The provisional government did not block the news of the war, and the situation in Shandong was published in the "China Daily".

Few of the people of Nanjing saw that the situation was very urgent, and what they saw was that the Wehrmacht had captured Yizhou and annihilated 50,000 or 60,000 Qing soldiers, and the city of Nanjing had become a sea of joy in the past few days.

Liu Weimin, who has already received a briefing on the situation, knows very well that the situation in Shandong is now very tense, and Wang Qiang's large-scale interspersed operation has indeed mobilized Qing troops, if it is not for the occupation of Jinan, Tan Tai may not withdraw his troops from Yizhou at all, and Huang Degong may not have a few bloody battles if he wants to take Yizhou.

But now that Shandong's Qing soldiers are gathered outside Jinan, if Wang Qiang and his regiment are really lost in Jinan City, even if all the hundreds of thousands of Qing soldiers outside Jinan City are wiped out, Liu Weimin will not think that the national defense army has won the battle, and Liu Weimin feels that the chief must think the same way.

Now Liu Weimin has no other choice but to stay in the chemical plant all day long, supervising the transformation of the chemical plant's production line day and night, and he now only wants to produce more ZHA medicine as soon as possible, so as to make up for the shortage of national defense forces as soon as possible.

All eyes turned to the city of Jinan, where the battle would become a watershed in the entire Northern Expedition.

Wang Qiang hadn't slept well all night, he knew that today's battle would be extremely fierce, and he had been thinking carefully all night about how he could hold on for more time.

Today, the Qing soldiers did not attack, and the regiment was given enough time to rearrange, and countless sandbags had been piled up on the city walls, which could better protect the soldiers and allow them to shoot better.

Dozens of trebuchets have been made today, and they have all been placed on the top of the city. Except for Wang Qiang's guards. Almost all the soldiers of a regiment were arranged on the ramparts. After half a day of training, the five hundred young men brought by a group will become the main force of the projectile zha medicine pack.

Wang Qiang's guards had more than 100 people, and in addition to the same equipment as other soldiers, each of them also carried three grenades, which were not used up in Japan, and Wang Qiang's guards became the reserve of the whole city, where the most critical was where they would reinforce them.

Except for trebuchets. The walls were already piled up with usable garrison supplies collected by the whole city, including barrels of cooking oil, which would be boiled and poured down by the people.

As soon as the sky was bright, Wang Qiang got up and came to the South Gate Tower, countless cooking smoke had risen in the camp of the Qing soldiers, it seemed that the Qing soldiers were also preparing to have breakfast, or after a while, the tragic battle would start.

A group of soldiers is also eating breakfast, and with tens of thousands of stones of grain and grass in the city, there is no shortage of food. Breakfast was all dry rice, although there were only pickles. The soldiers still ate very well, and Wang Qiang ate a bowl of rice on the city wall defended by the second battalion.

Before the sun rose above the horizon, the camp of the Qing soldiers was already full of people, and a large number of Qing soldiers pushed and carried countless siege equipment and began to hug in the direction of the Jinan city wall.

Today's main attack was the infantry army that arrived yesterday, Wu Sangui asked for a break on the grounds that the casualties of the troops were too large, and Tan Tai had to put the Guanning army on the second line.

More than two miles away from the infantry army, Tan Tai personally led 20,000 cavalry to press the battle behind, and Wu Sangui felt that Tan Tai was personally supervising the battle.

The explosion of the trebuchet on the city wall throwing the zha medicine bag indicated that the battle had begun today, and the front of the Qing army's attack was larger today, which made Wang Qiang feel that manpower was very short.

Dozens of zha medicine packets flew into the swarming Qing soldiers, a large number of Qing soldiers were blown to the ground, most of them were not killed, the wounded Qing soldiers rolled on the ground and wailed, and the footsteps of the Qing soldiers behind began to hesitate a little.

But the generals with the swords of the Ming Huang quickly rushed up, and the Qing soldiers were rushed to the city wall again.

