Under the city of Gaizhou.

The Chu army was already digging the sixth trench and began to build the third earth wall. This time the earth wall was no longer just as tall as the chest, but was meter tall. This earth wall was less than fifty steps away from the Gaizhou City Wall.

This earthen wall is taller and thicker, more than meter wide. It is called an earthen wall, but it looks more like a large embankment. Moreover, this embankment is still winding, not straight, with many prominent edges and corners. At each edge, there is a higher bastion with cannons on it.

Between the protruding angular turrets, there is a horse road on the wall. There is a female wall built on one side of Gaizhou, and there are many light infantry musketeers standing behind it.

The soldiers surrounded Gaizhou for half a month, and the Chu army's artillery fired for half a month. The engineers even guided the infantry to dig out six trenches outside Gaizhou City and build three earth walls until the encirclement approached fifty steps below the city.

The Gaizhou city wall was already full of holes and was full of gaps. Kong Youde's rebels had completely given up blocking the gap a few days ago. Earlier, they also tried to put the cannons to the top of the city and fight back against the Chu army. But every time their cannons fired, they would immediately be hit ten times and a hundred times, and in a blink of an eye, they would blow their artillery company into scum. After several times, Kong Youde's few cannons were gone.

Until now, Kong Youde's artillery has been blown up all, and the artillery has almost died. The city walls have been blasted out countless gaps. They are simply unable to stop the Chu army from approaching step by step. The enemy towers on the Gaizhou city walls have been knocked down, and the defenders on the top of the city are unable to stand.

"What kind of tactic is this?"

Li Chunjiang, who had just arrived from the capital, looked at Gaizhou City in surprise and asked Liu Jun in confusion. He had just been appointed as the censor of the Liaodong Inspector. Originally, the imperial court had an Liaodong Inspector, but now Liaodong is divided into two major towns, so Liaodong has also appointed a set of officials such as the governor, the governor, the military supervisor.

Li Chunjiang is the new top scholar. He has served in the Hanlin Academy for less than half a year. The emperor ordered him to come to Liaodong because he was interested in establishing the Nine-Headed Bird and had a good relationship with Liu Jun. Although the Liaodong Inspector was only the seventh rank, he was a tour of the emperor for the hunting. He made a decision on major matters and made a decision on small matters. He was low in office but had a weight. He was one of the officials of the newly established town in Liaodong.

Liu Jun, who was standing beside him, replied, "This is called boiling frogs in warm water, and taking steps to make the enemy impeccable."

Li Chunjiang nodded, "Boil the frog in warm water. It's really true. At the beginning, the water was not hot, and the frog swims in the pot. When the water slowly heats up, he can't jump even if he wants to. Kong Youde was surrounded by his stepfather, and there was nothing else but waiting to die."

Governor Fan Zhiwan felt that Liu Jun was doing this in an extravagant way.

"In fact, under the bombardment of artillery fire, the Gaizhou city wall had already been gaping many times, and the rebels were also disagreeable. If they had launched a charge to seize the city earlier, Gaizhou city would have gone down a little earlier, so why would it take half a month to fight?"

"Have you ever heard of trapped beasts fighting? Fifty thousand rebels are not a small number, especially Kong Youde's troops are still very strong and fighting fiercely. If the city wall is broken and the city is charged, do you know how many lives will be filled in such a gap battle? Even if you take the gap and kill into the city, it doesn't mean you have won the war. There are chaos in the streets and alleys in the city, and our artillery will not be able to support it, because the melee will be in the artillery fire. The artillery fire will easily hurt our own people."

Liu Jun shook his head and explained to Li Chunjiang, which could be considered to explain to Fan Zhiwan and a group of civil servants and other civil servants.

"Our army has 30,000 and rebels have 50,000. Our army is still in a weak position. In this kind of city offensive and defensive battle, we are actually in an unfavorable situation. If the streets and alleys in the city are fighting in chaos, our artillery is not only useless, but also the power of the most important musket is greatly reduced."

Street battles in the city are not suitable for fire in line up and shooting in a musket team. If the flintlock smoothbore gun, which always has the problem of accuracy, is difficult to fight against soldiers with cold weapons.

Because of these reasons, Liu Jun never planned to use traditional siege tactics from the beginning.

The rebels had a tenacious fighting will. They fought fiercely and would not collapse and surrender as soon as the city was broken. Moreover, Liu Jun never thought of using human life to fill it in exchange for this victory.

"Although there will be these troubles, the soldiers can still win in one fell swoop." Fan Zhiwan insisted.

"But Futai knows that if you follow the tactics you said, you can certainly win this city and win, how many people will die? 35,000 or 10,000?" Liu Jun asked back.

Fan Zhiwan said unwillingly, "The battle formation is always inevitable to suffer casualties, and the army is not in charge of the army."

Liu Jun snorted coldly from his nostrils, "The battle formation is inevitable and casualties, and the soldiers under my command are indeed not afraid of death. But this does not mean that I can not seriously consider the casualties and squander the lives of the soldiers at will. As the commander of the first army, the soldiers entrust their lives to me. I bear heavy responsibility for the lives of every soldier. When it is time to go, none of us nine-headed birds will be afraid of death, and when it is time to rush, we will definitely rush. But if it is not necessary, we will not recklessly die."

