317 Mongol soldiers

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With Li Zixiao's show and encouragement, not only the morale of the white dragon soldiers was high and the fighting spirit was raging, but even the soldiers and civilians of Shunde were all cheering themselves up in their hearts and preparing to fight to the death with the Tartars. 、

Because they understand that what Li Zixiao said is right, in the city behind them, not only lives their own family, but also hundreds of thousands of fathers and villagers, and they must not let the Tartars enter the city.

Due to the limited siege equipment and troops, it was naturally impossible for the Tartar soldiers to blossom on all sides and launch an attack on the four gates of Shunde City at the same time.

Therefore, the west gate of Shunde, which was closest to them and had the narrowest moat in front of the city, became the focus of the Tartar army's attack.

The first to attack the west gate of Shunde was the Mongol soldier named Zuo Enluo and Li Zixiao.

In the past two days, the Mongol soldiers have launched several attacks on the city of Shunde.

For the attack on the West Gate of Shunde, they are already familiar with it, which is one of the reasons why the Tartars chose to focus on attacking the West Gate.

Soon, more than 3,000 Mongolian soldiers skillfully rushed towards the west gate of Shunde under the cover of shield carts, and for a time outside the west gate of Shunde, there were Mongolian soldiers with scimitars and bows and arrows everywhere.

Seeing the Mongols advancing slowly, Jia Wenru, who was standing at the head of the city, was already frightened and panicked, and shouted loudly in panic: "Open the cannon, the gunner hurry up and open the cannon, and Anke will drive the Tartar back!" ”

"Boom ......"

A tiger squat cannon was ordered by Jia Wenru to fire in a hurry.

It's just that because the distance between the Mongol soldiers and the city wall is still 400 paces away, there is no trace of the shells fired by this cannonball.

Of course, the artillery that fired the cannon was a soldier of Shunde Mansion, and there were several tiger squat cannons on the city wall at this time, which were owned by Shunde Mansion itself.

Chen Luo, who was commanding next to him, saw this scene, and was so angry that he kicked the gunner in charge of firing.

He pointed to the gunner's nose and scolded: "Bastard, who told you to shoot the cannon, the Tartar is still so far away, can you hit the Tartar with this shot?" Waste of ammunition in vain. ”

The gunner, who had been kicked, also knew that he had made a mistake, so he just squatted in place with his head down and remained silent.

At this time, Li Zixiao also saw this scene, stared at Jia Wenru next to him and said solemnly: "Lord Jia, since you handed over the command of this battle to the general, please don't interfere with the command of the battle at will."

If Lord Jia doesn't want to stay here, he can go back to the mansion to rest, as long as I, Li Zixiao, am here, I will never let a Tartar attack the city. ”

Jia Wenru saw Li Zixiao's serious expression, and even had the intention of expelling him, but Jia Wenru knew that he was at a loss, so he smiled embarrassedly.

"It was the official who was reckless just now, the official will pay attention, if you don't take it as an example, if you don't take it as an example, I won't go to the government, so I will organize the people to transport rolling wood and stones for you under the city, and I will hand over Shunde City to General Li."

Seeing that Jia Wenru recognized his mistake, Li Zixiao was also very embarrassed, turned his head to the soldiers on the city wall, and shouted: "All the generals have listened to the general, especially the gunners."

Without the orders of the general or your immediate officer, if anyone fires indiscriminately, the officer will enforce military law against him.

Now Ben will announce the military order again, those who are cowardly in wartime, kill, those who do not obey orders, kill! Escapees, kill! ”

The three words 'kill' jumped out of Li Zixiao's mouth ruthlessly, making everyone shiver, knowing that Li Zixiao was definitely not joking.

Looking at the enemy army approaching step by step pushing the shield cart in the distance, Li Zixiao drew his sword, pointed it into the air and shouted: "Brothers, I believe you have heard of the ferocity of the Tartars for a long time.

They are all a bunch of murderous brutes, and if they are allowed to attack Shunde City, none of us will be spared.

Ben will give another order here, in this battle, if the soldiers die, the auxiliaries will die, the auxiliaries will die, the young and strong will follow, and if the men are all dead, the old and weak women and children will also be killed.

Even if we fight to the last man in Shunde, we will never surrender to the Tartars, if the Tartars break through the city, what awaits the people of the whole city will be a bloody massacre! ”

"Fight to the last man, never retreat."

Thousands of soldiers on the city shouted in unison, and for a while, the shouts from the city were like muffled thunder.

And this voice arrived, and as the attacking team slowly approached, the ears of Abatai in Shunde City were behind.

