"They can't hold on." Li Wenchang raised the binoculars and looked at it, and then said. At present, only six artillery pieces are attacking them, and only one or two hundred of these people have been killed or wounded, so sporadic deserters have already begun to appear, which gives him a new understanding of the morale of this group of Qing cannon fodder troops.

"Vulnerable!" Mo Ming commented succinctly: "What is on the table now is just some village brave mud legs and auxiliary soldiers, and they are not the backbone." These villagers may have never left the village in their lives, nor have they killed anyone, and now they are naturally spinning and dizzy when they are bombarded by cannons. And then I was stimulated by the blood of the dead and wounded comrades around me, and the survival instinct attacked. Hehe, if the Qing army is all like this, it will not be able to capture Yantai Fort in a hundred years. ”

"I guess it's pretty much the same. It seems that the Manchus will not be willing to use their precious Eight Banners soldiers to attack the city, if they don't want to retreat in vain, some of the backbone of the green camp and even the Han Eight Banners will have to be put on the battlefield, hehe, it's okay, when the time comes, let them taste the power of the flesh mill of Yantai Fortress. Li Wenchang smiled, and then lowered the telescope on his chest.

There is nothing to see anymore, more and more people are scattered in the Qing army, and the officers gradually can't stop drinking, and even some grassroots officers and backbones take the lead in escaping, and this army has collapsed shamefully! They even suffered only two hundred casualties, only a tenth of their total number, but they were so irrepressibly dispersed, and the mud-legged village warriors who had never seen the world were so unreliable.

The Manchurian Blue Flag Horse Team, which had been lined up in the rear on the opposite side, finally made a move at this time. They divided hundreds of cavalry, and these Manchu cavalry, dressed in cotton armor and lightning rods, rode their horses and charged towards the scattered Qing soldiers, and then surrounded the fastest 100 people in the middle, and collected their weapons; At the same time, they also ordered a Qing army infantry in the rear to step forward and contain these scattered village brave routs. Taken by the Manchu army, these village warriors did not have the slightest idea of resisting.

Then came the brutal scene. The first 100-odd Qing troops to retreat were driven to the front of the formation, and just when they didn't know why, a group of Qing army foot archers who had been prepared for a long time quickly stepped forward and shot them on the spot with lightning speed, which made people stunned. The Qing army that was lucky enough not to die was also killed one by one by the Zhenglan Banner soldiers who stepped forward to mend their swords, and the enemy and us on the battlefield were stunned for a while. The thick smell of blood gradually began to permeate.

The discipline of the Manchu troops in this era was strict. And they rely on this strict to strict discipline to win more with less time and again. The Ming army, which was several times or even dozens of times more numerous than them, was defeated one by one. Those who ran a little slower were also a little glad in shock, but fortunately they were a little slower, otherwise they would have died. However, they must also remember today's scene for a long time, and they will definitely think more about it when they run away in the future. And this. It is also the purpose of the generals of the Qing army.

After this wave of Qing troops retreated. The Qing army was silent in the large array for half an hour. Soon, however, the second wave of 1,000 people, who had been prepared for a long time, stepped forward again. This time they didn't carry the ladder, and everyone lined up in a looser formation. They didn't even raise a large shield - in fact, it was useless in the face of shells, as if to lighten the load so that they could move more quickly. Many of them were carrying oil, scissors, and axes in their arms, apparently preparing to destroy the obstacles set up by the East Coasters first.

The effectiveness of this shelling was much worse. In particular, the hit rate of those long-barreled cannons has dropped significantly, and the number of casualties caused by each hit shell has also dropped to half. Li Wenchang, who served as the on-site commander, saw that Mo Ming was standing aside and did not speak, so he took the initiative to order these guns to reduce the frequency of fire. He was not worried about the damage of the artillery, the life of such artillery on the east coast was generally more than 5,000 rounds, more than ten times that of the Qing army's red-coated artillery, and the main reason for his order was to reduce the loss of shells and gunpowder.

Gunpowder is nothing, and there are nitrate fields and gunpowder preparation workshops on Kongtong Island. Although the output is just like that, it is more than enough to supply Yantai and there is still a lot left. However, this shell can't be produced by itself, at least for the time being, so it's better to save some use. Of course, this is not to say that the people on the east coast are short of ammunition, and the ships transporting migrants to Australia return with a large amount of supplies, among which in addition to the goods traded with Japan, the most loaded are machinery and equipment, parts, weapons and ammunition that have been transferred from the mainland through New China. Moreover, the ratio of weapons and ammunition was strictly regulated, and at least seven of the 20 ships in the three round-trip voyages were loaded with various types of shells, bullets, and weapons, enough for the people on the east coast to fight several large-scale battles. However, in the spirit of saving a little is a little, it is still necessary to reduce the frequency of this kind of shelling with little effect, and who knows what will happen if something happens next year? It's all indefinite.

