I

Jining.

The news that Duoduo's main force had left only deceived Fei Ruhe for less than ten days. After all, there are Datong troops in every city. Although Duoduo came up with all kinds of deceiving tricks, the transfer of supplies still cannot deceive people.

There is no way to chase. If Zhang Tieniu hadn't returned to the army early, Yizhou City could only be carried by the peasants and soldiers defending the city.

Fei Ruhe chose to attack Jining regardless of the enemy's main force, because the siege artillery had arrived!

A total of six siege cannons were built, three of which were made in Macau, shipped to the Yangtze River by sea, and then sent to Fei Ruhe by the Grand Canal. The other three were manufactured in Jiangxi and shipped all the way to the battlefield in Henan.

These siege guns have a body weight of 3.5 tons and a diameter of about 20 cm. According to the British name, they should be called "63-pound guns".

Zhao Han borrowed this method and localized it, calling it "Forty-seven Jin Pao" (57.15 Jin).

But the "forty-seven-jin cannon" is really not majestic. Some soldiers followed the name of the Ming Dynasty and still called it the "mighty general cannon", or they called it the "six-thousand-jin cannon" based on the weight of the cannon body (actually 7,000 jin). .

At this moment, Zu Zeyuan had brought the Han army's inlaid white flag to help, and he was currently stationed in Jining City.

No matter it was Hong Chengchou, Zuo Liangyu or Zu Zeyuan, they didn't care much about Fei Ruhe's siege. Because there is a large army stationed in the city, and Jining's city is high and deep, as long as the spies in the city are strictly guarded, Fei Ruhe will not even think about breaking the city for a year.

The Jining city wall is 13 meters high, the wall base is 14 meters thick, and the wall top is 7 meters thick.

Even if you dig a tunnel and use gunpowder to blow it up, it's not enough to blow it up with a few hundred catties of gunpowder!

Hong Chengchou sat on the tower reading a book, and the people outside the city were still filling the moat. Zuo Liangyu was simply basking in the sun, thinking about the situation of the war in his mind, he always felt terrified these days.

"Cannon!"

Suddenly, a soldier guarding the city exclaimed.

The noise became louder and louder, Hong Chengchou finally couldn't sit still, got up and went to see what happened.

I saw a tripod set up with logs on the shore, and there are only a few such tripods. The specific details are not clear, there seems to be a pulley (pulley) device, and there are a lot of ropes. The enemy soldiers are pulling the pulley block, and something is pulled from the boat.

Hong Chengchou snatched the binoculars from the observer's hand, but saw that it was a cannon hoisted by a block of pulleys. It is slightly slender than the common Hongyi cannon, but the barrel is really thick.

Zu Zeyuan also ran over, snatched the binoculars from Hong Chengchou, and said dryly, "This time I'm in trouble!"

Another artillery officer who mastered mathematics came to the designated artillery position and took out a measuring instrument to measure angles and distances.

The Ming Dynasty had artillery distance measuring technology. There were hundreds of scales on the pole, and the Pythagorean oblique string was used to measure and calculate. Sun Yuanhua also wrote "Western Magic Machine", which introduced European artillery ranging technology.

Three siege guns with wheeled carts.

The peasants pushed the cannon cart with all their might, and headed for the artillery officer's side. This kind of cannon carriage is also specially made, made of copper, iron, and hardwood. The recoil force of the siege cannon is fully cushioned by the wheels and the ground.

After repeated calculations, the Datong Army began to test artillery.

Hong Chengchou, Zuo Liangyu, Zu Zeyuan and others ran down the tower to avoid the cannonballs outside the city.

According to the weight unit hundreds of years later, a cannonball weighs more than 57 catties, and it is very laborious to stuff the cannonball into the barrel!

In addition to the three heavy siege artillery, twenty-five field artillery were also aimed at the same section of the city wall.

Here comes the wonderful scene.

Three heavy siege artillery pieces and twenty-five field artillery pieces fired at the same section of the city wall one after another. Every time a door is fired, the data will be recorded, and then the angle adjustment will be made.

"Boom boom boom boom!"

Most of the shells were too far or too close, and only three hit the target, one of which hit the parapet at the top.

