Griffin Commander in the Late Ming Dynasty

"water...."

"Wake up, the emperor is awake!! The emperor is awake!!"

Huang Taiji's brothers and sisters and close military officials had been waiting anxiously by the side, and they rushed forward immediately, surrounding Huang Taiji in three layers, frantically sucking the fresh air around Huang Taiji, making sure that the emperor could feel the authentic flavor of the grassland as soon as possible.

The imperial physician beside him looked embarrassed. These warriors from the grassland were more ferocious than each other. He was afraid that they would eat him when he opened his mouth.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, how do you feel?"

They approached again with concern, and sprayed the fermented gas in their mouths onto Huang Taiji's face, making Huang Taiji's already bad complexion worse.

"Everyone, get out of the way, Imperial Physician! Imperial Physician, come quickly and take a look!"

There was at least one sensible person in the crowd. Jirgalang drove away the people who were like evil spirits seeking death, allowing the imperial physician who was trembling with fear on the side to finally be able to use his professional expertise.

"Water... give me water..." Lying beside Huang Taiji's head, the imperial physician finally understood Huang Taiji's faint cry for help amid the noise.

"Someone come quickly, bring water to the emperor!"

After a busy work, Huang Taiji finally drank the sweet dew he desperately needed. He drank it in big gulps, as if he wanted to wash away all the grassland flavor that had just permeated his face.

Putting down the water bag, Huang Taiji regained his sanity. He looked at the people gathered in the tent and asked slowly, "How long have I slept?"

"Your Majesty, you have slept for a whole day."

"One day.....then...how is the twelfth brother?"

When Ajige was mentioned, everyone present fell silent. Jirgalang looked embarrassed. He couldn't just say that Ajige had died.

"Twelfth brother, he...he..."

Looking at their reactions, Huang Taiji also knew the outcome of Ajige. In fact, if you think about it, you will know that if they opened their hearts like that and their intestines flew so far away, there is no reason for them to live.

After a moment of silence, Huang Taiji began to talk about business: "So, what is the current situation in the army?"

"The military... is currently stable, but some rumors have begun to spread among the white flags, and people's hearts are a little unsettled..."

"in this way..."

Huang Taiji nodded. Ever since Ajige said that in front of him, Huang Taiji understood everything. Now his brother died in public and pointed fingers at him in person. This situation could be described as mud stuck to the crotch of his pants. It was shit if not shit. Even if Ajige had a mouth full of mouths, he couldn't explain it. So, Huang Taiji simply fainted.

"Jiang Han is so cruel, and his plan of sowing discord is so cruel." He sighed. Now that things have come to this, the most urgent task is to eliminate the impact as soon as possible.

"Yes, how could we brothers fall for such a clumsy plot to sow discord? Your Majesty, we absolutely trust you!"

Dorgon stepped forward and spoke up for justice, looking very loyal.

"That's right! This Jiang Han is so cunning and vicious that he actually used such dirty means to alienate us brothers. I wish I could eat his flesh alive!"

Jirgalang also hated Jiang Han's evil scheme.

Huang Taiji glanced at Dorgon who was speaking righteously and thought to himself, I don't believe you at all. Don't I know what kind of person you are? He even suspected that the rumors in the Zhengbai Banner camp might have been spread by Dorgon.

"Such rumors must not be allowed to spread. They must be stopped. Find out who is spreading them and execute them! Those who conceal or harbour them will be guilty of the same crime as the spreaders! In addition, spread the word that Jiang Han killed my Great Qing prince. This blood feud is irreconcilable. The army is moving out. I want to massacre Yangzhou with blood!"

At this moment, in Fuzhou, far away in Liaodong, a zero-yuan shopping event is in full swing.

"Take the best food! Take as much flour as possible, and take the most valuable treasures! Take away all the gold and silver! Take away all the antiques, calligraphy and paintings as well!"

