After six days of intense construction, a 12-mile defensive line appeared in the south and west of Ningbo, blocking all the retreats of the Qing army to the south and west in Ningbo.

The Ming army's defense line was very reasonable, consisting of a trench one zhang wide and eight feet deep forming the outermost defense line. Twenty paces behind the trench was a trench five feet deep and four feet wide, with which it formed a combined line of defense. If the Qing army in the city wants to break through the city, it must first fill in the trench, and at this time, the fire in the trench can shoot the Qing army in front of the trench. The earth excavated from the trenches and trenches was filled into a four-foot-high earthen platform, which was behind the trench. On top of the earthen platform, there was a trench five feet deep and three feet wide. If the Qing army occupied the first trench, they would be attacked by fire from the second trench.

The earthen platform is four feet wide, and there are earthen castles, forts, and fortresses made of sandbags and wooden fences. The earth city is on the earthen platform, the earth city is eight feet high, and the fire on the earth city can cover the trench, the first trench, and the second trench.

Such a tight fortification is simply a gasp, not to mention that the Qing army in the city broke through, and the reinforcements from outside did not want to come in. Relying on the Yongjiang River, the Ming army could come and go freely, and the Yongjiang River ensured the safety of the logistics and transportation line, and it was also able to sail gunboats into the river to bombard the city of Ningbo.

During the six days of the fortifications, the Qing army in the city sent small groups of cavalry to harass the operations of the Ming army auxiliaries.

The Qing army did not dare to launch a frontal attack on the Ming army's camp, but it still dared to harass those auxiliary troops who were far away from the Chinese army's camp. The Ming army was defenseless, so they went up and slashed the auxiliaries.

But Wang Xinyu responded with a dragoon composed of Russian musketeers, using flintlock muskets with a range of 70 paces. When the Qing cavalry approached, the dragoons retreated. If the Qing army pursues them, it will be within the range of artillery. If they didn't pursue, the dragoons turned around and shot the Qing soldiers.

The dragoons, mixed with ten rifled gunners, can shoot Qing soldiers from a long distance.

If the Qing infantry went out of the city to harass the Ming army auxiliaries who were operating, Wang Xinyu's 500 personal soldiers would go on horses and sweep the Qing infantry with cavalry.

After suffering several losses, the Qing army in the city no longer dared to send people out to harass the Ming army auxiliaries, and could only watch the Ming army turn the outside of the city into iron buckets.

Within six days, the follow-up Ming troops arrived one after another, and the Ming army outside Ningbo reached more than 20,000 soldiers, more than 10,000 auxiliary soldiers, and more than 10,000 people. More cannons and wagons were transported outside the city.

Wang Xinyu doesn't like to take risks in war, he always likes to fight steadily and steadily, and crush his opponent with absolute strength. He will not rush into attack until the siege force far outnumbers his opponents.

After the siege of the fortifications was completed, Wang Xinyu gave an order for the auxiliaries and Minzhuang to start building siege batteries.

Relying on the large camp of the Chinese army besieging the fortifications, the construction began from the entrance and exit reserved by the large camp in front of the earthen city in the north, and the two parallel trenches advanced in the direction of the city wall, and the excavated earth was piled up into an earthen platform. The earthen platform and the moat went hand in hand, extending in the direction of the city wall.

"Great Marshal, the siege mortar and the twelve-pounder siege cannon have arrived!" A personal soldier came to report it.

"Unload it first, push the mortar and cannon into the camp, and wait for the battery to be completed!" Wang Xinyu ordered.

The siege weapons were four 64-pounder mortars and eight twelve-pounder cannons, plus more than 300 cannons of other sizes, which were enough to form an absolute suppressive firepower against the Qing army at the head of the city.

In order to prevent the possibility of rain, Wang Xinyu ordered to build a canopy on the fort, so that even if it rained, the artillery could still provide fire support to the besieging troops, and the gunpowder would not be wet by the rain.

While most of the auxiliaries and militias were building forts, some of the auxiliaries and militias went to the vicinity to cut down wood, build ladders, moats, shield carts and other siege tools, and fill a batch of sandbags to fill the moat.

In the past six days, the Qing army in the city has also been making intensive preparations. Fan Chengmo recruited a large number of people from the people in the city; Prepare a large number of tools for defending the city, such as rolling logs, fire oil, gold juice, lime bottles, and 10,000 enemies, and prepare stones and sandbags to reinforce the city wall at any time. At the same time, Fan Chengmo also encouraged the morale of the Qing army, threatening to deceive the Qing soldiers, saying that once the Ming army broke the city, even if it surrendered, it would be sent to work as coolies, and finally died of exhaustion in a foreign land.

