The Revolt of the Three Feudatories: All-in at the start in Beijing

Just moments before, Emperor Kangxi was still lost in fantasies about how he would treat Liu Mu's wife and children after conquering Beijing, but the next second he was blocked outside Yongding Gate, and his face turned extremely gloomy.

Tong Guowei also lowered his head as he approached Kangxi, like a hyena that had failed to complete its mission.

Kangxi forcibly suppressed his murderous intent. After all, Tong Guowei was his uncle and the only person he could use at the moment.

"Tell me, how do we attack the city?"

"Galdan must already know that I'm heading north, and we only have two days to capture the city!"

Kangxi was unaware that he had left in the first half of the night and was discovered by Liu Mu in the second half, but he still cautiously chose two days.

When Tong Guowei saw that Kangxi was asking him a question, he breathed a sigh of relief. If the emperor was willing to ask him, it meant that he was still useful. So he told him the plan to break through the city that he had thought of long ago.

"Your Majesty, this servant believes that there are not many troops in Beijing, otherwise they wouldn't be unable to control even a few vegetable farmers and merchants, and would need to be sent to suppress them!"

"Therefore, I have decided to divide the army into ten parts and attack the city at the same time, so that the defending army will not be able to concentrate its forces to resist. When that time comes, no matter which city gate is breached, my two thousand Eight Banner warriors will not be able to withstand the defending army of Beijing!"

"There are no trees around Beijing, so it would take six hours to cut down trees in the Western Hills to make ladders!"

Having grown up in Beijing, Emperor Kangxi naturally knew there were no trees around, and he didn't say anything, just nodded.

"Go and arrange the siege!"

"You cannot disappoint me this time!"

"This servant will certainly not disappoint you!"

After receiving the imperial decree, Tong Guowei quickly went to make arrangements. The main focus of the attack was on the inner city gates, because Kangxi's ultimate goal was to enter the imperial city to arrest Liu Mu's family and to burn down the palace again.

Fortunately, after taking control of Beijing, Liu Mu had already opened up the city walls, so no matter which city gate was attacked, the 800 men of the Imperial City Guard could ride on horseback to provide support on the city walls.

While the Eight Banners were cutting down trees everywhere or collecting timber from nearby rural areas, people in Beijing were filled with anxiety.

The 200,000 Beijing residents in particular were trembling with fear; they truly did not want to return to the dark rule of the Manchu Tartars.

The restaurant owned by Pan Feng's mother-in-law was located near Zhengyang Gate, where a large number of Han Chinese people gathered.

Yes, the small noodle shop has now become a medium-sized restaurant, and it's three stories high.

"Fellow villagers, you're late to the party, so you don't know. Back then, when the Tartars were enclosing land, their warhorses would run wild. Whoever's land they enclosed, that land and its inhabitants belonged to them!"

"My poor dead man, not only was he confiscated and made a slave, but he was also dragged to Shanxi to work as a laborer, and ended up starving to death under the walls of Taiyuan."

Pan Feng's mother-in-law spoke with tears streaming down her face, and some of the newcomers to Beijing looked terrified upon hearing it.

Perhaps sympathized with by Pan Feng's mother-in-law's words, a large number of locals began to speak, and one old woman even sat down on the ground and burst into tears.

"My family was also seized, and both of my sons were taken away by the Tartars. Their fate is still unknown. Fortunately, when the Han Dynasty entered Beijing, they not only returned the seized land, but also provided us orphans and widows with sewing and mending jobs so we could earn some money to eat."

"Now those damned Tartars are coming back! My poor newborn grandson, if they breach the city, he'll inevitably become a slave again!"

Hearing the cries of these locals, the wealthy families who had been relocated to Beijing were also filled with fear.

Although the Han emperor forcibly relocated them, he did not mistreat them and even provided them with the best houses in the inner city.

If the Tartars invade, those of them who have no connections, no influence, but are rich will be nothing more than cooked meat.

One of the wealthy men, a fat man with big ears, slapped his folding fan and gritted his teeth, revealing a look of arrogance on his face.

"Today, I, Chen Jizong, am making this clear: anyone who is willing to climb the city wall and kill the Tartars will receive an additional tael of silver from my family, in addition to the provisions and pay provided by the government."

The Imperial City Guard provided a settlement allowance of ten taels of silver, plus two dry meals a day. If you add the allowance from the wealthy merchant, it would be a huge sum of money.

But that wasn't the end of it. These wealthy merchants had plenty of money, and what they feared most was being killed by the Tartars before they could spend it all. So they all responded to Chen Jizong's call.

Some families added three qian, others five qian. By pooling their money, each person could receive twenty taels of resettlement silver simply by registering at Zhengyang Gate. This was quite generous, considered the resettlement allowance for a regular soldier in this era.

As a result, more and more people joined the defense of the city. Although only those under 50 and over 15 were accepted, more than 2,000 people were recruited in a short period of time, and more and more people were still signing up.

Pan Feng had already opened the armory, which contained more than 10,000 cold weapons such as spears and longswords, as well as more than 2,000 sets of cotton armor or cloth-covered iron armor from the Eight Banners.

Among them were some leather armor sets from the Mongol tribes, numbering in the tens of thousands, which were in good condition except for wear and tear.

These miscellaneous and semi-scrap materials are used to prepare for emergencies and are also part of the empire's foundation.

As the sun reached its zenith, Tong Guowei's side had spent over an hour working on more than a hundred cloud ladders, all made of elm wood.

There were no iron nails on it; it was all tied with hemp rope, so it didn't look very sturdy. After all, the Eight Banner soldiers weren't professional carpenters.

"attack!!!"

With Tong Guowei's order, a large number of bondservants carried ladders and began to attack the city. Especially at Chaoyang Gate, Tong Guowei personally supervised the battle, and the Eight Banner soldiers and bondservants he selected were the most elite.

These men swam across the moat, secured the sides with ropes, and quickly laid out planks, thus constructing a wooden bridge that would allow a small army to cross the moat.

Due to insufficient troops, the garrison had no firearms and only foot bows as ranged weapons, so they could only watch helplessly as the Eight Banners soldiers crossed the moat.

Pan Feng was also the first to notice that the morale here was the highest, so he brought a full three hundred Imperial City Guard soldiers with him.

These bondservants who were attacking the city had just crossed the moat and were already eager to set up siege ladders, and they were not worried at all, even though they were swaying.

The reason was that their master's family members had all been killed by the Han army, and they all wanted to avenge their master. Even those who could not climb the ladders shot arrows wildly from below the city.

Under such an explosive siege, Tong Guowei thought he would break through the city in one fell swoop, but after half a day, it was as if there was an endless stream of stones and boiling oil on the city walls.

Many of the wounded soldiers fell from the ladder in agony; even if they survived the ten-meter fall, they were severely injured, and the situation instantly turned against them.

In fact, Tong Guowei's strategy of dividing his troops was quite good, but the one thing he hadn't considered was the people's willingness to follow the Han army in defending the city.

Even the women and children were moving stones for the garrison or directly dismantling the blue bricks next to them.