Daming: I help my wife be the empress

Chapter 321 Could it be that the Ming army had God's help?
The southern city wall was originally defended by Ma Yingkui's troops, but since the Qing army pretended to be attacking the southern city wall yesterday, Liu Zhaoji and Shi Dewei naturally also came over.

Seeing the Qing army coming across the pontoon bridge, Liu Zhaoji immediately ordered the defenders at the top of the city to attack with a small number of long-range weapons.

Such as crossbows, artillery, and trebuchets, there are all that should be there, but the number is too small.

After the artillery fire of the Qing army, less than half of them were intact.

Even if they were all used at this time, the casualties caused to the Qing army were still small, and it was difficult to stop the Qing army's intention to attack the city.

"It seems that we can only wait for them to climb the city." Liu Zhaoji said, frowning.

Ma Yingkui held a big knife, looked down carefully, then retracted his face behind the horse, and said with a smile: "Let them come up, so we can kill you!"

Shi Dewei also nodded and said, "I also think it's better to let them kick the city to fight, otherwise they will be bombarded all the time, and they will die of aggrieved if they are not beaten to death."

Liu Zhaoji didn't say much.

It's not fun to be passively bombarded, but if the Qing army really stepped on the top of the city, the city of Yangzhou would be in danger.

If the city wall is accidentally lost, Yangzhou City will fall.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but look to the south again.

Now, they have confirmed that reinforcements are coming from the south, and their strength is not bad, otherwise the Qing army would not have put up such a large formation to deal with it.

It's a pity that the reinforcements are still too far away from them, even on the south wall, it's hard to see anything.

Now he is more worried about the situation of the reinforcements in the south - if the reinforcements are defeated by the Qing army, not only Yangzhou City will lose hope, but even Nanjing will be in danger.

"The Qing army has arrived at the city!"

Hearing Shi Dewei's reminder, Liu Zhaoji walked quickly towards the west section of the city wall, and said loudly while walking: "The rolling stone, golden juice, and Leimu are all ready. Remember, the speed of throwing must be fast..."

While he was talking, he suddenly heard an obvious sound of bowing, and immediately shouted: "Be careful of the rain of arrows!"

After finishing speaking, he immediately rushed to a fender that was blasted by shells.

The various defensive facilities on the Yangzhou city were originally quite complete under the management of Shi Kefa and them, but unfortunately, no matter whether it was the arrow shield, the cloth or other defensive tools, they were destroyed by the previous artillery fire.

I saw the black arrows falling down, and immediately some Ming soldiers were hit by the arrows because the arrow shields were damaged.

Most of these people are Minyong and have no armor at all. Even with wooden shields, it is difficult to protect themselves under the rain of arrows because they are not used well.

Although a small number of officers and soldiers wore cloth face armor, most of them were inferior armor without much iron, and it was also difficult to protect them well.

Only experienced veterans can use a rattan shield to protect themselves and their companions.

"The enemy has begun to climb the city!" Someone shouted.

Liu Zhaoji immediately came out from under the baffle and shouted: "Archers, musketeers, and gunners should be careful to suppress the enemy and push down all the enemy's ladders."

"General, the ladder has hooks, so you can't push it down." The inexperienced Min Yong shouted anxiously.

As soon as he finished speaking, he was shot in the shoulder by an arrow and fell to the ground screaming.

Liu Zhaoji picked up a special putter, cooperated with several servants, and quickly pushed down a ladder.

Immediately afterwards, he personally picked up a stone and smashed it down another ladder, immediately smashing the several Qing troops on the ladder to the ground screaming and falling.

Several archers in the city stared at him, and several arrows swished one after another.

Most of them missed, but one still hit him in the ribs.

Fortunately, he was wearing fish scale armor, but his ribs hurt a little from the shot.

Driven by him, the rhythm of the garrison dominated by Minyong gradually improved, but Liu Zhaoji was still frowning.

He knew very well that the biggest threat to them was always the enemy's artillery—if the enemy did not hesitate to accidentally injure the friendly army, and fired at this time, they could only rely on human lives to defend the city wall.

He just thought so when he heard the sound of cannon.

Immediately shouted: "Be careful of the shells!"

···
Boom boom boom!
After beating drums, Huang Degong's deputy general Xu Chong led the five thousand infantry armor of the pro-barracks to the north to the Han Banner camp with the "Zhang" flag.

On his right flank were more than [-] infantry led by Chen Xiance.

