Dominate the Country

Zhawang got off his horse and took off his soaked cotton armor with the help of Goshha. He had just led his troops to charge and chased back a group of Shandong rebels who tried to sneak attack the artillery position. Three hundred heads were beheaded in this battle, which can be said to be another lesson for the rebels in Jining City.

Outside Jining City, tall wooden pillars were newly erected by the Qing army, with heads hanging on them, some of which were still dripping with blood.

After continuous fighting, the Qing army captured many Shandong rebel strongholds outside Jining City, such as Wangmu Pavilion Lake, Sanliying, Guanyin Pavilion, etc., and completely advanced to the foot of Jining City.

As a famous rich place along the canal, the latter cannot be underestimated because of its high city and deep moat. However, after the destruction of the previous war - the siege of Hunyuan Sect and Kong Zhaohuan, in addition to the broken city walls, it can be seen that the city was extraordinary in the past. Outside the city is already a white land, and Jining has become no different from an ordinary state city.

The Qing army was seizing the time to build artillery positions and deploy cannons. Heavy firepower was what the Shandong righteous army lacked, so in the past two or three days, the defenders often went out to attack and harass the progress of the Qing army. But it was useless!

"Boom boom boom..."

In the afternoon, the Qing army, which had deployed the last cannon, launched a fierce bombardment on Jining City. The civilians on the top of the city were suppressed and couldn't raise their heads. Kong Zhaohuan, based on the advice of the Fu Han Army's staff, transferred a large number of civilians to the bottom of the city wall in advance. In addition to the artillery, there were only a small number of musketeers on the city. Now it has been proven to be correct.

Under Jining City, the sound of artillery was deafening, and arrows and stones flew across the city. A large group of young and strong men who were forced to come up by the Qing army also took advantage of the opportunity of the defenders on the city being suppressed and rushed up like locusts.

After capturing Jining City, the Shandong civilians had no time to repair the city walls vigorously. Even the defensive fortifications outside the city were simply to dredge the moat and dig a few trenches. These trenches, which were not even moats, were less than 100 meters away from the city wall, which was within the range of the cannons and muskets on the city walls.

Although Chen Ming did not heavily arm the Shandong militia, he at least gave them 2,000 bird guns, 500 flintlock rifles, 20 three-jin cannons and two-jin cannons, and some tiger squat cannons and mortars, etc., but the latter [Shandong militia] suffered a series of defeats in the area west of the canal, and many firearms, especially cannons, were almost lost.

At this moment, there were only three two-jin cannons and one three-jin cannon on the Jining city wall, and the iron bullets they fired were not enough to scare the young men who were filling the trenches. However, the two mortars had their shrapnel shells with specially shortened fuses, and they always exploded in the air above the heads of the young men. This was much more lethal than those solid iron balls, and the deterrent power was also much stronger. But there were too few of them. Those unlucky young men fell to the ground and wailed in pain, and no one came to help them. Some of them were even trampled by the panicked crowd behind them.

The sandbags and earth bags that fell quickly filled the trenches. In one day, the trenches on the north, south and east sides of Jining City were filled with passages of 200 to 300 meters.

Some people in Jining City were terrified, "Master, please rescue His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. The Qing army's cannons are too powerful..." They were scared by the Qing army's firepower. From the west of the canal to the east of the canal, in just a few days, the Qing army taught them how to be human.

Kong Zhaohuan always had a blank expression on his face, and the patriarchs of the three tribes of Meng, Yan and Zeng also had blank expressions on their faces.

This group of idiots, rotten wood cannot be carved.

Chen Ming asked them to attack Jining Prefecture in the west, then attack Caozhou Prefecture, and then let them defend Jining. The intention of a series of actions was very obvious, which was to consume their strength to the maximum extent. Ten or twenty thousand people, a whole Yanzhou Prefecture.

Even if Kong Zhaohuan handed all of these people over to the Fu Han Army without leaving a single one, the Fu Han Army would not be impatient.

Kong Zhaohuan, Meng Yuhan, Yan Xigu and others knew this very well, so they made up their minds to win Chen Han's trust even if they had to kill all their men.

