"In this case, we can't attack too early, I'm afraid we will have to wait until the commander and his army arrive!" Wang Luyun didn't want to let this Qian Niubei have any initiative, so he immediately continued: "However, it is not easy on the Huzhou City side now, in order to avoid any accidents, I think it is still necessary to attack them one or two, so that they can't attack the city with all their might!" ”

"Yes, today we will attack them first, try to buy time for Huzhou City, but we can't beat them out, otherwise Lin Chengting will retreat all at once, and we can't stop it alone!" After Qian Niubei released his wild words, he did not say that he would wait for Lin Zhe to lead the army to arrive.

After all, although he knew that Lin Zhe wanted to completely annihilate this Taiping army this time, in order to dispel their idea of continuing to send troops south.

But he also knew that it would take two days for Lin Zhe to lead the army to arrive, and before that, he couldn't let the Taiping army take Huzhou City, otherwise it would be difficult to do it in the future.

Therefore, the necessary harassment and combat are still necessary, but the Taiping army cannot be scared, otherwise, Lin Chengting will realize that there is nothing to do, and he is afraid that he will withdraw the army directly, and it will not be so easy to pursue it when the time comes.

After a cursory discussion between the two, they formulated a preliminary strategy, and then the more than 400 cavalry of the Yu Sheng Army began to march to the east, and they were going to sneak attack the flank and rear positions of the Taiping Army.

At the same time, at the head of Huzhou City, Shi Langyi looked at the Taiping army retreating from the city one after another, but there was no joy on his face, just now more than 2,000 Taiping soldiers drove more than 2,000 Ding Zhuang, risking a large number of casualties to fill the moat.

Huzhou City is not a famous city, just an ordinary city, although there are city walls, but the city walls are not too tall, and the moat is not wide enough and not deep enough.

Under the premise that the Taiping army paid heavy casualties, it was not impossible to fill this moat.

Lin Chengting, who was outside the city, looked at the moat that had been filled, and finally showed his first joy in the past two days: "Pass the order, start attacking the city immediately!" ”

As his order was delivered, the soldiers of the Taiping Army slowly approached the city walls with the siege equipment they had built these days, while more soldiers followed closely behind with ladders and so on.

In order to fight the first battle, Lin Chengting sent the first batch of soldiers to attack the city as high as more than 4,000, not only a large number of cold-armed soldiers who were ready to climb the city wall for hand-to-hand combat, but also more than 2,000 musketeers who were ready to go to the city for fire cover.

Looking at these Taiping soldiers pouring over outside the city, Shi Langyi couldn't help but get nervous, he knew that from now on he was about to face the biggest crisis.

"Order the artillery company to concentrate on the siege engines of the thief army!"

Although the First Mixed Regiment had two artillery companies, because the Fifth Artillery Company was newly built, the shelves were not erected, and there was not a single artillery piece, and only the First Artillery Company was left to fight, which contained three 800-pound mountain-splitting guns and three 500-pound mountain-splitting guns.

In addition, the Qing army in Huzhou City originally had some artillery, but most of them were small-caliber artillery under 300 catties, and the power was too small, and basically it could only be used as large-caliber rifles. The remaining 500-pound artillery pieces were requisitioned by Yu Shengjun and assigned to the First Artillery Company.

However, in the offensive and defensive battles ahead, because the Taiping army's artillery had a large caliber and long range, and people were not stupid, they knew that they would give priority to attacking the artillery erected by Yu Sheng's army on the city.

After losing two 500-pound guns in a row, Shi Langyi had to order his own artillery to avoid the battle and avoid losses as much as possible.

Now that the enemy army has officially attacked the city, Shi Langyi doesn't care whether his artillery will be suppressed, and directly orders the artillery troops to fight.

Immediately, the artillerymen of the 1st Artillery Company struggled to push out the remaining five or six 500-pound and 800-pound guns, and the muzzles of the guns were exposed through the gaps in the city walls.

As the artillery commanders ordered to fire one after another, Yu Shengjun at the head of the city finally sent out their own artillery counterattack, and the cannonballs made of solid balls streaked across the sky, and then flew towards the tall siege equipment of the Taiping army.

The first round of artillery shelling did not appear any miracles, and as the company commander of the First Artillery Company, Bing Qusong, expected, not a single enemy siege machine was hit, and the first round of artillery bombardment was just a proofreading shot, and it was often necessary to shoot multiple shells in order to hit accurately, and it was basically impossible to get a hit with one shot for the accuracy of artillery and sighting equipment in this era.

However, it failed to hit the enemy's siege vehicles and other equipment, but it also achieved a lot of results, because there were still a large number of Taiping infantry around these siege equipment, and the shells that did not hit the siege equipment basically fell into the crowd, and then ploughed out a bloody ditch.

There were so many Taiping troops outside the city, densely packed with a large area, there was no need to aim at all, and by the way, a single shell could kill and injure many Taiping troops.

"Hurry up and load, the gun commander adjusts the parameters and prepares for the second round of shelling!" The officers of the cavalry company shouted loudly.

Soon, the six guns of the loaded first artillery company opened fire again, this time the luck was much better, a solid ball shell fired by a 500-pound artillery shot directly hit one of the siege vehicles, although this solid ball shell will not explode, but the huge impact force is directly knocked into several wooden frames, these improvised siege vehicles seem to be tall, but in fact they are very fragile, casually broken by a few pillars of solid ball shells, they will basically collapse.

