The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 593 Tian Dan and Zhang Xun
The attack on Jiangxia was just a rumor.

Expecting a group of refugees to capture a fortified city by night raid now seems hopeless.

After returning to the camp, Liu Yi reported the details of last night's attack to Pu Gang and Xing Zhongyi in Henan dialect.

"Oh, my goodness, what a sin! Last night, under a gray moon, it was pitch black everywhere. There were so many caltrops on the ground that I pricked my feet and it hurt like hell! This time, we learned our lesson and didn't step on the mines. We walked around the roadside, so no one died along the way. Around three in the morning, Captain Lu led over two hundred of our brothers from the First Battalion, leading the refugees to the Binyang Gate in the dark. It was pitch black overhead, with only a few torches, so we couldn't see the Ming army. Oh, my goodness, right after we arrived, Captain Lu hadn't even started explaining how to scale the wall when a few daring refugees started carrying ladders. Damn it, that wouldn't have been a big deal, but it really screwed Captain Lu over! The damn Ming army had hung some bells on the top of the city walls. As soon as we put the ladders up, before we even started climbing, the bells started jingling, and a sea of heads, like ghosts, popped out from behind the battlements."

"They were well prepared. Those at a distance fired with muskets and bows and arrows, and their muskets were very accurate. Those close at hand stabbed with spears and swords. The refugees who climbed up the city walls were outnumbered and were all beaten down by the Ming army. A few skilled ones managed to climb up the city walls. Captain Lu immediately led his brothers in a charge. Just as they were about to break through, the Ming army suddenly increased its firepower, with muskets firing everywhere. Captain Lu was shot and fell on the city wall. Seven or eight of his brothers died trying to retrieve his body."

Liu Yi was looking after the horses at the foot of the city until a stray bullet pierced the warhorse's head. The lead bullet passed through his arm and made a hole in his sleeve. The horse died, but he was fine.

Soon, the Qi army was defeated and fell from the city wall. Of the two thousand refugees and two hundred soldiers who participated in the night attack, less than eight hundred escaped back to the camp alive.

"I heard from the retreating soldiers that before Captain Lu died, he told us to evacuate quickly and protect ourselves."

Seeing that Liu Yi looked drowsy and seemed to be holding on with his last bit of strength, Pu Gang asked him to step aside and rest.

Pu Gang and Xing Zhongyi were left in the big tent. There was dead silence all around, and the sound of the patrolling soldiers' drums could be heard from afar.

The two commanders were deeply moved by the last words of General Lu.

Xing Zhongyi sighed deeply:

"At the moment of death, forgetting your own safety, you think of your companions in the same adversity. This is the spirit of our Great Qi army."

Pu Gang bit his lip and said after a long while, "It's my fault that the First Battalion lost so many men. I shouldn't have let them supervise the battle."

He fell into a long silence.

Xing Zhongyi wiped away his tears:
"Lao Pu, we need to stop the night raid. We can't take the city. Repeated defeats are a huge blow to morale! We should just attack head-on!"

Pu Gang shook his head and said, "If we force the attack, more people will die."

