Dominate the Country

[Thanks to ‘Lu Yifeng’ 588 for the reward, thank you =]

"What the hell, missed, another near miss! Adjust the azimuth angle to 0°21, the elevation angle to 0°20!... Get ready, release!"

At the Fuhan Army artillery position two miles outside Suzhou City, on a high observation deck, artillery observers waved flags and accurately conveyed information to the people below. Huang Jingting cursed and waited for the result of the next shot.

The secret camp in Suzhou City had already sent the city defense map of the Qing army in Suzhou to Chen Ming, but Chen Ming really couldn't gather enough troops to attack Suzhou City. This place had a profound influence from the Manchus and the Wusong River was dozens of miles long. The fleet used up too much of the Fuhan Army's military strength, and some of the remaining troops had to be used to explore Zhejiang.

In this way, Chen Ming's only counterattack against Suzhou City was artillery.

On one side, the salvage work at Guajingkou was proceeding in an orderly manner; on the other side, the main artillery force of the Fuhan Army was gathered outside Changmen on the west side of Suzhou.

A ten-foot-high observation tower was erected on the artillery position of the Fuhan Army, and the purpose was to accurately hit the area between Changmen and Beitongzimen. According to the report from the dark camp, the people who live there now They were the bannermen who escaped from Nanjing.

"boom!"

Three cannon shots were fired, and three five-kilogram red iron bullets flew three miles away and accurately hit the "target" - a courtyard. Black smoke rose into the sky, and the observers on the observation deck could I could clearly see fireworks set off in residential buildings and panicked people.

The ignition ability of red-hot iron bullets is very powerful, and the houses in Suzhou are extremely narrow. There is less land and more people here, and the urban residents are densely populated. Although most of the residential buildings are densely arranged along the waterways, with narrow horizontal width and long depth, the people's wisdom is infinite, and Suzhou people take advantage of the tight building area. It has formed its own unique Suzhou residential style. Every house must have a small courtyard - patio, abundant rainwater - eaves corridor, land-crossing water transportation - arch bridge, and to expand the narrow space - bridge, overhang, and pillow flow. , Diaojiaolou. But now, these many small buildings have become the source of disaster, because they use a lot of wood in their construction. It can be said that as long as the cannonballs do not hit the waterways in front and behind the houses, they will ignite. It is not difficult to build a residential house in Suzhou. Of course, in a place like Suzhou where water is everywhere, it is impossible to set the whole city on fire.

"Boom boom boom..."

After the shooting of Zhu Yuan was decided, there was a loud bang from the cannons. Dozens of cannons from the main artillery team of the Fuhan Army fired fiercely. With only two or three cannons, complete chaos broke out in the southwest of Suzhou City.

"Child Chen Ming, you must die a good death..." Rong Bao's hysterical yelling came from the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou. He had a hundred reasons to believe that Chen Ming hit the southwest corner on purpose, and he did it on purpose.

Surder, who was standing aside, felt a pain in his forehead. He wanted to hand over the official position immediately and return to Beijing as soon as possible. The southwest corner of Suzhou City, not the entire southwest corner, was bombed. The area where the bannermen lived was bombed. Chen Ni was definitely intentional. Surder thought about how he had forced the people to vacate their houses, and now that the bannermen were being bombarded, the sin seemed to have become his own again. Surder felt like he was no longer human inside and out. Thinking about how to clean up the mess after the bombardment, he really felt that enough was enough.

Do you want to free up the most central place in Suzhou City for them? If you really do this, your reputation will be completely ruined.

"My lord, my lord..."

"Master, what's wrong with you..."

"Quickly tell the doctor..."

"Send the master back to the house quickly..."

Rong Bao looked at the half-breathed Surder, who was "unconscious" and "unconscious" being dragged out of the hall by his cronies and senior attendants. He uttered two words without saying a word. Come on, he was so shocked and dumbfounded.

"Master, is it appropriate for you to do this...? Wouldn't this offend the General to death?"

"So what? Is it possible that I will work with him Rong Bao a second time? Go tell people outside that I am sick, seriously ill. I can no longer take charge of the affairs, and I will leave all matters to the General."

When Chen Ming asked the artillery to bombard the bannermen, he did not expect that it would have such an effect. He was simply causing trouble for the Manchus. When the secret camp in Suzhou City spread the news to the Fuhan Army camp, Chen Ming laughed after reading it.

