The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 254 Bombardment
"Quick! Attack the crowded area of the earthen wall! Don't let them pile up the bricks and stones!"

"Aim at the tunnel entrance, and those carrying soil in and out. Hit them hard! Kaiyuan thieves, you still want to dig a hole? You wish!"

"Attack the auxiliary troops building the bridge over the moat first. We can't let them finish the pontoon bridge! Attack quickly!"

······
The west gate of Ningyuan.

Forty or fifty servants of the Zu family were waving their swords and whips, running around on the city wall like headless flies.

After their chaotic command, the Liaozhen artillerymen, who were already panic-stricken, became even more frightened and uneasy. Each of them held a red-hot iron rod, not knowing where to poke.

Within a mile of the Ningyuan city wall, 100,000 strong men were busy working in the fields like ants moving house. Some were digging holes, some were building cities in the distance, and more were shooting arrows and firing guns behind the shield carts that were rolling by.

All kinds of sounds filled the eardrums, and the world seemed to be filled with only the whizzing sounds of arrows and the crackling roars of muskets.

An unspeakable fear shrouded the Ningyuan city walls, making every defender feel as if the end of the world had come.

Perhaps in the next second, the Kaiyuan soldiers would crawl out from underground, jump down from the top of the city wall, rush out from some unknown place, and kill them all.

The smile on Luo Li's face finally disappeared.

Mr. Ba lay quietly on the ground, his body split into two, and the blood had drained away.

Seeing that the situation was not going well, the servants quickly put aside their arguments and quickly reached a consensus: first build the earth wall, then the shield cart, and finally deal with the tunnel.

After cooling down, the Red Cannon finally roared again.

Hundreds of huge cannons spewed white smoke, turning the top of Ningyuan City into a terrifying world of red flames and white mist.

The servants ordered the gunners to turn around and bombard the earth wall a mile away.

Everyone knew that the huge earth wall posed the greatest threat to the city. If the enemy was allowed to complete its construction leisurely and attack the city walls from a high position, it would be a disaster for the Ningyuan defenders.

"Boom! Boom!"

More than a dozen eight-pound iron balls slammed into the construction site a mile outside the west gate.

A newly erected scaffolding was hit by an iron ball, and the load-bearing bamboo poles were broken with a snap. The scaffolding lost its balance and finally collapsed.

The mason who was laying bricks on the scaffolding fell from a height of three or four meters like a leaf.

More than a dozen unlucky craftsmen all crashed into the hard and cold ground next to the scaffolding, their bodies making a series of cracking sounds.

The earth wall that had just begun to be built came to a standstill, and the Liao people who were stirring mud around it scattered.

The instructors and combat representatives appeared immediately, holding paper loudspeakers and shouting loudly, calling on people to continue working.

"Their red cannon can only fire three rounds, and then it needs to cool down. Don't be afraid, we have rockets to deal with them!"

As soon as the instructor finished speaking, countless crows of divine fire suddenly rose up from a small hill covered with weeds and shrubs behind the earth wall construction site.

The Divine Fire Crow quickly climbed to the highest point in the air, and then roared down. The rocket dragged a long tail flame, like a rain of fire falling from the sky, slowly landing on the top of Ningyuan City.

"Justice from heaven."

Five miles away, Liu Zhaosun, who was pacing back and forth outside the central army tent, happened to see the rain of fire coming.

"Zu Dashou, let's see how long you can hold on!"

The powder chamber at the tail of the Shenhuo Feiyao exploded before the rocket hit the ground.

Puffs of white smoke rose from the top of the west gate, and thousands of porcelain pieces and iron nails danced like elves.

The flight paths of these elves are quite strange, and whether you can encounter them depends entirely on your luck.

Like the wood chips that had just been thrown out by the shattered shield cart, porcelain pieces and iron nails shot around the top of the city wall like bullets.

The Red Cannon gunners, who were mostly unarmored, were immediately mowed down by the hail of bullets. Even more were hit by the defenseless musketeers and archers, who were so focused on shooting down the enemy troops following the shield carts that they didn't notice the sudden rise of the Divine Fire Crow.

Just now, the Liaozhen gunners used the red cannon to impose fear on the foreigners pushing the shield carts. Now, the Divine Fire Flying Crow returned the fear to the gunners twice as much.

