The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 255: Be the first to die
Dusk, western Liaoning, Ningyuan City.

The buzzing sound of bowstrings merged into one, like a swarm of bees that sometimes came and sometimes went, stimulating the nerves of the living and the dead on the battlefield.

The dense sound of musketry exploding from the city walls rang out continuously, like deadly Buddhist chants, and the rising white smoke from the burning gunpowder formed a continuous white barrage.

More than 3,000 Liaozhen musketeers hid in the smoke, constantly harvesting the lives of the attackers with cheap lead bullets. In the distance, only orange-red fireworks and dancing red tassels behind the battlements could be seen.

Two thousand shield carts, like patient beetles, slowly advanced across the moat.

They crossed the pontoon bridge and came to the other side of the moat. After stopping to rest for a while, they finally began to attack the enemy who kept shooting at them.

The enemy finally came into the range of arrows. Accompanied by the buzzing sound of a swarm of flying bees, a dense rain of arrows rose behind the beetle.

The rain of arrows formed a huge black curtain several miles wide, which reflected various terrifying patterns in the dilated pupils of the defenders.

Tens of thousands of arrows hit Xuan Hu and Tie Bi's hands, making a regular tinkling sound, like a summer rainstorm.

Some unarmored defenders were shot and fell to the ground. Their screams were drowned out by the sound of muskets. In the noisy battlefield, death was a silent thing.

Swarms of beetles crossed the moat, and the battle finally became fierce, with both sides becoming blood-thirsty.

The cannons on the top of Ningyuan City fired continuously. The Red Cannons did not care about other threats, the earth walls that were rising in the distance, the rapidly approaching tunnels, and they no longer retaliated against the Divine Fire Crows that killed and injured countless Liao soldiers. All the Red Cannons concentrated their firepower and fiercely bombarded the shield carts that were approaching the city walls, which were the beetle swarms seen from mid-air.

More than 30,000 Kaiyuan pioneers entered the area a hundred steps away from the Ningyuan city wall.

The definition of these foreign Liao people is not only cannon fodder, but also a hammer.

Liu Zhaosun wanted to use this big iron hammer to break open the impregnable Ningyuan defense line, smash the defenses of Zu Dashou and the elite troops of the Nine Frontiers, and break the backbone of the Ming army.

In the face of absolute numerical advantage, the various defensive fortifications carefully arranged by Liaozhen seemed excessively redundant.

After more than 3,000 vanguards were killed or wounded, the five outer defense lines consisting of horse traps, trenches, horse traps and caltrops were shattered by the sledgehammer.

Two thousand shield carts, under the intensive bombardment of red-haired cannons, rolled over mountains of corpses and seas of blood and continued to advance towards the city wall.

"Charge forward! The first to reach the summit will be rewarded with a thousand gold coins! A thousand acres of fertile land! A thousand households will be promoted! Those who retreat will have their entire family executed!"

A thousand-man supervising team composed of pacification troops and junior officers of the Guards, armed with heavy swords and bows, followed the shield carts and rushed across the moat.

The supervisory team was followed by an equal number of instructors, who held up loud speakers and shouted loudly in Chinese and Mongolian Jurchen towards the backs of the crowd in front.

When the foreign Liao people charging ahead heard the bounty offered by the instructor, they let out strange cries, threw away their slow-moving shield carts, and ran towards the city wall with their grappling ladders at high speed.

More than a thousand cannons mounted on the Ningyuan city walls bombarded the approaching shield formation desperately.

Even the tiger squat cannons were moved to the top of the city wall by the defenders to bombard the crowds rushing in front of the shield carts.

Iron bullets rained down from the sky, hitting the heads of the fanatical crowd and the roofs of the densely packed shield carts.

The iron ball smashed the front fender of the shield cart, and the flying wood chips and nails swept towards the dense crowd like bullets, splashing bursts of blood.

Occasionally, a Divine Fire Crow would be ignited by the defenders. Its long tail of flame would streak across the city walls, then fly a dozen paces before turning back and finally crashing into the screaming, fleeing defenders. These Divine Fire Crows had been shipped directly from the Divine Machine Battalion in the capital to western Liaoning to reinforce Zu Dashou. Due to their shoddy manufacturing, the rockets would often undergo Brownian motion upon ignition, resulting in a miraculous effect on the battlefield of killing 800 enemies while injuring 1,000 of their own troops. Therefore, the defenders would not use them unless absolutely necessary.

After the able-bodied men pushed the red cannon across the pontoon bridge, the Kaiyuan gunners immediately loaded ammunition and fired back at the top of the city wall.

Unfortunately, the artillery on the city wall was too busy to handle the provocation from the Kaiyuan artillery. At this time, the defenders could already hear the shouts of the foreign archers behind the shield carts under the city.

Finally, the first beetle, dragging its heavy armor, crashed heavily into the city wall. Before it could regain its footing and contemplate life, countless medicine pots, stones, and rolling logs flew down from above, almost drowning the shield cart.

The shield cart looked like it had just come out of a flour shop, and its roof was covered with dust and sulfur, completely losing its original handsome appearance.

The dusty beetle wanted to move, but found that the surrounding area was full of rolling logs and stones, and it could not move at all.

Not satisfied with this, the hospitable defenders on the city wall threw down torches dipped in tung oil. The torches landed on the tung oil and sulfur, instantly engulfing the unfortunate beetle in a sea of flames. A group of short and stocky Mongolian herdsmen rushed out of the shield carts. Looking around, they realized they couldn't escape, so they simply raised grappling ladders and slung them over the wall, pretending to be on the ramparts.

