Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

"General, I promise... I promise to give them... a reward... a pension... an exemption... of land tax for this battle, more... more.

My...nephew...nephew..."

Song Laosan used all his strength, but the blood that came out of his mouth was more than the words he uttered.

In the end, he couldn't even speak, but he still refused to give up.

"Okay, for all the peasant brothers who participated in this battle, if they have any gains, I will give them three times the reward and exempt them from land tax for three years.

Those who died in battle were given triple compensation, and their land tax was exempted until their descendants grew up.

Your nephew is called Song Wanli, right? He will take over the military position I promised you and become a guerrilla general.

All of your surviving followers will be incorporated into the Beijing Army, if they wish."

Zhang Shikang's tone was gentle, showing none of his usual arrogance.

Song Laosan finally grinned, and that smile was finally frozen in the scorching sun.

On the eighth day of the seventh month in the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Shikang ordered Niu Gang to lead 10,000 infantry to defend the north of the Yangtze River. Together with Huang Degong, he personally led an army of 60,000 to cross the river at Huangshiji in Chizhou Prefecture.

The entire crossing process lasted until late at night, but the Southern Army that arrived one after another never dared to launch an attack since the defeat of Zhang Gongri, not even a night attack.

When Zhang Shikang led his army to Guichi, Chizhou Prefecture the next day, the 8,000 garrison troops in Guichi had already abandoned the city.

In the next half month, Zhang Shikang led his troops to capture six counties in Chizhou.

On July 25, the army arrived at Ningguo Prefecture, wiped out 14,000 garrison soldiers, and captured alive Anyuan Marquis Liu Zuochang and Longping Marquis Zhang Gongri.

When the news spread to the surrounding areas, the defenders of Taiping Prefecture, Guangde Prefecture, Changzhou Prefecture, and Zhenjiang Prefecture either surrendered or fled.

By August, in the entire Southern Zhili region, only the two fortified cities of Nanjing in Yingtian Prefecture and Suzhou Prefecture were left to put up a last-ditch resistance.

On the fifth day of August, Zhang Shikang ordered Huang Degong to lead 12,000 imperial guards, 5,000 cavalry from the Beijing camp, and 5,000 firearms camp, a total of 22,000 people to besiege the city of Nanjing.

He ordered the deputy general of the Beijing camp, Ningjin Bo Qi Dazhu, to lead an army of 10,000 to Jiangxi, and ordered Cao Bianjiao to cross the river to attack southern Huguang, while he himself led an army of 30,000 to Suzhou Prefecture.

At the same time, Qin Liangyu, governor-general of four provinces, reported that Zhang Xianzhong led an army of 120,000 to attack Chongqing Prefecture, and Li Zicheng led an army of 60,000 to attack Hanzhong.

On the eighth day of the eighth month, Zhang Shikang received another urgent message from the capital, saying that Huang Taiji believed that the Ming Dynasty was in civil strife and was patrolling outside the Great Wall with his troops, intending to wait for an opportunity to invade.

The entire Ming Dynasty was in chaos from north to south.

Zhang Shikang had expected Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng to take the opportunity to leave Sichuan. In fact, he had already written letters to remind Qin Liangyu and Sun Chuanting.

But he was a little surprised that Huang Taiji took advantage of the situation.

However, although the current situation in the Ming Dynasty seems turbulent, it is no longer the Ming Dynasty of more than a year ago.

After more than a year of preparation, Zhang Shikang had basically completed the control of the main military forces. In the north, there were Lu Xiangsheng's newly formed Tianxiong Army, Sun Chuanting's Qin soldiers, and Qin Liangyu's White Spear Soldiers in the southwest.

Before he left Beijing, he specially left Wen Bangguo to lead 20,000 Beijing troops to defend the city. Although the remaining troops were not many, Zhang Shikang guessed that Huang Taiji just wanted to enter the pass to take advantage of the situation.

Not to mention whether we will be lucky enough to enter the pass this time, even if we let this guy slip in, there will be no way we can capture Beijing.

Li Zicheng's army of 200,000 laid siege to Beijing for forty-six days, but it was finally a traitor who opened the city gate and allowed them to enter the city.

Without enough artillery, it would be wishful thinking to try to capture Beijing.

Since ancient times, most of the famous fortified cities in history were conquered from the inside.

Zhang Shikang was fearless, but his brother Chongzhen in the capital was a little panicked. He specially ordered the Jinyiwei to send a letter to Zhang Shikang urgently over 800 miles.

