The heavy artillery that continued to roar, like a giant hammer, smashed the spirit of the soldiers on both sides.

Because the thief chose the wrong target at the beginning, he wasted nearly ten rounds of firing opportunities in vain and achieved nothing.

As a result, they were bombarded with at least sixty or seventy more shells. Before the battle was fought, nearly 100 people had been directly killed, and the number of soldiers screaming and wailing with broken arms and legs was no less than this.

Even if at least more than half of the artillery shells of the officers and soldiers are flying, as long as the remaining part can hit the crowd, it can basically get out of the bloody way.

In particular, the thieves put on a posture of preparing for a general attack at the beginning, and a large number of elite and heavily armored soldiers were also assembled on the front line, resulting in a high proportion of elite soldiers among these casualties - in front of the cannon, all beings are equal, regardless of whether you have heavy iron and cotton armor, if you cover the torso, you will be killed in seconds, and if you cover the limbs, you will cut off your hands and feet.

However, in the process of learning lessons and adjusting deployments, He Jin and He Yilong still did not see the real evil intentions of the officers and soldiers in repairing the forts in the battalion.

In their opinion, the officers and soldiers built the fort higher than the wall and looked down on the shelling to prevent their own camp wall from being blown up by mistake.

This kind of thinking will seem ridiculous in the eyes of modern people who know ballistics, because any modern elementary school student knows that cannons can be regarded as ballistic curved fire. Building the fort up must have other evil intentions.

But the thieves at the end of the Ming Dynasty didn't know that they lacked cultural and theoretical literacy, and the only tactical and strategic level they had was based on the experience and instinctive sense of smell of long-term warfare.

When commanding infantry cavalry crossbowmen, they may be able to rely on experience, but for artillery, a technical arm that requires a theoretical foundation, it is basically used blindly, and there are few opportunities for practice.

After the thieves adjusted their deployment, they bombarded at least ten more rounds, and the Franc machine turned off one or two more doors.

I don't know whether the gunners were too badly wounded and there were not enough people to operate the guns, or whether the guns were overheated and had to be temporarily stopped firing to dissipate heat.

The thieves added hundreds of casualties, and finally saw the walls on both sides of the official barracks, three gaps were blasted open on the left, and two on the right.

He Jin's face was pale, and he knew that he could no longer maintain such a state of being beaten unilaterally and couldn't do anything, it was too demoralizing, and he finally gave the order for a general attack.

"Assault of the whole army! The archers go up first, and then under the wall, they rely on the official army wall to throw bows and crossbows for cover! Crossbowmen such as the Iron Cotton Armor Soldier attract firepower and then go up and go straight to the gap! ”

He Jin still has a lot of ideas, he knows that his troops are at least seven or eight times that of the enemy's army, and it is very important to give full play to the advantage of force deployment. Therefore, not only let the elite soldiers rush, but also let the miscellaneous armies rush together to share the firepower of the officers and soldiers.

The crossbowmen rushed towards the part of the wall that was still intact of the official army, and although it was not easy to climb into it after rushing in front of them, they could also shoot arrows into it on the spot.

And once the elite soldiers of Tiezha cotton armor take advantage of the chaos to rush in through the gap, and the official firearms are still shooting at their own crossbowmen through the wall, the cotton armor soldiers can immediately outflank the sides and slash the long-range soldiers of the official army who refuse to retreat from behind.

……

"The thieves have finally charged! Brethren, the cannon of the thieves is almost over! They don't dare to risk injuring their own people! Get ready to get up and fire in three columns! ”

On the wall on the left side of the camp gate, Qian Zonglu squatted with a gray face, and only after hearing the noise outside did he pat the soil and jump up bravely.

Just to say that you are not afraid, that is absolutely false.

The sound of the Franc cannon on the opposite side is also endless, and a sound can be heard every ten breaths, and seven or eight cannons are fired in turn. Every time it landed on the wooden wall, it was a big hole directly, and three or five sturdy wooden stakes were broken and splashed around.

When hitting the rammed earth, although it did not hurt anyone, you could feel the ground within a radius of ten paces vibrating slightly, and there was a loud noise and a pop of falling earth.

The soldiers of the Ming Dynasty did not know much about physics and physiology. When Shen Shuren left, he also forgot to pay more attention to some small countermeasures that were too detailed, such as "open your mouth wide when you hear the sound of a cannon to prevent the excessive air pressure difference between the internal and external ear canals from damaging your hearing and causing dizziness".

Many soldiers forgot to open their mouths, and they were inevitably shocked by sound waves, and some of them vomited blood slightly.

Fortunately, after carrying so many rounds, there were basically no casualties, so that Lu Datou's nerves and will finally carried through this wave of experience. The soldiers next to him stopped shaking their hands, and stood behind the wooden wall again, picked up their guns, and saw that one hundred and twenty paces, Lu Datou's side was two hundred light and heavy muskets firing together.

