Compared with the county seat, the moat of Huanggangfu City is deeper and wider, and there are artillery cannons on the city to help the battle, and the difficulty of the attack has increased exponentially.

Fortunately, the Green Battalion had enough prisoners, and after seven or eight consecutive attacks and the lives of more than 400 prisoners, they finally filled in a long section of the moat and began to clear obstacles such as the subsidence of the antlers.

As the captives approached the city walls, the battle intensified, and the Qing troops on the city began to shoot with bows and arrows and firearms, and threw down flying lime bottles, killing and wounding the captives who served as cannon fodder. These captives were not protected by armor, and suffered heavy casualties under the close blows of bows and arrows, rushing up with a few hundred, and retreating only a few dozen, although the overseers hacked many cowardly prisoners, the speed of the attack became slower and slower.

Although the captives were consumables, they could not be consumed in vain, so Wang Kefan immediately ordered to send three hundred Portuguese musketeers, plus archers and musketeers from the Yuezhou battalion, to cover the captives to continue the attack.

Up and down the city wall, a fierce battle was launched.

The Qing army had the city wall as a cover, and the Chu army also placed a row of wooden donkey carts by the moat as a cover, and the firecrackers tried their best to hide behind the wooden donkey carts, squatting on the ground when they changed ammunition, and only stood up and fired together when they heard the commander's whistle.

The green battalion's bird guns smashed the wooden donkey cart into debris, the body baffle was full of arrows, and the Chu soldiers continued to fall, and the Chu army's shooting was also very fierce, although the well-trained Portuguese soldiers could not achieve three-stage shooting, but still tried to maintain a volley of guns, constantly forming a fire cover on the city.

The archers and musketeers of the Yuezhou battalion were distributed on both sides of the Portuguese soldiers, specializing in fighting dense groups of Qing archers, gritting their teeth to suppress the enemy in firepower, and for those Qing soldiers who were hiding behind the battlements to shoot, they concentrated multiple muskets to fire volleys at the battlements from all angles, and killed the Qing troops from the holes in the city wall.

Although Xu Yong's Huangzhou Green Battalion was a strong army. But the main force has gone to Wuchang Mansion and Chengtian Mansion, the defenders in Huanggang City are only second-line troops and old and weak soldiers, and the military elements are obviously a little worse, their first few rounds of salvo fire are quite neat, and they have caused great damage to the prisoners and cannon fodder of the Chu army, but after their own casualties, they quickly became chaotic, and the shooting became scattered, and the interval was getting longer and longer.

On the city wall, the Qing army's warlords also began to cut people, constantly urging the archers and musketeers to return fire. The young men were forced to lean out of the battlements in order to accurately throw ash bottles and flying stones into the city, and when they saw the soldiers hiding under the women's wall and did not dare to show their heads, they immediately rushed up and slashed with their swords, so that the others had to stand up and fight.

But. The Qing army's archers and musketeers were already in disarray, although they were forced to fight under the threat of broadswords. but not with each other. Moreover, they basically did not obey the command of the officers, and hundreds of archers and musketeers fired indiscriminately, and they could no longer have the effect of volleying guns and covering them with a rain of arrows.

Violence can force soldiers to die, but it can't turn them into an elite army.

The military qualities of these green battalion soldiers were not good, and they were completely suppressed by the Chu army in the confrontational shooting, and the cannon fodder captives of the Chu army seized the opportunity. A few paths gradually opened up in the antlers.

Seeing that the battle situation was unfavorable, the commander-in-chief of the Qing army ordered the two nearby bronze cannons to turn their muzzles, no longer attacking the follow-up troops of the Chu army, but turning the fire to the Chu army's firearms and archers under the city. Because the Chu army was too close to the city wall, they all stood in the dead end of the cannon, and they would definitely not be able to hit it with solid shells, so the Qing army changed to shotgun lead and prepared to shoot at close range.

The idea was good, but it was difficult to implement, the cannons of the Qing army were mounted on the high city walls, and as soon as they fired, they hit sixty or seventy paces away, most of the shotguns flew over the heads of the Chu soldiers, and only a small amount of iron sand wounded two Chu soldiers.

The second cannon of the Qing army reduced the charge, but unfortunately it was too close, and the shotgun iron sand rushed out of the barrel and immediately fell, startling the cannon fodder captives under the city wall, but did not cause any casualties.

Although it was replaced with a shotgun, it was still very difficult to hit the dead end, and this cannon of the Qing army worked tirelessly to carry out scientific practice, and it took a few minutes to shoot a shot, and it was a long waste before you knew it.

The archers and firecrackers of the Chu army were protected by wooden donkey carts, and they were not too afraid of the shotgun attack, and when they saw that this cannon could not be fired accurately for half a day, they were even more bold to shoot at the city.

As the battle became more and more intense, the archers and musketeers of the Chu army also continued to suffer casualties, and the muskets of the musketeers began to have various malfunctions after repeated high-intensity shooting, in addition to duds and human errors, some of the muskets damaged the parts, and some even exploded directly.

"Bang!"

When a Portuguese soldier blew up his flintlock pistol, he was mortally wounded and fell, and his companions immediately dragged him under the wooden donkey cart and let several captives carry him down.

"Oops!" Cheng Wen was holding a telescope to watch the battle, and when he saw this scene, he couldn't help but cry out, it was one thing to be shot by the Qing army's bow and arrow, and it was another thing to be injured by his own musket explosion, the Portuguese soldier was seriously injured without any defense, and there were several severe wounds, which made Cheng Wen feel palpitations for him.

But Cheng Wen turned his head to look at it, but found that Wang Kefan's expression was a little strange, and it seemed to have a faint hint of joy......

The two three-pounder guns of the Ming army have not fired, and they are parked by the moat facing the gate, and the two cannons are sandwiched between several wooden donkey carts, and the gunners are hiding behind the wooden donkey carts, and the muzzles of the black hole are aimed at the south gate of Huanggang City.

Before and after them, there were also infantry and cavalry protection of the Chu army, and Xianning's way of luring the enemy to battle was different, Wang Kefan directly blocked the way for the Qing army to attack out of the city this time, and sent the Yuezhou battalion to force near the city gate, and the cavalry was able to stand outside the effective range of artillery, plus these two three-pounder guns, if the Qing army went out of the city, it would immediately meet the head-on.

At the head of Huanggang City, Sun Baian, the chief general of the Qing army, was planning to go out of the city to counterattack, but was stopped by Xu Bin.

Listening to Xu Bin talk about the battle of Xianning, especially the casualties formed after the city gate was blocked by cannons, Sun Bo'an finally relented.

"Since this is the case, let's stick to the city, our army is small, and we can't fight hard with Nanban."

An infantry battalion and half a cavalry battalion of the Ming army were blocked outside the south gate, there were thousands of men and horses, and they seemed to be elite veterans.

Going out of the city to counterattack is not a joke, even the invincible Eight Banners cavalry in the world is not the opponent of the Chu army, and the Huanggang defenders can't touch the stones with eggs.

Fortunately, the city wall of Huanggang is high and thick, as long as you stick to the city, you can fight with the Chu army, and when Xu Yong arrives with reinforcements, it will naturally turn the corner. (To be continued......)