Southern Ming Rebel Army

Half an hour later, there was no movement at the gate, and there were even more people on the wall. Stones and wood were constantly being moved up. Seeing this, Meng Jun felt a little depressed. It seemed that if he didn't fight, he would really feel that his words were nonsense. Or he came too hastily. He had cavalry on hand, and there was really no way to not mobilize the infantry. Looking at the sky, by the time the infantry arrived, it would be almost dark.

Meng Jun made up his mind and said to the people behind him, "Let's go back to the camp and leave some people to monitor the manor. I will destroy this broken manor tomorrow."

Meng Jun asked Li Quan carefully, there are about 800 able-bodied men in the village. If it were ordinary gentry, how could they have so many people? According to Li Quan, some of them were Li Dayuan's men who were engaged in maritime business. These people were all strong men, and there were about 300 to 400 of them.

The next day, Meng Jun assembled 3,000 infantry, 1,000 auxiliary troops, 300 cavalry, five cannons, and 200 musketeers, and rushed to Lijiazhuang in a mighty force, hoping to wipe out the village in one day.

Inside Lijiazhuang, the head of the Li family reported to Li Dayuan in high spirits that the Ming cavalrymen who were monitoring outside the city had now disappeared, which meant that those people had withdrawn when they saw that they had not scared Lijiazhuang.

Li Dayuan stroked his graying beard, chuckled and said, "I have seen all kinds of storms over the years. I was almost frightened by some petty thieves. But we still can't take it lightly. Send more people out to investigate and see where these people have gone."

Just as the two of them breathed a sigh of relief, a guard from the Li family ran in hurriedly, panting and saying, "Master, there are so many bandits outside!"

Meng Jun really came. When the Li family father and son arrived at the village wall, they saw that outside the village, the mountains and plains were full of soldiers in black.

"How many people are there?" exclaimed Li Shuo, the second son of the Li family.

The village wall was not high, only a little over two meters, but the weather was good and the view from above was quite good. Some of the young men were so scared that their calves were shaking.

Li Dayuan had a gloomy face, his hands on the wall, looking outside the village. Master Li had lived for more than seventy years, but this was the first time he had seen such a big scene. Every time he read the news in the newspaper or heard the news, it was not as shocking as what he saw now.

It seems that the world is still not stable. After such a long period of chaos, there is still no sign of peace. If they can survive this disaster, Li Dayuan will move his entire family to Jiangning no matter what.

When the army arrived, it was already 9:00 in the morning and the sky was clear. Meng Jun led his troops and came within 500 steps of the village. He waved his hand, raised the big flag, and then lowered it. The infantry that was coming from all over the field stopped and looked at the enemy troops at the village wall with cold eyes.

The guards on the farm looked at the black mass and huddled at the battlements in fear. Li Dayuan was furious and said, "What are you afraid of? The enemy troops haven't come yet. Boss, go and bring up all the silver. You'll be rewarded two taels of silver for killing a enemy. As long as you defend the farm, I'll give you any money you want. Your lifetime of wealth depends on this day."

After a while, the eldest son of the Li family came to the wall carrying dozens of boxes. The white silver swayed, making everyone's heart flutter. The morale, which had been dropping for a while, was lifted up again.

When they arrived outside the village, the army set up a simple camp. The camp was bustling with people, and a large number of auxiliary soldiers immediately began to build siege equipment. Now Meng Jun did not have a special carpenter with the army, so the equipment could only be built by the auxiliary soldiers.

Anyway, the working people of that era had strong hands-on skills, so it was not difficult to build ladders. Several rows of ladders put together formed a simple siege ladder. Meng Jun inspected the equipment built by the auxiliary soldiers. The wall of the village was more than two meters high, and the ladder was three and a half meters long, so it could be hung diagonally on the wall to climb up.

