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The two armies have not yet met each other, and they have easily reduced their strength by nearly 30%, and this result has made the Chaozhou army frightened. The rumbling cannon is still ringing out, and no one in the defenders who have no fighting spirit is willing to go up to the city tower to defend the city, and going up at this moment is tantamount to looking for death, no one is so stupid.

"Second son, the Mawei army is all gathered outside the south gate, and there is no army of theirs in the west, let's break through from the west gate! Their artillery fire is sharp, and we can only be beaten passively, and if we continue like this, we will all have to fold here! "Adjutant General Liu Jinzhong never thought that the combat power of the Mawei Army was so strong, more than ten years ago he attacked Guangzhou with the army of King Jingnan, their combat power is known to him, but at this moment it is completely beyond his expectations. I thought I could hold on, but at the moment, I obviously can't hold on.

"How many horses do we have?" Shang Zhixiao asked.

"This is not much, except for pack horses in the army, there are less than two hundred simple war horses, but there are many horses in the big families in the city, we can use them!" Liu Jinzhong replied.

Shang Zhixiao can't care so much at the moment, he escaped a moment earlier and was safe one step earlier, where can he take care of others. "Time is too late, the city wall can't withstand such a dense artillery bombardment, it will soon collapse, as soon as there is a gap, the Mawei army will immediately attack. At this moment, the enemy is outnumbered, and the thirty-six plan is the best plan, first gather the war horses, and let our guards escape first! ”

At this time, the situation did not allow Liu Jinzhong to think too much, and immediately complied. "Yes!"

The artillery fire on the opposite side continued, and Shang Zhixiao and Liu Jinzhong had already rushed out of the west gate with more than 200 people. Go straight to the direction of Jieyang County. Leave the remaining 3,000 defenders in the city alone. It was also at the moment when Shang Zhixiao and the others just left the city. A gap in the southern wall was finally blasted open. After ten rounds of shelling, 1,200 shells were fired, and the city wall on the west side of the South City Gate was the first to be unable to withstand it and collapsed, forming a large gap more than ten meters long. After hearing the rumbling of the collapse of the opposite wall, the artillery battalion positions also stopped reloading ammunition.

"The time has come, the whole army will press on and take Chaozhou City!" Fang Dahong was really smiling at the moment. Victory is at hand.

For more than a quarter of an hour of this shelling, the fighters of the artillery battalion did not have anything, they were used to it. But the soldiers of the 2nd Division had suffered, for they had rarely heard the sound of artillery in their previous training, and the rumbling of this round of artillery, especially at such a close distance, shook their ears. But seeing the division commander pull out the command knife, the soldiers also knew what to do next. When Fang Dahong shouted, the two thousand soldiers who had already gathered momentum immediately began to rush towards the gap.

A distance of six or seven hundred meters, for a well-trained display. It's like a daily routine. Until the warriors rushed to the city wall, they did not slow down at all, and rushed into the gap with a loud roar.

"Kill!" Although the defenders were afraid of the shells of the Mawei Army. But he was not very afraid of the soldiers who rushed up. The leading defenders of the South Gate did not know that their main general had abandoned them, and Shang Zhixiao did not notify several cronies at the South Gate in order to escape, not only did he not notify them, but also mobilized an additional 1,000 soldiers to the South Gate under their command, and instructed them to guard the South Gate. In order to delay a little more time for him, so that they can escape a little farther.

The sound of the artillery stopped, and the defenders who had retreated from the towers and retreated to the rear streets suddenly all came out. Few of the survivors of the original tower were withdrawn to the rear, and at the forefront were more than 1,000 people newly mobilized from the West Gate. They didn't see the power of the artillery, so they were a little scared, but they were able to hold their nerves.

Now, more than half of the remaining more than 3,000 defenders are gathered here. Seeing the horsetail army rushing into the gap, the defenders who came out raised their bows and arrows in their hands, "Whoosh! A rain of arrows fell head-on, and suddenly a dozen soldiers at the front were hit and fell. The horse-tailed warriors were all unarmoured, and they were shot by bows and arrows, and they were both immortal and seriously wounded. The soldiers immediately stopped their steps and quickly retreated outside the gap, but just like that, due to inertia, a small group of about two dozen people rushed into the gap. The defenders arranged more than 300 archers here, aiming at this small gap of more than ten meters long, and several rounds of arrows rained down, and more than 20 warriors were each hit by more than 10 arrows on average.

The warriors who retreated beyond the gap did not retreat, but used the walls as cover and began to shoot at the defenders inside the city. From the city wall to the street is only about 30 meters away, the soldiers within a range of 150 steps, can basically reach six or seven percent of the hit rate, so the defenders standing in the open place holding a longbow are a striking target, constantly hit by the horsetail army soldiers, many of them are still shot in the head and die.

