As night fell, the battle that had been raging for a day finally stopped. The Ming army and the Eight Banners retreated, disengaged from contact, rested and licked their wounds, and prepared for the next battle.

I have to say that battles like the Battle of Liaoyang, which are dominated by street battles in the city, really rarely happen.

When the two armies are fighting, there are attackers and defenders, and once the defenders can't hold the city walls for the other side to attack, it generally means that the city is lost and changes hands.

However, the strength of the attacking and defending sides of Liaoyang City was almost the same, and when their respective reinforcements did not join, the strength of the Ming army was superior, but the advantage was not so great. The reason why the Ming army entered the city was not based on strength, but more like luck, so that when the city was broken in, the strength of the defending banner did not suffer much loss.

Liaoyang City is of great significance to Jiannu and cannot afford to lose, so even if the Ming army had already entered the city at that time, the defender Amin would not retreat and wait for reinforcements. Cao Bianjiao and Zhou Yuji wanted to make a great achievement and want to lay down a complete Liaoyang City, so they did not use such extreme measures as setting fire to the city, so that the two sides fought fiercely in the city for a day and night, and no one could drive the other out of the city.

Cao Bianjiao and Zhou Yuji tried to take Liaoyang City before Sun Chuanting arrived, while Amin waited for Huang Taiji to bring the main force of the Eight Banners to help. As a result, the main forces of both sides arrived almost at the same time, and a new round of fighting began.

However, it is no longer evenly matched, perhaps it was forced to a dead end, it was originally the most powerful army in this era, and the main force of the Eight Banners broke out as soon as it entered the city. After half a day of fighting, the Ming army lost more than 1,000 losses, retreated step by step, and lost most of the occupied streets and alleys.

Maybe if you come down like this, sooner or later you will be driven out of Liaoyang City by the Eight Banners.

Realizing this situation, Cao Bianjiao and Zhou Yuji decided to set fire to the city, and this Liaoyang City is gone!

Because Sun Chuanting is a civil official, and many civil officials are full of benevolence, righteousness and morality, they are afraid that Sun Chuanting will not allow it, and they are also afraid that Sun Chuanting will still want to capture Liaoyang City and make meritorious contributions, so the two did not ask Sun Chuanting for instructions and decided to do it themselves!

As for whether Sun Chuanting would be angry when he found out, the two didn't care too much, because the two were not Sun Chuanting's direct subordinates, and they were nominally under the command of Lu Xiangsheng, the Liaodong Jingluo, plus both of them were from the Praetorian Guard, and they were generals promoted and appointed by the emperor, and they were not afraid of most civilian officials at all.

The main force of reinforcements was withdrawn to rest, and the troops of Cao Bianjiao and Zhou Yuji went up to take charge of the night defense, which was just right for action.

After collecting enough materials to set fire, the two ordered that most of their subordinates, except for a small number of troops on guard, take refuge in the occupied house to rest, sleep until midnight, and begin to operate.

Hundreds of Ming soldiers climbed onto the roofs of their houses, climbed the city walls, and launched an assault on the buildings in the Jiannu-controlled area.

Vegetable oil collected from various houses, cotton cloth soaked in the oil, tied to the shaft of the arrow, ignited, and shot with a bow into the area controlled by Kennu. Cao Bianjiao and Zhou Yuji's subordinates were not only the Praetorian Guards who used firearms, but most of them were soldiers of the Dongjiang Army, and the Dongjiang Army was not good at using firearms and was equipped with a large number of bows and arrows, and now these bows and arrows came in handy. Countless rockets shot towards the area controlled by Jiannu, falling towards the ground like meteors.

Rockets shot at the snow-covered roofs and burned for a while before extinguishing themselves, while rockets nailed to wooden doors and windows, quickly igniting the window paper and igniting flames everywhere.

"Enemy attack!" In the terrible screams, many figures rushed out of the houses and rooms, some of them bent their bows and arrows, and launched a counterattack against the Ming army on the wall of the roof, and more rushed towards the burning flames, trying to extinguish the flames that had just burned.

On the roof of the courtyard wall, there were already shieldmen of the Ming army who opened their shields to protect the archers firmly, and the archers calmly took out the rockets tied with vegetable oil cotton cloth, ignited them on the torches, and bent their bows again.

On the roof, on the city wall controlled by the Ming army, dozens of artillery pieces have already been transported, there are tiger squat cannons, there are Buddha machine guns, all of them are dozens of catties and more than 100 catties of small cannons, loaded with scattered bullets, but they shoot farther than bows and arrows, and the burning house points out the direction to the gunners.

"Boom, boom, boom......"

The cannon rang out, and countless projectiles shot at the burning courtyard, knocking down the firefighters and arrow-firing Jiannu.

