On October 27, the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, this large-scale siege launched by the Qing Dynasty army ended at midnight with the Qing Dynasty siege team hastily withdrawing from the long fortress where they besieged the city.

Of course, Yang Zhen hoped that the Qing army would continue to attack, but it was a pity that he failed to do so.

They don't know whether it was because the firepower at the top of the Zhenjiang Fort was too fierce that Huang Taiji retreated, or because the casualties of the Qing captives exceeded their expectations, which made Huang Taiji feel unbearable.

All in all, when it became clear that a large number of Qing Dynasty infantry archers were killed and injured a few hundred steps away from the city and could not complete the massing within the effective range of their bows and arrows, the Qing Dynasty army decisively retreated.

Of course, when the remaining Qinglu siege troops below the city began to turn around and run back, Jin Yukui, who had been paying close attention to the movements of the Qinglu cavalry outside the city, lost no time in firing the heavy artillery deployed at the top of the city.

Jin Yukui, who was very familiar with General Tianyou's heavy artillery, indeed made an extraordinary move. He divided the thirty heavy artillery pieces into three batches, and fired ten heavy artillery pieces at the same time each time, all pointing at the same position.

Every time it was fired, the impact points of the ten heavy cannons were only a dozen or so steps apart.

This error may sound quite large, but for artillery battles of this era, it is already quite small.

In particular, when the Qing Dynasty's cavalry retreated from the area where they had been waiting to fight, thousands of armored cavalry gathered on the frozen open fields. The target was so large that there was no need to worry about not being able to hit the enemy.

On the contrary, almost every large iron bullet fired by the heavy artillery at the top of the city commanded by Jin Yukui caused huge casualties to the Qing soldiers and horses crowded near the entrance and exit of the long barrier.

The snowy fields outside the city are not only open, but the ground is frozen very hard.

After the iron ball fired by the heavy artillery hits the ground, it will continue to dance at high speed and rush into the retreating cavalry and the crowd. If an iron bullet is hit, it will be a bloody road.

Jin Yukui rushed around to give orders to the thirty heavy artillery pieces at the top of the city. Every ten guns were in a batch, and each batch fired three rounds.

Ninety huge cannons were fired one after another, and almost all of them hit the retreating Qing troops. The result can be imagined.

Therefore, Jin Yukui commanded the heavy artillery to chase the retreating Qinglu troops. Every time he fired a big iron ball that rushed into the Qinglu troops, he won a round of cheers from a large number of soldiers on the city wall.

Finally, it was not until those Qing soldiers and horses who had no time to escape from the long fort jumped into the deep trenches they dug when building the long fort to avoid the bombardment that Jin Yukui ordered to stop the heavy artillery bombardment.

At the same time, after this battle, the two Tatars who had surrendered not long before yesterday became famous in one fell swoop and won the respect of Yang Zhen's soldiers.

At 3:30 p.m. that day, the hastily retreating Qing soldiers and horses all withdrew from the long siege fortress they had built. Yang Zhen's first large-scale offensive and defensive battle after taking charge of Zhenjiang Fort City came to an end.

It was already three o'clock in the morning, and the bright sunshine was shining on the earth. Although I couldn't feel the hot temperature, I looked at the corpses of Qinglu soldiers and horses scattered all over the snowy field outside the city under the sun, as well as more wounded Qinglu soldiers who were screaming and wailing.

, Yang Zhen was extremely happy.

So as soon as the Qing soldiers and horses withdrew from the long siege wall two or three miles away, he couldn't wait to order Zhang Chen to lead the musketry battalion down to the city, out of the city, to clean the battlefield, count the results of the battle, and harvest the corpses of Qing soldiers outside the city.

The heads of wounded soldiers.

There were far more wounded Qing soldiers than corpses left on the battlefield outside the city, but the musketeers led by Zhang Chen naturally would not assume the responsibility of treating them.

Moreover, these wounded Qing soldiers left on the battlefield were all seriously wounded who had lost the ability to move after being injured.

Not to mention Zhang Chen and the others didn't want to treat them at all. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't.

In this regard, all Zhang Chen and his musketeers could do was to kill them with one last blow and end their suffering as soon as possible.

As for the soldiers who huddled under the city wall, among the ruins of the barbican city, and along the frozen moat, who did not flee back but chose to kneel down and surrender, Zhang Chen did not take them in, but chose to take them in.

Shot on the spot.

Wherever he is found, he is executed there and his head is taken off.

These Ahalian soldiers are mixed. Who knows if there are spies among them who are pretending to surrender?

Once you kindly take them in as prisoners and place them in the city, what will you do if they take the opportunity to cause chaos the next time the Qing invaders attack the city?

Such things happened one after another in the previous battlefields of Liaodong and were not uncommon.

I think that many fortified cities in Liaodong were captured in this way by the Qing captives and their predecessors, the Hou Jin Army.

Zhang Chen was born as a frontier soldier in Liaodong Town. He was of course very familiar with the tactics used by the Jin army after the Eastern Han Dynasty, so he naturally wanted to take precautions at this time.

In this way, around noon, the operations of cleaning the battlefield outside the city, killing the wounded Qing soldiers and harvesting the heads of the dead Qing prisoners were still continuing, but the preliminary results of the results of this battle had already come out.

"Captain, including the unarmored soldier Aha, we have captured a total of 6,371 Qing captive heads in this battle! Although it is not as fruitful as our Songshan City defense battle in October last year, it is definitely still

It can be called a great victory!”

"Congratulations, Governor!"

"Congratulations to the Governor!"