On the other side of the camp gate, there were almost as many muskets, doing the same thing.

"That's just the way the Franc machine is! it! Brothers, fight hard, the Lord of Futai is also true to his word, we fought well last year, drilled well, and expanded our recruitment from pikemen to firearms soldiers, we can't lose face! ”

After shooting and killing, the soldiers became more and more numb and could not care about being afraid, and the second and third rows went up in turn. All of them fired two rounds, and the whole army fired nearly 3,000 rounds of ammunition.

The bullets that landed in front of the enemy crossbowmen were still as powerful as ever, and as long as they hit, they would either be killed or maimed. It's a pity that the formation of the crossbowman when he stepped forward was relatively loose, and as long as he didn't hit the target, it was difficult to blind the person next to him.

A small number of officers and soldiers who were close to both sides of the gap were aimed at the iron and cotton armor soldiers who were rushing against the gap. At first, it was impossible for the officers to predict the enemy's disposition, so they still preloaded their shotguns according to the usual drills.

After a shrapnel down, the cotton armor soldiers didn't fall a few, and a firearms soldier with a relatively iron relationship next to Lu Datou was always sharp-eyed, and only after firing did he see the situation clearly, and couldn't help but exclaim:

"Mr. Qian! The thief is afraid that he is a cotton armor soldier! Shotguns can't break armor! ”

"The second shot is a single-headed bullet! Retreat as planned! Lu Datou had a big head for a while, but he couldn't command all the people to change the ammunition, so he could only let the brothers around the gap where he personally sat change the ammunition.

The last round of single-headed bullets was within fifty paces of the salvo, and although the number of projectiles had dropped sharply, fortunately, the distance was close enough and the enemy was also gathered, and before leaving, at least thirty or forty heavily armored elite soldiers were still put down, which temporarily suffocated the momentum of the thieves who rushed towards the gap.

After firing, the disciplined firearms immediately retreated according to the original plan, and retreated behind the earthen wall of the second trench in front of the battery.

The pikemen of the official army completely abandoned the first camp wall at the beginning, and set up a formation behind the trench in advance, leaving only some corridors for friendly firearms to pass through.

Zuo Zixiong's deployment in this way also has profound meaning, he himself has been training as a soldier for a year, and he himself knows best what his quality is.

The elite soldiers were all selected to the bayonet musket team, and the recruits came up as pikemen first, or then practiced some bows and crossbows, so the kind of work that required retreating and changing positions in wartime could only be handed over to the elite soldiers. Otherwise, you won't be able to stop it as soon as you run.

"Take the camp gate and the breach! Rear army accelerates! Today, we will wipe out all the people and horses of the Sinking Dog Officer! He Jin and He Yilong were in the distance, and when they saw their heavily armored elite soldiers finally rushing into the gap like ants in the tide, they finally shouted with joy.

Previously, because of the threat of artillery bombardment by the official army, dozens of personal soldiers in their banner array were killed and wounded, and these two thieves did not dare to rush forward to supervise the battle again, for fear of being blinded by the official artillery.

Not only did he delay and move his position, but he didn't even dare to stay with his own flag, and there were only some soldiers carrying the flag under the flag, and there were no senior officers at all.

This also made it inconvenient for them to observe the battlefield situation, and they could not see the real truth clearly for a while.

……

He Tianming wore the highest quality and heaviest iron cotton armor, and with great excitement and trepidation, he rushed into the gap where the official army camp was blown open with the elite old battalion brothers around him.

Until this moment, his hanging heart finally let go a little: the morale of the officers and soldiers was so low! When you see that the wall is broken, you don't dare to defend it! The follow-up is not a hand-to-hand battle like chopping melons and vegetables! The total strength is seven or eight times worse, and the officers and troops must be finished today!

He Tianming is the distant nephew of the handsome He Jin, who followed his uncle out to mix, and also became a lieutenant in the army - the lieutenant is the name of the military attache in the system of Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai and the fifth battalion of the revolutionary left, which is equivalent to the six-rank garrison of the official army.

If you can make the first contribution today, I'm afraid you won't be able to have a general's name when you go back!

As soon as I thought of this, the resentment caused by witnessing the previous batch of brothers being killed by muskets just now was not so deep.

It's a pity that He Tianming didn't be happy for long, just a few breaths after he stepped into the gap, suddenly there was a loud noise, and thousands of iron sand, nails, and gravel roared towards his face.

Rao is still quite agile and has many guards around him, he subconsciously held his head and bowed, but he was still splashed with blood.

"Ahh

A 12-pound piece of iron sand gravel can contain at least two or three thousand debris, each of which weighs about three to half a dollar. Sprayed over a hundred steps, even if more than half of it is sprayed into the sky or the lake on the ground, it is still enough to form a storm of blood rain.

