The Ming army pushed six carts in the large array and slowly advanced towards the foot of the city wall.

The Qing troops at the head of the city continued to intercept them with bows and arrows and bird guns, but the feather arrows and projectiles hit the carts and were blocked by thick wooden planks. The Qing army at the head of the city shot rows of rockets and shot them at the carts. But the front and top of the cart were covered with wet felt, and the rocket was stuck on it, and in a moment the flames were extinguished, and it was not possible to destroy the cart at all.

There were only five trebuchets left by the Qing army in the city, and the rest of the trebuchets had all been destroyed by the mortars of the Ming army. Originally, the hit rate of trebuchets was not high, and the remaining five trebuchets were difficult to hit the target.

The artillery of the Qing army at the head of the city has long been lost, and without artillery, it is difficult to stop the carts from marching to the foot of the city.

Zhu Zhiguang risked the danger, poked his head out of the battlement at the head of the city and glanced down, then immediately retracted and gave an order to the auxiliaries at the head of the city: "Throw!" ”

The Qing army picked up clay bottles filled with lime, poured water into them, and quickly threw the lime bottles into the city.

When lime meets water, it immediately heats up. The lime bottles that had been thrown from the city fell to the ground and landed on both sides and under the carts. One by one, the lime bottles were heated and burst open, and the fragments of the clay vases were scattered, and hot lime was sprayed from the cracked clay bottles, spraying them on the bodies and feet of the auxiliaries.

"Ahh There was a heart-rending scream, and many of the auxiliaries were burned.

There were also unlucky auxiliaries who were splashed with lime in their eyes, and they immediately covered their eyes in pain and rolled on the ground, blocking the footsteps of the other auxiliaries advancing the cart.

Rainstorm-like lime bottles were dropped, exploding around the carts. Some of the bottles rolled under the cart, causing injuries to the cart's auxiliaries. The scalded auxiliaries screamed in pain, causing a flurry of confusion, and the speed of the cart's advance became even slower.

Heaps of straw were thrown down at the head of the city and landed in front of the carts.

"Whoosh" a row of rockets shot at the straw, and suddenly a sky-high fire burst into flames.

The scorching flames and thick smoke made the auxiliary soldiers dare not push the cart forward, and they were blocked in front of the fire for a while. Thick smoke drilled into the car, the small space in the car, the air was not circulated, the smoke penetrated, and a coughing sound sounded in the car in an instant, and some auxiliary soldiers who couldn't stand it escaped from the car, and were knocked down by the arrows and projectiles shot from the city.

At this time, because the auxiliaries were already very close to the city wall, the Ming army was afraid of accidentally injuring their own people, so they did not dare to bombard it with artillery.

"Array forward!" Wang Xinyu shouted.

The banner in the hands of the soldiers waved, the war drums roared to shake the sky, and the ironclad soldiers of the brigade lined up in a neat formation, slowly moving forward, and the iron shields formed an iron wall. Ranged soldiers such as Birdmen and Archers followed the Ironclad and approached the castle.

The ironclad soldiers stood an arrow away, forming a human wall to protect the long-range shooters behind.

"Put!"

The Ming archers and bird gunners shot from behind the iron shields, and constantly killed the people who threw the defense equipment with their probes and the Qing soldiers who shot from behind the battlements with their heads out of the battlements.

Not to be outdone, the Qing army at the head of the city counterattacked the Ming army with archers and bird-gunners, and the two sides engaged in fierce fire.

Arrows were like locusts, projectiles rained down, and many of the archers and bird-gunners on both sides were shot by arrows.

Although the Ming army has thick armor, and the bow and arrow and bird guns are also excellent, but the Qing army has the advantage of geographical advantage, the two sides in the shooting, the loss is actually equal, there are more than 50 Ming army bird gunners and more than 20 archers in the arrow shots, some of them were directly shot in the face of the door, died in the city.

The red-eyed Ming army lifted out all the heavy muskets and fired suppressively at the city from a long distance. There were also more than a dozen ironclad soldiers out of the formation, constantly raising their hands to throw the smoking national surname bottle into the city.

