As the Xie family's high hopes for the turnaround card: the fire gun camp, there are more than 6,700 fire gun soldiers.

Of these, 3,400 were regular soldiers each armed with a musket, and the other 3,000 were reservists waiting for a new musket.

An Guogong originally planned to expand the firecracker camp to about 20,000 people, so these more than 6,000 firecracker soldiers were far from enough.

It's just that the production of firecrackers is far from keeping up with the growth in numbers, which is why there are so many reserves without firecrackers.

Although these reservists are not regular firecrackers, they receive the same training as regular soldiers, and use a limited number of firearms in turn, except for the ones that are truly their own.

Although Mr. Qiu had already said that he would save the lives of a group of firecrackers, the eldest prince Arobu had also given such an order to the subordinates who launched the night attack beforehand.

But when it comes to a real war, sometimes it's hard to take care of so much. Especially at night, it's even more difficult to tell.

After the count, the fire battalion, which totaled more than 6,700 people, was killed to less than 4,000 people, and almost half of it was emptied.

Although there were less than 4,000 people left, the Ministry of Industry had only made more than 3,400 firearms, which was more than enough for the 4,000 firecrackers.

As a Han soldier, naturally not many people are willing to put their weapons against their comrades.

But soldiers are just ordinary people, they also have seven emotions and six desires, and most of them have parents and relatives in their families, so they are naturally afraid of death.

Under the threat of the Hu people's butcher's knives, these captured firecrackers could only do what they said in order to save their lives.

"You Han dogs, listen well, if anyone dares not fight seriously, I will take someone's life, do you hear clearly?" A Hu man scolded loudly in stiff Chinese.

The musketeers who had been with him for many days knew that he was not lying, and several people had already been beaten to death by him in front of everyone because they had not done well during training.

These Hu people don't treat them Han people as human beings at all, they just treat them as a herd of livestock.

When the horn of the siege sounded, the helpless firecrackers could only tremble and aim the muzzles of the firecrackers at the city in order to save their lives.

"The first row is ready, point the rope."

Under the command of the commander of the firecracker battalion, thousands of firecrackers standing in the first row lit the firerope outside the medicine room with their trembling right hands.

"Canopy, canopy, canopy, canopy......"

As the fire ropes burned out separately, thousands of firecrackers burst out one after another, and thick smoke rose everywhere, as if a small fire had occurred.

Not long after the sound, the shield wall at the head of the city that was originally used to resist the Hu people's arrow array inexplicably appeared multiple gaps, and the arrow shield that was originally erected suddenly fell several pieces.

As soon as the arrow shield fell, countless arrows suddenly rushed towards the gap like a raging storm, killing many soldiers in an instant.

It wasn't until a soldier risked his life to pick up the arrow shield and put it up again that the gap was narrowly filled.

"Okay, good fight, just keep fighting." Hu Ren Bairen laughed proudly.

"Second row ready, point rope."

Although the flag commander was also a Han Chinese, he had no choice but to continue to give the order to open fire.

As the second round of banging sounded, thousands of lead stones were again shot mercilessly towards the city.

Although the hit rate of these firebolts, which do not even have crosshairs, is extremely low, they cannot withstand the large number of them. Even if most of the buckshot is missed, there will definitely be a handful of lead bullets that hit the target.

Once the lead bullets fired from the firebolts hit the target, they could easily pierce the human-tall arrow shield and shoot directly into the body of the soldier behind the shield, causing a large tearing wound.

Anyone who is hit to the death has no chance of survival.

Sure enough, under this round of attacks, seven or eight shields fell again, and the soldiers in charge of holding the shields almost all fell down with their shields.

There was a terrible wound on their chest, or in their abdomen, and the blood was gushing wildly.

Whenever a shield fell, the Hu archers below would shoot arrows desperately at the side of the gap, causing a large number of casualties.

Since this shield is more than a man tall and heavy, it cannot stand up at all if no one stands behind it.

And once someone is standing behind, there is a considerable chance that they will be hit by the firecracker, depending on which one is unlucky.

Firebolts are used to pierce shields, and arrows are used to shoot enemies behind.

The use of this fire gun and arrow array is a new way of playing that Mr. Qiu came up with by himself.

Whenever there is a gap in the shield wall, the soldiers standing behind it have to pay a very heavy price to put the shield back up.

After several rounds of attacks, the soldiers at the head of the city suffered a large number of casualties. Many were not killed by firecrackers, but by indiscriminate arrows.

Seeing that there was a mess above the city, the eldest prince Arobu laughed and said, "Sir is really clever. Pass my orders, siege soldiers! ”

The horn sounded, and the more than 5,000 Hu siege soldiers who had been waiting for a long time immediately shouted and rushed to the city wall, and then quickly climbed up the ladder.

"Pour the oil!" The trumpeter Xie Qingyuan shouted loudly.

The soldiers immediately poured buckets of hot oil down.