Today's volunteers have moved away from the barbaric looting method of taking whatever they see. Their cabins have limited capacity and cannot tolerate such rough methods. Therefore, they are now beginning to pursue quality. In other words, I never rob the poor. Those poor people only have a few coins at home. What good is it if I rob them? How much money can a poor person have?

The limited cabins were naturally meant to hold more valuable things, so the volunteers had a clear goal and headed for the tall houses and large courtyards. In Liaodong today, especially in the countryside, the landlords' houses are like lice on a bald head and can be seen at a glance, especially after the volunteers' friendly communication, "Who of you is the richest? If you don't tell us, we will go to your house." The local people were also very cooperative, because the volunteers were very efficient in their work. Not only did they rob things, they also took care of the landlord's entire family, allowing the people to hold their events without any worries and to even get some benefits from the volunteers.

They robbed as soon as they got ashore, killing and burning people, and then turned around and left for the next house. The fleet demonstrated its advantage in mobility to the fullest. Even if the Qing army tired their horses like dead dogs, they could not catch up with these running beasts.

"I'll give you a hundred bucks to help us spread a few words"

A soldier caught a villager who was running away and threw a bunch of copper coins to him, causing him to stop running. The villager hurried forward, took the coins in his arms, and covered them tightly with his patched clothes. He looked around vigilantly to block those malicious eyes, turned around, and immediately put on a flattering smile.

"Sir, please speak, just speak, don't just say one sentence, even ten sentences will do."

The villagers' faces were filled with smiles like chrysanthemums. They could get a hundred dollars just by saying a word. Where could they find such a good thing?

"Go and help me spread the word in the village, saying that Huang Taiji murdered his own brother and poisoned his brother to death on the front line in order to seize the troops of the Plain White Banner."

"Ah!? This, this is the Emperor's family. I dare not say anything, or I will be beheaded!!"

"Two hundred coins." The soldier threw out another hundred coins, and the villager hurriedly caught it, with a look of greed on his face.

"Sir, this is not about money. This is a royal relative... He will lose his head..."

"Three hundred bucks, if that doesn't work I'll go find someone else."

"Hey... don't, don't... General, I'll do it, I'll do it... Just wait and see, I promise that everyone in the city will know what I tell you."

Most of the copper coins that could not be taken away were used by the volunteers as propaganda funds. In this day and age, as long as you throw money at them, there will be people who want to ask for your help.

On the one hand, these volunteers looted the city wantonly, and on the other hand, they were madly giving away money, causing the city to be in an uproar when they came. After they left, rumors spread in the city, making the already stretched Qing army defense here feel extremely uncomfortable.

The feeling of being ridden on and shitted and pissed on by others made them extremely painful, but there was nothing they could do. Almost all of the Qing army's ships had been destroyed in the previous battles, and now there was not even a single warship that could be pulled out to drive away the enemy. Just looking at the dozens of meters of size of the Galleon and treasure ship was enough to make people despair.

On the other hand, the situation in Phoenix City could only be said to be getting worse, not better, because the efficiency of these iron-blooded soldiers was so high, far exceeding Jiang Han's previous expectations. They captured Huangqi Fort in half a day, marched at high speed without sleep for seven days, and even stopped to wait for the pursuers behind for three days. After eliminating the pursuers, they continued on their journey, and arrived in Phoenix City in just over ten days. At this time, Jiang Han had not even started to negotiate with others.

If this speed of attacking the country continued, Jiang Han suspected that while he was still arguing with Huang Taiji on the front line, the farmers in his family would have been slaughtered. This was not what he wanted to see.

His strategic goal was only to force the enemy to retreat, not to fight to the death. If they really had to fight to the death here, the happiest one would definitely be the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, although the humanoids and the Iron-Blooded Army could hold on, the Volunteer Army would suffer casualties. The army he had was less than 10,000 at most, and there were hundreds of casualties in a battle a while ago. Moreover, with the current war situation, the rear wanted to supply the war losses in the front, and all the factories combined were already firing at full capacity. Yangzhou had only one copper mine, and all steel currently had to be imported from outside. It was already very difficult to maintain a normal balance between production and life. If the fighting continued, his own production capacity would explode.