The Qing army's dense bows and projectiles hit the large square shield of the ironclad soldiers, and the feather arrows were bounced away, and the projectiles hit and sprayed sparks. The national surname bottle thrown by the Ming army's ironclad soldiers to the head of the city exploded, but the Qing soldiers at the head of the city were blown up with flesh and blood, and the screams were repeated.

A small cannon was launched at the head of the city, and the black hole hole cannon mouth stretched out from the battlement, aiming at the Ming army formation, and the "boom" cannon muzzle flashed, and a solid shell fell in the crowd of the Ming army formation.

The cannonball bounced a few times in the crowd, killing and wounding six or seven Ming soldiers, and even the ironclad soldiers borrowed from Chen Python were smashed by the cannonballs.

In front of the powerful cannonballs, the fine iron armor was smashed into pieces of iron like papier-mâché, and the two ironclad soldiers fell to the ground motionless, and they couldn't survive.

The death of the two ironclad soldiers made Wang Xinyu feel distressed for a while. These ironclad soldiers are all tall and powerful people, and it is not easy for every soldier to train, not to mention that a set of ironclad on their bodies is worth more than two hundred taels of silver. Although it was a borrowed soldier, after parting ways with Zheng Jing in the future, Wang Xinyu believed that Chen Python must be with him.

The stone bullets smashed by the trebuchets in the city also smashed several people in the Ming army formation.

"Fire!" At this time, Wang Xinyu didn't care about the possibility of accidentally injuring the auxiliary soldiers who had already arrived in the city, and ordered to open fire to destroy the small cannon of the Qing army.

Four small three-pounder cannons fired in a salvo, and the shells smashed into the women's wall in succession, and one of the shells was bounced back by the women's wall, but it did not hurt his own auxiliaries. The female wall that was shelled collapsed, burying the Qing army's cannon under the pile of bricks, and the splashing of bricks and stones smashed over the two Qing gunners.

Under the cover of fire, the auxiliaries extinguished the burning straw pile ahead with shovels and sand, and three wagons were pushed under the city.

At this time, under Zhu Zhiguang's strict order, the Qing army auxiliaries and Minzhuang at the head of the city poked their heads out and smashed down one by one oil cans.

The canister landed on two of the carts and smashed to pieces, and the oil inside flowed out. Then another row of rockets came down from the city, and in an instant two wagons burst into flames. The temperature inside the car soared rapidly, and the auxiliary soldiers hiding in the car were so smoked that they couldn't stand it anymore and fled from the car one after another. As soon as they fled outside, a row of rocks and wolf fangs fell down from the city, and more than a dozen auxiliaries fell at the foot of the city wall one after another, and the rest of the people were shot by the arrows and guns of the city head when they fled back.

The heavy muskets and flintlock pistols of the Ming army made a continuous explosion of gunpowder gas, and the Qing soldiers at the head of the city sprayed blood mist one after another, and fell one after another.

"Mingjin retreats! Let the remaining three wagons not go up again! Wang Xinyu asked his soldiers to pass the order.

It is not easy to build a car, and the three cars that have been built hard will be burned down, and it is useless to push the remaining three up, so it can only increase the losses in vain.

Although most of the losses were auxiliary soldiers adapted from captives and light armored soldiers adapted from native soldiers, the real Ming army only lost less than a hundred people, but the losses of those captives also made Wang Xinyu very distressed. The path Wang Xinyu wants to take is to open up land overseas, the lack of population is his fatal weakness, these prisoners will be formally incorporated into the Ming army in the future, and the loss of so much today is equivalent to reducing the number of Ming troops in the future.

Hearing Mingjin's voice, the Ming soldiers retreated one after another, and the auxiliaries also turned around and desperately pushed the cart to move towards their camp.

When the Ming soldiers retreated, they collected the corpses of the fallen soldiers. But the dead auxiliaries were left unattended, and the corpses of a large number of auxiliaries were lying strewn under the city. The lightly armored soldiers who served as the overseers only pulled the wounded auxiliaries back, leaving the corpses that fell to the ground alone.