This Tartar Baylor, who had just issued an order not to seal the sword for seven days after breaking the city, couldn't help but show a solemn expression on his face.

With the hundreds of shield carts pushed by the Mongolian soldiers under the city, they gradually approached the city of Shunde, and the distance reached two hundred steps.

Li Zixiao found that there were more than a dozen shield carts, which were very well-made, and there were four wheels placed under the shield carts, covered by thick wooden boards, and wrapped in several layers of quilts.

The hundreds of shield carts next to them were much simpler, and they looked like they had been improvised with thick wooden planks.

There are no wheels underneath, just a few planks underneath to make it easy for people to drag.

The Tartars, on the other hand, hid behind the wide shield carts, so that the defenders on the walls did not have a problem with them.

Just looking at the city wall, I could only vaguely see the faint shadow of the enemy behind the shield cart.

Li Zixiao visually inspected it with the naked eye, and although he found that most of these shield vehicles were very poorly made, they could not be destroyed with a bird system unless they were hit by an artillery with a solid bullet.

At this time, Chen Luo also came to Li Zixiao's side, and said to Li Zixiao with a straight face: "Lord Li, there are enemy troops hidden in these more than a dozen shield carts with exquisite workmanship in front.

The Tartars just want to use these shield carts to send the soldiers to the city, and they will take the opportunity to attack the city, so we must be on guard! ”

"Hmm!"

Li Zixiao nodded, seeing that the shield cart below had already entered within two hundred steps, he turned his head and ordered: "Order Sun Dazhuang, now it's time to see his ability, and blast all these shield carts for me." ”

"Fire!"

"Boom, boom, boom......"

Amid the roar, more than twenty three-pounder guns and Furlong cannons were the first to open fire, making a loud rumbling sound.

With the fire of more than two dozen artillery pieces on the head of the city, one solid projectile after another flew to the front.

At this time, the first to attack the city was the Mongol prince Zoenluo who followed the Tartar soldiers south to plunder, and led 3,000 Mongol soldiers.

In order to show their faces in front of the Tartars, they took out all the old bottoms, first used the shield car to open the way, and dozens of steps away from the shield car followed the dense foot soldiers.

"Smack!"

An iron projectile struck hard, a shield cart that was rapidly pushing towards the city walls.

The huge impact force attached to the projectile knocked the originally sturdy shield cart apart, and the Mongolian soldiers who were originally hiding in the shield cart were also exposed.

Even the impact of the iron projectile had not completely dissipated, and it continued to fly behind, smashing over several Mongolian soldiers hiding in the shield car.

"Good!"

In this round of more than 20 artillery salvos, at least one-fifth hit the target, and Li Zixiao was already quite satisfied with this result.

After all, in this era of primitive artillery, which almost depended on luck to hit the enemy, he couldn't be too demanding at night.

But as more Mongol soldiers pushed the shield cart closer to the city wall, this could make Sun Dazhuang's artillery battalion have a higher and higher hit rate.

The rumbling sound continued, and the artillery of the artillery battalion showed their skilled skills at this time, and the speed of firing was twice as fast as the old Furlong machine guns in Shunde Mansion.

There were constantly shield carts, which were hit by projectiles and destroyed shield carts, and after the shield carts were destroyed, the Mongolian soldiers who were originally hiding behind the shield bodies were revealed.

At this time, more than a dozen tiger squat cannons on the west city wall came in handy, and with the fire of the tiger squat cannons, the exposed Mongolian soldiers were smashed into flesh and blood by the lead bullets sprinkled all over the sky.

Although many of the Mongol soldiers were holding large shields, after being hit by lead bullets, the huge impact still broke their bones and tendons.

Li Zixiao saw with his own eyes that dozens of Mongolian soldiers who were hit by lead bullets did not die for a while after being shot, and they wailed loudly on the ground.

But their companions, ignoring them, continued to raise their shields and weapons in their hands, and continued to advance towards the city walls.

The first wave of siege was mainly carried out by the Mongol soldiers, and they did not see the elite infantry and vests of the Tartars following at all.

Seeing this, Li Zixiao frowned slightly, and asked Chen Luo, who had been following him, and said, "Lord Chen, are these Mongolian soldiers in charge of attacking the city for the past two days?" ”

Chen Luo nodded and said, "Yes, these Mongols were in charge of attacking the city for the past two days, and those Manchu Tartars were only responsible for supervising the battle in the back."

Moreover, the siege strength of these Mongol soldiers is not very high, and it seems that they are intent on preserving their strength, and we have not been able to inflict many casualties on them.

Like this time, it is the first time that the Mongols have pressed so many shield carts and troops at one time.