What a pity, the Qing soldiers from Hangzhou were about to arrive, and Huang Jie reported an emergency. The Qing army suddenly sent an Eight Banners cavalry south, cutting off the water transportation channel between Gaoyouzhou and Yangzhou. At the same time, the Qing soldiers' offensive against Taixing and Taizhou became more urgent. If the Third Brigade wants to maintain its current position in Jiangbei, it must have reinforcements. Chen Ming is going back to Nanjing now, otherwise he will have no worries - the surface fleet will soon enter Taihu Lake. After the Qing army was defeated in the battle at Guajingkou, its Taihu navy had fled. The Fuhan army stormed Suzhou and defeated it without any guarantee.

…

On the north bank of the Yangtze River, Jiangyan Town is the east gate of Taizhou City.

As the center of the Lianghuai Salt Factory, Taizhou has been a salt-producing place since ancient times. For example, the town of Jiangyan got its name because during the Northern Song Dynasty eight or nine hundred years ago, salt merchants Jiang Renhui and Jiang E and their sons led a crowd to build a The weir resists floods, the homeland is maintained for a long time, and the achievements will last forever, hence the name Jiangyan.

This is the gateway for the Fuhan Army to protect Taizhou City, but the strength of the Third Brigade is limited, and more than half of its strength is now in Gaoyou Prefecture. Huang Jie has deployed a total of one new army camp in Taizhou. Although the geographical location of Jiangyan Town is very important, the guards The Fuhan Army here is just one team.

"Damn it! This is a heavy artillery, a heavy artillery with a 12-jin shell!" A team officer on the front line shouted with a dark face as he watched the artillery that the soldiers brought to him. Such heavy artillery could not withstand the fortifications of his troops in Jiangyan Town, nor even the more solid Taizhou City. Moreover, the sound of artillery outside was very dense, definitely not just two or three cannons.

"Damn it, where did the Tartars get so many cannons?"

On the battlefield, distinguishing the caliber and number of enemy artillery by the sound of the explosion of the shells is the basic skill of a qualified soldier! The team officer is also a veteran. Not only are there a lot of artillery outside, but the sound is also different from usual. Compared with the sound of the general cannon he heard in the past, it is crisper and brighter.

As if to prove what he said, before the voice fell, there were bursts of whistling in the sky. The officer's face was ashen, and he shouted loudly: "Hurry up and let the second row retreat, retreat quickly!"

The Qing army has at least ten cannons. If the second row does not retreat quickly, it may not be able to retreat. Because any experienced soldier knows that the two rounds of artillery fire just now must be the opponent's proofreading shooting, and the third round of artillery fire is the official bombardment. And during the artillery fire, the opponent will definitely continue to correct the trajectory. When the fourth and fifth rounds of shooting come, this position will become a real hell on earth.

If they don't retreat, the second row may really be completely written off on the position.

Although the second row also has two tiger squatting cannons.

The Qing army tent.

A general wearing the cotton armor of the Eight Banners sat in the center. On his left and right were Wang Pu, the deputy general of Shandong Wendeng Camp. He was originally the lieutenant general of Shandong Fu Biao. After Zhang Dajing, the deputy general of Wendeng Camp, was transferred to the general of Nanyang Town, he became the deputy general of Wendeng Camp.

Opposite Wang Pu was Yonggui, the deputy general of Huai'an City Defense Camp. This time, Yonggui brought a thousand brave soldiers from Huai'an to attack Tai'an.

The person in the middle of Wang Pu and Yonggui was Cai Yi, the deputy commander of the Firearm Camp who came from Beijing. This person was the great-grandson of Cai Yurong, and one of the meritorious officials in the Han Army Eight Banners who made great contributions to the Manchu Dingguo. Although this guy was finally sent to the Ministry of Justice by Kang Mazi for the crime of favoring the rebellious party because he took Wu Sangui's granddaughter as a concubine, he was interrogated, sentenced to death, confiscated, and then spared from death, and was sent to Heilongjiang with his son Cai Lin. In the 38th year of Kang Mazi, he was promoted to the Han Eight Banners again a few years later, so Cai Yi was able to become the deputy commander of the Firearm Camp.

Opposite the three Qing army generals was a Westerner with brown-red hair and a thick beard on his chin, but this Westerner could speak fluent Cantonese Mandarin, which made it easy for the four to communicate with each other.

The battle report sent back from the front made Cai Yi and others very happy, and Perez also smiled proudly. The twelve sixteen-pound naval guns shipped from Macau did not disappoint the hopes of both Qing and Portugal. This opened a good start for the future bilateral arms trade.

In the defense position of the Fu Han Army, three of the four civil engineering fortresses were swept away, and the only remaining one was half collapsed. The civil engineering fortifications could not withstand the shells of the sixteen-pound cannon. Before the order of the team officer to withdraw the troops was transmitted to the front line, every shell explosion was like a hammer hitting the nerves of the guards.

