At the 3rd hour of June 29 in the third year of Chongzhen, under the cover of night, the official army launched a fierce attack on the east, south and west of Weinan City, and left the north of the city alone.

Li Zicheng sat in the general's mansion and commanded calmly, and his generals, such as Man Tianxing, Liu Jiusi, and a gust of wind, went to the city one after another to command the counterattack. Only Liu Guoneng was the only one who took his 15,000 descendants to guard a few inconsequential places in the city.

It has to be said that Li Zicheng's descendants' troops are far superior to ordinary rogues in terms of fighting will, tactical quality, and individual soldier quality, and it can be said that they are the strongest among the rogues, and after obtaining equipment from the Demon Sect, their combat strength is not inferior to that of the officers and soldiers! Especially in the battle to defend the city, they can exert greater power by relying on the fortified city.

Qin Shuhuai sat in command of the army this time and did not personally participate in the attack. However, Zhiren, Wang Datong, Chang Wuji, Sun Bai, Li Daliang and other masters still gathered into an assault detachment, rushed to the south city wall, and stood at the head of the city to fight with the Liukou.

Qin Shuhuai's idea was to break through the southern city first, and then let Liu Guoneng open the north gate, so that the official army could enter the city from the north and south and flank Li Zicheng.

However, what Qin Shuhuai and all the masters didn't expect was that the desperate Li Zicheng adopted an unexpected way to limit the performance of the Ming army's masters.

On each section of the wall, he placed fifty dead men. These dead soldiers were all carefully selected by Li Zicheng from more than 100,000 people half a month ago. In order to make them voluntary, Li Zicheng promised that anyone who was willing to go to the death would receive 1,000 taels of silver from his family, and sent someone to send it on the spot. In this year when there is not even enough to eat, 1,000 taels of silver is simply an astronomical amount, which means that a family of five can live in peace for more than ten years. Among the hundreds of thousands of rogues, there are always some hot-blooded men who are willing to die themselves in order to keep their families alive.

Let's say that after these dead soldiers are collected, they usually eat and drink well, and they are waiting for the critical moment to "fight to the death" with the officers and soldiers. Their way of dying is simple, that is, before going up the wall, they take a poison, which can be hidden for about three hours, which means that if they do not die within these three hours, they will also be poisoned. And if they were poisoned, the family's thousand taels would be taken back.

Therefore, the goal of every dead soldier after going up to the city wall is to drag the officers and soldiers to die together. They all had seven or eight thunderbolts tied to their bodies, and when they saw that there were many officers and soldiers, they lit thunderbolts and rushed in, and after a few loud bangs, they burned with the officials and soldiers.

If you see a master of the Ming army, you will be in a group of three or four, facing the blade of that master. They are specially trained to master the timing of the explosion of thunderbolts, and often explode as soon as they rush to the master. Moreover, their thunderbolts are also very well hidden, they are all behind their backs, they are masters, and when they concentrate on killing the enemy, it is difficult to find the thunderbolts behind them, so it is impossible to distinguish whether this is an ordinary soldier or a dead soldier who blew himself up, so he was caught off guard.

Zhiren and the others, who attacked the southern city wall, soon tasted the might. With a loud explosion, they were injured. Among them, Sun Bai was injured in the arm, Chang Wuji injured his thigh, and Zhiren's head was bleeding, and the three had to be removed to treat the wound first.

To put it bluntly, they are human beings after all, although their reaction speed and physical strength are much higher than ordinary people, but it is still difficult to resist when they encounter a big killing weapon like Thunderbolt.

Seeing this, the remaining masters such as Li Daliang, Meng Wei, and Meng Hu immediately changed their playing style. They began to move and fight, staying in one place for only a few seconds, killing one or two rogues and immediately changing places, so that the other party's dead soldiers would not have a chance to rush over and die together. In addition, if you see a thunderbolt behind you during the movement, you will give priority to extinguishing it before it ignites.

In this way, the threat of these dead soldiers is greatly reduced, but the true qi consumption of the masters is even greater. They couldn't use the same power they had when they were in Shangluo City anymore.

If the master can't completely disrupt the city, then the two sides can only fight hard. The sound of gunfire, artillery, the clinking of weapons, the sound of fighting, and the shouts blended together, and the fierce battle fell into a stalemate. Under the blazing white lighting fireworks, countless soldiers on both sides fell every minute, and countless more soldiers rushed forward one after another.

Inside the city, the General's Palace.

Li Zicheng's cronies came to report that more than 50 masters of the Demon Sect were nowhere to be found, and they did not help them defend the city.

A hint of suspicion flashed in Li Zicheng's eyes, but he didn't say anything, just waved his hand to let him retreat.

Just as the cronie was about to go out, Li Zicheng asked again, "What happened to General Liu's department?"

The cronie replied to him and whispered, "King Chuang, nothing has happened so far. ”

Li Zicheng nodded slightly, then took out a token and handed it to him, saying, "Go, take this king's warrant and let General Liu send three thousand soldiers to help the south gate." ”

"Yes, King Chuang. ”

Li Zicheng usually doesn't want Liu Guoneng to divide his troops, otherwise his intentions will be too obvious. However, now is the time of the battle, and he uses this as a reason to let Liu Guoneng divide his troops to defend the southern city, as long as Liu Guoneng has no dissent, he will definitely agree, and he will not think much about it.

Seeing his cronies go out with his warrant, Li Zicheng secretly said in his heart: General Liu, you can't surrender! You have to believe that I, Li Zicheng, can defend Weinan! If you don't surrender, he will have three points from you!

Outside the city, Qin Shuhuai's camp.

The urgent news of the siege of the city by the officials and troops continued to reach Qin Shuhuai's desk. On top of the emergency report, the number of casualties is staggering.

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed or wounded in the southern city, and now only more than 200 people have attacked the city wall, and the ladder has been destroyed in half!

The casualties in Xicheng were even greater, more than 3,800 people, and they had already smashed the city gate with their battering rams, but the rogues suddenly poured down a large area of asphalt and fire oil, which set fire to the entire area at the city gate, and the battering rams were also burned. Zhang Xiao, who was in charge of attacking the west of the city, said that the fire was still burning, and they had to wait for the fire to go out before trying to attack the gate — which meant that they might not be able to attack the city wall.

The same is true of Dongcheng, which has suffered more than 2,000 casualties, and there is no sign of being able to break the city until now.

Although the report said that the casualties of Li Zicheng's troops were also very large, on a par with the officers and soldiers. However, how many soldiers does Li Zicheng have, and how many soldiers does the officers and soldiers have? The officers and troops simply cannot afford to fight such a war of attrition.

If it had been an hour ago, Qin Shuhuai would never have thought that Li Zicheng's army would be so strong! At this moment, he had to admit that he had made the mistake of underestimating the enemy.

At least, Li Zicheng is the king of bandits, and he doesn't realize it.

The stalemate in the war situation is extremely unfavorable to the officers and troops. So he could only hope that Beicheng could break through as soon as possible.

He immediately ordered three red fireworks to be sent out for Liu Guo to do it.

Watching the herald go out, Qin Shuhuai murmured in his heart: Liu Guoneng, don't fool me!10