"The Ming army won't sit idly by and watch us go. I'm afraid Zuo Liangyu is already preparing to encircle and annihilate us. You must make a decision quickly: fight or retreat!"

~~~~~
Since the death of General Lu, the Battle of Jiangxia progressed slowly. The night attacks failed twice, resulting in the deaths of thousands of refugees and more than a hundred soldiers, and the battle was forced to stop.

The hot air balloon bombed twice more, killing and injuring hundreds of Jiangxia civilians and a dozen Ming soldiers, and dropped tens of thousands of leaflets into the city. However, because innocent civilians were killed, the effect of persuading surrender was offset.

The useless bombing operation ended in failure just like the night raid.

The night attack failed and the bombing failed. The only thing everyone could think of was to blow up the city walls and make holes.

The tactic of blowing up the city was used by the retired emperor in Ningyuan, Liaoxi, to deal with Zu Dashou. It was nothing more than stuffing gunpowder into large vats and coffins, sealing them, and then pushing them into the gaps in the city wall to blow up the city.

There is no technical difficulty, but human lives still need to be sacrificed.

The refugees were organized and mobilized again, crossing trenches and digging the city wall near Binyang Gate. Braving the dense rain of arrows and lead bullets from the top of the city wall, each person took a piece of the city wall and brought it back until they dug a gap large enough to accommodate a coffin or a large vat.

After more than a thousand people died, the gap was finally opened. Under the cover of shield carts, the engineers of the Antelope Corps pushed coffins filled with gunpowder into the gap and lit the fuse.

"Boom!"

The smoke dissipated, and under the gaze of thousands of people, a hole the size of a carriage was blown open in the Binyang Gate city wall.

The mighty gongs and drums sounded, and the sword, shield, and spearmen of the Antelope Corps rushed forward, acting as the vanguard of the city. Just when Pu Gang thought Jiangxia was about to be breached, the Qi army, which had reached the breach, was suddenly hit by a barrage of muskets and artillery. More than half of the 300-plus men who rushed forward were killed or wounded, forcing them to retreat.

Ma Jinzhong, unable to resist the engineers' bombing of the city, took a gamble and ordered all the firearms on the Binyang Gate to be moved down the city wall and concentrated at the gap.

By the time the Qi army brought in artillery and began organizing the second wave of attack, the opposite side had already refilled the gap with baskets, sandbags and wood.

The bombing of the city suffered a setback.

While the city was being bombed, the engineers organized people to dig tunnels. Sometimes they dug too deep and water came out; sometimes they dug too shallow and the ground sank; twice they even dug into the moat and broke through the tunnel themselves.

Every time you encounter a setback, all your previous efforts will be wasted and you will have to start all over again.

The capture of Jiangxia seems to be a distant prospect.

The official gazettes of Nanjing and Suzhou have deified the two defenders of the city, Li Cheng and Ma Jinzhong, and compared them to figures like Tian Dan of the Warring States Period and Zhang Suiyang of the Tang Dynasty.

The turning point began on February 15th.

On the evening of the 15th, the musketeers and archers of both Qi and Ming shot at each other as usual, venting their anger aimlessly.

A flaming arrow flew over the heavily guarded city wall and landed lightly on a haystack next to a warehouse in the south of the city. The clerk guarding the warehouse happened to be caught in the act of throwing stones at the city wall.

A raging fire then broke out in the warehouse, which was quickly put out by the Ming army. The next day, rumors began to spread in the city that Jiangxia's food had been burned.

Regardless of the facts, the Qi army's policy of fortifying the city and clearing the countryside was very effective.

By the fifteenth day of the siege of Jiangxia, the food stored by the people in the city had long been used up.

The people of Jiangxia were mostly relatives or friends of the people of Hankou and Huangpi. Those people in the two cities who had surplus food spontaneously went to Jiangxia and begged the defenders to open the city gates and rescue their relatives.

The Qi army negotiated with the Ming army and around the 16th day, they released the starving people to get food.

Ma Jinzhong regarded the starving people in the city as his enemies. After repeated confirmation and ensuring that there was no danger, he agreed to the request of the Qi army.

At the agreed time, a third party, the Huangpi gentry, would send a boat across the river to welcome the hungry people. A red flag would be hoisted on the boat as a signal, and neither side would be allowed to attack the red boat.

At noon on the 16th, the hungry people of Jiangxia, who learned that they could leave the city to get food, rushed out as soon as the city gates were opened, so that seven people were squeezed to death at Wenchang Gate.

In fact, the people in the city had long been out of food. They ate grass roots, tree bark, cats, dogs, and mice, and they were almost cannibalistic.

An old man with a kind face took out the steamed buns he had treasured for many days, held them in both hands and presented them to the instructor Xing Zhongyi.

The outside of the steamed bread is made of corn paste mixed with soil. When you break it open, you can see meat inside.

"Sir, it's rat meat. It's very delicious. Would you like to try it?" The old man who went out of the city to eat said with a smile.

Xing Zhongyi declined the old man's kindness and ordered Liu Yi to take the old man to the camp to drink porridge.

At three quarters past noon, the Jiangxia city gate closed on time.

According to the people who left the city, the morale of the Ming army in the city had long been low. Ordinary soldiers only had one meal of porridge a day. The mules had all been killed and now they were killing horses. The people of Jiangxia were afraid that next they would have to kill themselves for food.

(End of this chapter)