Seeing that Wu Shigong's army was preparing to attack the stronghold, Li Yaozi also knew that the negotiation had broken down. At this time, in Li Yaozi's stronghold, there were people from his own stronghold gathered together, and after Li Yaozi knew that Wu Shigong was going to attack his stronghold,
He asked for support from the bandits he had befriended, and the bandits who came to reinforce him totaled seven to eight hundred bandits.
In addition, there are more than 600 family members of Li Yaozi's bandits in the village. Therefore, Li Yaozi has an advantage in numbers.
However, after seeing that the soldiers in Wu Shigong's army were strong and well-armed, these bandits did not dare to attack outside the stronghold. They only prepared rolling logs and stones on the walls of the stronghold to passively defend against Wu Shigong's army.
Attack on the cottage.
Although Wu Shigong was prepared to besiege the mountain stronghold for a long time and fight a protracted war, he still had to try to attack the stronghold.
When attacking a fortified city with a small number of soldiers, there are only a few siege methods that can be chosen. It is definitely not possible to use ladders to climb the city wall to "invade" the city. Wu Shigong could not bear such a heavy loss of his own soldiers. Then the only way was to break through the gate of the stronghold.
, fight your way through the gate.
Under Xue Yongli's order, a group of soldiers pushed a cart modified from a cart (that is, a large wooden board was installed in front of the cart to act as a shield), and followed the gunman behind the cart.
As well as the pikemen who protect the gunmen to prevent any bandits from coming out of the village.
Seeing the cart approaching, the archers on the wall of the mountain village shot a row of arrows. However, protected by the large wooden board in front of the cart, it did not cause any harm to the soldiers. Seeing that the arrows had no effect, in front of the bandit leader
Under the order, the bandits also stopped shooting arrows.
The soldiers pushed the cart to the edge of the ditch in front of the mountain village. This distance was only about thirty steps away from the wall of the mountain village. The gunman was behind the cart, loading gunpowder and bullets. Under the officer's order,
Together they leaned out from behind the big wooden board and shot at the bandits with their heads and bodies exposed on the city wall.
After several intensive shootings, no bandit dared to show his head on the mountain wall. After loading bullets again, the gunmen looked at the wall vigilantly to prevent the appearance of bandit archers.
At this time, more than a dozen cavalrymen rode up to the ditch and threw out hooks with thick ropes. A few hooks hooked the suspension bridge, and the cavalrymen dragged the ropes behind the hooks behind them.
The horse is tied tightly.
After all the hooks were hooked on the suspension bridge, all the horses worked hard together under the slogan of "one, two, three", and suddenly broke the rope holding the suspension bridge in the village. The suspension bridge fell
After climbing over the ditch, the gate of the cottage was revealed.
Seeing that the suspension bridge collapsed, the cart in the middle moved to both sides, revealing a large gap. The five artillery pieces that had been prepared long ago passed through this gap and started bombarding the gate of the cottage.
After the five artillery pieces fired one after another, only two artillery shells hit the gate of the cottage. The other three shells all hit the stone wall next to the gate of the cottage. Small stones were splashed. But
The stone walls of the cottage are indeed very strong and thick, so for these stone walls, these damages are simply negligible.
Wu Shigong shook his head when he saw this situation. It seemed that although the soldiers in his artillery team had learned how to fire cannons, their accuracy was really poor.
But at this moment, the soldiers in front shouted loudly: "The gate is not blocked! Keep firing!"
In fact, the power of Wu Shigong's five artillery pieces was very small. Even the two shells that hit the gate of the cottage only made two small holes in the gate of the cottage, and did not cause any fatal damage to the gate of the cottage at all.
But it was the light coming from these two small holes that allowed the soldiers in front to discover that there were no stones or sand blocking the gate of the cottage.
This was also Li Yaozi's negligence. He had no idea about Wu Shigong's determination to attack his stronghold, nor did he know that Wu Shigong had such a sharp weapon as an artillery piece, so he didn't expend any effort to block the door.
You know, if Li Yaozi blocked the gate of the cottage with stones and sand, Wu Shigong's five cannons, which were not much more powerful than firecrackers, would never be able to break through the gate of the cottage. Wu Shigong could only honestly
The cottage is under siege.
But now, Wu Shigong discovered this situation and became excited. After all, if he could capture the stronghold earlier, he would have spent much less money on supplies and energy, and it would also be a great deterrent to bandits like Thunder Eagle.
Therefore, Wu Shigong immediately ordered the artillery to fire forward to improve the accuracy of the artillery fire. The artillery was fired in bursts. In the end, almost all the artillery shells brought by Wu Shigong were fired.
