I

Outside Shangqiu City.

More than 30,000 hungry people with their families were thrown back to the newly occupied Yongcheng County, where they were divided into households and farmed. They are not needed here, and keeping them will only consume military rations. It is better to arrange civil affairs work early.

Another 40,000 rebels (starving people) were transferred to Yucheng County and Xiayi County by Zhao Han.

These two counties are also newly occupied and are close to Shandong. If the situation in Shandong becomes unstable, we can support Shandong at any time, or at least help defend the city.

After the war is won, these hungry people can divide their land and settle down locally, which can save a lot of immigration expenses.

It's just that there are more men than women, and the sex ratio is extremely abnormal.

War is like this, men are miserable, women are even worse. Therefore, even if Manchu women were captured, Zhao Han ordered not to kill them, but to distribute them all to good people nearby to start families.

Zhao Han plans to engage in human trade with the Netherlands and buy some indigenous women from Southeast Asia. Otherwise, there will be too many singles in the north, which will not only be detrimental to population growth, but will also cause various social problems.

The policy has been discussed, and bachelors in the north who want to find a wife should go to the government to apply. Zhao Han only charges the cost price, and the bachelor can pay in installments, and he can always pay it off in ten or eight years.

Zhao Han was still in the mood to think about civil affairs, but the defenders in Shangqiu City were about to suffer a psychological breakdown.

Fifty-three artillery pieces have been bombarding the city wall for eight consecutive days!

Shangqiu City is tall and strong, and it has not collapsed yet. But that section of the city wall has been cracked in many places. The largest crack is half a meter wide and may fall down at any time.

Tong Yangjia couldn't wait for Dorgon's reinforcements, so he ordered to summon the rear city defenders to station troops in Shangqiu City for support. More than 10,000 troops were added one after another, and the number of defenders reached 40,000. It seemed that they wanted to defend the gap after the city wall collapsed.

"Your Majesty, Liaodong has sent an urgent military message!"

Zhao Han opened the letter and looked at it, and said with great joy: "Well done!"

The artillery continued to blast the city wall. Zhao Han summoned the civil and military officials and said with a smile: "The 11th Division attacked Liaodong from the sea last winter. They successively captured Jinzhou, Fuzhou, Gaizhou, and Haizhou, and fought all the way to the outside of Shenyang City. Tens of thousands of people were taken away from Haizhou and Shenyang. Currently, Jinzhou, Fuzhou, and Gaizhou are used as strongholds. Households are divided into fields, and sowing has begun!"

Everyone was overjoyed and praised him one after another.

Hou Fangyu, who followed the army to listen to the matter, said with sincerity: "Your Majesty's army is truly a heavenly soldier and a heavenly general. The Tatar slaves never imagined that our Datong army could still cross the sea and attack. The old nest was emptied of the population. If Dorgon got this news, the Tatars The chiefs will immediately lose their morale."

Mao Yuanyi suggested: "We can order all the troops in our army to defend the city for as long as possible. When the news from Liaodong comes, the Tatar chiefs are eager to return home, and it will not be too late for a decisive battle."

Zhao Han shook his head and said: "We must fight how we should fight. We cannot hope that the Tatars will get into trouble."

"Your Majesty is right, whether we can win the war depends on us." Li Zheng agreed.

At this moment, another urgent military message came: "Your Majesty, urgent report from Shandong!"

Zhao Han opened the letter, couldn't help but laugh a few times, and said: "Zhang Mingshan (Zhang Tieniu) wiped out the Duduo tribe in Feixian County, the puppet kings Duduo and Geng Zhongming, and the puppet Qing Meile Ezhen (deputy commander) Li They all died in the first battle. Of the nearly ten thousand puppet Qing Eight Banners troops, only Ilde escaped with more than a thousand cavalry."

"Long live your Majesty!"

The civil and military officials who came with the army were so happy and excited that they knelt down and shouted long live.

Zhao Han said with a smile: "Everyone, get up. Don't kneel down every now and then."