The battalion commander of the auxiliary soldiers camp was Yang Can, who had founded Suzhou City. When Meng Jun established the new town, he privately asked Yang Can whether he was willing to enter the new town as a deputy commander. However, Yang Can felt that it was better for him to stay in the auxiliary soldiers camp and that it would be safer without having to go to the battlefield, so he politely declined Meng Jun's offer. Yang Can had been guarding Suzhou City safely and steadily. However, in the Battle of Yangcheng Lake, the army suffered heavy losses and a large number of auxiliary soldiers were withdrawn to supplement the various towns. Although Yang Can's battalion was not supplemented, it was also withdrawn for the march to Songjiang.

At this time, Yang Gan followed Meng Jun and explained, "General, this ladder is so long. When several rows are put together, it will be very strong. Even if dozens of people step on it at the same time, it will not collapse."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Meng Jun nodded as he looked around. Although it was a small village, it was Meng Jun's first time as an attacker. This time could also be regarded as a drill before attacking Songjiang.

The artillery was pulled over, but Meng Jun was not sure whether two or three rounds could knock down the village wall. The artillery was available, but unfortunately there was not enough gunpowder, which really made Meng Jun feel helpless.

In the afternoon, after a full meal, the soldiers of the Meng army walked out of the camp to the sound of drums and assembled outside Lijiazhuang.

Soon, three thousand infantrymen gathered like ants and quickly formed a battle array. The artillery positions had been dug and everything was ready.

Overall, the defense of Lijiazhuang was simple, the walls were neither high nor thick, and there were not many defenders, but they were determined to go against him.

Li Dayuan's face on the wall gradually became ugly. He was not blind and could see that there was a huge gap in strength between the enemy and us.

At this time, Yu An came over from the front and said to Meng Jun, "Commander-in-chief, all the troops are ready."

Meng Jun looked up at the sky. Today's weather was not too hot, but it was not comfortable either. If he waited any longer, it would be difficult for the soldiers to attack the city.

"Send the order, let each department begin"

After receiving the order, Yu An turned around and signaled to the drummer under the big flag, and the sound of "dong dong dong" war drums began to slowly sound.

The Meng army soldiers lined up outside the village. The officer immediately drew his sword, swung it forward, and shouted "Kill!"

The Meng army, dressed in black, holding shields and carrying siege ladders, pressed towards the village wall following the sound of drums. The strong men guarding the village were frightened when they saw this terrifying scene.

Seeing this, Li Shuo hurriedly said to Li Dayuan, "Father, arrows have no eyes. You'd better get down from the wall quickly."

After saying that, Li Shuo shouted loudly to the defenders, "The enemy troops are about to climb the wall. Archers, prepare to shoot arrows, musketeers, get ready. As soon as the enemy troops climb the wall, prepare all the thunder, stones and rolling logs. Don't let the enemy troops come up."

Three thousand Meng army soldiers launched a charge towards the village wall. At this time, arrows were whizzing down from the wall. There were too few defenders, and the sparse arrows could not cause much damage to the Meng army. Only when they advanced, the bullets fired from the muskets became more threatening.

"Archers shoot arrows." Meng's army quickly rushed to the foot of the wall, and ladders were set up. Archers began to shoot arrows at the top of the wall to cover the charge of the rest of the infantry.

Arrows rained down all of a sudden. The strong men on the wall had no armor. After a round of arrow rain, the defenders were hit by arrows from time to time. Some fell backwards, and some fell off the wall with screams.

"Kill! Charge to the wall!" The vanguard troops climbed up with difficulty under the rain of arrows, stones, and rolling logs. From time to time, soldiers were hit on the head by stones and bleeding, and rolled down the ladder.

At this time, there was a warrior standing nearby, holding a shield in one hand, shaking a knife in his mouth, and with the other hand as agile as a monkey, he quickly jumped onto the top of the wall.

Several strong men on the wall were shocked and rushed towards this man with spears in hand. This man knocked down one man with his shield and then chopped another man to the ground with a knife. In just a short while, three more people quickly climbed up from the ladder and formed a small circle. As time went on, more Meng’s army came up and the capture of Lijiazhuang was imminent.