Just as Du Yonghe speculated, Zhu Youlang was indeed taking people to secretly digging tunnels under the southeast corner of the city.?

Excavating tunnels is a very common tactic in ancient siege wars, and it is also a tactic that has been used badly. Its shortcomings are obvious, with large engineering volumes and are easily damaged by defenders.

It is easier to dig the tunnel under the city wall, but it is not easy to dig it smoothly into the city, open up internal and external roads or dig the city wall. If you want to completely dig the city wall, you have to dig a large enough hole under the city wall. During this period, you must ensure that there will be no landslides. The technical content is high and it takes a long time, usually ten days and half a month.

If you dig the tunnel continuously for a long time, it is easy to be noticed by the defenders, and then fight back calmly, or dig the tunnel backwards and pour water into the tunnel, and release poison and smoke balls to smoke people to destroy the excavation process; or if you guard the tunnel entrance, you will be the only one who can kill the enemy troops emerging from the tunnel one by one, then pour water, fill the soil, and fill the tunnel, so it is easy to crack the tunnel with traditional methods. It is no wonder that Du Yonghe is so confident.

The question is, is Zhu Youlang really just using ordinary authentic tactics? Not only can Du Yonghe not guess this, but even the confidant general Jiao Lian, who was following Zhu Youlang, was also puzzled.

The tunnel in front of everyone is very different from other tunnels. The tunnel entrance is not wide and the space inside is relatively small. It took less than three hours to dig it, and it was more than three meters long. Judging from the soil and rocks transported, it would probably take three or four days to dig it under the city.

After watching for a long time, Jiao Lian was very upset and couldn't help it. He plucked up the courage to go forward and said, "Your Majesty, Shu Chen is brave. This tunnel is not dug correctly. It is too narrow and not deep enough. I'm afraid it won't be able to collapse the city wall!"

Zhu Youlang nodded: "I know, I didn't plan to use the tunnel to dig the city wall."

Looking at the confusion expression on everyone's face, he smiled mysteriously and said, "I want to use a new tactic to collapse the outer city. Please wait patiently for a few days, my dear friends."

In this way, Ming soldiers pretended to attack the city during the day, and secretly dug out tunnels while harassing the tired enemy at night.

Du Yonghe, who thought he had mastered the real purpose of the Ming army, also cooperated with the Ming army to perform a play, and did not deliberately destroy the tunnel that the Ming army was digging outside the city. They were waiting, waiting for the tunnel to be almost dug, and gave the Ming army in the tunnel a fatal blow.

Because the new tunnel is small and the project volume is small, dozens of miners accompanying the army dug to the middle of the city wall in less than three days, and after everything is ready.

Zhu Youlang gave the order, but saw more than a dozen miners carrying a thick coffin, shouting horns, and carrying it into the tunnel. The coffin was closed very tightly. Judging from the miners' difficult expressions, it must be filled with something, very heavy.

Jiao Lian, Wu Jisi and others looked at each other, not knowing what the emperor wanted to do.

Zhu Youlang didn’t explain much, and he could reveal the answer every day.

The next day, the Ming army as usual formed an array outside the city, including crossbow teams, artillery teams, infantry phalanxes, card knives, etc., all entered the predetermined combat position, in an orderly manner.

Du Yonghe also stood quietly at the top of the city, waiting for the Ming army to start the attack. A few days ago, he was worried that the Ming army would attack hard and increase his casualties. Now that the Ming army has been feinting attacks these days, he breathed a sigh of relief. The longer the Ming army dragged outside the city, the more beneficial it would be to him. He wanted to keep consuming it with the Ming army.

"Ming Gouzi is going to attack the city again. The guys are ready for the rolling stones and wood. When they reach the base of the wall, they will smash it hard and kill his mother!"

"Slay Ming Gouzi to death!" The Qing soldiers also felt a sense of anger. The battles in the past few days have been too frustrating. The Ming Gouzi relied on the benefits of artillery to shoot at the top of the city every day, and they couldn't even show their heads.

