On the second day of the seventh month of the seventh year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji's army arrived in Shuozhou City.

This army has a total of 20,000 combat soldiers. In addition to the Zhenghuang Banner and the Inlaid Yellow Banner, there are also a thousand Wuzhenchao Ha soldiers, led by Angbang Zhangjing Shitingzhu, as well as Wang Shixuan and Bao Chengxian and other Han generals.

Huang Taiji did not rush to march towards Ningwu Pass and began to tentatively attack Shuozhou City.

In the original history, Shuozhou City was captured by Dai Shan and Huang Taiji after they met, but now there are nearly twice as many defenders in the city, and there are also many firearms. They are well prepared, with sufficient supplies such as rock rolling wood, gold juice and tincture oil. There are dozens of catapults that have been made in the past few days. It is as solid as a soup. If you want to capture Shuozhou City, it will probably not be so easy.

After only launching a tentative attack, Huang Taiji frowned.

He could see that this city was very difficult to fight.

It’s not that it can’t be defeated, but that it’s too expensive.

There is no internal support in the city, so you can only attack with force. You will inevitably have to pay a lot of casualties to take down this strong city.

After Huang Taiji carefully weighed the pros and cons, he decided to give up Shuozhou City.

Because he wanted to retain his troops to attack Ningwu Pass and destroy Qinchuan.

But Shuozhou City is on the edge of the Huihe River, and the army marched along the Huihe River to obtain sufficient water nearby. In other words, when the Dege army arrived, it had to pass outside Shuozhou City. When his army retreated, it had to pass by Shuozhou City.

Therefore, Huang Taiji simply sent a thousand warriors to camp at the south gate of Shuozhou City to prevent the Ming army from coming out to attack.

After the arrangement was made, Huang Taiji led the army to continue to advance towards Ningwu Pass.

...

When Huang Taiji marched, Ningwu Pass had calmed down from the noise of returning from triumphant return.

Qin Chuan also completed all military mobilization and defense arrangements.

The ones stationed in Ningwu Pass were Li Dingliang's camp and Liu Youzhu's Wudang Camp. Among them, there were 7,000 troops in the pass city. The Hongchikou Military Fort, 50 miles east of the pass city, had 500 troops, and Yangwukou also had 100 troops.

Liao Sanqiu's 1,500 Tiger and Leopard Camp did not enter Guancheng, but was hidden in the mountains twenty miles east of Guancheng, and was able to help at any time.

Shenchikou was stationed by Luo Daniu. Because there was no time to re-elect the troops after the casualties in the battle a few days ago, there were only 3,500 troops left to enter the camp first, but it was more than enough to station Shenchikou.

Feng Yilong's Fengshan Camp still has 2,300 troops stationed in Limin Fort and Bajiao Fort.

Luoba's Shifang Camp also had 2,300 people stationed in Dachongling Fort and Laoying Fort, and the other Yingtou defense areas remained unchanged.

In addition to mobilizing defense, Qin Chuan was also trying to make a few things: bombing cannons, thunder and tens of thousands of enemies.

Cannon bombs are landmines, and thunderstorms are grenades.

Ten thousand enemies are also considered giant grenades, but strictly speaking, they should be called explosion bombs, because the shell is a clay cylinder, and the gunpowder will crack early when it is ignited. The gunpowder inside has no sealed space to accumulate energy, resulting in very little explosion power.

This thing is found in many cities and military forts of the Ming army. When Li Baba and He Qizheng surrendered, they took out more than a dozen of them from the armory of Bituoguan and Laoying Fort. The big ones were eighty kilograms, which were about the size of a millstone, and the small ones were six or seven kilograms, which were about the same size as a human head.

The number of bombing cannons and thunder in the Ming army was relatively small because they were all made of iron shells. The former also needed an exquisite receiver to attract fire, so it was difficult to manufacture in batches.

Neither Chen Zhan nor Li Xuejing made these two things, but coincidentally, Zhao Mancai made a fortune. He had made a batch of them for the border army when he was in Wang Gongchang.

Long before the Northwest Guide, Qin Chuan asked Zhao Mancai to start fiddling with these two things and asked Yan Sanqi to help him build iron shells.

Now, Zhao Mancai has created two thousand thunders and five hundred bombardment cannons.

The shape of the thunder is made according to Qin Chuan's drawings, which is the enlarged version of the grenade in later generations, and of course it was detonated by fuse index.

The explosion of black gunpowder is far less powerful than that of later generations. If it is small in size, it is pitifully small when it explodes, and it may not even kill anyone.

Therefore, Zhao Mancai made a huge thunder, which was thicker than his fist. The iron shell alone weighed one and a half pounds of black gunpowder and a half pound of iron beads inside. There was also a wooden handle behind it, with a total weight of four pounds.

