I

"Farmers and soldiers go to war!"

"Farmers and soldiers go to war!"

When Liu Dazhang heard the missionary officer's voice, he stood up and picked up the iron-headed wooden gun he had whittled.

Suddenly, Liu Dazhang put away his wooden gun again and ran into a house with a rope. He tied up his pregnant wife and said to the women and children in the house who could not participate in the war: "Help keep an eye on my wife. Don't become a Tatar spy!"

"Captain Liu, go ahead and we'll keep an eye on you!" another pregnant woman said.

Liu Dazhang's wife cried: "I'm going to give you a baby soon, and you still can't trust me?"

"We'll talk about it after you give birth." Liu Dazhang said this and went out with his gun without looking back.

Liu Dazhang's wife was his former mistress, a Manchu woman kidnapped by the Datong Army.

As for those in the house, most of them were robbed. There are Manchu women, there are Han women, there are even Mongolian women. They are all pregnant, and the Liaodong Peninsula is about to usher in a wave of childbirth.

Too many people have evacuated into the city, and there are almost no enough houses to live in. These pregnant women are being cared for intensively.

"Peasants and soldiers go to war, farmers and soldiers go to war!"

Liu Dazhang shouted along the way that he was a serf last year, but this year he has become the captain of the peasant soldiers of the Datong Army, managing thirty peasant soldiers from Liaodong.

Not far away, Jin Guozhen also came with farmers.

Jin Guozhen commanded Korean peasants and soldiers, all of whom were Korean serfs captured by the Manchu Qing Dynasty. It was the Datong Army who liberated them and divided their fields for farming.

There are also a large number of women who are not pregnant, who are also organized to carry supplies, and can also go into battle with weapons at critical moments. These are the family members of the soldiers of the 11th Division. Their parents and children stayed in their hometown, and their wives moved to Liaodong to live with their husbands. The 11th Division has been stationed in Liaodong for a long time, so the husband and wife must be reunited.

Outside Gaizhou City, the Manchu and Qing Dynasties were ready to attack.

Jin Guozhen did not need a missionary to boost morale, but said to the North Korean peasants and soldiers: "We were all kidnapped from North Korea by the Tatars. Ten of us left our hometown, and now at most one or two are still alive. There is not enough food to eat, and the Tatars Let us starve to death; if it is too cold in winter, we will freeze to death. We work so hard to cultivate the land for the Tatars and we don’t even have enough to eat. Do you still want to live that kind of life?"

"I don't want to!" North Korean peasant soldiers roared.

Jin Guozhen added: "The heavenly soldiers and generals of the Datong Army saved us from the Tatars. Many of you have no surnames. The Datong Army gave you your own surnames. What a kindness it is! The King of North Korea does not Give you a surname. The Tatars don’t give you a surname. Only the Datong Army gives you a surname. The Datong Army also divides your fields and allocates women for you to get married and start a family. If Gaizhou City is attacked, your fields will be gone. , your family is gone, your wife is gone, and your surname is gone. Do you want to fight with the Datong Army?"

"Fight it! Fight it!"

The North Korean peasants and soldiers roared hysterically, as if they could pounce out at any time and bite the enemy with their teeth.

Jin Guozhen pointed at a peasant soldier and asked, "What's your name?"

"Zhao Dinggui!" the peasant soldier replied.

Jin Guozhen asked again: "Why are you called Zhao Dinggui!"

Zhao Dinggui roared and replied: "Zhao of Datong Emperor Zhao Bodhisattva, Dinggui of General Hu Dinggui!"

Jin Guozhen asked another person: "What is your name?"

The peasant soldier replied: "Kill the prisoners without mercy. General Hu's troops will kill all the Tartar prisoners!"

Jin Guozhen said to the Korean peasants and soldiers: "You people, either follow His Majesty the Emperor's surname Zhao, or follow General Hu's surname Hu. Although you are from North Korea, you are all Chinese from now on and are reputable citizens of the Celestial Dynasty." We are born as Zhao Bodhisattva’s people, and we die as Zhao Bodhisattva’s ghosts. Long live His Majesty Emperor Zhao Bodhisattva!”

"Long live His Majesty Emperor Zhao Bodhisattva!"

These Korean peasants and soldiers were almost fanatical, and their eyes were all red.