Screams suddenly erupted from below, and many Hu people were burned and seriously injured.

However, after yesterday's battle, the Hu people had already prepared for this move, and they all wore leather shields together.

As soon as they saw the hot oil falling from their heads, many of the Hu siege soldiers immediately raised their leather shields to protect their heads and faces.

Through the barrier of the skin shield, the effect of the hot oil is greatly reduced.

Although he burned a lot of people, he could no longer burn the Hu people of the entire ladder like yesterday.

When more and more Hu people successfully climbed to the top of the city, the offensive and defensive battles once again became hand-to-hand battles at the head of the city.

Seeing the chaos of the city, An Guogong, who was pale, could only send heavily armored sword armor soldiers to participate in the battle again.

These tall and sturdy sword armor soldiers, together with the battlefield, did greatly boost morale, and the soldiers defending the city slowly stabilized their positions.

But it's a pity that the number of sword armor soldiers is limited after all, and after a whole day of fighting yesterday, many people have not fully recovered, and they all feel a little weak and weak, not at all as brave as yesterday.

On the other hand, the Hu people relied on the strength of the crowd and constantly sent new siege soldiers to join the battle. Under the advantages of the other, the two sides gradually fell into a stalemate.

Although the Hu side could not further expand the advantage, and the Wei army could not drive the Hu soldiers who climbed to the top of the city, fierce hand-to-hand combat was launched on both sides of the city.

In the sky, countless arrows continued to fall like torrential rain, causing great obstacles and casualties to the subsequent reinforcements of the Wei soldiers.

Many soldiers could only hold their shields to block arrows while sending reinforcements to the city.

At this time, everyone knew very well that once the city was lost, Xinjing would be broken, so the military generals such as Liu An, the governor of the five armies, Xie Qingyuan, the commander of the trumpet, and Li Zhihai, the general general, could only continue to send more soldiers to join the battle, and take the opportunity to replace the soldiers who had been injured or exhausted.

What's even worse is that the firecrackers below did not stop firing, and still shot in the direction of the city head in rows and rows, and they didn't even care whether they would hit the siege soldiers who were also Hu people.

"Canopy, canopy, canopy, canopy......"

With round after round of fire, thousands of buckshot shots not only hit many Hu siege soldiers, but also many sword and armor soldiers.

The armor worn by these swords, guns and armor weighed dozens of catties, which was the thickest and heaviest armor in the army, enough to resist the damage of most bows and arrows and swords.

However, in the face of the lead bullets sprayed by gunpowder, these originally invulnerable sword armor soldiers were easily pierced like paper ties, and fell one after another, making the military generals tremble.

They didn't expect that even the heavy armor couldn't block the penetration of the firecracker, the lethality of this firecrackle was too terrifying, no wonder the Xie family wanted to let the Ministry of Industry make the firecracker at any cost.

But such a powerful firearm became a weapon for the Hu people to deal with themselves, which made the generals feel even more desperate.

Although he saw that the casualties of the sword armor soldiers with the strongest combat effectiveness were getting heavier and heavier, An Guogong did not dare to replace them.

At this time, the head of the city was in a melee, and the sword armor was the main force in defending the city, if they were replaced at this time, it was likely that the situation would be one-sided, so An Guogong did not dare to do this.

Just when the battle was at a stalemate, a herald suddenly ran up to report that the eastern city gate had also been attacked by the Hu people, numbering about 50,000 people.

Hearing that the East Gate was attacked at the same time, An Guogong's eyelids jumped subconsciously, and immediately ordered Zheng Zhi, the governor of the Five Armies, Hu Chunbo, the commander of the right camp, and others to go to the East Gate to support.

Zheng Zhi and the others did not dare to delay, and after receiving the order, they hurriedly ran to the east gate to support.

At this moment, An Guogong has deeply realized that there is indeed a master behind the Hu people.

Otherwise, they would not have come up with such a clever tactic as intercepting the army to aid Beijing halfway, let alone dividing their troops to attack two places, which is not in line with the Hu people's always straightforward style.

Now the only thing he can do is to defend Xinjing, and then wait for reinforcements from all over the country to arrive.

If it really didn't work, their Xie family could only abandon the city and flee.

It's just that he doesn't want to do it until he has to.

Because of this escape, their Xie family will forever lose the ability to control the government and the opposition and become an ordinary local force, which is tantamount to abandoning their previous achievements.

However, An Guogong is old after all, and he has been sick for a long time, which has affected his judgment and thinking to some extent.

He only guessed that there was a master behind the Hu people, but he didn't expect that the so-called "master" was very likely to be someone who knew everything about the internal situation in the capital.

He didn't know that a huge crisis had already quietly descended when the Hu soldiers were in the city.

At this time, the two families living in the inner city were secretly assembling private soldiers and preparing to do a big thing.

The leaders are Sun Pei, the descendant of the Sun family, and Ma Yihai, the eldest son of the Ma family.