"Boom! Boom! Boom! ”

The deafening sound of the cowhide drum held by the two of them when struck by the thick wooden mallet shook everyone's nerves, and the dense drum beat seemed to hit the heart of the person, spewing out the adrenaline and making everyone excited.

"Kill!"

"Rush into the city, and you'll have something to eat!"

"The Tartars have robbed us of our grain, and it is all piled up in the city, everyone goes in and gets it back, as it should be!"

"If you dare to drag your feet and not fight hard, the town marshal's personal soldiers are behind, the big knife is not long-eyed, and he died under the town marshal, it is better to fight with the Tartars!"

"Don't be afraid, don't kill your head too much, and you will be a good man in twenty years!"

All kinds of demagogic words were shouted out loudly, and many of the ranks of the displaced people stood on high places and shouted, and after they carried out some incitement, the soldiers in iron armor held large swords and spears, like ducks, and drove the ranks of displaced people with simple weapons to the city of Xi'an, which was three miles away.

The team of more than 100,000 people is not at all something that a strong man like Wang Yongqiang can afford, and the amount of grain and grass consumed every day is an astronomical amount.

At this moment, under the dual effect of unbearable hunger and heart-stirring incitement, the ignorant outcasts became crazy, and the courage of countless people gathered together to grow became extremely fat, even if they were allowed to fight the fierce beast lion tiger, they dared to try.

Not to mention the three-zhang high wall in the distance.

"Rush!"

With countless hoarse roars, the homeless people moved, one person began to run, and the people around him immediately followed blindly and fanatically, ten people began to run, a hundred people began to run, and a team of five thousand homeless people, carrying rudimentary ladders and homemade weapons, rushed up with shouts.

It seems that with this momentum, he can break down the Xi'an city wall with his body.

There were still many homeless people who wanted to keep up, but they had to rely on the fierce beating and scolding of the soldiers, and brandishing weapons to intimidate, so that they could calm down.

Wang Yongzhen himself was infected by the indomitable atmosphere of the homeless people, and he was enthusiastic, and he rode a horse in front and yelled loudly for a while, and then rushed back to the side of his eldest brother in the Chinese army.

"Brother, morale is like a rainbow and the military spirit is available!" He exclaimed excitedly, his face flushed like a pig's kidney: "Why don't you send more people up?" How good is it to take Xi'an City in one go? ”

Gao Youcai rode his horse to stand beside Wang Yongqiang, and glanced at him vigorously, signaling him not to be anxious, but Wang Yongzhen was excited and didn't see it at all.

Wang Yongqiang glanced at his younger brother coldly, stretched out a hand indifferently, and hooked it with his index finger.

Wang Yongzhen didn't know why, and urged the horse to get closer.

Wang Yongqiang waited for him to approach, turned his outstretched hand into a palm, waved it suddenly, and struck Wang Yongzhen's face with an accurate arc of big-ear scrapers, "Smack!" There was a crisp sound, and the sound was so loud that Gao Youcai on the side couldn't help but turn his face sideways, as if the aftermath of the slap had spread to his face.

If it weren't for riding on a horse, Wang Yongzhen would definitely turn around in place, he was beaten at a loss, half of his face was red and swollen, staring at his brother like a fool for a long time, before he covered his face and said, "Big, big brother, why, why did you beat me?" ”

"I hit you to remind you!" Wang Yongqiang's eyes widened, and he roared: "You are a general, not a child who is led by the nose, those homeless people are cannon fodder, what, do you want to be too?" ”

"This, this, I just think, there is a ..... to capture in one fell swoop" Wang Yongzhen muttered, not knowing if it was because of the swollen face, and his speech was a little slurred.

"Capture it in one fell swoop?" Wang Yongqiang was even more angry when he heard this, and continued to roar: "Do you think Xi'an City is Yan'an Mansion? Although there are many of us, they are all useless goods, strong and strong, if you really want to go into battle, you are not the opponent of the Qing army at all, others don't know, as the general of our army, don't you know? How can you be so reckless? ”

Wang Yongzhen was scolded so disgraced, and he knew that he was wrong, so he had to keep his head down and keep silent.

Gao Youcai saw that there were many people around, and hurriedly came out to play a round: "Okay, okay, the town marshal doesn't have to be entangled, General Wang will learn a lesson, the first wave of 5,000 people went up, let's take a look at the siege." ”

This reminded Wang Yongqiang, he glared at his brother fiercely, and turned his head to look at Xi'an City.

At this time, the head of Xi'an was already in full swing.

The iron and bronze cannons have all faded their cannon coats, and the muzzles of the black holes are pointed directly at the open ground outside the city, and the pigtailed soldiers with nervous expressions are running around, carrying round solid projectiles to the head of the city and piling them together, and barrels of gunpowder are carefully placed a little farther away, and people are sent to guard them.

The archers and bird commanders were wiping the weapons in their hands, the shields made of thick wooden planks were hoisted by long ropes to cover their heads, and behind the archers, the hand-to-hand soldiers with shields and short knives were wearing iron armor and waiting quietly under the battlements, while more shoppers were preparing lime bottles and the like, which were very useful when defending the city.

In the boiling iron pot, the boiling gold juice was emitting a foul smell, and the Qing soldiers who covered their noses and tied cloth towels on their faces carefully added firewood to keep the dung water boiling.

The smell of gold juice and the smell of sweat on people's bodies in the summer are mixed together, which makes the already flickering and busy and tense city head add to the dangerous atmosphere of the battle, Meng Qiaofang stands on the highest commanding height in Xi'an City--- can overlook the bell tower of the whole city, and looks into the distance with a pergola.

