When Wan Yuanji's men and horses were assembled, there were bursts of shouts of killing in the distance.

Immediately, a scout Pegasus reported, "Report, the east side found that the Qing army was in formation, and the number exceeded 10,000. ”

Yang Tinglin nodded, climbed high and watched, only to see that the Qing army in the distance had formed a defensive formation, with spearmen in front, crossbows and firecrackers behind, and even a trench dug in front of the military formation.

He frowned slightly, but he did not order reinforcements to the Soapmouth Fortress, but instead let Wan Yuan Ji and Zhang An lead the troops to slowly retreat for most of the mile, and put up a defensive posture on the spot, and also prepared the trench and horse rejection in front of the battle.

Yang Tinglin looked in the direction of the ferry, where the sound of guns and shouts of killing became louder and louder, and it seemed that Jin Shenghuan wanted to make a desperate attempt to attack the soap.

Thinking that tens of thousands of Qing troops were besieging the projectile-sized soapmouth, he couldn't help but feel a little nervous in his heart, but he even remembered the fortress that stood on the soapmouth.

This King of Chenzhou is an all-rounder, not only leading the troops to fight unambiguously, but also designing such an exquisite fortress. Yang Tinglin sighed in his heart, at that time he said that this fortress could withstand the bombardment of Jin Shenghuan's cannon for two months, and he was still a little bottomless in his heart. Now it seems that if you don't say two months, it means four or five months of continuous bombardment, and I am afraid that the old thief will just waste shells.

At present, the Qing army came to fight hard, but he didn't expect it, but according to what Chen Yi said, the 4,000 Yunnan troops selected by Zhao Yin to guard the fortress should be very reliable.

Out of trust in the king of Chenzhou, who swept most of Jiangxi, he forced down his anxious mood and did not enter the army to save the fortress, but first focused on preserving the vitality.

Huang Tianlei on the opposite side was a little incomprehensible.

General Wang gave him an order to hold back the Ming brigade so that it could not reinforce the fortifications at the ferry. But at the moment, instead of attacking, Yang Tinglin retreated, and he also stuck in his position, as if he wanted to confront him.

Before he could figure out what was going on, he heard a muffled sound in his array, followed by a series of screams.

Only moments later, another huge cannonball whizzed into his formation from the flank, and three foot soldiers immediately "disappeared" from the ranks. The shell continued to gain momentum, and it jumped three more times on the ground, smashing a small tree before stopping.

Huang Tianlei's face turned dark, looking at the power of this cannonball, I'm afraid it's still a heavy artillery, there is an ambush cannon of the Ming army near here?

After eating a few more iron balls, he finally saw the Ming artillery that was constantly "greeting" him at the top of a prominent tower of the fortress in the distance.

The tower originally faced the Gan River, but because it was cleverly designed, the protruding outer edge of the tower was just not blocked by the wall. Turn the cannon on top of it and hit his position.

Huang Tianlei couldn't say it because of the bitterness in his heart, his task was to block the Ming army from approaching the city fortress, so he couldn't leave the range of fire of that cannon at all. And the cannon was erected on a tower three or four feet high, and he could only watch the beating, and he couldn't reach the other party if he wanted to fight back.

Although the cannonballs flying through the ranks of the Qing army could not kill a few people, every soldier had the possibility of being "named" by the iron ball flying from the back of his head at any time, and the power of the eleven-pound iron ball smashing on the ground and then jumping out of the distance, crushing all the grass, trees and rocks along the way, caused psychological pressure and terrible.

At first, the Qing soldiers just kept looking back, and after thirty or forty people were bombarded by the cannonballs, Huang Tianlei's men almost all switched to facing Yang Tinglin, their eyes fixed on the cannon on the tower.

……

Jia Xiong knew very well that his group of people was used to fill the trenches, because he was far away from the fortress, but he kept strictly ordering the overseers to move forward. And the Overseer team brandished a single knife to drive the cannon fodder forward.

There was a chest-high trench on the outer wall of the Ming army's fortress, which was very convenient for internal transportation, and there were squares for storing ammunition at regular intervals under the feet of the soldiers, which protruded diagonally into the ground to avoid being hit by the enemy. More than a thousand Ming troops were hidden in the trenches, constantly pouring lead bullets and arrows on the outside of the fortress.

There is a tower on the six corners of the inner wall, and on the two towers facing the Ganjiang River are two 2,000-pound Hongyi heavy cannons. The other towers only have the Weiyuan cannon, which is commonly used by the Ming Dynasty to defend the city, and the power is about the same as that of the four-pounder cannon, but when fired from a high tower, it can still pose a great threat to the besieging enemy.

For every step forward, the Qing soldiers pushing the carts and carts had to pay a few lives.

But even so, under the coercion of the warlords, the Qing army still filled two passages in the trench outside the fortress with human lives, and the filling inside was filled with three CDs of their corpses.

In addition, more than a dozen mantle carts were also placed on the outer wall of the fortress. The so-called mantle cart is actually a tall wooden wall with wheels, behind which sacks, clods of earth and other objects are piled up, which can be used to resist the Ming army's firearms and bows.

Although the Ming army quickly wiped out most of the curtain carts with cannons and torches, under their cover, a dozen or so ladders were still pushed to the edge of the outer wall. Since the outer wall of the fortress is only two zhang high, it is not necessary to get close to the ladder, and it is enough to push the ladder to the top of the wall.

"My lord, the thieves have attacked the outer wall." Some soldiers hurriedly ran to report to Zhao Yinxuan.

The entire interior of the fortress is connected by this dense passage, which can easily transfer troops to any position for reinforcements. Zhao Yinxuan and Chen Yi set up a temporary camp in a passage at this moment.

"It doesn't matter." Chen Yi said confidently, "According to the battle situation just now, we have eliminated at least three or four thousand thieves on the outer wall. You know, the exterior wall is actually used to protect against cannons, and it is enough to last so long. ”

Zhao Yinxuan nodded, and asked again: "Okay, then how do you think you want to deploy it now?" ”

It was Chen Yi's words, he was the person who was most familiar with the entire fortress structure, and every firing point, every passage, and how far the firepower could cover it were all remembered in his mind. Therefore, most of the defensive battles of this fortress still need his command.

"Abandon the outer wall, don't short the enemy." He replied decisively, "To deal with the thieves of the ant set, the vertical and horizontal shooting in the inner layer of the fortress is the cheapest. ”

"Do as you say." Zhao Yinxuan instructed the soldiers.

"Obey!"

Wang Deren saw that the ladder was pushed to the root of the wall, and more than half of Jia Xiong's men had been killed and wounded, and they were all afraid of the battle, so he ordered Guo Tiancai to go first, and he himself led the elite of the Dashun soldiers to follow, and nearly 20,000 Qing soldiers swarmed towards the Saokou Fort from all corners.

The Ming army seemed to have lost the will to fight, and only fired a few rounds of guns and arrows, shot and killed the first group of Qing soldiers, and then withdrew. By the time Guo Tiancai's men climbed up the wall along the ladder, the firepower of the Ming army had completely disappeared.

"Good!" Seeing this, Wang Deren hurriedly urged his soldiers to speed up their descent to the city.