It was surrounded on all sides, turning the entire Xiangcheng and the outskirts of the eastern city into a sea of people.

The Hong Dynasty army faced a siege of more than 170,000 people head-on, and did not frighten it, but dealt a resolute blow to the invading land, and caused great damage.

The artillery regiment, which had only played a powerful role in the siege of the city, was now ordered by Commander Kong Youde to give full play to the power of the artillery fire, and the shells they used were converted from solid shells at the beginning to hollow bullets and shotguns that were more lethal.

As soon as the bomb is fired, a man-made grinding disc will be created near the drop point, and most of the vacated ground will be the corpses that have been beaten into shapeless by iron bullets as small as pigeon eggs, and there are almost no intact corpses, let alone the wounded who are alive.

On the frontal battlefield, the muskets of the Hong Dynasty soldiers lined up in three rows did not have a moment of idleness, and at the same time, the melee infantry behind them were not idle, and the grenades pinned to their waists were thrown several feet away to check and fill in the gaps for the musketeers.

Of course, with the fight with the Hong Dynasty army over the years, the Ming Dynasty army not only had countless crossbow tools, but also the grenades, which did not have much technical content, were also imitated by Ming Dynasty craftsmen and equipped into the army.

Therefore, at least the current Ming Dynasty army does not have a large number of musket troops, but it is not without the ability to counterattack, as long as they are close to the position within a few zhang, they can give the Hong Dynasty army a certain counterattack, disrupting the Hong Dynasty army's musket formation.

It's just that the grenade offensive of the Ming Dynasty army, or the crossbow machine shooting, wants to inflict some damage on the soldiers of the Hong Dynasty army, at least they need to be in the absence of cover and preparation of the Hong Dynasty army.

As now, with the trenches dug by the sappers as cover, the Ming army's grenades, which were already inferior in power, could now cause very little damage, and they could not achieve the purpose of harassing and interrupting the shooting of the Hong army.

Most of the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty who rushed up one after another fell on the way to charge, and a small number of the remaining ones finally boarded the position of the Hong Dynasty army, and had to bear the double destruction of the Hong Dynasty army's grenades and muskets, and finally were able to climb up the Hong Dynasty position, and only a few of them were in close contact.

If the charge was five or six times, the Ming Dynasty army finally seized the opportunity of the cooling of the artillery of the Hong Dynasty artillery regiment, sent a large number of soldiers to launch a decisive charge, and finally completed the short encounter with the Hong Dynasty army after losing half of the casualties.

"Get on the bayonet!!"

Seeing the opponent charging forward, the middle and low-level soldiers of the Third Army hurriedly gave an order, and at the same time did not forget to draw the weapon in his hand, and in a flutter, he had already borne the brunt of the attack.

"Finally rushed up!"

The general army of several reinforcements of the Hong Dynasty, seeing that their side was not afraid of sacrifice, and finally completed the melee confrontation after several offsets, at this time the big stone in his heart was half lost.

It was only a few charges, only more than two hours before and after, and the Ming Dynasty army had more than 20,000 dead corpses on the charging road, which is the powerful advantage of hot weapons over cold weapons combat.

In the midst of the clash of cold weapons, even if 20,000 soldiers stretch their necks for people to slash and kill, it will take more than half a day at night!

"We must not let the people of the Hong Dynasty defeat the front-line army again, and send another army up, Lao Tzu will resist it to the death!"

The new Xiayi general soldier Gao Jie's heart was dripping blood, and he charged for more than two hours, and his own army of 40,000 killed more than 5,000 people.

As a last resort, Gao Jie could only transfer another support army from the Chinese army to help the forward consolidate the front and strangle the Hong Dynasty army surrounded in the middle with several other large armies.

Looking at Gao Jie's own Chinese army position, the army that guards him left and right, as a reserve force, is only 10,000 people, and the remaining more than 20,000 soldiers who are alive have been filled into the battlefield.

The other armies, how could it be the same situation as Gao Jie, that is, they occupied an absolute number of battle advantages.

It was not easy to complete the hand-to-hand combat with the Hong Dynasty army, and the Ming Dynasty soldiers naturally would not evacuate easily, and the Hong Dynasty army exerted its strength several times, and it was about to defeat the Ming Dynasty army, but in the end it was still pressed down by the generals of the Ming Dynasty army.

It was not until the artillery regiment in the center of the Hong Dynasty army began to exert its power again, blocking the reserve forces of the Ming army that had retreated from the rear and re-supporting it, and cooperated with the front-line soldiers of the Hong Dynasty, that the Ming Dynasty troops who rushed to the front line were defeated and evacuated.

"Commander, the evacuation of the soldiers in the city has been completed, and our army has built a defensive line to intercept the enemy in the city at the ruins of the city wall of the west city."

The ruins of the Xicheng city wall, the Hong Dynasty army did not dare to give up, if it was easy for the Ming Dynasty army, it meant that they could attack the Hong Dynasty position from this place. In the same way, the Hong Dynasty army now continues to control the battle line composed of ruins and broken walls in the ruins of the Xicheng city wall, and with a height of at least more than a foot above the ground, even in the face of the attack of more than 70,000 Ming Dynasty troops in the city, there is no sign of collapse at all.

"Good!"

The withdrawal of the troops in the city is good news for Kong Youde, and they should think about breaking out next.

As the sky gradually darkened, the generals of the Ming Dynasty also seemed to want to take a rest, and after a day of fierce fighting, the entire Xiangcheng finally had a rare moment of tranquility.

Taking advantage of the free time of both sides licking their wounds, the officers and men of the Third Army hurriedly began to reorganize the remaining troops for the next operational command.

It was only through this preliminary reorganization that it was only known that in just one day of fighting, the Hong Dynasty army had lost more than 10,000 troops, which was comparable to the loss of the previous attack on Xiangcheng in more than ten days.

"Commander, the total number of officers and men in our army who can still fight now is only more than 28,000 people."

Zhan Wenbo, who hurriedly completed the compilation and statistics, and the brigade commanders who came in with several disgraced faces, gloomily reported today's battle losses.

"Hey, it's time to think about a breakout."

Kong Youde was also silent and heartbroken, even if he knew that the casualties inflicted on the Ming Dynasty army by several armies were at least several times the battle losses of several sides, but compared to the ease of replenishing the Ming army's personnel, their third army broke through without the benefit of prisoners this time, and if they wanted to expand the army to its original size, I don't know how long it would take.