Zhang Chen, who returned to the city with a face full of joy, had just reported to Yang Zhen the number of heads captured by the musketeers of the 9th Post and 27th Team of the Musket Regiment. Li Lu, Yang Shen and other generals surrounded him happily.

Everyone began to congratulate Yang Zhen.

"Congratulations for what? Congratulations for what? Where is this?"

Yang Zhen immediately interrupted Li Lu and others' congratulations with a smile and a curse.

So far, the defense battle of Zhenjiang Fort has only been a small victory. It would be a bit too early to celebrate the victory now.

"Besides, this victory was not won by me, Yang Zhen, alone. If I want to congratulate, I should also congratulate all the soldiers!"

In front of so many soldiers on the city, Yang Zhen would not risk the world and take all the credit for defending the city.

Therefore, when he said this, Yang Zhen simply turned around and found a high place, stood up and raised his arms to the soldiers of the various battalions who were still on duty in the city and shouted loudly:

"Brothers, we fought very well in today's battle. The statistics of the results have come out. In this battle, our army captured a total of 6,371 heads of Qinglu horse infantry!

"In this battle, the brothers obeyed the orders and fought bravely, showing the prestige of our Jinhai Town and the prestige of our Eastern Army. When the Qing captives truly retreat, I guarantee that all the brothers will be rewarded!

"In addition, in order to celebrate today's victory, we will add a meal tonight, good wine and meat, you can eat as much as you want, eat until you are full, drink until you are full! Jinhai Town will win! The Eastern Army will win!"

After Yang Zhen finished shouting these words, cheers suddenly sounded from the top of the city, and the cries of "Jinhai Town must win" and "The Eastern Expedition Army must win" echoed throughout the city.

Regarding the cheers from his soldiers, Yang Zhen felt that it might not be for the reward he promised, but probably just for the feast of wine and meat in the evening.

Because after the Qing army began to siege the city, Yang Zhen implemented a strict food rationing system in Zhenjiang Fort.

Zhenjiang Fort has the 100,000 shi of rice that Liu Lin led his army to transport into the city, so there is no shortage of food for a while, and there is no shortage of food or hunger.

But eating well does not mean eating well.

Although the various regimental camp sentries, navy camp sentries, commanders of the Loyalty Army and other Korean soldiers and horses in the city regularly received rice from the grain and grass camp, enough to fill their stomachs three meals a day.

But every day I eat sweet potato porridge or sweet potato dry rice, and if I do this every day, I will feel like a bird has long faded out of my mouth.

After entering the city, all the liquor and livestock seized were returned to the public and distributed uniformly.

It took ten and a half days for officials and soldiers at all levels to get a mouthful of soju and a piece of meat. It was impossible to eat meat and drink wine in large bowls.

At the same time, there were no Tatar women in the city, and dice, gambling, and other entertainment were not allowed.

Days like this have been going on for a long time. How can these desperadoes, who put their heads in their belts and lick blood from the blades of their swords every day, stand it?

If it weren't for the fact that the Zhenjiang Fort City was surrounded by the Qing rebel army, and that once the Qing rebels broke through the city, all the defenders in the city would be dead, then more than 10,000 young and strong men who were brave and fierce would have gathered together.

He had already started making trouble by himself.

As the saying goes, relax and relax, which is the way of civility and martial arts.

Only when you are tense sometimes and relaxed sometimes, have work and leisure, and combine leniency with severity, is the way to lead an army.

Such a victory today gave Yang Zhen a lot of confidence. The tense emotions and mentality of the defenders in the city, including Yang Zhen himself, should indeed be relaxed appropriately.

Because after this battle, Yang Zhen also saw clearly.

When there are enough long-range heavy artillery in the city that you are guarding, or the number of long-range heavy artillery that is equal to or even similar to that of Qinglu, it is not easy for Qinglu to take over the city.

For example, the Zhenjiang Fort that he was guarding, if the Qing captives wanted to capture the city, they were bound to pay huge casualties.

Because there are no fewer heavy artillery in the city than there are Qing captives outside the city, and because of the condescending reason, the range of the same heavy artillery is farther than that of the Qing captives outside the city.

This also means that it is no longer possible for the Qing rebels outside the city to take advantage of the heavy artillery they have developed in recent years to completely destroy the city wall and then occupy the city.

The only way left is to continue the siege of the city, and then wait for the city's defenders to surrender or be forced to break out when the city's food supplies run out.

At that time, the Qing captives could use their relatively powerful field combat capabilities, that is, their proud bow and horse riding and shooting skills, to eliminate Yang Zhen's men and horses who broke through.

However, can the Qing soldiers and horses outside the city wait until that day?

Basically I can't wait any longer.

At least in Yang Zhen's own opinion, as long as there are no other problems within his army, the Qing captives outside the city will basically not be able to wait until the day when he is forced to break out of the encirclement.

Because there is no shortage of food in Zhenjiang Fort.

The 100,000 kilograms of rice that Liu Lin led his troops to escort in at the beginning is enough for the various regimental sentries, navy soldiers, loyal soldiers and other Korean troops in the city to hold on until the spring of next year.

Sure enough, after Yang Zhen finished shouting these words, the originally depressing and dull atmosphere in the city quickly changed and became much more relaxed and joyful. While talking about the war that had just ended, they enjoyed the fine wine and food in the evening.

When Zhang Chen heard Yang Zhen's arrangement, he immediately sent someone out of the city to convey the order, asking Li Shouzhong to lead people out to the snowy field where the Qing captives had evacuated, and to dismember the wounded and dying horses as well as the horses that had fallen there not long ago and bring them back to the city.
Chapter completed!