"Your Majesty, now we have no choice but to abandon the ship and go ashore in advance, bypass the Han army's stronghold, walk up the Liushui River, arrive at Liuyang, then head east, and rush to Gao'an."
Li Shanchang said helplessly.
Zhu Yuanzhang frowned and said: "If we can abandon the boat and land now, I don't need to ask you.
At this time, we still have nearly 600 miles to reach the highest altitude.
And they are all muddy mountain roads and small roads.
It will take at least half a month to walk.
And We don’t have enough food on board to last for such a long time.”
Xu Da twisted his eyebrows and said to Li Shanchang: "Prime Minister, why do we have to go around?
The soldiers will block it, and the water will flood the soil.
There are just a few fortresses.
We still have hundreds of thousands of troops.
To remove them is from the mouth of Dongting Lake.
The waterway from Yueyang to Lushui Pingxiang is nearly four hundred miles, and the Han army's territory is along the way.
It is not surprising that they set up barracks to block the river and intercept us. " Zhu Yuanzhang said to Xu Da: "Of course it's not surprising that the Han army intercepted us on the waterway.
But you see, those fortresses cannot be built in a few days.
What I am most worried about is that Chen Li has already made such preparations , then he must have planned something.
Even if we go ashore or pass through, we will still fall into his trap. " While they were talking, a military commander came to report: "Your Majesty, the two hundred warships at the back of the fleet did not enter the Xiangjiang River.
They suddenly deviated from the course and disappeared."
Zhu Yuanzhang was shocked when he heard this, but he didn't speak yet.
Xu Da had already asked eagerly: "Who brought these two hundred warships?"
"General Qi, this is Mr.
Hua Yun Longhua, the commander of Baotao Guard."
"Ah" Zhu Yuanzhang, Li Shanchang, and Xu Da all exclaimed in surprise after hearing this.
The two hundred warships under the jurisdiction of Hua Yunlong happened to be the two hundred warships loaded with grain and grass.
The loss of these two hundred warships meant that the Ming army would soon run out of grain.
"That guy must have betrayed his lord and surrendered to the enemy.
I saw something was wrong with him a few days ago.
Please give me an order from the Holy Spirit and let me lead thirty fast boats to chase him down and kill him after questioning."
Xu Da said angrily.
Zhu Yuanzhang waved his hand and said: "It's too late now, even if we catch up.
Others have joined the Han army.
Your warships can defeat the Han navy, even if you kill him in the midst of thousands of troops, the two hundred ships He can’t come back either.
You think he can rebel with two hundred soldiers if he is the only one who wants to rebel.”
Xu Da fell silent immediately.
He understood what Zhu Yuanzhang said.
Since the Ming army withdrew from the siege of Wuchang, during the Han army's pursuit and persuasion to surrender, many Ming generals have left the group.
It's just that unlike Hua Yunlong, he didn't travel so much in one go, and he even took away the baggage and food.
The morale of the Ming army has actually completely collapsed, and everyone is looking for their own way out.
Now Zhu Yuanzhang actually has just over 130,000 troops left.
There are also more than 500 ships covering the Xiangjiang River section east of Changsha City.
Xu Da suddenly pointed at Changsha City on the bank of the Xiangjiang River and said: "Why don't we knock down Changsha City first, which can be used as a support and to supply food and grass for the army.
Then we can take advantage of the situation and pull out the nails blocking us on the Xiangjiang River.
Continue to withdraw to western Jiangxi according to the Holy Spirit's original plan."
Zhu Yuanzhang and Li Shanchang nodded in unison.
This strategy was the only choice at the moment.
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Three hours later, corpses littered the streets of Changsha.
The tall city walls of Changsha City were also scarred by the cannons and trebuchets from the Ming army's warships.
From time to time, the blast of matchlocks and eagle cannons could be heard from the top of the city.
The Ming army once climbed to the city tower close to the water of the Xiangjiang River through the siege ladder on the large ship, but was knocked off the city by the continuous eagle cannons spitting shotguns and volleys of matchlock guns.
