along the way, but the defensive equipment and the cauldrons boiling hot oil on the top of the city were all overturned, and the whole Jiaxing city was shrouded in flames and stench.

Then the 12 heavy guns stopped firing, as if to say they were joking.
The defenders were beaten so badly that they had completely lost their temper. After a while, Liu Ji and Dalan Temur also came to the city wall. Looking at the big iron ball that the soldiers brought from the top of the city wall, Liu Ji wanted to take it with both hands to have a look, but he almost sprained his waist because of the iron ball.

"Be careful, this iron bullet weighs more than twenty pounds."

Liu Ji frowned and said, "The enemy's firearms are really extraordinary, as they can shoot such a heavy iron ball two or three miles away."

Daran Temur also asked, "I heard there is a kind of cannonball filled with gunpowder that explodes?"

"That's right. The enemy army used those shrapnel shells in the first round, and then they used these iron balls." The soldier reported hurriedly.

"How many casualties did we suffer?" Liu Ji also asked.

"More than a hundred people died, but the big pot on the top of the city wall was broken. I don't know how to defend the city tomorrow." The soldier who came to report also said sadly.

"You go down first and let the soldiers clean up the city walls first, otherwise there will be no place for the defenders to stay."

"Yes."

After the soldiers left, Dalan Temur said, "The 12 muskets only fired two rounds each and they have such power. If the enemy army attacks the city tomorrow and fires at full power, will anyone still be able to stand on the city wall?"

Liu Ji just shook his head and remained silent.

Obviously, they were not the only ones who thought so. The other defenders were not fools either. Although the test firing just now did not kill many people, it caused a great shock to the defenders in the city. In addition, there were spies who had sneaked into the city and added fuel to the fire. It was almost a consensus among the defenders that Jiaxing could not be defended at all. They had to consider this for themselves. After all, the letter of persuasion to surrender said that any defenders who did not voluntarily surrender the city would be killed after the city was captured.

At 10 p.m. that evening, when it was completely dark, when Liu Ji was leaving the city after patrolling, a rope was suddenly thrown down from the city wall in the south of Jiaxing. A dark shadow slid down the rope, and after a few quick moves, it disappeared into the darkness.

Not long after, the man was brought to Yang Jing's tent to explain his purpose. It turned out that the man was Wang De, a captain at the South Gate, who came to negotiate surrender on behalf of the defenders in the city. Sun Chaozong, who was guarding the South City, said that as long as the Shengwu Army launched an siege tonight, he could open the South Gate to let the army into the city.

After he finished speaking, he waited expectantly for Yang Jing's reply. At the same time, he was very surprised. He didn't expect that the general who commanded 300,000 troops in the manifesto was actually so young. The commander of the rebel army was really bold in employing such people.

In fact, the officers of the Shengwu Army are generally young. Even Xu Da is only 20 years old, only one year older than Yang Jing.

Yang Jing stared at Wang De for a while, but shook his head.

“I am worried about this. What if you are pretending to surrender and have hidden troops in the city? What if you close the door and kill my soldiers as soon as they enter?
"Anyway, our army has the advantage of firearms, so even if the ants attack the city, it won't take much effort. Why should I trust your general and take the risk of going to the city gate?"

It’s not like this hasn’t happened before, certainly in history.

In the original history, when Feng Sheng went to attack a city in Jiangbei, the garrison commander of the Yuan army instigated discord and said, "We are willing to surrender, and specifically to General Feng. Who is Xu Da? We will never surrender to him."

These words hit Feng Sheng's heart. Feng Sheng had always been dissatisfied with Xu Da, so he sent 2,000 men into the city to take over the city. However, the defenders pretended to surrender. As soon as Feng Sheng's soldiers entered the city, they were trapped and all 2,000 soldiers were killed. It was equivalent to buying Feng Sheng a lesson with 2,000 lives.

After Zhu Yuanzhang learned about this, he was so angry that he called Feng Sheng back to Nanjing and beat him with 50 military sticks, and then sent him back to the front to continue leading the troops.
So, accepting surrender is not an easy task. When Huo Qubing accepted the surrender of the Huns, he had to fight a battle before he successfully accepted their surrender.

However, Wang De, who came to negotiate surrender, became anxious after hearing this. "My brother also knows that the general's musket is powerful, so he really wants to surrender to the general. How could it be a false surrender?"

Yang Jing just shook his head again and asked, "How convincing do you think your words are? Do you believe it yourself?"

"." Wang De was stunned. He realized that surrender was not so easy to make. Both sides did not trust each other. He also knew that his words were not convincing. He was very anxious for a while.

Yang Jing left him alone for a while before speaking.

"How about this, didn't you say that Sun Chaozong would guard until tomorrow morning? How many soldiers does he have? Do they all obey him? Can he control the entire South Gate?"

Wang De nodded quickly, "They can control the South Gate, have 3,000 soldiers, and those above 100 are all old subordinates of Brother Sun."

Yang Jing nodded immediately and said, "That's easy. How about this, at three o'clock in the morning, you ask him to open the south gate directly and take all his three thousand soldiers outside the city. I will send people to take over the city gate, and he doesn't have to worry about the rest. After that, I will let him be the commander, the kind who can lead more than four thousand soldiers.

"Tell him this when you go back, and you don't have to leave the city to report to me. I will only wait until the third watch. If you dare to lie to me and fail to open the gate and leave the city by then, after I break into the city, you, Sun Chaozong, and your family will all be dead."

Yang Jing's tone was calm and emotionless, but Wang De's forehead was sweating after hearing it. He nodded immediately and asked, "General, can you write a letter to me so that I can report back? Otherwise, Brother Sun might not believe it."

"That's easy. I'll write it to you right away."

Yang Jing immediately wrote him a letter and stamped it with his governor's seal, and then asked someone to send Wang De back.

(End of this chapter)