I want to be emperor

Chapter 153 Sun Hongcai Attacks the City

On May [-], the eighth year of Chongzhen, in Xinye City.

Li Duo stood on the top of the city and looked at the sporadic Ming army reconnaissance cavalry outside the city, his brows inevitably had a trace of worry.

Because behind these sporadic Ming army reconnaissance cavalry, there is still a piece of Ming army following them. This is the three thousand Ming army they first came into contact with.

And further west, there are at least tens of thousands of Ming troops rushing towards Xinye City.

When tens of thousands of enemy troops were spotted in a row yesterday, and at least [-] cavalrymen were coming towards his troops, Li Duo was almost not frightened.

He didn't know why the main force of Lu Xiangsheng's troops who should go to Xiangyang City suddenly came to Dengzhou, but he knew that he would soon face at least 3000 enemy troops, or even tens of thousands of enemy troops.

If the officers and soldiers of the Ming army decide to attack Xinye City!
And Xinye City is just a small county town, the city wall is not more than half a foot high, and it is not too thick. The moat outside the city is also very ordinary, only a mere ten meters wide.

At the same time, there weren't too many artillery pieces on the top of the city. Among the Seventh Infantry Battalion and a small number of reconnaissance cavalry and supply troops he brought over, there were only three [-]-jin light short robes.

The Ninth Infantry Battalion, originally stationed in Xinye City, had two [-]-jin light artillery pieces.

At the same time, when Xinye City was in the hands of the Ming army, there used to be several light artillery pieces weighing tens of kilograms and hundreds of kilograms, including two Flang machines weighing one hundred kilograms. The original top of the city was left as part of the city defense fortifications.

However, all the cannons that can be fired add up to only a dozen or so.

And there is not a long-barreled heavy artillery, let alone a long-barreled artillery, not even a traditional short robe weighing more than two hundred catties.

In Li Duo's opinion, such artillery power is far from enough.

There are two infantry battalions in the city, one dissatisfied with the formation of the heavy post, and only one team of cavalry infantry.

However, among the above-mentioned forces, the Ninth Infantry Battalion is an out-and-out recruit unit, and most of the recruits have not even completed the one-month recruit training, let alone follow-up adaptive training.

At the same time, there was a serious lack of equipment. In the Ninth Infantry Battalion, there were only more than 40 matchlock guns made by the Rural Protection Army. These matchlock guns were still used for early training.

There is also a serious lack of armor. According to the rated establishment of the Township Protection Army, a full-staffed infantry battalion, a total of 72 spearmen in the first two rows need to wear armor. In addition, there will be at least 30 people in the sword and shield post belonging to the battalion. Armored swordsmen, archers, spearmen and other soldiers.

With the addition of armored officers and soldiers, there should be about 130 armored soldiers in a battalion.

This armor does not refer to the so-called cotton armor in the army, but specifically refers to the iron armor, whether it is all kinds of pure iron armor captured, cloth face armor, or the cloth face armor made by the rural protection army. You can use whatever you have. The Rural Protectorate wasn't too picky either.

As for the cotton armor, this thing is generally used by light infantry such as musketeers, archers, and auxiliary soldiers in the rural protection army. Most of them are all kinds of cotton armor captured. pieces, focusing on protecting the heart and other trunk parts.

As for the Ninth Infantry Battalion, there are only more than 40 sets of various types of armor, but the cotton armor is quite complete.

The only thing that can comfort Li Duo is that there is no shortage of cold weapons in the Ninth Infantry Battalion. Those musketeers who do not have muskets for the time being basically hold spears and one-handed waist knives, which can be temporarily used as light armored spears hand use.

Among the more than 300 troops in the city, most of them are recruits, and they lack a lot of equipment, especially long-range firepower and armor for defense.

However, the Ming army coming from the west was about [-] strong.

This is the problem Li Duo is currently facing.

If the general's reinforcements arrive late, then Li Duo will have to worry about whether he can hold Xinye City.

When he retreated to Xinye City today, Li Duo had already received an urgent order from Luo Zhixue:

Luo Zhixue told Li Duo that he had personally led the army to the north, and asked Li Duo to cooperate with the main force of the headquarters to defeat the main force of the enemy in the follow-up operations.

As for how to cooperate, Luo Zhixue didn't say whether Li Duo was to stick to Xinye City or not.

Because when Luo Zhixue sent messengers northward to send urgent orders, he didn't even know that Li Duo had retreated to Xinye City.

The reason why the messenger was able to meet Li Duo in Xinye City was purely luck. In the early stage, he went up the Baihe River, prepared to pass Xinye City, and then turned west to Dengzhou to look for Li Duo. Xinyecheng met Li Duo and the others, and then passed the order over.

If the messenger had gone straight north in a straight line towards Dengzhou from the beginning, it was very likely that Li Duo and the others would have missed it.

No way, ancient communication is so troublesome and full of surprises.