Everyone knew what would happen to them after the surface fortifications and artillery were completely destroyed and suppressed. With the support of superior firepower, the Qing army could completely use the sea of ​​people to annihilate all the efforts of the Jiangyan town defenders.

Fernandez was a Portuguese artillery lieutenant who came with Perez. When the defenders' positions outside Jiangyan Town were smashed to pieces by artillery shells, he saw a team of Qing soldiers shouting and rushing towards the town in front, running and approaching quickly. Fernandez believed that there would be no more resistance in front. The firepower of the anti-government army was very poor and was completely suppressed by their artillery. The Qing soldiers could march and occupy the town in front.

Fernandez took out a pack of cigarettes from his waist, which was given to him by the Qing army artillery officer. Fernandez certainly knew that this kind of paper was wrapped with tobacco leaves, but he never thought that tobacco leaves could be smoked in this way. He thought it was a genius idea and his pipe seemed to be retired.

Fernandez was very interested in this kind of cigarette, but unfortunately, this kind of cigarette was rare even in the Qing army.

They could only find some sporadic cigarettes from the dead soldiers of the Fu Han Army. The whole pack of cigarettes in Fernandez's hand was very rare.

On the battlefield, especially in the artillery position, it was very convenient to light a cigarette. Fernandez also walked to the front of the position to smoke very well, so as not to accidentally ignite the gunpowder barrel. But he had just taken a step and had not reached his destination when he heard a dense and fierce explosion from the front. In a moment, the running Qing soldiers fell to the ground crookedly. The team of hundreds of people seemed to be handed over in an instant on the way to attack, which made Fernandez drop his jaw.

"Shoot! Keep shooting at Jiangyan Town in front--" The roar of the Qing soldiers' officers sounded in the rear artillery team. Fernandez could understand Chinese Mandarin, although he was more familiar with Cantonese, because he was a native Portuguese in Macau. In the 23 years of his life, he had come into contact with too many Chinese people.

"The Chinese fought very tenaciously. Both the rebels and the Qing soldiers were much stronger than I had imagined. They were very brave!"

"Captain Blanco? Do you think so too? Yes, you are right. The Chinese fought very tenaciously. If they were equipped with flintlock rifles instead of those ridiculous matchlock rifles, and after a certain amount of training, I believe their combat effectiveness would be as strong as the first-class European army."

"They don't need to be as strong as the first-class European army. They only need to have the combat effectiveness of the second-class European army. With their population and wealth, they can sweep the world like the Tatars five hundred years ago."

Blanco took a cigarette handed by Fernandez and lit it with Fernandez's cigarette: "Mint flavor, very good, I like it Mint. "

"Captain, the rebels here are only the weakest troops in the Chinese rebel team. Their main force is attacking the richest land in China on the south of the Yangtze River."

"Yes, I heard that too. Moreover, this rebel army is famous for its sharp guns and cannons in China, but now the rebels in front of us only have those pitiful grenades and even more pitiful Chinese matchlock guns. May God bless them to have evacuated the town ahead, otherwise they will be destroyed with that town."

Today, Portugal is in the famous Pombal Reform period in its history. The sharp and tough Marquis of Pombal has also turned the Inquisition into a tool that obeys his orders. The three classes of nobles, civilians, and clergy were cleaned up by him one by one, and then the Portuguese economy was saved from the brink of collapse after the Lisbon earthquake in 1755. Although mercantilism has made Portugal's power highly concentrated, social polarization has become increasingly serious, and other shortcomings, it has finally given birth to a breath of new life in Portugal, allowing it to have signs of recovery in the continuous period of decline.

Why did the Portuguese in Macau dare to easily conduct a series of arms trade with the Qing Dynasty? At that time, the missionaries and True God believers who went south from Xiangyang had already arrived in Macau and told the Jesuit missionaries about the heavy blow of the "rebellion" to the Qing government. Similarly, the missionaries released by the Fu Han Army in Nanjing also brought back the meaning of the Fu Han Army. However, the Portuguese still simply chose the Qing Dynasty, because the Qing Dynasty could immediately start a series of arms trade with them, as long as the Portuguese could produce enough cannons and muskets. This is also the influence of Portugal's mercantilism that prevailed during this period.

The Qing government still has strong military strength and huge wealth. Convenient and fast trade can allow the Portuguese to earn lovely silver immediately. As for whether the Portuguese sending officers to guide the Qing army artillery would leak the Western military level and skills, hehe, the Portuguese had no such awareness at all.

They first considered their own interests, then the interests of Macau, then the interests of Portugal, and finally the interests of the entire Europe.

Military leaks or something? Haha, you really think too much, the Portuguese will not consider this.