A crowd of people was rolling out of the rebel camp in northern Shaanxi a few miles away, and came towards the north gate in a chaotic manner.

"It's coming!" Meng Qiaofang secretly thought to herself, and her left hand, which was holding the wooden railing, tightened tightly, but then let go: "Huh? That's not a lot of people. ”

The 5,000-strong contingent of displaced people, from a bird's-eye view, does not seem to be particularly large, and compared with the huge flow of people in the distance, it seems to be a drop in the ocean.

Outside the city of Xi'an, there is a wide ditch, the ditch is one zhang wide, two zhang deep, ten zhang away from the city wall, there is river water to irrigate it, but after the great drought in the Chongzhen period, the river channel that leads the water is dry, there is no water available, it becomes a moat, Meng Qiaofang sent people to plant sharp branches all over the trench, and if it falls, it will have to be pierced by ten thousand arrows.

The 5,000 men were each armed with a cloth bag filled with dirt to fill in the trenches.

Wang Yongqiang and Meng Qiaofang, although they were miles away, both set their eyes on these 5,000 people.

Under the gaze of the two, the first puff of smoke rose from the head of Xi'an City.

"Boom!"

The first to roar was the Hongyi cannon with the longest range.

At the head of Xi'an City, there are two Hongyi cannons left by the Ming Dynasty, and Meng Qiaofang got them all to the north gate.

The large-caliber Hongyi cannon with a caliber of more than four inches can shoot a solid iron projectile weighing 20 catties out three miles away every time it roars, and after the iron bullet hits the ground, it can still jump forward and continue to jump forward until it is exhausted.

The huge iron bullet, flying in the air, almost visible to the naked eye, the terrifying pressure brought by the violent whistling sound made everyone tremble, the team of five thousand people rushing forward, the formation was not very dense, Rao was so, the first iron bullet still caused a lot of casualties.

No matter how fast a person's reaction speed is, it can't be faster than the cannonball shot out of gunpowder, and the first person to be hit suddenly turns his entire upper body into a cloud of flying blood mist, and he didn't have time to scream.

The iron bullet crushed all the way, hitting a bloody road, both people and things in this straight line, have been smashed into powder, occasionally lucky, by the iron bullet brushed by, took away an arm or leg, lying on the ground in pain howling and rolling.

The rest of the men had no time to care, and they continued to run forward regardless of the scolding of the soldiers who charged together, the trench was already close in sight, and after a few more steps, they could drop the mud bags they were carrying.

Fortunately, although the Hongyi cannon is powerful, the firing speed is really slow, and it will fire a second shot after a long time, and the soldiers who have pressed the formation shouted: "Don't be afraid! Keep running, and when they get their second shot, you'll all run under the wall, and when you get there, the cannon won't hit you! ”

Before the words fell, I only heard a burst of firecracker-like explosions on the head of the city, and the rumbling cannons sounded like a series of cannons, one after another.

The shouting soldier's face suddenly changed color, and before he could react, an iron bullet fired from a Fran cannon hit his head impartially, the iron bullet was not big, but the size of an adult's fist, but it directly blasted the soldier's head into flesh.

This terrifying scene stunned all the people around them, they were all peasants, and they had never seen a cannon kill people in their lives.

Immediately afterwards, dozens of Fran cannons fired a salvo of shells one after another, like a rushing rain of iron, rushing straight ahead.

The destructive scene of the Hongyi cannon had just been staged again, and dozens of bloody paths exploded in the crowd, as if they had been combed by a grate with incomparably huge teeth, and the chaotic crowd of homeless people turned into a column separated by these bloody paths.

After the cannon fire, there was a brief silence above and below the city.

The people in the city were busy cleaning the chambers and reloading the shells.

The people in the city widened their eyes helplessly, helpless.

I don't know who was the first to say "Mom! Suddenly the panic spread clearly, and the surviving people threw down the mud bags together, and you squeezed me and pushed back to run, running back at a faster speed than when I approached the city just now.

On the high post behind them, the Wang brothers and Gao You clearly saw this scene.

Wang Yongzhen's face was pale, Gao Youcai was stunned, and Wang Yongqiang frowned.

"I didn't expect the Tartar cannon to be so powerful, and our people were damaged before they could get close to the trench, how is this good?" Gao Youcai muttered, he lives in Shenmu, and the biggest cannon he has ever seen in his life are the two rusty old sleeves at the head of Shenmu City, which are not much thicker than his thighs, and I don't know which dynasty and which generation left antiques.

Wang Yongqiang ignored him, but beckoned a leader of the pro-military camp, whispered a few words, and the leader nodded and took the order.

"How's that good?" Wang Yongqiang seemed to have heard Gao Youcai's self-talk, and said: "Although the cannon is fierce, it has advantages and disadvantages, and the disadvantage lies in the speed of launching. ”

"However, this cannon will be bloody as soon as it hits, how can you overcome it in the flesh of a mortal?" Gao Youcai said in despair.

Wang Yongqiang grinned, smiled coldly, stared at the head of Xi'an City expressionlessly, and said: "Yes, the fear of death can only be overcome by a more cruel death." ”

Gao Youcai was full of excitement, shivered, and looked at Wang Yongqiang in a daze.

At their feet, a group of ironclad soldiers had already mounted their horses and gathered, and under the leadership of the leader just now, they formed a horizontal formation, riding their horses to meet the scattered displaced people who had fled and returned, and rushed forward.

(End of chapter)