Li Xin was recuperating in Lixian, while Gaoyang, a hundred miles to the north, was in a storm, engaged in an unprecedented battle. The battle had been going on for an hour, and the corpses of the Han army under the walls of the northern city were piled up, and as the temperature continued to drop, the icy rain began to mix with snow flakes, falling on the ground and mixing with the blood into a dark red patch. The eyes of Duoduo, who was covered in iron armor, were hidden in the shadow of the helmet, and the Han soldiers, under the supervision of the leaders of each battalion, continued to attack the mountain-shaped city wall under the rain and snow.

The resistance of the head of the city was fierce, and even in this rainy and snowy weather, the muskets failed, and the remodeled Gaoyang city wall lost most of its effectiveness, and the Gaoyang army still broke out with an amazing will to fight. Compared with the northern city, the battle in the west city is more tragic, Gong Adai is equipped with a lot of buildings and cranes for the soldiers of the Eight Banners, although the rain and snow suddenly arrive, the road is muddy, but Dolgon is determined to attack Gaoyang, he can't care about the lives of the soldiers and save his strength.

After a night of roaring, the full army still maintained a considerable morale, and continued to climb the top of the city through the cloud ladder, and once beat the Gaoyang army into a hurry, but the Gaoyang army was always able to repel them with amazing resilience at the most critical moment. Gong Adai was not impatient about this, because he knew that the real battlefield was not in the north city or the west city, but in the south city. The reason why he advanced the offensive rhythm so quickly was just to attract and consume the reserve forces in Gaoyang City and gain more advantages for the real main attack of Nancheng.

For this reason, Dolgon even moved his own Da Min to Xicheng in order to mislead the defenders of Gaoyang that their main attack direction was Xicheng.

In fact, since the siege of the Tartars, there has been a debate about the direction of the enemy's main attack outside the city. Lu Zhifan began to think that the main direction of the Qing army's attack must be the south, but as the war progressed, the pressure on the northwest and the south of the city was no less than that in the south of the city, and especially the offensive in the west of the city was the most violent, and several sections of the city wall changed hands several times. And what made him even more sure that the west of the city was the main direction of the Qing army's attack was that half an hour ago, Dolgon's Da Yan was erected in the Qing army in the west city.

Zheng Xiyao, the general of the Fifth Army Battalion, made roughly the same judgment process as Lu Zhifan, and advocated that most of the new force should be applied to Xicheng.

The killer weapon that has been kept unused has also been brought out of the warehouse basket by basket, the manufacturing materials of these weapons with the siege of the Tartars, it is more and more difficult to obtain, it is not a last resort can not be used, now the pressure in the west of the city is too great, the city wall has changed hands several times, almost to the point that it must be used.

At the same time, large numbers of reserve troops were transferred from various walls to the west of the city to join the battle.

Zhou Jin knew that he didn't know anything about military affairs, especially after the fiasco of ordering the people out of the city without authorization, he rarely paid more attention to how to use soldiers. And the county magistrate Lei Juemin is also indifferent to the hot and cold work of the city defense. But there was one person who came up with a different opinion, which surprised everyone.

Due to the Qing army's strong attack on Gaoyang, the offensive was extremely fierce, and the Gaoyang army was unable to parry. Sun Chengzong, who was sitting in the city, ordered his second son Sun Jian to gather all the family members, and paid for another Ding Zhuang in the city, collecting 500 of them, and handing them over to the Dian Shi Lu domain for unified deployment.

So Sun Jie, who has always been good at scheming, was temporarily arrested and sent to become the commander of this team of Ding Zhuang, and this different opinion was put forward by Sun Jie.

"Lu Dianshi, General Zheng, and Sun Jiao think that the Tatars are attacking the west and north of the city, but they are just attracting the firepower of our Gaoyang army for the main attack in the south of the city. I'm afraid it's not appropriate for us to put our main forces in the West City, after all, the South City has not been renovated......"

Sun Ji has always been cautious in his words and deeds, but that is alone, and now Gao Yang is in danger, whether it should be said or not, as long as it is beneficial to Gao Yang, he knows everything and says everything.

Zheng Xiyao belonged to the chief general of the guest army and acted in charge of Gaoyang's military affairs, and the Dian Shi Lu Zhifan did have some insight in the soldiers, so in most cases, he supported Lu Zhifan's opinion, and this time was no exception. But because of the embarrassment of his identity, he was not the first to object to Sun Jiao's statement.

Lu Zhifan naturally disagreed with Sun Jiao's statement, the fierceness of the battle in Xicheng was by no means a feint, and the corpses piled up under the city were all genuine real Tartars. It was precisely because of this tragedy that he changed his previous view that the west of the city was only a feint. And Sun Ji did not participate in the battle of Xicheng, so it is not surprising to assume that Nancheng is the main attack.

"Second son, military decision-making is arbitrary and not relying on public planning, the decision of the feudal domain has been decided, don't say more!"

The war in Xicheng became more and more intense, and Lu Zhifan did not have the time to argue with Sun Jiao and his scholars, so his words were extremely domineering and very unpolite. But they are all public-minded and seek the country, and Sun Ji naturally understands the general situation and no longer argues with him.

Zhou Jin suddenly spoke: "The words of the second prince are not unreasonable, it is too risky to make a desperate bet, it is better to compromise, the new force can be adjusted, but the flowering bullet can not be used for the first time, just in case." ”

The north wind outside Gaoyang City became more and more intense, and the heavy sleet gradually began to turn into a swan-like snow flake, sandwiched with dripping raindrops, smashing obliquely to the ground. The corpses were slowly covered in snow, revealing only a faint white outline. The fierceness of the battlefield is no longer so shocking, but the cold is pressing, and both the attackers and the defenders are beginning to become weak.

