Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 1350
Beginning on February 25, Li Guo resumed his attack on Tongguan. When Wang Yan arrived at the front line of Tongguan on March 30, Tongguan, which had been shelled for half a month, was already riddled with holes, but Xiongguan was Xiongguan. , The attack was surging, but the city of Guan remained standing, keeping [-] Ming troops out of the pass.

The Ming army gathered outside Tongguan, and the army camped fifteen miles away from the pass. The Jin army in Tongguan often went out to harass and investigate the situation of the Ming army. The cavalry was suppressed by the Ming cavalry, and the investigation line could only shrink to the range covered by the Jin army's artillery on Guancheng.

The big camps of Zhongzhi and Zhongyong towns were set up in front of the army and were closest to Tongguan.

The camp is outside the maximum range of the Jin army's artillery. There are two tall watchtowers in front of the camp gate, with flags planted on them, and sentry guards climb high to watch day and night.

There is a wall in the camp, and a cannon is set up at a certain distance on the wall. Two deep ditches have been dug outside the wall, which are filled with sharp logs. Jin Jun took advantage of the night to attack.

It is Wang Yan's important idea to fight a deadly war in a strong village. After he personally became a martial arts academy, he would talk about his housekeeping skills every time he gave a lecture to a new batch of martial arts students. .

Wang Yan doesn't like wave battles very much. With the current strength of the Ming Dynasty, if they build a solid camp and don't take risks, they are basically invincible.

Although it is difficult for him to cultivate any war geniuses with this kind of thinking, it is very useful for most mediocre generals.

Some old generals in martial arts don't like this kind of honest and blunt fighting style, and Wang Yan doesn't object to their wave fighting, but how to set up camp, how high the wall should be, how many trenches to dig, and how many repellent horses should be arranged are the best. Follow the rules.

The Ming army was influenced by him, and the camps were basically quite solid. In recent years, the Ming army has not had any cases of camps being attacked.

Li Guo, who was born in the Chuang army, has a deep understanding of this point. When they were chased by the Qing army, they were raided many times by the Qing army cavalry, and the horses stepped on the company battalion.

This is the case in Jiujiang and Jingzhou. In fact, these can be avoided. It only needs to spend some effort to make the camp solid, dig a few trenches, and put some horses to avoid it. But they did not pay attention to these details at the time.

At this time, in front of the gate of the Ming army camp, nearly a thousand civilians were driving strong cattle and dragging twenty giants covered with red cloth into the camp of Zhongzhi Town.

These giants looked very heavy, and each was dragged forward by ten strong oxen, and more than 50 civilian husbands were also assigned.

Tang Tong on Tongguan was holding a binoculars and was observing the camp of the Ming army. When he saw the scene at the gate of the camp, he frowned, turned his head and said to a golden general: "Go, send a horse to take a look."

Not long after, the gate of Tongguan city opened, and more than 300 cavalry galloped out, scattered to the Ming army camp, to harass and reconnaissance.

Li Guo, who was on the watchtower, saw the cavalry of the Golden Army, and was about to send out the cavalry from Zhongzhi Town to intercept them. Four or five hundred cavalrymen armed with muskets rushed out and fought with the cavalry of the Jin army.

The cavalrymen of the Ming army rushed out and shot with firecrackers, but the firecrackers were much shorter than those of the infantry.

At this time, the cavalry of Zhongzhi Town also rushed out of the camp, preparing to go around behind the Jin army. Seeing that they were in danger of being outflanked, the Jin army cavalry turned around and ran back to the closed wall, leaning against the closed cannons and firecrackers. Under cover, they confronted the two Ming armies stationed four miles away from the pass for a while. The generals of the Jin army saw that they had no chance to take advantage of it, so they had to retreat to the pass.

The Ming army gathered, the number of cavalry has surpassed that of the Jin army, and the Ming army has absorbed many people from Mongolia, and the quality of the cavalry is no worse than that of the Jin army.

Recently, the cavalry of the Golden Army went out to harass and investigate several times, but almost all of them returned without success.

"Duke, you are incompetent and humble, and you didn't get close to Mingzhai!" The general just ran up in a hurry and pleaded guilty on one knee.

Tang Tong shook his head. In fact, he didn't need to investigate, he knew it was a cannon.

"Get up!" Tang Tong did not blame, paused, and suddenly ordered: "You lead someone to seal the city gate, and don't go out of the city in the near future."

The effect of cavalry harassment was not obvious, and he used binoculars to observe the camp of the Ming army just now. Wang Yan is worthy of the name of the old turtle. onslaught.

The general was stunned for a moment when he heard the words, and when he realized it, he clasped his fists quickly, "Yes, the last general obeys."

After finishing speaking, he turned around and went down to the city, led his subordinate soldiers, moved stones and sandbags, and blocked and closed the gate.

When the Jin army returned to Tongguan, the two Ming troops ran excitedly for a while, raising a cloud of yellow dust, and then ran back to the camp cheering.

Not long ago, the Ministry of Industry made a batch of firecrackers for the cavalry of the Ming army. The range is farther than that of bows and arrows and the three-eyed blunderbuss, and the power is much greater. not bad.