Just a slight carelessness in the deployment of troops within a range of tens of kilometers will lead to situations where orders cannot be communicated or are communicated late.

This is also because Luo Zhixue did not tell Li Duo what to do in the order, but just gave Li Duo a very vague order to cooperate with the main army to fight.

As for how to cooperate, let Li Duo decide according to his own situation.

Now Li Duo is looking at this point, he has only a thousand people under his command, more than half of them are recruits, recruits who have not even completed the training period for recruits, and recruits who do not even have complete equipment.

With such a force, how to cooperate with the main force of the general?
Not to mention cooperating, if he dared to lead troops out of the city now, he would be taught how to be a man by the opponent's cavalry in minutes.

The Ming army has more than 500 cavalry outside the city. Regardless of the distance of at least two miles, most of these cavalry dismounted to feed their horses and rest, but if he led troops out of the city, it would not take a while for these cavalry Applause arrived.

At that time, these enemy cavalry don't need to take the initiative to attack, just staying on the side is enough to make Li Duo's troops unable to move.

And with a little delay, the main force of the infantry led by Song Hongcai could kill them in minutes.

In the past when Li Duo followed the army to fight, he saw Wang Xiazi and his cavalry torture the Ming army to death many times. In the end, they were caught up and wiped out by their own infantry and artillery.

And now, he also experienced the embarrassing situation of those Ming troops before!

One's own side does not have a capable cavalry, and it is embarrassing to be controlled by the enemy's cavalry.

Under such circumstances, it is impossible to leave the city, even if you are killed, the only thing left to do is to defend Xinye City and wait for the main force led by the general to come to help.

See if there is a chance to go out of the city and cooperate with the general again in the end.

But soon he discovered that the city was not so easy to defend.

At noon that day, Sun Hongcai commanded the army under his command to attack the city.

Sun Hongcai's siege routine is even simpler than that of the rural protection army!
When the rural protection army attacked the city, it was bombarded by artillery, suppressed by infantry firepower, and heavy infantry climbed up to the top of the city to fight.

As for Sun Hongcai's attack on the city, he directly drove a large group of young and strong peasants towards the city wall. These young and strong peasants didn't even have weapons at hand, and each of them was carrying or carrying a lot of sand, stones, wooden boards and other objects.

These young men are going to fill the moat!
Li Duo didn't have the kindness of a woman, since the other party drove a group of peasants to fill up the moat, he did not miss it. He immediately ordered the guns to fire and bows and arrows to intercept.

Under the bombardment of guns and arrows, hundreds of civilians fell in a pool of blood in a short period of time. Those civilians immediately dispersed when they saw this, but the officers and soldiers behind were even more ruthless!

As soon as these civilians turned around and ran away, a wave of arrows flew out of the formation on the officer's side, directly killing one or two hundred civilians.

The rest of the civilian husbands were stunned. If they stepped forward, they would be dead, and if they turned around and ran away, they would be dead!
The warring parties did not give them any way to survive!
Many people cried loudly, or lay down on the ground and pretended to be dead. There were also smart people who did not turn around and ran back, but ran to the sides.

Naturally, the officers and soldiers would not just sit back and watch these peasants run away, but there were two teams of cavalry who came out and ran to both sides of the formation to intercept and hunt them down!

Except for a few lucky ones who escaped, most of the rest were either killed or driven back.

After such tossing back and forth, more than 300 people were killed or injured before these peasants filled the moat with sand.

In the first wave of about a thousand people, more than a hundred people were killed and injured by the guards at the top of the city, and another two hundred were killed by the officers and soldiers who supervised the battle. More than 300 people were killed and injured at once.

It didn't take long for these peasants who had almost completely collapsed and lost all hope of survival to be forced to fill up the moat by the Ming army again.

After a while, they retreated under the firepower of the defenders, and the officers and soldiers intercepted again.

Repeatedly like this, more than [-] people were killed or injured soon, but Sun Hong is a ruthless person!

Seeing that more than half of the civilian husbands in front were killed or injured, he waved his hand again, and more than 2000 civilian husbands who had been prepared in the rear also rushed up.

It is not enough to say that they are civilian husbands. These people actually have both men and women.

In order to prevent the soldiers under his command from losing in vain during the stage of filling the moat when they attacked, Sun Hongcai directly captured the people in several nearby villages. Regardless of men, women, ages, all of them were caught with a single brain.

Sun Hongcai looked at the front and cried, but the common people kept coming forward under the threat of the sword, stretched out his hand to caress the goatee on the chin, and said with a smile on the corner of his mouth: "3000 people, I don't believe that this moat can't be filled!"

"Even if you just fill it with corpses, it can still fill up the moat that is only a few feet wide!"

"By the way, the ammunition and arrows that can consume the bandit army can serve multiple purposes!"

When Sun Hongcai said this, a guerrilla next to him couldn't help but took a step to the side!
These words made him, a veteran who has been in the army for decades, tremble with fear!

(End of this chapter)