Chapter 555 554 Fierce Battle on a Stone

Just when the officials of the Ming Dynasty were all paying attention to Xuanfu, the commander of Yipanshiguan, a pass on the Great Wall in Funing, Jidong, was running up the city wall panting.

He climbed up the city wall without taking a rest, so he lay on the battlement and looked out, and saw clouds of dust rising in the distance.

"General Bai, let's light the beacon fire to warn, the Tartars are really coming."

The guarding centurion had long been pressured by the momentum of the cavalry outside, and he hurriedly said to his superiors as he watched the rolling dust rushing in.

"Is there any report? How many Tartars are there outside the pass? Which unit are they from?"

Bai Wenzhi, the commander of Yipanshiguan, stared for a while, and confirmed that the enemy was indeed coming for him, and asked hurriedly.

"A scout returned to the city half an incense stick ago, saying that the people coming should be the Black Coal Tribe of the Eastern Tartars, with a scale of about 10,000 people."

The centurion hurriedly said.

"Light the beacon fire to warn, summon the soldiers to the city wall for defense, and do not make any mistakes."

While observing the enemy situation outside the pass, Bai Wenzhi issued an order: "Send someone to Shanhaiguan City for help immediately, and ask the garrison to send reinforcements as soon as possible."

The nearest pass to them, which was heavily guarded by the Ming army, was Shanhaiguan. Where else could they go if they did not ask for help?

With only more than 2,000 people in their hands, they could not stop the attack of the Eastern Tartars, who had more than 10,000 troops.

Outside the pass was the end of the eastern section of the Yanshan Mountains. Outside the pass were dangerous peaks and deep valleys, and behind the pass was a plain.

Yipianshiguan has always been an important flank barrier for Shanhaiguan, so a solid wall was built here in the early Ming Dynasty, and it was known as the "First Pass in Jingdong".

Thick smoke billowed from the beacon tower in the distance, warning the distant, and a large group of soldiers in the city, led by the captain, climbed the city wall, and the baggage soldiers were busy carrying various defensive weapons from the arsenal to the city wall. There was a busy scene on and off the city.

Just as they were busy preparing, the vanguard troops of the Eastern Tartars also approached the city wall. A team of Tartar soldiers had dismounted, approached quickly with quivers, and stopped at a distance from the city wall.

Bai Wenzhi certainly knew that the section of the city wall they chose should be the area they were going to attack this time, and immediately ordered several soldiers to lead reinforcements.

While the Tartars were busy building siege equipment outside the city wall, fierce long-range battles had already broken out between the two sides.

The Tartars threw clusters of arrows at the city wall, and the Ming army on the city also launched a counterattack.

"Don't use firearms, wait until the Tartars attack the city."

Bai Wenzhi had already arrived here and gave the order directly.

He understood that although he had many firearms, the ability of these weapons to fight continuously was only slightly stronger than that of archers. Once they continued to fire, they would soon have heating problems. At this time, it would be easy to explode the barrel if they continued to load gunpowder.

Although the distance of the Tatars was within the range of firearms, they were at the edge of the range of firearms. They were not powerful and had no accuracy.

However, since the Tatars did not intend to be good today, he also ordered people to move the large Portuguese cannons equipped on the city gate to wait for the Tatars to attack the city.

The archers on both sides did not aim directly at the enemy, but shot arrows at a 45-degree angle to the sky. As for whether they could hit people, it depended on God's will, just to create some chaos for the other camp.

Of course, the Tatars hoped to use the rain of arrows to shoot a vacuum zone on the Ming army's wall, so that it would be convenient for the ladders to be built for the siege, while the Ming army would target the enemy's archers.

The Tatars were very good at riding and shooting. If they could injure the enemy's archers at this time, there would be fewer archers participating in the siege later.

Soon, the Tartars seemed ready. More Tartar soldiers holding scimitars carried more than 20 ladders and approached the city wall quickly. Behind them, more Tartar archers joined the shooting and temporarily suppressed the Ming archers on the city wall.

However, as the Tartars approached, several large Portuguese cannons began to fire quickly. Hot projectiles rushed into the Tartar attack queue, passing through blood alleys. For a while, screams rang out under the city.

At this time, the Tartar brigade finally arrived. More archers rushed to the city wall and started shooting at the Ming army, and more ladders began to be assembled.

"General, the Tartars seem to be well prepared."

The captain of the personal guards behind Bai Wenzhi shouted in his ear.

At this time, the Portuguese cannons were firing quickly, and the sound was too low to reach his ears.

Bai Wenzhi nodded, his face gloomy.

Although it was difficult to accurately calculate the number of Tartars outside the city at this time, it should be around 10,000.

After the previous exchange of fire, both archers suffered casualties, but the Ming army was obviously at a disadvantage.

Not for anything else, just because they had fewer people.