But at this moment, there are only a small number of people who can shoot, a dozen people on both sides of the gap in the city wall. But the fighters also had a way, the fighters in front needed to reload their ammunition after firing a shot, but they didn't bother so much, but withdrew directly after firing a shot, giving up the place for the brothers behind them. The nearly two thousand defenders inside did not dare to rush out, and stood there with bows and arrows in hand, and the warriors only had to aim slightly.

"Bang bang bang!"

"Bang bang bang!"

"Bang bang bang!"

The sound of gunfire is endless, the speed of the soldiers is fast enough, just gently pull the trigger, after firing a shot, they immediately retreat, and the brothers who have already prepared behind them immediately make up for it, after two or three seconds of aiming, bang is a shot, and then rotate again. It's basically the equivalent of a fighter firing eight to ten shots in one minute.

But the bows and arrows inside did not stop, and they kept firing arrows towards the gap, and several warriors were also hit by arrows during this period. However, since the warriors did not show their heads, the place where the arrows were hit was only the arm, and the unlucky ones were shot in the legs or the side, but they were not vital and not fatal.

At this moment, a confrontation scene was formed, and both sides were constantly shooting and firing arrows, but this scene did not last for a few minutes. Seventy or eighty defenders fell every minute, and at such a short distance of thirty meters, the accuracy of the soldiers was still very high, even if it was not a single shot, it would make the opponent immediately lose their combat effectiveness. The soldiers still consciously prioritized shooting with bows and arrows in hand, and if they didn't see it, they would shoot at the ordinary defenders.

After the defenders in the city suffered one or two hundred casualties, they also learned to be smart, and they also squatted down to prepare for the arrows, stood up and shot arrows, and tried to avoid the shooting of the horsetail army, which made the shooting rate in the back drop a lot. But comparing the casualties, it can be seen that none of the soldiers who kept shooting at the gap at this moment were killed, and although some of them were hit, they were not fatal and there was no major problem.

"Shield Formation, up!" Zhong Da also rushed up from behind at this moment, and saw that the soldiers of the fifth battalion under his command were blocked here, and there were still the corpses of more than 20 brothers in the gap, and he blamed himself in his heart. carelessly, thinking that the city has been frightened by artillery fire at the moment, there should be no resistance, but the result is beyond his expectations, this part of the defenders is still stubbornly resisting.

As soon as the order was given, a team of thirty people suddenly flashed out from behind him, holding shields, arranged end to end in a dense shield array, and steadily advanced towards the gap. There was hardly a gap in the shield array, and the thirty shields were like a whole, and the defenders inside saw that another enemy army was rushing up, and raised their bows and arrows to shoot arrows at the shield array. But this time the bow and arrow had no effect, and the only sound of the shot on the shield was a clanging sound. Their bows and arrows couldn't penetrate the shield at all, after all, the horsetail shield's shield was not a shoddy product made of a piece of wood. In the hands of the warriors, the shields are all a complete steel plate, two feet five in length, one foot six in width, and the thickness is only less than one cent (three millimeters), and the weight of a shield reaches twenty catties, but for a strong display, such a little weight is not a problem.

Although the shield was thin, it was formed by the hydraulic stamping of the entire steel plate, and even at close range, the new musket could not penetrate it at once, let alone the bow and arrow on the opposite side. Hundreds of arrows shot at the shield could not have caused damage to the warriors below.

The first shield team entered, and then the second team also began to enter, and the two teams entered in different directions, one team went diagonally to the left and the other team went diagonally to the right, and after advancing rapidly for about 30 meters to the corner of the house, they quickly dispersed, and began to shoot with their shields erected.

It is impossible to deal with more than 1,000 defenders with only two squads of 60 people, but the task of the two squads is not to directly confront more than 1,000 defenders, but to disrupt the formation of the defenders and create an opportunity for the large army to attack the city. Apparently, the two shield squads succeeded.

"Rush!" Zhong Da, who had been paying attention to the battle situation, decisively gave an order.

The soldiers, who had already been holding back the fire in their bellies, heard the order and rushed into the gap as fast as they could with their guns. Without the suppression of the archers, more and more warriors rushed into the city. "Bang bang bang!" The continuous gunfire represented the fall of one defender after another. Due to the casualties of the previous dozens of brothers, the soldiers were furious, and they fired at the defenders at a faster speed than usual training, and in just a moment, a minute or so, the more than a thousand defenders inside were crushed, and almost half of them fell.

At this moment, the 1,000 soldiers of the fifth battalion had basically all entered the city, scattered and began to chase the defenders. "Kill!" The 4th Battalion of Marines in the back had not had a chance to rush to the front, and when all the soldiers of the 5th Battalion rushed in, they were not far behind, and rushed into the city at a rapid pace. They also have their own goals and tasks, and after entering the city from here, they quickly rushed to the West Gate and the Chaozhou Mansion. (To be continued......)

PS: Can you ask the brothers to help promote it, the code word is really tired!