The huge siege engine was also getting closer and closer to the city wall, and Xie Kui was already leading the grenadier in the direction where the siege engine had come.

The rifles on the city wall have been fired, and the main targets of their attack are the musketeers and archers of the Qing soldiers, and when these Qing soldiers get close to the city wall, the threat to the soldiers on the city is still great.

Although the zha medicine bag and rifle had killed and wounded thousands of Qing soldiers, the front of the Qing soldiers' attack was indeed too large, and Wang Qiang also felt that the firepower density was a little insufficient, but now there was no other way but to grit his teeth and stand up.

"Tell the soldiers to save bullets, set the zha medicine bag on fire and throw it under the city walls!" Wang Qiang ordered the guards.

The soldiers who received the order began to put down their rifles in their hands, holding the zha medicine bag in one hand and the fire fold in the other, sticking out their heads and seeing that the Qing soldiers had arrived under the city wall, they lit it and threw it down.

The rows of cauldrons under the city wall have already boiled boiling water and boiling oil, and many people in Jinan City began to use wooden basins to carry the boiling water and boiling oil towards the city wall.

The siege engines were getting closer, and the musketeers and archers above began to fire and shoot arrows at the city.

However, the shields on the siege vehicles could not protect against a group of rifles, and in the confrontation with the Wehrmacht at the head of the city, the Qing soldiers on the first siege vehicle were soon wiped out, although the Qing soldiers below were still pushing the siege vehicles to rush to the city wall, but the current siege vehicles were nothing more than large ladders.

Wang Qiang, who was standing on the tower of the South Gate City, held a telescope and searched the entire battlefield, and a row of catapults appeared in front of the Qing soldiers of the brigade, which attracted Wang Qiang's attention.

After Wang Qiang observed carefully, he found that these catapults of the Qing soldiers were also ready to throw zha medicine bags, and the Qing soldiers' catapults were about 500 meters away from the city wall.

"Order the mortar company to be ready for battle and kill these catapults of the Qing soldiers for me!"

Although Wang Qiang did not want to consume the precious shells, he now had to give the order.

The mortar company, which had been waiting under the city wall for a long time, quickly went up to the city wall and set up a battle formation, and the company commander also saw dozens of large trebuchets lined up in a row in the telescope.

Tan Tai saw that the Wehrmacht did not use artillery during the siege of the city the day before yesterday, and took it for granted that the Wehrmacht in the city did not carry many shells, so he sent dozens of trebuchets to the front and prepared to throw zha medicine bags on the city.

The day before yesterday, the Qing soldiers' red-coated cannons were destroyed, and there was not much gunpowder left, and the Qing soldiers only made more than 100 zha medicine bags weighing more than a dozen catties. Today, Tan Tai is ready to throw them all on the city wall of Jinan.

The combat readiness of a mortar can be much faster than that of a trebuchet. Soon the mortar battery on the city walls was ready to shoot. The shooting elements had already been measured, and the gunners did not need to re-measure the distance.

"One salvo from the whole company!" The company commander gave the order to open fire.

Tan Tai never dreamed that the shells of the Wehrmacht in the city would fly to the head of the trebuchet so quickly, and the explosion sound after more than a hundred zha medicine packs were detonated spread more than ten miles away, and none of the more than 2,000 Qing soldiers who operated the trebuchet left alive.

Tan Tai closed his eyes in pain, and when he opened them, it was as if the world in front of him had turned blood red. Tan Tai shook his horse a few times and almost fell off his horse, but the soldiers next to him hurriedly stepped forward to support him.

The corpses of Qing soldiers were already piled up under the city walls. Seven or eight siege vehicles had been blown apart by grenades fired from grenades, and Tan Tai ordered the siege troops to withdraw.

Seeing that the Qing soldiers retreated, Wang Qiang breathed a sigh of relief, the Qing soldiers attacked for more than an hour this time, and the regiment no longer had yesterday's good luck, the casualties of the soldiers were much greater than yesterday, and more than 30 people had been sacrificed under the guns and bows and arrows of the Qing soldiers, and more than 120 people were injured.