Going to the east for more than two miles, Huang Ming and Zhang Jie also led their soldiers to another green camp with two banners of "Li" and "Liu".

At the same time, Huang Degong led three thousand cavalry and four sentry artillery in the rear, waiting for the battle.

These four sentry artillery were not transferred from the imperial guards or border guards, but Huang Degong temporarily formed them with the artillery given by Aunt Zhu.

Most of them are gunners under his command, but there are also a few gunners transferred from the border guards.

Seeing that the infantry led by Xu Chong, Huang Ming and others had entered within two miles of the enemy camp, Huang Degong immediately said: "Pass down our military order, and each artillery post will fire to destroy the enemy camp's artillery and blunderbuss troops!"

The two messengers next to them immediately rode to the gun post positions on the east and west sides, loudly conveying Huang Degong's orders.

Each of these four artillery posts has [-] bright-style artillery pieces. They have already learned the layout of the two Qing army camps in the south through drone investigations, and adjusted the shooting angles under the guidance of the artillerymen of the border guards.

At this time, after receiving the military order, they all pulled the ropes and fired.

Boom boom boom!
With the roar of the artillery, dozens of bullets crossed the distance of two or three miles and fell into the two Qing army camps to the south...

The banner with the word "Zhang" is the camp of Zhang Cunren, the Han army with a blue banner.

Although he only led [-] bannermen of the Han army this time, they were all true elites who had fought against the Ming army outside the customs for many years, and even invaded Daming several times.

Now that he knew that the Ming army had many and fierce artillery, he was prepared.

He set up many trenches in the camp—since the period of Nurhachi, the Eight Banners Army began to use trench tactics. In the early stage, it was to defend against the artillery shells of the Ming army, and in the later stage, it was to cooperate with artillery and cavalry to block the Ming army, and all achieved good results. .

Of course, the Eight Banners Army's use of trenches is still relatively shallow. They simply dig trenches and pile up soil, mainly for defense against live ammunition for artillery.

It is neither as deep as the trenches of later generations, nor as vertically and horizontally connected, and there are no functional structures such as foxholes and bomb shelters.

Zhang Cunren didn't know how effective the previous trenches would be in the face of explosive bombs, so he still let the three thousand heavy armored infantry disperse as much as possible.

There were only three gunners who had to rely on intensive shooting to deal damage, and he divided them into three different places according to their numbers.

In addition, there are [-] artillery, which are concentrated in the east and west directions of the camp.

Zhang Cunren felt that unless his luck was particularly bad, his artillery and musketeers would be bombarded by the Ming army.

Even if he was really unlucky, he reckoned that only one or two places were hit by shells—it was impossible for all five places to be hit by Ming army shells.

Therefore, he also specially ordered the artillerymen and gunners to wait for the Ming army to arrive within a hundred steps of the camp before firing the guns and guns, so as to give the Ming army a round of ruthlessness.

However, at this time, seeing dozens of bullets falling, either on the artillery positions, or in the three musketeers, only a dozen rounds fell around these five places, everyone was dumbfounded .

He seemed to be unable to hear the screams of the many gunners and gunners, and only a series of questions remained in his mind——

How can it be?

Why was the Ming army so lucky?

Could it be God help?

At this time, the general next to him said loudly: "General, the Ming army probably knew the layout of our camp in advance."

"Absolutely impossible!" Zhang Cunren immediately denied, "I ordered the arrangement of the camp today on a whim. How could the Ming army know?"

"This..." The general of the soldiers also had a puzzled look on his face.

Zhang Cunren didn't think about it any more, and immediately went to look at the positions of several artillery and musketeers.

Seeing the dead and wounded gunners lying on the ground in disorder, either out of breath or howling, his heart ached.

These gunners are also elite, and it takes a lot of money to train one.

Just when Zhang Cunren shouted to save people, he heard the familiar roar again.

His expression changed suddenly, and it was only then that he remembered what Boluo had said, that the artillery of the Ming army was very fast.

So he didn't care about those dead and wounded soldiers any more, and hurriedly asked the soldiers to protect him and run away.

boom boom boom

Dozens of shells fell again, and the gunners and gunners who had survived but failed to move in time were killed and wounded in large numbers.

Zhang Cunren, on the other hand, ran fast, but was startled by a shell explosion nearby and fell over, making his face ashamed and his pigtails unraveling.

(End of this chapter)