This day was truly the longest day since Yang Zhen set off from Songshan.

From morning to night, he led his men and horses back and forth, and fought two more battles in the middle. He didn't get a moment to rest, so he was very tired.

By the time he sent away Li Lu, got off the boat, and led Zhang Chen, Qiu Zhenhai and others back to the musketeer camp in the large tile-roofed building in Shiqiaozi, it was already Haishi that night.

Yang Zhen returned to the room Zhang Guogan had prepared for him, fell asleep on a large bed, and within a moment he could hear snoring.

Everything is difficult at the beginning. The advance battalion is still in the initial stage, and the team under his command is also in the transition period. All major and minor affairs in the army can only be handled by him personally.

In the future, when his team of people and horses are brought out, adjusted well, and various rules are established, he will no longer need to arrange everything in detail, and he will not need to work as hard as now.

Yang Zhen fell asleep soundly in a tiled house in Shiqiaozi, and the night in Xiongyue City became quieter.

However, on Xiongyue City, there were still lights flickering in the night fog. A quick glance revealed that there were guards patrolling the city.

Outside the west wall of Xiongyue City, Lu Pinqi's camp was completely silent, except for the occasional sound of horses' hooves scraping the ground or snorting.

In this quiet camp, on the wild land leading to the west wall of Xiongyue City, Li Lu and Pan Xi were still busy under the night.

Li Lu personally took action and led the grenadiers, shrouded in night fog, to continue digging trenches.

Pan Xi led a few people along the trench that had been dug under the city wall, and secretly inspected the previously buried tens of thousands of enemies and fuses. At the same time, he also quietly cleaned up the sand that fell and accumulated on it.

Gao Chengyou and Hu Dabao were both former naval officers of the imperial court, so they were naturally very familiar with the Folan cannons commonly equipped on naval warships.

It was late at night, people were quiet, and the fields were filled with mist. The two men also took advantage of this rare opportunity to move the five Folan cannons that Yang Zhen had handed over to them from Miao Naicheng, towards the south of Xiongyue City.

In the direction of the door, it keeps moving forward.

The effective range of the Fo Lang machine gun is much greater than that of the Crouching Tiger gun, about five hundred steps.

However, Shiqiaozi was about two miles away from the south gate of Xiongyue City, and the Fo Lang machine gun was still completely out of reach.

Although Xiongyue City is small, and there are only two city gates in the north and south, and there are no urns for defense, but because there are gate towers on the city, the walls at the city gates are much thicker than elsewhere.

From a long distance away, even if the Folan cannon could hit the city wall, it would be useless. At most, it would leave a hole. If so, it would be impossible to collapse a section even after a day of firing.

Therefore, when Yang Zhen deployed the siege of Xiong Yue, he never considered using the Folan cannon to destroy the city wall, because it was basically impossible to do so.

Using the Tiger Crouching Cannon and the Folan Cannon, these small Ming Dynasty cannons, it is quite possible to attack flesh and blood such as humans and horses at close range.

However, without the Hongyi cannon, it is simply impossible to destroy the city wall with projectiles smaller than a fist from the Folan cannon.

However, Yang Zhen handed Miao Naicheng's Folang machine gun to Gao Chengyou. After Hu Dabao, the two of them didn't think so. They didn't want to attack the thick city wall at the city gate. They wanted to attack the tightly closed city gate.

city ​​gate.

Before dark, they observed that the city gate below the south gate of Xiongyue was not filled and blocked, and it was not completely covered with iron.

I don't know if there are two gates in the city gate cave, but the city gate outside is just two thick but old wooden doors. The wooden doors are reinforced with iron sheets and large rivets, but a large area is still exposed to wood.

After the Tatars occupied southern Liaoning, small castles like Xiongyue City were destroyed and abandoned at first.

For some unknown reason, Xiong Yue was not destroyed, but the Tatars, who were always confident, would not spend manpower and material resources on repairing these castles in the rear.

Not only did they not build an additional urn city in the small town of Xiongyue, but they also did not think about cladding the old city gates with iron.

Of course, they never thought that the Ming army would return to this land and dare to take the initiative to attack their defended city.

This gave Gao Chengyou, Hu Dabao and the others an opportunity to use the Folan cannon to destroy the city gate, and Gao Chengyou and Hu Dabao decided to seize this opportunity.

The task given to them by Yang Zhen was to launch an attack outside the south gate, bluffing, attracting the main force of the Tatars in the city to concentrate on the south gate, and then creating an opportunity for Lu Pinqi's troops outside the west wall to wait for Li Lu and others to blow up the west wall.

