The 30 Hongyi cannons and more than 200 general cannons, including those that had at least set up an elevation angle, fired more than 200 rounds of continuous fire from the early morning of 28 September to dusk for five or six hours, firing more than 6,000 rounds of more than 10 catties of heavy ammunition and 450,000 rounds of 7 or 8 catties of heavy ammunition. Many civil fortifications in the northeast of the city, hundreds of paces wide and even within a hundred paces of depth, were damaged under such blows. At the same time, the various shotguns fired by the second or third generals' guns that continued to open heavy fire did not pose much threat to the heavy infantry in armor and shields during the day, but the continuous firing interfered with the repair of the fortifications, at least during the daytime. see

Under such unprecedented artillery preparations, Huang Degong, who was in charge of the defense of this area, and even Zhou Dayong and other generals of the teaching brigade could only choose to prepare the defensive line in a deeper direction, and at the same time prepare other means, and give the opponent a head-on attack in the enemy's likely night offensive.

In this way, when the sun had just set on September 28 and night had just begun to fall, the direction of the attack was clearly guided by the fire of hundreds of tigers rushing in unison. Following the direction of the wind that is temporarily favorable, with the help of the cover of billowing smoke. The vanguard battalion under Cao Wenzhao, who carried heavy shields to form a tight shield array, launched the first round of attacks.

Having learned some lessons from the previous use of heavy infantry with shields and armor, the attacking Ming army did not intend to send armor to the defenders of the city at the expense of becoming a "transport captain" at the beginning. Heavy shields and protection such as ordinary leather armor don't seem to be very effective in many cases. Especially when attacking with shields.

At the same time, at least the 6,000-strong troops of the two main barracks on the left and right were not preparing to attack in a swarm, but were divided into more than 100 steps in front and more than a mile deep, which seemed to be a very loose formation in ancient times, but in terms of tactical details, it was a tortoiseshell formation composed of groups of about 50 people. This is also the lesson that the series of encounters a few months ago and even in the past few months has taught the Ming army outside the city. In the case that both sides have powerful explosive attack methods and artillery fire that are difficult to defend against shield armor, on the one hand, it is necessary to disperse the total forces as much as possible and invest them one by one, and on the other hand, in order to form sufficient protection, it is also necessary to form a tortoiseshell formation of dozens of people during the attack, so as to avoid all possible threats from light shotguns to hand-to-hand combat firepower of the enemy's counterattack.

Of course, this kind of tortoiseshell formation is vulnerable in the case of a truly powerful artillery group, but Cao Wenzhao and others believe that with some information they have learned, the defenders in the city, who do not have much source of gunpowder and firearms, should not be able to organize artillery fire that can be compared with the attacking side.

As expected, the attacking Ming army encountered at least 1,000 men and a very high probability of two or three thousand guns firing one after another when they were approaching the high ground that the two sides had built up in the past few months, and thousands of three or two heavy shells fell one after another in a very short period of time. However, most of the three or two bullets that were thrown did not pose a threat to break the defense because they were at a certain angle to the iron-clad shields of the soldiers in the phalanx, and it was only when the whole team began to face direct fire and entered the range of those guns that it seemed to become more difficult to advance in the smoke of gunfire. The attacking Ming army learned the previous lesson and did not rush forward at this time, but lowered its body and moved forward with difficulty as the crawlers with their heavy shields on their backs. Although it was difficult to advance, the heavy artillery fire of the defenders did not seem to pose much of a threat. No one in the team screamed when they were hit hard, and they were able to maintain the morale of the entire team in such a night attack that had been prepared for a long time.

Suddenly, a violent explosion rang out from a distance estimated at a distance of more than a mile. The Ming army, who had previous experience, knew that it was the explosive attack that the defenders had prepared in this direction for a long time. And the fall must be a pound rather than a two-count bomb. Except for a very small number of elite death squads who did not waver at this time, many Ming troops began to abandon their heavy shields and flee as quickly as they could when they heard such a terrifying explosion.

Cao Wenzhao did not order the battle to be supervised, because the previous combat experience showed that under the new urban defense system, victory could be achieved by simply fighting hard and contributing.

As expected, at least 20,000 stones weighing two or three pounds fell like hail, and the whole small dirt slope and high ground under the night were flying stones for a while, from the fleeing Ming army to the people crawling on the ground, at least 2,000 people died in a very short time under the stone rain brought by the stone mines.

At this time, however, the benefits of attacking at night also became apparent. At least the follow-up attacking team only saw a large number of people retreating safely from the front, and it seemed that before the actual attack reached the front line, they could not see the heavy corpses covered by the shields on the ground, at least they would not cower because of the fear of battle, and some only had the confidence of the seemingly heavy and general's shield they carried.

The second attack was still expected by Cao Wenzhao and others, and the defenders once again detonated a row of prepared rock-throwing mine launch craters, so that the team in the second round of attack also suffered the cost of one or two thousand men.

But when the third round of attacks came, when the violent explosion accompanied by the rolling stone rain in the night like a mudslide, Cao Wenzhao and others, who were in charge of the night battle offensive command, had a bad premonition. The tactics of the defenders seem to have changed completely differently than before. No longer stingy with the use of ammunition and firepower, and seems to be planning to overdraw his family to resist this round of attacks.

During the night from 28 September to the early morning of 29 September, not only did the Ming army on the high ground in the northeast corner organize seven rounds of attacks, but also launched exploratory attacks in many other places. The defenders, however, seemed to have no regard for material resources, attacking with fierce grenades and counterattacks by melee soldiers, and even a continuous rain of blasting stones to resist a far more ferocious attack than a few months ago.

Of course, this kind of defense at the cost of gunpowder also made Zhou Yuji feel a little uneasy, but it was only because this was an order from Zhou Dayong and other cronies of the teaching brigade that he did not encounter too much opposition.

(End of chapter)