When the leader of Korea surrendered, the Manchu Qing plundered half a million people from Korea. Either die of illness, exhaustion, freezing, or starvation, or even serve as cannon fodder during the siege. By this time, they have already survived.

They had suffered too much, and even if they were honest serfs, they would most likely die abnormally. As long as there is a glimmer of hope, I will never want to live a life of darkness again.

Among the people of Liaodong, Zhao Han's nickname is not Zhao Tianwang or Mr. Zhao, but Zhao Bodhisattva who rescued people in distress.

There are no doctors in remote villages, so if I get sick, I would kneel down and pray to Bodhisattva Zhao for protection.

"Boom boom boom!"

The bombardment continued, and the Manchu and Qing artillery aimed at the Datong artillery on the city wall. The Datong Army's artillery aimed at the carts pushed through the trenches and earth wall passages.

A large number of people cooked gold juice and boiling oil in the city, and waited until it boiled before moving to the city to avoid being accidentally knocked over by artillery fire.

The Manchu and Qing camp in the south of the city moved from the pontoon bridge that had been built long ago to the north bank of the Daqing River, and focused on attacking the east, west and north sides of Gaizhou City - the south side was close to the river.

At this time, the reinforcements from Lu Xiangsheng and others were unable to attack halfway. Because there were fortifications on both sides of the river where the Manchus crossed the river, it took almost two months to build it up like an iron barrel.

Similarly, although Dorgon had more than 70,000 Eight Banners soldiers, he would rather keep bombarding Gaizhou City than attack the reinforcement camp of more than 20,000 people. Because the defenses of the reinforcement camp are getting stronger and stronger, if they cannot be broken down quickly, the defenders in the city may seize the opportunity to attack the Manchu army from the north and south at the critical moment.

Seeing the smoke rising from Gaizhou City, Li Zheng ordered: "Take a boat and go around the back of the Tatars!"

Some of the ships were sent to harass them with cavalry. The remaining ships will definitely not be able to transport the army at once, and can only be transported slowly in several batches.

For fear of being attacked by the Manchus, the landing site was chosen on a beach ten miles northwest of Gaizhou.

The first batch of landing troops quickly built simple fortifications with baggage supplies and stayed there to receive the next batch of friendly troops.

"Your Highness the Regent, there is a Nanman army coming ashore from the sea behind you!" The Manchu sentries quickly discovered the situation.

Dorgon said: "Ignore him, be careful to guard the camp."

There was no way to turn around and attack the reinforcements first because the siege had already begun.

The early siege troops were all soldiers and civilians, who were used to consume the Datong Army's defensive supplies.

These civilians were the worst off. They carried baggage when marching, built fortifications when stationed, served as cannon fodder when attacking a city, and could also work part-time as military rations when food was scarce.

Treating civilians as military rations is part of the normal state of war.

Ming Dynasty's Liaodong frontier army was often besieged for several months, and Zu Dashou even defended it for a year or two. How can there be so much food? Just eating civilian husbands!

Because the Manchu trenches and earthen walls were very close to the city wall, soldiers and civilians could rush to the city in a few minutes.

They were defeated again and again, and were forced to die again and again by the Manchu military law team.

Between the consumption back and forth, thousands of civilians died quickly.

Sun An was a soldier, that is, he followed the army to wear clothes.

During Huang Taiji's rule in the Qing Dynasty, the soldier branch was abolished and the Eight Banners Army became more formalized. But only the system was abolished, and in real wars, the Eight Banners nobles still brought their servants with them to help the nobles rob and carry their belongings.

Sun An belongs to the second generation of coaters. His father died of the plague in Beizhili, so he replaced his father as an army coater.

His main achievement was following his master in robbery in Beizhili.

Some time ago, he returned to Liaodong and followed his master to North Korea to rob. The harvest in North Korea was good. The master rewarded him with two buckets of rice and a North Korean woman as his wife.

But, he really doesn’t want to be cannon fodder!

"Bang bang bang!"

There was a burst of gunfire on the city wall, and Sun An fell to the ground in fright.

The civilian husband behind him was beaten to death, but he still used his inertia to rush forward and immediately fell on Sun An.

Sun An struggled for a while, and suddenly felt so blessed that he just lay there and pretended to be dead.

There are more than one or two cannon fodder pretending to be dead!

After spending most of the day, and it was almost evening, Dorgon ordered the troops to retreat.

Wait until tomorrow to continue consuming.

