Griffin Commander in the Late Ming Dynasty

Even if the brother counties under the Meiji rule want to handle a case across counties, they have to inform me first. Who the hell are you?

Moreover, you, a traitor, came to my jurisdiction to kill people. Do you think I can't deal with you? Provocation, absolute provocation! Insult, 100% insult!

"Investigate! Investigate thoroughly! Who are the suspicious people who have entered the city in the past few days? Investigate thoroughly!"

The county magistrate's tone was filled with anger and helplessness. He had visited the crime scene. It was too tragic. The foundation of the Pang family's mansion had been dug up. More than 30 people in the family were lying in a mud pit. Is this something a human could do? What was even more terrifying was how did they get these things away without anyone noticing?

You have to know that the Pang family is not an ordinary family. They are in the silk business and have a huge fortune. There are at least tens of thousands of taels of silver in the house, not to mention hundreds of thousands of taels. There are also all kinds of gold, silver, jewelry, and famous paintings and calligraphy. These things can at least fill several large carts. Moreover, how did this group of rebels manage to demolish the house without the neighbors hearing any of the noise?

Even the foundation was dug up! How did they do that? Could it be that, as some people say, the rebels had some magic tricks?

He couldn't understand.

Not only he couldn't understand it, but the businessmen in Wuxi couldn't understand it either.

What do you mean? Are you crazy? Nanjing has already sent troops, and they can reach Yangzhou in one day at most. Why are you traveling all the way to Wuxi to kill people?

Is it confusing? Very confusing. Is it scary? Very scary.

They are confident because everything is going according to the rules of the game, but now, the opponent's mental state is obviously a little bit wrong. A wounded beast is the most terrifying. Although everyone likes to open champagne, no one wants to be traded one for one.

As the saying goes, the soft are afraid of the hard, and the hard are afraid of the tough. Now they have met someone who doesn't care about his life.

"Are we going to continue?"

This question began to arise in the minds of the merchants. Yes, if the other party is gone, continuing the strike will definitely bring hope, but what if this person turns around and kills my whole family? What I want is to be able to continue spending money after the strike, not paper money!

The merchants in the city were in a panic, and everyone was in danger for a while. Faced with this situation, the Wuxi County Magistrate also became ruthless. Constables from all over the county began to patrol in turns in an attempt to arrest such a daring criminal in the city. However, the brutality of the other party was obviously beyond the county magistrate's expectations.

"Last night, the merchant Li Youcai's home was attacked... The method of the crime was exactly the same as before, and the police patrolling nearby were also killed..."

The same deep pit, the same corpses, the only difference is that there are a few more bodies wearing official uniforms. Of course, the notice above also makes it clear that these people accepted bribes, colluded with gangsters, abused the people, and deserved to be put to death, but, these guys are my people!!!

The county magistrate was angry, angry that he had such a scum under his command. Oh, me too, that's okay, but even if this guy is a drinker, whore, gambler, and smoker, this is an internal affair of our Ming Dynasty, why are you, a traitor, joining in the fun?

Isn't this just sitting on my head and shitting?

The county magistrate was so angry that he jumped up and down, and the looks of the constables were a little unnatural. They had been actively looking for the criminal in the first place because of the orders from their superiors, and now when they found out that they might be fired on the spot due to their work, it was obvious that many people began to back out. Everyone came to work in the county government office just to have a job that could make a living. To put it bluntly, as a constable in the government, you don't even have a formal civil service position, and the monthly salary is so little. What are you going to do with a salary of a few hundred yuan?

This group of thieves is so brutal that they even kill the police. If I go up there myself, won't I just restart the patrol? It seems that I can't be too active in patrolling in the future. I'll just have to do it halfway.

Several detectives exchanged glances and saw the same awareness in their colleagues' eyes.

I've decided. When I'm on patrol at night, I'll just touch her. Patrol? Patrol for nothing! Here I come to the brothel!

