Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 210 It's your turn to clean the floor
On the fourth day of March, outside Nanchang, about 50,000 to 60,000 rebel troops surrounded the city.

Moreover, Chen Juqing and others called on their friends and encouraged many big landlords and corrupt officials in Jiangxi to come and help.

These people all controlled certain social resources, with fields ranging from thousands to tens of thousands, and numerous farm slaves, tenants, and tenants.

In particular, their tactics were very clever. Their slogan was "The bandits have captured Nanjing, Kuang Zhao and others are collaborating with the enemy and betraying the country. We are recruiting volunteers to wipe out the bandits and relieve your worries."

Because Kuang Zhao did not spread the news of Zhu Yuanzhang as quickly as Zuo Guangxian did, nor did he immediately exempt the people from taxes, he wanted to wait until the dust settled before doing so. As a result, he was slow at every step and the rebels seized the opportunity.

For a time, the rebels were very powerful, clamoring to capture Nanchang Prefecture, break into Nanjing City, and capture the bandits alive. A large amount of military equipment and supplies were transported outside the city, and they set up camps. Only the side of the city facing the Ganjiang River was left.

It was the chaotic time at the end of the Ming Dynasty. This group of people clearly occupied a large amount of resources, but they did not provide disaster relief to the people, and they did not give money to Chongzhen to eliminate the bandits and the Qing army. Now, once their interests were affected, they immediately gathered together to revolt. They were even more powerful than the bandits. It was really ironic.

In fact, Kuang Zhao had responded in a timely manner. After receiving the news that this group of people had revolted, he immediately sent people to take a boat northward from the Gan River and go to Nanjing along the Yangtze River.

Basically, we received the news in the morning, and the news had already spread to Nanjing city the next morning.

Then he ordered Wu Linrui and Qiu Shangyi to send troops, but Chen Juqing and his men had a large number of people and gathered quickly, so he could not defeat them one by one like Zuo Guangxian did, so he could only retreat to Nanchang and defend the city.

At this moment, a huge ship was coming on the Ganjiang River and entering the city through the water gate of Nanchang City.

Yang Tinglin was from Qingjiang, Jiangxi Province, which is now Zhangshu, Jiangxi Province. In the 17th year of Chongzhen, he opened a school in his hometown to teach. Chongzhen wanted to summon him to Beijing, but the road was blocked and the imperial edict did not arrive. By the time he knew about it, Beijing had been captured.

So later, Yang Tinglin knew that his country would be destroyed and his family would be ruined, so he recruited soldiers in Jiangxi and fought many decisive battles with the Qing army that attacked Jiangxi. He finally retreated to Ganzhou, was defeated by the Qing army, and calmly jumped into the river to commit suicide for his country.

Seeing that he had served in Lu Xiangsheng's army in his early years and was knowledgeable about military affairs, Zhu Yuanzhang appointed him as the Governor-General of Jiangxi and sent him to Nanchang to help defend the city.

Based on the principle of serving as an official in a different place, people from Jiangxi definitely cannot be officials in Jiangxi.

However, Yang Tinglin was familiar with the terrain and had prestige in the local area, so special matters were handled specially. After all, it was only a temporary position, so he solved the problem first.

After entering the city, Yang Tinglin and Jiangxi officials including Kuang Zhao, Wu Linrui, and Qiu Shangyi came to the city wall, and Cao Gu committed suicide.

He originally wanted to do his best to serve his good friend, but his good friend ended up rebelling. Cao Gu, who originally still had the honor of not serving the Qing Dynasty, was suddenly turned into a traitor. He left a suicide note and committed suicide out of shame.

There were densely packed tents outside the East City, and at a glance one could see many men and women cutting down trees and making siege equipment.

Those people were wearing civilian clothes, with no uniform military uniform, just like the bandits like Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, but their actions were just barely controlled, and under Liu Yipeng's command, they seemed to be in good order.

After all, Liu Yipeng was also a senior general in Jiangxi, and later served as Jin Shengheng's deputy general, so he must have some talent.

Seeing this, Yang Tinglin frowned, put down the telescope given by Zhu Yuanzhang and said, "You have disappointed His Majesty. You can't even do such a small thing, and you still want His Majesty to send someone to clean up this mess."

Kuang Zhao lowered his head in shame and said, "It is my incompetence. After this is over, I will go to Nanjing to apologize to Your Majesty."

"It's not your fault. You either do things carefully or in a big way. Now you haven't done either. You will have to explain to His Majesty yourself when the time comes."

Yang Tinglin looked into the distance, then said calmly: "Your Majesty has asked Duke Wei to send troops from Changsha to rescue you. You don't have to be afraid. It should only take a few days for them to reach Nanchang."

