Chapter 1: Battle of Wuchang (II)

Everything is ready to stop, and just wait for the Red Barbarian cannons to cross the river to attack Wuchang.

After Zuo Liangyu occupied Yuezhou City, he quickly executed the generals who did not surrender, and then disrupted the reorganization of the defenders in the city. The second was to order Yuezhou City to enter and not leave. The other nearby counties should not know about the occupation of Yuezhou City. He could take the opportunity to deceive these nearby cities and occupy Mufu Mountain. The third was to send contact scouts to the other side to inform the commander Xiong Tingbi that he had occupied Yuezhou and could send some troops to land in Yuezhou City first, and then attack Wuchang forward and backward to capture the bridgehead to the south.

Xiong Tingbi learned that Zuo Liangyu had actually occupied Yuezhou City and was overjoyed. Some of the generals of the Southern Expedition were still somewhat suspicious of whether they could capture Wuchang. They were now full of confidence. They immediately sent deputy general Yang Zhaoji to Yueyang with the cooperation of Hong Chengchou, and at the same time corrected the battle time for the capture of Wuchang, which lasted for five days, and delayed from the third day of the seventh month to the eighth day of the seventh month.

Zuo Liangyu was a little lacking in confidence because he only had 5,000 troops, and there were nearly 14,000 navy members in Yueyang City, which was three times his. It was a bit difficult to control it. Now, with the 15,000 army led by Yang Zhaoji entering Yuezhou City, there was no such worry.

After Yang Zhaoji arrived in Yuezhou, he left the guerrilla Wang Rui to lead 5,000 troops to defend Yuezhou City, joined forces with Zuo Liangyu, and led a 25,000 army to advance towards Wuchang. He first captured Linxiang, and then took down Yanglou, which bordered Yuezhou and Wuchang without any effort.

When Huang Yuntai, the pseudo-Ming governor of Huguang, was shocked when he received the emergency document from the magistrate of Puqi. He just learned that the Beijing court opposite Wuchang had sent an army of refugees to recruit refugees to Hanyang, intending to attack Wuchang, but he could not imagine where the enemy had come into his stomach.

He originally wanted to draw troops from various places to assist in the defense of Wuchang, but his opponent had cut off the source of reinforcements. Huang Yuntai endured the pain and sent a message of help from Jiujiang, Ruichang and other places in Jiangxi, while withdrawing all the troops of Xianning, Jiayu, Xingguo and other prefectures and counties into Jiangxia and defending Jiangxia with all his strength.

Yang Zhaoji discussed with Zuo Liangyu, and did not distribute troops to occupy the prefectures and counties that were abandoned by Huang Yuntai, and fought to the city of Jiangxia with unstoppable momentum.

At this moment, Jiangxia City was in chaos. In such a small county, 20,000 people gathered in one go, and they were all in charge. There was no unified command. These soldiers who usually commanded the bullies of the common people, looted and raped and killed people from time to time. A unified commander sent by Huang Yuntai was unable to effectively integrate these troops evacuated from various prefectures and counties. These formal troops were even more chaotic than the chaotic people.

Zuo Liangyu rode on the horse, pointed at the defenders squeezing into rows of defenders on the walls of Jiangxia Town, and smiled at the deputy commander Yang Zhaoji, "Deputy Commander, you see, this is the first time that you have seen such a city guard formation, all of which are crowded together. Wouldn't they all die? As long as the archers shoot with a burst of shots, few will survive!"

Yang Zhaoji glanced at Zuo Liangyu, and couldn't help feeling a little jealous. This kid had stalked Yuezhou City with almost no casualties, which made the army attacking Wuchang under the most favorable conditions. He had made great contributions. He fought in that ghost place in Gansu, and had fought many bad battles before he was promoted to the position of general. This is really a comparison of people and can make people angry. He responded in a plain manner: "Since Huang Yuntai doesn't want us to run around and work hard, let us get it once and for all, we must not refuse to accept this huge favor!"

"The deputy commander is right. Huang Yuntai is not defeated by himself, but by the hands of the group of wine bags under his hands." Zuo Liangyu said excitedly. Taking down Yuezhou City is already a great achievement. If he annihilated the 20,000 troops in Jiangxia Town in one fell swoop, so that he could not escape one soldier and one soldier fled to Wuchang, it would be another great achievement. If he could attack Wuchang first, those three merits would add up, and his future would be on the way to the nine heavens. How could Zuo Liangyu not be excited?

"Arrowman, get ready!"

"Hurry shots ten times!"

How could he wait until the defenders in the city stabilized and discovered his stupid behavior? After the army formed an encirclement of Jiangxia Town, Yang Zhaoji issued an attack order. In Yang Zhaoji's eyes, although the army he commanded now had better discipline than the border guards, his combat effectiveness was far inferior to that of the long-standing border guards, but he could barely make do with it because their enemies were much worse than theirs.

The overwhelming rain of arrows, and the defenders on the Jiangxia city tower had nowhere to hide. Because they stood too densely, countless casualties were killed and injured in the first round of arrows, and countless people were injured in the arrows. The wailing sounded throughout Jiangxia Town. A guerrilla commander guarding the city found something was wrong, so he quickly ordered half of the defenders to withdraw from the city tower and ordered the archers to fight back. Unfortunately, the city tower was too chaotic, and the army did not come from the same number. It was the first time that they met each other, and they negotiated and cooperated, and they worked independently. Although the order was issued very correctly, the effect was very little.

