Chapter 211 Bloody Battle

Chapter 211 Bloody Battle

Chapter 211 Bloody Battle

"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! DADADADA! BLAM, BLAM!"

The Gatling machine guns and rapid-fire cannons fired in unison, and the breech-loading rifles fired in unison. The bandits on the Suzhou city wall were immediately suppressed and could not raise their heads.

Tens of thousands of refugee men carrying sandbags on their backs rushed to the moat, threw down the sandbags, and ran away.

As the men went out to fill the moat, the direct fire from the suppression had to be suspended to avoid accidentally injuring their own people. Only the shrapnel and cannonballs fired by the mortars, mountain guns and howitzers continued to explode on the top of the city walls.

The black muzzles of guns stretched out from the shooting holes on the city walls and fired continuously. The iron balls of the earth cannons on the city walls hit the group of refugee men, bounced forward, and directly crushed a line of blood.

Then there was the precise shooting of heavy artillery outside the city. Under the guidance of the hot air balloon, the "real gunners" trained by Emery personally took action and removed the homemade cannons on the city walls one by one.

After suffering two thousand casualties, more than a dozen moats were filled, and then more than a dozen teams of refugee men rushed up carrying siege ladders.

The refugees were armed with newly issued goose-feather knives, short spears, and bows and arrows. Shao Quanzhong had fought along the way, and all the weapons he had seized from Dongzhiyuan, Jijinbao, and Xining were distributed to the refugees.

The wall of Suzhou City is slightly lower than that of Jinjibao, but siege ladders can still be used to climb up.

The Huai Army could only provide artillery fire to suppress the city walls. Artillery fire sounds loud, but the actual number of casualties is far less than that of a well-aimed rifle. The bandits on the city walls were not afraid of death, and they continued to rush forward, hiding behind the battlements and constantly shooting at the refugees carrying ladders.

When the siege ladders were placed on the top of the city walls, the refugees began to climb the city walls. Rolling logs, stones, and gold juice rained down from the top of the city walls. Several bandits formed groups, shouted slogans, and pushed the fork poles, pushing away the ladders on the top of the city walls. The refugees who were climbing the ladders fell down one after another, screaming in agony.

But soon the brave refugees put the ladders back on top of the city walls, and shot arrows at the top of the ladders. Ma Zhan'ao's troops also threw black powder grenades to the top of the city walls to stop the fork-wielding bandits.

Mark Twain, who went to the front line with Shao Quanzhong to watch the battle, kept exclaiming through the telescope and occasionally taking a few photos.

"It was really surprising that the refugees burst out with amazing strength in order to survive. I thought I would see a modern war in Suzhou, but unexpectedly I witnessed a medieval grenadiers siege" - Excerpt 59 of "Journey to the West in the Qing Dynasty".

Shao Quanzhong planned to stay in Suzhou and spend the harsh winter, but the refugees could not.

Shao Quanzhong had a steady supply of food support from the rear, but the refugees did not, and their food was limited.

All the gold and silver that had been gathered had been spent on buying food. They could not sit back and enjoy all the food in Suzhou; they had to leave Jiayuguan and head west immediately, even at the cost of enduring a hard march in the severe winter.

So Ma Zhan'ao became angry. He had promised to help Shao Quanzhong defeat Ma Guiyuan and Ma Wenlu, and now was the time to fulfill his promise.

Soon, some refugees and able-bodied men climbed up the city wall. Ma Wenlu personally led his soldiers, killed all the first ones to climb up, and stopped the offensive of the refugees and able-bodied men.

The first batch of 3,000 refugees who attacked were all killed or wounded, but Ma Zhan'ao didn't even blink and launched the second wave of attack.

The third wave, the fourth wave, the fifth wave...

In troubled times, human life is as cheap as grass. The rioters and strong men attacking the city rushed towards the top of the city wall in waves, but the solid city wall remained motionless and the strong men died like ants.

Ma Zhan'ao personally went to the front line and prayed for the dead. At the same time, he ordered his men to hold torches and fight at night. The sounds of gunfire and shouts of killing continued for a long time.

After 13 waves of attacks a day later, the city defenses were still strong. The bodies of the soldiers who died in the siege had piled up into a slope, and the ladders had to be moved to another place.

When the fourteenth wave of attack came and the strong men rushed forward with ladders, the city gate opened, the white flag was raised, and Ma Wenlu surrendered.