The Ming army Mingjin withdrew its troops, and the Qing army at the head of the city was also licking its wounds. The attack of the Ming army just now caused a lot of losses to the Qing army, and the Qing army was removing the corpses of the city, carrying down the wounded, replenishing the siege equipment, repairing the damaged city towers, and blocking the female wall that was opened by the shelling.

Looking at the corpses all over the ground at the foot of the city wall, Wang Xinyu was heartbroken: "Good you Zhu Zhiguang!" Although you are a Qing official, you are dedicated to serving the Tartar court! When I break Qiongzhou, I will definitely cut off your head and avenge the fallen soldiers! ”

The Ming army changed its methods of attack and began to dig trenches three hundred paces from the city walls. The excavated earth was piled up in front of the trench and formed several small mounds. The auxiliaries then dug tunnels in the trenches.

Wang Xinyu saw that the cart could not enter the foot of the city wall at all, so he had to take the method of digging tunnels and preparing to blow up the city from under the city wall.

Zhu Zhiguang stood at the head of the city, only to see that the Ming army did not attack again, but dug a trench outside the city, and then piled up a mound of earth to block his vision, and then a large group of people did not know what was busy behind the mound.

"Do the thieves want to break through the city with their caves?" Zhu Zhiguang thought of this.

A Qing soldier said: "My lord, the thieves must be planning to attack and dig down our city wall!" ”

Zhu Zhiguang ordered: "We will not move!" Put a few water tanks between the outer city and the sub-city, and listen to the movement! Watch their tunnels dig up there! As soon as they're almost there, we'll dig a trench and pour water into it! ”

While the auxiliary soldiers were digging the tunnel, Wang Xinyu did not let the sailor idle.

Zhu Zhiguang stubbornly insisted on the lonely city, Wang Xinyu had no choice but to take the most troublesome but most effective method while digging the tunnel: carrying the naval guns down and using the naval guns to bombard the city walls. Because there is still a sub-city in the capital city of Qiongzhou, even if the outer city is blown up, the Qing army can immediately retreat to the sub-city and continue to hold on. Wang Xinyu had no way to dig tunnels to blow up Zicheng, so he could only bombard Zicheng with red-clothed cannons and forcibly blast Zicheng away.

The thickness of the sub-city is not as thick as that of the outer city, and it does not take too long to break the city by bombarding it with artillery.

The red-coated cannon was very heavy, and the 24-pounder cannon weighed more than 3,000 pounds. However, this is much better than the artillery made by the Qing army itself, and the Qing army also has a cannon of more than 3,000 catties, and the shells are only between twelve and eighteen pounds. Because the cannon was very heavy, it was troublesome to carry, and it could not be transported by a large-wheeled gun carriage like the British gun, so a four-wheeled gun carriage could only be specially built to transport the cannon.

The sailors carried the guns off the ship, placed them on four-wheeled gun wagons, and transported them to the artillery positions with six oxen pulling the guns.

It took two busy days for the cannon to arrive.

After the redcoat cannon was in place, the gunners instructed the auxiliaries to dig a pit in the ground, unload the cannon from the gun carriage, and fix it in the pit, so as to complete the preparation of the redcoat cannon.

Three days later, the three tunnels were almost completed. But at this time, two of the tunnels that had just arrived at the foot of the city wall were flooded, and only more than 50 of the more than 180 auxiliary soldiers who dug the tunnels escaped, and the rest were drowned in the tunnels, and the two tunnels were also declared abandoned.

Wang Xinyu had no choice but to stop the last tunnel.

"How did the Tartars know that we were digging in the tunnel?" Li Rui felt a little incredible.

Wang Xinyu guessed one thing: "The Tartar dog official must have put a water tank in the city, and when you hear the sound, you know that we are about to dig it." So they dug a ditch under the city, poured water into it, and broke our tunnels. ”

In fact, Zhu Zhiguang was also startled when he heard the sound of tunnel excavation, he didn't know how the Ming army could dig so fast, and it only took three days to dig the tunnel. However, he immediately decided to have people dig a trench at the foot of his city wall to intercept it, and poured water into the ditch, destroying the tunnel.

PS: The defense of the Qing army is too stubborn, ask for fire support, collect and recommend it.