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On the other side, outside Dangtu County, the Mawei Army gathered, and more than 10,000 troops gathered at the west gate and north gate of Dangtu County. Although several sides were blocked by moats, it was officially the case, and more than 30,000 troops of Leerjin were also trapped in the city. It's funny to say that these more than 30,000 people were actually trapped by the Mawei army in their early 10,000s.

In a real sense, it was not only the more than 10,000 people of the army at that time who trapped the 40,000 men and horses of Leerjin, but also a total of 30 warships of the Navy's Yuanzi formation and some warships of the Sixth Fleet. The county seat of Dangtu County is not big, but the south gate of the city is the Guxi River, which is a tributary of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, from the mouth of Danyang Lake in the east to Xiaohuajin and the Yunliang River, and to the west of Dangtu City, the Jinzhu is concerned about the Yangtze River. With a total length of about 50 miles, it is an important river in Dangtu.

And this tributary of the Yangtze River can also allow the Mawei battleship to drive to the south of Dangtu County, blocking the retreat of the Qing army, and because the distance is close enough, the cannon of the battleship mountain can completely reach the city wall, that is to say, this small Dangtu County is within the range of the Mawei warship.

After the defeat of the Qing army in the field and the loss of the elite, Le Erjin had to order the army to retreat, but the Mawei army was also in pursuit of the killing, in the pursuit of dozens of miles, the Mawei army successively eliminated nearly 10,000 Qing troops, so the remaining soldiers and horses of the Qing army were more than 30,000, and the number of soldiers who could fight did not exceed 20,000, and the rest were basically some auxiliary soldiers responsible for baggage.

"Fire!"

"Tom Tom"

"Tom Tom"

"Tom Tom"

Not long after the sun rose, the Mawei warships and the army units at the north gate of the West Gate began to launch artillery bombardment of the city. The Mawei Army was well prepared, and all the bullets that began to fire were solid. After the angle is adjusted. Cannonballs weighing more than 10 or even 20 pounds hit the city wall again and again. The sturdy city walls, which the Qing army regarded as a barrier, were now blown apart like papier-mâché. Occasionally, a cannonball flew over the walls and landed in the houses of the city, causing great panic.

Just when the Mawei army began to bombard, most of the people in the city crowded into the streets, listening to the rumbling cannons not far away, and their expressions were very complicated. When Tu County also belonged to Jiangning, that is, under the rule of Jinling, the location was far away, and the Mawei Army did not extend to this side, but it also sent 200 troops to receive the city, but the Qing army in Anhui reacted quickly and sent troops to guard the river and stop the Mawei Army outside the city. At that time, the Mawei army troops were shooting at the city wall, but after no effect, they retreated.

After half a month, the Mawei army attacked the city again, but the people did not expect that even the more than 50,000 troops of Leerjin were defeated, and now they have fallen to the point where they can only defend the city. The panic of the people in the city was seen by the Qing army generals, but they didn't have the energy to care about them at this time, just guarding the city gates on all sides to prevent the Mawei army from breaking through the city.

The most intense shelling was on the Guxi River side of Nanchengmen, where fifteen warships lined up. More than 500 cannons were aimed at the city walls, and five or six hundred solid shells were fired at a time. Half of this round was smashed on the city wall of Dangtu County. Holes of different sizes were smashed into the city wall, but there was no damage to the city wall for the time being. More than a dozen shells hit the city gate, causing the gate to rattle and cause dust to fall. It stands to reason that the city gates in various places are generally made of half-foot-thick wooden planks and wrapped with iron or copper sheets, and the quality of the city gates in small cities is a little worse, and they will never be so resistant, and they should have been broken a long time ago. But now only a few cracks have appeared, and they are still standing there intact. The city tower above the city gate, many of the previous two rounds of shelling fell directly on it, and the doors and windows of the city tower were cracked, sawdust flew wildly, and the buildings on the city gate tower also collapsed, and more than a dozen Qing soldiers were killed, and other Qing soldiers on the city tower were also frightened to hide.

The Mawei army did not take the lead in using flowering shells in this siege, because they were afraid that all the Qing troops would quickly retreat in the city, and turn around and rush out to attack them when they entered the city. Although the Mawei Army is not afraid of hand-to-hand combat, if it can be eliminated from a distance, why do they have to engage in hand-to-hand combat to increase casualties? The number of Qing troops in the city is quite large, just like Geng Jingzhong himself deployed heavy troops inside and outside the city of Fuzhou, his hometown. Although there are a lot of more than 10,000 soldiers, it is really not cost-effective to go to the Qing army in a short encounter, so it is better to use solid bullets to paralyze the enemy first. But even so, the scene of a salvo of five hundred cannons on the south gate is shocking enough, and after two rounds of shelling on the city tower, the defenders on the city tower were also killed and wounded.