Wang Qiang's biggest concern is the lack of ammunition, although the battle just now was not as long as the day before yesterday, but the intensity was much higher than the day before yesterday. The consumption of ammunition in a mass was also much greater than the day before yesterday, and many soldiers had only a dozen rounds of ammunition left. There were also very few grenades left for the grenadiers, only more than 600 mortar shells.

The zha medicine bag made in a hurry yesterday is not very powerful, and the black huo medicine can only be more powerful if it is fried in a confined space, and although the zha medicine bag wrapped in cloth strips has a lot of broken tiles, the lethality is still extremely limited.

Even so, nearly half of the more than 2,000 zha pill packs had been used up in the battle just now.

The casualties caused by the more than an hour of fighting were even greater for the Qing soldiers, Tan Tai roughly estimated that there were probably more than 10,000 casualties, and the corpses of the Qing soldiers piled up under the city wall made the city wall look a lot shorter.

Although none of the Qing soldiers who suffered heavy casualties climbed the city wall of Jinan, Tan Tai had no intention of giving up, and let the Qing soldiers withdraw to breathe a sigh of relief, and he also had to rearrange it, Wu Sangui's Guan Ning army had rested for so long, and then he had to let them go.

Ma Yingkui had already passed Zhangqiu at this time, only more than 20 miles away from Jinan City, and the scouts had just come back to report to Ma Yingkui that they had heard the rumbling explosion of Jinan City, which made Ma Yingkui even more anxious.

Ma Yingkui ordered the troops to remove all the non-combat things except for the ammunition brought to the Seventh Division and the First Regiment and put them on the side of the road, and began to trot, running for more than an hour, Ma Yingkui also heard the explosion from Jinan City, but the explosion was too loud, Ma Yingkui couldn't figure out what was going on, but prayed in his heart not to let the Qing soldiers blow up the city wall of Jinan.

After a while, he could no longer hear the sound of gunfire from Jinan City, and Ma Yingkui's heart began to sink.

After running for another half an hour, the sound of guns and cannons came from the head of Jinan City again, the sound was clearer than half an hour ago, listening to Ma Yingkui's ears, it was simply the sound of heaven, and the sound of guns and cannons also gave the soldiers of the garrison division a booster, and the original somewhat deflated footsteps became powerful again.

But this attack Tan Tai really fought hard, except for the more than 6,000 cavalry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, all the cavalry, including the Mongol cavalry, dismounted and joined the siege team.

In this way, Wang Qiang on the city wall immediately felt a huge pressure, and in less than fifteen minutes, all the zha medicine bags had been thrown out by trebuchets and soldiers, but it only blocked the Qing soldiers for less than ten minutes, and countless Qing soldiers still poured towards the city wall.

The Qing soldiers who arrived later even picked up the corpses of the Qing soldiers in front of them, and stepped on the corpses of these Qing soldiers, and they didn't even use a ladder to get away from the city wall.

A large number of soldiers had already sent their rifles down the city walls, and rushed up with their knives and guns from under the walls, and their rifles had run out of bullets.

On the city wall not far from the South Gate Tower, a large group of Qing soldiers began to climb the city wall, and the defenders on this section of the city wall had already suffered casualties.

"Quick! These soldiers must be driven down! ”

Wang Qiang held a pistol in his hand and ran towards this section of the city wall with the guards, the speed of the Qing soldiers climbing the city wall was not as fast as the rifle bullets in the hands of the guards, and when Wang Qiang took the guards to recapture this section of the city wall, the city wall was already full of the corpses of the Qing soldiers.

Almost every section of the city wall was in danger, Wang Qiang's guards had run out of bullets, and the guards had already pulled out their grenades and began to throw them under the wall.

"Order the mortar company to quickly bring the shells up and use them as grenades to smash them under the city walls."

Wang Qiang no longer cared whether the mortar shells would blow up the city wall, and hurriedly ordered the guards around him. (To be continued.) )