When the scouts reported to Liu Zhaoji that the Qing soldiers outside Guide had abandoned their fortifications and all entered Guide City, Liu Zhaoji regretted it a little.

Previously, Liu Zhaoji only thought about preventing the Qing army from desperately, but he didn't expect the Qing army to shrink its defense. There are a lot of artillery in the city of Guide, and there are also a large number of Qing soldiers equipped with firearms, using the city wall, these firearms can still play a great role, at least it is extremely difficult for the sappers to get close to the city wall and blast.

I have to say that Li Guohan's idea was the best defensive method that the Qing army could adopt at present, and the setback of the first army's attack early the next morning fully confirmed this.

In addition to arranging two regiments as reserves to prevent the Qing cavalry from sneaking attacks, the other sieges were basically the flip board when attacking Yucheng, and then this time the situation was completely different from the beginning.

When the mountain artillery regiment of the First Army began to prepare for artillery fire on the city wall, as soon as a salvo was fired, Liu Zhaoji saw it very clearly in the telescope, because the fortifications were piled up with sandbags on the city wall, and the shelling effect was not good, if you want to effectively destroy these fortifications, unless the shells explode directly inside, the requirements for the artillery are too high, and Liu Zhaoji knows that they cannot do it.

At present, the First Army is only equipped with 36 mountain guns and 36 mortars, and half of these artillery pieces are divided into a possible sneak attack by the Qing cavalry, and half of the artillery is simply impossible to deal a devastating blow to the city wall.

Although the defenders on the city walls were not cleared, and even the general artillery on it was still there, the siege troops of a division and a battalion still covered the sappers and rushed up.

As soon as they rushed less than a mile from the city wall, all kinds of artillery on the city began to fire, and a dozen or so guns of various kinds were all fired solid lead bullets. Fist-sized hands whistled at the besieging troops. Despite the skirmishers. But a dozen buckshots knocked over five or six soldiers, and the others quickly fell to the ground.

Taking advantage of the interval between the artillery fires, the troops continued to rush towards the edge of the city wall, seeing that they were less than two hundred meters away from the city wall, the artillery on the city head rang out again, this time all the shots were shotguns, and a rain of bullets almost covered the entire siege force, and more than a dozen soldiers fell. Before the soldiers could stand up and rush forward again, there was another sound of bursting bean-like firearms, and the soldiers quickly fell down again.

Many soldiers began to raise their rifles to attack the Qing soldiers on the city wall, but at a distance of nearly 200 meters, the target of the Qing soldiers hiding behind the sandbags was too small, and the firepower of the siege soldiers did not cause any damage to the Qing soldiers.

Zhuang Zigu held the binoculars and watched the soldiers fall one by one under the fire of the Qing soldiers, and suddenly became anxious, "Order the troops to withdraw quickly!" Following Zhuang Zigu's order, the soldiers carried their sacrificed and wounded comrades and hurriedly retreated, in the process of retreating. The artillery of the Qing army fired again, causing the death of three more soldiers.

The siege troops rested for about a quarter of an hour. Attacking the city wall again, the same scene happened again, and Zhuang Zigu felt that he couldn't fight like this.

Zhuang Zigu ordered the troops to rest in place, and was about to go to find Liu Zhaoji, but received a notice to let the division commander go to the command tent for a meeting.

"Commander, you can't fight like this, the casualties of the troops are too great, and the Tartar artillery is hidden in the fortifications, and our artillery can't clear it." As soon as Zhuang Zigu entered the tent, he looked up and saw that everyone had arrived, so he said to Liu Zhaoji.

"You don't need to say it, I've seen it all, what do you say?" Liu Zhaoji stared at Zhuang Zigu and said.

"Commander, why do we want to return to Decheng? The purpose of our fight is to cut off the grain route of the Manchu court, I think we can bypass Guide and march directly to Xuchang, once Xuchang is captured, their grain route will be completely broken, I think they still hold on to Guide? Zhuang Zigu thought for a moment, came to the military map hanging on the tent and said.

"I'm afraid this won't work, right? Let's go around here, the Qing army has 30,000 or 40,000 cavalry, and we can cut off our logistics supply lines at any time, and our guns and cannons can't even compare to broadswords and spears without ammunition. Lou Ting stared at the map for a long time and said with some hesitation.

Chief of Staff He Ying also stared at the map carefully, pondered for a long time, and then said: "It will definitely not work if we don't fight in Germany, Division Commander Wang is right, our logistics supply cannot be guaranteed, and we can't fight for long only with our existing ammunition and food reserves." ”

Listening to Zhuang Zigu and the other two's words, Liu Zhaoji sneered, "This is a good idea, in the future, if we encounter the Tartars in the city, we will either hide or bypass, and then wait for them to go out of the city to do evil again, and it will be good to fight in Beijing City in the future?" ”

From He Ying to below, all the officers saw that Liu Zhaoji's anger was on the verge of exploding at this time, and sure enough, without waiting for a few people to speak again, Liu Zhaoji slapped the marching table and shouted:

"What do you all mean? Hauge retracted his head into a turtle shell, and you can't do anything about it? I see that you are used to fighting with the wind, and I can't see that the troops have suffered some casualties, so I don't believe that Guide City is made of steel and iron, it is really made of steel, and I will knock a hole in it today! ”

Liu Zhaoji saw that everyone's idea was not to return to Decheng, which was really a bit angry, he was not only risking the fire of these gangs, but also his own fire.

It seems that this kind of thinking of fear of casualties is not only in himself, but also in the whole army, Liu Zhaoji feels that this kind of thinking is more serious than not being able to defeat Guide City, and in the long run, the first army may become a master army.