The noisy battlefield gradually became quiet, and Sun An carefully crawled out from under the corpse. He crawled towards the gap in the city wall little by little, and when he got close, he shouted: "I surrender, I don't want to die, I'm here to surrender. I'm not a spy, tie me up quickly!"

This voice immediately reminded the cannon fodder who was pretending to be dead.

One after another, hundreds of people stretched out their hands to show that they had no weapons, and crawled toward the gap in the city wall with their hands raised in surrender.

Hu Dinggui thought for a while and ordered: "Tie them all up. After the war, they will be screened. The peasants will be divided into fields and settled down, and the soldiers will be used as coolies."

For several days, it was all consumed.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty consumed human lives, and the Datong Army consumed the materials needed to defend the city.

Gradually, soldiers began to be sandwiched among the cannon fodder, hoping to take advantage of the defenders' relaxation to launch a sudden attack on the city wall.

This situation made it impossible for the Datong Army to underestimate every attack, and the consumption of defensive materials doubled.

Rolling logs and fallen rocks can still be brought back after dark, but there is not much hot oil and golden juice left.

Finally, the Manchu Qing began to formally attack the city.

One by one, the carriages were shattered by artillery, and the exposed Eight Banners soldiers could only speed up and charge towards the city wall.

"Bang!"

A piece of wood splinters flew out from the cart, piercing Tu Lai's cheek hard.

Although a tooth was knocked loose due to the impact, this minor injury was nothing. The real headache was that the truck was gone. Tu Lai drew his sword and shouted: "Run and rush over!"

Tu Lai was Obai's cousin. Historically, he participated in the Battle of Daling River, the Battle of Songjin, and the Battle of Shanhaiguan. He led troops to capture Emperor Hongguang and Emperor Longwu of the Southern Ming Dynasty.

The two brothers Tu Lai and Obai, both loyal confidants of Hauge, were thrown out by Dorgon and risked their lives to attack the city.

A cannonball jumped up from the ground, and the soldiers beside Tu Lai were smashed in half by the iron bullet, and then flew behind and killed several more in succession.

This side has the most ferocious firepower, because in front is the gap in the city wall that was blown down.

"Old Yang!"

On the city wall, a regiment leader roared in grief.

But not far from him, Yang Ye, the artillery commander of the 11th Division of the Datong Army, was killed.

Yang Ye was born as a scholar. He was proficient in arithmetic when he was young, and later studied mathematics systematically. He had only been in the army for four years. Because of his talent and talent, he was promoted quickly, but now he unexpectedly died in Gaizhou.

It was really an accident. Yang Ye was directing the artillery to adjust the angle. A Manchu shell flew over and knocked away the bricks on the female wall. The bricks then hit Yang Ye's head.

"Boom boom boom!"

The artillery of the Datong Army vented its anger with cannonballs.

Turai was running and charging when a shell roared towards him. He didn't feel anything at first, as if he had been rubbed by something, and the inertia carried his body backwards.

After a few more seconds, Tu Lai felt severe pain: "Ah! Ah! My arm is gone!"

Cannons used to defend cities are prone to ricochet due to their angle. Turai's arm was broken by a ricochet. Before the shells stopped, four more were killed and injured with blood stains on them.

Suddenly, the artillery fire from both sides stopped one after another.

Because the Manchu and Qing siege troops were approaching the city, the Manchu and Qing artillery stopped because they were afraid of accidental damage, while the Datong artillery stopped because the angle was too high to hit them.

The Manchus successfully pushed over a dozen carts, and there were also many ladders with wooden shields.

Most of the carriages were in front of the gap in the city wall. Unfortunately, Gaizhou City did not imitate the bastion and used a sharp-angled enemy platform like Ningyuan. This created a short fire dead zone, and neither muskets nor bows and arrows could attack the enemies behind the carriages.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

The Manchu gun soldiers stood on the steps of the carriage and fired through the shooting holes at the gaps in the city wall.

The fallen wall formed an earth and stone platform three meters high, twelve meters wide and six meters thick.

The ladder was set up, and Obai, commanding the Eight Banners of Manchuria, quickly climbed up the earth and stone platform along the ladder. After only climbing half of his body, he lay down on the edge of the earth and stone platform and pulled Manqing's heavy arrow away with all his strength.

Before they fired their heavy arrows, tens of thousands of enemies were smashed down on the city walls on both sides.