"Has the thief army captured the city?" Zhu Yousong's anxious voice came from the steps of the city gate tower. "Your Majesty!"

"His Majesty!"

Ma Shiying and others knelt down one after another, welcoming Zhu Yousong to "in-chief the imperial army" and personally came to the city to supervise the city defense arrangements.

It’s a pity that Zhu Yousong is too fat, and the steps of the city gate tower are very steep. It’s not like riding in a car and riding in a sedan chair. Zhu Yousong struggles to walk, let alone climbing the steps. He looked up at the steps and shouted, “Come on, help me up!”

This made two young eunuchs suffer. They had to support a big fat pig worth more than 300 kilograms. Strictly speaking, it was really tiring to carry it up such a high stairs.

Zhu Yousong climbed to the top of the city, and the two eunuchs were almost exhausted.

"Flat." Zhu Yousong looked at the officials kneeling all over the floor, spread his hands and raised his palms to signal everyone to flatten them.

Seeing Ma Shiying stand up, Zhu Yousong asked, "Have the thief army attacked the city?"

Ma Shiying quickly replied: "Your Majesty, it's not that fast. The bandits have just arrived and they still need to build siege weapons. At least they will not attack the city tomorrow morning."

Zhu Yousong turned his head, leaned on the female wall with both hands, and stood at the front of the city to look at the Huai Army in front of him. He saw that the enemy was neat, well-equipped, and highly morale. Although he didn't understand soldiers, his momentum also scared him into a cold sweat.

"No! The thief is about to fire!" Zhao Zhilong suddenly shouted.

"Your Majesty, please avoid it! The thief's artillery is sharp!" Liu Kongzhao shouted in panic.

Under the city, a cannon from the Huai Army and the Zheng Family Army had already been set up, and just waited for a command to pour bombs into the city.

"Where are our cannons? Why not bombard them?" Ma Shiying shouted in a hurry.

"Go back to the prime minister, our cannons were all cast during the Wanli period of Jiajing. The earliest one was a hundred years old. Even the newer cannons have been forty or fifty years, and they are already unbearable for use. Only the tiger squat cannons, and the Folang machine was a new cannon cast during the Tianqi period." A guerrilla general replied.

On the Huai Army's positions, the gunners had already begun to load gunpowder and projectiles. One twelve-pound field cannon, six-pound field cannon, three-pound cannon, twelve-pound howitzer, thirty-two-pound mortar cannon and other artillery caliber aimed at the city wall. After loading the shells, Li Guodong gave an order: "Fire!"

Hundreds of artillery spit out their tongues of flames, and shells passed through the sky and smashed towards Nanjing City. Some shells hit the city walls, and people standing at the top of the city felt that the city walls were shaking violently. Some shells passed through the city and fell into the city, smashing many houses, and some shells fell into the moat and soared into the sky.

Even on Yuhuaquan Mountain, a mile south of Jubao Gate, there was a roaring cannon sound. The Huai Army brought the light twenty-four-pound mortar cannon and the twelve-pound mortar cannon to the top of the mountain. These mortar cannons have large calibers, but because of the low chamber pressure, the barrel wall is very thin and the weight of the cannon is very light. The twelve-pound mortar cannon weighs only more than 80 kilograms, and the twenty-four-pound mortar cannon is less than 200 kilograms. Although the initial velocity and end speed of the shells are very slow and the kinetic energy is low, the mortar cannon uses flowering shells, which is not inferior to that of field cannons.

The hit rate of the first round of test-fire artillery was not high, but starting from the second round of artillery, the hit rate of the Huai Army artillery was significantly increased a lot.

Countless artillery shells hit the battlements of the female wall, gravels flew everywhere, bricks cracked, and the defenders hiding behind the female wall were also affected. While the shells smashed the city bricks and stones at the same time, the inner walls cracked, and the gravels and bricks flew across like shrapnel, killing the city defenders at the front. Large-caliber artillery shells hit the outer wall, and the city bricks fell to the ground, revealing the rammed earth inside. Then the shells hit the rammed earth, and pits appeared. The flowering artillery shells fired by the mortar cannon directly kill the city personnel and destroy the city guard weapons at the front.

Thirty-two pounds, twenty-four pounds and twelve pounds of mortar shells kept falling from high altitudes, landing on the city walls, bursting out fireballs, and the defenders on the city top fell one after another, and the iron pot with golden juice was blown up to the sky, and the turbulent oil tank on the ground was overturned, igniting a raging fire.

