"What. ，”

He Yilong was taken aback, damn, why did the reinforcements come and still run.

"General He, General He, the officers and soldiers are coming, run," the herald said breathlessly.

The big leader who dared to love was chased by the officials and ran over.

He Yilong was shocked and hurriedly gathered his subordinates to prepare for evacuation.

"General He, the big leader said, let you withdraw in the direction of Yicheng, there are our men and horses there." The herald said again.

He Yilong was very surprised, why did he run so far, couldn't he still hold it in Zaoyang. But now there is no time to think about him, since Wang Jiayin has such an order, he must have his reasons.

At that moment, He Yilong hurriedly retreated to Yicheng with tens of thousands of horses.

Du Geng, Zhou Yuji and others saw that the rebels were coming for reinforcements, and at first they were worried that the brothers would not be able to resist the attack of so many rebels, and they were secretly anxious, but later saw that the rebels not only did not attack, but also quickly withdrew.

Du Geng was overjoyed, and hurriedly drew his sword and said loudly: "Brothers, the general is here, our reinforcements are coming, everyone quickly follow the general to kill him,"

"Kill, kill, kill," the soldiers under his command had been fighting with the rebels for so long, and they had long held their breath, when they saw the reinforcements arriving, they were all in high spirits, and they rushed towards the rebel position with a roar.

He Yilong, Chen Kai and others had no intention of fighting at all, and only wanted to retreat to Yicheng with Wang Jiayin, so there were not many people resisting, and the rebels saw the soldiers of the New Liao Army rushing towards them, and they all turned around and ran, fleeing westward in a swarm.

For a time, the official road leading from Lutoudian to Zaoyang City was crowded with rebels fleeing in a hurry, people neighing, ghosts crying and wolf howling rebels, and those pushing and trampling on each other, chaotic into a pot of porridge.

He Yilong had nearly 40,000 people, Wang Jiayin also had 40,000 people, adding up to 80,000 horses, and he didn't dare to fight with the less than 30,000 New Liao troops that followed, so he only ran to the west and Yicheng.

The blood-red sun hung thin in the western sky, and the early spring field was still cold and howling, but no one felt cold, and the fleeing rebels even ran out of sweat, just wanting to run faster and faster, so that the officers and soldiers could not catch up with them. Under the sky, in the blood-colored dusk, there was a dense flow of people everywhere, as if it had reached the sky.

Du Geng, Zhou Yuji, Su Hansheng, and Ma Jinzhong, Hui Dengxiang and others who came later led their troops to chase the rebels who ran behind and slashed and killed, killing the rebels who lost their armor and were embarrassed.

After chasing out of Lutoudian for more than ten miles, the sky was gradually darkening, and the rebels were also running fast, and they actually ran into Zaoyang City before dark.

Originally, Wang Jiayin planned to withdraw to Yicheng, but Yicheng was too far away, and now it was about to get dark, so it was impossible to continue to escape in the wild, and Zaoyang was still in the hands of his own people, so he decided to withdraw to Zaoyang first, defend the city, and at the same time send people to Yicheng to ask Wang for help.

Mo Li saw that it was dark, and the rebels had already run into Zaoyang City, and he couldn't get out of the city gate closed, and he couldn't help the rebels for a while, so he had to return to Lutoudian to camp and rest.

By the time the battlefield was cleaned up, it was already completely dark. After dinner, Mo Li received a report that it was the rebels of Liu Xiyao's army in Meiyuan Town who took advantage of the opportunity of most of the New Liao Army to go to Zaoyang, thinking that Xinyang City was empty, and actually came to attack Xinyang City.

He Zhendong, Ba Laodao, Bai Zhicheng and others led 5,000 soldiers and the people of Xinyang City, defended the city, and quickly defeated the attack of Liu Xiyao's rebels, killing six or seven hundred enemies.

Liu Xiyao saw that Xinyang City was strong and difficult to capture for a while, so he had to withdraw his troops in disgrace.

Wang Jiayin's instructions to him were to prevent the official army from marching into Tongbai from Meiyuan Town and pursuing the army from behind, but now the official army has not marched from Meiyuan Town, and Wang Jiayin and other troops have also been killed in Zaoyang, so there is no need for his troops and horses to stay in Meiyuan Town.

Liu Xiyao originally planned to lead his troops directly into Lutoudian to join Wang Jiayin, but halfway to the road, he heard that Wang Jiayin's army was defeated, and he was chased by the official army and fled to Zaoyang, and if he continued to move forward, he would encounter the official army, and his five or six thousand men and horses would definitely not be enough, so he decided to turn south and run towards Suizhou.

Mo Li didn't take Liu Xiyao's thousands of thieves to heart, and it was important to find a way to capture Zaoyang City and destroy Wang Jiayin in front of him. As for Liu Xiyao, it was left to the officers and soldiers of Suizhou and De'an Mansion to settle it.

So Mo Li sent an order to He Zhendong, so that he didn't have to pay attention to Liu Xiyao, and led the soldiers of the New Liao Army in Xinyang City to Zaoyang early tomorrow morning, and then take Wang Jiayin first. There are no thieves and rebels around Xinyang City, just hand it over to the original Xinyang defenders.

Early the next morning, Mo Li commanded more than 20,000 soldiers to attack Zaoyang City.

Chariots slowly advanced towards the city gates, and artillery pieces lined up under the city and began a fierce artillery bombardment of the city walls. For a time, the sky above Zaoyang was full of artillery fire, the smoke of gunpowder was filled, and the sound of killing under the city was even more shocking, and countless arrows and muskets and ammunition flew in the air, which was spectacular.

