Zhang Jie is not stupid.

After returning from Tian Xiong, he guessed that he must have been targeted by Tian Xiong, after all, Tian Xiong had a history of betrayal, and no one knew more about rebellion than him, so Zhang Jie did not organize a mutiny immediately, but first stood still, watched the situation, and waited for the Ming army to completely gain the upper hand before taking action.

Five days passed like this.

On March 15, the seventh day of the siege of Ningbo, the siege began in the morning.

In the past seven days, Su Yan ordered the troops to cut down trees and build siege equipment, and the Qing troops in the city could only watch the construction of shield carts to resist the fire resistance of the Qing army, as well as the battering rams used to break the city gates and the ladder carts used to climb the city walls.

However, because the perimeter of the city wall of Ningbo City was surrounded by a moat, and the wooden planks erected on the river surface for soldiers to pass through could not bear the weight of the siege tower, so this kind of necessary equipment for siege was not built.

In the morning, in addition to Wang Yi's troops outside the Yongfeng Gate, the Ming troops outside the other three city gates launched an attack.

Under Su Yan's order, all kinds of artillery erected outside the city gate lined up roared, and heavy projectiles flew towards the city wall under the power of gunpowder, smashing heavily on the surface of the city wall, making the city wall tremble, and the Qing soldiers on the city wall hid behind the wall in horror, trying to block the flying cannonballs and save their own lives.

In the shelling, there were many shells that were not adjusted because of the shooting, and flew over the city wall into the city, smashed into the residential area, and collapsed several houses, one of the shells hit the Yanqing Temple next to the city wall, accurately hit the bell tower in the temple, smashed a large hole in the wall of the bell tower, and the falling rubble even killed an unlucky monk.

Although it was already known that the Ming army had many artillery, Tian Xiong still underestimated the firepower of the Ming army, so the Qing army was directly stunned under the first round of artillery bombardment of the Ming army, but the Qing army on the city wall reacted quickly and ordered the Hongyi cannon and the Fran machine gun on the city wall to fire back, and the two sides started an artillery battle.

However, the number of artillery of the Qing army was less than that of the Ming army, and it was scattered on the long city wall, so it was quickly deflated in the artillery battle with the Ming army, and was suppressed by the latter for a while and could only flee in a hurry, and many artillery pieces were destroyed.

At the same time as the artillery battle between the two sides, Su Yan also ordered the infantry to attack the city, and the Ming army deployed outside the Changchun Gate also included more than 5,000 punishment battalion foot soldiers, who replaced the task of the Chinese military camp to take the lead in attacking the city.

Looking out from the city wall, they are like a dense swarm of ants, rushing out of the Ming army camp, seeing the Qing army foot soldiers on the city wall a little frightened, Tian Xiong, who personally supervised the battle on the city tower, held the scabbard in his hand, looked at the foot soldiers who came like a tide, frowned, and a face was extremely gloomy.

However, he found a problem, except for a few of the foot soldiers who took the lead in the attack who were able to put on armor (officers), the rest of them basically wore only a thin uniform, carrying a shield and spear in their hands, and they could see at a glance that they were purely cannon fodder for the Ming army.

Moreover, the banner held high by those foot soldiers prominently had three big characters written on it - Punishment Battalion.

With such a name and such shabby equipment, and the fact that those foot soldiers were basically bald, Tian Xiong took the opportunity to judge the identity of this group of people, which should be the Qing soldiers who were captured in the previous battle of Qiancang Mountain.

However, even if he judged it, he couldn't do anything for a while, if he wanted to persuade him to surrender, they were still followed by the heavily armed Ming army regular army, once they defected, they would only be slaughtered, even a fool would not listen to his persuasion.

If you don't stop their pace, when the siege equipment in their hands is pushed under the city wall, the dead will be the Qing army in the city.

What's more, those surrenders have nothing to do with him, and he can't take advantage of the other party, so he can only attack them ruthlessly.

So, after the punishment battalion entered the firing range, Tian Xiong did not hesitate to order the artillery to turn the muzzle and fire at those siege equipment, wanting to destroy most of the equipment as much as possible before the enemy pushed under the city wall, how could the Ming artillery do what they wanted, while the punishment battalion was attacking, the Ming gunners were also gathering fire to bombard the Qing army's city fire artillery, and many artillery pieces were destroyed for a while.

"Run! Run! ”

"Wash away your sins with your blood! Punishment battalion, attack! ”

The officers who were mixed in the crowd shouted loudly, they were promoted from the good performance of the foot soldiers in the punishment camp, in order to be able to mix in a higher position and get out of the humiliating group of the punishment camp as soon as possible, they worked very hard, and when they saw the slow foot soldiers, they rushed up and kicked them over.

Amid the roars of the officers and the continuous sound of artillery on the battlefield, the infantry of the punishment battalion also began to become emotional, and they shouted loudly, silently thinking in their hearts that as long as they could push the siege equipment under the city wall, they would be considered meritorious, regardless of the shells that flew from the city wall from time to time.

"Archer prepare!"

Seeing that the punishment camp had rushed into the range of bows and arrows, the Qing army on the city wall raised their swords and shouted at the Qing army archers lined up behind the wall battlements.

A round of arrows rained down from the sky, and immediately shot a large number of unarmored foot soldiers, a punishment battalion commander shouted and raised his shield to block a cluster of arrows falling from the sky, and then looked around, several foot soldiers around him could not react, they were hit by arrows, and fell to the ground screaming, the foot soldiers behind them completely ignored the fallen robe, and still ran forward with a shield across the body of the robe in front of him.

"Raise your shield to defend! Spread out! Disperse! ”

He shouted to the foot guards beside him, as soon as he finished speaking, he heard a deafening whistling coming from the front, and before he could react, a soldier who was only one step away from him was hit accurately by a cannonball in front of his eyes, and the whole person was directly smashed into pieces, and his limbs flew in all directions with a blood mist, and one of the long hot objects fell on his body, and when he looked at it, his soul was almost thrown out, and it was a section of the intestines of a person still with hot gas!

Close contact with death, only one step away from himself, Wu Chang was in a trance, the shield in his hand was not held, fell at his feet, and became godless eyes were still staring at the place where the foot soldier died just now, I don't know how long it took, when he reacted, the roar of birds had already sounded on the city wall - the punishment battalion advanced to the other side of the moat.

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