About an hour later, in the midst of the wind and snow, the gunfire in the town was still intense, but it was mostly concentrated in a small area in the southeast corner of the city.

"Pile up the wood, set fire to the streets of a few alleys, and hit the outside of the fire to stop the Japanese people!"

"Brothers, Kaiping's reinforcements are coming soon! Lying on the courtyard wall to fight the Japanese! ”

"Beat me the soldiers on the city wall, and beat them hard!"

With Luo Rongguang, adjutant general Han Zhaoqi, garrison Li Zhongcheng, and a group of Dagu artillery generals roared.

"Bang, bang, bang—"

Nearly 2,000 Dagu artillerymen gathered in the southeast corner of the city, and 4,000 panicked recruits of the Jinsheng Battalion lit firewood at various intersections, squatting on the side of the houses on both sides of the street and raising their guns to shoot.

Or stand on chairs, ladders, tables, lie on the courtyard wall, and shoot at the Japanese soldiers outside the house.

The soldiers who were leaning against the city wall all raised their guns and shot at the city wall on the east and west sides, which was more than six meters high, and shot at the Japanese troops on the city wall.

In the rest of the city, the Japanese army began to escort a large number of Qing prisoners out of the city, and at the same time brutally broke into the homes of terrified people, searched the Qing soldiers, and looted food, gold, silver, and cloth.

As long as the Qing army was found to be hiding, the people in the house, regardless of men, women, and children, were slaughtered.

When robbing food, cloth, gold, silver, and money, those who dared to resist and disobey were also brutally shot.

Immediately, in the search and plunder, the Japanese soldiers began to reveal their bestial nature, and these Japanese recruits, who were ordinary military men a few days ago, began to carry out inhumane violations against young women in every household.

For a time, the roar of men, the desperate screams of women, the angry curses of old men, and the sharp cries of children, accompanied by the sound of gunfire, permeated the entire city.

"Bang, bang—"

"Baga, burn them, these pigs!"

"Whew-"

One by one, the houses were lit with raging flames, and the Japanese troops who found the Qing army and could not attack the houses began to set fire to the houses.

"Spread out, spread out!"

The Japanese soldiers on top of a section of the eastern city wall suddenly shouted 'wow wow' and scattered to both sides.

"The Japanese want to blow up the wall! Luo Huayu, your battalion came over to block and fight! ”

Under the reflection of the firelight on a snowy night, Luo Rongguang saw that the Japanese soldiers in the east section of the city wall suddenly shouted and dodged on both sides, and immediately guessed that the Japanese army wanted to blast the city wall and planned to impact from the back, so he hurriedly yelled and ordered his nephew Luo Huayu to lead the troops to block.

"Boom!"

With a loud sound like shaking mountains, a section of the fifteen or sixteen-meter-long city wall was blasted by Japanese sappers from outside the city, and a wide gap was revealed as the masonry and earth collapsed violently.

"Attack!"

"Rush!"

The three infantry squadrons of the newly formed 4th Brigade of the 7th Wing of the Japanese Army, which were waiting outside, began to rush towards the blast where the smoke of gunfire had not ended.

"Brothers, call me!"

"Bang, bang, bang—"

Under Luo Huayu's roar, nearly 400 Mauser guns roared at the same time, causing sparks to shoot in the fracture area, and a large number of Japanese soldiers who rushed up to the pile of bricks in the fracture screamed and were shot to death.

"Qinggou's firepower is fierce!"

"Lie down and fight back, fight back!"

"Yaga! Shoot! ”

The Japanese soldiers who were shocked were immediately blocked by the fierce shooting outside the pile of bricks in the fracture, and they couldn't raise their heads, so they had to lie on top of the pile of bricks and the corpses of Japanese soldiers, and raised their guns in panic to shoot back.

"Throw the firewood over and burn them!"

A clever sentry shouted and threw a piece of wood with flames far away into the breach of the wall.

"That's right! Burn them! ”

The inspired Dagu artillerymen threw burning firewood to the gap in the city wall, and soon there was a thick smoke and fire at the fracture, and the burning Japanese soldiers shouted "wow" and hurriedly escaped from the broken wall.

"Sons, shoot the Japanese with a gun!"