In the city of Ningbo, the officials and arresters posted everywhere, preaching that after the Ming army broke the city, they would slaughter the city, kill the people and seize the property, and ask all the people to fight the same enemy and assist the Qing army to defend the city together.

However, Fan Chengmo's propaganda effect on the Ming army's smear does not seem to be very good, when the Ming army conquered Hangzhou, Songjiang and other places, it did not massacre the people of Jiangnan, but killed some hardcore Han Jian who was desperate to serve the Qing court, or some Han Jian family members who were full of crime.

The three major cases in Jiangnan made the gentry class in Jiangnan both hate and fear the Qing court. Although many of the hard-boned ones were killed, what remained were the soft-boned ones. People with soft bones are afraid of death, but it does not mean that they are willing to do things for the Qing court. Don't say that you are dead, even if you are willing, it is impossible.

It was not pleasant to be forced to do things with a butcher's knife on their necks, and at this time someone came to rescue them, how could the gentry class cooperate with the Qing court to smear and propagate the Ming army.

At that time, the gentry class had the right to speak among the people, they were literate and educated, and most of what the common people wanted to know was obtained from the gentry class. The gentry class not only did not cooperate with Fan Chengmo to smear the Ming army, but secretly countered propaganda. In addition, some ordinary people have relatives in Hangzhou, Songjiang and other places, so they naturally know how the Qiongzhou Army treats the people.

Seeing that there were not many people responding, Fan Chengmo ordered the Qing soldiers and officials to use knives to coerce the people to help him defend the city, and asked every family to send a man to join the people to help defend the city. He adopted that as long as there was a male in the house, he should leave him; If there are many men in the family, there are three draws of two, and there are four draws of three, and if there are those who do not follow, they will be beheaded.

The Qing army recruited more than 20,000 people to help defend the city, plus the remaining more than 12,000 Qing troops and more than 6,000 auxiliaries in the city, the number of troops defending the city reached about 40,000.

On the second day of the second lunar month, the Ming army, which had made all the preparations, began to attack the city.

"Fire!" With Wang Xinyu's order, a deafening roar of cannons sounded, and the siege battle began.

Eight twelve-pounder cannons were the first to strike, and the first round of attacks aimed at the Wangjing Gate Tower. The whistling cannonballs smashed into the towers densely packed with archery ports, like hammers slamming on the brick and wood towers, and the masonry tiles suddenly splashed, the roofs were smashed through, the walls were smashed, and the arrows were directly smashed through. The solid cannonballs carried strong kinetic energy, smashing the arrow tower to a thousand holes, and the Qing soldiers hiding in the arrow tower screamed and flew blood and flesh one after another. The Qing soldiers who did not die knew that the arrow tower was the most unsafe place, and they cried and fled from the arrow tower.

Then, the second and third rounds of shells whistled, and the tall arrow tower finally could no longer support it, and collapsed in a cloud of billowing smoke and dust.

"Fight back! Knock out the barbarians' forts! Tan Xiong, the guard of the Qing army, yelled loudly.

The Qing gunners, who were hiding behind the women's wall, pushed out the artillery and stuck out the muzzle from the battlement, preparing to counterattack the Ming army.

As soon as the artillery of the Qing army appeared, all the six-pounder and four-pounder guns under the city were aimed at the Qing artillery. More than 100 cannons opened fire at the same time, spewing out balls of fire, cannonballs poured into the mountains and seas, and the rain generally hit the city, the city bricks cracked one by one, the female wall battlements collapsed like building blocks, and the Qing soldiers hiding behind were smashed by the flying city bricks and stones.

The Qing army only had more than 20 cannons, which were far inferior to the artillery of the Ming army in terms of range and fire density.

The fort arranged by Wang Xinyu was carefully calculated, and the position of the fort was outside the range of the Qing army's cannons, but within the range of his own cannons. The intelligence work in advance was done very well, and the intelligence officers of the Tiandihui had already figured out the number and performance of the artillery of the Qing army in Ningbo City.

The Qing army in Ningbo City only had four imitation red-coated cannons, this kind of cannon cast in the later period, because the quality of the cannon was not up to standard, the weight of the cannon was very heavy, but the caliber was not large. The cannon of more than 3,000 catties can only fire shells weighing seven or eight catties, with a maximum firing range of about two miles and an effective firing range of less than one mile. The rest of the artillery of the Qing army were some small cannons such as Franc machines, general cannons, and tiger squat cannons, and the firing range was even closer.

The Ming army's new twelve-pounder siege cannon had an effective range of more than three miles; The range of the six-pounder and four-pounder guns was also more than two miles, far above the range of the Qing artillery.

The artillery of the Qing army fired back, but the shells fell into the dirt in front of the Ming battery.

