After night gradually fell, the Ming army, relying on superior forces, launched tentative attacks in all directions of the entire capital that stretched for forty or fifty miles, and launched key attacks in four or five places. Xiao Xuan knew very well that if he didn't spend a certain amount of money to launch a counterattack at this time, then the entire capital's city defense line might be collapsed. Although the team could retreat to the core positions of the Imperial City and even the Imperial Horse Prison camp to resist, if they did, the morale of the entire defender would be unpredictable.

Therefore, when night came, Xiao Xuan was no longer as stingy with the investment of troops as before, but mobilized thirty commandos with each brigade and battalion of the Guards Battalion and the Brave Guard Battalion, with a total size of up to 4,000 people, with the coordination of more than 20,000 auxiliary troops, to launch a counterattack against the enemy's city defense. The counterattack under the cover of black powder grenades swept away many enemy troops who had just captured the city and were not very prepared for defense. Ding Zhuang people all over the city wall also used horsetail lead bullets, light javelins, and artillery and demolition teams to fight with all their might, throwing tens of thousands of bullets outside the city.

Perhaps they did not expect that the defenders, who had been adopting passive defensive tactics before, suddenly became invested regardless of casualties and material resources, and many of the defensive lines of the Ming army, which were caught off guard at the beginning, fell into passivity. Only the head of the city, which was densely covered by the main artillery group, in the direction of the northeast and southeast corners, which accumulated about ten miles, was not lost in the counterattack of the defenders because it had been prepared for a long time.

More than 4,000 commandos and even more than 20,000 soldiers who participated in the counterattack battle suffered as many as one-third of the casualties, but the loss ratio was not as advantageous as before. The vast majority of the more than 20,000 casualties suffered by the Ming army in the counterattack were also ordinary troops with poor equipment protection, and even some cannon fodder outside the capital that had been temporarily mobilized.

Although the tentative attack on the whole line failed, the problem that the defenders' defensive forces seemed to be somewhat insufficient on the besieging side with superior forces and material resources was quickly exposed at this time. The Ming army besieging the city quickly began to blast under the cover of the attack.

At the beginning, the Ming army used shields to cover the heavy troops to dig pits to carry out blasting attacks, but the defenders continuously threw grenades and even 10,000 enemies from all directions, even if the effect of anti-personnel was very limited, he often easily detonated explosives, which brought many defeats to the attacking demolition team.

So Yuan Keli and others, who organized the attack, also began to change the method of blasting. First of all, under the cover of attacks everywhere, about thirty daredevils who were strong and prepared for casualties under heavy rewards were quietly waiting to board the city head that they had controlled, and at the fastest speed, let the people under the city quickly transport the concentrated black powder bags weighing about 100 catties to the top of the city by hanging baskets, and then transport them to the position in front of the city wall and the inner wall at the fastest speed. Thirty demomen did not even dig a pit, but gathered together three thousand catties of black powder as fast as they could, and then withdrew from the city as fast as possible with a rope tied to their bodies. While this kind of blasting operation is very concealed, the time is often only prepared within two minutes at most, which greatly increases the concealment.

In fact, Yuan Keli didn't know how many catties of explosives were needed to threaten the dirt wall, which didn't look too thin, without realizing the dug blasting pit, and just letting the black powder explosives explode naked. 3,000 catties of black powder is just a standard principle when there are abundant materials.

But when the blasting began, it was much more than you could think about. The first violent explosion was not actively detonated by the demolition team that went into the attack. Instead, the defenders accidentally discovered that the enemy outside the city seemed to be preparing something, and the defenders on the city head that they had originally controlled seemed to have become a little scarce and even mysterious, and began to throw black powder grenades outside the city.

As a result, the power was not very great, and even the armored heavy infantry might not be able to effectively form a deadly threat, and the black powder grenade weighing about one pound quickly detonated more than 3,000 catties of black powder that had just been piled up. Although the black powder of this era is only equivalent to one-thirtieth of modern explosives at most due to its own performance problems. However, when the black powder of about 1.8 tons was detonated in a concentrated manner, it also brought about an explosion effect equivalent to 60 kilograms of modern explosives, which was comparable to that of a 500-pound aerial bomb. The fire and air waves formed by the violent explosion instantly swallowed more than 30 attackers, and even swallowed up dozens of people responsible for covering the city, but the impact force formed by the huge explosion also made the inner wall within ten zhang and more than three feet thick collapsed under the violent explosion, and more than a dozen bombardiers and dozens of firearms players at a distance of ten zhang were swallowed by the air wave mixed with bricks, stones and earth blocks. The violent explosion caused the soldiers on both sides within a radius of 20 zhang to lose their ability to react due to the violent shock, even if they were not injured in the explosion.

It's just that when the blasting attack began to prepare, the commando team composed of elite soldiers and the ladder wrenches who performed more prominently in the battle had already been prepared, so when the gunpowder smoke had not completely dissipated, the three hundred elite soldiers under You Shiwei, who were under the pressure of supervising the battle, finally rushed into the smoke of gunpowder at the gap in the inner wall, and behind it, at least a complete battalion of about 3,000 soldiers also began to rush to the city from the ladder version at the fastest speed. And use the ladder that has been prepared to go down to the city and rush in the direction of the gunsmoke.

For the first time, the sound of shouting and hand-to-hand combat sounded in the direction of about a mile and a half north of Dongzhimen in the response of night and firelight. Although the combat effectiveness of the Liaodong Army was not very strong on the whole, because this direction was not the main direction of the officers and soldiers of the teaching brigade before, the hundreds of elites of the Liaodong Army who broke through the inner wall and the thousands of heavy infantry who followed easily broke through the gap in the city wall at night. It was at this time that the battle situation of the defenders appeared to be a little passive for the first time.

Although the breakthrough Ming army finally encountered resistance in the assault on the north and south of the inner wall, it gradually formed a relatively solid defensive front within a radius of 100 steps. At this point, the breach seemed to have been firmly opened, and it did not seem that the hasty defenders could easily organize their forces to counterattack. Almost at the same time, the elite of the Ming army in other directions gradually gathered, preparing to let more troops enter the city, and be ready to prevent the defenders from counterattacking at any time.

(End of chapter)