There was a cry of ghosts and wolves howling from the top of the city wall. After three rounds of rockets hit the ground, one-fifth of the gunners at the west gate were killed or injured, two or three hundred archers and musketeers died on the spot, and even the two servants sent by Zu Dashou to supervise the battle were burned to death by kerosene.

"Forget about the shield car for now, find the people who shot the rockets!"

It was clear without looking that the enemy was two miles away, and was still leisurely loading rockets on the position, preparing to launch the fourth round of attack.

This actually further aroused their fighting spirit, and more red cannons began to join the attack on the rockets.

The Red Cannon was high above the enemy, and the gunners adjusted the firing angle to the maximum. This way, the range of the cannon was improved to a certain extent. It was estimated that it could barely reach a range of two miles, from the top of the city to the Kaiyuan Army tent.

As the projectile angle increases, the shells no longer bounce much after landing, and their lethality is greatly reduced.

Regardless, a two-mile range was roughly equivalent to the Divine Fire Crow on the other side. The two sides quickly began to exchange blows.

As the Kaiyuan offensive continued, the artillerymen at Ximen Liaozhen soon discovered that they would have to face threats from five directions at the same time.

The thirty red-haired cannons set up at the west gate were also forced to be divided into five groups, facing respectively the large shield carts that were rapidly passing through the pontoon bridge, the tunnels where people were constantly entering and exiting, the earthen walls that were rapidly rising, and the Divine Fire Flying Crows that were still shooting at them.

In addition to the red cannons that continuously bombarded the defenders on the city walls, the gunners needed to deal with enemies from these five directions.

The thirty red cannons were divided into five groups, so that they no longer had an overwhelming advantage in any direction.

Despite heavy casualties, the auxiliary troops finally completed the construction of the first pontoon bridge, followed by the second and the third.

The six red cannons that were brought out continued to bombard the moat until the barrels became hot to the touch.

The Kaiyuan army prepared thirty red-coated cannons at the foot of the west gate. These red-coated cannons, which were seized from their ancestors, were extremely powerful. After being put into the battlefield, they immediately began to bombard the defenders on the city walls.

The shells landed on the top of the city walls and bounced everywhere, whistling sharply and smashing a group of musketeers and archers into pieces, with many people's intestines spilling out on the ground.

A captain came up to Luo Li with a three-barreled musket, pointed the musket at his forehead, and said menacingly:

"Damn it! Fire, open Hara's cannons!"

Under the attack of the red cannons below the city, the defenders on the city wall were hit continuously and the archers fled in panic.

"Captain Wang, the shield carts are about to cross the river! There are tens of thousands of enemy troops behind us. Their artillery fires close enough to hurt few people. And they can only fire three or four shells. Brothers, please bear with it."

Before Luo Li could finish his words, a heavy knife was already on his neck. The blade twitched, cutting his neck and causing blood to flow out.

"You'll be damned! Don't you think my deaths aren't enough? Fire! Fire the cannons below the city!"

"Hurry up! Otherwise I'll chop you up!"

The Liaozhen gunners who were attacking the shield carts turned their guns around and aimed at the Kaiyuan red cannons that were bombarding the city walls.

The red cannons on the city walls and outside the city fired at the same time, but they were basically inaccurate. After several rounds of bombardment, only two or three red cannons were destroyed.

As a result, the casualties of the foreign Liao people who were working around the earth wall were greatly reduced. They seized the time to speed up the construction of the earth wall. In a blink of an eye, the earth wall had risen to five or six feet.

Floating bridges were quickly built on the moat covered with floating ice, and dense beetle-like shield cars began to drive across the floating bridges, making an unsettling creaking sound on the bridge surface.

Groups of Liao people and foreigners followed the shield carts and quickly passed the pontoon bridge.

The crackling sound of muskets could be heard all around, and people were constantly shot by arrows and muskets, rolling into the river full of corpses.

The sound of musketry on the other side of the river became more frequent. Within half an incense stick of time, a layer of corpses fell at the bridgehead.

"Quick! Charge forward! Push that dead man out of the way! Prepare to storm the city wall!"

(End of this chapter)