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

Chapter 310 The Self-Cultivation of a Surrendered General (Part 1)

After confirming that Deng Qi had already traveled south via the Micang Road, Deng Yang immediately wrote two secret letters.

A letter was sent to Chengdu, intended to report the matter in detail to Jiang Han;
The other letter was sent to Dong Erzhu, who was stationed in Jianzhou and in charge of the defense of northern Sichuan.

In his letter, Deng Yang instructed Dong Erzhu to immediately go to the exit of the Micang Road to meet him and ensure the safe entry of Deng Qi's troops.

Its main purpose was to prevent the guards at the pass from misjudging the situation and thinking that government troops were attacking, thus avoiding a conflict.

Dong Erzhu was already very experienced in picking people up.

Not long ago, Gao Yingxiang's remaining troops, who had entered Sichuan via the Lychee Road from Shiquan, were personally met by him near Zhenba.

Less than three months later, another wave of Ming troops arrived, and this time it was a fully-fledged Ming army unit.

Dong Erzhu couldn't help but secretly admire Deng Yang's growing abilities!

Not only can they transmit intelligence and turn Ming generals to defect, but now they've even packaged up and sent over the entire Ming army.

Who knows if this guy will suddenly have a whim one day and send over the Governor-General of the Three Borders, Hong Chengchou.

Upon receiving the letter, Dong Erzhu immediately split his forces into two groups, one heading towards the crossroads north of Nanjiang County;
The other team, led by him personally, headed straight for Wangcang County.

The Micang Road runs south from Hanzhong and has two main branches. One branch goes southeast through Qingshu, Wushan and other places to reach Nanjiang County.

The other route goes southwest, passing through Xinji, Tangkou, and Miaoba, and finally reaches Wangcang County.

Deng Qi chose the second path.

At this moment, Deng Qi was on his way to Miaoba, and he was quite restless.

The wind was biting cold, the mountain road was winding, and he was followed by more than a thousand Sichuan soldiers.

The sounds of horses' hooves, footsteps, and wheels echoed through the deep canyon, sounding particularly heavy.

He subconsciously looked back frequently, but the towering mountains had already blocked his view of Hanzhong to the north.

Although he killed Fang Guoan and pledged his allegiance, his future remained uncertain.

A series of questions swirled in his mind, refusing to leave.

He didn't know how the King of Han would treat him, and what would become of his brothers.
The identity of a surrendered general weighed heavily on his heart, making it hard for him to breathe.

As for this question, another surrendered general, Marco, who surrendered even earlier than him, obviously has more authority to speak on the matter.

If Marco were here, he would definitely assure Deng Qi that he could focus on his work without worry.

Unfortunately, Marco was currently trapped beneath the fortified walls of Guiyang, unable to advance or retreat.

Shao Yong's 50,000-strong army has been besieging Guiyang for more than three months without making any progress.

The excitement of the victory at Wujiang had long been worn away by the fortified city before them.

When they successfully crossed the Wujiang River, a natural barrier, and annihilated 3,000 defenders along the river, morale was high throughout the army.

From the commander-in-chief to the soldiers, everyone believed that the outcome was already decided.

The garrison in Guiyang numbered only about four thousand men, and they would surely surrender at the first sign of trouble. By the end of the year at the latest, they would have completely pacified the Guizhou region.

But to everyone's surprise, the battle for Guiyang lasted for three months, and there were many casualties.

Guiyang, as the military and political center of the Ming Dynasty in Guizhou and the first-line stronghold for controlling the southwestern chieftains, was by no means an easy target.

From the Hongwu era to the Chongzhen era, this city underwent more than two hundred years of management, repair, and expansion, resulting in an extremely complete city defense system.

As early as the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhenyuan Marquis Gu Cheng and Commander Ma Ye transformed the earthen walls of the Yuan Dynasty's Shunyuan City into sturdy brick and stone walls, and expanded the city northward to the area around the fountain, forming the inner city of Guiyang.

The inner city had a circumference of about nine li and was equipped with numerous crenellations and five city gates (Chaojing, Dehua, Wusheng, Shengquan, and Rouyuan).

During the Wanli era, Governor Guo Zizhang carried out a large-scale expansion of the inner city, which eventually formed the grand layout of Guiyang City with "nine gates and four pavilions".