I gave myself two days off on May Day. Working people also need to rest. Did you have a good rest? Today's second update is as usual in the early morning group Yi ⑥ bar Er Yi 7 wife Yi Liu

Volume 236: Chapter Chapter : The Ming Army is Coming

Wuxi was in chaos, while Yangzhou, both inside and outside, was actively preparing for war. For the volunteers, they had received a very thorough education and knew that everything they had now was not bestowed by the gods or the emperor, but was the result of their own hard work, and the one who gave them this opportunity was Mr.

Although Jiang Han wanted to make his governance as modern as possible, in reality, under the limitations of history, many practical operations have changed. Have the people become more human? Indeed, they have become more human, but their respect for Jiang Han has also deepened.

The influence of the heroic view of history is inevitable, and even teachers cannot solve this problem. In addition, the current educational environment and the overall environment that Jiang Han is governing are actually more like a dictatorship started by a saint.

Because he is very sure of his own path, very sure of what will happen in the future, and even more sure of how despicable these so-called businessmen are, and how filthy these hypocritical scholars are, so before everything is on the right track, he will nationalize all the industries. In a sense, this is another form of dictatorship.

The people loved Jiang Han because they were able to survive because of him. They no longer had to freeze to death in the cold winter, starve to death on the streets, or be beaten to death by thieves who broke into their homes. The people knew clearly who all this came from.

The common people are very simple. We will treat those who treat us well. Therefore, even though Jiang Han did not mobilize them before the war, the common people were very excited. In their opinion, what if it is not under the rule of the Ming Dynasty? Our lives are given by the master. Whoever wants to attack us, we will fight back!

Due to the sufficient food supply and hard training, the volunteers have shed their initial immaturity and have slowly become mature. They have been sweeping away bandits in the surrounding areas to train their troops and build up their own combat effectiveness. In today's Ming Dynasty, it is hard to find honest people, but there are plenty of bandits. Too many people have taken this path out of desperation, and killing officials and running away has almost become the norm.

It has to be said that the way many of the so-called heroes in Water Margin became bandits can be traced back to the late Ming Dynasty. It can only be said that art comes from life.

After receiving the order, the imperial army assembled very quickly. Just kidding, this is Yangzhou City, which is a very important city in the south of the Yangtze River. It connects Nanjing in the north and Suzhou in the south. These are Zhenzi's money bags. No government troops dared to neglect these cities. Even if they wanted to rob more property for themselves, the government troops moved more quickly.

In a sense, the government troops are more ruthless bandits. There is nothing they can do about it; they have to make a living.

The Ming Dynasty implemented the garrison system, and the soldiers' food and fodder were supplemented by the crops grown by the garrison soldiers themselves. However, the army not only needed food, but also armor, horses, weapons and crossbows, and these things were clearly written when recruiting soldiers: provide your own.

Since ancient times, when feudal dynasties were conscripting soldiers, except for controlled equipment such as armor, war horses, crossbows, etc., they allowed their soldiers to bring their own equipment to join the army. This included long swords and spears, bows and arrows, bedding, leggings, clothes, water bottles, and all kinds of military necessities, all of which were written on the conscription documents and left for the soldiers to equip themselves.

Let's take the early Tang Dynasty as an example, because the relatively complete records the author can find are basically from this time. At this time, the Tang Dynasty was strong and the military system was standardized quite well. The early Tang Dynasty implemented the Fubing system. According to the records in "New Book of Tang - Volume 50 - Records 40 - Military Records", each soldier needed to prepare the following equipment by himself: one bow, thirty arrows, one Hulu, one horizontal sword, one whetstone, one felt hat, one large axe, one felt coat, and one walking rattan.

Thirty arrows, plus various arrowheads, the capacity of a magazine is perfect for dealing with various complex situations.

There is no doubt that only those soldiers from well-off families could afford these things. However, in the Ming Dynasty, as mentioned before, a large number of soldiers had their land seized by the officers above them, leaving them unable to afford food. Where did they get the money to purchase armaments?