Wu Shigong set out this time with thirty rounds of artillery shells. Although Wu Shigong also built an artillery piece, he only had the forty rounds he brought with him when he left the capital (Xue Lian gave Wu Shigong each artillery piece at that time)
Equipped with ten rounds of artillery shells) and the few rounds of artillery shells that Yang Goudan made for him.
This time when they bombarded the gate of the cottage, Wu Shigong's five artillery pieces fired a total of more than twenty shells. These shells pummeled the gate of the cottage like a pockmark on the face. But the gate of the cottage was not knocked down. It can be seen that Wu Shigong
The power of those artillery pieces is indeed too small.
However, these shells had done enough damage to the gate of the cottage. The soldiers at the back had already bundled together the small trees cut down nearby and fixed them on the cart. With a knife in front, they cut the bundled trees into sharp points and made
It became a simple battering ram.
More than a dozen people pushed the cart slowly to the road in front of the village gate. Everyone shouted in unison and pushed forward. The other soldiers lined up to follow behind.
The soldiers pushing the carts ran faster and faster, and soon they were on the suspension bridge. They shouted in unison, and the tied trees hit the wooden door heavily. With a "bang", the already weak cottage door simply
It was knocked away neatly.
The soldiers pushing the cart were all escorted by Wu Shigong from the capital, and they had all seen blood when they exterminated the Holy Spirit Society rebels. Therefore, they did not hesitate to take out their swords and axes from the cart and rushed into the village to seize it.
The gate of the cottage.
Li Yaozi's bandits did have some brave bandits. Seeing that the gate of the cottage was broken, several bandit leaders led dozens of bandits and rushed towards the gate of the cottage, trying to recapture the gate of the cottage.
But at this time, the firecrackers behind also rushed to the gate of the cottage. They raised their firecrackers and fired a volley. After the first batch of firecrackers finished shooting, the second batch of firecrackers behind them
They also arrived. They then fired a volley.
With these two salvos, dozens of bandits who wanted to retake the gate of the cottage were crippled. Even those bandits who were not defeated by the firecrackers shouted and turned around to run away.
A piece of open space was left.
At Wu Shigong's side, more and more soldiers rushed into the gate of the village. They were not in a hurry to enter the village, so they began to line up in the open space inside the gate, forming a small square formation of nearly three hundred people.
Seeing that his soldiers had completely taken control of the gate of the stronghold, Wu Shigong also led the remaining cavalry and soldiers into the stronghold. Under Xue Yongli's order, except for the cavalry guarding Wu Shigong, the other soldiers began to divide into small groups and entered
In the stronghold, search and exterminate the remaining bandits.
Everything happened so neatly. The bandits like Lei Ying and others who were watching the battle were dumbfounded. They definitely didn't expect that Wu Shigong's soldiers were so powerful in combat. Lei Ying also thought in his heart: What if
If Wu Shigong's soldiers attacked his stronghold, it would definitely be like now, with the autumn wind sweeping away the fallen leaves.
After all, the bandits are not a regular army. The principle they follow is: fight if they can, and flee if they can't. When Wu Shigong's army rushed into the mountain stronghold, the bandits fled in the other three directions of the mountain stronghold.
Therefore, the teams searching for the remnants of the bandits basically encountered no resistance and quickly advanced to the cottage where Li Yaozi lived.
Now many bandits who had not escaped gathered in this house, preparing for the final desperate resistance. When Wu Shigong got off his horse and came to the front of the house surrounded by guards, his soldiers had already surrendered the house.
They were surrounded.
The previous attack went too smoothly, so Wu Shigong ordered his soldiers to attack again to capture the house in one go.
However, when the soldiers charged, a row of arrows were shot from the house, knocking the soldiers in front of them to the ground. I don't know which archer among the bandits aimed at Wu Shigong and shot an arrow.
Of course Wu Shigong was standing outside the range of the bow and arrow, so when the arrow was shot over, the flight of the arrow was already a little drifting. However, Wu Shigong was careless and did not notice the arrow at all. The people around him
Seeing that the situation was not going well, the guard suddenly jumped on Wu Shigong and pressed Wu Shigong to the ground.
The arrow returned in vain. However, Wu Shigong was pressed down by his own bodyguards, causing pain all over his body and being covered in mud, making him look particularly embarrassed.
Wu Shigong suddenly became angry. He simply stopped attacking the house and went outside to bring in two cannons to blast open the gate of the house.
Seeing the artillery being pushed in, the bandits in the house suddenly became confused. One bandit shouted loudly: "Master Li, whether to fight or surrender, please send a message to the brothers!"
But suddenly another bandit shouted: "Li Yaozi, who should be lighting the sky lanterns, has already run away. Let the brothers fight here. Just surrender!"
The bandits in the house suddenly became chaotic. Without much effort, the bandits on the wall of the house waved the white flag. After asking Wu Shigong for instructions, Xue Yongli began to arrange soldiers to accept the surrender of the bandits.