Zhang Shikang, who had just received the letter, thought he would have to go through Yue Fei's twelve golden tokens, so the frightened Chongzhen brother urgently recalled him.

But after reading the letter, Zhang Shikang realized that Brother Chongzhen was indeed scared to death, but the letter still let him make his own decision.

Yan Ming had already handed over the military and political power to him, so he was mentally prepared to perish together with him.

Zhang Shikang had no intention of destroying himself along with his brother Chongzhen, so he could only write back to comfort his brother Chongzhen and make sure that there was no danger in the north.

Although they have been talking about going to the Guanningjin Defense Line to patrol the border and see what kind of aircraft Zu Dashou and Wu Sangui, the uncle and nephew, are planning to make.

But he has been busy with tax reform and land reform, and now he is suppressing the rebellion in Jiangnan, so he has no time to go outside the Great Wall.

However, the imperial court has been supplying food and fodder to the Guanningjin defense line recently, and military pay has never been in short supply.

Guanningjin had many Liao soldiers and had a blood feud with the Jiannu Tartars. Zhang Shikang had never suppressed the uncle and nephew, so neither of them had any reason to surrender to the Qing.

The current Qing Dynasty is not the Qing Dynasty after entering the Pass. It would be more appropriate to call it the Xiao Qing Dynasty.

On August 13, Zhang Shikang led an army of 30,000 to the city of Suzhou.

Looking at the tall and thick walls of Suzhou City, Zhang Shikang sighed.

Although he had experienced many wars, both large and small, he had never experienced a siege until now.

Since we set out from the capital, although there have been many twists and turns along the way, it can be considered smooth sailing.

After crossing the river, most of the small towns with few garrisons fled. The only battle that could be considered a major battle was the one at Ningguo Mansion.

However, it is not worthy of praise that 60,000 elite troops wiped out 14,000 garrison soldiers in the wild.

Although his 30,000-strong army also included craftsmen, Zhang Shikang did not want to rely on human lives to build the city walls.

Most of the soldiers in the Beijing camp were led by him personally, and he felt it was not worth it to die at the hands of the garrison soldiers.

For this reason, Zhang Shikang ordered his army to surround the city but not attack.

It was not until the next day when artillery pieces transported from surrounding prefectures and counties such as Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Guangde, and Ningguo arrived that Zhang Shikang began to make arrangements for the attack.

Zhang Shikang has always consciously attached importance to the firearms camp. Except for the necessary cavalry camp and a small number of necessary spear and shield soldiers in the Beijing camp, the vast majority of the infantry use Rumi guns and wear special swords on their waists.

Of course, Zhang Shikang also had very high requirements for the cold weapon slashing skills of the Infantry Firearms Battalion.

Therefore, before attacking Suzhou City, Zhang Shikang decided to use artillery as the main means of siege.

However, the artillery carried over from various prefectures in Zhenjiang were of various types, including various types of Portuguese cannons, red cannons, and even general cannons.

The only advantage is that there is sufficient gunpowder. After all, with so many artillery and ammunition gathered, the reserves must be much larger than that of Suzhou City.

In order to defend against the artillery on the walls of Suzhou City, Zhang Shikang ordered the military craftsmen to find a lot of bamboo since yesterday.

The bamboos were split with a knife and tied into rows with hemp ropes. At night, people were sent to a suitable distance outside the west gate of Suzhou City to pile up soil on the bamboo rafts to build a city.

The small earthen city is concave in shape. Although it is called an earthen city, it is actually not very high or very big. It can barely accommodate the red cannon.

The craftsmen and some soldiers worked all night, and Liu Liangzuo in Suzhou City was also worried all night.

Liu Liangzuo thought that Zhang Shikang wanted to attack the city overnight, but after staying up all night he discovered that Zhang Shikang had only built dozens of earthen mounds about two hundred steps outside the west gate.

But on the morning of August 15th, Liu Liangzuo was dumbfounded.

Dozens of artillery pieces of various types have been placed within dozens of earthen mounds. The mounds just barely cover the gun bodies, with only the thick gun barrels sticking out.

Zhang Shikang took the monocular telescope he had obtained from Zheng Zhibiao, squinted one eye and looked at the top of Suzhou City, and ordered his subordinates:

"Mid-Autumn Festival is here, brothers, let's fire a volley to give the rebels a warning."