You are poor, and these officers have never disappointed you in terms of being bad people. Not only will they seize your land, they will also seize your military pay. The soldiers' pay is often deducted. Often, the first silver dollar you receive is when you are incorporated into the death squad, and you cannot spend the money until you send it.

It can be said that the government troops in the late Ming Dynasty were all crazy with poverty. Their eyes lit up when they saw silver. The common people looked at the soldiers as if they were wolves. In normal times, they were only bound by military orders, but when a fight broke out, they would even take away the beams of the houses.

To them, Yangzhou is a rare wealthy city. If they can capture it, they can directly achieve a well-off life. So shouldn't they speed up their pace?

After finally arriving at the city of Yangzhou, the Ming army noticed the city's unique outer city fortifications.

Jiang Han captured more than 10,000 soldiers and laborers to build the outer bastions of Yangzhou City. In addition to recruiting workers from within the city, after more than half a year of construction, the outer bastions of Yangzhou City have been basically completed. The gentle slopes, trenches, prismatic fortifications, and a multi-dimensional cooperative defense system have been basically completed. In the eyes of the government troops, this is undoubtedly a new thing.

In today's Yangzhou City, rather than saying that the enemy's city defense is a bit weird, it is better to say that there is no city wall at all. What do these rebels mean? Are they going to use this to stop us?

Looking at the strange city defense fortifications in front of him, Zhao Zhilong, the main general who went south to quell the rebellion, decided to test it out first to take a closer look at the quality of these strange fortifications.

In order to quell the rebellion, the imperial court allocated 70,000 troops, but in reality, leaving aside the auxiliary troops who did not participate in the battle, the vacancies that drew the salaries, and the miscellaneous troops with poor combat effectiveness, only half of them could be deployed to fight, not to mention the quota for the navy. This shows how rotten the Ming Dynasty was at that time. It can be said that the reason Huang Taiji was able to successfully rule the Central Plains was not because he was so powerful, but because the Ming Dynasty was really rotten. If he had just been a little more normal, he would have stood out.

The navy has to set out a little later due to ship adjustments, and should be on the way now. But let's be honest, taking down Yangzhou City is a great achievement. If possible, Zhao Zhilong doesn't want the navy to have a share of the spoils. You idiots just need to do your job of fighting pirates. Listen to my advice, siege warfare is a complicated matter, you can't control it!

Inside the city, the volunteers were equally unsure at the moment. Although they had practiced many times before on how to use the bastions and city fortifications for coordinated defense, in reality, the feeling of oppression from having tens of thousands of troops pressing in on them was truly astonishing.

"Come on, send someone to test his strength first."

Looking at the shadowy figures in the bastion fortifications, Zhao Zhilong waved his hand and gave orders.

"promise!"

The order was quickly implemented. The vanguard of the Ming army assembled and prepared to launch a wave of tentative attacks. They would try to see the situation before going all in. If the resistance was fierce, they would withdraw directly to avoid further losses. At the same time, such a test could also help the commander to find out a lot of intelligence about the defenders, such as the layout of the firepower points, the location of the main city defense weapons, the configuration of personnel, etc.

Of course, if the resistance is weak, then just try to go all in. In war, you have to be flexible.

"First, fire two rounds at him, then organize another attack."

Waving his hand to call for a few artillery pieces, Zhao Zhilong indicated that they should fire a round of artillery first. The artillery fired, the artillery fired, and after the artillery fired, the infantry charged. It was a siege. Naturally, Zhao Zhilong requested a large number of artillery pieces. After all, according to previous expectations, the city wall of Yangzhou was not built.

It was really nice to have cannons. In this day and age, no one would still use trebuchets to attack cities, right? No way?

The eighteen-pound cannon made a huge roar, and the iron projectile rushed towards the bastion in the air with a fishy wind, and then hit the bastion... heavily on the earth slope in front of it.

