On the seventeenth day when the Ming army besieged Xining Fort, the general attack organized by Mao Wenlong failed miserably. The Ming army on the north route collapsed first and was caught off guard by the sudden arrival of the Chinese cavalry from behind. They almost even defeated the main camp.

Fortunately, the Chinese cavalry only had about 1,500 people, and they were not willing to fight. They took the opportunity to attack the Ming army camp on the North Road but failed, so they immediately turned around and returned to Xining Fort.

Only half an hour after the collapse of the North Route Ming Army, the South Route Ming Army led by Zhenwuying retreated from Xining Fort. On the pretext that the pirates had landed on the beach south of the camp and were attacking their camp, they withdrew their troops back to the camp and stood firm.

Can't leave the campground.

Zhang Pan was able to concentrate all his artillery fire on the Ming army who launched an attack from the front. In the end, 30% of the cart barrier filled with reeds and silt was destroyed by the Chinese army's artillery fire. Soldiers were killed and injured everywhere. The Ming army that hit the city wall had no time to launch an ant attack.

Attached to the siege, most of the city had been destroyed by intensive grenades and manual machine guns. After two attacks, the elite elite of the Ming Army collapsed. Thousands of Ming Army troops fled back to the camp despite the efforts of the supervisory team to stop them.

Relying on Wang Huazhen's protection, Mao Wenlong rushed to the camps of the Ming army again that night, recruited elites as forwards, and used Wang Huazhen's name to forcibly recruit cavalry from each unit. During the day, all the Ming army units hid behind mobile anti-gun fences and passively dealt with it.

Only those elites who were captured by Mao Wenlong were driven by the supervising team to attack the city.

Now among the Central Army of Guangning Army and other departments, Mao Wenlong is the general who is scolded the most by the soldiers: everyone says that he is bent on flattering Feng Feng, regardless of the life and death of the soldiers, and will be killed by the pirates' cannon sooner or later...

The generals of various ministries, including Sun Degong, were perfunctory this time and sent some old and weak soldiers to Mao Wenlong, asking him to take these "elites" to fight as the vanguard.

As for the Beijing camp artillery, at the last moment of fierce fighting that day, it was attacked by the Chinese cavalry from the north. Thanks to the timely reinforcements sent by Liu Qu, the commander-in-chief guarding the Chinese camp, the Chinese cavalry was driven away. During the Chinese cavalry attack

During the attack, the gunpowder barrels on the artillery position were ignited and detonated in many places, more than ten large guns were fired, and the large Franco machine guns were destroyed. Fortunately, the treasure of the artillery camp - the imitation Western red cannon did not cause any accident. Along with the cannons fired during the day

The heavy firearms were destroyed by the pirates' artillery during the battle. In just one day of fighting, the Ming Army's artillery team had already lost more than half.

Therefore, the commander of the Beijing camp artillery team told Mao Wenlong bluntly: Only half of the artillery can be fired tomorrow when attacking the city.

…

At this time, Li Jicheng's cavalry troops entered Xining Fort in triumph and joined the infantry brothers of the First and Fourth Divisions in the fortress. Now, a total of nearly 6,000 Chinese regular troops and militiamen have been assembled in the fort. The newly arrived Li Jicheng and

Zhao Yi and others requested to go out of the city to counterattack, but this suggestion was suppressed by Zhang Pan at all costs. According to the order of the Liaodong March Commander, all troops must accept Zhang Pan's command after arriving at Xining Fort.

At this time, they did not know that to their south, there was another Chinese army landing on the beach and attacking the Ming Army's camp on the South Road.

After this force failed to attack the Ming army camp, they immediately returned to the sea, boarded a dozen large sea ships that had been waiting there, and headed south.

In the evening, Zhang Pan set up several tables of wine and food in his old camp to entertain the friendly generals who came for reinforcements. At this time, the messenger came to report that a messenger from the Second Infantry Division had arrived.

"Where did it come from?"

"Coming in through the south gate."

"Fool! What I'm asking is, where did the messenger come from?"

The ordering soldier scratched his head and said, "This person has documents and tokens, is wearing plain clothes, and is soaked to the skin. He probably came from the reed swamps of the Sancha River."

Supervisory officer Guo Yun stood up and said, "I'm going to meet this person and check his identity."

Zhang Pan nodded, and then continued drinking with all the friendly generals.

Soon, Guo Yun returned to the house with a strange look on his face.

"What's going on? Is there something wrong with this person?"

"No, this messenger is indeed an old battalion messenger from the Third Regiment of the Second Division. Their regiment leader asked him to deliver a message, asking us to make a surprise attack on the camp of the Ming Army Zhenwu Ying on the South Road tomorrow night."