No one could suppress it, and no one suppressed it. Anyway, all the guards on that section of the city wall ran away.

Every time the heavy siege artillery was fired, it would be pushed back to its original position. There were ten soldiers pushing the artillery cart alone.

"boom!"

Finally, a heavy artillery hit, and the 47 Ming Jin (57 Shi Jin) iron bullet slammed on the city wall. The bricks of the outer city wall were smashed into pieces, but the rammed earth city wall inside could absorb the kinetic energy of the shells.

The city wall of Jining is too thick!

Only Zu Zeyuan's Eight Banners of the Han Army were in the city, and the rest were all Han surrendered troops, including Shandong surrendered troops and frontier troops surrendered.

Some Shandong generals had already made up their minds to escape. Whenever the city wall collapsed, they would flee at any time. Anyway, it was impossible to work for the Manchu Qing.

At least, they will not give their lives to the Manchus until the Manchus have not won the battle.

The buildings close to that section of the city wall were simply out of luck. Half a day later, the city wall did not collapse, but the nearby houses collapsed.

In the evening, the shelling ceased.

Holding a lantern, Hong Chengchou walked into a mostly collapsed shop. He squatted down and stared at the cannonball in a daze. Hong Chengchou had never seen a cannonball as big as his head.

Zu Zeyuan also came over and knelt down, looked at it for a while and said, "Get out of the city and grab the artillery, we can't let the enemy bombard like this!"

Zuo Liangyu reminded: "I can't move it."

"Then blow it up!" Zu Zeyuan said.

Zuo Liangyu said: "If we can blow up the enemy's cannon, unless our army can win a big victory. Why do we still blow it up? It has already been captured by us."

"We can only attack the camp at night!" Zu Zeyuan said.

Zuo Liangyu said: "Attacking the camp at night may only cause temporary chaos. The camp outside the city has always been cautious. If there is only a moment of chaos, where can you find the enemy's giant artillery?"

Zu Zeyuan fell silent for a moment.

Hong Chengchou said: "The ten kings have brought the main force to Yizhou. Our army must not go out of the city. We can only wait for the news of the ten kings. As for the enemy's giant artillery, let them continue to bombard the city wall. Defend the city at the gap."

This is bullshit. With the morale of those soldiers and generals in the city, once the city is broken, they will flee immediately.

But Hong Chengchou couldn't help it. He only had the thousands of white flags inlaid with the Han army brought by Zu Zeyuan.

The next day, the artillery was launched again to attack the city, still collectively aiming at the city wall yesterday.

Twenty-eight guns fired in sequence.

After a shot is fired, immediately clean the barrel and reload the ammunition. At the same time, the second gun fired, and so on, endlessly.

The civilian troops, under the cover of artillery, continued to fill up the moat.

The moat in Jining needs to be filled for ten days and half a month, it is wide and deep!

On the fourth day of the bombing of the city, Zu Zeyuan finally couldn't bear it, and took Wu Zhenchao and Ha Ying out of the city to attack the artillery unit.

Four thousand Datong firearms were lined up neatly by the moat.

Zu Zeyuan stopped to look around, then went back in despair. He didn't dare to go around from other directions, he was afraid that he would not be able to return to the city if he went too far, and none of the friendly troops in the city was reliable.

"Report!"

Yiqi rushed from the west, crossed the canal after a long detour to the north, and finally came to Jining City.

Before Hong Chengchou asked a question, Zu Zeyuan said, "What military situation?"

The soldier who delivered the letter said: "Juye is gone. Caozhou's rebel army besieged Juye for several days, and some generals rebelled in the city. The inside and outside should work together to attack Juye City."

Zu Zeyuan remained silent.

Hong Chengchou looked helpless, there were too many rebels in Shandong. There were "rebellions" everywhere in the rear. In order to maintain the stability behind him, Zuo Liangyu sent two generals to lead troops back one after another to suppress them.

This led to a shortage of troops, and they were unable to take the initiative to attack the rest of the counties, so they could only shrink into a group and stick to the city.

Zuo Liangyu felt that he was ruthless enough, but in the end Manqing was even more powerful than him, forcing the grain requisition to drive the gentry back!

