"I have to admit that I don't understand the brain circuits of these barbarians well enough."
Early in the morning, Guo Jiao flew the 'triplane' out of Hetuala and carried Xu Bing to investigate. The two women brought back extremely bad news — several Jurchen generals were leading about a thousand cavalrymen toward Fushun. The leader was a guy riding a big lizard, and according to Zhou Qingfeng's confirmation, it was Mangurtai.
This cavalry of a thousand people did not bring any supplies, and their speed was extremely fast. They would arrive at Fushun in a few hours. Zhou Qingfeng could only reflect on himself, thinking that he had made a dogmatic mistake. He had only considered that it would be difficult for the enemy's large army to move, but he didn't expect that the barbarians would fight like a street brawl. They would send a small group of elites to attack them the next day.
"Fortunately, I was prepared." After confirming the enemy's situation, Zhou Qingfeng breathed a sigh of relief. It took Mangurtai one day to gather a thousand elites, which was enough for him to do a lot of things.
Yesterday, Chief Mu Sinian of the Administrative Division's Propaganda Department received an important task and sent people to the villages outside Fushun to mobilize the people, informing them that the Jurchen barbarians were about to attack, and requesting all people to enter the city to take refuge. All food, livestock, and other items that could be used to support the enemy were all transported away. Even the houses were burned down and destroyed, not even leaving a shelter for the enemy.
Mu Sinian was old and had lived in the countryside all year round, so he knew very well what the common people were afraid of. As long as it was clear that the Jurchen barbarians were coming to 'rob money, food, and women', the common people would panic and think of a way to escape. As for the burning of the houses, it was naturally left to the vanguard of the Jurchen barbarians to do it after the common people had fled.
Looking at the black smoke rising from the manor outside the city, the common people who had fled into the city wept bitterly and hated the enemy to the bone. The residents in the city also wanted to escape to Shen Yang in fear, but the Female True Vanguard had already begun to block the way, and the people who wanted to escape quickly shrank back in fear.
Inside the city, the people from the Propaganda Department were walking the streets and alleys, comforting the people, telling them to unite with the city defense team with Baihu Zhou as the core, and wait for the rescue from Shenyang. Speaking of which, Zhou Qingfeng's reputation was much better than Li Yongfang's, and he also gave a lot of help to the people who escaped into the city. Under the pressure of external enemies, the number of his Petitioners increased exponentially, easily surpassing ten thousand.
After stabilizing the internal situation, Zhou Qingfeng still had to think of a way to deal with external enemies. When he found out that Mangul 'Ertai had brought a large group of people with him, he knew that he definitely wouldn't be able to defeat them if he used the' Road Robber 'alone. As long as two experts came to attack him, he would definitely lose. However, it would be too passive if they only mobilized the city's defenses and simply defended themselves.
Defense, defense, ten defense, nine out of ten defense.
If they didn't have a certain ability to counterattack, defending to the death could easily become defending to the death. However, when they were patrolling the city's defenses, Zhou Qingfeng and the others had no confidence in going out of the city to counterattack.
"We still have a lot of black gunpowder on hand. Why don't we make them into explosives or bury landmines?" Xu Bing suggested.
Zhou Qingfeng immediately rejected this idea. "Who's going to bury them if they're made into explosives? If there are landmines, where should we bury them? How are we going to detonate them? That's too impractical. "
Li Shuwei then asked if they could hoard some talismans and artifacts to defend against the enemy. Zhou Qingfeng shook his head and said, "Those are only for one-on-one battles. They can only be used as support on the battlefield. Now that we're facing Nurhachi, it's a bit like how the national army faced the Japanese in the past. The enemy is well-trained and well-equipped, while we only have low-morale soldiers and a large number of useless officials. "
Guo Jiao asked, "I saw that Hetuala got a few people to ride on red-crowned cranes and cast spells in the sky. Can you guys throw explosives from the sky?"
Sigh … That's a constructive suggestion.
