Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 1200 Battle of Chuxiong
Yang Weizhi's judgment was absolutely correct. On the second day after Mu Tianbo left Chuxiong and headed west, Yang Weizhi received a military report that Sha Dingzhou's vanguard troops had arrived in Guangtong. Guangtong City did not put up much resistance and quickly fell, mainly because Guangtong was a small county and the city was not large in scale, so it could not stop Sha Dingzhou's army at all.

Moreover, Yang Weizhi had issued an order to withdraw troops before. He knew clearly that Sha Dingzhou's army was much stronger than his own. If he divided his troops to garrison there, not only would he not be able to hold the place, but it would also disperse his precious forces.

Therefore, when Yang Weizhi learned that Sha Dingzhou had sent troops from Kunming to march towards Chuxiong, he ordered the officials and troops of Guangtong to retreat, taking the food and supplies in the city and withdrawing them all to Chuxiong. And this was indeed the case. Sha Dingzhou came with great momentum and marched very fast. After passing Lufeng, his troops did not take any rest at all, but rushed straight to Guangtong, and took the county town on the day they arrived in Guangtong.

After taking Guangtong, continuing westward would take no more than three days to reach Chuxiong. At this time, Chuxiong was already prepared for the battle and was waiting for Sha Dingzhou to arrive.

Sha Dingzhou's army rested in Guangtong for two days. After Sha Dingzhou himself arrived in Guangtong, his troops continued to attack Chuxiong. A few days later, Sha Dingzhou's army arrived in Chuxiong. His troops were densely packed. Looking down from the top of the city, there were flags flying everywhere and various troops standing side by side.

As the saying goes, tens of thousands of people are endless. Sha Dingzhou personally led an army of 20,000 to Chuxiong, and brought nearly 10,000 civilians with him. In addition, Sha Dingzhou continued to expand his troops along the way and recruited new soldiers from all over the place to fill the gap. Therefore, there were nearly 40,000 people who arrived in Chuxiong. At that time, there were only more than 5,000 troops stationed in Chuxiong City. The gap between the two was close to nine to one.

The entire Chuxiong Prefecture originally had no more than 10,000 soldiers, but Yang Weizhi could not put all his troops in Chuxiong. You must know that Dingyuan to the north of Chuxiong is also extremely important and must be garrisoned. Three thousand people were stationed in Dingyuan, and another two thousand were stationed in Nanhua to the west of Chuxiong. Chuxiong had the most people, and the remaining five thousand elite troops were all here.

Looking at the powerful military force of Sha Dingzhou under the city, the Ming army stationed in the city couldn't help but change their faces and became even more nervous.

"Everyone, Sha Dingzhou is just a bunch of locals. Even though he has a lot of people, it is wishful thinking for him to take over Chuxiong. I remember that when I served in Shaanxi with Governor Sun and the Prime Minister, we fought against bandits. At that time, Governor Sun led 3,000 people to defeat 100,000 bandits and killed them so many people that the blood flowed like a river. Sha Dingzhou is just a chieftain, but he wants to take over Chuxiong where I am stationed. It is simply wishful thinking!"

"Your Excellency is right!" Lu Yongming laughed and said, "The walls of Chuxiong City are high and thick. It is not easy to capture Shadingzhou. There are only tens of thousands of people outside the city. They are nothing. We have 5,000 elite soldiers in the city with all the weapons. Killing a person is just a matter of swinging the knife. What is there to be afraid of Shadingzhou's 20,000 main forces! Brothers, one kills four, at most it is just four swings of the knife. Brothers, don't you even have the strength to swing the knife four times?"

"Hahaha." These soldiers had a low sense of humor. After hearing what Lu Yongming said, they all laughed. They said that they could not only swing their swords four times, but also chop off a dozen enemies' heads. At this time, everyone came to their senses. Yang Weizhi clearly wanted to hold on, not fight in the field. Defending the city was much safer than fighting in the field. Moreover, Chuxiong had been prepared long ago. There was no shortage of equipment and food in the city. Although 5,000 people were much fewer than the enemy, it was not so easy for the enemy to take Chuxiong like this.

At this time, Yang Weizhi struck while the iron was hot and announced a reward of fifty taels for each level of beheading, and those who killed three enemies would be promoted to another level. Then he waved his hand, and people who had been prepared long ago came up carrying several large boxes of silver. Yang Weizhi asked people to open the boxes, and the silver inside emitted a dazzling white light under the sunlight, which made everyone stare at it.

"Brothers! It's time to be rewarded for your contributions to the country. As long as you have the ability, you can earn a chance to be crowned a wife and have children. At the very least, you can get silver. Have you seen it? There are more than a dozen boxes of silver in the prefectural government. If you have the ability, you can exchange it for military merit. I will never lie!"

Everyone's breathing suddenly became heavier, and their eyes looking at Yin Zi gradually became more urgent and enthusiastic, and some people even had red eyes.

The military merit system of the Ming Dynasty was established during the reign of Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and has continued to this day. However, although there are rewards for beheadings in the military merit system, these rewards are different, especially for the heads.

According to the classification of heads, the Northern Tartars were the highest, the so-called Northern Tartars were the Mongols, followed by the Dongyi, that is, the Jurchens. Later, due to the rise of Nurhaci and the weakening of Mongolia, these two were swapped. The next highest were the Japanese pirates, and then it was the turn of the Xifan, that is, the southwestern chieftains.

