Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 156 It’s time to serve His Highness!
The spread of news is like the breeze. If you don't pay attention, you will ignore it. But when you feel its coolness, you will find that everything around you has become different because of it.

There were cannon fire all night last night, and Fang Yuanke also stayed on guard on the city wall all night. After dawn, he planned to find a place to take a nap.

But the damned Tartars would fire a burst of cannon every one or two cups of tea, so he simply gave up the idea and took advantage of the break in the bombardment to take care of the city defense.

At this time, he was in the northeast section of the Hangzhou city wall, between Qingchun Gate and Fengshan Gate.

Because of the location, several large-scale battles have taken place under this section of the city wall since the Tartar troops arrived at the gates of Hangzhou. It was here that the rebel king fed the enemy with wine and meat.

Now this section of the city wall has become the main target of Tatar artillery.

To be honest, Hangzhou’s city defense is quite good.

In the early years, Japanese pirates often landed here. The imperial court not only stationed a large number of troops in Hangzhou, but also renovated the city's defense facilities.

However, after the opening of the city during the Longqing reign, the Japanese pirates gradually disappeared. Over the past hundred years, the Hangzhou city defense, which was once quite good, has become somewhat outdated.

Of course, this is only compared with Yingtian.

As one of the largest cities in the world, Hangzhou's defenses can be considered impregnable compared to other places. Otherwise, how could it have held out for such a long time under such intensive artillery fire?
"Young Marshal, I've been there, and they said they didn't dare to release the grain without the order from the Lord."

Just as Fang Yuanke was wondering where to find some wood and stones, a general hurriedly climbed up the city wall, looked around and ran towards him.

Before dawn this morning, Fang Guoan came to the city once.

In addition to informing Fang Yuanke of the results of the meeting, he also arranged a lot of things, and the preparation of food and fodder was the most important one.

"Where is the Lord of the Palace?"

"Not found."

"Didn't find it?!" he repeated in great surprise. Fang Yuanke then pretended to hit him: "Go to his house and look for it!"

"Young Marshal, I went there, but there were only his family members packing up their things in his house, and there was no sign of the Lord of the House."

Hearing this, Fang Yuanke's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

He already knew the outcome of the discussion among the ministers, so he naturally knew that the Lord of the Palace must have fled first.

But according to the court regulations, there is only one or two days' worth of food and fodder in the camp. If they don't get the order from the Lord of the Palace, let alone defending the city, they will probably run out of food in a day or so.

These damn cysticerci, even if they want to escape, they should have settled everything first!

Fang Yuanke also knew that it was no wonder that the general was in such a situation. He complained in his mind and was about to ask something else, but before he could open his mouth, the general asked a question first.

"Young Marshal, I see many people in the city heading south. Are the higher-ups going to abandon Hangzhou?"

Hearing this, Fang Yuanke, who never beat around the bush, didn't know how to respond for a moment.

After settling everything for him this morning, Fang Guoan left in a hurry again, just to collude with the big guys in the city and delay some time.

Just looking at the current situation, the so-called collusion probably didn't have any effect, but those who wanted to escape did not hesitate at all.

In this case, the only army left to defend Hangzhou might be his own.

In fact, in Fang Yuanke's mind, one army is one army. Anyway, his uncle is willing to hold on just to repay His Highness for saving his life, and it has nothing to do with anything else.

But if even Li Zhongcheng's troops were withdrawn, how could they defend the huge city of Hangzhou with just over 5,000 troops?
Thinking of this, Fang Yuanke's already bad mood suddenly became even gloomier, but after seeing the general's eyes, he could only force himself to adjust.

"Why bother with them? We are defending the city only to repay His Highness for saving our lives. It would be great if all those cysts are gone. Without them, we may be able to hold out longer."

After he finished speaking, the general nodded and said no more. He then gave Fang Yuanke a fist bump and headed towards the city.

The general's name was Jia Youqing. He was not much different in age from Fang Yuanke, but he was also a veteran in the army.

With the situation in the city like this, he could naturally guess what the rules of the current dynasty were. To put it bluntly, the reason he asked this question was just to dispel the last bit of luck in his heart.

It was a time of chaos, and although these soldiers and generals did not take their lives seriously, no one would rush to sacrifice their lives if they could save them.

But after getting the answer from Fang Yuanke, although he understood the danger of this battle, he was only annoyed at the cowardice of the officials of the time, but did not have the slightest thought of escaping without fighting.

