Southern Ming Rebel Army

Chapter 73: The Siege

The Qing army launched a fierce attack in one day, and the siege equipment prepared by the auxiliary soldiers and civilians for several days, including more than ten climbing towers, a large number of ladders, and battering rams, were destroyed by the defenders, and the infantry lost more than 3,000 people. More than 200 people of the Zhenglan Banner were folded.

Although the loss of personnel was acceptable, the loss of siege equipment made Bolo helpless. He could only order Kong Youde's artillery to bombard the city walls from time to time. It was not that he did not want the artillery to continue bombarding, but the gunpowder replenishment was too slow and could not keep up with the consumption of the battle. A large part of the gunpowder Kong Youde carried when he went south was used under the city of Jiangyin.

This forced Bolo to temporarily stop the attack. While building equipment, he ordered the surrendered soldiers and civilians to fill the trenches and engage in a consumption contest with the Suzhou defenders. The attack and defense of Suzhou City temporarily entered a stalemate.

Bolo felt that the population in the south of the Yangtze River was too dense, so he sent the surrendered generals Liu Liangzuo and Bai Yongfu to various towns and villages in Suzhou to capture civilians for the army to follow. For a time, the villagers outside the city of Suzhou were in a state of hell on earth, and the sight was horrible.

In yesterday's battle, Bai Yongfu's subordinates suffered the heaviest losses. In addition to the 3,000 cavalry of his own army, there were 20,000 infantrymen, and more than 2,000 of them were left under the city, which was almost one-tenth of the total number. If the battle continued for ten days, Bai Yongfu would be left alone.

He hadn't even had time to catch his breath after the battle yesterday, and today he was driven out by Bolo to capture civilians. This really made Bai Yongfu feel depressed.

Xiao Mingzuo and Wu Shunchang beside him also had unhappy expressions on their faces. The morale of the army was already low. In yesterday's battle, not to mention those who fell in Suzhou City, there were no less than two hundred people who died at the hands of the Eight Banners Supervision Team. It was like chopping melons and vegetables. Bai Yongfu looked at the soldiers around him, all of them were dejected and had no fighting spirit at all.

Alas, the situation is like this, there is nothing he can do, Bai Yongfu shook his head and sighed in his heart, the Bolo army is still before his eyes, what can he do? They asked me to capture civilians, how could I say no? Doing such a thing would make people poke his back. The scholars in Jiangnan are of the same blood, and there are many officials both in the Southern Ming Dynasty and in the Qing court in Beijing. Bai Yongfu could think of the memorials impeaching himself and Liu Liangzuo that could pile up as high as a person.

Unlike Bai Yongfu who was dejected, Liu Liangzuo was in a good mood. Conscripting men was a good opportunity to make a fortune. Liu Liangzuo's subordinate, Green Camp Lieutenant General Bian Hu, said excitedly, "Sir, this is a good job. Brothers can make a lot of money."

"What's the point of making money? Let my brothers open their eyes and see those who are confident and well-dressed, so as not to cause trouble for me. This time, we will only arrest those who are poor," Liu Liangzuo cursed in frustration.

In just these two days, Liu Liangzuo collected more than 30,000 taels of silver notes. The soldiers in the army all gained something, and their morale was high for a time.

Dog meat cannot be served at banquets, but you just want to rob. How can you take away so much silver? These Jiangnan gentry can hide any silver note in their pockets without anyone noticing. It is no better than the hard silver. They surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and shaved their pigtails. Although they are often scolded, they have more benefits. This is much better than the Ming Dynasty. They had to be criticized by civil officials for farting and had to bow and scrape when they saw a county magistrate. These scholars are just bad-hearted. Thinking of this, Liu Liangzuo was in a good mood and hummed a song while riding on his horse.

Just when Liu Liangzuo was feeling proud of himself, an arrow suddenly shot out from the woods. With a whoosh, Liu Liangzuo came to his senses and saw the tail of an arrow swinging under his armpit, sticking into his body.

The guards around him were stunned for a moment. What a great archer! He shot the commander-in-chief with one arrow in the army, beheaded the general and captured the flag.

Of course, Liu Liangzuo's guards reacted quickly, and their shields immediately formed a circle, protecting Liu Liangzuo in the middle. Lieutenant General Bian Hu was horrified and immediately shouted, "Catch the assassin, go into the woods!"

For a moment, Liu Liangzuo's troops were in chaos. The soldiers didn't know what was going on. They only heard the lieutenant general shouting to catch the assassin. Then the place where the commander was was in chaos. After a while, Liu Liangzuo waved his hand and said to the guards beside him, "It's nothing, it's just a little skin broken."

Not to mention the chaos in Liu Liangzuo's troops, there were five people in the woods, one of whom was Gu Yanwu. When Meng Jun led his army to pacify Kunshan City, Gu Yanwu hid in the suburbs of Kunshan City. After returning to Kunshan for a while, Gu Yanwu and Gui Zhuang felt that Kunshan City was not a place to be defended, so they prepared to go south. However, the two had a dispute over the place to go. Gui Zhuang still planned to go to Zhejiang and go to King Lu, while Gu Yanwu wanted to go to Meng Jun. The two were deadlocked and finally decided to go their separate ways. Although the two had some disagreements, they were still like-minded in resisting the Qing Dynasty.

Finally, Gu Yanwu brought more than 30 volunteers who were willing to follow him. However, before they arrived in Suzhou, they heard that Suzhou was besieged by Bolo. Gu Yanwu was extremely anxious, so he took four people and hid near Suzhou City so that he could get the news faster.

Originally, Gu Yanwu was hiding in his friend's house, but the Qing army was arresting civilians everywhere in the past two days. Gu Yanwu hid in the dark and watched Liu Liangzuo's face. He was furious. Seeing that this villain not only surrendered to the Qing and shaved his head, but was also so loyal to the Qing court, he decided to take a few people to assassinate Liu Liangzuo.

At this time, Chen Changgong had just put away the arrow in his hand, and Gu Yanwu beside him whispered happily, "Great, I hit it. I wonder if this bastard is dead."

Chen Changgong said proudly, "I never miss a shot. Hitting such a big target is much easier than shooting a rabbit. Don't worry, sir. I have put poison on the arrows."

Gu Yanwu nodded excitedly, then whispered, "Let's go quickly, these bastards will find this place soon." After that, he quickly fled with a few people.

However, Meng Jun had no idea that a famous scholar was preparing to surrender to him. At this time, Meng Jun was in a dilemma. The Qing army surrounded the city on three sides. After two days of siege, the surrendered civilians kept clearing the trenches and deer horns. Although corpses were left under the city, there was still some effect. A large number of obstacles were cleared away, but the defenders in the city were not idle either. The Qing army cleaned up during the day and the defenders secretly went out of the city to rearrange at night. A large number of caltrops were buried in the soil as traps, and the buried caltrops had to be soaked in gold juice.

Not only did this slow down the Qing army's cleanup operations, but soldiers were shot and killed every day while filling the trenches, and soldiers who stepped on caltrops would be crippled or die.

Although the cleaning operation was not smooth, the Qing army's artillery bombarded the north city every day. Although the Suzhou city wall was strong, Meng Jun still had some concerns in his heart, wondering what would happen if the wall collapsed.

Meng Jun told Yang En about his doubts. Yang En thought for a moment and said hesitantly, "Uh... Governor, I saw in ancient books that building another wall inside the wall, I wonder if it is feasible."