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Chapter 615: Very quick response
That night, Ningyuan City was like a fully wound alarm clock, ticking every quarter of an hour or so, causing everyone in the Jurchen army camp to stop. In the second half of the night, probably because they were exhausted from all the hard work, no one got up even if there was the sound of cannon fire. As a result, the shells really came, exploding into two balls of fire and igniting two tents and a pile of hay.

Now if you don't want to bother, you have to. The Ming army's artillery has left the city. Looking for it, it must be found! As a result, thousands of cavalrymen held torches and wandered around for an hour without finding even a rut.

If someone wants to ask, firing artillery when there is nothing wrong is disturbing the dreams of the Jurchens. Then the Ming army cannot sleep peacefully. Isn't this killing the enemy by a thousand and damaging itself by eight hundred?

No, the Ming Army has had this training course since the day they joined. Not to mention just firing a few sporadic cannons, even if they fire continuously, most soldiers can fall asleep as long as they are not on duty. Without it, it’s just a habit.

This is what Hong Tao said about using your advantage to 100%, and not being afraid of making noise can be considered an advantage on the battlefield. It doesn't matter if it takes one or two days. If he does this every day, Nurhachi will have to find a way to rotate the Jurchen soldiers to besiege the city. Don't dare not wake up. If the Ming army makes a real sneak attack just for fun, the loss will be huge.

"Boom, boom boom..." In the early morning of the next day, the sound of artillery sounded again with the morning fog, and the Jurchen army launched another attack. This time it was launched from three sides at the same time, only the west side was silent.

"Today we will add artillery, and only shot at close range with shotguns!" Since they were playing so seriously, Hong Tao didn't want to be too perfunctory. Showing off the artillery was equivalent to showing off his wealth, so as to make the other party feel more at ease.

The effect was basically similar to yesterday morning's attack, except that more people died. In urban defense battles, artillery is so powerful that it can't be opened by anyone. One shot will release hundreds of iron slag, and whoever catches up within a distance of tens of meters will be the winner. It's useless even if there are thick wooden boards, small pieces of iron slag can block it, but large pieces can penetrate directly with the person.

If three or four artillery guns cross fire, no living creature larger than a mouse will be left within the range. Even the grass will be turned black, and the entire ant nest will suffer.

This unexpected battle continued intermittently until noon. The Jurchen army stopped attacking after throwing away thousands of corpses. When the sun went down, Ning Yuancheng began to fight back.

Instead of firing cannons and lighting lamps at intervals, Ming troops actually left the city along the hanging baskets on the city wall. A team of more than a dozen of them secretly carried the corpses under the city wall, piled them all into the silted moat, poured oil on them, and set them on fire.

When encountering Jurchen scouts coming to chase them, they ran back to the city wall to organize a counterattack. They used the light in the moat to shoot accurately with firecrackers, and there were more firecrackers on the top of the city to cover them. The Jurchen cavalry came too little and was useless, but too many came and the Ming army went back in hanging baskets.

The South Gate, the East Gate, and the North Gate all play the hanging basket game next to each other, and they never tire of it. The Jurchen cavalry were in trouble now. If they got too close, they would be shot. If they were too far away, they would not be able to see up and down the hanging basket. When too many people gathered, the people stopped moving, and as soon as they dispersed, the fire was lit.

After another whole night of tossing, when the morning fog appeared, the sound of artillery was gone, and the attacking troops were also gone. Nurhaci ordered to stop the attack. In addition to the heavy casualties and lack of rest, the arrival of the two teams of messengers gave him a very bad feeling.

Huang Taiji and Amin, who were as far away as Gubeikou and Xifengkou, sent people to deliver messages, detailing the war situation in the two places. The battles at Gubeikou and Xifengkou were equally unfavorable. It was not that the Ming army defending the city was also equipped with highly accurate firecrackers and powerful artillery, but that there were too many of them.

Huang Taiji and Amin each brought nearly 10,000 soldiers and horses, and after excluding the baggage troops, there were only 7,000 soldiers left. As a result, when I went to the local area, I discovered that there were actually tens of thousands of defenders deployed at the passes near Gubeikou and Xifengkou. These two passes are not built on flat ground like Shanhaiguan. Instead, they rise and fall with the mountains. If you want to attack them, you have to climb up the steep slopes first. After finally reaching the bottom of the city, you still can't find a spacious foothold. There was no place to hide, so they had to attack the city immediately, braving arrows and falling rocks.

But there are more defenders on the city than attacking troops, so this is too difficult. Even if the Jurchen soldiers were really brave and climbed up with ladders and braved arrows and big rocks, they would immediately have to face several times more Ming troops to kill them.

After all, humans are not machines. Wearing heavy armor and holding a thick shield to climb hills and ladders requires a lot of physical effort. When we get to the city, we have to fight hand-to-hand. Suddenly we can't hold it anymore, and we are quickly beaten down again. They attacked repeatedly for four days, but achieved no results and instead suffered more than 2,000 casualties.

Huang Taiji and Amin's letter also said that the Ming army's behavior was abnormal. In the past, as long as the Jurchen soldiers climbed to the top of the city, most of the Ming army would choose to flee. But this time almost no one ran. No, it wasn't that no one ran, but whoever dared to run would be shot dead by the supervising team behind them, even if they didn't want to risk their lives.

Faced with this situation, Huang Taiji and Amin wanted to ask Nurhachi what to do next, whether to continue the siege regardless of life and death or to try another place. Anyway, the main force of the Ming army has been attracted, this is very certain.

"Aqima, did you count the number of people when the Ming army entered the city?"

The more Nurhaci thought about it, the more something was wrong. The Jurchens were not without careful work in the pass, and small changes could not be detected. However, it was still possible to find out whether there were more troops in Shanhaiguan and how many people the emperor led on the expedition.

If according to what Huang Taiji and Amin said, all the passes along the way from Gubeikou to Xifengkou had additional troops, as many as tens of thousands, which meant that Jun Song had sent out most of the Shanhaiguan garrison, wouldn't he be afraid? Is Shanhaiguan at fault?

Relying entirely on the 30,000 army troops led by the Ming Emperor seemed a bit too desperate, leaving no backup plan, and inconsistent with common sense in combat. Moreover, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty had been besieged in Ningyuan City for more than two days. An escape route was specially set aside in the west of the city, but there was no movement at Shanhaiguan, which was not in line with the nature of the Ming Dynasty.

"Great Khan, after the Ming army crossed the river, they sent a large number of scout horses to roam nearby. The general even lost dozens of his men and did not get even half a step closer."

Niu Lu'erzhen, who was wearing a yellow flag, was responsible for monitoring the troops led by the Ming Emperor. From Shanhaiguan to Ningyuan City, he would report every two hours without any mistakes. But there were also things that were not done properly. After being asked by the Khan, he could only kneel down and wait for processing.

"It's not your fault. Get up and continue to send people to explore the west of Hexi. We will walk another fifty miles!" Nurhaci did not blame his subordinates. The main reason was that he did not think of carefully counting the number of Ming troops at any time. Since the approximate number when leaving Shanhaiguan After counting, there is no fork in the road, so why bother counting again.

(End of this chapter)