However, before the ladders were raised, the Mongols were shot like hedgehogs by the rain of arrows and fell beside the burning shield carts.

This is just the beginning of the attack.

The first beetle unfortunately died, but it did not scare away its companions. After all, the dead beetle was just a small one among the two thousand beetles.

The sound of attack drums rang out all around.

Two miles away, on four drum carts more than two meters high, sixteen bare-chested golden drummers were swinging their drumsticks vigorously, spreading the drum sounds throughout the battlefield.

The sound of drums and gongs seemed particularly majestic and powerful on a battlefield filled with the sounds of muskets and arrows.

The Rocket Force’s fifth round of the Divine Fire Flying Crow sweep officially began.

Two thousand rockets took off into the sky, passing over the narrow moat, passing over two thousand wriggling beetles, passing over the foreign Liao people who were attacking like a tide, and pouring down on the top of Ningyuan City like a red rainstorm.

The Liao musketeers who were calmly firing on the top of the city suffered heavy casualties again under the saturation attack of rockets. The Zu family soldiers near the battlements fell like leaves, and their bodies hit the shield carts below the city, making disturbing banging sounds.

A sharp bamboo whistle rang out from behind the city wall, and the elite border troops rushing to reinforce pushed aside the corpses on the stone steps and quickly filled the position vacated by the musketeers. The first to rush up were the Shaanxi Border Guard troops. Armed with longbows, they shot arrows at the Kaiyuan soldiers and civilians who began to climb the city walls without even gaining their position.

Taking advantage of the attack of the Divine Fire Flying Crows, one shield cart after another approached rapidly and crashed into the city wall, causing the Ningyuan city wall to make a dull sound.

Groups of Liao foreigners emerged from the shield carts. Regardless of the dense rain of arrows and the rolling logs and stones falling from their heads, they struggled to put up grappling ladders on the city walls.

The hook ladder was placed on the city wall, and the iron hook with barbs on the top was stuck firmly in the gap in the middle of the battlement.

Amid shouts in various dialects, Korean volunteers, Mongolian herdsmen, Jurchen hunters, and Liao men rushed forward, each holding a knife in their mouths, and quickly climbed up the hook ladder to the top of the city wall.

Some old and weak people held the grappling ladders tightly at the foot of the city, while those who could shoot arrows hid behind the shield carts and shot at the Shaanxi soldiers.

Hundreds of hook ladders were placed on the city walls, and countless foreign Liao people climbed up the hook ladders like ants crossing a bridge, launching a frenzied attack on Ningyuan City.

The first wave of Liaozhen defenders had suffered heavy casualties, and the second wave of Liaozhen troops had not yet arrived. At this moment, the 5,000 defenders guarding the city were all border troops from Shaanxi. The Qin people were fearless and seeing this situation, they waved their heavy swords and flying axes and chopped at the iron hooks on the battlements. There was a clanging sound, and the metal collision splashed sparks.

Some strong Shaanxi soldiers used their hands to dig out the iron hooks embedded in the parapets, called on their companions to come forward, and several people pushed together to knock down the hook ladder on the parapet and the foreign Liao people on the ladder.

The Red Cannon's firing range was set to its lowest. After compacting the iron balls, the gunners aimed them at the hook ladders erected a few dozen steps away and pounded them fiercely. With each blast, the shells pounded into the crowd of people carrying the hook ladders. Human bodies and the hook ladders were shattered, and the wooden pieces of the hook ladders, carrying body fragments, flew everywhere. The iron balls, undiminished in force, slammed into the densely packed shield carts.

Soldiers from Liaozhen continued to climb the city walls to reinforce the Shaanxi soldiers. They were holding cans of tung oil and sulfur with fuses installed on the outside.

At the command of the battalion commanders, hundreds of flaming pottery jars were thrown out from behind the battlements at the same time. The tung oil and sulfur burned violently and rolled down, forming fire dragons in the air. The foreign Liao people on the hook ladders were instantly engulfed by the fire dragons...
One grappling ladder after another was overturned, smashed and burned. Some Kaiyuan soldiers who managed to climb onto the top of the city wall were overwhelmed by the surging enemy waves before they could launch an attack. Hundreds of brave warriors who had not yet died were thrown off the city wall by the angry Liao soldiers.

After suffering nearly 5,000 casualties, the Kaiyuan army's first wave of ant-attacking siege failed.

But this is only part of the battlefield, and the fierce battle is still going on.

Compared with fighting on the city walls, the Kaiyuan Army's attack on the ground seemed to be smoother.

The foreign Liao people who had escaped the bombardment of the Red Barbarian cannons had just approached the city when they were hit by crossfire from the bird-shaped guns on the two corner platforms protruding on three sides of the city. Without the protection of their shield carts, these people had nowhere to hide. After hundreds of casualties, the pacification officers who crossed the river to take command soon discovered a blind spot under the Hell Corner Platform between the corner platforms, which was beyond the reach of the artillery and muskets of the defenders on the city walls.

In this way, five shield carts were able to cross the defenders' line of fire and reach the west city gate.

The Liao people behind the shield carts immediately launched an attack.

With a thunderous shout, hundreds of Liao people pushed a huge battering ram and struggled to hit the Ningyuan city gate.

boom!boom!
The entire Ningyuan City seemed to be shaking.

(End of this chapter)