Huizhou Mansion as a close neighbor of Hangzhou Mansion, although not as rich as Hangzhou Mansion, but also a city with a population of more than 200,000 people, its city wall is about two zhang (seven meters) about the height of about two meters, although not as high as the capital and Jinling 12 meters, but in this era it is already a relatively tall and strong city.

The exterior wall originally wrapped in blue bricks is full of pits, like an ugly monster with a pockmarked face, and the ground of the city wall can still be seen from time to time without drying blood.

Li Yan stood behind a battlement with a long sword, looking at the Jiangning Army artillerymen who were busy hundreds of meters away, and a desperate mood welled up in his heart.

Li Yan is a chivalrous person, but at the same time he is also a conceited person, which can be seen from what he did in the past.

Born in a family of eunuchs in Henan, he was born into the landlord class, and he was the opposite of those peasants who scavenged from the fields to eat, but not only did he not exploit the people, but tried his best to speak for those people, and for this reason he did not hesitate to fall out with the landlords and gentry who were of the same class as him, and even joined Li Zicheng's rogues for this reason.

The reason why he joined Li Zicheng's rogue was because he thought that after nearly three hundred years, the Ming Dynasty had already decayed, and the entire land of Daming Nuoda had already been divided up by the landlords and gentry from all over the country, and less than one percent of the people occupied ninety percent of the land, but the taxes of the entire Ming Dynasty were pressed on the peasants who only had one percent of the land, and there was no reason for the Ming Dynasty not to collapse.

Objectively speaking, Li Yan's idea is not wrong, in history, Daming died in the land annexation, and Li Zicheng, who he assisted, did capture the capital of the Ming Dynasty and destroyed the Ming Dynasty with his own hands.

In his opinion, Zhu Yuanzhang was able to mix from a beggar to the founding emperor, and there was no reason why Li Zicheng, who was born as a pawn, could not do it.

But he miscalculated one thing, that is, Li Zicheng may be able to compare with Zhu Yuanzhang in terms of tenacity, but if he picks up his vision, courage and level of governance, Li Zicheng is more than eighteen streets worse than Zhu Yuanzhang, otherwise there will be no situation in another historical time and space where he is obviously holding a good hand of cards but being played poorly.

What's more, due to the emergence of such a variable as Yang Feng in this time and space, Li Yan's original fate has also taken a big turn.

Today was the second day of the Jiangning army's siege of the city, and although it was only a short day, Li Yan and the rogues on the city wall felt like a long year had passed.

From yesterday to now, the Jiangning army has only done one thing, that is, it has concentrated nearly 200 artillery pieces to bombard the city wall of Huizhou Mansion non-stop, under the attack of artillery, the north city wall where Li Yan is located has long been scarred, and the battlements originally used to protect the city guards have also been blown away by artillery fire, and the rogues who have lost the protection of the battlements can only grit their teeth to support.

Although Li Yan really wanted to remove the soldiers on the city wall, leaving only a small number of observation posts, but seeing the step-by-step ladder, shield cart, and countless sergeants with firearms only a few hundred meters away from him, Li Yan could only run this tempting idea to the back of his mind.

It's not that he doesn't feel sorry for the soldiers, but he knows very well that as long as he dares to tear down the soldiers on the city wall, the Jiangning army on the opposite side will immediately turn a feint into a general attack, and the thousands of soldiers who are staring at him will pounce on him like hungry wolves.

"Strategist, we can't fight like this anymore, if we continue like this, we won't be able to last a few days." A man with a face blackened by gunpowder smoke trotted next to Li Yan, and said eagerly: "Military advisor, from yesterday to now, we have broken more than a thousand men on this city wall, this is not the cannon fodder of those dead barracks, but the brothers of our old battalion, this battle can no longer be fought like this." ”

This man was none other than Hao Shaoqi, who volunteered to stay and defend the city with Li Yan.

Although the people who died were all Li Yan's people, even Hao Shaoqi was shocked when he saw such a loss, and he was also worried that Li Yan would pull his people here after the loss was too great, and at that time he wanted to cry without tears.

Li Yan asked rhetorically, "Then do you have any good ideas?" ”

Hao Shaoqi shook his head and said: "I don't know, but I understand that if this continues, our people will collapse without a fight in two days." ”

Li Yan was silent, he could only be beaten but couldn't fight back, no matter how strong a person was, he couldn't stand it.

Although the people defending the city now are the elite of the army he has trained, they have been bombarded for more than a day, and their morale has faintly shown signs of instability, and if they continue like this, he is not sure how long they can hold out.

"Military Division, the most powerful thing in the Jiangning Army is their firearms, if we fight them like this, we can only use our own shortcomings to fight their strengths, and defeat is only a matter of time. According to this style of play, let alone holding on to it for ten days, I am afraid it will be difficult for three days.

So according to me, we might as well withdraw from the Huizhou Mansion and use our strengths to harass the Jiangning Army, although we will also pay a large loss, but at least it is better than being beaten here and not being able to fight back. ”

"Huh......"

Hearing these words, Li Yan couldn't help but move slightly in his heart.

Although he also guessed some of Hao Shaoqi's thoughts, he had to say that his thinking was still right, judging from the current situation, trapping Huizhou Mansion could only wait for death, and he could not complete the trust of King Chuang, rather than this, it was better to jump out and fight with Jiang Ningjun, maybe he could break out of a way to survive.

"Whoosh......"

A dull whistling sound suddenly came from the sky, followed by a violent explosion more than a hundred meters away from them, accompanied by a huge wave of air and thick black smoke, countless debris and debris flew in all directions driven by the shock wave, followed by a scream.

Seeing the seven or eight rogues lying in a pool of blood, a sentry with a red scarf tied to his head always scolded: "Thief, your mother is a bastard, you know how to bully people with artillery, and if you come up to fight with grandpa with real knives and guns, you only know how to use firearms to beat us, what kind of hero!" ”

Li Yan and Hao Shaoqi glanced at each other and smiled bitterly, Jiang Ningjun was sitting on such a sharp firearm, if he didn't have to play hand-to-hand combat with them, it would be a bad brain.

"It's another flowering bomb, Jiang Ningjun is really rich!" Looking at the smoke that had not completely dissipated, Li Yan shook his head with emotion: "It is said that a flowering bomb cannot be bought without ten taels of silver, that is, this cannon just now is equivalent to hitting half a cow, but let's ...... it."

Speaking of this, Li Yan couldn't go on, and after sinking for a while, he made up his mind and said, "Okay, hold on for a while, let's start retreating this afternoon......"