Han’s Son is Not a Slave

As the worst-case scenario envisioned by Zhou Shixiang before the war, the Qing army switched to siege after the siege failed. In order to achieve the purpose of completely besieging the Taiping Army, after Shang Kexi returned to Guangzhou, he recruited thousands of Qing troops from Guangzhou and various prefectures and counties to Xinhui. Wan Minfu built a siege for Xinhui City in just a few days.

The Taiping army, who did not have the ability to fight against the Qing army on a large scale, could only watch the Qing army build siege fortifications on the opposite side every day. During this process, it was not that the Taiping army did not try to stop the Qing army, but after two consecutive night raids failed and dozens of people were lost, Zhou Shixiang, who was recovering from the wounds, ordered the troops not to go out of the city to fight on their own. As soon as a soldier leaves the city, only the chief officer of his department asks!

Before returning to Guangzhou, Shang Kexi made arrangements for the besieged city in person. With the Han army inlaid with the blue flag from the headquarters, the east gate was surrounded by the Han army under the Jingnan domain. The Han army and part of the green camp surrounded the south gate. At the north gate, the rest of the green camp soldiers and horses surrounded the west gate under the command of the commander-in-chief Lin Shanzhi.

The Qing army's encirclement had three lines of defense, and each line of defense was well-equipped. More than 10,000 Qing troops were distributed among the lines of defense, cutting off all connections between Xinhui and the outside of the city, resulting in the Taiping army in the city being ignorant of the outside world.

As the siege time became longer, although there was no shortage of food in the city, the wood used for the fire became tense.

In terms of the Qing army, there was a steady stream of food and grass resources dispatched from Guangzhou, and more than 20,000 young men and women were used to drive it. There were also Guangdong navy soldiers on standby on the river. Apart from being unable to conquer the fortified city of Xinhui, the Qing army had the upper hand in many aspects. , also has the advantage, this is also the biggest cost of Shang Kexi's decision to besiege the city. As long as the Taiping army has no reinforcements to rescue. At the end, the winner must be the Qing army.

Not long after the Qing army's encirclement was constructed, dozens of artillery pieces transferred from Guangzhou finally arrived. After the concentrated artillery bombardment of the city wall failed, the Qing army stopped shelling the city wall, and only fired artillery into the city every three to five. The corresponding Taiping army in the city They also continued shelling outside the city, but the effects of the shelling on both sides were limited. Both sides agreed to stop this useless effort.

Just in case, Shang Kexi personally issued an urgent order to Xu Erxian, the general of Zhaoqing, ordering him to strictly monitor the Gaozhou side, dispatching troops and horses to garrison Luoding, so as not to make the Gaozhou Ming army go further east.

As long as Gaozhou Li Dingguo does not move, Guangzhou has no worries about besieging Xinhui. Although there are several other Ming troops in Guangdong, they are far behind Li Dingguo in Gaozhou in terms of strength and equipment. These Ming troops are also located in many coastal areas. area. It can't take the advantage of the navy, and the Qing army is not afraid of real land battles. If these Ming troops really came to rescue the Xinhui Taiping Army, the direction of Guangzhou would be happy to see it. The tens of thousands of Qing troops used to besiege the city under Xinhui City could not attack the city, but it would be effortless to annihilate these Nanming miscellaneous cards.

The development of the situation also reassures Guangzhou. After the siege of the city for more than a month, except for the Ming army in Leizhou who tried to capture the prefecture and county and marched eastward, the Ming army in other places showed no signs of activity. And the Gaozhou Ming Army, who worried Guangzhou the most, did not move at all. All kinds of signs prove that the Taiping army trapped in Xinhui is absolutely a lonely army, and whether it is even accepted by the small court of Nanming is a problem.

The Qing army, who had no worries, finally arrived on June 19th. That is, on the 49th day of the siege of the city, he shot a letter of persuasion into the city, but what he got were eight characters written by Zhou Shixiang in his own hand: "The Erlang of the Han family will never surrender!"

On June 23, the 53rd day of the siege, the Qing army launched a tentative attack on Xinhui City. The attack was commanded by Wang Guohui, the deputy commander of the Han army banner.

The Qing army launched an attack at dawn, and the direction of the attack was not the east gate, but the south gate. However, the Taiping army on the south gate was obviously prepared for this. The defenders on the city resisted the danger. At the time of danger, Chen Mo, a small flag of the guard camp, led someone to hang down the city with ropes to fight back against the Qing army who attacked the city, and destroyed the Qing army to use it for attacking the city. There were more than 100 cloud ladders and 6 shield carts in the city, forcing the Qing army to abandon the attack.

Seeing that the force attack was ineffective, Wang Guohui reversed the loss of countless soldiers and materials. After asking Shang Zhixin and Ban Zhifu for instructions, he ordered the Qing army to use cloth bags to fill the soil and pile it up as a wall. The army secretly organized civilians to dig tunnels and tried to dig into the city.

The Taiping army in the city sensed the Qing army's intentions through the large tank monitoring the underground movement in the city, and immediately organized manpower to dig a deep ditch parallel to the city wall. The unit of measurement is more than three meters wide and seven meters deep.

After the deep trench was dug, Zhou Shixiang ordered that once the tunnel dug by the Qing army entered the city, it would be flooded with water. If the law didn't work, each battalion organized soldiers to go down the ditch to fight hand-to-hand. No matter how much sacrifices were made, one soldier of the Qing army would never emerge from the ditch!

Because the Taiping army was well prepared, the Qing army who sneaked in through the tunnel was not able to show up~www.NovelMTL.com~ was suddenly thrown in by the thunderbolt, and the rest of the Qing army rushed out and found that they were in a deep ditch. There was no place to climb, front, back, left or right, so they could only be trapped in the ditch and could not move, but on both sides of the deep ditch, there were Taiping troops with guns shooting them. Retire hastily.

In order to vent his grievances, Shang Zhixin ordered the east and west forts to shell the city again. Zhou Shixiang ordered the gunners at the top of the city to attack the city, and then a high reward was suspended at the same time. Fifty taels of silver will be rewarded."

Under the heavy reward, there must be brave men. This time, Chen Mo, a small flag of the guard camp, took the lead in organizing a team of 80 dead soldiers. They sneaked into the Qing army camp from the tunnel dug by the Qing army in the middle of the night. After the excavation, the tunnel was finally opened, and then 80 Taiping warriors, led by Chen Mo, handed two thunderbolts to kill the Qing army and set fire to it.

In the middle of the night, the Qing army did not know how many people from the Taiping army came, and was stunned by the thunder of the sky. In addition, there were fires everywhere. For a while, they could not stop the Taiping army from sneaking in, so Chen Mo and others successfully rushed to the Qing army. The two forts in the east and west ignited the gunpowder reserves of the Qing army fort, and blew up more than 30 large and small artillery pieces on the spot.

After returning to the city, after counting, only 36 of the 80 warriors left the city. This lesson also allowed the Qing army to completely block the tunnel they had dug, and also gave up their thoughts of digging into the city. (To be continued..)