Ming Empire

Chapter 191 Safe Evacuation
When the first and second teams led by Cao Yue rushed out of the palace, they found that there were more troops outside the palace. It turned out that it was Sun Chuanting who followed up and ordered the soldiers on the warship he led to rush into the city to meet Cao Yue. cross.At this time, the people escorting Empress Zhou had already left the palace, Cao Yue did not explain too much, and immediately ordered everyone to leave the palace quickly.

The emperor was nowhere to be seen, but two hooded men were lifted up to the palace. Some people were puzzled and asked Cao Yue where he was.

"The emperor committed suicide and died for his country. We want to escort his body back to Nanjing. Let's go!" Cao Yue shouted an order, and immediately jumped on his horse and headed towards Chaoyang Gate.The others didn't dare to ask more questions, let alone delay, they all jumped on their horses and galloped away from the palace.

And when Cao Yue led his army to withdraw from the palace, the bandits who entered the city from the direction of Chongwenmen were coming to the palace from the direction of Zhengyangmen.Cao Yue entered and exited the palace in the direction of Donghua Gate, which was the closest passage to Chaoyang Gate, and happened to pass by the rogues who were besieging the city.

When they rushed to Chaoyang Gate, the people escorting Queen Zhou had already boarded the front warship.After Cao Yue told Sun Chuanting who came to meet him about the general situation, he ordered people to send the bodies of Emperor Chongzhen and Wang Chengen aboard, and then ordered the first few warships to leave first.

Cao Yue led the supporting soldiers to stand on the tower of Chaoyang Gate, ready to meet the two teams of guard troops who were going to rescue Zhu Cizhao, Zhu Cijiong and others.

The defenders on the top of the city didn't know what was going on inside the city, but they had already seen that the troops led by Cao Yue were about to abandon the city and flee, and the morale of the army was suddenly in turmoil.It's just that the generals defending the city were chopped down by Cao Yue's men when they were preparing to make trouble, and the leaderless defenders scattered like birds and beasts.

At this time, Liu Zongmin's men attacked in this direction again, and the warships moored in the canal began to fire artillery again.When Cao Yue led his elite troops to rush into the imperial city to rescue the members of the royal family, they had already launched two waves of attacks, but they were all repelled by the artillery and muskets on the warships moored in the canal.

The rogues were actually a mob. Most of the sergeants among them were farmers, and not many of them had received strict training.Such a team may perform well when the battle is going well, but may perform poorly when encountering setbacks or strong enemies.

With the powerful power of the artillery and such a long shooting range, many peasant soldiers and soldiers were frightened out of their wits, turned around and ran back, hating their parents for not giving them two extra legs.The brave men and horses rushed to a place not far from the warship, and were fired by Fran's machine guns again. When they got closer, the intensive fire from muskets came again.In other words, before they could fight back with bows and arrows, they were trampled several times by Cao Yue's men.The huge power of the firearms and the huge casualties they suffered directly caused the morale to plummet. After several charges and paid a heavy price, they dared not attack Chaoyangmen anymore.

Liu Zongmin knew that his team had encountered a tough problem today, and he even guessed that it might be the team led by Cao Yue himself, or that the Datong Army came to rescue Beijing.Only the Datong Army has such a strong combat effectiveness, but the Datong Army does not have naval warships. He guessed that the most likely reason is that Cao Yue, who was sent to Nanjing to train troops, led the army to rescue Beijing.

This situation was also reported to Li Zicheng in the shortest possible time. Li Zicheng was also taken aback when he heard it, and hurriedly mobilized more people to come towards Chaoyangmen.Li Zicheng not only ordered Liu Zongmin to lead his troops to attack Chaoyang Gate from the city gate, but also ordered other ministries to attack Chaoyang Gate from the inside of the city. He wanted to defeat the defenders of Chaoyang Gate by attacking from inside and outside.

Li Zicheng judged that the fiercest resistance occurred at Chaoyangmen, and the most likely reason was that Nanjing's naval warships came from Haidao to support them.Even his counselors judged that it was likely that Cao Yue was preparing to take away Emperor Chongzhen or other members of the royal family, and was not trying to rescue Beijing with all his strength.

Of course, Li Zicheng didn't want to see such a situation in the direction of Chaoyangmen of Cao Yue, and he couldn't tolerate the rescue of the Daming army coming and going freely under his nose, so he immediately sent more troops to intercept the naval warship on both sides of the canal .

However, Li Zicheng is still a country bumpkin. He and his advisers have never seen the powerful weapons of the Nanjing New Army. The warships equipped with powerful firepower are like a movable fortress. The number of artillery parked in the canal More than the walls of Beijing.The sergeants on the warship can hide in the cabin and shoot. Even if the peasant army can rush to the vicinity of the warship, without powerful firearms, they will basically be unable to do anything to the warship and the sergeants on the warship.Cao Yue is also very clear about this, so he is not afraid of the superior force attack of the bandits, and without any panic, he is ready to lead all the troops to retreat.

In the chaos, a group of men and horses rushed quickly, followed by a group of chasing cavalry not far behind.

Cao Yue saw clearly through the binoculars that the ones in front were his own troops, and the ones chasing behind seemed to be rogues. He immediately ordered the soldiers guarding the city to attack the chasing enemy and bring the two teams back.

More than a thousand servants and sergeants from the Special Guard Battalion immediately rushed forward from several directions with muskets in their hands. With the blast of the muskets, the chasing bandits were knocked down, and the rest of them were frightened. They scattered and fled in all directions, not daring to pursue them again.More than a thousand men and horses who responded, guarding the two rescue teams, quickly rushed through the Chaoyang Gate and onto the warship waiting there.

After all the horses rushed out of Chaoyang Gate, Cao Yue commanded the others to leave the city wall and board the warship in an orderly manner.

Just after they all boarded the warship, the warship moored in the canal, after putting away the springboard, slowly left the dock and headed for Tianjin.

When the warship weighed anchor, the artillery fired several rounds of artillery shells into the rogue formation that had assembled in the distance.Because the shooting angle was raised, the shooting distance of the artillery was a little farther than before.The rogues who thought they were hiding outside the range of the Ming army's artillery were knocked down again. They were so frightened that they retreated quickly, not daring to pursue them at all.When they realized that the situation was wrong and launched another attack, the warships of the Ming army had already disappeared from the pier and river outside Chaoyangmen.

But at this time, the defenders of Chaoyang Gate had already dispersed, and no sergeant on the top of the city saw that Liu Zongmin's army occupied Chaoyang Gate without any effort.

But Liu Zongmin, who was finally "easily" occupying Chaoyang Gate, couldn't be happy about the heavy losses he suffered in the front.

(End of this chapter)