The overwhelming shells soon smashed again, hitting the city. Many shells directly hit the artillery positions of the Qing army, and one cannon after another bounced up on the city, and smashed the Qing gunners behind the cannons. Some of the cannons were hit by the shells and rolled down the city along with the bricks of the battlements of the collapsed women's wall, and fell into the moat, making a splash.

In less than half an hour, more than 100 artillery pieces of the Ming army have fired more than 10,000 shells, and all the Qing artillery at the head of the city that exposed the target was destroyed, the city wall was beaten into potholes, and a large part of the female wall battlements on the city head collapsed, revealing the bare city head, so that the defenders lost their shelter. It's just that Fan Chengmo has a back hand, and some of the artillery of the Qing army has not been exposed, and only when the Ming infantry begins to attack the city, these cannons will bombard the Ming army.

"Shield car rush! Start filling the moat! Wang Xinyu ordered.

More than 2,000 auxiliaries and civilians pushed more than 100 shield carts loaded with sandbags in the direction of Ningbo City.

Seeing the shield car approaching, Fan Chengmo, who had left one hand, ordered to move the tiger squat cannon and the small Franc machine gun that he kept as his back hand to the city, and aimed at the shield car that was getting closer and closer.

"Boom" The head of the city spat out tongues of fire, and more than a dozen artillery pieces opened fire at the same time, and the shells that rushed out of the muzzle smashed towards the Ming army's shield car that was pushing up.

However, the accuracy of the smoothbore front-loading guns is not high, let alone these small guns of very unreliable quality.

More than a dozen shells smashed over, because the formation of the shield cart was already very sparse, most of the more than ten shells missed, and only one shield cart was hit by the shell.

The shield in front of the shield cart that was shot suddenly split apart, and the fragments of broken wooden planks shot out like shrapnel, and the auxiliary soldiers pushing the cart behind the shield cart let out a scream, killing several people on the spot and injuring more than a dozen people.

As soon as the small artillery of the Qing army opened fire, it was counterattacked by the fiercest fire of the Ming army. More than 100 cannons fired at the same time, and even if the accuracy was poor, it could hit more than a dozen artillery pieces of the Qing army.

The overwhelming cannonballs smashed on the city, and the remnants of the Qing army's cannons were hit one after another, some of the cannons were smashed flat by the incoming cannonballs, some of the cannons rolled all over the ground, and some of the cannons fell to the city. The gunners of the Qing army were full of flesh and blood, and suffered heavy casualties.

The shield cart was pushed to the moat, and the auxiliaries removed the sandbags from the cart and threw them into the moat.

At the head of the city, the rockets and bird guns of the Qing army rained down like a torrential rain. The rocket was fired at the shield cart, which was smeared with wet dirt in front and covered with wet felt on the outside, and the flames were extinguished in an instant. However, many of the auxiliaries who were throwing sandbags into the moat did not have time to retreat behind the shield cart before they were hit by random arrows and projectiles fired from the castle head. Some people fell by the moat, and some fell directly into the moat with a scream.

The artillery of the Ming army "boomed" again, and the shells fired in turn flew up to the city one after another, smashing the battlements in all directions, and the Qing soldiers who were firing guns and arrows fell one after another.

The archers and musketeers of the Ming army also moved forward, and the archers of the Qiongzhou army had all replaced them with compound bows with pulleys, which were very labor-saving, because they saved the effort to draw the bow and could concentrate on aiming. It only takes an ordinary adult man to pull out a strong bow that would otherwise require a lot of strength to pull out, and shoot powerful arrows. And with this bow, the training time of the archers can be shortened.

Archers still have an irreplaceable role, and bows and arrows have a much faster rate of fire than muskets, which can form suppressive fire.

Of course, the disadvantage of the archer is that the compound bow is too expensive, and the cost of feathered arrows is higher than that of bullets. However, for Wang Xinyu, who is not short of money, these shortcomings are not shortcomings.

Among the more than 1,200 archers, there were more than 500 young men from various tribes such as the Oroqen, Daur, Hezhe, and Evenki, who had just joined the Ming army, and although they had just joined the Ming army, they were all natural archers, and after having compound bows, their attack power became stronger.

There were also more than 300 archers who surrendered to the Mengbaqi and Manchu Baqi, and when these people shot sharp arrows at the Qing army, they showed no mercy at all, and they were more ruthless than those primitive tribe savages from the north.

More than 1,200 archers, using powerful compound bows, constantly shot feathered arrows into the city. In an instant, the city was covered with a layer of reeds.

There were screams in the city, and a large number of Qing soldiers were shot into hedgehogs and fell on the city.

Although the musketeers had a slow rate of fire, there were many people, and the dense projectiles mixed with feather arrows flew up to the city, so that no one in the city dared to show their heads to shoot arrows and guns. (To be continued.) )