The use of hundreds of rockets of the New Liao Army also caused great casualties to Wang Jiayin's rebels. Rocket slip this thing, although the accuracy is not high, but now it is attacking the city, no matter how low the accuracy, it can almost hit the target, countless rebels in the explosion of flesh and blood, blood rained, the city bricks at the head of the city were dyed red.

However, although the new Liao army has powerful firearms, it lacks siege weapons, Hongyi cannons. At the beginning, dozens of Hongyi cannons were captured in Denglai, but they were used for the defense of Denglai City, and they continued to be pulled into Dengzhou and Laizhou after the war.

And even if there is a Hongyi cannon, because it is too heavy and heavy, it is impossible to come all the way to Huguang to suppress thieves, the road is far away, and it may not be able to be pulled in half a year.

However, the Western artillery and the Portuguese officer corps built by Sun Yuanhua were included in the army by Mo Li, enriching the firearms strength of the new Liao army. No, it was the 20 or so members of the Portuguese officer corps who set up a formation under the city and led the gunners to open artillery to bombard Zaoyang City.

Some of these instructors of the Portuguese officer corps were killed in battle when Kong Youde captured Dengzhou, but most of them chose to surrender to the rebels. In their opinion, whether it is the Ming army or the rebel army, there is not much difference, anyway, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty is not their emperor, as long as he gives silver, it is the same for whomever he lives.

Originally, after the recovery of Dengzhou, these instructors should have been taken over by Xie Lian, the governor of Denglai, along with other prisoners, but Mo Li saw that some of their artillery skills were indeed leading today, so he asked them to come over and stay in the army to serve.

Denglai was recovered by relying on the New Liao Army, and Xie Lian naturally didn't say anything, so these Western officer corps became artillery instructors of the New Liao Army.

Although the new Western artillery is more powerful and easy to operate, it is still not fierce enough to attack the city. However, there is no Hongyi cannon, and now it can only be used.

After adjusting the firing angle, the Portuguese officer Sherrison waved the order flag in his hand: "Open the gun,"

Hearing the order, the gunners immediately took the burning torches that had been prepared long ago into their hands and burned them at the fire pistols that exposed the chambers.

"Boom, boom, boom,"

Thirty new Western cannons purchased from the Portuguese were the first to erupt in anger, and the cannonballs whistled out of the cannons and flew towards the rebels on the city wall in the distance.

The sharp cannon sound was very ear-piercing, and it shook people's eardrums.

There was a loud bang, and a cannonball hit a battlement, which was torn apart on the spot, and the bricks and stones flew sideways and shattered into a ball.

With the missiles of lead, iron and stones, more than a dozen rebels behind the battlements were killed or wounded, and within a few feet, there was a mess.

Thirty shells smashed into thirty places each, causing fatal injuries in the dense crowd of rebels at the head of Zaoyang City.

The screams rose and fell with each other, and many rebels were directly hit by the artillery, and their bodies were blown into many pieces, and their hands and feet flew all over the sky, so it was not terrifying.

The rebels, who were not killed on the spot, only hated that they could not die sooner, and rolled on the ground in pain, screaming miserably.

The rebels who were blinded by the explosion were even more frenzied and grabbed their eyes, but they could no longer see, the broken eyeballs were taken out by their fingers, and they were so glued to the palm of their hands that they gradually couldn't even distinguish what they were.

"Okay, well done,"

Zhou Yuji could see clearly from the side, just these thirty cannons, except for two shells that missed the target, killed and injured at least hundreds of rebels, and the soldiers were thunderous with excitement.

Mo Li also slapped his thigh heavily, and shouted excitedly towards the artillery battalion: "Fight well, fight well, fight, continue to fight, blow up the rebels so that your parents can't recognize them, see if these beasts dare to eat people, and then bombard Lao Tzu with his dog's day, and take Zaoyang City down for me,"

The rebels in Zaoyang City also have dozens of artillery, at this time they are all set up at the head of the city to keep firing back at the officers and soldiers besieging the city, for a time the cannon rumbles, the ammunition is flying, quite a bit of the meaning of artillery fire in the modern war in later generations.

However, the gunpowder on both sides is limited, and it must not be bombarded with shells all the time, after about half an hour of shelling, seeing that Zaoyang City is still very strong, there is no sign of being collapsed by shells, and the city gate has not been blasted open, Zhou Yuji was anxious, and took the initiative to ask: "General, let the last general lead people to charge,"

Mo Li nodded, so Zhou Yuji ordered his subordinates to set up a ladder and began to attack the city with manpower.

At the same time, Ma Jinzhong also led his subordinates to push a long crash car and rushed towards the city gate, wanting to use the crash car to crash open the Zaoyang city gate.

However, due to the large number of rebels, the arrows on the city were rained down, and the new Liao army rushed several times but could not rush to the city.

Cao Bianjiao, Li Guo and others led thousands of soldiers who were resting in Qifeng Mountain rushed over and also threw themselves into the siege battle.

Due to the abundant strength of the rebels and the availability of firearms, they were still unable to storm the city until noon, so Mo Li ordered a temporary withdrawal of troops and returned to attack the city after lunch.

In addition to the five or six thousand soldiers brought by Cao Bianjiao, there were also more than 3,000 prisoners captured yesterday, and more than 1,000 rebels captured in Lutoudian last night, a total of nearly 5,000 people.

Seeing these captives, Mo Li couldn't help but pat his head, remembering the scene that happened in Dengzhou at the beginning of the year, and grinned: "How did I forget these treasures, the captives are a treasure, it's good to have it,"

Seeing this, Guan Feng rolled his eyes, and said with a smile: "What kind of trick do you have, adult." ”

Mo Li laughed and didn't answer,