Almost as the nine gates roared cannons and raised flags, a gray smoke column rose from the direction of Chongwen Gate. It was like someone was constantly pouring firewood and oil. After a while, it turned black smoke rolled. When the wind blew it, it quickly covered the sky in the south, as if it was covered with a layer of black veil.

A servant guarding the gate shouted in surprise: "It's a fire! It seems to be outside Chongwen Gate!"

At this time, the pedestrians on the street also pointed to the east and shouted loudly: "Look! There is a fire in the east too!" Everyone at the door of the palace heard the sound and saw that, no, a thick smoke rose outside Qihua's door.

If the sky-sky fire outside the city was just a surprise, the fierce gunfire from the south suddenly shocked everyone in front of the palace. This is the capital, the center of the world! What happened? Could it be that the pirates of the North Killing attacked Tianjin again?

Time went back half an hour ago.

Under the Baitashan Fort on Qiongdao, the general manager of the cannon, Amurta, was drinking tea leisurely in the house. The arrival of several uninvited guests made him feel completely in a good mood for the day. The visitors were five large inner guards wearing yellow jackets. They were all big and thick waists, with sharp eyes. Before they could wait for the notice, the leader shouted in a thick voice: "Where is Amurta? Come out to receive the order!"

Amurta in the office room did not hold a sip of hot tea and sprayed it out directly. You should know that no one came to pass the order in his place, so there would be no trivial matters when he came. He didn't care about wiping the tea on his chest, and hurried out to the house, kneeling down and saying, "Slave Amurta received the order!"

"The imperial edict: The North Sea pirates invaded the capital on a large scale, and thousands of vanguards were besieging Miyun County. The Baitashan Fort fired fire and warned the nine gates!

After reading the guard in the leader, he first handed over the imperial edict in his hand, then took out a gold medal from his arms and said, "This is a gold medal, please check it out."

Amurta first raised his hands and then took the imperial edict, and then took the gold medal. He saw four big words "Boat according to the order" engraved from top to bottom on the front. He calmed down and bowed, "Please wait a moment. The rules of association are inscribed. This official must verify before firing the cannon."

The head guard nodded and said, "Sir, call the cannon officer on duty to inspect together to avoid delays."

"It should be so!"

Amurta hurriedly got up and asked his men to go to the fort to call people. Then he returned to the office room to wait. Several guards also followed him in. Soon after, the head of the duty ran over panting. After entering the room, he was about to salute when he heard the guard who had sent the order before saying, "Military information is urgent! I will be spared if you give me a void!"

The samurai didn't slap the flattery, so he had to stand embarrassedly. When Amurta saw someone coming, he took off the brass key tied with a red rope from his waist, tremblingly opened a boxwood box on the table, took out a booklet from it, quickly turned over a few pages, and then began to check with the token in his hand.

He first checked the imperial edict, using paper, text, and stamps of "Emperor's Treasure"; but when he checked the gold medal, he couldn't help but look stunned, and a trace of doubt appeared in his eyebrows. He was silent for a moment, raised his head and bowed to the guard of the imperial edict and said, "You are so nervous, how dare you ask for your surname?"

"I'm called Ushba, now I am the second-class guard in front of the imperial court. What do you want to do? Have you finished verifying? You can order the fire. I'll go back and hand in the office."

"I can't open this gun!"

"Dare you against the order?!"

"As the general manager of the cannon appointed by the emperor, how can I say that I can resist the order? It's really this gold..."

Before Amurta finished speaking, Ushba suddenly snatched his body, raised his hand and punched the other party in the face. Although Amurta was a military vocation, he had not been accustomed to archery and Mabuku for many years. He was caught off guard and was beaten to the ground. Venus appeared in front of him, spinning around, and even the official hat on his head fell off.