There was no choice but to surrender, as his men were unwilling to fight.

Thirty-five thousand men were killed and seven thousand were wounded under the city walls. The wounded were not carried back and lay groaning under the city walls. The men who were strong enough to carry people climbed up the ladders as soon as they got to the city walls. Two thousand were killed by artillery fire, and four thousand men who were attacked on the city walls died. They were all the best soldiers. The casualties were close to ten to one, and the city could no longer bear it.

There were only 5,400 soldiers left in the city, and Ma Zhan'ao had no intention of stopping.

He had more than 100,000 able-bodied men under his command, and they kept pouring in casualties, while his 20,000 regular troops did not move.

If this continues, it won’t be long before the city walls are filled with people and will undoubtedly be breached.

Ma Zhan'ao used 35,000 corpses to take down this fortified city.

Shao Quanzhong sighed softly, "It is true that 'it is better to fight against rebels than to defeat them'. If this kind of sacrifice falls on the Han people, I will feel bad. I would rather waste food and bombard for two more months. Come on, take the surrendered soldiers and enter the city!"

The tragic situation in the city made Mark Twain vomit all over the floor when he saw the real war for the first time.

What he photographed in other places in Shaanxi and Gansu were mass graves and piles of bones, which was not enough to give him a direct sense of the bloodiness of war.

The city is a slaughterhouse.

There were originally 30,000 Han people in Suzhou City. After a careful search by the Huai Army that entered the city, they only found 1,600 alive. The rest were slaughtered by Ma Wenlu's bandits - in order to save food for defending the city.

Everywhere there were bloody massacre scenes and naked corpses of women.

After taking a few photos, Mark Twain finished vomiting and ran to Shao Quanzhong. "General, my previous report was wrong. This is not a war for territory. You are representing humanity and waging a holy war to expel the devil. The bandits are not human. I suggest that all the prisoners be executed. Screw the Geneva Convention!"

Shao Quanzhong was not as excited as Mark Twain. He had seen bandits massacring 100,000 people in Lingzhou, and had seen many more tragic scenes of entire villages, towns, and cities being destroyed in Shaanxi and Gansu.

Fifteen million innocent souls is a cold number that includes countless tragedies.

If Shao Quanzhong had not come, and Zuo Zongtang had come a few years later, the number would have increased to 20 million. There would have been many more who fled their hometowns, had no food or clothing, and died of starvation and cold, and were not included in the statistics.

"Mr. Mark, I understand your anger. These are my compatriots. So I decided to torture the bandit leader Ma Wenlu to death, confiscate the tools used by the bandits, and send them to work on the railway to atone for their sins until they die. I won't kill them."

In view of the great contributions of the refugees under Ma Zhan'ao, Shao Quanzhong gave them 100,000 dan of military rations, and also gave them a total of more than 9,000 Russian-made rifles and ammunition seized in Jinjibao, as well as matchlocks and cold weapons seized in Shaanxi and Gansu.

Ma Zhan'ao led the refugees through the city, directly out of Jiayu Pass, and headed west against the cold wind.

Along the way, he organized 50,000 regular troops, including more than 10,000 Russian rifles and 20,000 matchlock guns, together with about 80,000 able-bodied men armed with cold weapons such as goose-feather knives, short spears, bows and arrows, which formed the armed force he relied on for his thousands-mile migration.

The refugees composed of 600,000 rioters led by Ma Zhan'ao were lucky. Their able-bodied men atone their sins with the blood of tens of thousands of people, bringing stability and happiness to their families and descendants.

More distant descendants received even greater surprises and blessings.

In fact, during the bandit rebellion in Shaanxi and Gansu, 15 million Han people died. If Zuo Gong were still alive, 5 million rebels would have died, and the rebels in Shaanxi and Gansu would have been almost wiped out.

Shao Quanzhong let 600,000 of them go, showing more mercy than Zuo Gong. However, he gained an overseas territory for the descendants of the Chinese people and unexpectedly obtained an astronomical amount of black gold buried under the sand.

Nie Shicheng's troops advanced and quickly recaptured Jiayuguan, which was defended to the west, as well as the cities of Yumen, Guazhou and Dunhuang.

With the passing of the fourth year of Tongzhi and the arrival of the fifth year of Tongzhi, the entire Shaanxi and Gansu provinces were liberated, and the first phase of Shao Quanzhong's Western Expedition ended.

(End of this chapter)