Because he learned that the Mawei army was besieging the city on all sides, Le Erjin ordered the south and north gates to be blocked, even if he had no choice but to break through in the end, he was not prepared to choose these two directions. In both directions, the road was blocked by a number of rivers in front and back, and the army could not cross the river even if it wanted to. The best option is to break through from the east, then enter Ningguofu, and finally run around to Anqing, cross the river and return. It's just that he doesn't know the situation, even if he makes this choice at the moment, it's useless, in the past month, the army of the Mawei Army is gradually digesting the territory south of the Yangtze River, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River from Poyang Lake to Songjiang Mansion, this is the location of Tu County is only temporarily ignored, and Ning Guofu will be in the pocket of the Mawei Army in a few days.

Raozhou Mansion in northern Jiangxi was already under the control of the Mawei Army, and Quzhou in southern Zhejiang was also under Geng Jingzhong. The area between the Yangtze River and these two provinces, after the Mawei Army took Jinling City, began to plan, Zheng Jun only wanted to digest the obtained territory safely at the moment, but did not dare to compete with the Mawei Army, so it was a matter of time when this area fell into the hands of the Mawei Army.

At this moment, the south gate and the north gate Leerjin don't have to worry about the Mawei Army attacking from it. But there are still some worries about whether the city walls of Dangtu County are strong enough to resist the shelling of the Mawei Army? He heard that when the Mawei army attacked Guangdong and Jiangxi, it used artillery to break through the city walls many times, and then entered the city. Dangtu County is not a fortified city, but for the time being, after withstanding thousands of solid shells, there is still not much reaction.

This had to be placed in the past, and Le Erjin would not have been shocked by the current siege tactics of the Mawei Army. In Le Erjin's opinion. The siege was supposed to be close to the city walls. Set up a ladder or a tower car. Then climb up to attack, to put it bluntly, it is to take people to pile up, and exchange human lives for cities, so siege warfare is often the biggest loss. Ordinary generals will try to avoid siege battles, and the Mawei army in front of them has completely subverted this traditional concept of Le Erjin, and the people and horses are not close to the city wall at all, and they will be bombarded with artillery from afar, looking like they are planning to blast the city gate open.

When he was in Jingzhou before. When fighting with Wu Sangui's soldiers and horses, many people have never seen the power of artillery, but the most time is only twenty, but Wu Sangui's artillery battalion is not fast, and the artillery fire is not dense, and due to the restrictions of the terrain on the side of Jingzhou, it is not as terrifying as the Mawei Army. Think about it, can dozens of cannons be compared with hundreds? In fact, he didn't see it and didn't blame him Mo Ruo if Yue Le was here, he was afraid that he would be much calmer, after all, he had always been facing Wu Sangui's main force, and he had seen the scene of one or two hundred artillery salvos in Wu Sangui's army in many battles. Besides. His own Qing army array is also constantly adding red-coated cannons and all kinds of miscellaneous artillery these days, and he is used to such scenes. However, Le Erjin still hasn't experienced it. At this moment, he was still terrified in his heart, could the siege war still be fought like this? He had fought for the first time, and he had never seen such a siege method.

Although the Wu army had also used artillery to attack the city many times before, and they themselves had attacked the city garrisoned by the Wu army in this way, but because the number of artillery pieces was twenty or thirty, there was no such effect as it is now. However, he also saw that the artillery siege of the Mawei Army on the opposite side was different from the previous ones, the first was that they didn't have so many powerful Hongyi cannons before. They usually have three or five guns that are already very good, and the others are not very powerful miscellaneous cannons. The bombardment of the city was only aimed at the city gate or the obvious tower, unlike the Mawei Army, which was in full bloom as it is now. On the other hand, the cannons he had seen didn't seem to have the same accuracy as the Mawei Army in front of them, and the shells they fired could only control one direction, and as for hitting, it would be up to heaven!