On the ninth day of the bombardment of Shangqiu, another report of the Shandong battle was received: Fei Ruhe captured Jining, captured Hong Chengchou and Zuo Liangyu, and killed Zu Zeyuan, the deputy commander of the Eight Banners of the Han Army.

After receiving good news one after another, the morale of the whole army was high.

Hou Fangyu took the opportunity to go to Zhao Han and said: "Your Majesty, since Zuo Liangyu has been captured alive, he can be ordered to recruit all the Han troops in Shandong. In this way, the Shandong soldiers under Azige will inevitably choose to defect in large numbers and destroy the remaining puppet Qing forces in Shandong. The Eight Banners became a lone army!"

Zhao Han suddenly laughed playfully and asked, "Zuo Liangyu and your father seem to be old acquaintances?"

Hou Fangyu was startled and immediately fell to his knees in fright: "Your Majesty..."

"There is no need to explain," Zhao Han said, "There are some things you shouldn't say. Now that I have said it, don't blame me for overthinking it. The situation in Shandong has been decided. There is no need for Zuo Liangyu to surrender, and you should not do anything wrong. Brain.”

Hou Fangyu felt sweat dripping from his vest, bowed his head and resigned.

Hou Xun had two great masterpieces in his life. One was to promote Yuan Chonghuan, and the other was to promote Zuo Liangyu. He could be said to have created both civil and military talents with his own hands.

Zuo Liangyu was originally an officer in western Liaoning. Because the border general planned a mutiny to raise wages and threatened the court to quickly distribute money, Zuo Liangyu was pushed out as one of the scapegoats afterwards. After losing his official position, he made a living by robbing, and actually robbed court supplies. He fled all the way to the capital to put up a bid to sell his life, but Hou Xun took a fancy to him and bought him as a domestic slave.

As a result, Zuo Liangyu began to rise rapidly. When he lost a battle, someone helped him to blame him, and when he won a battle, he was immediately rewarded generously.

During the years when Yang Sichang was Minister of the Ministry of War, he could not command Zuo Liangyu at all. Because Yang Sichang and the Donglin Party are mortal enemies, and Zuo Liangyu is a dog raised by the Donglin Party.

Hou Fangyu jumped out at this moment and suggested that Zuo Liangyu recruit and surrender the Shandong soldiers. What on earth did the Hou family want to do?

Regardless of the purpose, the future of the Hou family was ruined by Hou Fangyu's words. Zhao Han would never allow collusion between civil servants and military generals.

In history, apart from promoting Yuan Chonghuan and Zuo Liangyu, Hou Xun did not do much in personnel matters in his later years. Li Zicheng came to Beijing, and Hou Xun Ma Liu went to Li Zicheng. Because he was in prison, he escaped from being punished and reached the level of minister.

After the Manchus came, Hou Xun had a history of seeking refuge with Li Zicheng and did not dare to become an official in Nanming. Although he lived in seclusion at home, in the third year after the Manchus entered the customs, he asked his second son to take the Manchu imperial examination.

Even Hou Fangyu, seeing the Nanming regime being destroyed one after another, hesitantly participated in the Manchu imperial examination.

Hou Fangyu even offered advice to the Qing Dynasty to solve the problem of flooding the Yuyuan rebel army. This public case is controversial. There was a gap of more than a year from Hou Fangyu's advice to the flooding of the Yuyuan army.

At this moment, Hou Fangyu left in despair.

He and his son had been struggling for more than half a year, and now Hou Xun's life and death were still uncertain, but everything was ruined by one sentence.

…

Artillery was still pounding that section of the wall.

A letter of success for the Datong Army was shot into the city from another city wall. Although Tong Yangjia was prohibited from keeping these letters privately, some people still quietly picked them up and looked at them.

Tong Yangjia himself was watching it, and was horrified after reading it.

The old nest in Liaodong was taken away?

The population outside Shenyang City was also taken away, and the population inside and outside Haizhou City was completely evacuated?