After being reinforced by several generations, the circumference of Guiyang's inner and outer city walls reached an astonishing 1,300 zhang.

The city wall is covered with crenellations, and at intervals there are towers, corner towers and small moon towers standing tall.

The city also has two water gates that control the entrances and exits of the moat, serving both defensive and water conservancy functions.

As the first line of defense against the chieftains in the southwest, Guiyang's defenses were even stronger than those of Chengdu.

The most qualified person to answer the question of how difficult it was to conquer Guiyang was An Bangyan, the chieftain of Shuixi back then.

During the She'an Rebellion, An Bangyan gathered an army of 100,000 to besiege Guiyang, while the city's defenders numbered only four or five thousand.

The Tusi troops launched a fierce attack on Guiyang with overwhelming force, but were repeatedly repelled by the defending army relying on the fortified city.

An Bangyan besieged Guiyang for ten months, but was unable to break into the city.

The resilience of the people and soldiers of Guiyang was fully demonstrated in this battle.

Historical records indicate that when the city ran out of food, people resorted to cannibalism, with human flesh fetching as much as four catties for one tael of silver…

The county magistrate, Zhou Siji, even committed suicide to appease his soldiers. Almost all of the 400,000 soldiers and civilians in the city starved to death, leaving only a little over 200 survivors. The tragedy was even more horrific than that of Suiyang.

Even so, Guiyang remained unconquered and held out until reinforcements arrived.

Faced with such a fortified city, even Shao Yong, a veteran of many battles, felt immense pressure.

Initially, he even tried to persuade them to surrender, sending envoys to the city to explain the advantages and disadvantages, to explain the general situation of the world, and even promising many generous benefits.

However, Xu Chengming, the Guizhou general, and Liang Sitai, the prefect, and others in the city remained resolute and ignored the attempts to persuade them to surrender.

They had already fortified the city's defenses, recruited local militia and students to defend the city, and adopted a posture of vowing to live and die with the city.

Unable to persuade them to surrender, Shao Yong had no choice but to bite the bullet and order a full-scale attack.

The Han army pushed dozens of heavy cannons they carried to the front of the battle line and bombarded the city walls fiercely, attempting to suppress the defenders on the walls before setting up ladders to scale the walls.

However, the defenders in the city were extremely tenacious. As soon as the artillery fire subsided, they immediately rushed back to the city walls amidst the smoke and retaliated with rolling stones, logs, kerosene, and molten gold.

Shao Yong's several attacks were all repelled by the defending troops.

Despite several days of relentless attacks, no progress was made.

Shao Yong became desperate and ordered all heavy artillery to be concentrated and bombarded a section of the city wall on the east side, attempting to breach it. After destroying more than thirty cannons, they finally managed to blast a breach.

However, the opening was too small, and the vanguard of the Han army encountered fierce resistance from the defenders on and around the city as soon as they rushed in.

After leaving behind hundreds of corpses, the vanguard was forced to retreat in disarray.

After repelling the Han army's attack, the city's defenders quickly resealed the breach using sandbags and bricks, stones, and timber salvaged from various places.

Over the course of more than ten days, the Han army suffered thousands of casualties under the walls of Guiyang, yet failed to even breach the outer city walls.

Left with no other choice, Shao Yong had to change his strategy, abandoning a direct assault and instead adopting a protracted siege.

The army dug deep trenches and built high walls, completely severing Guiyang's connection with the outside world.

At the same time, Shao Yong urgently sent a message to Zhao Sheng in the rear, instructing him to quickly transfer Hongyi cannons from Baoning Prefecture and transport them to the front line in Guiyang by waterway.

Against a fortified city of this caliber, heavy cannons weighing several hundred kilograms were insufficient; only cannons weighing over a thousand kilograms could blast a breach.

Thus, the war entered a stalemate.

As late autumn gradually gave way to the depths of winter, Shao Yong remained unhurried.

Thanks to Zhao Sheng's overall planning and coordination in the rear, and Yu Chengye's patrols, the Han army's logistics supply line remained unobstructed.

The frontline troops had relatively sufficient food and clothing, and the soldiers did not suffer from hunger or cold.

However, there was one person in the besieging force who was very anxious: Marco.

This stalemate was more like torture for him.

He desperately needed a victory, a victory that would prove his worth, to shed his status as a surrendered general and thus gain a foothold in the new dynasty.