Zhang Pan sighed secretly, knowing in his heart that his steady and conservative battle strategy would definitely not work. These Chinese generals in front of him were all eager to fight and had an extremely strong desire to establish meritorious deeds. This battle was the decisive battle to determine the ownership of Liaodong.

The battle was also the last battle before the Chinese army signed a contract with the Ming Dynasty. After this battle, the Chinese army would probably have to wait for five years for the opportunity to conduct a large-scale war. In the short term, in addition to countering rebellions in the colonies, in the vassal

Once the country is in peace, the Chinese army will not fight any major wars for the time being.

Yes, for many Chinese Army soldiers, the Battle of Xining Fort is the only opportunity to achieve meritorious service in a long period of time.

For ordinary soldiers, meritorious service means that after retiring from the army, they can obtain large tracts of land in Liaodong, Hainan Island, and Luzon. They only need to cultivate it for the King of China for five years before passing it on to future generations. Meritorious service means that hundreds of acres of land in the Nanyang colonies can be obtained in three years.

It is tax-free, and after ten years it will be completely your own land, and you can control the indigenous people there at will.

Meritorious service has more meanings for officers: apart from their power and status, they can also become a general guarding a certain country, they may become a hereditary island owner of an overseas island, they may be granted a title to a small overseas country and become a big landowner.

It can also be a large shareholding in a Chinese company, owning an ocean-going merchant fleet, and becoming a wealthy man after retirement.

People like Zhang Pan who have almost no desire for power or money are one of the very few in the Chinese army. As a former soldier of the Ming army, he joined the Chinese army to avenge the Eight Banners soldiers. He has great respect for the Ming army.

, he had absolutely no interest in striving for meritorious service. Everything he did at Fort Xining was just out of loyalty to his duties.

Zhang Pan finally agreed to the plan to attack the Ming army camp on Nanlu at night, and the war was completely out of his control. Of course, Zhang Pan was never able to fully control the war.

…

The process of the night attack on the Ming Army camp on South Road was chaotic, and even many people involved could not understand the process. During the day, Mao Wenlong failed to organize an attack because the artillery team refused to fire support because their gunpowder had been destroyed by the Chinese army yesterday.

A lot was lost. Mao Wenlong almost vomited blood when he heard this: You are short of gunpowder, why didn't you tell us yesterday? Where can I temporarily transport gunpowder to you now?

In order to maintain pressure on Xining Fort, Wang Huazhen directly ordered the Ming Army from the North Road to attack. However, most of the cavalry of the left army of the Guangning Army had been transferred by Mao Wenlong, and the remaining cavalry from the Biaoying Battalion directly under the guerrilla Hu Jiadong was left by General Bao Chengfu.

During the First World War, most of the remaining Ming army cavalry were made up of numbers, and some had only been recruited for a month.

Therefore, General Bao Chengfu just led his troops out of the camp and waved the flag three miles away from the head of Xining Fort. There was only thunder but no rain.

In this way, when the Chinese cavalry in the fortress attacked, they still drove the Ming army to pieces. Five or six thousand cavalry were chased by 1,500 Chinese cavalry and fled straight back to their camp.

It rained heavily that night. In Liaodong in autumn, the night after the rain can already feel a bit chilly. The defenders of Xining Fort of the Chinese Army followed the plan and went out of the city to attack at night. The result was very surprising. They encountered a group of people outside the city.

Brigade of the Ming Army. On a rainy night, the two sides suddenly encountered each other. They didn't know the details of each other: they didn't know how many people there were on the other side, their destination, etc... But everyone knew one thing: the other side was the enemy. So, the two sides met in the dark of night, under heavy rain.

Hand-to-hand combat ensued. Although most of the Chinese army's flintlock muskets have fire door covers that are waterproof, they are not designed for such continuous heavy rain. At the same time, when firing in the dark, the shining muzzle flash will reveal one's position.

nice one.

As a result, both sides started a hand-to-hand battle with a tacit understanding. The Chinese troops in Fort Xining and the Ming troops who suddenly appeared fell into a brutal hand-to-hand battle in the dark night. Li Jicheng's cavalry troops, who arrived like a whirlwind, also fell into a hard fight. The Ming troops continued to attack

It appears from the darkness and beats more people.

This Ming army is the death squads led by Mao Wenlong, as well as thousands of elites from Zu Dashou's forward battalion, plus Sun Degong's two battalions, with a total number of more than 6,000. Because the Chinese army's firepower was too strong during the day, Mao Wenlong planned to

Playing a night attack at night. As a result, they met the Chinese army who was leaving the city for a night attack, and it became a stalemate.
Chapter completed!