Zhou Qingfeng looked at Xu Bing, and Xu Bing looked at Li Shuwei. Li Shuwei murmured, "I got a lot of gunpowder from Shenyang a few days ago. I didn't use much during the battle at Gula Mountain. I still have one or two thousand kilograms left."
Zhou Qingfeng immediately clapped his hands and said, "Using air to fight the enemy, this is a good idea. We can get a few iron shells … I'm afraid we won't make it in time for iron shells. A bomb with 20 to 30 kilograms of black gunpowder, mixed with some hard gravel as fragments. When it's dropped from the sky, it's guaranteed to have enough power. Also, it's very mobile, unlike burying landmines, which can only be done by luck. "
Guo Jiao had the intention to watch a good show, so when she heard that her suggestion was accepted, she became even more delighted. "My father's storage bag is with me, and it can at least store several dozens of bombs. I can fly the triplane and throw them as much as I want in the sky. I can do this, I can do it! "
"But how are you going to detonate the explosives?" Li Shuwei asked again.
Guo Jiao rolled her eyes and pulled Zhou Qingfeng up again, saying, "Isn't this easy? Just refine some first-grade thunder beads. He's the most suitable person to do this. " She dragged Zhou Qingfeng to the alchemy room in the study room. The 'Purple Gold Eight Trigrams Furnace' had not been moved yet. "Speaking of which, the gunpowder you got was refined by a fangshi in the past. Why don't you refine it too?"
"This thing will probably explode if it goes into the furnace, right?" Zhou Qingfeng was very doubtful, but he still decided to give it a try. He had some black gunpowder in his storage bag. He found about a dozen grams and sent it into the furnace as an experiment.
Zhou Qingfeng relied on the Yin Yang Tablet to cheat in alchemy. He used the materials provided by Guo Jiao to refine the thunder beads in less than a minute or two, and refining the gunpowder was done in a breath. The dozen grams of black gunpowder did not explode after entering the furnace, and its chemical properties did not change after coming out. It was just that the physical ratio was adjusted and all of it was granulated. This simple change could greatly increase the power of the black gunpowder.
Discovering that this refining was feasible, Zhou Qingfeng eagerly went to find Li Shuwei to refine all of the remaining gunpowder. For the convenience of transportation, he poured the contents of his storage bag into the Guo Family's alchemy room, leaving the bag empty to store the gunpowder. When he came back with the gunpowder, he saw Guo Jiao curiously looking through the various items on the ground.
"What are you doing?" Zhou Qingfeng curiously asked.
Guo Jiao snorted twice with a look of disdain. She sneered at the large pile of things that Zhou Qingfeng regarded as treasures and said, "You really keep all kinds of junk, all of them are useless things. There's nothing that I like. "
Zhou Qingfeng was so angry that he laughed. His inventory naturally could not compare to Guo Buyi's daughter, who could be called a fair, rich and beautiful lady. He was busy refining the black gunpowder and was too lazy to care about Guo Jiao. But when he went back and forth to process more than a thousand kilograms of black gunpowder, he found that Guo Jiao took out a large stack of cloth banners from his storage bag. She seemed to be pondering about something.
The cloth banners were dug out by Zhou Qingfeng when he was in Ehekulun and were said to be good materials for drawing talismans. But Zhou Qingfeng had never learned how to draw talismans, so the cloth banners were naturally kept there. When Guo Jiao picked it up, he said, "It is said that this thing is suitable for drawing talismans."
"Chi …" Guo Jiao used a sarcastic tone to express her contempt, "If you don't understand then don't talk nonsense. This kind of spirit banner has been refined for one or two hundred years. Even my father doesn't have such a good thing. You actually want to use it to draw talismans, what a waste. "
Zhou Qingfeng was thick-skinned and did not care about Guo Jiao's sarcasm. He directly asked, "Then what can this thing be used for?"
"I haven't thought about it yet. I have to check the book that my father left behind. Leave this spirit banner with me first. I will ponder over it, maybe it will be of great use. "Guo Jiao was not in a hurry to deal with it. She just put the spirit banner away.
