The Ming Dynasty: Starting with the border troops, it was overthrown and the Qing Dynasty was destro

Chapter 188 Expanding the Cavalry
Ye Ziheng was so angry upon hearing this that his liver ached.

These garrison soldiers would steal beans from the stables to cook and eat whenever they had free time, as if they didn't know.

But now was a time when he needed manpower, and he still had to rely on these people to defend the city, so he could only suppress his anger and patiently persuade them:

"Brothers, these are critical times. The enemy could break into the city at any moment."

"Everyone's wives, children, and elderly parents are all in the city. Defending the city means defending their land, property, and even their lives."

Having said all that, all he received in response was a few scattered replies.

Seeing this, Ye Ziheng wanted to persuade him again, but suddenly a deafening cannon blast came from outside the city.

The bandits have attacked the city.

boom! boom! boom!
The earth trembled violently beneath their feet, and the city walls groaned in agony under the immense weight.

Ye Ziheng was shocked. He immediately abandoned the group of soldiers and rushed to the crenellations of the East Gate tower, cautiously looking out of the city.

He only glanced at it, and his heart sank instantly.

Just a hundred paces outside the city, a dozen heavy cannons were lined up in a row, their dark muzzles constantly spewing smoke as they relentlessly bombarded the central section of the city wall.

Each loud bang was accompanied by a solid cannonball weighing several kilograms slamming heavily onto the city wall.

Since the rammed earth walls of Dayingcheng were not covered with bricks, they simply could not withstand the continuous bombardment of so many cannons.

Large chunks of loess were blasted away, and dust and clods of soil shot into the sky.

"Enemy attack!"

The mournful sound of the gong finally resounded throughout the city. The soldiers who had been lazily leaning against the battlements just moments before turned pale and their limbs went weak.

What's going on? Why aren't these thieves behaving the way they always do?

Before attacking the city, didn't they send anyone to persuade the city to surrender?

What if someone wants to defect to the thief?

Or are these bandits not interested in accepting surrendered soldiers and want to exterminate them all?
These people had misunderstood; Jiang Han's target was not them, but the reinforcements from Guyuan Town.

Jiang Han was standing steadily behind the artillery position, holding a telescope and staring intently at the city wall being bombarded.

He didn't intend to blast open the city wall; he just wanted to concentrate his efforts on one point and blast a small earthen mound into the wall so that his infantry could climb it.

The cannon fire lasted for almost half an hour. When the acrid smoke gradually dissipated, the city wall on the left side of the east gate was completely unrecognizable.

The originally steep and vertical wall was now unable to withstand the pressure and a small gap was blasted out.

The collapsed loess mixed with gravel piled up under the city wall, forming a small earthen slope that led straight to the top of the city wall.

Seeing the breach, Jiang Han immediately gave the order to charge:
"Go, have the vanguard put on double armor, shields up, and prepare for a strong attack."

"Make the show more convincing, so that these garrison troops will quickly set fire to call for reinforcements."

On the city wall, Ye Ziheng stared blankly at the gap in the wall, then at the dark mass of enemy soldiers outside the city, his heart sinking to the bottom.

It’s over.

Only two words remained in his mind: this city cannot be defended.

He had even subconsciously gripped the hilt of the knife at his waist, contemplating whether to draw his sword and commit suicide to preserve his honor, or to humiliatingly open the door and surrender, thus saving his life.

But at this moment, a sudden change occurred.

The garrison, who had previously been slacking off, suddenly appeared out of nowhere and roared as they blocked the breach.

"You damned bandits! If you want to enter the city, you'll have to step over my dead body first!"

A sergeant with a full beard, usually the most arrogant in the army, suddenly grabbed a long shield and was the first to rush towards the breach.

"My family is still on the border in Gansu. If I surrender, they'll be charged with treason, and they won't survive either!"

"Let's fight these thieves!"

Many garrison troops roared and surrounded the gap, blocking it one after another.

Their wives, children, and elderly parents were still in the city. Rather than believing that the bandits would not massacre the city, they decided to fight hard to defend it.

Anyway, there are only a few thousand bandits attacking the city, and they might be able to hold out by relying on the city walls.

Ye Ziheng was wrong about this group of people. At the critical moment of life and death, these soldiers, who should have been full of resentment towards the court, were thinking of their relatives and family members who were also in the Boundless Land.

They are prisoners, but they are also sons, husbands, and fathers.
Not for the imperial court, but for their families, they had no choice but to fight to the death.

Even those usually lazy and complacent veterans of the garrison have now clearly understood the priorities.

Their roots are in this city: a few acres of meager land, a dilapidated house that shelters them from the wind and rain, and their wives, children, and elderly parents on the kang (a heated brick bed).

They have no way out, neither for their own sake nor for their own.

"Hold the breach! Push all the rolling stones and logs down!"

Ye Ziheng was both surprised and delighted to see this, as if he had grasped the last straw. He reacted instantly and gave orders at the top of his lungs.

At this moment, the defenders on the city wall unleashed astonishing fighting power. They carried stones, lifted logs, and even dismantled timber from the barracks, pouring it all into the breach.

The vanguard, charging at the forefront, hadn't even had time to climb over the breach when they were slammed against their shields by the logs above, sending them flying backward and tumbling down the slope in a sorry state. The soldiers following behind were blocked by a dense hail of arrows and rolling stones and logs, unable to get close to the breach for a time.