The official army has six original Dutch Hongyi cannons, which have been stable so far and do not need to dissipate heat. When the thieves started to charge, the cannons stopped firing briefly.

But that was only because the officers and soldiers were urgently adjusting the direction of the gun mount and the muzzle, sharpening their knives without mistakenly chopping wood, and using the time of missing two cannons in exchange for accurately aiming at every gap in the camp wall. Even if a few gaps can't share firepower, they are harmless, and most of them can be covered.

Just now, the old battalion brothers who were still flying down the turtledove and Lumi shotguns freely, and were still fearless in charging to the death when they were hit, at this moment, each person was hit by more than a dozen fragments on the lake, and no matter how good Rao is stomach was, it was completely useless, and he could only die in the emotion of equality of all beings.

It only took a moment for He Tianming to be paralyzed by fright, and although he avoided the face of the shotgun lake, he fell into a terrifying trampling on each other.

The follow-up thieves old battalion soldiers rushed up frantically, trying to pass through the gap as soon as possible, but the ones in front fell, and they could only default to the fallen ones being dead and stepping on them directly.

Those who were crushed underneath and were not shot, although they were out of breath, they also avoided being bombarded again. No matter how many shotgun fragments there are, it is impossible to penetrate several layers of corpses and kill the people crushed underneath.

The officers and firearms who had retreated to the fort also knelt behind the earthen wall, which was almost only the height of the breastwork, and shot in an orderly manner.

Their muskets are also equipped with shackled bayonets, which do not affect the firing, and can switch to melee combat at any time, without worrying about switching formations after being approached.

The rest of the long-range cold weapons such as bows and crossbows also rained down for a while, and the officers and soldiers did everything they could, piling up all the long-range output firepower that could be used.

A few gaps in the camp wall were soon piled up like mountains of corpses as high as the original rammed earth wooden fences.

The follow-up people who want to rush in still have to climb the pile of dead people, and finally find that it is better to carry a thick wooden plank to frame a slope and rush up the slope steadily.

The front army of thieves has entered a state of dilemma, and those who have rushed in cannot retreat, and the rear army is blocked there and wants to climb the wall to enter, but the speed is too slow.

As a result, the number of rogue troops between the two camp walls has always been in a disadvantageous state of being beaten more locally. There were 40,000 troops in the air, but they couldn't display them, and only one or two thousand people were fighting with the officers and soldiers at every moment.

The dilemma of the battle only made the morale worse, and the losses far exceeded the first tentative attack four days earlier. As the rear army was blocked there and killed in vain, and groups of deserters began to appear, He Jin and He Yilong finally had to consider withdrawing their troops.

"I've fallen for the tricks of the dog officer again! If you can't fight like this, the troops won't be able to spread! Unexpectedly, the officers and soldiers actually built a second earthen wall in the camp! The Hongyi cannon plug is so powerful! But what happens when you retreat? ”

He Jin's scalp was numb, and he was still struggling to hold on, and the soldiers in front of him were dying at the speed of more than 100 people per minute, his brain was thinking hard, and after hundreds of people died, he finally thought of a way.

"I can only let people release rockets and throw torches at night to illuminate! Then let our remaining Franc machine bombard the wall far away in the dark! Completely smash the fortifications of the official army, there is no danger to defend at all, and launch another general attack tomorrow morning! ”

He Jin finally thought that he was too big at the beginning, and he didn't know that the official army had the Hongyi cannon to restrain his Franc machine, and he actually dared to openly deploy the artillery position during the day and bombard the wall slowly.

This led to all this passive situation in the future!

I knew that the official artillery was heavier, more accurate and sharper, and I should have come to bombard the camp wall in the dark!

Anyway, the camp wall is dead, it is impossible to miss the bombardment, and the artillery position is far away a mile or two, but it is difficult to accurately observe and aim by the occasional fire in the dark night.

Erga made an urgent calculation, felt that this strategy was feasible, and finally chose to retreat again - in fact, it could not be regarded as their active choice, because before the order to retreat, the front army had already been defeated and retreated.

Today's casualties are at least twice as heavy as in the first battle.

There are also one or two thousand elite soldiers in the old battalion of the former army, who were blocked in the camp, because the back road was blocked by the corpses of their comrades, and they couldn't escape if they wanted to, so they collapsed in morale and surrendered directly in unison.

Zuo Zixiong did not rush to kill them all, but used muskets and cannons to force them to lay down their weapons, and then asked the pikemen to come forward and tie them all together in groups of ten. After counting, more than 1,600 soldiers were captured, and most of them were fierce old battalion soldiers, accounting for at least 1,000.

After this battle, the temporary casualties of the thief army were at least five or six thousand, about 1,600 were captured, 2,000 were killed or seriously wounded and stabbed, and three or four thousand were lightly wounded and trampled on each other.

What's more critical is that the morale caused by the two consecutive defeats has reached a very dangerous level due to the low morale caused by the official army.