Yang Zhaoji frowned slightly. The defenders were even more fragile than he thought. If the army of the pseudo-Ming were all in such combat power, the battle would be too easy. You can imagine how relaxed the military preparations within the Ming Dynasty were. No wonder the border wars were incessant, and even maintaining the food and salary life of the border soldiers was a problem. In the past, the court even increased the salary every year. Fortunately, since the new emperor ascended the throne, he was determined to reform, abolish the military supervision system, and used his own internal currency and silver to supplement the cost of the court. He also canceled all the salary increase and defeated the Jiancheng, so that the soldiers, who were in the bitter and cold land of the border, also had hope. This time the court went south to suppress the rebellion, and wanted to follow his south to fight for a place, almost failed to fight. When he thought of these, Yang Zhaoji was a little worried. The soldiers were eager to make contributions and were proud and underestimated the enemy.

Although Jiangxia Town has complete urban defense facilities, the soldiers guarding the city were really not good, so they were soon led by Zuo Liangyu to rush into the city. In one day, before the sun set, Jiangxia Town fell.

When Jiangxia Town was captured, Wuchang City was completely exposed to Yang Zhaoji's army, forcing Huang Yuntai to weaken the southeast troops and strengthen the defense in the southwest direction. He regretted it. If he had known this was the case, he would have given up even Jiangxia Town and directly took back the nearly 20,000 troops back to Wuchang City, even if it was the second or third city guarding echelon!

Since the day Huang Yuntai announced the closure of Wuchang City, people's hearts began to fluctuate in Wuchang City, and this city with a population of 500,000 was suddenly retreated to the forefront.

Huang Yuntai urgently recruited 30,000 young and strong men from the capital to prepare to defend the city, opened the Wuchang armament warehouse, and distributed weapons.

Considering that no one among the refugees could use artillery and could not learn all the tricks of using artillerymen in a short period of time, Zhu Yinglong simply sent the trained artillery battalion to Xiong Tingbi. Xiong Tingbi was worried that if there were advanced artillery, no one would use it, or if it would use it, it might not be able to achieve the effect he wanted. When he saw the artillery battalion, he would have no worries.

On the eighth day of the seventh month, the darkness before dawn.

Thousands of boats were sailing on the river. Except for the 5,000 remaining troops, all 40,000 troops boarded the ship and sailed quietly towards Wuchang City on the other side.

A layer of mist suddenly appeared on the river surface. Sun Chuanting, who was counseling military affairs, was worried that it would be unfavorable to the attack under the heavy fog, and suggested that he wait until the fog had dissipated before logging in.

Xiong Tingbi thought about it and decided to take a look first. If the concentration of heavy fog does not increase, there is no need to wait for the fog to clear up.

About a stick of incense, Xiong Tingbi found that the fog was not getting thicker, and immediately ordered the army to abandon the ship and land.

According to the long-planned siege case, Cao Wenzhao led 10,000 people to attack Wenchang Gate, He Renlong led 10,000 people to attack Pinghu Gate, Xiong Tingbi personally led 20,000 troops to attack Hanyang, and the cannon camp accompanied. Hong Chengchou led his troops from the Eighteen Water Village to deal with the 10,000 navy troops stationed in Wuchang.

"Governor General, fight, fight!"

"What is coming is finally here!" Hearing this news, Huang Yuntai, as the governor of Huguang, not only did not panic, but instead breathed a sigh of relief. Jiangxia Town has been lost and it was a foregone conclusion to encircle Wuchang.

After the army landed, Xiong Tingbi did not directly command the army to attack Hanyang Gate, but ordered the army to stop and then ordered the artillery battalion to push the cannons out. The newly cast artillery range was five kilometers, which was one and a half times the range of the artillery on the Hanyang Gate Tower.

Huang Yuntai, who rushed to the Hanyang City Tower, and with the help of the Qianli Mile Mile, saw a whole row of black muzzles facing the city tower on Hanyang Gate. He was immediately shocked and sweated coldly behind his back. He thought to himself that Wuchang City may be in danger, and he knew the power of the cannon.

"Order the artillery battalion to prepare for a quarter of an hour!" Xiong Tingbi observed the defense of Hanyang Gate and issued an order to the messenger.

At the critical moment of life and death, Huang Yuntai also ordered the only two artillery on the city gate to fire at the opposite artillery position. Unfortunately, the soldiers who were operating the artillery told him that their artillery could not hit others at all.

As the first shell flew up to the city tower on Hanyang Gate, a loud noise was made. The hexagonal city gate pavilion was suddenly blown down, crushing several soldiers to death. Some of them were actually bleeding from the seven orifices by the loud noise. Huang Yuntai dodged quickly and was almost buried under the rubble bricks. He never thought that the range of the other party's artillery was not only farther than his own, but also more powerful. Before he could wake up, there was a rumbling sound of more than a dozen loud noises. His intuition was that the heaven and earth were reversed, like a mountain collapse and cracked. When the surviving soldiers in the city understood what was going on, the city gate tower had been bombarded by the enemy's artillery.

Xiong Tingbi was also shocked by the huge power of this new type of red cannon. He originally thought that he would hit it a few times, but now he discovered it was enough, so he hurriedly ordered the artillery battalion to stop the artillery bombardment and ordered the army to attack the city.

There was no suspense in the battle at all. Yang Zhaoji also attacked Wuchang from Zhonghe Gate, Tongxiang Gate, Binyang Gate and Zhongxiao Gate and successfully met with Xiong Tingbi's army. Huang Yuntai and more than a dozen officials, under the protection of two or three hundred people, fought a bloody road to escape from Shuangsheng Gate to the east. Although their lives were preserved for a while, when Wei Zhongxian later pursued the loss of Huguang, none of them could escape and die.

After Wuchang conquered, Xiong Tingbi immediately ordered people to report to the court with 600 miles in a hurry, and then quickly reorganized the army, repaired the Hanyang Gate, which was bombarded by artillery, and prepared to continue to move south.
Chapter completed!