Fan Zhiwan didn't expect Liu Jun to contradict him like this, and he felt unhappy.

Liu Jun ignored Fan Zhiwan's feelings. He attached great importance to the lives of soldiers. Soldiers are the most precious. If they are not necessary, they cannot fight this kind of life-filling tactic, and at least they cannot take the initiative to fight this kind of battle. As Fan Zhiwan said, there are cannons that can break the city walls of Gaizhou. This is indeed a rare progress compared to traditional siege wars.

Generally speaking, when facing a city guarded by heavy troops, the siege was quite tragic. The wooden stakes outside the city were cut down, the trenches were filled, and then the ants were attached to the city. Every step was that countless casualties were killed or injured. Now the Chu army had such sharp cannons that could directly blow the city wall, which had already reduced many casualties.

But for Liu Jun, this is not enough.

If the city wall is broken, the immediate attack will still lead to heavy casualties, fighting for gaps, fighting in the streets and alleys. These will lose many important advantages of the Chu army. Cannons will be useless, and muskets will greatly reduce their power in street battles. Such chaos will take the lives of countless Chu soldiers.

And Liu Jun believes that this is not necessarily the case.

He would rather let the soldiers sweat more, dig trenches and build walls and build turrets, and gradually advance step by step, and would rather spend more ammunition. He would push them under the city wall in this way, seize the city wall, always maintain a defensive attack, and minimize casualties.

Liu Jun's tactics are difficult for civil servants such as Fan Zhiwan. Even former Minister of War, who had fought many wars, did not say that, but he felt that Liu Jun cared too much about the casualties of the soldiers.

In the minds of many Ming officials, soldiers are actually the most valuable. It is normal to die hundreds or thousands of people in a war. For example, if a war is attacked by 50,000 rebels in Gaizhou City, it feels normal to die thousands or tens of thousands of people.

"It has been fifteen days since the siege of the city, and the city walls are full of holes. The enemy towers of the city have been destroyed. Our musketeers can attack the city directly, and the rebels on the top of the city can no longer gain a foothold. Today, we can capture the city walls of the city." Liu Jun announced to Li Chunjiang and the rest of the officials.

Another round of gunfire began. This time, it was mainly mortars, howitzers and howitzers. The shells exploded over the city, and more shells crossed the city walls and fell behind the city to explode.

The counterattack on the top of the city was very weak. Kong Youde had known that the city wall could not be defended, so he didn't want to defend it anymore. He seized the time these days and repaired another inner wall in the center of the city, preparing to resist to the end.

After half an hour of artillery bombardment, under the cover of the firepower of the musketeers on the city, the heavy infantrymen with iron armor and cotton armor on the outside, holding shields and waist knives and long spears began to advance toward Gaizhou City in a group of neat manner, behind them were teams of musketeers.

Liu Jun and others stood behind and stared at them, their eyes moving forward as they walked.

The Gaizhou City Wall, which had been covered with gaps, was like a large sieve. The heavy infantry of the Chu army did not need any tools and stepped on the collapsed brick and stone ramp and went all the way.

The red flag was flying, and under the guidance of the flag, a team of infantry from Dongcheng took the lead in crossing a gap in the city wall and entering the city.

"No enemies!"

The soldiers standing on the watchtower quickly shouted out the latest battle situation, and the team of soldiers successfully entered the city, followed by the second team and the third team.

"Kong Youde didn't try to intercept him?"

Fan Zhiwan said something unexpectedly.

Liu Jun smiled, "In this city wall, the rebels have thrown down at least a few thousand corpses in the past half month. They know very well that they can't defend this broken city wall at all."

"But they don't guard the city wall and retreat wherever they go, where can they retreat?"

"I will never die until the Yellow River. I will not hit the wall and never look back. The rebels may still be waiting for Huang Jitai to send troops to rescue him."

On the 15th day of the siege of the city, the Chu army finally seized the city walls of Gaizhou. During this process, there were only a scattered small-scale battles, which were quickly repelled by the Chu army.

Kong Youde voluntarily gave up the sieve-like city wall and retreated his troops to the center of the city. He built several new city walls there and temporarily built an inner fort, wanting to resist to the end.

"Move the cannons on all four walls and rush him down from a high place." Liu Jun stood on the city gate tower, looked at the rebel fortress in the center of the city, and said without hesitation.

"I want to fight stubbornly, and I want to survive and dream in the daytime!"

A cannon began to be transported to the city and hung up to the top of the city. The Chu soldiers began to strengthen the defense of the four walls and further compress the rebel space.

"Master, the rebels have slammed the white flag. They want to send someone to pay their respects to the Master!"

Liu Jun also saw the shaking white flags rising from the rebel fortress.

"Let them come."

Liu Jun personally met the rebel envoy, who was the family general of Kong Youde, and brought letters from Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming and others.

“We are willing to negotiate.”

"No, I only accept unconditional surrender!" Liu Jun did not give them any room for bargaining, but directly gave his own conditions, only accepting surrender, or unconditional surrender, and not having a peace talk. (To be continued.)

ps: Thanks to Baiyun’s city lord for the support of the scale of all things!
Chapter completed!