Liu Zhaoji was so angry that the tent suddenly fell silent.

Zhuang Zigu was still a little unconvinced, "Commander, I didn't mean that, I just wanted us to fight in the face, and we would definitely be able to lure Haoge out, as long as he came out, it would be easy for us to kill him." ”

"What elicit out? He just can't come out of the city, and he still has more than 40,000 cavalry outside the city? How are you doing? It's only been a few years since you lived a good life, and you lost all your original blood? Where did Zhuang Zigu, who fought with Geng Jimao in Yangzhou City, go? Liu Zhaoji became more and more angry, pointing at Zhuangzigu and yelling.

Zhuang Zigu saw that the army commander was really angry, and he lowered his head and didn't dare to speak.

"Siege again tomorrow morning, the chief of staff will go down to supervise the production of a few more siege vehicles, make more ladders, the steel plate of the siege vehicle should be thicker, it is best to withstand the bombardment of the general's artillery, the artillery regiment will go down and hurry up to prepare, don't save shells tomorrow, be sure to knock all the artillery on the city wall to me when attacking the city!"

Liu Zhaoji pointed to Wang Zecheng and the two regiment commanders defending the cavalry of the Qing army and said: "Tomorrow all the artillery will be used to attack the city, and you will not be equipped with artillery, but if you let a Qing cavalry come over, you will not do Wang Zecheng, the commander of the cavalry brigade, and you two regiment commanders should not be either!." ”

After the order was issued, Liu Zhaoji's face was grim, and he looked at the division and regimental officers in front of him, "Our first army is the first team to follow the Dadu Governor, yes, the Dadu Governor has brought us the best weapons, allowing us to develop from the original Zhongguan Battalion to today's powerful army." Yes, we have won a lot of battles, a lot of big wins! ”

Liu Zhaoji raised his voice, "There have never been major casualties in our old division in these battles, and I am very happy and proud of this!" Ladies and gentlemen, are these victories due to you? Can you win without the new equipment? ”

Liu Zhaoji's voice cooled, "I think if this continues, our first army will soon become a 'master' army, and there are still millions of troops in the Tartars, and we will encounter stronger and stronger in the future, but the bloodiness of our first army is gone, I'm really worried, how will we fight in the future?" ”

There was silence in the command tent, and listening to Liu Zhaoji's words, all the officers turned red and lowered their heads.

"Army commander, my Zhuangzigu will not be cowardly, and our first division will not be cowardly, please rest assured, tomorrow my Zhuangzigu will be the first to rush to Guide City!" Zhuang Zigu's eyes were red, and he roared with his neck.

"It's not that you Zhuang Zigu is the first to attack the city, you are the division commander, bring out the blood of the whole division to me, this is your responsibility, and this is what you should do." Liu Zhaoji glanced at Zhuang Zigu coldly and said.

"Don't show me determination, go back and prepare for tomorrow's battle, boost my morale, tomorrow you must capture Guide City in a battle, if you Zhuang Zigu and Lou Ting can't take it, I Liu Zhaoji will personally lead people!" Liu Zhaoji propped up the marching table in front of him with both hands, stared at the group of officers and said in a deep voice.

Zhuang Zigu and Lou Ting still wanted to speak, but Liu Zhaoji waved his hand to stop them, and the two had to retreat from the command tent with their subordinates.

There were already bursts of roars outside the tent, Liu Zhaoji sat on the chair and leaned his head on the back of the chair, closed his eyes and thought about the battle process of the First Army, and felt a little glad in his heart, if it wasn't for some setbacks under Guide City, the First Army might not have woken up from his own.

Hauge and Li Guohan were a little puzzled by the retreat of the Wehrmacht's siege operations, the kind of artillery shells of the Wehrmacht were indeed terrifying, although there were not many on the city wall, but the damage to personnel and fortifications was great, if there were more such artillery of the Wehrmacht, Hauge and Li Guohan did not know whether they could hold on to the city wall.

"Lord Wang, I think they are going to get close to the city wall today, and blow up the city wall like in Yucheng, and they must not be allowed to get close to the city wall." Li Guohan looked at the bombed fortifications on the city wall and said to Hauge.

"Pass my order, and give a reward of ten taels of silver to each of the non-commissioned officers who killed and wounded the Wehrmacht with artillery today. Tomorrow they will definitely attack with all their might, if there are a large number of kills and wounds to the Wehrmacht, this king will not be stingy with rewards, there are those who are afraid of death and avoid war, don't blame this king for being ruthless under the sword! ”

Hauge personally guarded the city wall today and saw the whole battle process, although he repelled the attack of the Wehrmacht today, but Hauge felt more and more that the danger was approaching step by step, and whether he could escape this catastrophe was uncertain.

Although the Wehrmacht did not besiege the city of Guide, Hauge knew that the Wehrmacht did not need to besiege the city at all, once the city of Guide was lost, the Wehrmacht would drive straight in, and once Xuchang was lost, the grain route to the north would be cut off, and at that time, without the Wehrmacht, Dorgon would also kill himself.

Thinking of this, Haoge was a little sad, this time he moved to Henan, and he really looked at the queen. At the same time, he also knew that the Qing Dynasty had reached the last moment of life and death, so he came to Henan in consideration of the overall situation, but he did not expect the situation in Henan to be so bad, as soon as he arrived in Henan, he faced the most elite army of the National Defense Army, and he had to fight to the death for today's plan, hoping to make the National Defense Force retreat in difficulty. (To be continued.) )