Chongzhen Undergraduates

Chapter 4 Thirteen: The Flag of Xuzhou

Many days? Yan Yingyuan is not a person with a good memory, or he is no longer willing to remember that number.

The city in front of him is no longer a city, but Yan Yingyuan still stubbornly rebuilds the city wall on the dilapidated foundation of the city wall every day when the sun rises.

The house in front of me is no longer a house. The only thing that hasn't collapsed is the empty granary and the armory with some slight stocks.There are only a few craftsmen left who are still repairing various damaged weapons every day.

The river and the land in the distance have long been indistinguishable. After the flood poured into Xuzhou City, Xuzhou became a floating city.All the tunnels were in ruins. If the water hadn't receded, the entire city would have collapsed on a large scale.

Many plans have been made before, but when the Yellow River really burst, Xuzhou still couldn't cope.The Jin soldiers retreated, but the defenders who stayed in Xuzhou City could not withdraw.

"General Yan, we have no more firewood. Did you chop up the flagpole and burn it?" Finally, even the stored charcoal was burned out, and only the tall flagpole was left standing in the entire city of Xuzhou.

"Do you dare? The food can be eaten raw, and the flagpole must not be burned." Chen Mingyu didn't even need Yan Yingyuan to speak, he already knew what Yan Yingyuan would do.

"But the grains of wheat are already damp and moldy. If you eat them uncooked, you will die."

"How many people do we have left?" Yan Yingyuan's gloomy face could no longer see other colors, only a piece of ashes.

"There are 530 and two left. Everyone said that by cutting down four flagpoles at the gate of the city, everyone can have a meal of cooked wheat..."

"Cut it!" Yan Yingyuan didn't hesitate. In his heart, as long as there is one person left, the task is to defend Xuzhou City.

Yan Yingyuan tightened his belt, because he was too hungry, and the old man's waist was thinner than the little girl's.The flagpole falls, but the flag cannot fall.He slowly hung the flag on a wall that hadn't collapsed, and smoothed it carefully.

"General, the water level seems to be dropping in the last two days." Feng Houdun rowed a small raft and shouted at Yan Yingyuan from a distance outside the city.

"Is the water in the river still flowing?" Yan Yingyuan was startled. Could it be that the Ming army was defeated?Yan Yingyuan didn't dare to think about the magnitude of the disaster that this flood would bring to the land of Huaisi, and how the Ming army could resist the Jinbing's million-strong army.

"Well, my subordinates have checked carefully. The river has stopped flowing since the night before yesterday, and the water has dropped rapidly." Feng Houdun continued: "The gap upstream must have been blocked."

At first, Zhu Youjian's idea was that only a part of the area would be submerged after the Yellow River burst, but what he didn't expect was that many rivers downstream were frozen because of the small glacier.Then the flood of the Yellow River became gentle after entering Huaisi, unable to push these ice blocks, and finally formed a large swamp area.

Yan Yingyuan's heart sank when he heard that the upstream gap was blocked.He knew that the upstream was controlled by Jin Bing. If Jin Bing took the initiative to block it, how many days could Xuzhou hold on?

"Hurry up, send a few more people to Suzhou to see if there are any routs of our army. We must gather them all to help us defend the city." Yan Yingyuan's first thought was not to abandon the city, but to find as many people as possible to come again Help defend the city.

It was pitch black in Xuzhou city at night, and the defenders had no supplies to make fire, not even a piece of wood.

Yan Yingyuan just huddled in a small nest formed by a few pieces of his head, and the defenders lived in such small nests.If outsiders look at these small nests now, they are actually more like tombs turned around.

Tomb of the living dead.

This is the current state of Yan Yingyuan leading the Xuzhou defenders.

Yan Yingyuan stayed up here all night and couldn't sleep. It may be that the moldy wheat that he ate during the day was too moldy.

"General, general." At dawn, Yan Yingyuan fell asleep hazily, and heard someone calling him in his sleep.

"What's the matter? Is the golden soldier here?" Yan Yingyuan woke up quickly, immediately touched the sword beside him, and pulled it out with a choking sound.

"Many rafts came from the south, I don't know who they are." Chen Mingyu seemed a little nervous.

"Quickly, let the trumpeter blow the warning horn." Yan Yingyuan quickly began to put on the armor, he could no longer bear the armor.

The bugle sounded, and what appeared in the ruins was not busyness, but swiftness.Amidst the ups and downs of the shadows, the defenders quickly found the positions they needed to hold on to.

Yan Yingyuan, under such harsh conditions, is still training troops, practicing tactics, and looking for defensive points.If it hadn't been trained in advance, Xuzhou's defenders could not have been so fast.