Why?

In the earlier battle outside the city, Fang Guoan's troops were blocked by the Tartars under the city wall. If the Yingtian soldiers had not come to the rescue in time, the outcome would have been no other than the death of the entire army.

Therefore, among these thousands of troops, from Fang Guoan to ordinary soldiers, all are grateful to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and are willing to go through fire and water for him.

To put it bluntly, in the hearts of these warriors, although their lives are worthless, they also have to consider why they are dying.

If defending Hangzhou is just for the senior officials in the court, then even if Fang Guoan is willing to defend it, I am afraid the soldiers will not agree.

But if the purpose of defending this city is to secure a retreat for His Royal Highness the Crown Prince who saved their lives, even at the last moment some people will inevitably become fearful, cowardly, or even desert the battlefield.

But in the current situation, the entire army is still willing to hold on for some time.

Seeing Jia Youqing leave, Fang Yuanke shifted his attention elsewhere.

As a battalion officer, he usually mingled with the soldiers and naturally knew how grateful they were to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. Therefore, he was not afraid that the morale of the army would be shaken by what happened in the city.

But this morning Fang Guoan assigned him many tasks. Although he had already completed the tasks of stabilizing the morale of the troops and arranging the defense, he had encountered considerable difficulties in raising food and preparing rolling stones and logs.

In this way, he had already prepared for a fierce battle, but a good cook cannot cook without rice, and the lack of supplies still made this man who could roll in a pile of dead bodies helpless.

If it really doesn't work, you can only rob.

With this in mind, Fang Yuanke decided to send someone to keep an eye on the granary first, to prevent anything from going wrong.

"Boom boom boom."

Just as he was about to find someone to deal with him, he suddenly heard the roar of artillery fire. It was obvious that the Tartars outside the city had let their artillery fire cool down and started a new round of bombardment on the city wall. At first, he didn't pay much attention to it. After all, he had been hearing the sound of artillery fire for a whole night and a half. Although he was not completely accustomed to it, he was accustomed to it.

But after he took a few steps, he seemed to have thought of something. He suddenly stopped and turned to look at the city wall.

How. How could it be so dense?!
Although there were quite a few artillery sounds earlier, if you counted carefully, it was probably the result of more than ten cannons firing at the same time. But now the sounds were so dense that they were connected together, which was obviously the result of adding a lot of artillery.

But at that distance, only the red cannon could hit the city wall, and the red cannon was extremely precious. Where did the Tartars get so many of them overnight?

Realizing that there had been major changes in the military situation, Fang Yuanke turned around and ran directly towards the city, regardless of the threat from artillery fire.

When he crouched down and looked outside the city, he saw that the Tartars had built another artillery position overnight, and this position was only a few miles away from the city wall.

Seeing this, he was naturally angry, but when he thought of the rusty doors on his own city wall, he suddenly felt powerless.

It would be great if I could borrow a few cannons from the Zheng family.

As soon as this thought came to mind, he extinguished it immediately.

After all, Fang Yuanke is Fang Guoan’s nephew, so naturally he has access to much more information than ordinary generals.

He knew very well what the situation in the city was like at the moment, and of course he also knew that it would be better to hope that the Tartars would retreat directly due to lack of food than to rely on the help of the Zheng family.

But the Tartars have added so many artillery pieces. If we don’t find a way to counter them, the city walls obviously won’t be able to hold out for much longer.

Under such circumstances, his feeling of powerlessness became even stronger.

"Young Marshal, why don't you send a group of troops to bypass us from the flank?"

Jia Youqing came over again at some point, expressed his ideas, and waited for Fang Yuanke to make the final decision.

Given the current situation, this is indeed a good idea, but how can one easily achieve the goal in broad daylight?

What's more, if he wants to carry out this plan, he must mobilize the elite of the entire army. Now Fang Guoan is still busy colluding in the city. Even if Fang Yuanke is Fang Guoan's nephew, how can he convince the veterans in the army to take such a risky action?

Thinking of this, Fang Yuanke's resentment towards the officials of the current dynasty increased a little.

If they hadn't been holding him back in the rear, how could my uncle be so busy seeking support instead of taking command here?
If my uncle was in command here, why didn't he send people to destroy the Tartar's artillery positions last night?

If the Tartars had lost their artillery positions, how could the battle have been fought so passively?