In other words, according to the military merit of the Ming Dynasty, the military merit of the heads of the chieftains in the southwest was only higher than that of the bandits, ranking second to last among all military merits. In this way, the military merit of the heads of the chieftains in the southwest was at most a reward of twelve taels for one level of beheading, or even lower.

But now Yang Weizhi directly offered fifty taels of silver for each head, which was equivalent to rewarding according to the highest military merit. Such a reward was unprecedented. How could people not be jealous?
Killing a Sha Dingzhou rebel army and cutting off one of their heads would be rewarded with a full fifty taels of silver. If you get three heads, you can be promoted one level. This is unprecedented! For a moment, everyone forgot the fear brought by the army outside the city. They were excited and eager to fight, looking forward to the war. Sha Dingzhou led his troops to Chuxiong, but he did not lead the troops to attack the city immediately. Instead, he sent someone to send a letter to the city, asking Chuxiong to open the city and surrender, and then hand over Mu Tianbo. If you agree to surrender, Sha Dingzhou can spare the defenders and officials in the city. If you are stubborn and resist firmly, then when he breaks through Chucheng, don't blame him for letting his troops plunder the city.

Faced with Sha Dingzhou's letter, Yang Weizhi sneered and tore up the letter in front of the other party's envoy. Not only that, he also ordered one of the other party's envoy's ears to be cut off as a punishment, and then drove the person out.

When the messenger fled back in a panic, covering his lost ear and crying about his experience, including the fact that Sha Dingzhou's letter was torn up by the enemy, Sha Dingzhou was furious. How could he hold back? He immediately ordered an attack on the city.

The war officially started. Due to Sha Dingzhou's anger, the siege on the first day was extremely fierce. Sha Dingzhou not only sent multiple teams to climb and attack, intending to take Chuxiong in one fell swoop, but his firearms troops were also not idle. They kept shooting at the top of the city with muskets and cannons obtained from Kunming to intimidate and kill the Ming army stationed in Chuxiong.

Unfortunately, although Sha Dingzhou's attack was fierce, his siege tactics were not very good. First, Sha Dingzhou came from a long distance and had not had time to build siege equipment. The effect of climbing the siege with ladders alone was not very good. Yang Weizhi commanded the city with confidence and did not pull all the troops to the top of the city. There were only a thousand people on the top of the city, and the others were all hidden under the city, ready to be reinforced and replaced at any time.

In addition, there was no shortage of equipment in the city. There were not only a large number of bows and arrows, falling rocks, battering rams, etc., but Yang Weizhi also had people boil a lot of gold juice. When the enemy climbed up, they would shoot arrows at them from a distance, hit them with falling rocks, battering rams, or just pour the gold juice on them, causing the attacking party to suffer extremely heavy losses.

That's not all. Yang Weizhi also organized a group of spearmen and shieldmen, and cooperated with them by referring to the tactics of the Ming New Army. Once the enemy managed to break through and climb to the top of the city wall, these spearmen and shieldmen would play a huge role. With such cooperation, Sha Dingzhou's offensive was one wave after another, but he was never able to take the top of the city wall.

In addition, Sha Dingzhou's firearms did not play a big role. Although Sha Dingzhou obtained a lot of firearms equipment in Kunming, as a mere chieftain, Sha Dingzhou was not good at firearms warfare. Moreover, when attacking Chuxiong, because it was far away from Kunming and it was inconvenient to march all the way, Sha Dingzhou was unable to carry heavy artillery that could directly break the city. The army only carried some muskets, Portuguese arquebuses and tiger squat cannons.

These firearms would cause a lot of trouble in field battles, but they are of little use in siege warfare.

Both the Portuguese and the tiger squat cannons had limited power, and due to their range, they could only hit the city walls. The soldiers in Shadingzhou were not very skilled in the use of firearms, and the damage caused by these cannons on the city walls was not serious at all, and they only broke some of the wall skin. Except for the lucky ones that hit the top of the city and killed a few defenders on the top of the city, most of the cannons were basically useless after firing for so long.

As for the fire gun, it was even worse. The range of the fire gun was shorter than that of the artillery. It was also fired upwards, so the accuracy was even worse. Who knows where it hit? Moreover, during the attack, Sha Dingzhou's fire gun soldiers not only failed to hit the defenders on the top of the city, but instead hit their own people climbing below. This happened again and again, and the generals who attacked the city were so angry that they cursed and reported to Sha Dingzhou. Sha Dingzhou had to stop firing the fire guns. Relying only on small-caliber artillery to cooperate in the battle, it was useless.

The battle started at noon and lasted until sunset. The entire Chuxiong City was still firmly in the hands of Yang Weizhi. The army of Sha Dingzhou tried their best but failed to take the city, and suffered heavy losses.

After counting the losses, Sha Dingzhou's army suffered nearly a thousand casualties that day alone. After reporting this result, Sha Dingzhou's face turned black. Although he didn't know how many casualties there were in the city, he could see clearly that the casualties on the defenders were not heavy, and because he lacked siege equipment, the defenders were able to defend the city with ease. Such losses shook Sha Dingzhou's original idea of ​​winning.

Although there were many people in Shading Prefecture, except for the 20,000 elite soldiers, the rest were either civilians or temporary soldiers. They lost a thousand men on the first day alone. According to this loss, wouldn't their entire army be destroyed after a month of fighting?

Sha Dingzhou was not stupid. He knew that it would be futile to attack like this. So on the second day of the battle, he changed his tactics from an all-out attack to a one-sided attack. At the same time, he sent his laborers and an army to cut down trees and build equipment in the surrounding areas, preparing to take Chuxiong in one go after everything was completed.

(End of this chapter)