Don't use the artillery, what does Wu Zheng want to do?

Wu Zheng glanced at the generals around him, saw that they were dumbfounded, and repeated sharply: "Prepare for war." ”

So, everyone went with suspicions and went to their own duties.

Song An's bow and crossbow battalion was the first to strike.

The bow and crossbow battalion, which has been replenished by the surrendered army, has reached more than 2,000 people.

At this time, there is no need to aim, and there is no time.

Each crossbowman mechanically repeats the same action, bending the bow or loading the trigger.

Bows and arrows and crossbow arrows are clearly distinguished, and bows and arrows are thrown from top to bottom in a parabola.

Crossbow bolts are fired in a diagonal line.

Two curtains of arrows covered the distance between 100 and 200 paces in front of the city.

For a while, Shengsheng shot the dense formation of the Tartars into a sieve.

But this does not hinder the enemy's attack, and it does not even delay the enemy's attack.

No matter how dense the arrows are, there will be gaps, even if the archers on the city wall shoot from person to person, person to person, and several columns in front and back, they cannot really cover it.

Because the human body is dozens or even a hundred times the size of an arrow.

When defending the city, the role of the defenders' arrows is not entirely to block the enemy, but more to sift through the enemy's siege formation.

In this way, the density of the enemy will be greatly reduced, and the pressure on the defenders on the walls will be greatly reduced.

It's too late, it's too fast.

didn't wait for the fourth round of arrows from the Ming army to be fired.

The ladder of the Tartars has been set up on the city walls.

At this time, stones, rolling wood, boiling oil, and golden soup rain down.

Countless enemies tumbled down the ladders, their wails filling the perimeter of the walls, and those who heard them could not help but palpitate.

It's literally a slaughterhouse.

And the casualties of the Ming army began to appear.

Unlike the Tartar shelling and cavalry shooting.

At this time, the Ming army needed to get up and couldn't hide.

This became a target for enemy crossbowmen under the city.

The two sides have fought a war of attrition, competing to see who can bear it better.

But compared to casualties, the defenders of the city must have the advantage, and under normal circumstances, this casualty ratio can reach one to five, or even higher.

Therefore, the Ming army can afford such an exchange of casualties.

The reason why Wu Zheng did not give the order to open the cannon was only one reason, that is, to temper this army.

The morale of the Ming army was not low, and it was directly suppressed by artillery, so there would be a kind of psychological dependence on this rabble.

Even if the enemy's vanguard is routed or even severely damaged, it will not be able to change the tide of battle.

It doesn't matter if the Tartars lost 10,000 people.

And the number of artillery shots is limited, Chen Shoujie understands this truth, and the Tartars naturally understand.

Then after the defeat of the forward, the Tartars can completely have a wheel battle against the Ming army, 10,000 people each time, and 60,000 people take turns to attack, which is enough to drag down the Ming army.

Therefore, Wu Zheng decided not to open fire.

Take advantage of the first contact, temper the soldiers, and wait until the soldiers begin to fall, and then use artillery to surprise the enemy with a hard punch, so that you can achieve unexpected benefits, and secondly, you can boost morale.

At this time, the Tartar, who already had two ladders, climbed the ladder with arrows and stones.

No amount of arrows can stop it.

When the Ming army overturned several Tartars led by hook guns, the follow-up Tartars still continued to enter the city.

A hand-to-hand fight broke out at the head of the city.

Only then did the Ming army discover that his opponent was not a real Tartar, but a Han like himself.

With this discovery, the courage of the Ming soldiers suddenly strengthened a lot, and the defenders, who were waiting for work, drove the enemy who climbed the city wall out of the city.

Sure enough, as Wu Zheng expected, after the failure of the first wave of attacks, Duoduo organized a second wave of attacks.

The 50,000 troops under his command were thrown into the siege by him in the form of wheel warfare.

All day, when night was approaching.

The Ming army had already repelled eight enemy sieges.

But each of the enemy's troops had two turns at most, and the Ming army in the city was exhausted.

This is the essential difference caused by the disparity in forces.

When it got dark, the enemy stopped attacking.

In this era, night raids are generally not launched if they are not necessary.

Because night raids require higher adaptability for soldiers.

Many soldiers could not see in the dark, like blind people, commonly known as night blindness.

The walls of the city, which had been battered by artillery fire, were scarred.

The weary soldiers lazily sought their support and sat lazily on the ground.

Morale has been depleted to a critical point.

The corpses on the walls have been emptied, the corpses of the enemies have been thrown off the walls, and the bodies of their comrades have been collected and transported down the walls.

There was no soil to be seen under the city, and it was all black and crushed corpses.

Where it is high, it is already piled up as high as a person.

The breeze blew, and the strong smell of blood filled the city with a kind of desolation.

At this time, a soldier gently hummed a Jiangnan minor tune, attracting a crowd to follow.

Chen Shoujie hurriedly came, "My lord, what do you think?" Why not give the order to open fire? ”

All the generals looked at Wu Zheng, with depression and incomprehension in their eyes.

The casualties of the Ming army today are not insignificant.

More than 600 people were killed and more than 1,000 were wounded, totaling more than 2,000.

This is more than one-half of the total strength of the Ming army.

Wu Zheng said in a deep voice: "You all know in your hearts that in this defensive battle, our army has no reinforcements. 16,000 men, against 60,000 enemy troops, defeated and invincible. This official is not a god, he can't win thousands of miles away, and he can't scatter beans into soldiers. If artillery is used at the beginning today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or a few days from now, what will our army rely on to resist the enemy? How to turn the tide in times of crisis? ”

In fact, Wu Zheng didn't tell the truth, or didn't say everything in his heart.

Wu Zheng was afraid, he guessed Duoduo's intentions, so showing weakness to the enemy could make Duoduo continue to attack Qingchunmen.

Once Dordor decided that the balance of power had changed, changed his strategy and attacked the rest of the gates, it would be more than worth the loss.

This is the normal psychology of most people.

I can run over you, I will ignore your resistance, I will tease you like a cat and a mouse, until you are exhausted, and then I will eat you in one bite.

But if I find that your strength is far greater than I estimated, then I will treat you as an equal opponent and destroy you at all costs.

Therefore, Wu Zheng did not dare to use artillery as a last resort.

Artillery is not omnipotent, at least with the current power of small cannons, it is not enough to influence the tide of battle.

Wu Zheng's words made everyone's faces solemn.

Is this a battle that is impossible to win?

So why fight?

Everyone is thinking.

Wu Zheng sighed and said: "This official knows that you all think that we can retreat south, but now that the Tartars are attacking Wuchang, this is how Luck Dehun was transferred, and this is the result of this recovery of Hangzhou City." But if we abandon the city of Hangzhou and retreat to the south and surrender the city of Hangzhou to the Tartars, it is very likely that Duo Duo will divide his troops to support the Jiangxi battlefield. ”