After destroying this artillery, the whole battlefield was eerily quiet. The Qing army still left some foot soldiers to guard against the attack of the people on the east bank of the city, but most of them had already begun to withdraw to the camp in whole groups. The Eight Banners were out again, and they drove the poor masters with swords and horsewhips to build a camp while digging a ditch outside Yantai Fort for soil, and their posture seemed to want to pile up an earthen wall. But it doesn't all look like this, could it be that they still want to dig a series of dense traffic trenches?

Li Wenchang watched from the top of the city, and he felt that the current situation was very interesting. The Qing army apparently foresaw the heavy casualties that would be inflicted on storming a fortified city like Yantai Fort, but they had no choice but to do so. Therefore, they can only adopt a qiē method to avoid all kinds of losses, such as building an earthen wall and digging a communication trench in front of them is a good way, but the engineering quantity is too large, and only the Qing army, which has a large number of people, can afford to play.

Originally, every time the Qing army attacked, it had to start from two kilometers away, and not only was the journey long, but it was also constantly bombarded by artillery along the way, which was very demoralizing, as evidenced by the army that broke up in the morning before it even reached two hundred meters from the east bank of the human wall. Now with the communication trenches, the Qing army was apparently able to advance their starting positions to within a thousand meters, which greatly reduced their casualties, as the threat posed to them by the iron bullets bouncing on the ground.

If a wall of earth were placed at the front of the winding trench, it would be able to somewhat disguise their movements, and the effect would be quite good. All they had to do was pile up the dirt from digging the trenches in front of them, and the walls were soft and thick. It absorbs the kinetic energy of artillery shells very well. Just do it thickly. The artillery of the people on the east coast was not very effective at a distance of a thousand meters.

Now all Shandong knows that the Qing Dynasty's Prince Su Haoge personally led an army of 300,000 (known to the outside world) to the east to conquer the Huangyi Haikou, if they work in vain, then the prestige of the Qing Dynasty's invincibility will not be underestimated. Moreover, many people in Shandong are watching, such as those hidden anti-Qing forces, do you think they are all good? They stopped for a while, obviously because the Qing army was strong, and they temporarily avoided its edge, once the Qing army's more than 50,000 troops were frustrated under Yantai City. These people are 100 percent going to jump out and make trouble again.

Therefore, the battle against Yantai involves a wide range of issues, and this is a political battle! The battle that must be won! Since it is a political account, things such as casualties among officers and soldiers, and material consumption are all trivial, and the key to the problem is whether Yantai can be taken or not, and whether or not the yellow-clothed pirates on the east coast can be wiped out. And for this, the Qing army was originally full of confidence, but now they are really a little uncertain. Although this city is not big, it cannot be completely besieged because of the sea, so it can only be attacked, but the yellow-clothed thieves are so fierce. How many people do you have to fill in this before you can beat it down?

There was no fighting for the following two days on March 10 and 11, but the Qing army was reinforced by a large number of main forces. So far. The troops they had gathered under the city had officially exceeded 50,000 (excluding the master), and after two days of preparation, early this morning, the Qing army lined up outside the camp, as if preparing to start a new round of attack.

The main force of today's attack was still dominated by the new annexed troops, and after they had finished lining up at the entrance of the camp, they slowly drilled into those communication trenches, and then advanced along these zigzag trenches. Two days was too tight for repairing the earthen wall, and the east bank artillery harassed them from time to time, so they only hastily piled up an earthen wall more than one meter high in front of the battle, and the thickness was not very good, and it was repeatedly penetrated by the solid shells on the east bank. Therefore, the people on the east bank of the city can see the movements of the Qing army in a very good way.

However, these communication trenches they built were not useless, because the solid shells fired by the long-range artillery of the people on the east coast could no longer do much damage to them, and the hit rate was greatly reduced. Because it is difficult for a cannonball to hurt anyone if it is not in the middle of the traffic trench, even if the shell jumps into the traffic trench, after being blocked by the narrow two walls, the kinetic energy of the shell will be quickly exhausted, and the damage will be greatly reduced. At least, the old scene of relying on ricocheting bullets to injure a string of people on flat ground is rare to see again.

In two days, although tens of thousands of people were mobilized to participate in the construction of the traffic trench and earthen wall, the Qing army still only advanced the communication trench to within 1,000 meters from Yantai Fort. They couldn't get any closer, firstly because of lack of time, and secondly, because if they got closer, they would be effectively hit by the six artillery pieces of the people on the east coast, and the casualties of the people digging the trench would increase dramatically. They simply couldn't hold out for long under the threat of explosive bombs fired by the people on the east coast before they broke up, and the terrifying flowering shells were simply beyond human resistance, and they might not be able to dig this communication trench even if they paid tens of thousands of casualties.