Duduo, Geng Zhongming, Li Shutai, and Zu Zeyuan all died in the battle?

Was Hong Chengchou captured alive?

Tong Yangjia couldn't believe these contents were true.

Yes, it must be false. In order to undermine the morale of his army, the enemy made up rumors and shot books into the city!

Tong Yangjia summoned all the generals and read the contents of the letter in public. He knew that he couldn't hide it: "Don't panic, otherwise you will spread rumors for the enemy. His Highness the Ten Kings (Duduo) is so brave and good at fighting, how can he be defeated by an unknown person?" Our Eight Banners strong force is invincible in the world, and the Puppet Tongans and the Southern Barbarians will never win. Liaodong is far away, how can the Puppet Tongong army cross the sea to attack in a sneak attack? The regent has already arrived with an army of 100,000, and will reach Shangqiu within a day or two. By then, We can annihilate all the enemies outside the city!"

Dorgon was indeed coming, and he had sent a message quickly a few days ago, telling Tong Yangjia to hold Shangqiu no matter what. Even if the city wall collapses, we must hold on to the gap and wait for him to come, then cooperate from the inside and the outside, and attack from the front and back.

If Dorgon's army hadn't been approaching, some of the surrendered generals in the city would have turned their backs and dedicated themselves to the city.

But the Shangqiu city wall has been shelled for ten days. Can it still hold on for another one or two days?

"boom!"

On the eleventh day, a heavy cannon hit and the lower half of the city wall collapsed.

The collapse was a bit embarrassing. The foundation of the wall was too thick, but it is still standing strong until now. The broken part of the city wall is more than two meters above the ground, and you still need to build a ladder to climb up.

There is no way to continue bombarding. The 10-meter-thick wall foundation is now only about 2 meters high. How can it continue to collapse?

"Prepare to attack the city!" Zhao Han ordered.

Tong Yangjia, Sun Dingliao, Zhao Zhilong and other generals were relieved when they saw this situation. The city wall is more than two meters high, enough to hold on for a few more days.

The defenders in the city began to set up pots on the walls on both sides of the gap, intending to heat oil and gold juice and pour it out. Stones and rolling logs were also carried towards the city one after another.

"Continue the bombardment!"

"Boom boom boom!"

The fifty-three artillery pieces that had stopped suddenly fired shells again after the enemy set up a pot to burn oil.

The soldiers on the city fled one after another, and a small piece of the city wall was blown down and killed more than ten people.

The two divisions of regular troops, thousands of Datong peasants and soldiers, and tens of thousands of rebels began to approach Shangqiu City from three sides.

But not only attack from the gap, but also attack the rest of the city walls!

Moreover, Zhao Han's personal troops, 300 of them, began to wear armor.

European-style full-body plate armor, even the face was covered by a visor.

The previous idea was to have heavy armored troops in each division, but it did not fit the idea of ​​focusing on fire muskets. Therefore, Zhao Han selected 300 of the heavily armored troops he had trained to use as his own troops, and also obtained two sets of full-body plate armor from Macau to imitate.

Plate armor is indeed easy to use, but it is not suitable for large-scale promotion.

Even in Europe, there are only a few elite troops and equipment. In Europe of this era, the situation was the same as in China. The most common equipment was cloth armor.

The hydraulic hammered plate armor material is not even a rough embryo.

For a set of plate armor, you must first determine who is using it. Then the body data is measured, height, short, fat, and thin are tailored, and then slowly hammered with various tools.

If someone suddenly becomes fat, his plate armor is useless. The father died and passed down the plate armor, but the son's body shape was not right, so it could only be left as a family heirloom. How could this kind of armor become so popular?

The three hundred plate-armored warriors moved forward at a snail's pace. It wasn't until they got closer that the defenders could see clearly.

Tong Yangjia's mouth went dry and he said: "Iron... Iron Man Army?"

Sun Dingliao was stunned: "What kind of armor is this? The whole body is made of iron. I don't know if a fire gun can penetrate it."