They were all farmers who could not read a single word, and if they died, they died. In the eyes of Kong Zhaohuan and others, being able to preserve the inheritance of the Four Saints and the interests of their respective families was much more important than thousands of lives.

What they feared most now was not the heavy casualties of their own militia, but that after their respective strengths were severely damaged, they still could not get Chen Han's trust, which was the most tragic. But the 'Four Saints' had only this one way before them, so they could only do it this way.

"Boom! Boom!" The rumbling sound of artillery resounded throughout Jining.

First, two 15-jin cannons, followed by four 10-jin cannons, and then two Portuguese 12-pound cannons.

These cannons could fire every two or three minutes, and solid bullets hit the city wall. Although the outermost layer of Jining's city wall was covered with large bricks and stones, the contact points were all cracked and shattered.

Then the young and strong men carried the wooden rafts and ladders forward, like ants. Braving the guns and cannons on the city, under the threat of the Qing army behind them, they tried their best to move forward, forward.

The moat of Jining is ten meters wide, which is not a great number, but it is not easy to put the ladder across the other side. The Shandong militia on the top of the city may have been blown up and shattered by the firepower of the Qing army, but they were able to persevere in defending the city. Holding muskets, small cannons, bows and arrows, they fought back with all their strength.

The shells of the two-pound cannon, three-pound cannon, and tiger squat cannon were all replaced with shotgun shells. Dozens or hundreds of broken iron corners, broken nails, and even gravel of varying sizes were stuffed into the barrels. "Boom..."

The iron horns, broken nails, and broken stones that shot out of the gunpowder smoke, with a sharp whistle that cut through the air, hit the queue under the city fiercely. That was an invitation from the King of Hell, and each shot could take the lives of several people.

It was not that the defenders on the top of the city had few guns, otherwise the young and strong men under the city would have collapsed long ago.

Of course, this was also because the quality of the gunners of the militia team was low. If the gunners of the Fu Han Army were allowed to operate, whether it was a three-jin gun, a two-jin gun, a tiger squat gun, or a mortar, even if they could not maintain a speed of one round per minute in the battle, two rounds in three minutes would be enough.

There were sixteen or seventeen guns of various sizes on the three walls, more than 70% of which were concentrated in the south city, which could be regarded as a firing rate of seven or eight rounds per minute. Even if they fired ten rounds and stopped for a while, a quarter of an hour was enough to fire seventy or eighty rounds. Now that the young and strong have rushed to such a close range under the city, how many people can be killed with one shot? That means hundreds of people. Hundreds of people, even if they are halved, one or two hundred people will not be less, right?

How long can the young and strong hold out with their tenacity?

Unfortunately, the Shandong militia can't fire one round of artillery in three minutes, and they don't know how to aim. Once they fire, it's like a blind cat hitting a dead mouse. There are too few "one shot" that can harvest human lives like harvesting wheat.

The young and strong are not fools. Of course, they will choose to go to a place with fewer bodies when there are corpses falling on the open ground outside the city, so the actual lethality of the cannon on the city wall will be even smaller. In addition to the bombardment of the Qing army's artillery, the gunners or the cannons on the city wall are under a threat. The only three-jin cannon stepped into the dust of destruction. Continuous shells hit it, and the artillery fort built with bricks and stones collapsed. Five or six gunners and the three-jin cannon were completely written off.

But even so, there were still young and strong men who couldn't hold on and fled. Then the one or two thousand young and strong men in Jining South City all ran back howling.

The Qing army cavalry that had been lined up in the rear outside the city finally took action at this time. They sent out a wave of cavalry, all of which were Eight Banners cavalry. These Qing cavalrymen wearing cotton armor and lightning rods rushed towards the scattered young and strong men, and then surrounded the fastest hundred people in the middle. As for the large group behind them, that was different in nature. A group of Qing army infantrymen holding swords and guns took the latter in. Intimidated by the accumulated power and swords and guns of the Qing army, the mud-legged people had no idea of ​​resistance at all, and were obediently divided into two groups, one large and one small, by the Qing army infantry and cavalry.