The solid projectile, facing the thick earth slope, produced the effect equivalent to tearing off a little dead skin on the other side. It can't be said to be a broken bone, but it is at least not painful. This made Zhao Zhilong frown, as if this was a little different from the expected effect...

Volume 237: Chapter Chapter : The First Attack

If you ask what is the most powerful defensive unit in the bastion, some people will say the prismatic fortress, some people will say the triangular front fortress, but in fact, the most critical position is the earth slope before the bastion.

This section of earth slope can not only effectively block the firing range of local artillery, but most importantly, it provides a good design perspective for the shooters on the bastion.

As we all know, according to normal people's visual habits, for the defenders on the city, the closer the enemy is, the closer it is to their bottom. This place is a very uncomfortable position for many shooters. If they want to shoot below themselves, they must lean out, which will also expose the defenders to enemy firepower. The design of this section of earth slope can be said to be very unique.

This earth slope was not built up randomly. Its angle, height and position were all confirmed after precise measurement and calculation, in order to ensure that it functions perfectly. As for its specific function, it soon became apparent.

The first batch of vanguard soldiers quickly rushed towards the bastion fortifications, while the main general in the rear was carefully observing the response of the Yangzhou soldiers on the city wall.

"Everyone, calm down, fight on the slope, and wait for orders. Do you hear me?"

The officers encouraged their young men, and the soldiers held their rifles tightly in their hands with tense faces. This was their first large-scale battle, and no one had any idea how it would turn out.

Jiang Han did not send out the humanoid units immediately this time. He viewed this battle with the idea of ​​training troops. The volunteers still had too little practical experience. They were just fighting some bandits and could only be used to load ammunition, which had no practical effect at all. Whether they could hold on to the positions they had been operating for a long time was their first lesson, and it was also a very important lesson.

The Volunteer Army now has only more than 4,000 people. Facing an enemy force that is ten times their size, if they can hold out, they will be reborn. If not, Jiang Han will have to start over and formulate his own development plan.

Giving these soldiers this name shows that Jiang Han has high hopes for them. He does not want the Volunteer Army to end up being reduced to only being able to carry out stability maintenance work in the rear.

He is not a teacher, nor is he a great man. He is just a lucky guy who happened to have a golden finger. The future of this country cannot rely on him, but on these young people, on the struggle of the next generation. There is no savior. If you want to live the life you want, you have to fight for it yourself! This is what he has always wanted to teach them.

Therefore, in this siege, he would at most deploy a few necessary firepower facilities, and would not move the rest.

"Ready...shoot!!"

Seeing the enemy getting closer and closer, the commander waved his arm fiercely, and the volunteers stood up one after another, and the sound of gunfire suddenly became continuous!

At this time, the role of the earth slope was fully demonstrated. Due to the angle, the problem of visual blind spots was perfectly offset as the Ming army soldiers continued to climb the slope. In the eyes of the volunteer soldiers, these people were running straight towards them, and because of the slope, their speed was very slow.

This undoubtedly gave the musket the most perfect space to perform. Everyone had been shooting at targets for several months, waiting for this day, when the gun went off and people fell.

After the first row finished shooting, they immediately retreated and began to reload. Due to the paper-type bullets, the volunteer soldiers were able to load very quickly and could perfectly form a three-stage shooting cycle. The soldiers in the rear would move forward, aim, and fire.

In front of the bastion of Yangzhou City, the air was filled with smoke and a large number of corpses were piled on the slope. The small section of the slope almost became a place of death. The Ming soldiers who rushed up the slope almost became living targets, frantically using their heads to take the bullets from the volunteers.

Unexpectedly, for the Ming army, they encountered a fiercer resistance than expected. This group of rebels actually had a musket team? What a concept!

Even among the Ming army itself, only a small number of troops had fully organized musket teams, and these troops were basically either wiped out on the northern battlefield or simply became heroes who knew the times. In a word, they were wiped out.

