The day after the Matsue army arrived under the royal capital of Manila, it was a rainy day.

Bean-sized raindrops fell from the cloudy sky, bringing up a fine curtain of rain between heaven and earth. According to local soldiers who are familiar with the climate of the royal capital, such rain is likely to last for a day once it falls. It was impossible for the Songjiang army to brave such a heavy rain to attack the city, and the attack that had been prepared could only be suspended, and everyone retreated in their camps and waited for the weather to clear.

Seeing this, the soldiers of the royal capital in the city could breathe a sigh of relief.

In contrast, the atmosphere in the Chinese military tent of the Songjiang Army was solemn. After repeated deliberations and trade-offs, He Shixiang finally made up his mind to abandon the alternative plan of encirclement and reinforcement, and instead adhered to the original plan, and the army directly attacked Manila, striving to destroy the Duchy of Luzon in the shortest possible time!

Zeng Siwu, who had only arrived in a hurry by boat five days earlier, became the key to He Shixiang's decision--he had come on Chen Wu's orders, and He Shixiang had brought a brand new weapon and choice.

After all, Manila is the royal capital of the Duchy of Luzon, and the hardware conditions of the city defense are still very good. Although there is no moat as a sharp weapon, and the level of city defense weapons is not as good as that of the empire, the six-meter-high city wall is real. Counting the 14,000 soldiers of the royal capital, including a small number of façade ironclad soldiers, as well as a large number of new recruits, the defenders of the city had quite sufficient troops. A normal attack, the Songjiang army will have a very hard time trying to break through the city.

Even if it is forcibly taken at any cost, most of the troops of the Songjiang Army that landed will be disabled.

On a foreign island, there are not enough troops to suppress them, and what awaits them will be a counterattack that the local forces and leaders of Luzon may launch at any time.

Therefore, if you want to take the royal capital, the best way is to find another way.

Before this, He Shixiang had several considerations. For example, the sound of the east and the west, or the use of the little power left by Agno and others in the royal capital, trying to cooperate with the outside. However, these methods are very difficult to implement, and no one can guarantee whether they can have a decisive effect.

The weapons that Zeng Siwu brought were different.

In He Shixiang's eyes, this is a technology that transcends the times - black powder!

Let's take it personally. In fact, this thing is not ahead of its time. The Eastern Continent of this world had already developed gunpowder hundreds of years ago, but it was not powerful enough, and no one thought of it at the level of weapons. By the time period before Chen Wu crossed over, the countries of the Western Continent had begun to defend the city with rudimentary gunpowder weapons to resist the invasion of the Sun Dynasty. It can only be said that for the relatively conservative thinking of the Qianyuan Empire, gunpowder is still a weapon that they have no direct impression.

However, Chen Wu, a traverser, single-handedly pushed black powder onto the stage of war history.

After the Matsue administrative reform. Songjiang County has already set up a special Ministry of Industry, and has recruited several batches of personnel to improve on the basis of the original gunpowder. In particular, the Department of Chemistry of the Ministry of Engineering, headed by the Taoist priest Zeng Siwu, spent two years of repeated trials and improvements under the several points provided by Chen Wu, as well as the raw materials and funds that were openly supplied, and made a kind of gunpowder with strong explosive power.

With this gunpowder, the development of artillery can be put on the agenda.

In fact, as early as the beginning of Zeng Siwu's research at the same time. Chen Wu ordered the blacksmith to conduct preliminary research and forging. It's just that Chen Wu has limited knowledge of the specific cannon casting process, and he will not be able to make a breakthrough for a while.

At least. This black powder is no longer a problem for sieges.

This time, there were as many as ten barrels of gunpowder that came with the ship, and almost all the stocks produced by the Ministry of Chemical Industry that had been working overtime recently were exhausted. Zeng Siwu, who had done many experiments, came in person to assist and instruct the soldiers on how to apply it.

However, the storage of the gunpowder team of the chemical engineering department was top secret in the Songjiang Army, and it was also outside the deserted city when it did a series of tests on weekdays. Before you saw the power of gunpowder. These officers who did not have a broad vision could not imagine how the strong walls could be blown down by a few barrels of gunpowder, and some even scoffed at them.

Rao is Zeng Siwu had an edict personally issued by Chen Wu in his hands, and the soldiers would never dare to disobey it, but the contempt and suspicion in their hearts were unavoidable.

He Shixiang's heart. In fact, there are doubts. But whether it will work or not, try it and find out. The purpose of his meeting this time was to unify the thinking of the army and to let all units cooperate with Zeng Siwu's command. At the same time, be prepared in case the city wall is really blown up, and the follow-up troops will follow up in time.

………

After one day of rain, the next day was a sunny day.

For the Matsue Army, the rain was clearly not all bad. Although it delayed them for a whole day, it also made the ground muddy and soft, and it saved a lot of trouble by digging tunnels.