The 500 cannons on the south gate spewed out tongues of fire after a continuous process, letting out a roar, and fired the cannonballs mercilessly at the city walls, towers, and gates of Dangtu County. After seven or eight rounds of continuous bombardment, the city wall was the most shot, not far from the Guxi River, the city wall near the strong city gate, densely packed with dozens of uneven pits, and the cracks on the city wall were as dense as a spider's web. It's no wonder that this part of the city tower is the focus of artillery fire, and it is really strange that at least more than 200 shells have been withstood during this period, and there is no reaction at all!

The city tower above was also shelled fifty or sixty times, the walls were cracked out of more than a dozen large holes, the roof had been half smashed, and the rooms in the city tower were even more in disarray, and nearly 100 Qing soldiers had died. And when the defenders in Tu County didn't dare to stand on the city tower at this time, they retreated to both sides, and even Le Erjin's henchman and deputy commander of the infantry army, Asza, who commanded the battle, retreated to the side, and the entire city tower was almost undefended.

The Mawei artillery focused on not hitting the city gate section, but on killing and injuring the defenders on the head, but in this way, the city gate was also hit dozens of times, and nearly ten holes appeared in the city gate, but the city gate still did not fall. At this time, Wang Zhenbang, who was in charge of commanding the fleet here, also saw the situation at the city gate from the telescope, but he was expressionless, although the Qing army blocked the city gate in advance, but it couldn't last long under the fierce bombardment of their naval guns, at most it was just a waste of more shells.

The artillery fire on the south gate continued, and more than 50 cannons outside the north gate also continued to bombard fiercely. The officers and men of the Mawei Army were accustomed to it, but the more than 3,000 new soldiers who had been selected to join the Mawei Army were shocked, and they had been watching the shelling from a short distance, and the effect of the shelling was clearly visible to them. I have to say that the cannons of the Mawei Army are simply mighty, and they can be said to be the strongest and best siege weapons in the world. Now they really realize the strength of the Mawei Army, and they fully realize the huge difference between firearms and cold weapons. They looked at the spear or broadsword in their hands, and then at the rifle in the hands of the veteran of the Ponytail Army on one side, their faces full of envy.

The shelling lasted half an hour. Although the county seat of Dangtu has not yet been broken. But as it stands. It was only a matter of time before the city gate was blasted open or the city wall collapsed, so Geng Jingzhong outside the north gate was not in a hurry, and gave the order again: "Go and inform the warships in the south that they will pause for two quarters of an hour after continuing to shell for two rounds." Another battalion of soldiers and horses was sent to the west gate and shot the defenders of the city with rifles. Order the cavalry troops of the personal guard battalion to wait on the side of the east city gate, and if the Qing army breaks through from the east gate, immediately chase and kill! ”

Geng Jingzhong's meaning is that he wants to inflict maximum damage on the defenders in the city, and. The continued shelling will also cause great panic to the Qing army in the city. Soon, Geng Jingzhong's military orders were conveyed and immediately began to be implemented. Although there are Qing soldiers guarding the city at the head of the city, the range of the bows and arrows in their hands is not far, and it is not possible to kill the Mawei army one hundred and fifty or sixty meters outside the city, but a small number of bed crossbows can pose a threat to the Mawei army, but at this moment, the Mawei soldiers who are ready to use rifles to kill and injure the Qing army at the west gate are scattered, although the Qing army has several bed crossbows, but several times can not shoot a soldier.

Soon, the two rounds of shelling ended, and the Mawei army stopped. There were several minutes without further firing. The defenders in the city thought that the Mawei Army should say that it was out of ammunition at this moment, and they thought about it. So many cannons bombarded nearly twenty rounds, and thousands of shells came out, each shell was a dozen pounds, how much good iron it must be! This is all silver spent in vain, no matter how rich the Ponytail Army is, he can't squander it like this. Still, they were wrong.

Le Erjin stands on the top floor of a restaurant not far from the city gate, which is a four-storey building, and the city gate can be seen not far away. At this moment, it can be said that his heart is also dripping blood, those are his own army, especially at the beginning he sent the city wall are the few elites he left, in order to use the city, when defending the city, he can hit the arrogance of the Mawei army fiercely and frustrate their prestige. But now it seems that it is not that he has frustrated the prestige of others, but that others have given him a rather fatal blow, and he has no confidence at all! This person didn't come up to attack the city at all, and bombarded you with cannons from afar, making you stare at you dryly, and what was even stricter was that he was passively beaten, and he really lost a lot of elite soldiers!