The Ming army today can be said to be penniless. After all, the army's main financial source came from the emperor. Today, Zhenzi is even poorer. Although every time a cannon is fired, a huge amount of gold will be unleashed, all of it goes into the pockets of the meritorious officers, while the soldiers do not see a penny, let alone be able to support such an expensive thing as a musketeer team.

Some people may ask, isn’t Nanjing a very rich place? It would be possible to form some teams with muskets, right?

Then I can only say that you are still wrong. Nanjing is very rich, and they will also equip the army with muskets. However, when the supervisors of the logistics department are manufacturing muskets, they often swallow up a considerable part of the silver given to the arsenal to make muskets. What should they do if the silver is not enough? The military flag workshop can only use inferior materials to make muskets. After all, a bad gun is still a gun, and it has been delivered.

However, this kind of rotten gun has serious quality problems. The explosion rate is basically half and half. Even if it does not explode the first time it is used, it will explode the second time. The service life of a musket is basically less than a few days. In a battle, three guns explode and six soldiers die. The cost is quite high.

Therefore, the soldiers of the Ming army would rather hold a knife blade and be a knife runner than hold that broken gun and be Brother Deng's little brother. It's okay to just aim at the enemy and kill yourself before the battle even starts, isn't this bullshit?

However, although the Ming army had advanced equipment but lost itself, in fact, on the front battlefield, everyone just returned to a 300-400 split. The wild boar skin side obviously valued artillery more, and did not attach much importance to muskets. Huang Taiji's concept was very simple. It was so cool to shoot people with cannons, but the small-caliber ones were not powerful! Not as good as the bows and arrows of my Qing warriors! You must know that with the development of the times, bows and crossbows are also gradually and continuously strengthened. Today's infantry crossbows can even reach a design distance of - meters, which is much farther than muskets without rifling. The bandits, on the other hand, put a lot of effort into running. As long as the old camp soldiers have money, they will buy horses. They wish they could have three horses each. If the situation is not right, they will start running immediately. What does it have to do with me if the remaining hungry people and hungry soldiers fight with kitchen knives and pot lids?

But what did they see now? The rebels had formed a team of muskets and were suppressing the Ming army? Was the world developing too fast, or were they still asleep?

The volunteers didn't care whether the Ming army was surprised or not. They were getting more and more adept at fighting. In the initial tension, they thought the Nanjing government troops were as powerful as a mountain, but when they actually came into contact with them, they found that the opponent was as fragile as a piece of paper. Their confidence increased all of a sudden, and their condition also began to improve. The more they fought, the more familiar they became, and the more adept they became.

This slope was very difficult to walk on. The officers and soldiers of the Ming army knew it clearly. They left hundreds of bodies on the seemingly short ramp. Looking at the trench not far in front of them, the Ming army had only one thought in their minds: as long as... as long as they could reach that place...

Finally, the lucky ones rushed to the end of the slope, and when they saw the bastion trench, they dived down. In their opinion, as long as they could reach the trench under the city wall, they would basically have a place to catch their breath.

If it were a traditional city-state fortification, their idea would be great, but this is a bastion. The design purpose of the bastion is to do everything possible to eliminate any blind spots in the city defense process. This trench is not for the besiegers to catch their breath, but a death trap to bury them.

Inside another prismatic fortress, the volunteers who had been waiting for a long time raised their muskets and took aim. Then, the lingering god of death once again entangled these Ming siege soldiers who had just escaped.

The deadly gunshots rang out again, and the soldiers in the trenches once again became the shooting targets of the volunteers. Compared with the earth slope, the deep trenches made it more difficult to organize a large-scale counterattack. The longbows in their hands could not pose any threat to the volunteer soldiers in the bastion. They could only dodge the whistling bullets like stray dogs, waiting to be taken away by bullets flying from nowhere.

"Ladder! Where's the ladder?!"