Ushba pulled out his sword from his waist and pointed at Amurta on the ground and shouted angrily: "What's the intention of delaying it?! It's clear that you are colluding with the Northern Pirates! The emperor gave an order to resist the order and kill those who did not follow it!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he grabbed the other person's braid and forced him to raise his head. Then he cut the sharp blade hard on the neck and carotid artery. The blood in Amurta's neck shot out like a sharp arrow, splashing straight onto the wall a few meters away; while he himself groaned, rolled on the ground a few times and thrust his legs, trembling violently all over. After only a moment, he kicked his feet and stopped moving again.

Ushiba looked vicious, turned around and pointed at the stunned ginseng collar with blood with a bloody goose sword, and said, "Do you dare to resist the order?!"

The scammer, who was already scared, weakened his legs and knelt on the ground, with his upper and lower teeth trembling and said, "Low, lower official, lower official, lower official, lower official, lower official, lower official,"

"The gold medal imperial edict is here, fire the fire immediately! It delays the big event, and you will end up like this!"

"Secretary, go here, go."

Ushba nodded and said, "You know what you know, lead the way! You dare to have a strange intention and keep your head carefully!"

As the leader walked, he kept turning back and responding: "No, no, the lower officials were from the Han army's white flag. The ancestors followed the dragon outside the pass, followed the Emperor Taizong to fight and the Emperor Shizuo to enter the pass."

Ushba sneered: "There are fewer rebellious people in the North Pirates?! There is not a single good thing for those people outside the pass!"

The leader of the sect hurriedly said, "The officials are different. The family is in the capital. The officials dare to swear to the sky, be loyal to the court and be loyal to the emperor!"

Several people climbed up the steps and soon arrived at the White Tower in Beihai. Ushba and his men had never been here before. They saw a turret of more than half a foot high in the north, east and west sides of the tower, and two on the south side; five black straight iron cannons were built on it, no more than one foot or eight inches long, and the body of the cannon was not engraved with patterns, and they were only tied with thick iron hoops in the middle and tail of the cannon. In the four directions of the cannon and in the middle, there were five bare flagpoles.

This is the famous Baitashanxin Fort!

It is said that when the Qing Dynasty first entered the pass and occupied the city of Beijing, it was well aware that its foundation was unstable, so in order to ensure the safety of the capital, if there were police officers and no trust to gather the crowd, they imitated the system of gathering drums in Shengjing, and set up a cannon for military police on the Coal Mountain so that the Eight Banners stationed in Beijing could quickly gather to defend the enemy.

Later in the tenth year of Shunzhi, at the request of the Minister of War Gadahun, Prince Zheng Jierhalang, agreed to move the fort to the top of Baita Mountain on Qiongdao, Beihai. At the same time, five cannons and five flagpoles were set up at the nine gates of the inner city. Once something happened, the Yellow Dragon Flag would be hung during the day and the Lights would be hung at night.

The Baitashan Xinbath Guard is composed of the left and right wings of the Eight Banners Han Army. According to the requirements of two squads per day, two entrusted cannon officers, two urging officers, and 16 cavalry guards and guards. As for the cannons on the nine gates of the inner city, the infantry commander's yamen sent people to guard them.

In the early years of Yongzheng, in order to ensure the throne and prevent the danger of coups within the Eight Banners, Longkodo, who was the admiral of the Nine Gates, appealed to the document to make the system of fire gun warnings and make it a decree; at the same time, in order to keep it confidential, all content was written in Manchu. This is also the most complete system of urban early warning and citizen mobilization in the classical era of China.

Although there were basically no wars in the early Qing Dynasty and the Xinyao area had few opportunities to play a role, the three generations of Kangxi and Yongzheng and Gan attached great importance to the management of Xinyao. For example, in the eighth year of Qianlong, eunuchs in the palace spread gossip to the outside world, saying that someone took the information from the Xinyao. As a result, the day after the incident, Qianlong severely punished the two eunuchs on the grounds of leaking the military secrets of the Eight Banners.

