As the sun jumped out of the horizon into the air, the expeditionary force left the camp and began to lay siege formations around the city of Malacca under the command of snare drums, horns and banners.

Because the open space outside the city was not spacious, and the attack surface that could be deployed was narrow, the expeditionary force also discharged an offensive formation composed of many small formations of 100 people.

Fifteen of these small formations were made up of field troops, dressed in uniform red robes and black armor, armed with spears or knives, and the beat of drums began to push forward the rushing carts that had been improvised the night before.

The chariot is a traditional siege weapon with a battering ram hanging inside, with a pointed top and covered with wet turf, which can block attacks such as bows, arrows, stones, etc., and provide a temporary shelter for the soldiers below.

The soldiers, on the other hand, were partly in the vans and some in the rear, using them as cover to approach the walls.

The other 15 formations were made up of the original garrison, their armor was significantly shorter and their protective area was smaller, but the weapons they used were the same as those used by the field troops.

But instead of spears or swords, they stopped some distance from the walls with their bows and arrows in hand, and then took their arrows out of their quivers and stuck them in the ground, apparently preparing to take cover before attacking.

Behind these troops, a force of about 1,000 people was busy debugging the trebuchets and other things that had been made yesterday, preparing to provide cover for the attackers, and Liang En, and his artillerymen were among them.

In addition to this, there was a contingent of more than 1,000 men, including 500 cavalry, which was lined up in the rear of all the people as a general reserve, to prepare for a possible counterattack in the city, and therefore did not participate in the preparation of the siege.

Looking at the approaching army outside the city in a neat formation, the defenders of Malacca began to commotion. The city had lost most of its elite troops in two previous defeats in a short period of time, and the current defenders were only temporarily recruited.

For most of the Guardians, they had been traders, coolies, sailors, fishermen, and even slaves a week before, with almost zero combat experience.

So when the elite of the Praetorian Guard, who had crushed the Praetorian Guard in front of their eyes yesterday, approached step by step, fear quickly spread among them, and some even broke their minds with fear, threw down their weapons and ran towards the city, screaming at the same time.

But the screaming soon stopped abruptly - the remnants of yesterday's Malacca Janissaries were standing behind them, bloody knives in their hands and several detached corpses suppressing the others' urge to escape.

"No one is allowed to run away!" An officer dressed in chain mail and holding a gold-hilped Uzi steel scimitar dripping with blood shouted to the trembling warriors, "The Song people don't have heavy weapons, so as long as we—"

"Boom!"

Just as the Praetorian Guard officer was shouting to boost his morale, a loud explosion like thunder interrupted his speech, and a hole appeared in the wooden gate.

Then the iron ball that had pierced through the heavy wooden door hit the ground and bounced, piercing the bodies of the two defenders before sinking into the body of a war elephant.

The iron ball passed through the entire body of the elephant and shattered its spine before it lost all kinetic energy and stopped, and the fatal blow cost the poor animal almost instantaneously.

The dead elephant collapsed to the exclamation of the people around it, and crushed the few unlucky eggs next to it who didn't have time to run far.

From the defender's point of view, it took only one breath for the iron ball fired by an unknown weapon to pierce the gate made of heavy solid wood, killing and wounding a dozen people and a war elephant.

A few seconds later, a second iron ball also pierced the city gate with an explosion, but this one flew higher, so that it only ended up breaking the leg of a Praetorian Guard standing behind and breaking the pillar of a house.

The unprecedented attack made all the defenders who saw this scene tremble as if they were left shirtless in the snow on a cold day, even

The faces of the fierce and vicious Praetorian Guards turned pale violently.

Fortunately, as the elite who had actually fought on the battlefield, the Praetorian Guards quickly recovered and began to kick and drive the stunned makeshift soldiers to pick up their weapons and return to their positions.

But from the movements and drifting eyes that they turned their heads to look in the direction of Wang Cheng from time to time, we knew that this group of elites had also begun to lose the belief that they could win, and their morale had plummeted.

"Hit both." Just when the defenders of the city were frightened by the two shells, Liang En, who had completed the first actual firing of the artillery, put down the telescope and nodded, and then directed the militia to reset the artillery and reload.

However, unlike before, after realizing that the artillery had a bit of an excess of the piercing ability of this wooden door, Liang En replaced the original solid shell with a chain bullet used to destroy the enemy's mast in naval battles in the choice of the second shell.

At first, he chose solid shells mainly because this simple shell was the most accurate and easy to calculate the trajectory. There are also some concerns about the presence of some supernatural force on the gates of the city as part of the overall defense organization, capable of resisting artillery.

After the first shell hit, Liang En took a closer look and found that although there was some kind of extraordinary defense on the city gate, it could be counteracted by the power contained in the black powder carried in the cannon - which coincided with the legend of black powder to ward off evil spirits.

When the supernatural forces canceled each other out, all that remained was a contest between the door panels and the 12-pounder shell, in which the cannonball clearly won.

Because the power of the artillery exceeded everyone's expectations, the expeditionary force, which had planned to start the siege, also converted the assault into preparations before the siege.

Instead of slamming the doors or destroying the walls, as planned, the soldiers filled far more trenches than planned under the command of the officers in preparation for the next attack.

At the same time, large weapons such as catapults and heavy crossbows moved into place, and together with the archers, they fired a variety of ammunition to suppress the guards standing behind the wooden fence.

It's a pity that the gunpowder weapons in these projection weapons are all traditional gunpowder weapons, the explosive power is very weak, and they rely on various toxic drugs mixed with gunpowder to cause damage, which is completely incomparable with these gunpowder weapons brought by Liang En.

Fortunately, some of the ammunition with charms was able to inflict massive damage from time to time, further damaging the already low morale of the defenders.

Soon the second shell was also loaded, and as the two cannons roared again, two half-iron balls connected by iron chains spun and flew out of the muzzles, and then opened two huge breaches in the city gate.

"Squeak-squeak-"

The gut-wrenching voice of a lifetime suddenly came from the direction of the city gate in front of them, and then the door shaft, which had been badly damaged by the shelling, cracked open in front of everyone's eyes, and the heavy gate fell inward.

"Mortar fire!"

Looking at the group of defenders standing behind the door, Liang En immediately gave an order.

"Boom...... Boom!"

With two dull explosions almost linked, two cannonballs the size of bowling balls fell into the hedgehogs gathered at the gates of the city with a sparkling fuse.

In the next second, two flames exploded among the soldiers, and a large amount of gunpowder smoke enveloped the broken gate.