At this time, the Tartars outside the city had already approached the city wall. Bai Wenzhi waved his hand fiercely, and more than 300 muskets stretched out from the battlements of the city wall, firing a volley at the Tartars below. After the firing was completed, the gunners immediately retracted the muskets and squatted behind the city wall, using the city wall as cover to reload ammunition.

The cartridges of the falconet gun had completed a round of firing, and the deputy gunners were still nervously loading ammunition. As soon as one round was loaded, the Ming army gunners would immediately fire.

However, at this time, the previously powerful artillery offensive also stagnated and was no longer as fierce as before.

"Go, transfer three hundred-household teams from the west wall."

The Tartars had a large number of troops, so they naturally would not choose the mountains that were difficult to march, but instead set their attack targets on the relatively flat terrain of Guancheng, which gave Bai Wenzhi the opportunity to calmly mobilize troops.

Soon, Ming army soldiers on the western section of the city wall began to gather at the city gate and participate in the defense.

When the ladders were put up on the city wall, the fierce offensive and defensive battle finally broke out on the top of the stone pass.

When the fierce battle broke out at the stone pass in Jidong, the beacon fire of the Great Wall finally reached the Santun Camp of the General's Mansion in Jizhen.

The advantages of the beacon tower were fully demonstrated at this time. Information hundreds of miles away could be quickly transmitted through beacon towers, ignoring the limitations of complex terrain.

For the area where the Great Wall was built, except for Shanhaiguan, which was the beginning of the Liaoxi Corridor and was open, other places were almost all built on winding mountains.

It is easy to imagine the difficulty of transmitting information under such terrain conditions.

Although the Ming army defenders along the Great Wall could transmit military information in a relay manner, it was not as fast as the beacon fire.

Santunying is located in the west of Qianxi County, Jizhen. It connects Zunhua to Beijing in the west and Qian'an to Shanhaiguan in the east. It took the Ming Dynasty more than ten years to finally select the Jizhen General's Mansion as its garrison, because it is located in the middle of the Jizhen Great Wall. The nearby rivers are abundant and can guarantee the water source for tens of thousands of troops, and the transportation is extremely convenient.

In the Jizhen General's Mansion, the acting general Hu Zhen has received news that a war has occurred in the east. Judging from the smoke of war, the scale of the Tartar invasion this time is not small.

"In addition to my personal soldier camp in the city, what other teams are there?"

The war a month ago caused the Jizhen Ming army to mobilize and almost run back and forth along the Jizhen Great Wall.

Although the war has ended, after conveying the order to return to the camp to various departments, the Ming army departments will not rush to Santunying, but slowly return to the camp, which is really exhausted.

As the acting general, Hu Zhen is also unwilling to squeeze the soldiers, worried that he will cause the soldiers to be disgusted, so he simply lets it go.

However, who could have thought that in just one month, the Tartars would come back again, but this time the target was shifted from Jixi to Jidong.

At this point, Hu Zhen found that he seemed to have few soldiers available for the time being.

"The infantry camp has Gu Huan, Li Huaide and other troops that can be mobilized, and the cavalry has the guerrilla Dong Yiyuan's troops."

"Quickly send a message to Dong Yiyuan to lead the army eastward to reinforce immediately, and notify Xingzhou, Yongsheng, and Funing three guards along the way to prepare and fight at any time.

The infantry camp should also prepare immediately, follow me to set off early tomorrow morning, and notify the nearby troops to move eastward immediately."

Hu Zhen immediately issued an order and asked his personal soldiers to take the order arrow to pass the order.

Jizhen's tens of thousands of troops have been running around recently, and they have not fought many battles, but they are already exhausted. Hu Zhen has to consider using local guards to help.

The three guards in Jidong are naturally the first choice to participate in the war. After all, the geographical location determines that they can reach the battlefield quickly.

Beacon towers have obvious advantages in the speed of transmitting messages, but they cannot accurately transmit complex information. However, in this era, it is still the best communication method.

Dong Yiyuan, who was still waiting in the camp, did not dare to delay for a moment after receiving the order. He led the cavalry out of Santun Camp and galloped towards Qian'an.

In just over a month, Jizhen suffered two large-scale invasions by the Tartars. Wherever Hu Zhen's military orders went, it naturally caused a commotion.

For the Ming soldiers in Jizhen, although they received much more military pay than the inland guards, they could not get enough pay. They were also deducted by their superiors, but the skin they peeled was a little thinner.

However, such a rapid advance was also a great test for the morale and physical fitness of the soldiers, and the troops complained for a while.

However, who would care about their voices to their superiors.

Liu Tao, the governor of Ji and Liao, also rushed to Jidong immediately after hearing the news, and the Ming army was constantly urged to move forward along the way.

At this time, the capital had also seen the beacon fire on the Great Wall of Jizhen again.

For the capital, this was the third major military intelligence received in a short period of time, and the number of invading cavalry was tens of thousands.