The young and strong men in the small group only felt that the atmosphere was wrong at this time, and there was a commotion in their group, but it was too late.

The Eight Banners cavalrymen with lightning rods swung their swords and guns, and chopped and killed on horseback. Blood splashed under the trampling of horses' hooves, which made people stunned and made the young and strong men in the large group quiet. The young and strong who were lucky enough to survive were killed one by one by the Qing soldiers who came forward to finish off the enemy. Both sides inside and outside the southern city of Jining were in awe.

When the battle of Jining reached the fifth day, the Fu Han army under the city of Xuzhou had completely taken control of the initiative.

On this day, Chen Ming outside the city of Xuzhou decided to take his time; the Qing army outside the city of Jining really began its fierce attack.

The continuous attacks, especially the Qing army's concentrated heavy artillery to continuously attack the walls of Jining City, caused the latter to suffer far more pressure and trauma than the damage caused by the Shandong militia during the recent offensive against Jining.

Large pieces of brick walls and stones on the outer wall were shattered and fell, and the rammed earth inner wall cracked, not to mention the parapet. Some sections of the city wall were beaten into bald spots, and the battlement parapet was swept clean.

There were tens of thousands of Shandong militiamen in Jining City, and they could only stay at the foot of the city wall at this time. When the cannons on the top of the city were destroyed, and when the cannons of the Qing army were getting closer and closer to the Jining city wall, the whole Jining City was shrouded in the firepower coverage of the Qing army.

Kong Zhaohuan had already left the state government and moved to Chongjue Temple, because the iron tower in Chongjue Temple was the tallest building in the whole Jining.

But Kong Zhaohuan, who was hiding here, didn't feel safe at all. A picture kept flashing through his mind: a house with a big hole in the roof, and the sun shone through the hole into a big bed in the house, which was covered with blurred flesh and blood...

This was not that Kong Zhaohuan was overly sensitive, but that he had really seen this scene, and the victim was a member of the Kong family, and in terms of seniority, he was still his uncle. Now, as long as he closed his eyes, his mind was full of blood!

"Kill..."

The fight on the top of the city had not stopped since the fifth night. When these Qing troops faced the Fu Han Army, their morale was very average, but when it came to dealing with the Shandong militia, they were as high as "gods descending to earth".

Not counting the daytime attacks, they could also launch two or three attacks at night!

Regardless of the actual effect, it disturbed the entire Jining. Then, under the bombardment of heavy artillery, the section of the city wall in the south of the city finally collapsed, which was like a shot of chicken blood for the Qing army, and soon they launched a new round of attacks.

The seventh day, the eighth day...

In just a few days, Kong Zhaohuan's chubby face had become an oval like a winter melon, Meng Yuhan even broke his leg, Yan Xigu's eyes were full of bloodshot, and there was a gauze wrapped around his forehead. This was the wound caused by the bricks that flew off the Qing army's artillery when he went to the front line to boost morale. It seems very ordinary now, not very serious, but at that time it felt like he almost blinded his eyes.

"Hold on, hold on firmly. Only a thousand people died in total, and there are tens of thousands of people in Jining City. Can you not bear it after only 10% of them died? Do you still want to protect your family's assets?"

"His Royal Highness has not taken Xuzhou yet. We can only hold on, even if we can't hold on! Hold on till death!"

"I tell you, don't even think about asking for help. We will die in Jining in this battle."

"If you die, I will fill in. Unless His Royal Highness takes the initiative to return troops to rescue, you won't see a single reinforcement!"

"Don't think I'm joking."

Kong Zhaohuan was under great pressure, and there were still many stupid teammates around him. He finally understood the meaning. A hysterical roar made the faces of the dozen or so leaders below change constantly. Some were terrified, some were as expected, and some were hard and hard.

Kong Zhaohuan and his few others were not the only smart people. These family leaders might be soft-kneed when facing knives, but when it comes to intrigue, everyone has their own shrewdness. And Kong Zhaohuan's words were straightforward enough.

"To tell you the truth, if all of us died in Jining, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and His Majesty the King of Han in Nanjing would be the happiest." The victor takes all, and conquering the world has always been a winner-takes-all game.