"It will take at least half a month to bombard the Nanjing city wall, and to completely collapse a section of the city wall to form a slope that our army can go up to," Li Guodong pointed to the Nanjing city wall and said, "We should take multiple measures and the inner guards will proceed simultaneously with the strong attack. When it gets dark, we will issue a secret code to the inner guards in the city."

Li Guodong knew that the Qing army had shelled the city wall like Yangzhou for seven days before opening a gap. It was not completely destroyed. It was only after trampling on the corpse. According to historical records, the Qing army attacked the city on April 24th, and the city was broken on the 25th, and Yangzhou only defended for one day. In fact, the Qing army arrived at the city of Yangzhou on April 18th, and Kong Youde's Han Eight Banner Wuzhenchao Ha Camp had already started bombarding with cannons, and it took seven days.

The city of Nanjing is much stronger than Yangzhou. Without half a month of artillery bombardment, it is impossible to break a slope. The Huai Army did not have so much time, and Li Guodong asked to break the city within three days.

The Huai Army had a gunfire all day long, and it was getting darker. Li Guodong ordered the suspension of artillery and was preparing to issue a secret code at dawn, asking the insiders in the city to take action, and let some of the Huai Army enter the city, and at the same time attacked from another position, taking a two-pronged approach.

In addition to Chen Zilong and Fang Yizhi and others who were involved in the city, Zhang Shuheng's Jinyiwei also sent more than 200 people to the city. Now Li Guodong's personal guards and the Jinyiwei of the Ming Dynasty have merged, and almost all the former personal guards have joined the Jinyiwei.

On the city wall, the Beijing soldiers and civilians who were responsible for defending the city sat on the ground, leaning against the female wall, and torches were inserted into the battlements at the top of the city to prevent the Huai army from sieging the city at night.

Fang Yizhi, dressed as a civilian, also sat on the ground. I don’t know how long it took. He couldn’t hold on and leaned against the female wall, his eyes closed slightly to rest for a while. It was late at night, and Fang Yizhi was woken up by the sound of being beaten in the city.

"It's already past midnight, why isn't anyone here yet?" Fang Yizhi asked softly in Zhang Huangyan's ear.

"Wait a little longer, I will only take action when it's almost dawn."

After sleeping for half a night, Fang Yizhi was refreshed and could no longer sleep. He stood up, with his hands on the squadron, looking out at the Huai Army camp outside the city. He saw that the camp was brightly lit and illuminated like daytime. From time to time, sentries were seen walking back and forth in the camp.

Sun Lin had just had a sleep, and he took off the big bow on his back and the quiver on his waist. There were fifty sharp arrows in the quiver, including forty light arrows, five heavy arrows, and five armor-breaking heavy arrows. Sun Lin, Fang Yizhi and Zhang Huangyan are actually excellent archers,

The six Confucian arts mentioned by Confucius refer to rituals, music, shooting, harem, books, and numbers. Among them, shooting is archery, and harem is driving a chariot. Confucius himself is strong and is also a swordsman. Confucian scholars in the Han and Tang dynasties were all good at literature and martial arts. After the Song Dynasty, scholars of scholars were all abandoned, and scholars in the Ming Dynasty were even more weak. But there are exceptions, such as Fang Yizhi, who was not only able to ride horses and shoot archery, but also proficient in the Thai astronomy and mathematics, astronomy and mathematics. They belong to the numbers in the Six Arts, but in the Ming Dynasty, they became a clever and lewd skill.

People like Sun Lin and Zhang Huangyan are also proficient in archery. Most of the 180 scholars they brought were scholars, but these scholars are also proficient in martial arts.

At the beginning of the morning, a night owl cries came from outside the city.

Hearing the voice, Chen Zilong was overjoyed: Here comes! He walked to Fang Yizhi and whispered in his ear: "Prepare to do it!"

"Prepare to start!" All the righteous men stood up and took off all kinds of weapons.

On the other hand, Zhang Shuheng's Jinyiwei also heard the secret code and showed off his weapons. Although the people on both sides did not communicate with each other in advance, they all knew the existence of each other. When the people on the Jinyiwei saw these civilians showing off their weapons, they knew that they were their own people.
Chapter completed!