"I wonder how many soldiers and horses the Duke of Wei has brought with him?"

Kuang Zhao felt a little timid when looking at the endless camp outside the city. He had been to Nanjing for a meeting and naturally knew that Xu Da was in Changsha.

Yang Tinglin said calmly: "I heard from His Royal Highness the King of Wu that the Duke of Wei only sent two centurions here."

"Two hundred households?"

Kuang Zhao widened his eyes and said, "Even if it is the full quota, there are only 224 people. This, this, this."

"His Highness said that is enough."

Yang Tinglin smiled and said, "The most urgent task now is to stabilize people's hearts. Spread the news in the city immediately. Don't tell them how many reinforcements there are. Just say that the King of Zhongshan is coming to rescue. Post notices everywhere in the city, and send people to shoot the notices at their camps at night with arrows to shake their morale."

Kuang Zhao frowned and said, "There aren't enough arrows in the city. Are they used to distribute notices?"

"Don't worry."

Yang Tinglin waved his hand and said, "They are just a mob. It's not that easy to break through the city. We just need to hold on for a few days. If we don't have enough arrows, we can just use rolling stones and wooden logs."

Siege warfare was quite difficult in ancient times.

Yuan Shao's army of more than 100,000 soldiers besieged Dongwuyang. Zang Hong in Dongwuyang also had several thousand people, and he held out for a whole year.

Cao Cao attacked Xia Pi and Ye City and besieged the cities for several months. It was not until the summer and autumn when the nearby rivers flooded the cities due to the rainy season that he finally captured Xia Pi and Ye City.

Although by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the methods of siege had been improved, such as the appearance of red cannons that could threaten the safety of city gates.

However, the power of artillery is limited, and a large city like Nanchang is not easy to capture even with the red cannon.

For example, when Yang Tinglin was in Ganzhou later, the Qing army besieged Ganzhou for half a year without success and was not able to capture the city until the food supply ran out.

Therefore, defending the city for a few days was not a difficult task.

The people in the city also took quick action to make up for their losses. They made public the news that Taizu had come to save the world and that Xu Da's reinforcements would be arriving soon, in order to stabilize the people's morale.

At the same time, prepare city defense equipment such as rolling stones, wood, lime, etc. to make adequate preparations.

Outside the city, the scene was as if "all the wise men, young and old, have gathered together, and people from all directions have come together to participate in this grand event."

Basically all the traitors who were from Jiangxi or served as officials in Jiangxi in the late Ming Dynasty are here.

Such as Zhang Zhiqi, Liu Zhaoguo, Shi Chuiyu, Luo Xianwen, Xiong Wenju, Wu Tailai, Yu Zhongchen, Ye Shu, Zou Kuiming and so on.

Among them were the prefect, associate prefect, county magistrate, county magistrate of Jiangxi, or retired local officials, who later surrendered when the Qing Dynasty attacked Jiangxi and were included in the wanted list.

Because Kuang Zhao's strategy went wrong and led to a traitor leaking the information, they gathered together and attacked the city of Nanchang under the slogan of suppressing the rebellion.

After discussion, the group decided that it would be impossible to capture the city by force, so they had to prepare for a while and make siege equipment. After they had conquered the entire Jiangxi province, they would pool money together to expand their military forces, send a memorial to Beijing, and then attack Nanjing.

Although it was a makeshift team, they were smart enough to raise the banner of "righteousness", accusing Nanjing of being a pseudo-regime impersonating Taizu, and that they raised the army to quell the rebellion.

In this way, once Chongzhen issued an imperial edict to them, they would be able to firmly grasp the status and righteousness, thus turning passivity into initiative.

Even under such circumstances, the two sides did not fight for the time being.

Soon two days later, a public opinion offensive was launched in Nanchang City. A large number of leaflets and notices were shot into the camp at night, causing an uproar.

During the late Ming Dynasty, there was a strong reading culture in Jiangnan, and many ordinary people were literate. Jiangxi in particular has been one of the important cultural and educational bases since ancient times. Since the Song Dynasty, the number of juren and jinshi from Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Zhejiang has been far ahead.

Therefore, many of the rebel soldiers were literate, although not all of them knew all the characters. It was a great achievement for most of the farm slaves, tenants and farmers to know some common characters. But if everyone put their minds together, they could still understand the meaning of the notice.

In this situation, the morale of the army was somewhat shaken.

Chen Juqing, Wang Shaozu, Zhang Zhiqi, Liu Zhaoguo, Shi Chuiyu, Luo Xianwen, Xiong Wenju, Wu Tailai, Yu Zhongchen, Ye Shu, Zou Kuiming and other later rebels who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty gathered together to discuss countermeasures.

