In the battle of nearly one night, more than 200 field guns and even dozens of heavy artillery pieces were successively put into battle or lost, and a total of more than 50,000 decent main forces were used to besiege the team led by Xiao Xuan, which was mainly composed of volunteer battalions and volunteer reserve battalions, which fundamentally affected the original advantages of the Ming army group in the west of the city, so the sky began to brighten, and Zhou Dayong, Tian Xiuying and others, who paid more attention to the reconnaissance of the battle, confirmed that the artillery fire of the Ming army on the opposite side was getting weaker and weaker. After the real reason for the deterioration of the quality of the troops invested, he did not hesitate to launch a counteroffensive on the other side of the Xiyuan Sanhai. When the prepared ships had not yet fully landed, a succession of heavy up and down medium-sized shotguns and even stray bullets began to strike. After flying more than two miles, this projectile seems to have no power at all. However, even so, it was only for targets with steel shields, and for those who were poorly protected and besieged with their backs and flanks, it immediately caused a lot of confusion. Although the offensive pressure faced by Xiao Xuan and the others was not completely lifted, it also suddenly decreased at this time.

In the direction of Xiyuan Sanhai, the defenders who were originally prepared to block the attack lacked sufficiently excellent artillery and even light field artillery, so they could only use some inferior second or third general artillery to fire shotguns within 100 paces to bombard the small boats that were gradually approaching, but they could not effectively break through the opponent's defenses at all. And when the ship approached a distance of about dozens of paces, and began to hit the powerful three or two bullets one after another, and even a lot of accurate arrows flew over, you knew that in the face of the opponent's mobilization of elite defense, it became less victorious and more defeated.

Not all the Ming troops had the courage and determination to fight hard like the main forces that Xiao Xuan had encountered before, although there were still some decent Ming troops on the other side of the Xiyuan Sanhai to put up fierce resistance on the shore, but when the counterattacking team began to come ashore in a steady stream, they finally began to retreat.

Sun Chengzong, who was in charge of directing operations in the eastern part of the city, had been feeling very strange at first when he received the news from the city since midnight, so he began to command his troops to launch a fierce attack in the eastern direction of the city at dawn, trying to contain the main force of the defenders.

However, when the sky gradually brightened and the battle situation in the city gradually became clear, Sun Chengzong saw a battle situation that was unimaginable before: the attack launched by the Ming army in the east of the city seemed to be completely limited to stagnation in the face of the resistance of the defenders. Although the defensive forces in the east of the city were slightly inferior in combat strength and strength, the defense was more than enough. However, in the west of the city, where there was just some progress and great expectations, the battle situation seemed to have completely collapsed. In the face of the counterattack of the elite main force of the defenders, they retreated step by step. If some of the men at the head of the four cities and even the general reserve are not allowed to reinforce them, it seems that the situation is in danger of flopping.

"Last night, the west of the city went up to almost half of the artillery and most of the main force of the entire siege team? Is this really the case overnight? "Sun Chengzong was not particularly gifted and conscious in commanding battle, and it is still difficult to imagine that he had enough strength advantage, but in just one night, the strength advantage of the attacking side seems to have been largely canceled out. What does this mean? This means that even if you break through the city wall, or even break through some offensives outside the Forbidden City to the Imperial Horse Prison, the field advantage you have has become very limited, and more importantly, the blow to the morale of the entire army is immeasurable.

"Perhaps, they had left room before!" Some of Sun Chengzong's staff members could only say this in the end.

At this moment, Sun Chengzong suddenly remembered some things that happened two months ago, and suddenly felt a huge shock: "Quick! Prepare pen, ink, paper, inkstone, this time you can't make too serious mistakes... ”

When the head of the city, which was responsible for the siege and even as the reserve of the Ming army, was transferred to the west of the city to carry out reinforcements, the defenders who regained the imperial city and even many places outside the imperial city reverted to the defensive.

It's just that after the news of the continuous annihilation of the seven opponents and the aggravation of more than 2,000 elite cavalry outside the camp was confirmed, even Zhou Dayong himself, who knew a lot of things, felt a lot of shock.

"Holy! God blesses that the Holy One is safe and sound! It's just that in the future, such a personal charge like a thousand generals must not be carried out again! At this time, the team led by Wang Chengen, Zhou Yuji, Tian Xiuying and others finally completed the rendezvous in the imperial city west of Xiyuan Sanhai with the team led by Xiao Xuan, who had experienced the attrition of the brutal attack. According to Xiao Xuan's previous affairs, such a scene did not hide the officers and soldiers who had just experienced a fierce attack and battle.

It was only at this time that the officers and men of the volunteer battalion suddenly realized that it was the instructor who led the team to the battle and was responsible for making themselves understand the truth and become a real soldier in peacetime.

"Long live the saint!" Sincere and excited shouts involuntarily resounded at this moment.

But when the cheers gradually ended, Xiao Xuan said to everyone with some seriousness: "I don't want you to continue to call me like this. I have decided that in the future, I will not pretend to be me, and I can call myself as I like many people. The most important thing is that I don't want you to forget your original intention, and decide that you have suddenly become a noble minister of the dragon or a close minister of the Son of Heaven from a revolutionary soldier. If that is the case, sooner or later you will forget your past and what I have taught you over the past ... ”

Xiao Xuan's words, of course, were also carefully considered before. This time, at the cost of more than half of the casualties, the volunteer battalion fought out tens of thousands of elites and main forces of the opponent in the night battle, completely changing the situation of the entire capital. Strategically speaking, it has many advantages over the old army in transition in terms of the formation of combat effectiveness. The crisis in the capital has begun to move towards the first step of lifting. Dingding the world does not seem to be particularly far away. But the battles in the past few months have also made Xiao Xuan begin to feel that the technology of the West in black powder and firearms and even some other aspects in this era may not be as ordinary as the ordinary, and it seems that it is easy to surpass the West in this era and establish its own advantages. If this is the case, then the entire process of modernization in the East will first face the dilemma of insufficient surplus resources, and it is difficult to say that some of the advantages it has mastered will certainly be established in the future.

In addition to using the revolutionary army as a big killer, Xiao Xuan was completely unconfident that he could overwhelm the West of this era after one or two decades of farming, like many other protagonist armies in the late Ming Dynasty. What's more, transforming and renovating society also requires a group whose shelf life and corrosion resistance are so strong as ordinary people. It is precisely because of these concerns that Xiao Xuan did not choose to "de-revolutionize" at this time.

(End of chapter)