What we need now is development more, rather than such militarism. If we continue to fight like this, how can we survive?

The main purpose of striking the first blow is to prevent a hundred blows from coming. We want to develop in a stable manner. But some people don't want us to live a good life, so we have to beat them until they have no choice but to let us live a good life.

Now, if before the battle becomes intense, Huang Taiji receives news from home saying that Shengjing is gone and his younger brother has just died, if another family member dies, Huang Taiji will probably go crazy and fight to the death with him. Although he is confident that he can win, Yangzhou will be completely destroyed, and the ground will be scorched, and all his efforts will be back to square one.

Therefore, the degree must be grasped well, just enough to make Huang Taiji anxious, but not too anxious. Therefore, these iron-blooded humanoids must be allowed to take their time.

The approach was to delay the attack on Phoenix City as much as possible, attract reinforcements, and then start playing ghost and thief with the reinforcements, taking them to various places in Shengjing to perform three iron marches, and after attracting Huang Taiji's reinforcements, they would attack Shengjing and force Huang Taiji to return to defend.

But there is a problem. Although the thinking model of ordinary Iron-Blooded T-dolls is very similar to that of Tactical T-dolls, they do not have such mental plug-ins. At the same time, cannon fodder such as Rangers and Jaguars have no need to install advanced mental plug-ins at all, so the way these units implement orders will be somewhat different from what Jiang Han expected.

Jiang Han was thinking that you should attack slowly, fight symbolically today and then take a break, continue tomorrow, and just keep going like this. However, the Iron-Blooded Humanoids understood it completely differently. Just like at this moment, these Iron-Blooded Humanoids are using their artillery shells to cut the walls of Phoenix City into small pieces.

As early as the first day, the east gate of Phoenix City was beaten into a sieve by artillery fire, and the large number of objects piled up by the Qing army to block the gate were also blown to pieces. When the Qing army began to defend on a large scale and began to strengthen the city walls, the extremely torturous siege began.

From the very beginning, the Qing army had never seen any human figures appear. What they faced from beginning to end was a steady stream of artillery shells.

The artillery fire from the sky destroyed the general cannon on the city wall used to defend the city. The arrow tower bore the most firepower and was the first to collapse. After that, this endless bombing accompanied the Qing army every day and night.

When you wake up in the morning, some unlucky people will be hit by artillery fire and lose their lives.

When eating in the afternoon, fragments of the city wall and flying ashes from artillery fire might fly into the bowl. When sleeping at night, the rumbling of artillery fire was like a mosquito dance party in the ears on a summer night, which made people nervous.

The most disgusting thing is that they didn't attack, but focused on hitting the city wall, as if the city wall was killing their horses.

But the city had to be defended. Military orders were as heavy as mountains. They also had to use the stones in the city to continuously reinforce the collapsed city walls.

The Iron Bloods are very patient. While you are repairing this side, I will go and blow up the other side. When you have repaired it, I will continue to blow it up.

This completely arbitrary bombing mode made every defender terrified. The top of the city wall almost became their execution ground. Being stationed on the top of the city wall meant that they didn't know when a shell came from nowhere and their weight was reduced from 150 kilograms to only two taels.

They were warriors of the Eight Banners, but they were also human beings. Everyone would be afraid sometimes, let alone die in such an unclear way.

For these defenders, going to work every day is like being tortured. When the sun sets and they change shifts, they need to set off firecrackers to celebrate their survival. The pressure on the front line is huge, and the pressure in the rear is also not small. There are constant artillery fire outside the city, and the big guys are not cages. The thing that this world lacks most is keyboard politicians. What's more, the current situation is closely related to their own lives and property, so they can't help but pay attention.

At first, they thought that they were just petty thieves and the Eight Banners warriors would surely be able to repel them easily. Later, as the battle became increasingly intense, they began to feel something was wrong. They thought that the enemy in front of them seemed a bit difficult to deal with, but the Eight Banners warriors should not be at a disadvantage. However, they were still firing for so long, how many people were coming? Later, they thought, they had a strong city and powerful artillery, so the enemies outside could not break in, right?

