Chapter 150

As for the city walls, is there even a need to ask?

They certainly cannot be blasted open!

If city walls could be blasted open so easily, who would bother building them?

It would be good enough just to knock off a few bricks!

"Your Majesty, since ancient times, the strength of firearms has always excelled in defending cities, much like the peak of military might; even when Li Shaobao fought a fierce battle in Gao Li, he never used cannons to breach a city..."

Luo Yangxing's words were very euphemistic.

Back when Li Rusong led a hundred thousand Great Ming troops to Gao Li to drive out the Japanese, he brought a full one hundred and forty Fo Lang Ji cannons, plus the Divine Machine Camp and self-made Ming artillery, totaling nearly five hundred cannons.

Yet with these five hundred cannons, they besieged Pyongyang and bombarded it for a full month without collapsing the city walls.

Zhu Youjian's expression inevitably became solemn.

Huang Taiji has now begun building cities; his intention is very clear.

That is, Huang Taiji also knows he cannot hold Liaodong.

Therefore, he intends to retreat with the Eight Banners' elite to Hetu Ala, relying on terrain and timing to trade lives with the Great Ming.

The Great Ming can win, but Huang Taiji just wants to knock out two of the Great Ming's front teeth, leaving the Jurchens a chance to catch their breath!

He killed two hundred thousand of the Zhu family!

And Huang Taiji still dares to think about having a chance to catch his breath!

Thinking of this,

Zhu Youjian's expression inevitably turned to one of hatred, his teeth grinding together.

Emperor Sizong Lie:

"Great-Grandfather, does the Great Ming truly have no chance to eradicate these Tatars root and branch?!"

On the other end of the chat group.

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, father and son, were both Son of Heaven who rose from the saddle.

How could the two of them not know that such a trapped beast attacking a stronghold could only be overcome by filling it with human lives?

After a long silence, Zhu Yuanzhang's message appeared in the chat group.

Taizu Gao Emperor:

"Foolish child, you have managed to drag our Great Ming to this point."

"One generation does the work of one generation; let the descendants of our Zhu family handle what remains in Liaodong."

Clearly, Zhu Yuanzhang still remembered what a mess the Great Ming was when Zhu Youjian first faced it.

The Great Ming having such prosperity today

already greatly exceeded Zhu Yuanzhang's expectations.

After all, if old Zhu had been sent to the Chongzhen era, his best hope would have been to divide the realm by the river with the Tatars outside the pass, just to preserve a few inches of Huaxia land.

But clearly, Zhu Youjian could not accept this outcome.

Emperor Sizong Lie:

"Great-Grandfather, they are the mortal enemies of my Zhu family... I have been to Xingshan."

"I have seen the pits and valleys filled with corpses."

"At the Xiaolinghe ferry crossing, my Zhu family's blood was spilled; two hundred thousand young men died, and twenty-two princes left no heirs."

"Where does our Zhu family have any next generation left?!"

"The war in Liaodong has been fought for twenty years; in these twenty years, the Han people of Liaodong, my Zhu family's descendants, nearly a million people have died at the hands of the Jianzhou Jurchens."

"If I cannot avenge this great grievance, how can the future rulers of my Zhu family have the face to rule over the four seas?"

A deathly silence fell over the chat group.

Every Great Ming emperor faced a situation far stronger than the one Zhu Youjian faced.

Even Wanli and Tianqi.

The lingering warmth of Zhang Zhang Juzheng's reforms was still present; at that time, the Great Ming's national strength and the Chongzhen era's national strength were not comparable.

But even though Zhu Youjian had managed things to this extent.

Two hundred thousand imperial clan members died in Liaodong.

The bandit rebels gradually subsided.

The people of the world returned to their occupations.

But once the empire's vitality is gone, it is gone.

All Zhu Youjian can do is restore the momentum of national strength rising.

Those people who starved to death, the barren lands, the reduced harvests during that period—once gone, they are gone.

Even if a Great Luo Golden Immortal came, it could not be reversed.

Looking at the message before him, Zhu Yuanzhang's heart was inevitably filled with mixed feelings.

Taizu Gao Emperor:

"Let me think of a way for you; do not rush."

"@Chengzu Wen Emperor, the fourth son, are you not good at fighting? Think of a way!"

"When you rebelled back then, with just two people you managed to enter Jin Ling; how did you do it back then?"

Chengzu Wen Emperor:

"Father... do not ask."

Taizu Gao Emperor:

"Just say it directly; do you not see how anxious the child has become?!"

Chengzu Wen Emperor:

"No, Li Jinglong opened the door for me back then; I didn't strike him."

"If that brat Zhu Yunwen had shown any backbone and held out for two or three months, you wouldn't be seeing me right now."

Emperor Yingzong Rui:

"Great-Grandfather, I have a way... actually, never mind, I won't say it!"

Emperor Chengzu Wen:

"@Emperor Yingzong Rui, is your hide getting tight again? Spit it out!"

Emperor Yingzong Rui:

"If it doesn't work, just lead the army in person."

Emperor Chengzu Wen:

"You thought I didn't know you were hiding in Zhang Fu's tent? Just wait, I'm coming over right now."

Emperor Yingzong Rui:

"No, Great-Grandfather, don't get impulsive. I already said I wouldn't say it, yet you insisted on bringing it up, and now you're like this."

Su Qiao, locked up in the imperial prison, finally gathered all the raw materials.

Over these past few days, Su Qiao had cut pieces from the table and bench in his cell, then secretly roasted them with a candle at night to make charcoal.

As for the sulfur wine Jiang Huan had thrown at him that day, Su Qiao hadn't drunk it; he had merely secretly extracted the sulfur and ground it into powder.

As for saltpeter.

This stuff can actually be found everywhere in daily life.

But to accumulate this little bit of saltpeter, Su Qiao had expended great effort.

Finally, Su Qiao gauged the thickness of the imperial prison wall.

Slowly, he pulled a tightly sealed paper-wrapped package made of oxhide from a pile of straw.

And inside that package lay.

The very soul of the dipping sauce in that Jin Ling roast duck from that day.

— White sugar.

Just as Zhu Yuanzhang was still discussing countermeasures with Zhu Youjian in the chat group.

On the Front Street of Jin Ling City during the Hongwu era of Great Ming, a tremendous explosion suddenly rang out.

"Boom! ~"

109, add some white sugar to the Big Ivan!