However, logistics and transportation always take time, especially for cannons that weigh thousands of kilograms.

The mountain roads in Guizhou were rugged, and the 120 Hongyi cannons, 80 heavy cannons weighing 400 jin each, and a huge amount of ammunition that Zhao Sheng had transferred from Baoning Prefecture could only be moved by manpower and oxen.

The supply train trekked arduously along the treacherous mountain roads and finally arrived at the Guiyang front before the start of spring.

Upon receiving the new equipment, Shao Yong's confidence soared, and he immediately decided to launch a general offensive, determined to take down the fortified city in one fell swoop.

At his command, the army began to work again.

More than two hundred cannons of various sizes were pushed to the front line by laborers and artillerymen and aimed at Xiaodongmen.

A breach had previously been blasted open here, making the city wall even weaker.

The soldiers on the city wall looked at the densely packed artillery formations in the distance, far exceeding the scale of any previous formation, and their faces turned pale with fear.

General Xu Chengming attempted to order a counterattack, but the Ming army's artillery was far inferior to the Han army's newly arrived Hongyi cannons in terms of both range and quantity.

The sporadic counterattacks were like scratching an itch through a boot, with little effect.

As a red flag was raised from the central command post, the general offensive officially began.

The Han army's artillery was the first to roar, especially the 120 Hongyi cannons, whose salvos shook the earth and echoed for miles.

The huge solid iron bullet, accompanied by a biting wind, slammed into the city wall of Xiaodongmen.

In an instant, bricks and stones flew everywhere, and dust billowed into the sky. The enormous impact caused the city tower on the wall to tremble.

The crenellations were flattened in large sections, and the defenders were so shaken that their ears and noses bled, and they could only cover their heads and retreat.

If An Bangyan had possessed such formidable firepower back then, Guiyang wouldn't have been able to hold out for ten months.

But a chieftain is a chieftain after all. They can make small cannons, but the Hongyi cannons are not something they can easily make.

The intense artillery fire lasted for a full hour.

The Hongyi cannons were incredibly powerful, successfully breaching the parapet and part of the outer wall on a section of the city wall south of the New East Gate, creating a clear opening.

Upon seeing this, the artillery battalion commander immediately ordered adjustments to the firing arc and direction, concentrating all firepower on the damaged section of the city wall and launching artillery bombardments in turns.

The deafening roar of cannons was incessant, and solid iron bullets rained down wave after wave.

The soldiers guarding the city wall dared not advance and could only watch helplessly as the breach widened and deepened.

Finally, amidst a loud bang and dust, a huge gap, about four zhang long and seventeen chi high, appeared on the city wall!

Seeing this, Shao Yong from the central command immediately lowered his telescope and instructed his personal guards:
"The city walls have been breached! Order all units to advance immediately, set up ladders, and attack the city!"

"Tell the auxiliary soldiers and laborers to wait until the attacking troops have drawn the defenders' fire before they go up to fill in the earth!"

The messenger waved his command flag, and the stirring war drums and bugle calls resounded through the sky!

The soldiers from various battalions, who had been waiting for a long time, surged across the moat from three sides like a flood bursting its banks, heading towards the breach in the city wall.

Seeing that the Han army had begun to build ladders to scale the city walls, Xu Chengming, who was on the city wall, immediately led his men forward to try to fight back.

The battlefield instantly descended into chaos, with arrows and bullets flying everywhere, and boulders and logs cascading down.

Meanwhile, the auxiliary soldiers pushed carts filled with sandbags and bricks, braving arrows and missiles, and rushed to the gap.

Two or three people were responsible for holding up the shields, while the others hurriedly dumped sandbags and bricks under the city wall and piled them up, trying to build a ramp that could directly rush up the breach in the city wall.

The laborers, carrying shovels and hoes, followed closely behind, continuously reinforcing and widening this attack route!

At this moment, Marco was leading eight hundred elite soldiers, quietly waiting at the edge of the battlefield.

As soon as the slope below the city begins to take shape, he will immediately launch an attack.

Despite the fierce fighting on the battlefield, it was all to provide cover for his troops.

Using ladders to attack a city is too slow and results in heavy casualties.

Only by controlling this slope can the army continuously surge up the city walls from below.

Marco's striker selection is key to breaking the deadlock. As long as he successfully defends this offensive channel, they can take Guiyang in one fell swoop.

(End of this chapter)