Of course, Xu Ying sent a lot of efforts to spread rumors, instigate, and link up with the secret work sent out. The rumors that Han women must first give them to the Tartar official's bridal chamber when they get married have become widely known.

Datong's secret work only needs to spread the rumors, and doesn't care about the follow-up at all, and the people will spread it by word of mouth.

The more outrageous the rumor, the faster it spreads!

Moreover, the common people took the initiative to add oil and vinegar, and the more the content spread, the more evil it became. But no matter how evil it is, some people believe it, because during the reign of Chongzhen, after the Tartars broke through the customs, they once robbed Shandong all the way, burning, killing, looting and committing all kinds of crimes.

Yan Yingyuan and other rebels joined forces with Liangshan rebels and rebel soldiers from Caozhou, and now they have finally captured Juye. These mobs have gathered 150,000 troops!

It's really a mob. Among the 150,000 rebels, only ten thousand can understand the flag order.

Among them are a large number of civilians, whose families have been destroyed, and they really have no food to eat. Villages in some counties and counties are empty. Men, women, old and young join the army together, just to eat and drink.

They hated Zuo Liangyu and Man Qing deeply, and joined the rebel army one after another. Most of them didn't know what to do when they fought.

But they broke Juye, and the next city was Jiaxiang.

Once Jiaxiang is broken, the rebel army can come to Jining and join Fei Ruhe's main force of the Datong army.

Jiaxiang County.

Guard Zhang Yingxiang's scalp was already numb, and more than 100,000 people were killed outside the city. He almost ordered the Datong army flag to be replaced on the spot.

But the situation of the battle was unclear, and Zhang Yingxiang didn't dare to turn against him easily. What if the Manchu Qing army won?

Don't wait for it to get dark, anyway, his family is not in the city, and his property is not in the city either. Before more than 100,000 rebels besieged the city, Zhang Yingxiang led his troops to abandon the city and fled, circled north and rushed to Jining to join Zuo Liangyu.

If you don't spare the road, the Datong Army Navy has occupied the canal near Jining!

"Why are you here?" Zuo Liangyu asked.

Zhang Yingxiang replied: "More than 200,000 rebellious troops attacked Jiaxiang, and the humble post really couldn't be defended."

Zuo Liangyu became more and more worried. The development of the situation was very different from what he had imagined.

This is no longer a war between the Eight Banners of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties and the Datong Army, but the entire Shandong people who rose up to fight against the Manchus.

Historically, the Manchu Qing occupied Shandong for ten years before completely eradicating the rebels in Shandong.

Now the Datong Army is making rumors carefully, colluding and instigating everywhere, and with the Datong Army as its confidence, the number of Shandong rebels is several times larger than in history.

The vast ocean of the people's war!

"boom!"

The crack in the city wall became bigger, and Hong Chengchou's face became more and more gloomy.

The Datong navy occupied the canal, and the Jining defenders couldn't leave if they wanted to.

It is also possible to withdraw the troops, but they cannot take away the supplies and food. Because the more troops are withdrawn by land, the more civilians are needed.

Once there are more civilians and a group of demoralized soldiers and generals with low morale, I am afraid that the Datong army will not be able to catch up for a few miles, and Hong Chengchou's side will change from withdrawing troops to fleeing.

"boom!"

Another heavy artillery hit, Hong Chengchou was terrified to see it.

A messenger ran from the east, and after entering the city, he said in horror: "Sishui County is gone, and the enemy is besieging Qufu County!"

Zu Zeyuan was terrified: "Where is the army of His Highness the Ten Kings?"

"The ten kings were defeated and killed!" said the messenger.

Hong Chengchou and Zu Zeyuan looked at each other and looked at Zuo Liangyu at the same time.

Zuo Liangyu was far away, he wanted to know the military situation, but Hong Chengchou wouldn't let him listen.

On Jining's side, the general has long since left his heart.

Zu Zeyuan recruited his own soldiers, gathered around Zuo Liangyu and said, "The ten kings have been defeated. Jining cannot hold on for a long time. We will withdraw to Dongping with our elite troops tonight."

Zuo Liangyu lowered his head and said, "Okay!"

Zuo Liangyu was held hostage. If he said no, he would be hacked to death by Zu Zeyuan.