By now, some people have even started to bring their entire families to Kairun. There are all kinds of speculations in the city. Some people say that there are 10,000 troops outside, and some say that there are tens of thousands. The rumors are very detailed.

And in this extremely tormenting environment, the Qing army finally waited for the first batch of reinforcements from Shengjing. They came here following the trail of the disappeared Lai Bu.

My ID card expired yesterday, and I was busy for most of the day to get a new one. I'll see if I can post more from tomorrow @q@q@群1榴吧②壹7七①6

Volume 330: Chapter Chapter : Shrimp and Pork Heart

"Have you heard? The current emperor is murdering his own brothers!" On a street in Shengjing, several people sat together and whispered.

"Oh, don't say that! Are you going to die?"

A companion nearby was startled when he heard it, and looked around quickly, then spoke to his companion in a low voice, but after a while, he couldn't resist the temptation to eat melons, and asked with a gossipy look on his face: "What's going on? Tell me in detail?"

The commoner lowered his voice and said, "I heard this from my brother-in-law next door, the third nephew of the Qin family. There was a letter from home, and I heard that it was spread all over the army."

"Ah! There is actually such a thing. It seems that the royal family is not at peace either..."

"Isn't it... In my opinion, it might be a matter of dividing the family property!"

"Did you hear that? The current emperor is murdering his own brother!" This was at a tea stall.

"Ah, why? He is the emperor, he has everything he needs, right?"

"Who can say for sure? Maybe he fell in love with his brother's wife. Before you read it, it's written in Water Margin that when Wu Dalang's wife was liked by someone, trouble would arise."

"Oh, it's true!"

Seeing that the conversation was getting more and more lively, the tea stall owner hurried over to stop them: "Gentlemen, gentlemen, please be kind. I am just a small business. Please don't discuss this in your small stall. This is a matter of life and death..."

"Alright, alright, got it. Let's go to another place!" The diners were disappointed and left, but the rumor spread like wildfire, with each version becoming more and more outrageous.

"Did you hear that? The current emperor killed his brother because he fell in love with his brother's wife!"

Rumors, as time goes by, their flavor will change. Ordinary people don't understand anything about high-brow science or conspiracy. They just guess about family conflicts and property disputes. The most popular ones are those about relationships between men and women. In their mouths, Huang Taiji has almost become a sex-hungry ghost who can't walk when he sees his brothers' wives.

Huang Taiji didn't know that his reputation in the rear was almost ruined, and he was still fighting with Jiang Han at the front line. But now the volunteer army had just started to encounter the enemy in earnest.

Apart from other things, the Eight Banners Army does represent the strongest combat power of this era. No one can fight more than them, and no one can fight as well as them even if they have more troops than others. In terms of field battles, it is indeed quite difficult to fight when they are extremely disadvantaged in numbers.

Jiang Han ordered all his men to retreat back into the bastion. This time, even the Qing army felt a little overwhelmed when faced with this wonderful bastion.

After several months of construction, the bastion is now in good shape. The introduction of new building materials such as cement has further accelerated the construction of the bastion fortifications. In addition, Jiang Han had a premonition that he would have to fight the Qing army, so he specially sent people to build a bunch of blockhouses and bunkers in front of the bastion. It can be said that the current Yangzhou city defense is so bad that even an electric fan would shake his head when looking at it, let alone the Qing army!

To be honest, after so many years of fighting, this was the first time that Huang Taiji had seen such strange fortifications. It was simply unheard of. Out of caution, he chose to let his men launch a tentative attack.

The result was simply horrific.

It must be said that these Tartar soldiers were really ruthless and would not do anything that had anything to do with humans. They were a little unsure about the bastion in front of them, but they valued their own people, so they let the Han soldiers who had surrendered before go up. When the Han soldiers did not want to go up, they captured the people of Huai'an as cannon fodder and came to test the strength of the volunteers.