At this time, Xu Bing hurriedly ran to the Guo family's study room and shouted, "Mangurtai has brought people to the Fushun Pass on the south side of the Hunhe River. The soldiers at the pass have already fled. According to your arrangements, our people in the south who are responsible for luring the enemy are already pretending to be in chaos. Once Mangurtai crosses the Hunhe River, as long as he is not blind, he will definitely attack our south gate. "
Zhou Qingfeng's face darkened and asked, "Have the people who asked for help from Shenyang set off?"
"They have already sent out the third batch. I let Mu Sinian personally lead the team. That old man has a glib tongue."
"How's the assembly of the granulated black gunpowder?"
"There aren't that many suitable carpenters at the moment. I'll get someone to pack it in wooden boxes. In any case, we just need to add the detonating thunder beads and throw them down."
"Alright, since the enemy is here, let Li Shuwei pretend to be a god and lead the people to seek help from me. I will go to the Spirit Gathering Formation to activate the city's defenses. The two of you fight in the sky. Remember not to fly too low when you throw the boxes from the sky. Be careful not to be shot down by others. " After Zhou Qingfeng arranged everything, he went to the Guo family's study room's underground hall. Whether or not he could hold on would depend on him.
Guo Jiao treated this battle as a game. She happily used her father's storage bag to store more than ten boxes of black gunpowder. This time, Xu Bing flew with her as a backseat observer and a grenade thrower.
Mangul 'tai was charging over with a menacing aura. A thousand people suddenly crossed the Hunhe River. The rumbling of horse hooves raised a large amount of dust on the ground. From afar, it looked like a landslide.
Mangurtai led the troops at the front. The huge earth dragon ran no slower than the horses. This fiendish man and horse quickly became bigger in the eyes of the Fushun garrison. The soldiers who were originally stationed outside the south gate to lure the enemy panicked and crowded at the city gate.
When they were only two to three hundred meters away from the city gate, Mangurtai could no longer restrain the ecstasy in his heart. It must be known that the Nurhachi army had been in power for more than thirty years. They had conquered countless cities, but none of them could compare to Fushun. Only a settlement built by the Han could be called a real city. Only it had the ability to guarantee the lives of tens of thousands of people. Most of the barbarians' 'cities' were strongholds.
Thinking of the countless slaves, riches, and even glory waiting for him, Mangul 'tai could not help but laugh out loud on the Earth Dragon's back. He raised the big iron spear in his hand and waved it around. He shouted to the elites of the Plain Blue Flag behind him, "Follow me, Master! Fushun is right in front of us. There are mountains of gold and silver waiting for us to seize."
Behind Mangurtai, Dai Shan, Ah Min, and Hwang Tae-gil followed closely. They didn't expect that their journey would be so easy. The defenses of Fushun, which they expected, were not activated at all. The city gates were not even closed. The defense of the garrison was so lax that it was shocking. It would be strange if such a city was not breached.
The thousand elite soldiers at the back were even more jubilant. They whipped their horses and cheered loudly. The word 'greed' was written on their excited faces. They followed their master to fight everywhere. Didn't they want money and women? The Fushun in front of them was richer than any stronghold they had seized before. How could it not arouse their strong fighting spirit?
But just as the thousand elite Jurchen soldiers were getting closer and closer to the city gates, a strange object swooped down from the sky with a whistling sound. A medium-sized wooden box was thrown out. This box was aimed at Mangurtai, who was leading the army. When it landed, it hit the Jurchen soldiers who were following closely behind.
No one paid attention to this box, but it exploded as soon as it hit the ground.
Mangurtai was laughing so hard that he couldn't even close his mouth. When he heard the loud noise, he quickly turned around. His expression changed greatly. What's going on? Who's attacking my people?
Hwang Tae-gil and the other two were full of jealousy that Mangurtai was going to get the first credit this time. When they heard the loud noise and the shockwave behind them, they could only shrink their heads and look back. They were inexplicably surprised. Eh? What's going on? Where did the explosion come from?
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