The Qing soldiers were about to do something big when they received the military order, but suddenly they heard a loud thunderous sound of "boom!", and the ground was shaking, and then a huge thick smoke column rose up, accompanied by countless gravels flying everywhere. After the smoke and dust, a gap suddenly broke into a wall in the southeast corner of the city more than a hundred feet away!

Du Yonghe Xunsheng looked at him and was shocked. The location of the gap was the tunnel excavated by the Ming army. The gap was wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, spreading diagonally to both sides, and gravel was piled up one or two meters high. Although the gap was small, its defense ability was greatly reduced. As long as the Ming army bombed it with artillery, the gap could be expanded and the outer city completely lost its defense ability.

"How is it possible? It's only three days! It's only three days! Why did you dig a gap in such a solid brick wall?" Du Yonghe was stunned, with an unbelievable look on his face. He used the tunnel to dig a corner of the solid stone wall in three days, which was already beyond his imagination.

In fact, the miners in Zhu Youlang's baggage camp did not have that high tunnel excavation technology. The reason why they could collapse the city wall was not the tunnel, but gunpowder! Use gunpowder to blow up the city wall!

Although the power of black gunpowder is limited, as long as the amount is sufficient and the quality is good enough to make the gunpowder fully burn, the impact force it explodes instantly is enough to blow up the city wall.

During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of the late Qing Dynasty, the tactic of putting gunpowder in a coffin to blow up the city wall was out by the Taiping Army, and then it was blown up from Jintian, Guangxi to Jinling. The city of Nanjing was like a strong city wall, which was invincible and proved to be successful.

The Qing army at the top of the city was stunned by the explosion, and many people didn't even know that their waists fell to the ground. The Qing army at the gap in the southeast corner was even more miserable. Because of the powerful power of the explosion, they were all over the ground, with broken limbs and broken arms everywhere, either dead or injured. Most of the people who were not killed by the bomb were stunned by the shock waves.

In this scene, not only the Qing army was stunned, but even the Ming soldiers under the array of cities were stunned. I wonder why the strong city wall suddenly collapsed after the explosion. Only the miners and a few officers, such as Wu Jisi, Jiao Lian, Wang Fuzhi and others were thinking about something, as if they understood something.

Zhu Youlang saw this scene and nodded with satisfaction. At that time, because he was worried that the black gunpowder made by the craftsmen were of mixed ingredients and insufficient power, he deliberately asked to add more gunpowder to use quantity to make up for the quality gap. Unexpectedly, the first time he used it in Zhaoqing, the effect was pretty good.

After successfully detonating gunpowder, causing the collapse of the southeast corner of Zhaoqing, Zhu Youlang ordered the gunners of the gunshot to concentrate their firepower and bombard the gap, expanding the gap, and then blasting the earthen wall of the inner city out of the gap. This time, there will be no cost.

Under the skillful operation of Portuguese gunners, the eleven artillery turned the gun mouth one after another, and after precise distance measurement with a ruler, they aimed at the corner of the southeast wall, and shot after another. There were gaps in the corner of the southeast wall. After more than a dozen artillery swept, they could no longer withstand it. Large stones fell down, and soon the entire wall collapsed, and the dark red inner city wall could be clearly seen.

"Quick! Quick! Throw the scoundrel!" Du Yonghe, who reacted, jumped up in a hurry and rushed to the near the gap with hundreds of personal soldiers, trying to block the gap.

"Report to the general, the men can't rush up! Ming Gouzi's artillery is too fierce!" A Qianzong Military Academy led a few entourages to trot over and said with a sad face.

When Du Yonghe arrived near the gap, he saw broken rocks and broken wood splashing, and his limbs and arms were all over the ground, and then he felt how much firepower the Ming army was under in the gap.

"Is this God going to destroy me?" Du Yonghe murmured to himself, punching the wall with grief and anger.
Chapter completed!