Fuchengmen Street, Beijing.
A scholar from the Imperial College stood on a high place and read aloud.
"The loyalty of a child shines like the sun and the moon, and the courage of a hero shines like the mountains and rivers!"
"March 21, the 17th year of Chongzhen! Bandits besieged the city
Attacking the capital, the Ming defenders fought bravely without fear of life and death! "
"However, the arrows were indiscriminate, causing 259 warriors to rest in peace here!" (Including those who attacked the enemy at night and those who died of serious injuries)
"These people are the sons of their parents, the husbands of their wives, and the fathers of their children! They are also the people of the Ming Dynasty and the heroes of the capital!"
"Their names are: Zeng Gaoming, Li Sangou, Zhao Guozhu, Guan Feibai..."
The names were printed densely on an entire page!
The dark yellow paper and the black words make people feel extremely heavy when they see them and read them.
The originally bustling Qianmen Street was now eerily quiet. Everyone stood still and listened attentively.
"...Lei Da, Dong Ziming, Li Xiuyuan!"
"The bandits robbed us of our money and food, burned our houses, killed our loved ones, and trampled on our right to live!"
"These heroes who protected us are already buried here. What else can we do except bury them?" asked the scholar in a heavy tone.
"Kill the bandits and defend our country!" Someone in the crowd shouted.
This roar was like a thunderclap, instantly detonating the quiet Fuchengmen Street.
At first, only a few people stood there and shouted, but gradually more and more voices came. The anger of the people in the capital towards the bandits reached its peak at this moment, and they waved their fists and walked towards the city gates.
"Kill the bandits and defend our country!"
The sound became louder and louder, and in a moment it spread throughout the capital.
Looking at the excited people on the city wall, the soldiers and civilians defending the city were also infected by this emotion. They waved their weapons and issued angry declarations to the bandits gathering outside the city.
......
The main camp of Shun army!
Li Zicheng looked at Liu Fangliang with anger.
Liu Zongmin was reporting the military situation: "Last night, the Ming army launched a night attack. They did not attack our camp, but attacked the soldiers on night patrol."
"In this battle, the Ming army suffered only three casualties, while our army suffered more than a hundred casualties."
Li Zicheng became angrier and angrier. He slammed the table angrily and said, "Nonsense!"
"If our army was unprepared and was attacked by the Ming army, that would be fine! But I specifically told you last night to arrange for someone to patrol the night!"
"How did you do that?"
Liu Fangliang has become numb...
As the second most important figure in the Shun army after Liu Zongmin, he had become accustomed to successive failures.
The long-distance attack on Mingtaizi failed.
The march to Juyong Pass to encircle and annihilate Tang Tong failed.
The food supplies were burned, and the first day of the siege yielded nothing.
Thinking of this, Liu Fangliang sighed and said slowly: "Your Majesty, last night in order to prevent a surprise attack by the Ming army, I specially arranged 4,000 people to patrol the night! They were divided into several teams and patrolled back and forth outside the city."
"But who would have thought that they were actually going after these night watchmen..."
"Moreover, the people who attacked at night were unarmed. They just carried oversized firecrackers and threw them at anyone they saw."
"These firecrackers are extremely lethal. Those who are close to them are killed directly. Those who are far away are not much better off. Some are injured, and some are killed! The soldiers on night patrol were caught off guard, so there were heavy casualties!"
Li Zicheng's mouth twitched and he sighed heavily.
"I brought you from Shaanxi. You are someone I trust! But I cannot rely on trust to fight and fail again and again. So I have decided that Zongmin will be in charge of all the troops in the siege today."
"You take care of logistics."
Liu Fangliang opened his mouth and nodded helplessly.
After Liu Zongmin took the seal, he stepped out of the tent and ordered from his horse: "Everyone listen up, assemble immediately and prepare to attack the city!"
A thousand civilians who had been prepared in advance, wearing Ming army armor, ran towards Fuchengmen very reluctantly.
They ran while looking back, ostensibly because they were afraid of being discovered and escaping, but in reality they were afraid that the Shun army would catch up and hack them to death.
Before setting off, the Shun army told them that those who ran slowly would be executed!
The Ming army guarding the city soon discovered them, and Lieutenant General Li of the Fifth Army Camp used his clairvoyance to watch for a long time.
He asked the lieutenant general beside him: "Can you help me take a look, what are these bandits trying to do?"
The lieutenant general took the clairvoyance with a confused look on his face, and became even more confused after looking at it.
"Sir Lieutenant General, I don't understand! They are unarmed and look like they are here to surrender! But generally speaking, those who surrender will shout while running to prevent accidental injuries. Even if they don't shout, they should raise the white flag, right?"
The symbol of surrendering by raising the white flag originated in the Qin Dynasty. The Qin people believed that they belonged to the water element, and water was black, so they regarded black as their "national color". The Qin's formal clothes and flags were all black, and black represented victory to the Qin people. At the end of the Qin Dynasty, Liu Bang attacked Xianyang, and Qin Ziying surrendered, so he wore white, the opposite color of the Qin people's "national color".
"There were no pursuers behind them. They were looking back while running. It was really weird!"
Lieutenant General Li nodded, remembering that the bandits had set up the Yinmen Formation when they attacked Kaifeng. If nothing unexpected happened, this time they would most likely have the same purpose.
He waved his hand and ordered, "Use the Hundred Bullet Bullets to beat these bastards hard!"
Boom!
As the artillery opened fire, bullets as big as the belly of a little finger were scattered all over the sky.
The civilians then remembered that they were here to surrender, and they shouted with all their might: "Stop firing, we are here to surrender!"
"We are here to surrender!"
Lieutenant General Li pouted and ordered again: "Did you hear that? They are here to persuade us to surrender! Bomb them for me, blow them up hard!"
The defenders laughed when they saw this and launched indiscriminate attacks with their muskets and artillery.
In a short while, most of the thousand men were killed or injured.
When they saw that the Ming army refused to accept surrender, they ran back trembling!
When they were halfway through the run, the sound of artillery and trumpets came from the direction of the Shun army camp.
Shun army attacked the city again!
The few hundred remaining people were swept towards the city walls by the attacking Shun army and once again embarked on the road to death.
West Gate Tower.
Yan Yingyuan felt something was wrong when he saw the bandits who came to surrender being shot to death by the defenders.
He said to Chongzhen beside him: "Your Majesty, since you guessed yesterday that the bandits would surrender, why didn't you accept their surrender?"
Chongzhen smiled faintly.
In order to boost morale, he would come to the city gate every day.
"It's just a trap. These people are either civilians or spies. In any case, they are not people who truly surrender."
Yan Yingyuan's expression was solemn: "But Your Majesty... Even if they didn't surrender sincerely, after seeing what happened to these people, I'm afraid no one would dare to surrender."
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