In fact, they were already feeling the pain when they dug the trench a kilometer away. At that time, only two guns fired a few solid shells that could effectively kill them, with occasional small bursts of explosive shells. In this way, the people who dug the ditch in the past two days have already killed and injured four or five hundred people, and even the overseer's Eight Banners and followers have suffered more than 30 casualties, which is terrifying. Unable to imagine the cost of pushing the trench to within a kilometer, the Qing army quickly recognized the reality and began to build an earthen wall on the side of the trench, leaving a few gaps above the earthen wall, which they used as a starting point.

Speaking of which, today is the first time they have practiced this tactic. It took a long time for more than 1,000 Qing troops to turn out of the crooked communication trenches, and then it was still the knife and axe men who went first, although they destroyed a lot of obstacles the day before yesterday, they still did not completely clean up quickly, so these people were responsible for this work. By this time they had recognized the difficulty of the barbed wire fences of the people on the east coast, so they decided to cut the wires with guò axes and axes, and then burn the stakes. One can imagine how low their chances of surviving the blows of all kinds of artillery on the east coast were, so they all turned pale, but there was nothing they could do but hope that they would be lucky enough not to be hit by the artillery.

They were followed by a crowd of people with oil and torches, shouting trumpets and following the axemen at a faster pace. On the left and right of them and behind them, there were a large number of people carrying earthen bags, who followed behind these Qing army auxiliaries with pale faces and trembling. Their task was to throw the dirt bags they carried on their shoulders behind the barbed wire. Because the hateful yellow-clothed pirates on the east coast laid out two barbed wire fences under the city, and the two barbed wire fences were separated by about ten meters. The distance of ten meters is not flat, in fact, it is full of dense iron sticks, and the gaps between the iron sticks are sprinkled with thistles. These must be filled in, otherwise people will not be able to get through guò at all.

The whole process was the same as the previous two times, and the artillery of the East Coast inflicted heavy casualties on these. The only difference between the Qing army and the previous two times was that the starting position was closer, and the time for being shelled on the way was shorter. However, they were unable to reach the walls of Yantai Fort, as the remaining wooden stakes and barbed wire in front of them greatly hindered their movements, and some of the men carrying dirt bags tried to cross the barbed wire scattered on the ground, but they were quickly knocked down by artillery fire. Some even tripped over barbed wire, and the scene was chaotic. In the end, after paying more than 400 dead and wounded, the Qing army, which was more than 1,000 people, broke down again. Their only achievement was to clear most of the remaining wooden stakes and barbed wire fence under the Yantai Fort in front of them, and at the same time threw a few sparse bags of earth behind the barbed wire.

Today, however, the Qing army seems to be very determined. After this wave of people retreated from both sides, the second wave of more than 1,000 people immediately stepped forward. Their outfits and equipment were exactly the same as before, and this time they held out a little longer, but the results were even worse than the previous one. The corpses, tools, dirt bags, and other things scattered on the ground greatly hindered the movement, and after paying more than 400 dead and wounded, they barely filled the distance between the two barbed wires, and then turned and fled, declaring the operation a complete failure.

After two successive waves of people retreated in a short period of time, the Qing army, which had suffered nearly 1,000 casualties today, remained unmoved. After executing a group of the fastest routers again, the third wave of the onslaught began again, and fifteen hundred auxiliary soldiers of the Green Battalion who had been recruited in Henan rushed up howling. They only arrived here yesterday, and they were all from the Ming army. Perhaps the commanders of the Qing army were fed up with the discouraged militia, so they sent this green battalion, which they considered more "regular" in their eyes, to clear all obstacles in their path.

They braved the incessant heavy artillery fire to rush to the front, and then covered the ground with earthen bags and door panels, and covered those iron sticks and thistles that might hurt people, so that the followers could get along with the place. After this step, they even frantically chopped up a second barbed wire fence with axes, poured fire oil on the stakes, and then lit a fire and let it burn.

After all the artillery of the East Coast joined them in the blow, they paid nearly 500 dead and wounded before they broke back, which is impressive. However, this is also a siege battle, and they will be so "durable" when there is a warlord team in the rear to supervise the battle. If they can achieve one-third of the casualties before retreating in the field situation, they will be a first-class strong army.

After they retreated, there was not much left under the city of Yantai Fort to stop the enemy. At most, the Qing army on the opposite side only needs to organize another offensive to completely remove these obstacles, and then they can carry the ladder over to the ant-attached siege. (To be continued......)