Seeing that one of his siege vehicles was destroyed, Lin Chengting said angrily: "What are the artillery teams doing, why don't you quickly defeat the Qing Demon's artillery team!" ”

In the face of Lin Chengting's strict orders, the gunners of the Taiping Army did not dare to slack off, and they all accelerated the speed of reloading, and then aimed their guns at the gun position of Yu Shengjun on the head of the city.

Although the accuracy is quite poor, it can't stand up to the many cannons, almost one by one cannonballs smashed over, and occasionally a shell will fall into Yu Shengjun's gun position, killing and injuring Yu Shengjun's gunner.

Fortunately, Yu Shengjun's artillery is not much, the deployment is quite scattered, and there is also the cover of the city wall, although from time to time there are Taiping artillery shells coming in, but as long as the artillery itself is not hit, only a few artillery soldiers are killed and wounded, the impact is not great, Yu Shengjun's artillery company is in accordance with the specifications of the equipment of the twelve-pounder gun, and each artillery company has more than 100 people.

And these mountain splitting cannons can not be used so much, and the surplus artillery on weekdays is used as a logistical force, doing some to carry artillery shells, or simply carrying rifles as a reserve force.

Now that there is a dead artillery soldier in the front, the artillery in the rear can immediately run up to replenish it, and the sufficient reserve artillery is enough for the 1st Artillery Company to fight for a long time.

The artillery of both sides continued to shoot and rumble, and the shells of the Taiping army smashed on the head of the city from time to time, taking away the lives of the defenders at the head of the city, and the artillery of Yu Shengjun also continued to shoot at the Taiping army outside the city, in addition to destroying six siege vehicles of the Taiping army, it also killed and injured a large number of Taiping soldiers.

In the rumbling artillery, the siege troops of the Taiping army were already gradually approaching, and when they entered a distance of 500 meters, Bing Qusong gave a loud order: "Replace the scattered bullets and shoot rapidly!" ”

Hearing this order, the artillerymen of the 1st Artillery Company of Yu Shengjun sped up their movements, they quickly loaded the artillery with scattered shells, and the artillery commanders did not carefully aim at those siege equipment, but fired in the direction where a large number of enemy troops gathered.

Moreover, often after the cannon is fired, the gunner will not carefully clean the chamber, and after casual cleaning, it is reloaded, so that the firing speed is greatly accelerated, and it can often reach the level of more than three rounds a minute.

As for whether such rapid fire will lead to a decrease in the life of the barrel of the gun, or even a blow up of the barrel, this is no longer something that the artillerymen need to consider.

The First Artillery Company carried out scattered bullets and rapid fire, which instantly brought a large number of casualties to the outside of the city, and often a large number of Taiping troops had to fall as soon as the cannon went down.

However, the people hit by the artillery were nothing compared to the siege force of the Taiping army, which was as high as more than 4,000.

So the Taiping army continued to rush forward!

At this time, Shi Langyi had already drawn out his command knife: "Shoot with all your might!" ”

As his order fell, the herald banner soldiers behind him also waved the big flag in their hands, and the officers of Yu Shengjun all over the city saw Shi Langyi's flag order, and immediately shouted one by one: "The whole company has it, shoot with all your might!" ”

The soldiers of Yu Shengjun, who had already been loaded and on standby, pulled the trigger together, only to see that the crisp crackling sound continued to sound, although the shooting time of each company was a little uneven, but strictly speaking, this was still a salvo!

More than 1,000 rounds of bullets rushed into the Taiping army formation 450 meters away outside the city.

Shooting at such a long distance, even if the Linde rifle is a Mini rifle, the accuracy is much stronger than that of a smoothbore gun, but the actual combat accuracy is also limited, maybe you aim at an enemy and shoot, but it is basically impossible to hit the enemy you are aiming at.

However, it doesn't matter, because when shooting from a high position, the area of the attack is not just a front, but the front and top areas are all areas that you can hit.

You may miss the enemy you're targeting, but you're likely to hit the enemy in front of you, right or left.

Add to that the fact that you're not fighting alone, but a salvo of more than 1,000 people firing at the same time, and the enemy you miss is often hit by friendly forces.

Just the first round of volleys, the Taiping army more than 400 meters away fell more than 200 people in unison!

However, this can no longer move the commander of the Taiping Army, Lin Chengting, he already has a full understanding of the sharpness of Yu Shengjun's musket, in the past two days, in order to fill the moat, there are more than 2,000 dead and wounded, and the regular soldiers of the Taiping Army have at least more than 600 dead and wounded.

Now that the city is officially attacked, Lin Chengting estimates that the thousands of people under his command who are not killed or injured will not be able to rush to the city!

"It's time to charge with all your might!" Lin Chengting said this to his herald, and his standard-bearer also waved the military flag in his hand, ordering the soldiers in front to start charging with all their might.

Immediately, many Taiping Army division commanders, brigade commanders, pawn commanders and other officers shouted one by one: "Rush, kill the demons!" ”

"Just rush to the top of the city and we'll win!"

"Break into Huzhou City, grab money and gun women!"

"The commander has an order, and the sword will not be sealed for three days after the city is broken!"