Yan Yingyuan guarded behind a low wall, took out a firecracker and slowly cleaned the chamber.The gun has not been used for a long time, but it is still well preserved, and the layers of oiled paper still smell of gunpowder after peeling off.

He gently dug out some gunpowder residue in the primer pot with an ear spoon, and then carefully carved it like an engraving block.

Then open a pack of paper to formulate the charge, bite off one end and stuff it into the barrel, and then poke it firmly with an iron rod.This is why the Ming army's paper-made charge is better than ordinary firecrackers.

Yan Yingyuan pulled the trigger, then added some priming medicine to the priming medicine pot, and aimed the flintlock with a flat end towards the distance.

That black dot is slowly getting bigger.Because you can see far away on the water, the raft will reach Xuzhou when the sun rises.

Li Yan came to Xuzhou in person, he did not bring any troops, he only brought logistics and medical special units.I ran into Feng Houdun almost immediately after setting off from the Suzhou organization raft.

Yan Yingyuan's vision was a little dazed and confused.Even with the binoculars, he could only see a figure shaking his arms on the raft, and behind that man was a flag with semaphore on both sides.

"Chen Mingyu, do you think those Tartars are trying to persuade us to surrender again?" Yan Yingyuan rubbed his eyes and handed the binoculars to Chen Mingyu beside him.Tartar persuaded him to surrender countless times, and he no longer had any interest in such tricks.

"It doesn't seem to be Tartars, it looks like the semaphore of our army." Chen Mingyu is younger, but his eyesight has not been good recently, and he feels numb and weak after climbing for a long time.That's because I haven't eaten salt for a long time.

"I'm afraid it's another trick by the Tartars. Last time they pretended to be reinforcements and we killed dozens of them. It's a joy to think about. Hahaha."

Yan Yingyuan hadn't laughed for a long time, but this time he laughed heartily.Chen Mingyu also smiled heartily.

"Have you ever thought about why we can defend Xuzhou?" Yan Yingyuan asked suddenly.

"Because our fortifications are well repaired." Chen Mingyu said without thinking.

"No, that's because we don't know how to fight. Me, you and Feng Houdun. None of the three of us came from the army. We don't know how to fight, let alone fight.

But it was such a coincidence that this defensive strategy did not require field battles at all, and the most important defensive strategy was to fight for every inch of land.So we used all means to fight against the Tartars and tried every means to kill the enemies one by one.After getting together, we found out that we actually held on.

I still remember the first time the city was broken, a dozen old men with gunpowder tied to their bodies and wearing thick padded jackets pretended to leave the city and surrender together.As a result, the Tartars sent a Baylor and several generals to meet them, and they were all blown up to death in the big tent..."

Yan Yingyuan smiled, with tears streaming all over his face.

Whether it is Jiangyin in the official history or Xuzhou now, Yan Yingyuan did not fight a regular battle.If it was an array to fight against Jin Bing, it is estimated that Yan Yingyuan would have lost.

In the final analysis, what the original Jiangyin classic history fought was an urban guerrilla warfare that did not appear until hundreds of years later.That's why they lasted so long.

Chen Mingyu wiped away his tears, he felt that Yan Yingyuan seemed to be saying his last words this time, and he talked a lot.Chen Mingyu picked up the binoculars and carefully watched the "enemy army" approaching in the distance.

"Huh!" Chen Mingyu rubbed his eyes again.

"General, it's really reinforcements. It's Feng Houdun who's back, General Feng is back." Chen Mingyu saw clearly this time that the reinforcements were indeed coming.And as soon as his words fell, the other party not only played the semaphore, but also sounded the bugle.

When Yan Yingyuan heard the bugle, he sat slumped in the pile of bricks, his whole body relaxed, and his lips moved and wept.

Chapter 4 Fourteen: News of Victory

As soon as Hauge arrived in Handan, he was guarded on the spot, and then quickly escorted all the way back to the capital.Before thoroughly figuring out what happened, the Jingcheng team and Zhu Youjian had surprisingly the same idea, and both sides chose to temporarily cover up the truth.

In fact, the truth is indeed too shocking.

Hou Jin wanted to hide it for a while, but Daming hoped that Zhu Youjian would personally announce the news in Nanjing.

All the captives in the Battle of Jianghuai were still concentrated in Huainan and Hezhou, while the main force of the Ming army was attacking most of Henan.

The Nanyang defenders fled north in panic, and the Jin soldiers and later Jin officials in the entire southern part of the Yellow River swarmed northward like a swarm, and those who stayed behind were in a hurry.

Nanjing.