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Wang Renfu saw that Wu Sangui had called all the cavalry back, so he continued to advance with his troops. However, there were still more than two miles from the city wall, and I saw a few puffs of white smoke rising from the city wall. Accompanied by the rumbling of artillery, several of his soldiers let out a scream and were hit by flying shells.

Wang Renfu was a little surprised, he didn't expect the defenders at the head of the city to open fire so far. However, he immediately ordered: "Spread out the formation, build bunkers on the spot, and treat the wounded." ”

The soldiers have all experienced the war and are preparing quickly. The little sandbags that had been loaded in the back were immediately brought up, and the bunkers were first barricaded in the positions where the soldiers were wounded, while the rest of the baggage troops quickly dug up and packed the bags.

The soldiers in front of them spread out a little in formation, keeping a step away from each other so that they could avoid the shells. But whether you can dodge it or not depends on luck, although the projectile looks slow, but in the end it is faster than the reaction speed of people.

A moment later, the defenders of Wu Sangui at the head of the city fired another cannonball. This time it was much better, only one of Wang Renfu's troops was hit, and the shells fell to the ground and sank into the mud, and did not continue to bounce forward.

Wu Sangui saw that Li Yan's troops were already prepared, and it was useless for his cannonballs to shoot out, so he let the artillery stop firing. The largest cannon in the city is the Dingliao General Cannon that he donated money to cast, which is of excellent quality and has a caliber of three inches, so it can fight so far.

He was still satisfied, the power of this cannon had already stopped Li Yan's troops. As long as they can fight for two or three days, most of the Liao people will be able to get out of the customs. After that, with the defense facilities of Shanhaiguan, Li Yan should have given up.

Wang Renfu also noticed that they were too far away from the city wall, and even a four-and-a-half-inch artillery might not be very effective. Moreover, the four-and-a-half-inch artillery and cavalry had not yet been reinforced, and he only carried six four-inch guns as siege artillery.

"Go find a place to cross the river." Wang Renfu commanded.

Liang Zhenfang, who followed the expedition, immediately divided two teams of 100 cavalry and set off, searching along the Yanghe River in the west of the city in the south and north directions.

After that, he asked, "General Wang, are you going to go around?" There are quite a few defenders here, and it is dangerous to leave them in the rear. ”

Wang Renfu shook his head and said, "Let's cross the river first." After crossing the river, they don't want to fight us, so they have to withdraw. The marshal asked us to occupy Shanhaiguan as soon as possible, and we couldn't fight it safely. ”

Liang Zhenfang nodded: "What the general said makes sense, but we must also be prepared for the unexpected." ”

"The cavalry and artillery supported by the marshal should also be coming soon, right?" Wang Renfu said with a smile: "They are our reserve troops, and there should be no big problem." ”

Liang Zhenfang thought for a moment and said, "At most, I can arrive before tomorrow night, and it won't be a waste of time." ”

After waiting for two quarters of an hour, the cavalry found a place to cross the river to the south, where a small bridge was not destroyed and the defense was scarce.

Wang Renfu led half of his troops to the south, leaving half of his troops in place to contain the enemy.

Wu Sangui naturally saw it clearly, so he immediately sent 3,000 horse infantry to strengthen the defense of the small bridge. He felt that 3,000 men and horses were enough to prevent Li Yan's troops from crossing the river.

However, Wang Renfu went over with 18 artillery pieces and directly set up artillery bombardment on the opposite bank, driving Wu Sangui's troops backwards until they were nearly 600 steps away from the river bank. When Wu Sangui's troops retreated, their infantry of 500 men, as well as four three-inch guns, and twenty tiger squat guns had already passed through the small bridge, and the defensive formation was lined up on the opposite side, and the other artillery and infantry were still passing through.

When Wu Sangui's cavalry found out, they immediately launched a charge, hoping to break up Li Yan's troops, who had already crossed the river. But this time, it was not only the shotguns that stood in their way, but also the flowering shells fired by the Tiger Squat Cannon.

The rumbling explosions and the splash of shrapnel, as well as the dense flying projectiles and the rows of crossbow arrows, all became barriers to their advance. Their horses were not used to it, and they began to disobey the command. And these cavalrymen did not want to rush to death on their own, so they also reversed course and ran in a safe direction on both sides.

After they regrouped in the other direction, they found that Li Yan's troops had sent four more cannons, and the fire became more intensive. They all hesitated, so they sent someone to ask Wu Sangui for instructions.

Wu Sangui had no choice but to let his troops withdraw first and line up outside the city. At the same time, let the men at the head of the city help together to get the Dingliao general's cannon to the southern city wall. The cannon itself was more than a zhang long, and the city wall was narrow, so it could not use gun carriages, but only fixed wooden batteries, so it moved much slower at this time.

When Wu Sangui carried the Dingliao General Cannon to the southern city wall, Wang Renfu finally slowly transported the baggage here. Then he sorted out the formation and drove towards Funing City.

This time, Wang Renfu did not wait for the cannon to be fired at the top of the city, and stopped two miles away, because he had already seen a cannon through the telescope, the same one he had seen on the west bank of the river. He still asked the soldiers to put up the bunker first, so as not to suffer any damage.

Then, as is customary, the telescope was given to the gun crew, so that the four-inch gun could better aim at the cannon. He could tell that only the largest gun was a threat. Other guns have a shorter range. This would allow him to get closer to the walls so that he could carry out a destructive bombardment of them.

After a while, Wu Sangui's cannon was ready first, and he immediately asked the gunners to fire. In order to confuse Li Yan's troops, he asked other large and small artillery pieces on the city wall to fire together. However, this time there was no result, this shell hit directly in the middle of Li Yan's military formation, but it did not hit anyone, and it was directly embedded in the soil with a bang.

And soon, the four-inch cannon on Wang Renfu's side also began to fire. The cannonball smashed on the city wall more than five feet below the battlement where the cannon of the Dingliao general was located, causing the hit green bricks to shatter into countless debris.

The gun commander looked at the bullet point and immediately raised the muzzle a little. Immediately after the adjustment, let the other gunners start to clear their loads, reload, and prepare to continue firing.

The people at the head of the city, though a little surprised by the noise, were not aware of the danger. It was much more cumbersome for them to adjust the different skids at the end of the muzzle. So when they finally adjusted the muzzle, another shell flew in, this time directly shattering the masonry of the battlement, and the gravel and shells caused a lot of casualties to the surrounding gunners and soldiers.

Wu Sangui was in the distance of the cannon, so he was not affected by anything, but he was still very shocked. Before he could come to his senses, another shell flew over, shattering the nearby battlements, and the soldiers and gunners who were hiding on the right side of the cannon were also wounded. Moreover, these two shells hit both sides of the cannon of General Dingliao respectively, which convinced Wu Sangui that Li Yan's artillery had reached the point of being superb.

He immediately went down to the city, taking advantage of the fact that Li Yan's cavalry was not coming, and went to prepare for the retreat as soon as possible. If you don't prepare, as Tang Tong said, it will take an hour for the city wall to collapse. At that time, the people were panicked, and if they retreated, it would turn into a rout, and the losses would be even greater.

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