The veteran Luo Rongguang braved the heavy snow and whistling bullets, constantly shouting at various sections of the city corner to command and inspire.

After the initial panic, more than 2,000 Dagu artillery soldiers gradually calmed down, relying on the terrain and the fast guns in their hands, to shoot at the Japanese army.

"Brothers, let's kill the Japanese with the men of the fort! Otherwise, everyone will die today! ”

"Kill the Wouldn't Be Killed!"

The new troops of the 4,000 Jinsheng Army who withdrew here, seeing that the Dagu artillery stubbornly resisted the Japanese offensive, became emboldened one by one, ran to the defense line with rifles, raised their guns and fired at the Japanese army.

"Brothers, when Kaiping's 4,000 reinforcements arrive, it's the end of this war!"

Adjutant General Han Zhaoqi shouted loudly, and all the Qing soldiers were hot in their hearts, and they raised their guns to shoot the Japanese soldiers on the opposite side.

More than 6,000 Qing troops were concentrated in a narrow area of less than 200,000 square meters in Nancheng, relying on houses, courtyard walls, and blazing firewood, and the Japanese army did not give an inch for a while.

Youpeng of Shan County stood half a mile away from the east gate of Tangshan City, looking at the blazing fires in the city, as well as the Japanese soldiers who were suppressed out of the blast, and frowned slightly and said:

"These new troops also need more iron-blooded training, and the intensity of exterminating the Qing bandits along the way must be increased, and every new army must be stained with blood on their hands!"

Xiao Chuan proposed again: "Commander, is it to replace the veterans and defeat these Qing troops?" ”

"Now this Qing army has stabilized its foothold after the initial panic, and judging from the repeating rifles and fighting spirit in their hands, it must be one of the few elite soldiers in the Qing Dynasty; This land of projectiles, even if the main elite of the Imperial Army is used to attack, without more than a thousand casualties, it will not be able to take it! ”

Yama Prefecture Aritomo ordered the artillery chief, Major General Kuroda Hissataka: "Use artillery to blow them up!" ”

"The Japanese are retreating, the Japanese are retreating!"

"Haha, the dog escapes, the dogs escape!"

The Japanese soldiers who were desperately attacking at the southeast corner of the city, after hearing the shouts of the commanders of the various divisions, all stopped firing, and then broke away from the battle line one after another, and retreated backwards with their waists bent.

Then he hid in the distance, setting up rifles to guard the positions of the Qing army.

"Count them as acquaintances, or else—"

"Boom!"

Li Zhongcheng was only halfway through his words when he was interrupted by a loud explosion in the east, and he suddenly turned his head and looked at the vast snow in the east.

"Boom, ——,!"

A huge explosion exploded in Beicheng, and the snow in the entire city was shaken, and there was a numb tremor in the soles of everyone's feet.

"南へ,200ここメートル!" (200m south)

"南へ,200ここメートル!"

As the Japanese soldiers roared in relay, the shooting data quickly spread to the Japanese artillery positions outside the city and by the Tang River.

"Shelling, shelling!"

"Hold the grass and the horse wall!"

"These shameless brutes!"

Suddenly, the 6,000 Qing troops in the south of the city were in an uproar, and everyone was shocked and angry.

"Boom!"

From the east, there was another earth-shattering explosion, causing the snowflakes in the air to tear apart.

"Whoa—"

In a heart-pounding roar, a 75mm grenade exploded over a place in the south of the city.

"Ahh

A large amount of shrapnel knocked the Qing army below into pieces and overturned in pieces.

"Boom!"

To the east, an even louder bang rang out.

Immediately, a large-caliber heavy artillery high-explosive bomb smashed into the southeast corner of the city, and three or four houses were instantly reduced to ruins in the firelight, and a large number of Qing troops who were densely piled together were blown into a pile of blood and mud before they even had time to scream.

The six thousand Qing troops looked desperate, and some timid recruits were already crying secretly.

"We are artillerymen, we are artillery!"

Luo Rongguang was so angry that his eyes were full of tears, and he yelled to the sky: "Your Majesty, we are wronged!" ”

"Boom-"

That night, the Japanese army bombed the Qing army's position in the southeast corner of Tangshan in turn, and finally razed all the houses and courtyards inside.

Of the 6,000 Qing soldiers, there were less than 300 survivors.