Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 87, Seeking Peace Talks

At that time, Ji Quan was recuperating at home. He was seriously injured, especially the injury to his ribs, which made him feel pain even when breathing, so he planned to rest for a day.

But soon, the soldiers guarding the city rushed over and told Ji Quan about the situation under the city wall.

Ji Quan was startled and quickly stood up from the bed. The broken bones were pulled by this movement and Ji Quan grimaced in pain.

"Use kerosene cans," Ji Quan thought for a moment and said, "Light the kerosene cans and throw them down to burn the enemy soldiers digging the city wall to death!"

"Yes!"

The soldiers guarding the city hurried down to prepare.

Ji Quan lay down again and closed his eyes.

After a while, the maid brought the boiled medicine, but found that Ji Quan had fallen asleep.

Time passed, and in the afternoon, the soldiers guarding the city ran back in panic.

"General, it's bad. After being repelled by kerosene, the enemy began to dig tunnels. We didn't check and failed to discover them. The enemy used gunpowder to blow up three sections of the city wall!"

Ji Quan was shocked, turned over and grimaced again.

Broken bones hurt so much!
"How did you dig so fast? What's the situation now? Has the city been breached?"

The soldier defending the city said, "Not yet. Our city wall is very strong. The enemy only blew a small gap. The soldiers have tried their best to hold it!"

Ji Quan breathed a sigh of relief.

At this time, the soldiers guarding the city said worriedly: "But General, I am afraid that the enemy army is still determined to dig tunnels again. How should we deal with it?"

Ji Quan said: "Send people to find out the direction in which the enemy is digging, and dig a tunnel as well. After the tunnel is dug through, release smoke to kill the enemy!"

The soldier said, "General, no one in our army is good at digging tunnels..."

No one is good at digging tunnels?

Ji Quan was stunned and said, "How is it possible? The army has a special iron digging army, and the digging technology has been passed down from generation to generation. How could there be no one who is good at digging tunnels?"

The soldier said with a sad face:

"Please forgive me, General. I am one of the Iron Diggers. My great-great-grandfather once fought under Emperor Taizu and was good at digging tunnels, so he was given important positions."

"But by the time of my great-grandfather, there were almost no wars that required tunneling, so his skills had become rusty. By the time of my grandfather, although he inherited the tradition of tunneling, he never dug one himself. My father never picked up a shovel again in his life, and by the time of me, it was even worse..."

Ji Quan only felt a dull pain in his chest.

He thought he was a typical person who relied on his ancestors' kindness and had no ambition to make progress, but he never expected that this low-level soldier was even worse than him!
It is useless to pursue these things now. Ji Quan recalled the contents of the military books he had read and made a quick judgment.

"If you can't dig a hole, you can dig a ditch, right?"

"Immediately send people to dig a ditch, divert water from the inner city to fill the city canal, open the secret drainage channel in the city, and cause the enemy's cave to collapse!"

The soldier looked confused.

"General, what canal is this and how do we dig it?"

Ji Quan was so angry that his body was shaking. He had no choice but to call his servants to change their clothes and go into battle to command the troops himself.

"Hiss...gently, gently!"

Ji Quan left the mansion and personally commanded the soldiers to plan a route to divert the river water from the inner city and pour it into the ground.

Underground, the three brothers of the Hu family were commanding the Huaiyin army to dig tunnels at a rapid speed.

The three men were tomb robbers. They first joined the Hongze Water Fort and later joined the Huaiyin Army. They were veteran members of the Huaiyin Army.

When attacking Huaizhou City that year, the three brothers were responsible for leading people to dig tunnels to attack the city. However, they did not plan the route well and made mistakes while digging. Instead of digging directly into the city, they only collapsed a corner of the city wall and failed to achieve their full goal.

However, even so, the three brothers were still reused afterwards and were arranged by Fang Yong to serve as officials in the engineering battalion.

Now that they were attacking Yangzhou, the three of them were responsible for digging a tunnel leading to Yangzhou city.

Due to the existence of the artillery carriages, they could start work very close to the city wall under the cover of the artillery carriages, which greatly reduced the workload of excavation.

Suddenly, Hu Er sniffed and his expression changed.

"Stop, something's wrong!"

As Hu Er spoke, he stepped forward, picked up a little dirt with his finger, and placed it on the tip of his tongue.

