The dozens of Ming troops who had climbed up to the top of the city were now completely in chaos. On one side, they were fighting with the Huangzhushan bandits led by Chen Butcher and Fang Dongquan on the other side. On the other side, they were also facing the musketeers commanded by Li Xuan himself.
bayonet charge.
The bayonet charge launched by the musketeers in a dense formation was more intimidating than Butcher Chen and the others.
Rows of shining bayonets were stabbing at the Ming army continuously. The Ming army in the front row could not resist at all. They could only try their best to block while retreating.
However, although most of them are wearing armor and have sophisticated steel knives and shields in their hands, because they do not form a dense phalanx, most of them fight individually when facing the bayonet charge of the musketeers. They may be able to block one or two swords.
Bayonets are absolutely unable to stop several bayonets from attacking at the same time.
In less than ten seconds, more than a dozen Ming soldiers in the front row were all killed or wounded, and the remaining Ming soldiers retreated involuntarily.
But there are other Ming troops behind them, and behind them, there are Ming troops who are climbing up the city in a steady stream.
On the narrow city wall, dozens of Ming troops and a similar number of new Tang troops were crowded, so that there were swords and blood everywhere on this narrow city wall.
When the bayonet phalanx of the musketeers continued to approach, the Ming troops continued to retreat to help the Ming companies behind them to stand. Many Ming troops were pushed and fell directly from the two-foot-high city wall.
Butcher Chen on the other side saw that the musketeers had taken control of the situation and were constantly oppressing the Ming army. He immediately shouted: "Brothers, victory or defeat depends on this. Come with me and rush forward to kill his mother!"
Chen Tufu once again risked his own life and took the lead in attacking the dense Ming army. The fierce bandits under his command were also aroused at this time. At the same time, more importantly, these guys who were good at fighting with the wind had seen that
When the Ming army is in decline, as long as there is another attack, these Ming army will definitely fail.
Seeing the hope of victory, the new armies of the Tang Dynasty gave full play to their characteristics of being greedy for life and fearing death, and fighting against the odds. More than 20 fierce bandits shouted various slogans and followed Butcher Chen to launch another charge.
Fang Dongquan behind them was also urgently organizing more spearmen for reinforcements.
For a time, the Ming army on the city was continuously compressed, and in the end there was no place to stand!
Just one minute later, the Ming army that climbed to the top of the city collapsed completely. They either died in the battle or had no intention of resisting. They put down their long swords and wanted to surrender. Some people even jumped down regardless of the two-foot-high city wall.
.
When the last recalcitrant Ming soldier dropped his sword and knelt down, shouting for surrender, Li Xuan reached out and touched the blood on his face, stepped on the body of a Ming soldier with one foot, and held him high with the other hand.
The long sword roared: "The Tang Dynasty is invincible!"
"Invincible!"
"Long live the Tang Dynasty!"
Cheering slogans instantly echoed throughout the entire city wall!
Under the city, Su Jiakang looked at the pseudo-Tang rebels on the city with a dark face. After a long time, he sighed deeply: "Let them move back!"
When he said this, his face was full of unwillingness and helplessness!
The previous second round of siege battle progressed extremely smoothly from the beginning to even a minute ago. They used Qing Zhuang as cannon fodder to attract and consume the firepower of the musketeers and archers of the puppet Tang thief army, even if Qing Zhuang
Zhuang suffered many casualties, but it bought enough time for the regular army, which was the main force in the siege.
Taking advantage of the gap in the firepower of the musketeers of the puppet Tang rebel army on the top of the city, the Ming army climbed up to the top of the city and started fighting for the top of the city.
Under normal circumstances, when the Ming army rushed to the city, it could basically be declared that they had conquered Zhengtai County.
Because in most cases, once the attacker breaks through the layers of interception and reaches the top of the city, it means that the defender's defense has been torn apart. Next, as long as the attacker continues to invest troops, it can completely defeat the defender's city.
defense.
But what Su Jiakang didn't expect was that the puppet Tang rebel army on top of the city was able to launch a desperate charge at the last moment and annihilate the soldiers who had attacked the city.
The troops that had attacked the city had been defeated. This was not only a tactical failure, but more importantly, it severely damaged the morale of the attackers.
For the attackers, they braved the firepower of the defenders to charge under the city. A large part of it was supported by a belief. This belief is: as long as we charge up, we will win!
And once they find out that they will be driven down even if they climb to the top of the city, they will quickly lose the courage to fight.
Once the courage to fight is lost, it is extremely difficult to regain it in battle.
Even though Su Jiakang was not a professional military general, he could still see that this attack could no longer continue. Continuing the attack would have no effect except increasing casualties.
As the Ming army ordered their troops to retreat, Li Xuan breathed a sigh of relief.
The Ming army finally retreated. If the Ming army would rather die than retreat, but continue to attack the city, he didn't know how long the new Tang army under his command could hold on.
