Regarding Xiao Xuan's words, Yun Xiaoxuan didn't understand at this time. Not only Yun Xiaoxuan, but in fact, even Chen Xin and some other people who had carried out the combat mission in the Taixi area felt that Xiao Xuan's decision was a little too cautious and too harsh. Because, in the final analysis, the Ottomans were not a regime centered on the majority ethnic population, and although militarily they were more stressed by Western influence and pressure, they were in many ways even inferior to the Safavids.

From the beginning of the winter of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen to the approach of the new year of the nineteenth year of Chongzhen, far more than one million people left their homes on the vast land, and far more than one million people migrated in, and the heartland of the entire Ottoman Empire seemed to have become the eastern heartland for a long time like the old frontier or the river in a short period of time.

At this time, many Ottomans and even nobles who had fled in the previous sweep and purge had to gather in Istanbul at this time, and the defenders in the entire famous city also increased from a standing force of only 50,000 to as many as 200,000 regular troops alone, and together with more than 100,000 regular troops, it seemed that it had completely become a city composed of soldiers.

It seems that because of the excessive cost incurred in the conquest of Constantinople in those years, unlike many places outside the Central Plains, Istanbul at this time still had walls of no small scale built on the periphery, not even inferior to some of the great cities in the interior of the East. What's more, the size of the city is not small, which means that even if the city walls are captured or breached by fierce attacks, it is likely that the battle will not end, and fierce confrontations will probably still be fought in many of the streets and alleys of the city that look much stronger than those in the east.

The army led by Xiao Xuan finally crossed the strait through the naval division that had been reinforced by the western part of Thailand, and approached not too far from Istanbul. According to the previous combat experience, even if the new guard battalion and its affiliated forces were to storm such a military city with hundreds of thousands of armed guards, which was now full of troops, I am afraid that it would cost at least 200 casualties, and maybe more. And this is what Xiao Xuan doesn't want to see. The nature of today's new guard battalions and even their subordinate forces is no longer a field force in the ordinary sense.

In this way, more than fifty field guns on small and medium-sea ships were also brought ashore in this situation. Under the precise guidance of the air balloon reconnaissance force, the fierce shelling unfolded one after another. 500 iron-copper composite artillery pieces with a life span of about 1,000 rounds per kilogram of kilojoules, 200 Baotou steel artillery guns equipped by Xiao Xuan's team, and even 300 light field guns with reinforcements from other directions launched a fierce bombardment of the opponents in the city one after another with a huge formation and momentum.

After the initial encounter, Mudra IV seemed certain that he was facing an opponent with an unprecedented offensive method, although Istanbul's outlying city defense had been improved according to the principles of the Bastion era, it was still very difficult to effectively defend the perimeter, so in addition to the front-line resistance of about tens of thousands of troops deployed on the perimeter, the vast majority of troops were deployed in the city. It seems that this will minimize the threat as much as possible.

However, the team led by Xiao Xuan at this time was not comparable to the Western Expedition back then. In previous wars, whether it was a few foreign wars or many internal wars, in fact, the entire army fought under the condition that the gunpowder resources were not very abundant. In the past, although there were many gunpowder craftsmen and even accumulated family backgrounds, most of them were old-style gunpowder with very limited quality and difficult to meet even the most basic requirements. Gunpowder, which is of slightly more outstanding quality, can barely avoid problems through various methods of rushing work and even effective control in combat.

However, a few years ago, when the production areas of gunpowder raw materials in many places were controlled, the production capacity of raw materials in some places in China has also been greatly increased compared with before. The entire handicraft base has also undergone a sea change over a period of more than a decade. The shortage in this area has only been largely improved in recent years.

In this way, when the resources are sufficient, the siege of Istanbul seems to be much easier. After about three days of preparation, it was not manpower. Shortly after the start of the artillery test fire, the order for a blasting attack was given.

A number of craters, specially reinforced with iron sheets, launched blasting attacks from all directions. This time, millions of catties of black powder were directly projected from outside the city into the city in tens of thousands of blasts like rolling thunder. The whole of Istanbul suddenly became full of rubble and smoke, and many of the original buildings collapsed under the heavy bombardment. Of course, more often than not, there are all kinds of mud and stone buildings that are full of holes.

In this case, children who have risen to a height of about two miles in the sky and use high-performance telescopes to reconnoiter can often look through the holes and crevices to roughly determine whether there are any large-scale enemy troops hiding in the building.

In this way, under the effective guidance of the reconnaissance hot air balloon, a large-scale shelling began again. This time, when firing was fired, it was not the artillery teams that opened fire separately, but the maximum number of artillery pieces was organized in a group of 100 guns, or even a salvo of 1,000 guns. Although at distances of several miles, the accuracy of the projectile fire strike inevitably decreases to a dispersion error of more than 100 paces. However, when tens of thousands of heavy shrapnel were covered, it seemed that an unavoidable barrage was formed.

In five hours, about ten hours, the thousands of artillery pieces gathered outside Istanbul fired a total of more than 200,000 shells, most of which were heavy shotguns, but there were also many solid shells specifically aimed at buildings.

Whether it is a six, seven, tael, or a dozen taels of super-sized heavy shotguns that many roofs seem to be difficult to resist, or solid bullets that can make a solid stone building collapse a big hole for a while, and the rubble flies, it seems that it can effectively kill an area of about one or twenty square meters.

In this way, more than 100,000 defenders were killed or wounded in the whole day of shelling and blasting.