Dai Zhifan was in Nanjing, near the water. He heard that the response was very good, so he won a group for the old army.

The cavalry in Zhongyong Town often practiced with the sentry cavalry of the Jin Army recently. Almost as soon as the Jin Army came out of the customs, no matter whether they were facing their own camp or not, the cavalry in Zhongyong Town would roar out to find the Jin Army for training.

At this time, seeing the legendary new cannon brought in, Liu Fangliang rode a horse and came to the camp in Zhongzhi Town.

Seeing Li Guo, he got off his horse and asked, "Is this the imperial court's new cannon?"

He watched the ten strong oxen pulling, and whispered secretly, "It's so heavy, it must be bigger than the Hongyi cannon, and it must hit farther."

Li Guo smiled and said: "Big is bigger, but it is said that it can't hit far, it can only shoot more than one mile."

This batch of guns was the siege mortars cast in Xin'an Zhu Pao Fang. Because they were too heavy, they had to wait for the road to harden before they could be transported, so it took half a month to arrive at Tongguan.

Liu Fangliang was slightly taken aback when he heard this, and then wondered: "The artillery of the Jin Army on the Guancheng is no problem to shoot three or four miles, what's the use of it shooting one mile. It's so heavy, it was knocked over before it was pushed to the gate. How did the Ministry of Industry make such a thing?"

Li Guo was about to explain, when a general behind him suddenly reminded: "Captain, the messenger is here!"

Wang Yan arrived one day earlier than the artillery. He first learned about the situation of the army and Tongguan in the camp before deciding to call the generals to discuss the matter.

Li Guo, Liu Fangliang and the others got the order, and they headed for the commander-in-chief of Jianguo. On the way, they passed through the camps of Zhenwu, Wuwei and other armies, all of which were full of equipment forging, and the camp was full of shield chariots and The long ladder for siege.

Wang Yan's command tent was in the middle of the entire camp area, the more they walked in, the denser the camp was, it was almost covered in a sea of ​​flags and human heads, and there were dark Ming soldiers everywhere.

They rode their horses towards the Chinese army and galloped for seven or eight li before arriving at Wang Yan's camp.

The two of them led the generals of the Wuzhong and the two towns to the outside of the big tent of the Chinese army. In front of the huge tent, a three-foot-high king's flag with thick thighs fluttered in the wind.

Li Yuanyin of the Wuwei Army, Zhang Mingzhen of the Zhenwu Army and other generals had arrived early and were talking quietly outside.

People from each of their factions get together and don't talk to each other.The members of the Five Loyalists also gathered together, at most exchanged pleasantries with others, and did not join in the other party's conversation.

There are still estrangements and competition for resources between the various factions of the Ming Army, as well as within the Five Zhong Army. For example, Dai Zhifan only competes for resources for his old army, and does not care about the other four towns.

This phenomenon has caused the people below to support their old chiefs in order to compete for resources. The higher the position of the old chiefs, the more resources they can win for them, and they can also become political resources for them to climb up.

At this time, Jujiang's first drum had already been beaten, and a row of wrestlers outside the commander's tent began to beat the second drum again.

Many generals outside the tent were chatting and laughing, when he heard the sound of drums, Li Guo looked around and found that the crowd was almost there, so he led the generals of the Five Loyalty Army inside.

The big tent is very spacious, with Wang Yan's throne in front, a huanghuali screen behind the throne, and some seats on both sides.

After everyone came in, the governors of each town sat down under the guidance of Wang Yan's guards according to their status, and some other generals could only stand behind them.

Not long after the third drum was played, everyone in the big tent fell silent immediately. Wang Yan strode out from behind the screen, followed by Chen Bangyan and Su Guansheng. behind.

Wang Yan was wearing a crown of wings and a dragon robe with four claws. He held the jade belt around his waist with both hands, and he was full of energy. As soon as he came in, all the generals present stood up. After he sat down, they all bowed and saluted, "Mr. See the prison country."

Wang Yan and the other two cabinet ministers walked up to their seats, and waved their hands calmly, "There is no need to be polite, generals, sit down!"

Waiting for the generals to sit down, the chess and card officers came out to check whether all the personnel were present. Those who did not show up and those who were late would be dealt with by military law.Supervising the country to discuss matters, naturally no one dared to joke, Wang Yan would be asked to wait if he didn't have a future, so everyone was here.

The chess and card officer retreated to the side. At this time, Wang Yan sat up straight, glanced at the generals with dignity, and then said: "I have two capitals and thirteen provinces in the Ming Dynasty, plus three capitals, all of which are the inheritance left by my ancestors. , Half of it should not be given to others. Now I have recovered most of these places, but Guanzhong is still divided, and every time I think about it, I can’t eat it, and I can’t sleep at night.”

Wang Yan paused for a moment, and then continued: "The reason why Gu Xing's troops are conquesting Guanzhong today is to restore the old borders of our Daming. This is not a matter of the lonely king alone. You are all officers of my Daming, and you must do your best for this. Let's work together to take back Guanzhong."

After finishing the opening scene, all the generals expressed that they would do their best, Wang Yan immediately became serious, and said in a deep voice: "Okay, next, let's talk about how to attack Tongguan..."

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(End of this chapter)