A lieutenant of the Ming army shouted at the top of his voice: "Bring the ladder, set up the ladder from the slope, and climb up to the top of the fortress! !"

"No, Shangguan! It's too far! We can't put it up! The ladder has fallen into the trench!"

The soldiers under his command responded desperately, and the fierce sound of musket fire echoed throughout the battlefield. If you didn't shout loudly, you couldn't hear what the other party was saying.

"Then build a ladder from the trench!"

"They dug the trench too deep! Ten meters! There's no way to put up a ladder!"

As mentioned before, the data of all fortifications built on the bastion were accurately calculated, including the width of the trench between the earth slope and the bastion, and the depth from the bottom of the trench to the top of the bastion. According to the generally low environment of today's daimyo cities, the depth of more than ten meters is enough to make most of the climbing equipment sigh in despair. And because of the existence of the earth slope, operations such as inserting a crossbow into the wall as a wooden ladder are out of the question. All you can shoot is the thick layer of protective wall above.

"Damn it! This is outrageous!!"

Slapping his horse's head hard, Zhao Zhilong looked at the increasingly deteriorating battle situation with hatred. He did not expect that these rebels would be so difficult to deal with. He had thought of many situations when he went south to quell the rebellion, and had made many plans in his mind. For example, the rebels' resistance was particularly tenacious, the rebels used the people as shields to deal with their mentality, the rebels directly started guerrilla warfare with them, the rebels relied on the strong city and powerful artillery to stalemate with them, etc., but he never expected that this group of people would build such a weird city defense fortress, and there would be a musketeer team!

Damn it, is Yangzhou so rich that it can afford a musketeer team?

Ma: You may be angry, but why did you pat my head? You don’t want the horse anymore, right?

"Withdraw troops!!"

Seeing that it was almost time, Zhao Zhilong issued the order to retreat. Originally, he wanted to rush in first to see if he could steal something and test the city defense deployment of this group of rebels, but now the situation was not right. If he continued, it was obvious that he would not see anything and would only die in vain.

Sighing, Zhao Zhilong felt a little tired. It seemed that he had to prepare for a tough battle....

In fact, sieges are something that cannot be rushed. The attackers often have to use local materials, manufacture a large number of siege equipment, dig trenches and tunnels, throw shit at people, and use all other means to achieve results. Unless there is a huge disparity in combat power, the defenders can basically hold out for quite some time.

Not to mention, he couldn't understand the current Yangzhou city defense fortifications at all.

But he was anxious. The food and grass that the army brought with them was only enough to sustain them for less than half a month. The superiors said that they would find a way to raise the rest, but who could say for sure whether they could raise it? What if the food was gone? Would these tens of thousands of people have to attack the city on an empty stomach?

Ah, yes, the merchants from Jiangnan have cut off cooperation with Yangzhou. But no matter how much they cut off cooperation, with the food reserves in Yangzhou city, they can at least last for a month. So can I last that long?

It's very blue.

One more day of delay means one more variable, one more day of delay means one more day of crisis. The city of Yangzhou must be taken in a short period of time!

Upon hearing the news that the central army had sounded the retreat, the siege troops who had been struggling to survive were as happy as if they had heard heavenly music. They rushed back to their own formation, tumbling and crawling, more anxious than a pig seeing Uzi.

Whoever wants to take this damn siege job can do it, but I won’t do it.

Normally, the Volunteers' use of the bastion fortifications and the coordination between various departments are not mature yet. After the actual fighting, they encountered many unexpected situations. There are many factors to consider on the real battlefield, such as the barrel overheating after firing a few rounds, the musket eye protection can't be held, the hand shakes when reloading, the reloading is not completed on time, the cycle cannot be continued, the gun jams, the shooting accuracy is insufficient, it takes three shots to kill a person, and so on and so forth...

If it were the Tartars who were attacking the city, even if it was just the first charge like this, not to mention how much trouble it would cause, it would definitely make the volunteers very flustered in their response, and they would not be as organized as they are now.