This tactic has been tried and tested for many officers and soldiers. If they are soft-hearted, they can directly lead their troops to break through the defense line. If they are hard-hearted, they can also consume the opponent's arrows and ammunition. It's a win-win situation anyway, because these people are not their own.

Of course, they were testing each other, but they still had to make a serious battle plan. What if the thing they were building was a useless thing? They had seen a lot of messy but useless things like the Ming Dynasty along the way. Maybe this time would be the same?

"Don't be soft-hearted. Those people under the city wall had already lost their right to survive when they were captured by the Qing army. They are already dead. If you are soft-hearted towards them now, once the Qing army breaks through here, there will be thousands and thousands more people like them. What kind of people are the Tartars? I believe that everyone out there has known it very clearly these days. Think about your relatives in the rear, think about your brothers and sisters..."

Many soldiers looked at the ragged civilians with a look of pity on their faces and could not bring themselves to kill them. The officers in the rear kept doing ideological work on them, which was also a part of boosting the morale of the army. As the saying goes, a merciful army cannot be commanded. If you have kindness and pity in your heart, it will become a weakness for the enemy to deal with you. If you are soft-hearted and let this civilian go, will you let the others go? When the enemy sees that you are such an innocent person, hiding among the civilians, will you shoot or not? Being merciful to the enemy is being cruel to yourself.

Thinking of their families and friends, and the evil deeds they had seen the Tartars do before, many volunteers suddenly hardened their hearts. Looking at the wailing people in the distance, they pulled the trigger with red eyes: "I'm sorry, fellow countryman, I'll just let you go in advance. In the future, I'll kill a few more Tartars to avenge you!"

Amid the crackling sound of gunfire and the roar of artillery fire, the villagers and the Han soldiers fell down like wheat being cut. The layers of barbed wire on the high slopes were like walls of death.

"You want to watch from behind? It's not that good. Let the mortars bombard me. If you like watching it so much, you have to fiddle with my feet. Is my show so good?"

Looking at the Qing army hiding in the rear with rat-like faces, Jiang Han was so angry that he could not contain himself. They were a bunch of idiots who were as good as giving birth to sons without an asshole. If he didn't beat them up, he would feel uncomfortable all over, as if Senior Sister Mai was crawling on him.

"They have 200,000 people. If the next offensive does not go smoothly, the enemy will definitely change their mindset and will not force their way into the difficult challenge of Yangzhou City."

Parosa looked at the battle situation in front of him with a frown on his face.

"what do you mean?"

"They will use their cavalry advantage to quickly move around Yangzhou, plunder the people, and then, like today, send those people to the front line, pile them in front of the fortifications, let them transport soil, and then use the corpses and the soil and stones they brought to fill the outer circle of trenches. We can repel their offensive, but we cannot accept such losses."

Jiang Han thought thoughtfully: "So, our goal is to make them unable to move?"

"Right, so we need to find something for our angry friends to do."

"How could it be like this?!"

Harald, who came to support, rushed all the way to Phoenix City, and faced an extremely difficult fighting situation after entering the city.

"General Harald, you are finally here. If you hadn't come, I'm afraid Phoenix City would not be able to be defended."

When Phoenix City defender Ding Jili saw Harald coming, he was full of relief. He finally got to see his relatives!

"We have followed the enemy all the way from Shengjing. We are exhausted now. General, please let the soldiers rest first."

"Of course, of course, General, please take a seat inside."

After they sat down, Harald asked about the military situation directly because the military situation was urgent: "What is the situation in the city now? Also, we have come a long way to track down the thieves who are attacking the city. What are their identities? Have you found out clearly?"

"Ah...this..."

A trace of embarrassment appeared on Ding Jili's face. They had been bombarded with artillery shells these days and could not even lift their heads. How could they have the time to investigate who the other side was? This person came up and asked such a difficult question. How could they answer?

“I never knew…”

"You didn't even know about it?"

"also?"