Those flying ladders were also destroyed by the light smoothbore cannon at the top of the city.
Zhu Yuanzhang's teeth clenched.
The Han army stationed in Changsha City was obviously not the Han army's national defense force or Guards.
They didn't even use "quick gun" flintlock guns, and their strength was not large.
Even so, It was so difficult for the Ming army to capture it.
He said fiercely: "Pass on my military order to gather all the guns and cannons in the army.
Even if all the ammunition is used up and all the cannons are destroyed, the city of Changsha will be blasted away."
As soon as he finished speaking, there were a dozen huge roars, followed by two or three loud noises, and in front of his eyes, there were more than a dozen pillars of water nearly ten feet high rising from the water of the Xiangjiang River.
The mast of a large ship in the Ming army fleet rattled, and then fell straight down, hitting another smaller Ming army ship, smashing the awning, and the hull disintegrated in an instant.
Some of the ships began to list, apparently having been hit by bullets and flooded below the waterline.
Zhu Yuanzhang turned his head and looked, and saw a row of ship-shaped silhouettes emerging on the horizontal line downstream of the Xiangjiang River.
He quickly raised the telescope in his hand and looked around, only to see the sailors on the Han warships still nervously loading artillery.
The Han fleet got closer and closer, and continued to fire solid bullets, chain bullets and grapeshot with the ship's smoothbore cannon.
Cannons during this period were only used for direct fire.
Gunners of various types of artillery, including cannons, did not need ballistic calculations and other operations, and only needed to perform rough shooting.
This kind of long-barreled cannon is not suitable for firing grenade shells due to chamber pressure problems.
For a tributary like the Xiangjiang River, the super-large ship named "Sai Duanjiang" in the Han army can truly occupy half of the entire Xiangjiang River.
It is equipped with a huge iron-core cast-copper cannon weighing 10,000 kilograms, which can fire solid shells weighing nearly a hundred kilograms.
Such a giant cannon can easily disintegrate a wooden warship within five hundred steps.
Such a giant ship can only serve as a mobile barracks or super siege platform in the cold weapon era.
In water battles, it may not have an advantage over small ships and speedboats.
But after installing a sufficient number of long-range artillery, it can evolve into a true water overlord.
The entire Ming army suddenly became panicked, whether on the deck of the warship or in the temporary camp in front of Changsha City.
The soldiers of the Ming army ran around and exclaimed: "The Han army is coming, the Han army is coming."
The Han army in their mouth refers specifically to the national defense army or the Guards of the Han Empire, and does not include the internal affairs troops stationed in various places.
Zhu Yuanzhang and his generals knew that they could not defeat the Han army on the water, so they hurriedly ordered all the remaining soldiers on the warship to land.
At this time, there were sounds of drums and trumpets coming from both sides of the Xiangjiang River.
On both sides of the Xiangjiang River, the endless Han army formed a linear formation with only a few lines in depth and advanced towards the Ming army.
Stopped two hundred steps from the bank of the Xiangjiang River.
The vehicle-mounted eagle cannons, mortars, and matchlock muskets were lined up among the neatly arranged fusiliers.
There are solid fortresses blocking the river and iron cables in front, the Han army's invincible fleet behind, and the elite Han troops with powerful firepower on both sides.
Zhu Yuanzhang knew that there was no way to escape.
Dozens of Han army censors riding white horses galloped out of the Han army formation and galloped to the front of the Ming army formation.
Xu Da snorted and shouted: "Crossbowmen, gunmen are ready" but Zhu Yuanzhang stopped him: "Look what they want to say.".
The censor began to read loudly Chen Li's edict to persuade him to surrender.
The core meaning was that anyone in the Ming army, including Zhu Yuanzhang, would not be killed as long as he surrendered.
Otherwise, under the full firepower of the Han army, more than 100,000 people would be killed.
For the powder
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