However, no matter how perfect the early warning system is, it is based on the strong combat effectiveness of the army. The combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners comes from the "Banners" group of soldiers and civilians. Once this group goes to corruption and depravity, the trust artillery system can only become a big firecracker that can be heard.

In October of the 54th year of Qianlong, after the Battle of Changxing Island, the Northern Navy troops arrived at Dagukou, which made the Qing court panic, and they all thought that Zhao Xin was going to attack the capital. Qianlong ordered the Baitashan Cannon to be fired and prepared to mobilize the Eight Banners, but he almost angered him to death.

At that time, five cannons in Baita Mountain were fired, and the Huanglong flag was raised, and the nine cannons did not respond at all. There were still people and cars under the city gate. The bannermen and men in the teahouse should drink tea and listen to the play. As for the princes and princes at home, they were shocked after the cannons were fired, and then they sent people to Shuntian Mansion to make an explanation, and they must catch the full guy...

Fortunately, Zhao Xin had no intention of attacking the capital at that time, and he was not even interested in Tianjin. After the Beihai Army left Dagukou with the signature and sealed agreement, Qianlong, who had climbed up from his sickbed, became more and more angry as he thought about it. So he issued an edict, summoning the chief commanders of each banner, deputy chief commanders and ministers of the king into the palace, scolding them in a row, and fined everyone a year's salary. Later, he sent Heshen, Zongren Mansion, and Mianen, who was still the prince of Ding, to form a group to inspect Baita Mountain and various forts on the city gate, and even performed for the first time.

(The White Tower in Beihai in 1870. If you look closely, you can see that there are two thin poles standing on the left and right of the white tower, which are the flagpoles for hanging lanterns to warn, and there is also a flagpole behind the tower.)

In the escape plan discussed by Heshen and Ma Bashisan, the two of them had the idea of ​​being a cannon from the beginning. You should know that if the He Mansion had a confidant and minion, they would have to be 200 or 300 slaves. It would be impossible for so many people to leave the capital at the same time without being noticed. The only way is to fight the time difference. Even if they find something wrong, the person would have run away long ago and they would not be able to catch up.

As the Chief Minister of Military Affairs and the Minister of the Inner Guard, Minister of War, and Admiral of the Nine Gates, our Lord He is very clear about the operation procedures of the Baitashan Fort.

So he took advantage of Qianlong's stroke and first controlled the palace ban and the news, and then obtained the jade seal. He could use the forged imperial edict and then let his minions take the gold medal of "firing fire under the order" that was imitated in advance and go to Baita Mountain to issue an order to fire fire and warn.

Immediately afterwards, he forged an edict to let Prince Yi and Prince Ding enter the garden, detain the two of them, and obtained the military talisman of the Nine Gate Admiral. The infantry commander in the city could only listen to him alone. Now all the fools in the capital knew that the emperor was backed by the emperor, and they were extremely powerful. Who would think that they had a long life and dared not to listen to his orders?!

The leader of the gang took over the previous imperial edict and gold medal from Ushba, raised his hands high, and shouted loudly to the eight defenders kneeling in front of him: "The emperor has an order. The North Sea pirates invade the capital, immediately fire a cannon to warn!"

"According to the order!"

At the same time, in the backyard of a shop selling silk flowers on the east side of the Huo Shen Temple outside Chongwen Gate, seven or eight men covered their faces and heads, wearing short dresses, were carrying the owner and his wife who were killed by them into the wing room; it was full of grass and silk for making silk flowers. Then these people poured tung oil, gunpowder and other items prepared in their leather pockets in advance into the houses. After almost the preparations were made, these people gathered in the yard, took out the revolver made in Beihai Town from their back waist and started loading.

The masked strong man in the lead lowered his voice and said to everyone under his command: "Be careful in a while! Don't hit your own people!"

"Don't worry, Boss Ma. We brothers have never fired this gun."