There was no one to put out the fire, the flames burned harder, the flames licked the pillars, and the flames lit up the houses along the windows. And what added fuel to the flames was that almost every household had a pile of firewood! The winter in Liaodong is particularly cold, the winter is also extraordinarily long, the people need a lot of firewood to keep out the cold, cooking, burning the kang, at least a high stack of firewood in winter, these firewood stacks are stacked in the courtyard, the rocket falls on it, once ignited, it is almost impossible to extinguish.

The firewood stacks in many courtyards were lit and burned into a huge torch, the smoke rose, the flames soared to the sky, and the extremely high temperature filled the courtyard, forcing the Jiannu and the original people who wanted to extinguish the flames in the courtyard had to withdraw from the courtyard, and the flames swallowed and soon ignited the houses next to them.

As the flames rose several feet high, the falling sparks and ashes quickly ignited the courtyard next door, and the flames spread around the city.

Almost in a short period of time, in the place of a stone's throw from the Ming army's front, dozens or hundreds of courtyards were ignited, the flames were swallowed, and the high temperature drove away the severe cold of winter, forcing the Jiannu Baoyi who escaped from the courtyard to retreat and stay away from the flames.

It was the third watch in the middle of the night, whether it was the Jiannu Eight Banners soldiers or the original owner of the house, Hannu Baoyi, most of the people were in their sleep, some people got up in a hurry when they heard the shouts, and some people didn't even have time to wear clothes, only wearing thin underwear to look at their own burning houses and crying, many people didn't have time to escape, the fire sealed the doors and windows, and fell into the fire.

The Eight Banners who escaped cursed angrily, and the Han people who escaped from the sea of fire were in great pain, and this was not the end, but only a prelude.

Suddenly, I saw countless firebirds flying into the air, hovering gracefully over Liaoyang City, and then these firebirds chose a direction, each of them went down, and soon the flames were ignited.

The Divine Fire Flying Crow, a fire-setting weapon produced by the Royal Arsenal, first appeared on the battlefield of the war with the Japanese in the Jiajing period, and after the improvement of the ordnance experts of the Royal Academy of Sciences, it finally appeared on the battlefield of the war between Liaodong and Jiannu.

This firearm has two wings like a bird, very similar to a bird, and two rocket thrusters are tied to the back of the abdomen, which are ignited and propelled to fly in the air, because there are bird-like wings that can glide in the air and fly farther, with a range of up to 100 zhang. When it hits the ground, the gunpowder inside ignites and explodes, just like rockets in later generations, and can ignite the wood in an instant.

There are also some Divine Fire Crows with poison inside, and when ignited, the flames emit poisonous smoke, and the people around them will faint when they smell it, and they can't get close to put out the fire.

The distance of a hundred zhang is more than three times the range of the bow and arrow, and countless divine fire crows shoot out one after another, shooting into the hinterland controlled by Jiannu, hundreds of fire heads are lit in various parts of the city, and the flames spread everywhere, if you stand on the high place of the city wall and look into the city, it seems that the entire city is on fire.

Huang Taiji convened Zhubeile to discuss military affairs in the middle of the night, worked out an offensive strategy for the next day, and prepared to use another day to completely drive the Ming army out of Liaoyang City.

Everything was well planned, until the third watch, Huang Taiji lay on the bed and slept in clothes, but he didn't expect to just fall asleep, there was a commotion outside, and then his subordinate Goshha reported that the Ming army launched a night attack and was setting fire to it.

Huang Taiji hurriedly got up, climbed the city wall to look into the city, and then was shocked.

I saw that countless fires were burning in the city, and there were meteor-like rockets flying in the air from time to time, and half of Liaoyang City was almost set on fire.

The scale of this fire is so large, and it burns so fast, the damn Ming Dog must have premeditated!

In the middle of the night, there were Ming troops hiding in the night to set off guns, looking at the burning fire, it was impossible to put out the fire. By the time dawn comes, I'm afraid the entire Liaoyang City will be set on fire!

Damn Ming Dog, he clearly wants to burn the rhythm of the entire Liaoyang City!

Almost instantly, Huang Taiji understood, because he led the main force of the Eight Banners to arrive, and the Ming army could not see the hope of capturing Liaoyang City, so he did not hesitate to set fire to the entire city. What I can't get, others can't think of, I'm afraid this is what the generals of the Ming army think.

But for the Ming army, it doesn't matter much whether they get Liaoyang City or not, because Liaoyang City does not belong to the Ming people in the first place. However, for the Dajin Kingdom at this time, Liaoyang City and the population wealth in the city were too important! In particular, the Ming army in Jianzhou was burned and killed, the Phoenix City of Kuandian and even the three prefectures of southern Liaoning were slaughtered by the Ming army, and the population wealth of the entire Liaodong and Liaoyang Shengjing cities determined whether the Dajin Kingdom could still exist in Liaodong.