"General, it's not okay to go on like this, we're completely passively beaten, and we can't do anything at all. If this continues, the defenders in the city will definitely lose morale, and at that time, we will be finished without the horsetail army attacking us! Le Erjin's henchman Gu Niyinbu said with an anxious expression. His good brother Bhaktan was killed in battle when he led a thousand cavalry to stop the pursuit of the Mawei Army, and now he is escorting the rest of the cavalry around Leerjin, and when it is convenient, he can rely on these cavalry to escape.

"According to the subordinates, let's kill it directly, just rely on the remaining more than 30,000 soldiers and horses in our city to kill all of them out of the east gate, and the Mawei Army will definitely not be able to stop it. The subordinates have already discovered that fifteen miles east of the city is a small mountain range dozens of miles long, and it is impossible for the cannons of the Mawei Army to follow to chase them into the mountains and forests, and the power of the Mawei Army's bird guns will be greatly reduced. ”

Le Erjin pondered when he listened, and he really didn't make up his mind. "Alas, everyone in the world looks down on Geng Jingzhong too much!" Le Erjin sighed infinitely in his heart.

After a short time, the cannons of the Mawei Army, which had stopped for two quarters of an hour, roared again, and a new batch of Qing soldiers who had gone up to the city wall to change their guards replaced the previous group and began to accept the destruction of artillery fire. However, this round of artillery is not as easy to take as the previous round, and this time the Mawei Army has begun to replace the shells with flowering shells. The lethality of the flowering bombs exploded one by one, but the solid bullets were far from comparable.

At this moment, the people who use the flowering bullets are on the side of the south gate, and Geng Jingzhong at the north gate still uses solid iron bullets here. The most relaxed was the east gate, and there was not a single soldier of the Mawei Army who was never seen. However, at the west gate where there were Mawei warships on the opposite side of the river, a battalion of Mawei soldiers also began to shoot with rifles, and the defenders on the west gate city wall listened to the rumbling roar, so they did not see the power of the artillery, but this time they were baptized by the rain of bullets.

"Bang Bang Bang"

"Bang Bang Bang"

"Bang Bang Bang"

The gunfire was endless, and although the number of Qing soldiers who were hit each time was small, the Qing troops continued to fall. This also caused a lot of panic to the Qing army at the head of the city. One by one did not dare to take the lead. I'm afraid of getting shot. The focus on the city is the Qing army responsible for firing bed crossbows, every time they see a figure, they are shot by bullets, as long as they are hit, they are either dead or wounded.

Looking at the South City Gate again, a new round of shelling shells fell, and the flowering shells took away the lives of a large number of Qing troops. Stumps and severed arms littered the city. Such a tragic scene also frightened many Qing troops. After only two rounds of shelling, there were not many people left on the wall of the south gate. In these two rounds of shelling, nearly 200 Qing troops were killed, and no less than 300 fell and lost their combat effectiveness. Who let them stand so densely where a shell landed in the middle of the crowd, killing at least four or five people in the center and injuring seven or eight people on the periphery. The first round of shelling still hit many of them on the outer walls and before the city gates, and the second round mostly fell on the city walls, and the Qing soldiers with bows and arrows fell one after another.

After another shelling, more and more Qing soldiers began to flee the city wall, and standing on the city wall could only end up being a dead end. No one wants to joke with their lives. The shelling continued, according to Geng Jingzhong's orders. It won't take twenty rounds of bombardment for them to stop.

"Boom! Rumble! After ten rounds of shelling, the vicinity of the South City Gate Tower could no longer withstand the bombardment of artillery, and collapsed two city walls, forming two huge gaps more than 20 meters long. Within a few minutes, the same news came from the north gate, although the number of cannons at the north gate was small, but it did hit a small area to bombard, and did not bloom everywhere like the south gate. After this round of shelling, the power of the flowering bullet is not the same as that of the solid iron bullet. The power of the gunpowder explosion could not be seen by a single shell, but as soon as the number came up, the result was different, and five or six hundred shells exploded in turn in a small area at the north city gate in ten rounds of shelling, and the north city gate could not withstand such power, and a large part of the city wall collapsed, and a large gap of thirty meters appeared in front of all the soldiers from the west of the north city gate.

"Look, General, the walls are falling!" When Guni Imbu saw the change in the city wall, he immediately reported it to Le Erjin.