"If you want me, no wonder the court can't beat the North Sea Pirates. Look at the fast guns of other people, it's much more powerful than the two of them who lifted the bird guns! It's just that there are fewer guns."

"The fire will come together later, a fire will begin next to the Fire God Temple, hehe~~"

The masked man called Boss Ma whispered: "Don't fucking nonsense! I'll say it again, after firing the gun, you'll leave the city from Guangqumen! The boat in Zhangjiawan will not wait for anyone, and you'll leave when you get there!"

At this time, a guy with a soft voice might be nervous and asked, "Boss Ma, how far is Yunnan from the capital?"

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! Boss Ma thought for a while and said, "Sanqianli is afraid he can't stop it."

He curled his lips with a slight voice - no one could see him with his face covering, and said, "His grandma! I don't know when I will come back after finishing this!"

Boss Ma ignored him and urged his men to load bullets and fire into the revolver quickly, while listening to the movement outside. In the afternoon, there were many pedestrians on the streets of the flower market, and shops selling silk flowers and paper flowers were bustling, making it very lively.

Suddenly, these people followed a "bang" cannon sound from the distance from the north. After a while, another sound was heard. Boss Ma's eyes immediately widened and he counted the sound of cannons carefully. When the fifth cannon sounded, he immediately ordered: "Do it!"

When the rooms in various places were lit, several masked men quickly came to the closed gate. They had taken off the cloth towels on their faces and heads, then opened the door, and came out in a row as if nothing had happened, and in a blink of an eye they were caught in the panic crowd.

Soon, a shrill voice rang on the street: "No! The North Sea Pirates have entered the city! Li San's family has been killed! Everyone, run to the inner city!"

Immediately afterwards, three "bang bang" sounded, and then more gunshots rang out on the streets of Huashi. The crowd was in chaos, and hundreds of people rushed toward the direction of Chongwenmen. The crying of children and the shouting of women were in chaos, and the falling items were everywhere on the ground.

No one noticed at this moment. A raging fire ignited in the backyard of the silk flower shop, and the tongues of fire and smoke rolled upwards along the eaves. A "boom" sounded, and as a fire ball rose, countless ignited silk debris and grass were blown into the air by the scorching air waves, and then fell into the yards of the two families on both sides of the left and right. The fire quickly thought about spreading on the left and right sides of the Shang Erhuotong.

However, when the escaped crowd came to the Chongwenmen City, they were shocked to find that the heavy city gate was slowly closing. So they ran forward desperately, trying to get into the gap in front of others, and the city gate soon became crowded. However, the more they did this, the more frightened the defenders who were closing the city gate were.

"Return! Return! Damn!"

"Come on, a few people will help close the door! If you don't come again, the city gate will be knocked open!"

"Old Master! OK, the pirates from the north outside the city are here, let's go in and avoid it!"

"Bastard! Return it to me!"

"Changshun, you boy let me in. I am your second uncle!"

"Yeah! Second uncle, why are you here too? Come in now!"

"Mr. Qi, I am Liu San. We will listen to the opera together in the first few days! Please be fine, let me go!"

"Get out! I don't know anyone!"

The gatekeeper at Chongwen City Gate was stalking at the battlement of the city wall. Seeing more and more people below, he felt as panicked as an ant on a hot pan. Just when he didn't know what to do, a large group of officers and soldiers from the infantry commander's yamen ran towards the front door along the city wall. A deputy commander in the head sternly said: "Why is the city gate not closed yet?! Has it delayed major issues, are you waiting to lose your head?"

He ignored the gatekeeper who came to salute, turned around and led the leader of the opponent: "You! Take fifty people down, whoever dares to squeeze into the door will stab you directly with a gun!"

Soon, screams and screams came from the Chongwen Gate city, and people kept falling in pools of blood. As the crowd retreated in panic, the thick gate was finally closed tightly, allowing countless people to cry in the urn.
Chapter completed!