"Kill !!"

"Boom !!"

Early in the morning, a fierce battle began in Xiangcheng, and countless gunpowder smoke and fighting sounds came, wafting over the ruined city of Xiangcheng.

It's just that today's battle is completely opposite to the previous few days, and it has always been the Hong Dynasty army that pressed the Ming Dynasty army's position, and slowly but firmly advanced forward; Today, the 80,000 remnants of the Ming Dynasty army in Xiangcheng are desperate to bite the positions of the Hong Dynasty army and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Hong Dynasty army at any cost.

The territory that the Third Army had originally occupied with great difficulty was reoccupied by the pursuing Ming Dynasty troops as the soldiers retreated in an orderly manner, but in the process of occupation, there were countless Ming soldiers from time to time stepping on an inconspicuous stone rubble, causing an explosion, or being hit by some arrows from nowhere, turning into corpses, or lying on the ground wailing wounded.

The people in the city, those who could escape had already fled, and those who could not escape could only obediently hide in the corner of their own wooden building and tiled house, trembling, listening to the sound of endless fighting and crackling in their ears.

The mines planted along the way, how many Ming army pursuit teams brought some trouble, delaying their pursuit footsteps, but as Sun Chuanting suddenly stood in the foreground, after revealing his true glory, not only boosted the morale of the entire Xiangcheng defenders, but also his fierce shouting, forcing Zhang Huangyan's group of general generals to personally go to the battlefield, lead their battle to charge, and swear to bite the pace of the Hong Dynasty army out of the city.

After all, it was not so simple for the Hong Dynasty army to retreat while resisting the large-scale counterattack launched by the Ming army. In addition, most of the officers and soldiers of the Third Army who were originally left at the edge of the city were wounded and sick, so in order to let them get out of the city first, everyone could only endure and wait.

"Biting!"

Nearly 20,000 officers and soldiers of the Third Army had no choice but to garrison on the spot to resist the impact of the defenders of the Ming Dynasty as if they had been beaten with blood, and the two sides launched the most tragic confrontation since the beginning of the battle of Xiangcheng.

Countless soldiers on both sides fought each other, the dead and the injured no one cared about, everyone could only see a group of figures rushing forward regardless of their bodies, one in a trance got a familiar figure in front of him and fell, and another unfamiliar figure went up.

"Good!"

Seeing that Sun Chuanting's supervisor didn't have to hide his figure at this time, he took Zhang Huangyan to a watchtower closest to the battlefield, overlooking the entire battlefield, until he saw the retreat of the Hong Dynasty army, and was finally bitten by the defenders of Xiangcheng, forcing them to be stationed on the spot, then he was relieved.

"Report!"

"Liu Zeqing, the chief soldier of Du Ji, has arrived at the battlefield and asked the superintendent to give an order."

"Report!"

"Xiayi's chief soldier Gao Jie is five miles away from Xiangcheng, and he will arrive at the battlefield within one moment, please give the order of the superintendent!"

"Report!"

Good news came one after another, so that Sun Chuanting's layout for many days finally came to an end.

"Pass on the order of the governor, and order the three general soldiers of Gao Jie, Liu Zeqing, and Xu Dingguo, and after arriving at the battlefield, they will quickly join the battle and attack the rebels of the Hong Dynasty."

Although from the watchtower of the city wall, it is still impossible to see the arrival of the Ming army's reinforcements, but Sun Chuanting believes that with the arrival of his reinforcements that have been hidden for a long time, it will have a decisive effect on this battlefield.

For this arrangement, as early as the deep winter of the second year of Hongxian, Sun Chuanting began to pour nearly half of the more than 200,000 troops of the Xiangyang-Nanyang battlefield on the central line into the area adjacent to the battlefield on the eastern front in the name of adjusting the strategy and without arousing the detection of spies in the army.

Even for this reason, Sun Chuanting also pretended to launch several counterattacks, in which the results were won and lost, but the first army of the Hong Dynasty, which was against it, was paralyzed by Shang Kexi and his partner, and he did not realize that the hoarding of troops in Xinyang Mansion had exceeded the fortress on the Nanyang front.

"Commander, there are traces of the Ming Dynasty army on our southwest, west, and southeast lines, and the scouts report that there are more than 30,000 soldiers on any of the three enemy lines."

From the moment when the enemy no longer hid his whereabouts, but accelerated to the battlefield, in fact, the scouts of the Hong Dynasty army detected the whereabouts of the other party, and it no longer had much impact on this battle.

"Sure enough!"

Zhan Wenbo's eyes darkened, and he was worried that the most terrible thing in his heart finally happened, and the only thing that relieved him was that the scouts released last night gave him a few hours to prepare, otherwise if he really waited for the Ming Dynasty army to kill the three-way army in front of him, then it would be too late.

"The order is down, the Chinese army forward to meet the retreating soldiers of Xiangcheng, and the sappers seize the time to build the left and right defense lines."

Kong Youde was more and more excited at this time, although he did not have the wit of his old partner Geng Zhongming, nor did he have Shang Kexi's calmness, but when it came to his bravery on the battlefield, he thought that among the commanders of the Hong Dynasty, he should be regarded as the leader.

It is naturally impossible to abandon the 20,000 soldiers of the Third Army who have not yet evacuated the city, and it is naturally impossible to evacuate, and the lack of these 20,000 soldiers is equivalent to half of the surviving main force of the Third Army at the moment, and then the HIA pursued by the Ming Dynasty army with a total of hundreds of thousands of troops, even if they can withdraw to Xuzhou in the end, I am afraid they will not be able to hold Xuzhou City.

"The artillery regiment no longer needs to take care of ammunition and does not need to worry about the wear and tear of the gun breech, and from now on all artillery will fire non-stop, so as to buy time for our officers and men to build positions and cover the withdrawal of the troops in the city."

"Yes!"

“…………”

As one order after another was issued, all the officers and men of the Third Army took action one after another, seizing the time to make all preparations for battle before the enemy's reinforcements arrived.

This will be the most tragic battle since the establishment of the Third Army, although all the mid-level non-commissioned officers know that they are at an absolute disadvantage at this time, but it is not interesting for one person to despair about this: the self-confidence that the Hong Dynasty army has built up over the years cannot be destroyed by a mere war in which it is at a disadvantage.

Before the real battle, any of the Hong Dynasty troops did not feel that their team would be absolutely defeated.

After all the non-commissioned officers went down to get busy, Kong Youde himself sorted out and changed into combat uniforms, and stepped on his body a long knife that had not been bladed for many years, as well as a flintlock short gun customized by an officer.

The Ming Dynasty's three-way reinforcements were killed before and after, and the difference was only an hour, from which it can be seen that Sun Chuanting was a veritable famous general, and he designed everything very thoroughly.

Without much greeting and no declaration of war, the Ming Dynasty army, which had not been able to find this good opportunity for many years, swarmed to kill the newly established position of the Chinese army of the Third Army, and surrounded the entire Third Army of the Hong Dynasty.