The offensive and defensive battle under Shimen Pass was quickly stopped as Li Banghua ordered the officers and troops to retreat, but the attack of the thief army under Liu Wengui on the north peak of Shimen Pass was very resilient, and it was fought until about mid-afternoon of the same day, when it stopped because the casualties were too heavy. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

After about two hours of continuous attacks, Liu Wengui's thief army lost more than 1,500 people on the western slope of the north peak of Shimen Pass, but at the same time consumed most of the gunpowder projectiles, grenades, and incendiary bombs that the officers and troops had hoarded on the top of the mountain in the previous two days.

If it weren't for the heavy casualties of the thief army and the stop of the attack, then the more than 400 people who followed Li Bei on the top of the mountain would soon have to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the thief army face to face.

For melee hand-to-hand combat, Li Bei is certainly not afraid, after all, all the battles he has fought before, in the end, he has to rely on melee hand-to-hand combat to decide the winner, not like in front of him, before the enemy rushed in front of him, he was thrown to the ground by muskets and grenades, and then burned alive by the fierce fire bombs thrown by the grenadiers.

He also couldn't say what kind of battle was better, but he knew very well that once the current mine battalion soldiers were out of gunpowder and grenades, especially once they fell into the sea of thieves, then it was hard to say how long the musketeers and grenadiers in the more than 400 mine battalions under his command could withstand and how many could survive.

Therefore, when the thief army on the opposite side finally receded like a tide, he really let out a long breath, and then immediately sent people down the mountain to ask for reinforcements and deliver as much ammunition, food and water as possible to the top of the mountain.

The sky was covered with smoke and the smell was choking, and although it was only around mid-afternoon, it looked like the usual twilight.

In the afternoon of that day, including the whole night that followed, the two armies inside and outside Shimen Pass were accumulating strength and preparing for the next day's offensive and defensive battles.

Liu Guoneng also took advantage of this opportunity to organize people and horses to continuously transport rolling wood and stones to the south peak of Shimen Pass for the purpose of sticking.

And Li Banghua's side will soon randomly select 200 prisoners of the thief army from the newly compiled baggage craftsman camp according to the ratio of the eleventh slaughter method, and prepare to kill the chickens and monkeys when the siege battle starts the next day, so as to deter these thieves who have surrendered but are unwilling to fight to the death.

At the same time, according to the battle situation that day, Lu Xiangsheng and Lu Yuanding also began to urge the baggage craftsmen to make siege vehicles made by logging overnight.

However, this kind of siege vehicle with six huge wheels is completely different from the traditional one, and it is not the traditional huge siege ram used to hit the city gate that is covered by the siege vehicle, but the Chongzhen rear-loading smoothbore mother cannon improved by the Fran machine gun.

The siege battle of that day made everyone from Li Banghua to Lu Yuanding realize that the thief army on the southern peak of Shimen Pass must be suppressed, otherwise the siege vehicles will not be able to get close to the vicinity of the city at all, and they will not be able to play a role.

And the easiest way to suppress it at present is to use the artillery of the officers and soldiers.

Although the projectile is not large, the gun is long, which means that the firing range is very long, and the height of the south peak of Shimen Pass is only more than 400 meters, as long as the artillery continues to move forward, and the large elevation angle is shelled towards the mountain, it is completely able to send the projectile up the mountain, and I dare not say how many people are killed, but it will definitely cause a lot of panic and riots to the thief army.

Even if artillery bombardment is not effective, the officers and gunners hidden under the siege vehicles with spires can adjust the angle of fire and attack the fortress at a closer distance, without worrying about the rain of arrows and stones from the thieves.

No matter in Li Banghua's eyes or in Lu Yuanding's eyes, these gunners in the mine battalion artillery team who were trained by the Portuguese with high salaries, but the most precious branch of the entire mine battalion cannot die casually under the enemy's rolling wood and stones.

The next morning, it was still midday, and thousands of soldiers stood solemnly in front of the official and military camps.

Lu Xiangguan, who had already woken up, led a team of overseers in the Tianxiong camp with long-handled Qi knives in their hands, standing in front of the battle with knives in both hands, and the two hundred thieves who were randomly selected the night before were pushed in front of them with their hands tied.