If General Li hadn't been here and brought so much artillery, it would have been difficult for these unskilled soldiers under my command to stop this fierce Mongol attack. ”

"Tartars, this is using the Mongols as cannon fodder!" Li Zixiao said with a sneer.

While Li Zixiao and Chen Luo were talking, the Mongolian soldiers had already pushed the shield cart to the city one after another.

After two days of siege, these Mongol soldiers seemed to have become proficient, and began to set up a ladder in an orderly manner and climb up to it.

The archers, who were good at archery, bent their bows and arrows under the city and began to shoot arrows at the head of the city to suppress the defenders at the head of the city.

With this set of means, they forced the defenders of Shunde out of breath in the past two days, and caused casualties to the defenders of Shunde.

It is worth mentioning that the Mongols' bow and arrow skills were as famous as the Tartar soldiers.

But there are still some differences between the two.

The Mongols' bows and arrows focused on range, so although their arrows were still powerful, their armor-piercing ability was much weaker than that of the Tartar soldiers.

However, the Tatar soldiers pay attention to the power of the arrows, and if some soldiers are hit by the arrows they shoot, they can basically easily break through the cotton armor of the Ming army on thirty or forty steps.

Now hundreds of Mongolian archers are standing sixty steps away from the city wall, constantly firing arrows at the city wall, and a dense rain of arrows flies up the city wall.

Looking at the dense rain of arrows, Li Zixiao, who was hiding behind the battlement, frowned slightly, turned his head and asked Chen Luo beside him: "Lord Chen, is this how those Mongols attacked the city in the past two days?" ”

"That's right!"

Chen Luo was a little embarrassed and said: "In the past two days, the Mongols have relied on strong bows to suppress our archers.

Our archers, as soon as they show their heads, will be suppressed by them, covering those Mongol soldiers to ascend to the top of the city, so that it will cause us too much trouble to defend the city. ”

"Then what about your bird-screws, why don't you take the opportunity to suppress it?"

Chen Luo heard Li Zixiao's question, and a wry smile appeared on his face.

"Lord Li, you don't know the situation of our Ming Dynasty's bird guns, the quality of our bird guns is too poor, five or six out of ten are easy to blow up, and the soldiers would rather use bows and arrows than use them.

But the level of our play with bows and arrows, where is the opponent of the Tartars, so they were crushed to death by those Mongols.

However, this official saw yesterday that the quality of the bird guns used by your subordinates, Lord Li, is very high.

It's incredible to cripple that Tartar cavalry, and to blow up the chamber without a single shot! ”

Chen Luo's surprise was also reasonable, after all, he was telling the truth, the bird gun in the hands of the White Dragon Army had a zero explosion rate.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, because the status of the craftsmen was too low, the eunuchs who were responsible for supervising the production of weapons would only make money.

This led to a large exodus of artisans, so much so that the barrels of the birds were made with varying thicknesses and thin walls, and the quality was outrageously poor.

In addition, the manufacture of bird guns is complex and the cost is high, unless it can improve the status of craftsmen like Li Zixiao, spend a lot of money to make bird guns, emphasize quality, and formulate a perfect supervision mechanism.

Otherwise, it would be very difficult to get together a thousand well-made bird guns, at least in the Ming Dynasty, which had been completely ** at this time, this is not something to do.

As he spoke, he saw that a large number of Mongol soldiers had approached the city wall, and many of them had already climbed up the ladder to the city under the cover of archers' archery.

When Li Zixiao saw this, he waved his hand at the herald who had been following him, and the herald immediately pulled out a whistle from his waist and blew it vigorously.

The whistle immediately emitted a sharp and rhythmic sound.

For the White Dragon Army's birdmen, the whistle is an order.

When they heard the whistle, more than 200 bird-gunned soldiers on the city wall, under the cover of the shields raised by the sword-and-shield soldiers behind them, stretched their heads and bird-guns out of the battlements and aimed at the Mongol soldiers below.

"First platoon, fire!" A bird-bearer flag general, giving the order to open fire

"Bang ......"

Bursts of white mist rose faintly in the still chilly air, and lead bullets, driven by the kinetic energy of gunpowder, quickly shot out of the chamber and shot forward.

The sudden shot of the White Dragon Army birds caught these Mongolian soldiers off guard.

Although they had also heard that yesterday their masters, the elite horsemen of the Tartars, suffered a great loss in the face of the blows of these Ming army birds, but after all, they had not experienced it firsthand.

Moreover, during the siege of the city in the first two days, they had also seen the Shunde defenders on the city wall use bird guns a few times, and basically they could only fire one shot, and then there was no movement.