"Oh no, there's moisture, retreat quickly!"

Hu Er said this and quickly led his men to retreat.

On the other side, Hu Da and Hu San also realized that something was wrong and led their men to withdraw.

Not long after, mud and water began to seep out of the tunnel, and after a while, the tunnel began to collapse.
Ji Quan climbed up to the city gate and used a telescope to see someone pushing a dirt cart and a shovel behind the enemy's artillery cart. Ji Quan immediately understood the reason.

No wonder the tunnel was dug so quickly, it turned out to be dug right under my nose, how arrogant!
But facing the huge iron lump of the artillery cart, Ji Quan was really helpless.

The situation at the West Gate had just been stabilized when urgent news came from the East Gate, and Ji Quan had to rush to the East Gate again.

After a day like this, the soldiers defending the city suffered heavy casualties, and Ji Quan was also in unbearable pain and exhausted.

“It’s a pain in the ass!”

Ji Quan drank bitter medicine in his mansion and fell asleep exhausted.

Outside the city, Fang Yong used a telescope to observe the situation in Yangzhou City.

Looking at a group of listless and sleepy defenders, Fang Yong smiled.

If we continue like this, we can capture the city in ten days at most.

The smell of meat wafted from the military camp behind him. Although they did not directly break through the city wall today, they did tear open three gaps. Fang Yongsui ordered his men to kill pigs and stew meat to reward the army.

At this time, Li Sheng came over and said, "General, the army is ready!"

Fang Yong waved his hand, "Attack!"

Li Sheng's troops began their attack.

It's just so unfair.
Fang Yong has a lot of people, so they can attack in turns day and night!

Soon, Ji Quan, who had just rested for a short while, was called up again.

This time he really couldn't bear it anymore.

With multiple fractures on the body and running around continuously day and night, even an iron man can't bear it.

At the critical moment, Wei Yinghong stood up.

This Confucian scholar, who had never participated in a war, picked up the sword and commanded the defense of the city.

Wei Yinghong did not know how to defend a city, he had to learn everything on the spot. Fortunately, as a top talent of that era, Wei Yinghong was able to adapt quickly.

Holding a sword in one hand and a book in the other, it seems as if he has returned directly to a thousand years ago, an era when Confucian scholars were both civil and military, and served as generals and ministers.

As for the mobilization and distribution of various materials in the city, we can only ask Ru Hai for help.

This went on for six days.

Whether it was Ji Quan, Wei Yinghong, or Lin Ruhai, they had all tried their best, but the gap in strength could not be made up.

On the fourth day, the defenders were too exhausted and the north gate was breached by Zhang Yuan's night attack. Baoyou City was lost and the defenders had to retreat to Songjia City behind.

On the sixth day, a hole was blown in the west gate of the largest, strongest and most important Song City, and the city was almost breached.

Although Ji Quan led his men to hold the city with all their might in the end, everyone knew that the city would be captured in a day or two.

In the silent room, Ji Quan spoke for the first time.

"Unless someone can hold back the enemy and give me time to repair the city walls, the city will fall."

Wei Yinghong and Lin Ruhai remained silent after hearing this.

After a long time, Wei Yinghong stood up.

"I am the prefect of Yangzhou. The responsibility of defending the territory lies with me. I want to follow the example of Zhang Zichan of Wei and use a delaying tactic to delay the enemy!"

Hearing Wei Yinghong's words, Ji Quan and Lin Ruhai were extremely shocked.

The two knew what this meant.

During the Battle of Xincheng in ancient times, Zhang Zichan pretended to surrender to Zhuge Ke, temporarily suspended the siege, and finally successfully defended the city.

But delaying tactics are not so effective, and if you are not careful you may end up dead.

Wei Yinghong naturally understood this, but as he once said:
Do not seek fame and glory, but do your best to defend the land.

Lin Ruhai looked at Wei Yinghong and couldn't help but be moved.

Wei Yinghong looked at Lin Ruhai and smiled, "Ruhai, there is no need to be like this. I have heard that the Marquis of Huaiyin has always been kind and tolerant, so I may not be in danger on this trip."

Lin Ruhai lowered his head, and after a moment, he stood up.

"Hongda, you are the prefect. The defense of Yangzhou depends on you. How can you fail? I'll go!"

(End of this chapter)