The wooden handle grenades in later generations weigh only one pound. Military soldiers had to throw them thirty meters away to pass the exam, and fifty meters were considered excellent in the assessment. However, even if the grenade made by Zhao Mancai had to use the power of the wooden handle, it was already very good to throw them ten steps away.

Qin Chuan didn't ask how far he could throw it. Anyway, this thing was unrealistic in field battles and could only be used to defend the city. It was enough to throw five or six steps.

One and a half pounds of black gunpowder exploded, and the splashed iron beads could cause fatal damage to enemies within three steps.

As for the bombing gun, the volume is nearly twice as large as the thunder of the sky. It is a large black iron ball containing four kilograms of black gunpowder and one kilogram of iron beads. The induction mouth also contains a small piece of flint and a small iron wheel, and a shaft is drawn out to the receiver.

This is Qi Jiguang's steel wheel fire-firing cannon. When the enemy stepped on the pedal of the cannon, the falling stone in the receiver suddenly fell, causing the small iron wheel of the rotating shaft to rotate quickly, rub against flint to produce sparks, and ignite the cannon.

When the bomb was first built, Qin Chuan tried the effect, but he was very satisfied. When the bomb exploded, it could lift a bag of 100 pounds of slaughter bags, causing fatal injuries to enemies within five or six steps around him.

Ten thousand enemies still followed the style of the Ming army, using clay tanks and the remaining Ming army gunpowder from many military forts. The amount of gunpowder they had wasted will be created as many as ten thousand enemies as they were made, and they will never waste Qinchuan’s best formula black gunpowder.

After these things were made, they were quickly sent to several passes and military forts on the front line of the Inner Great Wall.

Among them, Laoying Fort and Limin Fort were divided into two hundred thunders and fifty bombardment, and Shenchikou was divided into four hundred thunders and one hundred bombardment, and the rest were sent to Ningwu Pass.

Under Qin Chuan's command, the Guandi army carefully buried the three hundred bombs outside the north and east gates, covering them with a thin layer of soil, waiting for Jiannu to knock on the easter eggs.

The thunder and ten thousand enemies were transported to the city walls and artillery towers, and when Jiannu approached, they would let them taste the taste of the thunder tribulation.

Everything is ready, just wait for Jiannu to come.

...

Huang Taiji's army finally arrived at Yangfangkou after two days of driving from Shuozhou.

But he did not rush to advance, but rested in Yangfangkou for a day and waited for Degele.

The Degelei tribe had eight thousand battle soldiers, four thousand Mongolian soldiers, a total of 12,000 battle soldiers, and eight thousand flag soldiers.

Because they were afraid of the Ming army's attacks halfway, the population and money, grain and wealth they stole were transported over. The number of young and middle-aged people captured alone was more than 30,000, and the mules and horses that transported money, grain and wealth were even more numerous.

After the two armies joined forces, Huang Taiji was still not in a hurry to advance, but sent a group of troops to explore the north along the inner Great Wall, looking for weak garrisons, and wanted to send a side army to dig into the wall.

However, his wishful thinking failed. Most of the inner Great Wall, which is 200 miles long from Ningwu Pass to Laoying Fort, was built on the mountains, with only three entrances for the army to travel with.

Among them, there is a towering military fort at the Shenchi, not far from Ningwu Pass. There is also a dangerous terrain at Shuanghualing Valley, forty miles north. The strong and towering Limin Fortress. In addition to these two dangerous passes, the only one that can pass through the army is Laoying Fort.

The place was 200 miles away from here, and the garrison situation was not detected yet, but Huang Taiji knew that the military fort would only be more difficult to break than the mouth of Shenchi.

The rest of the inner Great Wall was built on steep mountains, and the army was unable to pass through. They could only climb to the top of the mountain with a small amount of troops and had to dig the Great Wall to enter.

However, not only can we not use large siege equipment to cross mountains, but it is also easy to get ambushed. It is short of troops and is easily defeated by the opponent.

Therefore, other places are no longer accessible, and there are only a few entrances.

Limin Fort was built in a narrow valley. The terrain was dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack. The old camp fort was too far away, leaving only Shenchikou and Ningwu Pass to choose from.

After asking the detective to carefully investigate the size, height, orientation, surrounding terrain and other information of Shenchikou Fort and Ningwu Pass, Huang Taiji asked Degele to lead his troops to attack Shenchikou, and he himself led the main forces of Zhenghuang Banner and Yinghuang Banner to Ningwu Pass.

On July 7, the seventh year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji's army arrived outside the city.
Chapter completed!