The more he thought about it, the more depressed he felt, but the reality was that he had no other choice but to watch the Tartar artillery continue to bombard the city walls.

Most people think that the constraints that civil officials impose on military generals mostly consist of withholding military rations and salaries and interfering in tactics.

But if you think about it carefully, you will understand that the goals of civil officials and military generals are roughly the same during a war, and they naturally would not really do such a thing unless they had no other choice.

However, their presence will greatly distract the attention of the military generals, and they may even make avoidable mistakes during combat because they are concerned about the thoughts of the civil servants, thus greatly reducing the possibility of winning the battle.

Under such circumstances, it is inevitable that famous scenes such as the Battle of Sarhu where the few defeated the many are inevitable.

Of course, some people may cite certain examples to prove the importance of controlling military power with culture.

But God has mercy on us. In the late Ming Dynasty, every army was under the control of civilian officials, but the military officers who disobeyed orders would still not obey orders, and there was no example of a civilian who could control the military with just his mouth.

On the contrary, there would occasionally appear a military general who seemed to have the ability to turn the tide, but he was repeatedly constrained by the use of civil power to control the military, and ultimately ended up being defeated and killed.

To put it bluntly, using civil officials to control military officials is just a false proposition created by civil officials in order to suppress military officials.

As long as military generals do not have the power to govern civil affairs and the imperial court can pay the soldiers' salaries in a timely manner, what kind of trouble can a few ambitious people cause?
If these two points cannot be achieved, what effect will it have even if a hundred civilian officials are sent to the army to monitor it?
Closer to home.

After hearing the intensive artillery fire, Fang Guoan did not have time to explain in detail to the adults. He just said that the military situation had changed and immediately rushed towards the city.

After all, he is a veteran and knows very well that the only reason for this situation is that the Tartars are not prepared to test him again, and this also means that the real battle is about to begin. He can no longer focus on talking to the adults in the city.

In fact, it was slightly different from what Fang Yuanke thought. The reason why he did not attack the Tatar artillery position at night was not entirely because he was distracted by the meeting, but because he really did not dare to take the risk of a night attack with his limited troops.

You know, if the Tartars dared to set up their positions outside openly, they would definitely have anticipated the reaction from inside the city. If one accidentally fell into a Tartar ambush, the Tartars would probably not have to wait for the city walls to be blown down.

Otherwise, how could a clear-headed man like him sit back and watch the Tartars make their arrangements calmly, and instead argue with that group of people without knowing the importance of the matter?
In fact, before attending the meeting last night, he had probably guessed the outcome, and was prepared to defend the Crown Prince's retreat route with only his own troops.

But how can a person live without any nostalgia? Even if he is willing to die to repay the emperor's kindness, he can't help but want to struggle again.

Finally, his hard work paid off. After wandering around the mansions for a night, he finally took advantage of the situation and made Ma Shiying agree to stay for a few more days.

After about three or four incense sticks, Fang Guoan finally arrived under the city wall.

At this time, the Tartars' artillery bombardment had stopped for a while, and Fang Yuanke was commanding his soldiers to set up a defense line near the city wall.

After hearing from him that the food, fodder, rolling stones and wooden beams had not yet been prepared, Fang Guoan did not say much. He just nodded slightly and asked about the situation of the city wall after hearing that he had sent people to keep an eye on the granary.

"The Tartars have added a lot of artillery. Although their power is not as fierce as the red cannon, they have set up their positions quite close. The city wall probably can't withstand a few rounds."

"It doesn't matter. Nikan should have transferred a lot of real Tartars. If the city wall collapses, Duoduo will definitely send only surrendered troops to attack." At this point, Fang Guoan looked around and saw that there were already many soldiers and generals around him. He pretended to be relaxed and said, "We have fought more than one battle with those guys. Do we still need to be afraid of these ungrateful guys?"

As he finished speaking, there was a burst of laughter from the crowd around him, as if they did not take the Qing army seriously, just as Fang Guoan said.

But when another burst of artillery fire was heard at this time, everyone looked nervously at the cracked city wall.

"Boom~~~!!!"

With a loud roar, a section of the city wall about four or five meters long finally failed to withstand this attack.

Seeing this, Fang Guoan suddenly felt relieved: what is coming will eventually come.

"Soldiers! Your Highness saved our lives! It's time to serve Your Highness!"

(End of this chapter)