Under such pressure, the people in the capital undoubtedly felt that the sky was about to collapse and the earth was about to collapse, and the tense atmosphere suddenly rose again.

At nightfall, Zhang Juzheng, Wei Guangde and others were also urgently recalled by the eunuchs of the Prince Yu Mansion in the capital to discuss the current situation.

The danger of Xuanfu has not been resolved yet, who would have thought that Jidong would fight again.

"Black clouds are pressing down on the city and the city is about to be destroyed."

Under the continuous emergency military intelligence, Zhang Juzheng said such words.

"Shandai, do you think the war in Jidong was also arranged by Altan Khan? Is there any back-up plan later?"

While Zhang Juzheng sighed at the bad situation at the moment, he did not forget to ask Wei Guangde.

Perhaps, this is also related to what Wei Guangde told him before about the power of Altan Khan. Zhang Juzheng was a little helpless under the continuous attacks of Mongolia.

Wei Guangde rolled his eyes and lowered his head, muttering in his heart: How would I know? I am not a worm in Altan Khan's stomach.

He lowered his head and rolled his eyes, not daring to let them see.

After all, if we don't even know which Mongolian tribes attacked the Great Wall of Jidong, how can we judge whether it was Altan Khan's arrangement.

Almost all the Mongolian tribes close to the Ming Dynasty were subdued by Altan Khan, but there were also tribes that only pretended to obey and might not obey his orders completely.

Attacking the Ming Dynasty was like an egg hitting a stone for small and medium-sized tribes, and the large tribes were more concerned about their own interests and might not obey Altan Khan's orders sincerely.

In such a short period of time, Altan Khan could issue combat orders to the large Mongolian tribes in Jidong, and the other party would obey unconditionally?

Seeing that Wei Guangde didn't answer, Zhang Juzheng said again: "Shandai, I heard you talk about how powerful An Dahan is and how good at layout I have not taken it seriously before, but this time it really opened my eyes.

After Miyun took action, he continued to attack east and west in Xuanfu and Jidong in such a short period of time. The crisis in Xuanfu was not resolved, and Jidong encountered war again.

It's so powerful that you don't even know which of the two paths is the feint and which is the main attack.

If there is a back-up plan, that would be really scary. "

When Wei Guangde heard what Zhang Juzheng said, he raised his head and glanced at him, also thinking about what the Jidong war was about.

Now I only know that there seems to be another war in the east of Ji Town, because the beacon towers in Jidong and Jixi are different.

This time, because there was too little information, Wei Guangde didn't say much for the first time.

Needless to say, it goes without saying that the situation of the army in Ji Town is very bad.

"Let's wait until the army reports to Beijing. We don't know how many people there are in the army."

Wei Guangde sighed and said: "As for what I said during the day, contacting more people to submit a report to refute the ban on sea, let's rest. Let's not cause trouble for His Majesty."

At this moment, Li Fang, who usually never left King Yu's side, quickly walked into the room, raised her hands to King Yu and others and said: "Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen, a decree has just been passed down from Xiyuan, ordering the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel and the Hanlin Academy Yan Na, a bachelor, Li Chunfang, the Minister of Rites and a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, Dong Fen, the left minister of the Ministry of official affairs and a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, all went to Xiyuan, just like Xun Fuchen."

"Is the imperial meeting in Xiyuan still over?"

King Yu frowned and asked.

"No, Mr. Xu Ge and Yang Shangshu did not come out, but some servants went out to convey the order and summoned the three adults to enter Xiyuan immediately."

Fires were lit all over Shiguan City in Jidong. Groups of Tatars abandoned their horses and rushed towards Guancheng, climbing up ladders to attack.

Attacking a city with ants is the most cruel and bloody way of war in the cold weapon era.

When entering the siege war, both warring parties actually have no strategies to use. They just have to fight head-on, and which side has the stronger will to fight.

The Tatars took turns carrying shields to attack Guancheng guarded by the Ming army, climbing up the erected ladders, and the archers also took turns throwing arrows at the city wall to cover the infantry attack.

Being able to do this is undoubtedly the absolute reason for superiority in military strength.

For the Mongolian generals, if they could not break through the city gate in a short time, the battle would be impossible to fight after the Ming army reinforcements arrived.

Although his men suffered heavy losses, the Ming army on the city wall would not feel much better.

At this time, General Bai Wenzhi had already sent the maximum amount of troops that could be mobilized on the surrounding city walls to Guanqiang. The exchange of fire between the two sides caused the Ming army to suffer heavy losses.

At this point in the war, we can only look forward to reinforcements from the nearby Shanhaiguan Pass. Otherwise, if the Tatars risk their lives to attack the city day and night, a stone pass will not be saved no matter what.

Calculating the time, the messenger he sent should have arrived at Shanhaiguan. He only hoped that he could send people overnight to rescue him, but the time was getting longer.

Bai Wenzhi really couldn't imagine the consequences.