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Yao Hongtao stared at the royal soldiers who were slowly approaching, and unlike their nervousness, these soldiers seemed to have a chance to win.

Far away they even heard a loud singing, which was impassioned and uplifting.

"Let the artillery prepare."

Yao Hongtao put down the monoculars in his hand, these things were all purchased by the merchant council from Western merchants, and almost every general now has one.

"Yes, General." Receiving the order, the adjutant immediately put all the artillerymen in position, loaded the shells and waited.

At the same time, soldiers with flintlock pistols ran back and forth on the ramparts, each finding a position to shoot.

Everything was ready, the deputy general frowned, and he said: "General, it seems that there are not many soldiers in the Great Yu Kingdom, there are only about 20,000 people, maybe we can defeat them in the front." “

Yao Hongtao glanced at the deputy general, and he said lightly: "Do you think that the army of the northern royal family is Li Chuyuan's stragglers?" When these soldiers defeated the barbarians in Jizhou with flintlock pistols, you didn't know where they were! ”

The adjutant general's face turned red, and after successfully defeating several sieges, he was very confident in the current firearms army, and in his opinion, defeating Li Chuyuan was only a matter of time.

Because of this, they were not interested in the army in front of them, and he said: "The general seems to be a little discouraged by others, and now it has been proved that the soldiers loyal to the vassal king are far less loyal than the soldiers who are loyal to the merchant council, and in the same way, I believe that the common people must also be dissatisfied with the rotten dynasty of the north, and their soldiers will not die for them." ”

"Really? Have you been to the North? Have you ever known about Qingzhou? Yao Hongtao was a little dissatisfied, this lieutenant was not his person, but a side assigned by the merchant council.

He knew very well that the Merchant Council was not very at ease with him, but he chose to betray the King of Chu, and now he had to follow the Merchant Council, not to mention that Cao Kun promised to give him a seat as a councilor.

The adjutant general was speechless again, and he argued: "General, it seems that you don't believe enough in the Merchant Council, and now the Merchant Council, at the suggestion of the Qinglong King, has decided to adopt the method he did in Jizhou to win over the hearts and minds of the people, you wait and see, and soon the people of Jiangnan will gather around the Merchant Council as they did in Jizhou back then." “

"The Green Dragon King." Yao Hongtao frowned, he had seen this Green Dragon King before, he was a scholar who looked very cold, and the most terrifying thing was that this Green Dragon King was very good at demagogic people.

Back then, the king of Chu reused him, and he successfully provoked turmoil in Jizhou, but after returning to Chu after failure, he was refrigerated, because the king of Chu was also worried that this Qinglong King would bring cholera to Chu.

Now that the Blue Dragon King had defected to the Merchant Council, he could already imagine what would happen if the two freaks combined together.

Seeing this, the deputy general immediately laughed, and he said: "This Qinglong King still has a set of ways to win over the people, and now many people have turned to the merchant council in order not to pay for food." ”

Yao Hongtao suddenly sneered when he heard this, and he suddenly felt sad for the people, because he knew very well that this slogan would eventually become a dead letter.

In the past, there have been dynasties that did not pay for food, and now the merchant council has just drawn a big pie for the people to die for them.

"Pathetic, lamentable." Yao Hongtao didn't know whether he was talking about the adjutant general or himself, he stopped talking, but stared at the royal soldiers who were getting closer and closer.

Outside the city, Lu Fei was observing the situation in Songjiang City.

Unlike in the past, the current Tiger Army did not line up in a dense formation as before, but instead formed a straggler line outside the eastern wall of Songjiang Castle.

"There are twenty cannons on this wall, and the walls are full of soldiers with flintlock muskets, and if we attack head-on, there will be heavy casualties, and we only have 20,000 men, so we must take advantage of breech-loading rifles." Lu Fei Zhengse said that even with artillery, siege warfare is still a headache.

In particular, the soldiers in the city also used firearms, and they could rely on the city walls to use firearms to kill and injure the soldiers besieging the city, which was not cost-effective.

So, he continued: "Guo Ming, you immediately lead the soldiers to dig a trench and dig all the way to within fifty meters of the city wall. ”

"Yes, General."

Guo Ming responded, and now the shovel has basically become the standard configuration of the army, in order to dig trenches, and after receiving orders, thousands of soldiers are thrown into it.

So Yao Hongtao was surprised to see that the royal army stopped at a distance of 300 meters and began to dig.

"General, what are they doing?" The lieutenant was shocked, they had never encountered such a situation.

Yao Hongtao shook his head, he was also at a loss now, but he understood that this was definitely not a good sign, he shouted at the artilleryman; "Fire!"

As soon as he gave the order, the artillery on the city wall roared, and the solid bullets went like lightning towards the royal army.

But as soon as the cannon rang out, the royal troops on the opposite side immediately scattered to find the uneven terrain as a barrier and lay down, and at the same time, he saw the royal soldiers lying on the ground and began to shoot one after another.

"Bang ......"

A burst of fire erupted, bullets flew on the city walls, and some soldiers could not dodge and were hit, and fell down with screams, and the city walls were suddenly plunged into chaos.

Yao Hongtao broke out in a cold sweat behind his back, when will the royal musket shoot three hundred meters?

When he was crazy, Lu Fei kept urging the soldiers to dig trenches, but in fact, there were not many shooting targets at all, after all, the accuracy of 300-meter target shooting was not high.

In his daily training, he has learned that in fact, with the increase of distance, the soldier's shooting accuracy is constantly decreasing, even if the range and accuracy of the breech rifle have greatly improved, but there is a limit to human vision and operation.

It is very difficult to accurately shoot a person within 500 meters, and the best shooting distance is within 200 meters.

Therefore, this shot is only to suppress the opponent's artillery, not to pursue the enemy.

After some fire cover, the soldiers dug the trench faster, and none of the soldiers wanted to be smashed by the artillery on the city wall.

Three hours later, a winding trench stretched under Matsue Castle, and the other soldiers entered the trench to expand the trench work.

After the initial shelling, the parliamentarians quickly abandoned their shooting, as the royal soldiers hiding in the trenches simply could not be wounded by solid bullets.

At this time, Lu Fei ordered all the soldiers to enter the trench and surrounded Songjiang City, and at the same time, the mortar cannon carried by two people also entered the trench.

They advanced to a distance of fifty meters from the city walls.

After receiving Lu Fei's order, he immediately threw flowering bullets and lime bullets onto the walls of Songjiang City, and soldiers with falcon rifles also shot at the city walls through the edge of the trenches.

The Battle of Matsue Castle officially began.