Li Banghua also stood in front of the formation, tall and thin, and he was rarely wearing a formal red official uniform, and his face looked tired and haggard and full of majesty.

"If the official has an order but does not do it, there will be no forgiveness for killing!"

"Rushing back and rushing back, there is no forgiveness for killing!"

Li Banghua finished these two sentences word by word, never said a word again, looked at Lu Xiangguan, waved his hand from the inside out, and made a hands-on execution.

Lu Xiangguan immediately shouted: "Execution!" ”

The two hundred captured thieves who had been tied up suddenly became in a commotion, some shouted loudly, some howled and cursed, and some even wanted to stand up, but all this was in vain, and the soldiers of the Tianxiong battalion, who were standing behind them one by one and preparing to be executed, did not give them a chance at all, and after receiving the order, they held their knives in both hands and swung them hard.

With a desperate scream, two hundred heads suddenly fell to the ground, and black and red blood splattered out, staining the front of the official army into a bloody ground.

The other prisoners who were ordered to stand in front of the battle to watch the execution were all trembling, and they did not dare to breathe, lest they had committed a taboo at this time and violated the military discipline of the officers and soldiers.

The drama of killing chickens and monkeys ended, and the siege war resumed.

At this time, it was already three quarters of the hour, but the smoke in the sky was still there, and the sky and the earth were chaotic, giving people the illusion that day and night were intertwined, and I didn't know whether it was day or night.

Soon, Lu Xiangguan and his overseer team, once again holding long knives in their hands, scolded a group of thieves who had been incorporated into the craftsman camp, dragged and pushed five huge siege vehicles built overnight, and marched towards the south peak of Shimen Pass.

The huge siege engine looked unusually heavy, and hundreds of people dragged and pushed one forward, still very difficult, the siege vehicle made of logs cut down in the mountains was like a wooden house with six wheels, and the heavy ridge-like top of the siege vehicle was not afraid of the rain of arrows and falling rocks from above.

Unless the thieves had the same fierce fire oil or kerosene bombs as the officers and soldiers and burned it from the outside, they could not do anything with this siege engine.

The siege vehicles had entered the range of the bows and arrows of the thieves on the top of the fortress and the peak on the south side, and immediately ushered in a rain of arrows, and the arrows of the thieves clanged and fired at the top of the attack vehicles, and they could not hurt the artillery and artillery officers and soldiers hidden under the vehicles at all.

However, around the siege car, the thieves who pushed and dragged the siege caravan forward were once again unlucky, and fell to the ground with arrows, or were hit by stones thrown from the mountain, and fell to the ground and wailed.

But this time, no one dared to leave behind the officers and soldiers in the siege vehicle and run back, because they knew that running back was doomed.

As soon as the thief army on the south peak of Shimen Pass was launched, Li Bei's department on the north peak naturally would not be polite to the thief army on the city, and soon, grenades, fierce fire oil bombs and kerosene bombs fell like raindrops again, and an explosion sounded again above the city head of Shimen Pass, and soon fell into a sea of fire again.

Taking advantage of the chaos in the city, Lu Yuanding, who took the initiative to ask Ying to follow the siege vehicle to the front of the formation, served as the commander of the artillery bombardment, saw that the siege vehicle had arrived at the position estimated in advance, and immediately ordered to hide under the siege vehicle, and retreated the artillery covered by the siege vehicle, exposing his body, and then adjusted the elevation angle of the bombardment of the south peak of Shimen Pass, and took the lead in igniting and firing the cannon at the thief army of the south peak of Shimen Pass who were coming down with a rain of arrows and falling rocks!

"Bang", "Bang", "Bang", "Bang", "Bang"!

The firing of the artillery under the siege vehicle where Lu Yuanding was located was the order of the other artillery to ignite and open fire!

The cannon fire, which had been silent for a long time before the stone gate closed, roared again.

And the thief situation on the south peak of Shimen Pass was immediately chaotic, and the rain of arrows and falling stones also decreased, and from time to time, there were thieves howling, falling from the peak hundreds of meters high before the formation, and fell into a ball of flesh and blood.