Liaoyang is so important to him, but now looking at the fires all over the city, Huang Taiji finds that he has no way at all.

The burning fire cannot be extinguished, after this fire, most of the buildings in Liaoyang City will inevitably be burned down, the population of the city will be burned to death, and the food wealth of the city will be lost, even if most of the population in the city can escape, what will they use to feed them?

For a while, Huang Taiji felt that his hands and feet were as cold as being in an ice cave, and the rising flames did not make him feel the slightest temperature.

"Eighth!"

"Great Khan!"

"Amma!"

Zilharang, Abatai, Amin, Hauge and other high-level officials of the Eight Banners Baylor in the city have come to find them.

"Amma, please give me a soldier and horse, I will kill Ming Dog cleanly!" Hauge shouted.

"Ming Dog is too hateful, old eight, we must not give up with them, fight with them!" Zilharang and the others also shouted.

The Ming army disregarded the lives of more than 100,000 people in the city, and also disregarded the many Han slaves who had been persuaded by them to surrender, and even made the move of setting fire to the city.

From Yongping Mansion to Qian'an, from the border wall to Liaodong, in order to rescue the banner people who were slaughtered by the Ming army, they gave up the countless population wealth looted in the Ming Kingdom, stepped on the ice and snow through thousands of miles of mountainous areas, and returned with great difficulty. However, the hinterland of the Liaohe River was a mess burned and plundered by the Ming army, and many of the homes of the Eight Banners were destroyed by the Ming army, and their families were gone, and now, right in front of them, the damn Ming dog actually set fire to Liaoyang City, how could they endure it!

Fight with the Ming army, even if you fight for your own life, you have to kill the Ming army cleanly, so that you can get out of this evil breath in your heart!

Looking at the red eyes of the Baylors, Huang Taiji knew that they had all reached the critical point of the outbreak, and they all just wanted to kill happily.

Huang Taiji himself didn't want to be like this, why didn't he be angry, why didn't he want to ignore it, kill a hearty one, and kill all the Ming troops!

But Huang Taiji did not let the anger get carried away, and still maintained the last trace of calm, because he knew that he was the Great Khan of the Dajin Kingdom, shouldering the survival of the Eight Banners and the continuation of the Jianzhou Jurchen, and he must not be emotional!

Since the Ming army chose to set fire to the city, how could it not guard against the attack of the Eight Banners? Send troops to kill at night, even if the Ming army has no traps, it is difficult to win quickly at night, most of them will kill 1,000 enemies and lose 800, which is not cost-effective at all.

Huang Taiji closed his eyes and pondered, thinking about what to do next.

Zilharang and the others shouted for a while, but they all quieted down, waiting for Huang Taiji to make a final decision.

"Everyone!" Huang Taiji finally opened his eyes and said with difficulty:

"Ming Dog is despicable, he actually set fire to the city, this Liaoyang City can no longer be defended, even if he kills the Bright Dog, this Liaoyang City will not be able to live."

Without the food in the city, what to eat and drink, how to survive this cold winter?

"I know everyone's anger, they all want to kill Ming Dog cleanly, my heart is the same as you!"

"However, we can't do this, because our people are already the last strength of the Dajin Kingdom, and for the continuation of the Dajin Kingdom and the continuation of the Jianzhou Nuzhen, we can't afford more losses."

"Everyone, remember the hatred in front of you, first save your strength as much as possible, there will always be a time to settle accounts with the Ming army!"

Listening to Huang Taiji's sad and sincere words, all the Baylors present fell silent. Yes, the current Dajin Kingdom, the current Jianzhou Jurchen, has indeed reached the time of life and death.

"Amma, what should we do, you say!" Hauge was the first to stand up and said loudly.

"Yes, eighth, you say, we'll all listen to you." Others said the same. Mang Gurtai is dead, Amin himself is guilty, and no one at the top of the Eight Banners dares to disobey Huang Taiji's will.

Huang Taiji nodded: "The first thing to do now is to preserve the strength, and the population in the city is the most valuable treasure of my Dajin!"

However, before organizing a retreat, we must also give Minggou a little color, let them know the fate of angering us, and at the same time buy time for the bannermen in the city to retreat.

Haoge, you take people to bypass the fire, go to the area controlled by Minggou, and also set fire to the area where Minggou lives, burn the area where Minggou lives, and force Minggou out of Liaoyang City as well!

Zilharang and Abatai, each of you led the cavalry out of the city from the north gate, went around the direction of the south city, and launched an attack on the Ming army out of the city, killing the Ming dog!

Amin, you immediately lead people to organize the people in the city to withdraw from the fire, regardless of the bannermen, Han Nu, as long as they are willing to follow my Dajin, bring all of them into the urn city, and rescue as much food and cloth as possible, except for food and cloth! ”

"Wow!" Everyone agreed, and went down to the city.