After success, Lu Pinqi's cavalry rushed in.

However, Gao Chengyou and Hu Dabao discovered that perhaps they could make the fake come true and use the high rate of fire of the Folan cannon to break through the South City Gate first.

The biggest advantage of the Folang machine gun is that it is a breech-mounted sub-cannon. A main cannon is equipped with a bunch of sub-cannons, that is, four to six sub-cannons.

These sub-cannons can be loaded in advance. When used, they can be loaded, ignited and fired one after another in a short period of time. There is no need to clean and reload again, and there is no need to worry about the main gun exploding.

Although the projectile is a bit smaller, it has a fast rate of fire and is convenient and trouble-free at critical times.

Naturally, Gao Chengyou and Hu Dabao, both former commanders of the Imperial Navy, were very familiar with this feature of the Fo Lang machine gun.

At this time, they had five Folan cannons in hand, and they wanted to make full use of its effects, so they took advantage of the night fog and commanded their subordinates to carefully lift the Folan cannon, which was not too heavy.

The cannon, taking a few steps and pausing, approached the direction of Suide Gate.

Outside the north gate of Xiong Yue, the situation on the Yilipo position was similar. Jin Shijun, Deng En, and they were not idle after Anqing. After Yang Zhen came, he arranged a lot of work for them.

Fortunately, Yang Zhen just asked them to take advantage of the night to dig more trenches, build more horse-blocking walls, and further transform the post road in front of the one-mile slope and the fields on both sides into war preparation fortifications that were more beneficial to their own side. And they had already done these tasks.

It's easy to get used to it and it works very smoothly.

The reason why Yang Zhen asked them to continue building fortifications on the basis of the original fortifications on Yilippo outside the north gate, and also sent Dunn's Tiger Crouching Artillery Team and Yu Liangtai's men there, was because he had a hunch that as long as Xiong Yuecheng was broken

Well, Zhang Kushan will not stay in the city all the time and fight with him in street fights.

On the contrary, once he realizes that there is not much momentum, or that the situation is over, there is a 99% chance that Zhang Kushan will open the north gate and flee north.

When the time comes, Yilipo will be their final burial place.

Yang Zhen did not say these words clearly, but the arrangements he made to Jin Shijun, An Qinghou, Deng En, and Yu Liangtai, as well as the decisions he made after inspecting Yilipo at night, made these people quickly understand

took the burden off my shoulders.

After Yang Zhen fell into a deep sleep, two hours passed quickly.

At three quarters in the early morning on the last day of April in the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Yang Zhen was woken up from his deep sleep at the appointed time by Zhang Guogan, who was on duty outside the house.

"What time is it? Oh yes, what time is it?!"

As soon as Yang Zhen woke up, he sat up and looked out the window, which was still dark, and immediately asked the time.

"Sir, the ugly hour has arrived!"

Zhang Guogan yawned and covered his mouth while answering Yang Zhen's questions, his ugly face full of sleepiness and exhaustion.

Zhang Guogan had long been accustomed to the words or phrases that he didn't understand that sometimes came out of Yang Zhen's mouth. He didn't take it seriously at this time and immediately told the time.

Yang Zhen nodded after hearing this, then twisted his neck and made a few chest expansion movements, followed by bursts of clicking sounds, and his originally chaotic spirit was immediately revived.

By the time he, with the help of Zhang Guogan, put on his heavy equipment and walked out of his residence, the post road at Shiqiaozi outside was already filled with groups of dark soldiers.

Zhang Chen, Miao Naicheng, Qiu Zhenhai, Ma Keqing and others were all standing outside waiting, and the soldiers on the left and right wings of the musketeers, as well as the temporarily armed boatmen and rowers led by Miao Naicheng, had also lined up.

, standing neatly and solemnly.

On everyone's chest, like Yang Zhen, hung a grenade bag made of earth-gray cheesecloth, which contained four two-pound flying generals.

This outfit looks nondescript and very weird, but Yang Zhen knows that this is the key to whether he can win the battle this time.

The scene before him pulled Yang Zhen out of the dream scene in just a moment and back to reality outside the south gate of Xiongyue City.

Yang Zhen looked at Zhang Chen and Miao Naicheng in front of him. Seeing that Gao Chengyou and Hu Dabao were not there, he immediately sent Ma Keqing to convey the order.
Chapter completed!