Although the bayonet charge just now seemed to be very powerful and even bloody, and killed a lot of Ming troops, in fact, the new army of the Tang Dynasty itself suffered a lot of casualties.
Just what Li Xuan saw with his own eyes was that there were no less than ten soldiers who fell in front of him.
A quarter of an hour later, Qian Mengjiu, who was in charge of battlefield statistics, walked up to Li Xuan with a heavy expression: "Your Majesty, the casualty results are out!"
Li Xuan did not look at him, but continued to cast his gaze on the Ming army outside the city, and at the same time said: "Oh, what is the specific situation?"
Qian Mengjiu said: "After entering the city, our army killed a total of fifteen people and injured thirty-six people. Among them, the musketeers suffered more casualties, with eight people killed and thirteen injured!"
Li Xuan was not too surprised when he heard this number. He already had a rough mental expectation of his own casualties. In order to drive the Ming army off the city, they paid a bloody price, especially the musketeers.
When launching a bayonet charge, although in terms of results they almost crushed the resistance of the Ming army and finally drove the Ming army off the city, these musketeers without any armor protection themselves also suffered a lot of casualties.
In addition, before Li Xuan gathered the musketeers, these Ming troops climbed onto the city wall and caused a lot of damage to the musketeers who did not have much close combat ability.
However, the casualties of as many as 20 people also made Li Xuan heartbroken. These were all musketeers. The core combat force of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was only more than 80 people in total. Now a quarter of them were killed or injured in one fell swoop.
one.
If we do it a few more times, our musketeers will still be completely wiped out.
At this time, Qian Mengjiu continued: "Although our army suffered a lot of casualties, the Ming army suffered even greater casualties. In this battle, we captured more than 20 prisoners and killed the enemy soldiers on the city walls."
There were forty-six of them, and there were at least hundreds of enemy soldiers killed and injured outside the city."
"Although most of the Ming troops who were killed or injured outside the city were young and strong, the Ming troops who were killed and captured by us on the top of the city were all regular troops, and most of them were armored elites!"
After hearing that the enemy's casualties were several times that of his own, and that sixty or seventy of them were armored elites, Li Xuan felt a little better.
Although our own casualties were not small, with a total of fifty casualties, these casualties were scattered among various arms, and the real core elite musketeers only suffered twenty casualties.
Among the nearly 200 Ming army casualties, 60 to 70 were armored elites. From an exchange ratio, our side made a lot of money.
After all, the New Army of the Tang Dynasty is not a professional army. In essence, it is still a group of bandits. Under the absolute disadvantage of military strength, it can still fight like this with a group of Ming army elites. This is already quite good.
As for the lost troops, they can be recruited back from the young men. Anyway, their core combat strength, the musketeers, are not very demanding and can only be trained for three months.
On the other hand, the dead and wounded archers and sword and shield soldiers were hard to replace. Although these people were said to be bandits and their quality was not worth mentioning, these soldiers were all people with special skills. It was not just that any farmer could do the job.
Li Xuan even doubted that if there were a few more battles like this, all the sword and shield soldiers and archers under his command would be dead, and there would be no way to replace them if they were all dead.
Maybe in the future, all the soldiers under his command will become musketeers and spearmen!
The reason is very simple. These two arms are easy to recruit and train, while sword and shield soldiers, archers and cavalry have too high requirements on soldiers and are difficult to replenish.
But those are things for the future. Li Xuan is not in the mood to think about the future yet. Now that the Ming army is threatening, he must find a way to lead his troops to break through.
Yes, it is a breakthrough!
From the moment he entered the city, Li Xuan planned to rely on Zhengtai County to defend for a while, and then look for opportunities to break out after overcoming the immediate difficulties.
As for staying in Zhengtai County, this is absolutely not advisable, because Zhengtai County may be a strategic location for the Ming army. Su Jiakang would take it back no matter what, but for their new army of the Tang Dynasty, Zhengtai County is a dead place.
.
If you continue to stay in Zhengtai County, you will face the fate of being completely surrounded and finally annihilated.
Therefore, no matter what, we cannot stay in Zhengtai County. Now we have repelled two attacks by the Ming army. Moreover, it is almost dark now, and the Ming army outside the city shows no obvious signs of launching a third attack.
.
At this time, it’s time to consider breaking out.
But they wanted to, but Su Jiakang refused to let them go. That night, after having a hurried dinner, the soldiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty wanted to break out from the northwest city gate. However, the forwards of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty had just opened the city gate and could not get out.
When they reached 100 meters, they discovered that hundreds of Ming troops were ambushing them ahead. The forwards of the new Tang army were so frightened that they ran back again.
After the breakout was blocked, Li Xuan's face didn't look good. After thinking for a long time, he suddenly said to Qian Mengjiu: "Qian Aiqing, please arrange for someone to go out of the city to negotiate with Su Jiakang!"
Chapter completed!