Wang Zhaolin and Chen Yong didn't expect that those single or double "big cylinders" that didn't seem to be cannons at all could exert such power, and they also began to understand why a team of only a thousand people dared to take the initiative to approach and provoke without many horses, but at this time, it was obvious that there was no turning back.

"Fortunately, we had a trace of preparation for the worst before, telling each team that if the enemy is too strong in combat, then attack in a loose formation, with the weak soldiers in front and the strong soldiers behind, so that those armor-piercing shells that are like heavy artillery cannot fire shotguns should not be invincible...

In this way, under the encouragement of the war drums at the head of the city, although the enemy in the distance showed strong firepower, the army of 30,000 men and even the large number of cavalry also gave many people a sense of security, especially when the relative looseness of the formation made the numerical advantage seem to be greater. On a front that stretched for about four or five miles, an army of about 30,000 men was more than half a mile deep in an area of about thirty or forty rows, and even the infantry approached with the density of a cavalry attack, while the cavalry launched a large-scale attack in advance in order to contain and destroy the enemy's firepower.

The basic military education mechanism and the experience of confronting the remnants of the enemy in Qinghai-Tibet and even the grasslands have improved to a great extent the awareness of officers and generals at all levels in the northwest region to confront the enemy, so they also understand that when they have an absolute superiority in troops, they do not need to be too stingy with horsepower, and even if they charge at full speed and cause the horsepower to be insufficient in the end, they still have enough troops to break through the opponent's seemingly very thin defense line, so they launched a full-speed charge from the beginning.

In this way, in just half a minute or so, the thousands of cavalry who launched a full-speed charge approached a close range of about 100 paces within a continuous range of four or five miles.

But it was at this distance that the order of the new guard battalion to fire was decisively issued. This time, it was not an armor-piercing bullet, but an arrow shotgun composed of at least 100 small steel arrows whose lethality was not bad at all, so that the 400 recoilless guns operated by two people played a role like 400 thousand-pound medium and heavy guns, and in about half a minute, they fired two rounds and fired 80,000 arrow shotguns. Even the attacking cavalry, which spread out in a very loose formation, almost completely collapsed under the blow of only two rounds of fire.

The infantry team that launched an attack at full speed regardless of physical strength approached a distance of about half a mile at this time, and the officers and even strong soldiers who supervised the battle behind seemed to realize that the cavalry team in front was likely to encounter a lot of resistance. However, in the new army tactics, from officers to soldiers, most people have some knowledge of the tactics of the new army, and people think that it is nothing more than an attacking team, encountered explosive defenses and other means. Otherwise, even if the charge of thousands of cavalry against a thousand infantry was not smooth, how could they be defeated in such a short period of time? With the enemy's apparent outnumbered forces, there should be few other means to protect themselves after a fierce defensive blast attack.

Therefore, the entire team still maintained the inertia of attacking quickly for at least a minute or so, but at this time, both Wang Zhaolin and Chen Yong realized the danger while watching the battle from a distance in the city, and began to order the heralds to send a signal to withdraw the troops with all their might.

Just as the order to halt the attack and retreat had just shifted from a signal to a reaction of the first-line troops, a little white smoke erupted from a recoilless cannon in the hands of the new guard battalion, and four hundred arrows and shotguns flew into the crowd of infantry, which seemed to be denser than before, causing casualties of two or three thousand in a short instant.

If there were still many attacking teams who did not understand why they had such a big advantage and gave the order to retreat, but at this time, not many people suspected that danger was approaching.

When the second batch of arrows and shotguns in the chaos again entered the crowd and brought casualties of one or two thousand, and the casualties of the infantry team exceeded one-sixth, the rout of the entire army seemed to be irreparable, and in the process of rout, the originally loose and thin battle line began to become more and more dense.

The third round of projectiles still seemed to be armor-piercing shells aimed at the crowd, bringing another four or five thousand casualties in two rounds of fire of about two hundred paces and a mile.

In this way, in just a few minutes after the battle began, the nearly 30,000 infantry cavalry that had been put into the attack was about 30 times the superiority of troops, and under the fierce fire that had never been seen before, nearly half of the casualties were lost, and they were completely defeated. At this time, Xiao Xuan also decisively and immediately ordered the team to divide into four companies, battle groups, and launch a siege attack from the four directions of Lanzhou City.

In this case, even if the team's combat effectiveness seemed to be seriously discounted under the severe blows and casualties, Wang Zhaolin and Chen Yong also strengthened their determination to break through: the opponent's team had been dispersed to an extremely thin situation, even if it was a temporary assault with a barely capable team of about four or five thousand people, it should be able to break through the encirclement during the day?

In this way, soon the wave of breakthrough battles in the city began again in the direction of the west gate. Because a large number of troops had been deployed outside the city in advance, this kind of breakthrough operation brought tremendous pressure to the company battle group in the direction of the west gate of no more than two or three hundred men from the very beginning with a strength of nearly 10,000 troops.

However, even if the entire army was dispersed to the point where there was only one battle group per 10 meters on average, under effective training, it was able to firmly block the battle line with highly effective arrow shotguns at a distance of about 100 paces with recoilless cannons, and the battle situation was gradually laid down after about two minutes of three or four rounds of firing volleys. Even if there are about 100 recoilless guns at a distance of about 3 miles, and three or four rounds of fire are fired with arrows and shotguns, it is enough to kill and injure thousands of people with 30,000 or 40,000 arrows and shotguns against targets that are also very scattered in formation. For the army, whose morale had already suffered a serious blow in the previous battle, it seemed that an iron wall had formed that was difficult to break through.

After the 10,000 people in the west failed to break through, Wang Zhaolin and even Chen Yong knew that a desperate situation had come, and now there was only one option left to break through the secret passage.

After curbing the remnants of the enemy's breakthrough attack, Xiao Xuan did not hesitate to order the team to attack the city from all directions at this time, obviously: after the previous two rounds of serious blows, although the defenders' strength advantage is still the same, it should not be too much trouble.

(End of chapter)