The people on the east bank took the initiative to reduce the frequency of artillery bombardment, and the crowd of the Qing army was not as dense as the first time, and the Qing army's advance speed was also much faster, so that when they rushed to the front of the filled trench, they suffered only a few dozen casualties. Seeing that the casualties were not very heavy, the leading Qing officer was overjoyed, and he shouted loudly and poured a large amount of fire oil on some wooden stakes that were not used to resist horses and were wrapped with barbed wire, and then covered the fire oil with the tinder jars he had brought with him. I saw a "coax", and the flames suddenly jumped up, and then turned into a raging fire.

But that was the end of their good fortune. At this time, they were not even one hundred and twenty meters away from the artillery that the people on the east bank had placed on the city wall, and they were only more than two hundred meters away from the salient towers on both sides. This distance was already within the range of grapeshot from some artillery, so their fate was destined to be very miserable.

I saw a few clouds of thick black smoke rising up, and the two 8-pounder howitzers facing them fired discoloring and deadly shells. As soon as the thin lead bullets wrapped in thin iron sheets and nets came out of the barrels, they were already fanning outward, and the crowd of Qing soldiers who were destroying the barbed wire suddenly fell like wheat harvesting.

Some of the people who were hit splashed with fire oil in their hands and overturned on the ground, and after encountering open flames, they quickly burned, and many Qing soldiers were caught off guard and the whole person was set on fire. And the oil and firewood in their hands became the best incendiary materials, and then a terrible series of fires broke out, and at least dozens of Qing soldiers died in the sea of heart-palpitating fire. Of course, many more had been knocked down by the dense grapenail rounds fired from the four guns, and all of them who were not dead fell to the ground, left to burn in flames. As soon as the west wind blew, there was a faint smell of burnt human flesh in the air.

In the face of the double blow of fire and artillery, the Qing army could not hold on and retreated again. Although they succeeded in destroying some of the obstacles placed in front of the barbed wire fence and the wooden stakes that were wrapped around the barbed wire, they also paid the price of two or three hundred dead and wounded, and more than a quarter of the casualties were more than they could bear. Therefore, they collapsed as a matter of course.

The Qing army has suffered four or five hundred casualties after rushing through these two waves, although they are basically the Ming army who surrendered or surrendered, but after all, there was a lot of damage to morale. Especially after seeing the castle of the people on the east coast so strong and the artillery fire so fierce, the morale of the Qing soldiers, especially those brave and incorporated Ming Shun troops, plummeted, and they began to regard the attack on Yantai Fort as a daunting path, and did not want to fall into the quagmire of nine deaths and lives at all.

Even if the commander of the Qing army, Hao Ge, was anxious at this time, he had to consider the impact of this aspect. If you force your subordinates to attack the mud-legged villagers, I am afraid that some undisciplined troops will bomb the camp on the spot. Although he had 7,000 elite Manchurian soldiers on hand, he was able to suppress any discontent or rebellion against these people, but it was not a good thing after all. Forget it, let's stop here today, let's wait another day, and wait for the follow-up green battalion soldiers to come.

These green battalion soldiers were mainly composed of the Ming and Shun armies that Duoduo had surrendered in Henan, mixed with a small number of officers and soldiers of the Han Eight Banners, and the number was about 12,000. At present, it is still near Qixia County, Dengzhou, and it will probably not arrive here until tomorrow, and the combat effectiveness of these troops is relatively much stronger than the current group of troops mainly composed of the rest of Zhao Yingyuan, Denglai Township Yong, and the Ming Army. At present, among the troops here, except for Li Shutai's Han Eight Banners and Ke Yongsheng's Jiaozhou Town Army, only Dong Xueli's 3,500 people are slightly more decent.

Just wait another day or two. Just take advantage of this time to build more siege equipment, stabilize the camp, and by the way, find a way to fill in the swamp to the west of the city. However, this is a big project, and it is unrealistic to fill it all in, but at least we have to fill out a passage to leave a choice for my Qing soldiers to attack from the west. Since these yellow-clothed pirates on the east coast have arranged a lot of cannons on the front, maybe the west side is very empty? It's all uncertain, who knows if you don't give it a try? Of course, there is no need to rush this matter for a while, this is not something that can be done in a while and a half, take your time, and always find a way to pull out the nail in front of you, otherwise I will not want to be able to live in this Dengzhou in the Qing Dynasty.

After the Qing army retreated like a tidal wave, they tried to bring back the complete artillery that remained on the battlefield, but how could the people on the east coast let them get their way? Several artillery pieces on the head of the city suddenly slammed into this direction, reimbursing the dozen or so officers and soldiers of the Qing artillery team and the artillery, turning it into a pile of useless parts. (To be continued......)