In order to prevent arousing the vigilance of the defenders, the Matsue army carried out the siege as usual after the ground dried up a little. After all, even Zeng Siwu himself did not dare to guarantee that the gunpowder he brought would definitely be able to blow up Manila City, so He Shixiang naturally had to prepare for both.

After a few rounds of suppression by the stone throwers and bed crossbows, the soldiers of the North Luzon garrison regiment, under the cover of the infantry archers, set up ladders and began the attack.

They were greeted by a counterattack that was several times more fierce than that of the city of Krabi!

After all, it is the royal capital, and it is much more prepared than Krabi Dicheng. Although the defenders were full of fear and anxiety about the fabled invincibility of the Imperials, their courage was restored when they saw that it was their compatriots who surrendered at the forefront. Under the reprimand of the officers, all kinds of rolling wood and stones, as well as boiling oil, were poured down from the city walls.

As long as the besieging soldiers are not too unlucky, even if they are smashed, they will not die. Boiling oil is different, with terrible heat. As long as it is poured on a person, the skin and flesh will be charred in an instant. In the midst of that creepy scream, even the bravest soldier could have collapsed. What's even more terrifying is that once the body is burned on a large scale, even if the person does not die on the spot, the subsequent wound infection caused by the burn is almost incurable in this era.

For those who were burned by Yan zhòng, it was a relief to die on the spot rather than die a miserable death after a few days of being rescued and wailing.

In just one hour, the soldiers of the North Luzon Garrison Division who attacked in the first round collapsed with heavy casualties.

However, the Songjiang army originally sent them to serve as cannon fodder, and there was no mercy at all when they saw this, and they changed two soldiers to continue to drive them forward indifferently.

Agno, who was watching the battle, obviously had unbearability on his face, but as a general, he knew that he must not speak at this time. I could only watch as my former subordinates climbed to the top of the city and then lost their lives in a very short period of time - at least for the vast majority of people, and only a few lucky ones survived.

Judging from the soldiers of the Royal Capital Legion at this moment, such an offensive should be unimaginably fierce. However, the fact is that the continuous frontal attack is only a kind of containment and attraction for the Songjiang army.

Where the Luzon people didn't see, the Songjiang army was desperately digging tunnels.

Limited to the situation of this era, if you want to blow up the city wall, you must dig a tunnel under the city wall and send the sealed gunpowder under the city wall, so as to exert the maximum power - this is also one of the main points put forward by Chen Wu, and Zeng Siwu proved this point in repeated simulations.

Due to the limited number of people who can work at the same time when excavating the tunnel, and the use of wood as a frame support, even if the Songjiang army keeps changing people and digging 24 hours a day, the progress of the tunnel is still not fast. The only good news is that digging tunnels and blowing up the city walls with explosives is very different from sending troops to steal the city through the tunnels. The former doesn't need to worry too much about making a movement and being heard by the enemy, so they have to take precautions.

Having said that, the defenders of the royal capital in Manila did not expect that the Songjiang army would dig tunnels to attack the city at the beginning, and their attention was all attracted by the fierce siege and shouting of killing.

For three days, truckloads of dirt from the tunnels were loaded into truckloads and slopes were piled up at the back of the camp. At this time, the frontal offensive still did not make any decent progress.

Many of the soldiers of the Royal Capital Legion were natives of Manila. After the rumors deliberately spread by the high-level of the principality that the people of Songjiang were doing all kinds of evil, burning, killing and looting, the soldiers of the royal capital army still showed quite tenacious combat strength. If this continues, no matter how much the Songjiang Army suppresses the battle, the North Luzon garrison division will collapse within a week.

As a last resort, the Songjiang Army had to slow down the offensive slightly, and at the same time appropriately send some elite forces of the Songjiang Army to fight together with the troops of the North Luzon Garrison Division.

In this way, although the casualty rate of Luzon troops is still high, at least it is much more balanced.

After another week, the Songjiang army dug day and night, and finally dug the tunnel to a distance of 30 meters from the city wall. By this time, if it was quiet at night, some rustling sounds could already be faintly heard. At first, some of the defenders thought they were hallucinating, but as the sound grew louder, the smarter Luzon soldiers finally realized something, put their ears to the ground and paused for a moment, and then reported to the officer.

"The Imperials are digging tunnels!"

As the officers of the Royal Capital Legion confirmed the news, the defenders became vigilant. After determining the approximate location of the Songjiang army with an inverted water tank, the Luzon laid an ambush in advance with a large number of soldiers in the back. At the same time, a large amount of firewood, grease and materials that can emit poisonous smoke after burning are also prepared, ready to smash the Imperial people at the moment when the Imperial people dig through the tunnel, and then choke all the enemies who enter the tunnel to death with thick smoke.

This method can be described as ruthless, if the Songjiang army really intends to dig through the tunnel completely and send troops in to steal the city, then the result will inevitably be a loss of troops and nothing.

It's just a pity that the Luzon people guessed the wrong target from the very beginning! (To be continued.) )