Regardless of the west, north and south of the city, all the Qing troops began to see only shouts and gradually entered the city.

Dolgon, who was located under the general flag in the south of the city, was waiting for this moment, shaking off the ice condensed on the cloth armor, and with a wave of his big hand, the soldiers around him began to wave the flag in his hand, and then the war drums rumbled suddenly, and the dull battlefield broke out again with a earth-shattering killing sound, and the new force that Dolgon had been holding back was dispatched.

The foreplay is enough, the real show has just begun, although this heavy rain has made the battle difficult, but it has really helped Dolgon, the Gaoyang army is good at using firearms, and now the heavy rain has broken its arms, and the battle of real knives and guns, the children of the Eight Banners really have few opponents in this world.

The Qing army, which was running wildly, stepped on the snow all over the ground and had severed limbs and severed arms, rushed straight to the wall, and climbed the ladder to the wall like ants. The defenders of Gaoyang City almost reached the end of the crossbow, and the Qing army climbed to the top of the city with great strength, followed by an even more tragic hand-to-hand battle. And the Gao Yang army also seemed to have burst out with amazing endurance at the critical moment, and finally drove down the Qing army that was desperately trying to climb the city.

The war drums rumbled like winter thunder, accompanied by rain and snow, and countless tartars rushed to Gaoyang City like a tide.

But at this critical moment, the sound of explosions spread one after another. Due to the rain and snow, visibility was extremely low, and Dolgon couldn't tell where the explosion was coming from, and his spirit couldn't help but be nervous.

The car standing outside the Gaoyang city wall was faintly visible, and the sound of explosions was still heard, and finally the soldiers who reported the news finally brought news that Dolgon could not believe. The head of Gaoyang City was throwing flower mines, the attack on the city was blocked, the losses were heavy, and several building cars were all scrapped.

The building car and the ladder are the main equipment for climbing the city, without these two things, can it still fill the earth and attack the city? Today's weather is not suitable, how to prepare in a hurry? Dolgon seems to have suddenly woken up, flowering bullets? Now that the weather is raining and snowing, what firearms can still be used normally? This is obviously not in line with common sense, but it is true!

Dolgon sneered, what a Li Xin, he actually deceived the king again. It's a pity that the Ming Dynasty emphasized literature and light martial arts, and it is destined that such a person will not be able to be reused by Chongzhen's old man, and if you flee back to Gaoyang, you will be able to throw yourself into a dead end.

With the use of flowering shells, the balance of victory in the Battle of Gaoyang gradually tilted in favor of the Gaoyang army, and the morale of the last wave of fresh troops of the Qing army was gradually lost. Dorgon sighed, knowing that the siege had failed today.

A moment later, the sound of gold and iron resounded over the entire battlefield, and the sleet finally turned into a heavy snow of goose feathers flying in the sky, and the exhausted Qing army left Gaoyang City like a low tide and rolled back to the camp.

The defeat in this battle was beyond Dolgon's expectations, after all, there were many unfavorable factors superimposed, if there was no camp howl that greatly affected the morale of the army, if it had been known that the defenders of Gaoyang could also use firearms such as flowering thunder in heavy rain...... But there is no assumption, and all Dorgon can do is fight again with his army.

He still has a real killer weapon that he hasn't used, that is, the more than 10,000 troops that Turg in Hejian Province is rushing back in the starry night. As long as Turg rushes back, the defenders of Gaoyang will already be greatly injured in today's battle, see what Sun Chengzong and Li Xin will use to resist the iron cavalry of the Qing Dynasty!

Li Xin, who was hundreds of miles away, didn't know about the tragic battle situation in Gaoyang, as the sun set westward, snow flakes actually floated in the sky, and almost instantly evolved into a heavy snowfall. The heavy snow that came late in the eleventh year of Chongzhen hid the traces of Li Xin's 600 people, and no one knew that there was still a cavalry in Lixian County that would affect the entire Zhili and Shandong battlefields in the future.

Of course, even Li Xin himself is not sure about this. The sudden snowfall made him have to advance the plan to attack the Iron Lantern Inspection Division, at this time everyone was wearing only single clothes, and when it snowed heavily, the temperature might drop below zero in the next day, and it became a top priority to solve the cotton clothes of these people.

Li Xin finally realized the true meaning of the saying that he didn't know how expensive firewood and rice were expensive, and admired the red army in later generations that could move thousands of miles without any logistical guarantee. Now, they are facing the same situation, almost all the major counties in the vicinity have fallen into the hands of the Tartars, there is no cotton clothing, no food, and they need to rob every qiē in person.

"Didn't the scouts who went to the Iron Lantern believe in it yet?"

Li Xin could clearly feel the coldness of the iron armor covered outside through the single clothes on his body, and Lu Jiu was also shivering from the cold.

"Could it be an accident?"

It is a local from Gaoyang who has been to Lixian and has also been to the iron lantern, and it is unlikely that he will get lost, but now that the snow is heavy, he can barely see his fingers, and it is difficult to say whether he can lose his way. Zhang Shi rubbed his hands, thinking that it was unlikely that the scout would get lost!

"Don't wait, gather the people, let's go now!"

Note: Da Ming: Also known as Yang Yang, only the commander of the whole army with a noble status will have it. It also tends to be the main direction of attack of the enemy when the two armies face each other.