Chapter 103: Arms Fair
The siege of Plymouth north began.
To be precise, the battle was actually just a fight at the beginning, and since the Beiyang cavalry was stationed in the city, even if there were only a hundred horsemen, it still greatly contributed to the prestige of the merchant soldiers in the city.
Merchants and sailors need the army to strengthen their courage, and they can do some big things on their own, but if there are more professional talents, people will be more assured that Wang Jinzhong, the head of the sumo wrestling coach of the guard, was promoted to the rank of captain of Zhongxian by virtue of his status.
is the so-called specialization in the art industry, just like although the takeaway brother who can't drive an excavator is not a good five-kill player, people still feel very powerful when they hear the word boosting.
In the past, the soldiers who ran out of the besieging camp to get water could carry buckets to the wells outside the city to fetch water with great pride, because the merchant ships and sailors in the city avoided the battle, and no one wanted to attract the enemy army to attack the city early.
As for the people outside the city, they are also fat, although the siege armament is insufficient, but seeing that the city does not dare to attack, they also feel that they can do it.
It's different now, there is a regular army in the city, and it's cavalry.
Although it is a very thing to say that the cavalry defends the city, they need professional soldiers too much to be brave, and this wall is actually a good thing - a vertical city wall, not even a moat, just a small canal, guarding a chicken city.
In fact, you can't blame the rough construction of this city wall, everything has its proper function, this city wall was built when the war did not have the shadow of artillery, and the sloped city wall can better defend against the attack of catapults, but why should Plymouth guard against catapults?
It is not a noble castle, as the northern wall of the harbor city, the most likely enemies are bandits and robbers, and peasant uprisings, so the enemies it needs to guard against are ladders and ladders, and the walls that go straight up and down are more difficult to get ladders up and down - ordinary peasant uprisings will not have any trebuchets.
Don't care about the slope of the city wall, now that the sailor grandfather who is defending the city has a straight waist, can you watch your besieging soldiers carry a wooden barrel to hang out? He flew with his bow and arrow, and if he missed an arrow, he came again to vent his anger at sharpening the shaft of the arrow day and night since the siege.
The other side also understood, dropped the barrel and ran away, and after a while a knight lord on horseback came, leading a dozen rabble with longbows under his hand, raising his hand and pointing at the head of the city.
The first siege of Pulley County by the English began.
The longbows under the city were fired, the hard bows on the city were fired, the two sides fought back and forth, the defenders in the city also came to the city, the besieging troops outside the city also drove to the city, and the recruited farmers had no chance to watch the excitement with a pitchfork, and they all pushed the Fran cannons and catapults under the orders of the knights and servants, and carried cannonballs and freshly chiseled cobblestones, and the whole camp immediately moved.
The besieging force was divided into two groups, and the Earl of Plymouth believed that his troops had been lured by the Ming army in the city to attack the city, but he had no ability to stop the battle, so he could only divide more than 1,000 troops on the spot and advance west to set up a defensive line to stop the Irish Ming army that he imagined had captured Newquay Harbor.
The rest of the troops, except for those who had already fought under the city, knelt down under his leadership to pray and boost morale before the battle, and the nobles elected veterans of the battle under their command to form a siege team, mixed with a dozen knights who had fled from the west to form a siege team, ready to face the most difficult battle.
The Count hoped that the battle would go smoothly, but their Franco cannons were too small to pose a threat to the walls, and at most they could only attack the crossbowmen of the wooden towers of the city, and the task of blasting through the walls fell to the two catapults in the camp that could throw fifty pounds of boulders.
The biggest problem was that the siege was still short, and the number of stone bullets they carved with human power was too small to blast through the walls.
The city was also urgently mobilized, Li Changlai mobilized Joseph and Alan Muming, and transferred 800 county soldiers from the city to defend the city, and mixed the garrison with 300 sailors.
The lack of troops in the city is only one of them, Li Changlai is most afraid of not the enemy army outside the city, but the people in the city taking advantage of the enemy army to attack the city and rebel, so that they fall into the dilemma of internal and external attacks, so first transfer a group of people to the city, and then ask the Beiyang cavalry Baihu, Alan Muming, Josepha to lead the caravan sailors, and Ailan infantry to guard the main roads in the city - mainly the road from the city to the Ming Chamber of Commerce.
In Li Changlai's eyes, the Ming Chamber of Commerce is a more reliable place to defend than this broken city wall, the wall is not only strong, the hall is surrounded by artillery, and there is a small moat, even if the city is broken, hundreds of their remnants can hide in the fortress and then defend it for ten days and half a month.
After all, siege armaments are difficult to put in the city.
But that was just a life-saving strategy, and now they are fighting to hold this city, and only by holding this city can they take a high look at the next distribution of benefits by the imperial court - no one wants to be a merchant, if they want to be a merchant, there is no need to instigate this rebellion at all.
At least for Li Changlai, this place is good, if the imperial court wants to set up a consolation department here, the consolation makes this position more suitable for him than anyone else.
This hope gave him the faith to hold on to the city.
However, the stone-throwing vehicle outside the city threw the first huge stone projectile in the air and fell into the city in a parabola, accurately stomping on the grass arrows that Wang Jinzhong usually shoots? Li Changlai on the city wall was just like those soldiers who were hiding around with all kinds of weapons, and he had no distractions.
On April 17, the 11th year of Wanli, the north city wall of Puli County can open a Zhengde, Jiajing, Longqing, Wanli four dynasties, the world's hot and cold weapons exposition.
People had all the weapons they could find.
European butcher knives, spears, spears, blacksmiths' hammers, short swords, long swords, bayonet swords, handguard swords, hand half swords, two-handed broadswords, hook sickles, small axes, agricultural scythes, military scythes, two-handed battle axes.
Ming-style wrist knife, short-handled Pu knife, fish head knife, Yanling knife, long-handled Pu knife, Guan knife, spear, Beiyang sailor axe, sailor sawtooth knife, Mongolian scimitar, bone duo, gourd.
There are also Japanese swords, Malay swords, and Korean ring swords.
English shortbows, longbows, Tannenberg hook muskets, long-barreled Hussite muskets, stocked arquebuses, stockless arquebuses, old crossbow machine arquebuses, new Spanish light and heavy arquebuses.
Small Bow Bow, Big Bow Bow, One-handed Small Crossbow, Double Large Crossbow, Hongwu Fire Gun, Yongle Fire Gun, Quick Gun, Three-Eyed Gun, Bird Gun, Tanegashima, and even two sailors made their own Hundred Tigers to run together, especially the Three-Eyed Gun and Tanegashima are the majority.
Whether it is a Yiding Baojia who has prepared his own weapons or a sailor who begs for a living at sea, the long-prepared battle to defend the city has finally begun, and at this moment, no one has any choice but to fight.
Li Changlai shouted and ordered the sailors to gather around him the four Furlong cannons in the city, and crossed the enemy infantry brigade pushing the ladder forward, aiming at the huge stone-throwing carts in the distance.