The second day is June 12 in the Ming calendar, December 30 in the Hijri calendar, and June 30 in the Western calendar.

After the burning in the middle of the night, most of the houses in the outer city have been burned down, and only the remaining bricks and rubble remain; The gravel road was also blackened, and there were ashes from the fire everywhere, and if you stepped on it, it rained in the middle of the night, and you still felt hot.

Song Hu stood at the head of the city, holding clairvoyance to look at the soldiers of Samarkand who were forming a team on the opposite side. I saw that the old general named Yesbu commanded the soldiers to clear a large area, and ordered them to line up in a neat line.

Immediately, the cannons placed behind them began to roar, and large and small shells were fired at the city wall, smashing out patches of earth and stones. Song Hu had to shrink into the battlements and tie the rope of the steel helmet on his head.

Shang Bing was also standing behind the battlements at this time, looking at the soldiers of Samarkand who were queuing up outside with Song Sheng, Wu Jie and others, counted the number of people, and asked the other guards of the city walls for the news, and said: "A total of 50,000 people are lining up, which is already more than the soldiers of our army defending the city." ”

"It seems that Timur decided to take the inner city as soon as possible to meet the reinforcements coming from the Star Gorge." Song Sheng said.

There was no disagreement with his judgment. Song Sheng looked at it for a while, and saw that the cannons began to roar, and the soldiers under the city were about to start attacking the city, and said to Shang Bing: "Your Highness, the soldiers are in danger, and please ask Your Highness to go down to the city to protect everything." ”

"Now that the city of Iwu is in danger, where is there anything that can be preserved?" Shang Bing said this first, but then said: "But Lone will go down to the city." But not for the sake of security, but not to let you be restrained in the time of war. ”

"Your Highness is considerate." Song Sheng said.

Shang Bing was about to say a few more words, when suddenly a cannonball hit the battlements in front of them, shattering half of the battlements and splashing earth and stones.

Song Sheng didn't care to greet Shang Bing, and shouted loudly: "Please Your Highness go down to the city quickly." And he began to command the defense of the city.

Shang Bing subconsciously held the steel helmet above his head with both hands, and wanted to say something more, but at this time, the shouts of the city head had already sounded, and he couldn't hear anything clearly, looking at Song Sheng, who was busy with his work, silently recited a sentence, turned around and walked down the city.

Song Sheng turned around and saw that Shang Bing had already gone down to the city, he breathed a sigh of relief, turned his head and shouted loudly: "Soldiers, kill the enemy!" His guards shouted at the same time, and for a moment suppressed the sound of "buzzing", which resounded throughout the city.

"Kill!" The crowd shouted, and then they fought with the besieging soldiers of Samarkand.

……

……

"My Honored Majesty, I'm sorry that I am writing to you again after six days when the tide of battle is changing so quickly."

"It's not that I'm slacking off on Your Majesty, it's that I forgot to write a letter to Your Majesty."

"From June 29, 1404 onwards, the tide of battle has changed dizzyingly."

"On that day, after writing my last letter to His Majesty, I went with Alonso to observe the battle. At that time, Timur was full of confidence in capturing the outer city that day, and even felt that he could take the inner city together. ”

In the end, the soldiers of the Timurid Khanate did capture the outer city, but things did not go as smoothly as Timur had imagined. Song Sheng, the commander of the city's defenses, who was determined to be the one who actually commanded the city's defense after interrogating the captured Ming soldiers, played a trick that caused Timur to lose so many soldiers that his general, Yesbu, wanted to retreat. ”

However, Timur refused the request to withdraw his troops, and decided that the Ming army defending the city was at the end of its strength, and wanted to frighten them with the last outburst, so as to withdraw smoothly to the inner city. Not only that, but he also ordered tens of thousands of additional soldiers to attack the city. ”

Facts have proved that Timur's judgment was correct, and the Ming army defending the city was indeed at the end of its strong crossbow, and had to abandon the outer city and retreat to the inner city under a more fierce offensive. However, they had been prepared for this for a long time, so they did not lose anything other than the soldiers who were left behind. ”

Then a fire broke out in the city. The cause of this large-scale fire is not yet known, but due to the rain in the second half of the night, all that was left of this fire, which was originally beneficial to the siege, was all for Timur's benefit. ”

"Timur did not waste these benefits either, and the next morning he ordered the fiercest attack to seize the city, and the battle was heated from the beginning."

"The cannons placed at the rear of the camp continued to fire until the barrels were hot, began to cool down, and resumed firing as soon as the temperature had decreased; The soldiers who used their bows and crossbows to cover the siege rushed to a distance of only thirty or forty paces from the city wall in the face of the arrows that were constantly being fired from the city, and the people in the front row raised their shields, and the people in the back row threw their arrows in a direction about 60 degrees diagonally upwards, ignoring that the arrows they shot were likely to be killed before they killed the Ming army. ”

"But the most heroic and fearless were the besieging infantry. As if they had another body at home, and that they could go back and replace it with another body after it was broken, they did not spare their lives and rushed towards the city walls, even if a tenth or more of their soldiers were killed before they could rush to the top of the city. ”

"Of course, the reason why they charged like this had a lot to do with the way Timur was mobilized before. The Ming civilization in the East was based on the so-called 'Trinity' civilization, which was based on Confucianism created by a wise man who was born nearly 2,000 years ago, about 5 years ago, and supplemented by their native religion, Taoism, and Buddhism imported from India. After the civilization of the Ming Kingdom, I will write a letter to describe it in detail. ”

"There is no place for any other religion in this. Therefore, since the founding emperor of the Ming Kingdom ascended the throne, he issued a policy of discrimination against the Heavenly Sect, and the new emperor did not relax at all after he ascended the throne, and even intensified it. ”

"In this way, the Ming state was a pagan state for the Timurid Khanate. So Timur mobilized the soldiers in such a way as to arouse their religious fanaticism. Now it seems that it worked well. ”

"Therefore, the Ming army fell into passivity from the beginning. On the first day of Timur's order to attack the inner city, that is, on June 30, many soldiers of the Timurid Khanate rushed to the head of the city and almost drove the Ming army at the head of the city. The Ming army had to use their last remaining defensive equipment to defend the city so that the head of the city would not be captured. ”

"But they had very few equipment to defend the city, and they quickly ran out. After that, the Ming army defending the city had to defend the city with the lives of its soldiers. ”

But the number of Ming troops inside the city was not as large as that of the soldiers of the Timurid Khanate outside the city. In my opinion, the loss of the city is inevitable. ”