Inside the tent, some of them were wearing Ming Dynasty official uniforms, and some were wearing the clothes of landlords and wealthy people. They all had solemn expressions and looked at the leaflets in their hands without saying a word.

The leaflets not only recorded their life stories, official positions and resumes, but also recorded what they did after surrendering to the Qing Dynasty.

In fact, most people continued to do what they did in the Ming Dynasty after surrendering to the Qing Dynasty.

For example, Liu Zhaoguo was from Yangzhou. He was a Jinshi last year and was interning in the Hanlin Academy. This year, he was sent to Jiangxi to serve as an official. After surrendering to the Qing Dynasty, he continued to serve in Jiangxi and was later transferred to the Hanlin Academy in Beijing, where he served as a cabinet scholar.

Wu Tailai, a native of Hebei, was the current prefect of Ji'an. After surrendering to the Qing Dynasty, he continued to serve as the prefect of Ji'an. Later, he served in the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Works. He retired as the right vice minister of the Ministry of Works in the early years of Emperor Kangxi.

The rest of the people are basically the same.

Seeing these leaflets and notices, Chen Juqing, as the initiator, naturally had to say something, so he said: "Everyone, no matter whether the story is true or not, we will die. If it is true, Taizu has descended to the earth, and we will definitely die. If it is false, now people have knives on our necks, we should not think about those messy things, but should do well in the present, report everything to the court, send troops to fight against the traitors, and make meritorious deeds to let the court see our loyalty."

After a short silence, Wang Shaozu nodded and said, "Yes, no matter whether it is true or not, we must not sit still and wait for death. Now the arrow is on the string and we have to shoot. Let's think about how to capture Nanchang."

"They are trying to attack our hearts and minds. We should immediately collect the leaflets from the army, speed up the production of siege equipment, and capture Nanchang."

"If we simply confiscate the leaflets, it will probably be useless. We have to arrange patrols at night to prevent them from doing this again. Otherwise, the morale of the soldiers may be unstable."

"Not only that, we also need to send people to tell the soldiers that Taizu's resurrection is nonsense. These are also lies made up by the bandits. Don't believe them. Otherwise, blindly confiscating leaflets will only make things worse."

Everyone gave their suggestions one after another.

They are all successful candidates in the imperial examinations, and they are smart people who are among the thousands of troops crossing the single-plank bridge. Maybe they can't save the country in times of crisis and can only surrender, but if they do bad things, they are still full of knowledge.

"Ah."

Chen Juqing thought it made sense, so he said to Liu Yipeng, who had been silent, "General Liu, do as they say. When the imperial court orders us to do, we will also jointly recommend you."

Liu Yipeng immediately smiled and said, "Don't worry, I will defeat these treacherous people and send their heads to Beijing."

"Well."

Chen Juqing nodded thoughtfully.

Liu Yipeng then arranged for his personal guards to collect the leaflets. The officials and landlords also arranged for their housekeepers and servants to do ideological work on the soldiers, telling them that these were all tricks of the bandits.

The main force of the rebellion was actually some traitorous officials in Jiangxi and officials who were dismissed or retired and then committed treason.

These people were either local landlords or local officials, and the teams they formed were mostly their subordinates and tenants of their own clans or manors.

Due to the master-servant relationship, their prestige was very high. After some operations, even if some of the soldiers below were shaken, they were quickly suppressed and the rebellion continued in an orderly manner.

Four days later.

On the Ganjiang River, two medium-sized ships sailed down the river and arrived outside the city of Nanchang.

Changsha is actually not far from Nanchang, less than 300 kilometers away. It can be reached in about three hours by taking the highway.

However, there were no highways in ancient times, but people could go from Pingxiang to Yichun and then take a boat at Yuanshui to enter the Ganjiang River. Therefore, under normal circumstances, it usually took three or four days to get from Changsha to Nanchang.

Xu Da's army was a light infantry, which normally would have taken them two or three days to reach the city, but it took them six days because they brought more than ten artillery pieces.

The boat was just an ordinary wooden boat, but there were lifebuoys hanging on both sides and a flag fluttering above it with a big "Xu" character written on it.

"It's the King of Zhongshan's army that's coming."

Someone in the city had already discovered this situation and reported it to Yang Tinglin and others.

Yang Tinglin stood on the top of the city wall and observed through a telescope.

"Quick, open the city gate and receive them."

Kuang Zhao shouted.

"There's no rush yet."

Yang Tinglin said in a deep voice: "Let's see."