This really ignited the vanguard's anger. Relying on their double armor and long leather shields, they relentlessly charged towards the city wall.

Although the defenders on the city wall were poorly equipped, they still refused to give an inch, using their flesh and blood to block the breach in the city wall.

The scalding blood quickly turned the yellow rammed earth into dark red, and the corpses of the defending soldiers soon covered the entire slope, making it difficult for the attacking soldiers to advance.

Seeing this, Jiang Han frowned. Although the fighting strength of these guards was not good, their fighting spirit was somewhat unexpected.

Jiang Han truly hadn't expected that this rabble of convicts and ruffians could display such a tenacious will to resist.

Seeing that his offensive was thwarted and the breach was filled with the corpses of the defending soldiers, Jiang Han had no choice but to sound the retreat and prepare for another battle.

Seeing the enemy soldiers retreat, the surviving defenders on the city wall erupted in cheers.

We've held on. As long as we can hold on, reinforcements will surely arrive.

The beacon towers on the city walls had already been lit, and the messengers sent out to request reinforcements had already set off. It was believed that as long as they held out for another day or two, the border troops of Guyuan Town would be able to drive away these bandits.

But their hopes were destined to be dashed.

Jiang Han, though forced back, was not discouraged.

After all, this was just a feint attack, and the casualties under his command were not significant.

Now we're just waiting for people from Guyuan Town to come.

Jiang Han was unaware of the movements of the troops in Guyuan Town and assumed that once the beacon tower in Daying City was lit, reinforcements would arrive to save the city.

And so, the garrison inside the city and the bandits outside guarded the beacon tower for three whole days, but nothing happened.

The smoke from the camp never ceased; the black plumes of smoke shot straight into the sky, visible to anyone who wasn't blind.

But the direction of Guyuan Town remained eerily silent.

Not to mention a large contingent of reinforcements, they didn't even see a single scout.

At this moment, the scouts Jiang Han sent out to investigate finally brought back definite news:
A few days ago, General Yang Lin of Guyuan led two thousand border soldiers to Pingliang Prefecture to set up defenses.

In recent days, these two thousand border soldiers have not left Pingliang Prefecture even once!

Upon hearing this news, Jiang Han pondered for a moment and quickly grasped the crux of the matter.

It must have been because when I divided my forces to attack Xiaoguan, I passed through Pingliang Prefecture, which led Yang Lin to mistakenly believe that I was planning to attack the King of Han.

That's why he mobilized all his troops to Pingliang Prefecture to guard the Han vassal state.

As the commander-in-chief of Guyuan, Yang Lin was indeed responsible for defending the territory.

But compared to these thousand warhorses, the safety of the vassal king is of paramount importance, and any sensible person would choose to guard the Han vassal state.

If something goes wrong in Pingliang Prefecture, and someone is implicated in the crime of "framing a vassal state," not only would the mere General of Guyuan be unable to bear the consequences, but even the Governor-General of the Three Border Regions would likely be unable to withstand it.

"Damn it, I'm not Wang Jiayin, who has a special fondness for princes."

Having figured this out, Jiang Han cursed under his breath and then ordered the messenger:
"Go and tell Li Laowai to gather his troops immediately and come to the city to meet him."

With his worries gone, Jiang Han's confidence soared. As long as the main force of his army pressed forward, a mere Daying City would be no problem.

The fighting resumed the next morning.

The three armies marched in great numbers, launching a general offensive against Daying City from three directions.

Without reinforcements, even if the defending troops in the main camp were united, it would be of no use against the main force of the enemy.

Despite the defenders' desperate resistance, the defensive line visibly collapsed rapidly.

At the north gate, a massive battering ram smashed open the city gate, and the breach at the east gate was reopened by cannon fire. The rebel soldiers that followed surged into the breach like a tide, completely overwhelming the defenders.

In less than a day, the pastoral supervisor Ye Ziheng was killed in action, and the deputy supervisor surrendered, officially marking the fall of Daying City.

After the battle, the troops cleaned up the battlefield and took the surrendered soldiers into custody. Jiang Han then led his men straight to the horse farm in the city.

Jiang Han was very satisfied with the results of the inventory check:
In this battle, a total of over 1,100 warhorses and nearly 400 shi of horse feed were captured.

Although these warhorses looked rather thin, after a careful examination by the army medics, they were found to be fine, simply suffering from malnutrition.

Jiang Han was puzzled. There was still plenty of horse feed piled up in the horse farm, so how could the warhorses be malnourished?

After the surrendered deputy supervisor explained tremblingly, he finally understood that a lot of the beans had been stolen and eaten by the guards.

These garrison soldiers were pitiful. They guarded a huge horse farm and agricultural land, but in the end, they ate worse than the horses and could only fill their stomachs by stealing horse feed.

Jiang Han was used to this; it was an old tradition in the Ming Dynasty.

Now, all he needs to do is carefully feed these thousand-odd warhorses with high-quality feed.

In less than half a month, his cavalry force will be able to expand to more than 1,500 men.

This is already a considerable mobile force, enough to change the course of the battle.

Tactically, this elite cavalry force was able to infiltrate and charge, suppressing the government infantry; strategically, they were able to traverse vast distances, firmly grasping the initiative on the battlefield.

　There should be more tonight, I think. I'll try my best to write as much as I can.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)