"Well, I see. Have you already mobilized many soldiers into the city before, and then give me the prestige of the Mawei Army that I hate in the city. Watching closely, when the Mawei Army was about to reach the gap, the army immediately fought out and defeated the enemy army. Le Erjin still decided to take a gamble, betting that his number would outnumber the Mawei Army, and if the battle in the city was to defeat the Mawei Army. In fact, he had already made up his mind at this moment, and was ready to abandon the army and only lead a small number of elites to escape from the east gate, but he still needed the army to contain the large forces of the Mawei Army at the south gate and the north gate.

This morning's artillery bombardment, thousands of shells were fired, hundreds of wooden boxes were emptied, and finally the city wall of Dangtu County was smashed. This bombardment of Dangtu County, the two sides together also killed more than 2,000 people of the Qing army, there are still a considerable number of troops in the city, if you rush in, it is estimated that the result will be quite bad.

But it's not a way to consume it like this, the current situation is that the Qing army has also learned smart, no one fights to the city wall to eat bombs stupidly, only a few are far away on the top of the city wall to observe the movement of the Mawei army, if the Mawei army is close to the gap, they are ready to immediately rush out to kill the Mawei army.

Geng Jingzhong is also a big idea at this moment, not to rush into the city, but to advance slowly, using himself as bait to lure the Qing army out, not fighting in the city, but in a more spacious space outside the city, which is more conducive to the operation of the Mawei army. It was not just the infantry units that were slowly advancing forward, but the three elite three battalions of the second division led by Luo Cheng himself and the 3,000 soldiers advancing steadily at the same time. The war horses that pulled the cannons did not come over again, all the general cannons were left behind, and the three-pounder cannons brought with the army followed, which were lighter in weight, and a total of four soldiers in front and behind each artillery cart were pulling steadily forward.

"Rush!" The Qing troops still did not hold back, and a total of 2,000 soldiers and horses at the north gate took the lead in breaking out of the gap. In their opinion, the two were less than a hundred meters apart, and a few breaths could rush in front of the Mawei Army. This part of the Qing army has never been on the city wall, although the sound of the artillery shocked people's ears, but did not find the specific power of the artillery. In fact, if they had seen the tragic situation on the city wall, they would probably not have rushed out so unafraid of death.

At this moment, almost half of the Qing army that rushed out was equipped with bows and arrows, and also equipped with a small number of firearms, and the number of firecrackers was about 300. The muskets used by this musket soldier are not the kind of bird guns used by the former Ming army, but the high-quality goods made by the Qing court with great effort, if it were not for the soldiers and horses of Leerjin, which is one of the most elite troops under his command, Yue Le would not have allocated this first batch of muskets to Leerjin. This kind of musket is indeed much better than the previous shotguns, and the range is much farther, at least at a distance of fifty or sixty meters, and the lethality is very considerable.

The Mawei Army crossed the moat from the pontoon bridge and continued to advance steadily, maintaining a fairly neat formation.

"Shoot!"

Most of the Qing soldiers who rushed up had also begun to draw their bows and shoot arrows, and the Mawei army also gave the order to shoot.

"Bang Bang Bang"

"Bang Bang Bang"

"Bang Bang Bang"

A series of gunshots rang out, and the rifles of the Mawei Army were not comparable to the old-fashioned muskets on the other side, and as soon as the bullets passed, they immediately hit the attacking Pingnan Wang's army and turned over on their backs. The guns on the Mawei army's side were already fast, and the number of guns was large, and most of the nearly 500 Qing troops who rushed in front immediately fell. But in the end, a large number of troops continued to pour out of the city, and after the Mawei army fired three shots, the two thousand soldiers and horses had all rushed out of the gap.

In fact, the most unlucky thing is not the ordinary soldiers of the Qing army who rushed forward quickly, but the small number of generals and elite cavalry on horseback, they are a very small number of people in the Qing army, it can be said that the combat quality of each person must not be said, but the goal of the horse is much more than the person, dozens of cavalry who are rushing forward, seeing the horsetail army in front of their eyes, their saber is about to cut through the enemy's neck, but there is a dense popping sound like firecrackers in the ears, and then I feel a numbness in my chest, Immediately, the strength in his body was taken away, and the knife in his hand could not be lifted, and he fell off the horse. More often than not, the horses chirped in ash and then crashed to the ground with a thud and threw the cavalry on their backs far away. (To be continued......)

PS: A big chapter of 7,000 words, making up for what was lacking yesterday. Yesterday the time was too rushed, it was not well written, brothers forgive me!