At this moment on the boat, the two centurions Chen Gui and Yang Heng, who were in charge of this operation, stood at the bow and watched.

Yang Heng asked Chen Gui on the intercom: "It seems that the rebels are those in the southeast. Are they going into the city?"

"Why are we going into the city? We have to go back to Changsha right away. Why would we greet them?"

"Then leave after the fight?"

"Let's go after the fight."

"Should we ask first and determine the target?"

"Okay, let me ask first."

Chen Gui ordered his soldiers to stop at the river bank, south of Nanchang City. To their east was the rebel camp, about four or five miles away.

The rebels naturally discovered their presence, and someone came over to investigate the situation with shouts.

It just takes time to get here. Chen Gui has already ordered people to lower the boat and go north along the river. When they get close to the edge of Nanchang City, he shouts to the people in the city, "Who is in charge in the city?"

Yang Tinglin trotted all the way from the South Gate to the West Gate and shouted to the people below: "Are you the soldiers of Duke Wei? I am Yang Tinglin, the governor of Jiangxi appointed by His Majesty Taizu."

"Are those outside the city the rebels?"

The soldiers below did not answer, but just asked a question.

"Yes."

"I see."

The soldiers did not enter the city, but reported to Chen Gui via intercom: "Captain, it has been confirmed that there are rebels outside the city."

Chen Gui stretched out his hand and said, "Drone take off, correct the coordinates, adjust the muzzle, and prepare to fire!"

"Buzz buzz buzz!"

The drone slowly took off and began to observe the camp.

The Hongwu Dynasty had been in contact with the modern world for seven or eight years, and had already acquired basic military qualities.

However, we have not entered the information age, so the muzzle adjustment can only rely on the soldiers' experience. After the first round of shelling is over, the muzzle position can be readjusted through observation by drones.

But even so, it is already a dimensionality reduction attack.

Soon the drone revealed the situation of the camp of Chen Juqing and other rebels. Chen Gui and Yang Heng looked at the information conveyed back by their respective drone operators and ordered the guns to be prepared.

There was nothing else on the ship, but there were enough shells.

"fire!"

Chen Gui and Yang Heng shouted almost at the same time.

"Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!"

More than ten guns on the ship fired almost simultaneously.

The shell formed a perfect parabolic arc and fell into the rebel camp.

In an instant, the air was filled with smoke and white dust enveloped the entire camp.

The sound of explosions continued to ring out, as did sounds of panic, screams, and cries.

The advantage of a rapid-fire cannon is its fast firing speed. Almost as soon as a shell hits the ground, a new shell will arrive a few seconds later.

"Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!"

Another round of cleaning.

The government troops on the city walls were all stunned.

All they saw was explosions and flames in the rebel camp outside the East City Gate.

Many camps were blown over, broken limbs and bodies flew everywhere, and smoke and dust continued to rise.

Dense swarms of small black dots ran out from their respective camps and scattered like birds and beasts.

However, the shells continued to fall like raindrops, almost covering the entire camp.

It is unknown how many people died in the artillery fire. Many people were not even killed by the explosion, but fell directly to the ground after the shelling, and many of them had blood coming out of all their orifices.

The artillery fire from the top of the city continued, and shells were fired out as if they were free.

The fighting lasted for four or five minutes, and with thousands of shells hitting the rebel camp, it was almost razed to the ground.

When the dust settled, everyone on the city wall, including Yang Tinglin, Kuang Zhao, Wu Linrui, Qiu Shangyi and others, opened their mouths wide in disbelief.

In the distance, I saw the rebel camp in a mess. All kinds of tents, weapons, food, and soldiers were blown into pieces, some were engulfed in flames, and some were left with only ruins. It seemed that there were not a few intact living people.

"Let's go. We have to go back and report."

Chen Gui waved his hand, then took out his intercom and said to the soldiers still under the city: "Tell them that if they still can't win, ask His Majesty to chop off their heads."

"Yes."

The soldiers below shouted to the top of the city wall: "Captain Chen said that we are going back to Changsha to report to Duke Wei. The rest is up to you. If you still can't win, His Majesty will chop off your heads."

After saying that, the small boat slowly rowed towards the big ship.

Yang Tinglin and others on the top of the city wall heard the report from the direction of the West City Water Gate. They looked at each other and it took them a long time to react.

Kuang Zhao asked tentatively: "Governor, should we attack?"

Yang Tinglin woke up as if from a dream and said, "Pass the order, the whole army will attack!"

"woo woo woo woo."

"Dong dong dong."

The sound of drums and trumpets rose up.

The defenders in Nanchang City rushed out somewhat at a loss.

(End of this chapter)