"die!"

In the rain curtain, on the west city wall.

Marco held a saber and hacked to death a brave bandit who had just jumped onto the city wall.

The soldiers who were originally following him also rushed to the city walls on both sides of the city gate tower to deal with the bandit soldiers who jumped up the city wall from time to time.

Marco, the general, and the commander-in-chief took action personally, which shows that the situation on the west wall is not very good.

As Zhang Xianzhong expected, the heavy rain had a great impact on the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers defending the city.

Not only are artillery and firearms such as muskets inoperable, but bows and crossbows are also inoperable, and even gold juice and boiling water cannot be used.

Although the fire oil can burn in water, with such heavy rain, the torches are extinguished, let alone the fire oil can be ignited.

Moreover, when washed by rain, a small amount of fire oil will be washed away when sprinkled, making it difficult to burn.

In addition, the obstruction of the rain curtain also worsened the sight of the soldiers. If they were not careful, thieves would jump up on a ladder somewhere.

It can be said that the heavy rain completely exposed the disadvantage of the small number of officers and soldiers defending the city.

During the military meeting on the afternoon when Zeng Ying and others arrived in Chengdu, Li Yan once said that there were nearly 30,000 elites in the city, and the total number of local officers and soldiers, guardsmen and civilians who had received certain training was more than 40,000.

This force seems to be a lot, but apart from the fresh troops that must be retained, the remaining troops are not much distributed on each city wall.

It should be noted that Chengdu is a tall city with a circumference of more than 22 miles, and an average city wall is more than five miles long!

The nearly 4,000 elite cavalrymen would not be easily sent to the city wall.

Therefore, after the last military meeting in Xifu, five thousand elite infantry were assigned to each city wall.

The remaining eight thousand elite infantry were kept as reserve troops.

In addition, each city wall was equipped with 3,000 combat troops composed of local officers and soldiers, and 8,000 civilians.

In this way, there are a total of 16,000 soldiers on each city wall.

It sounds like a lot, but in practice it's still not enough.

Because it is impossible to put all the troops on the city wall when defending the city, but they need to be rotated in batches.

This way you won't be afraid of the enemy's prolonged attack.

In fact, Zhang Xianzhong had hundreds of thousands of fighting troops, so it was inevitable for his troops to take turns to continue attacking the city. Therefore, it was also necessary for the defenders to use the available troops in batches.

In this way, there were 2,500 elite infantry, 1,500 capable soldiers and 4,000 civilians placed on each city wall during war.

A city wall is more than five miles long, which adds up to more than 2,500 meters.

That is to say, an elite infantry is responsible for defending a one-meter city wall, with only two to three combatable soldiers or civilians to assist.

In this case, it is okay to deal with a siege of normal intensity, but it is easy to fall into crisis when dealing with a high-intensity siege that relies entirely on close combat with cold weapons.

After heavy rain, Zhang Xianzhong not only did not order to withdraw his troops, but instead asked all his troops to attack the city wall with all their strength.

As a result, the bandit generals from all directions no longer used twenty to thirty thousand troops to attack the city in turn to provide cover for the "stick technique" as they did before. Instead, they tried their best to take advantage of their troop strength, intending to capture the city wall in one go.

Sun Ke Wangsulai, who was in charge of the west city wall, was known for his bravery and cunning.

After receiving Zhang Xianzhong's military order, he directly sent more than 80,000 combat-ready soldiers, ordered these soldiers to take off their armor, crossed the moat as quickly as possible and began to climb the entire west wall.

This caused the western city wall that Marco was responsible for to fall into a state of shortage of troops in an instant.

Marco immediately sent an order for the other half of the resting troops to come to support.

It's just that the rebel army's offensive was too fast, and it would take a while for reinforcements to arrive, so Marco had to bring hundreds of personal guards to rescue him...

After stabbing down another thief who was about to board the city, Marco turned around and saw a ladder set up at some point a dozen steps away, and four or five thief soldiers jumped up in a short time.

One of them was obviously a thief general, and he was quite brave. He quickly killed more than a dozen defenders on this section of the city wall.

Seeing this, Ma Ke didn't care much and hurriedly rushed over with the few remaining soldiers around him.

The thief general also stared at him at the same time, and rushed over with four or five thief soldiers.

This thief looks to be no more than 20 or 30 years old, and he is tall and strong.

Marco is already in his forties and has a lean build. Even though he is wearing armor, his intimidation seems not as good as that of a thief general.

"kill!"

The thief general roared with a ferocious smile, and slashed at him with his broadsword.

Marco refused to retreat but advanced, and in the most dangerous situation the thief passed his blade across the armor, leaving a mark.

The saber in his hand slashed across the thief's neck at a strange angle.

Suddenly, the tall and strong thief general's eyes widened, blood spurted from his neck, and he fell down with a look of reluctance on his face.

At this time, a few more thieves jumped up through the ladder, but they were quickly eliminated by several of Marco's soldiers.

These soldiers are actually his former servants. They are all very skilled and experienced in fighting. Dealing with ordinary thieves is like chopping melons and vegetables.

"Push down the ladder." Marco commanded calmly.

After hearing Marco's words, several soldiers immediately cut off the wooden hooks on the ladder and pushed it down.

Speaking of which, Zhang Xianzhong's siege equipment was crudely made. If it was a government-qualified ladder with an iron hook on top, once it was fastened to the city wall, it would not be so easy to knock it down. Special tools would have to be used and several people would have to work together.

Marco wiped the rain off his face, vaguely saw a brigade of officers and soldiers running quickly from the stairs, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

But he wasn't completely relaxed.

Even if all the resting troops are brought up, they are still absolutely weak compared to the number of traitor soldiers.

Of course, they relied on a city wall nearly four feet high, so it would be very difficult for the bandits to come up all at once.

The most important thing is that it is getting dark soon...

"General, it's already dark. Many people can't see anything. Please withdraw your troops?"

Outside the west city wall, Sun Kewang's confidants persuaded Zhang Sheng again.

Sun Kewang frowned and stared at the city of Chengdu in the night and rain with a look of reluctance.

After a while, he suddenly looked up at the sky again.

But the rain stopped.

After the rain stops, the firearm can be used immediately as long as it is well preserved.

Thinking of the sharp firearms of the army in the previous siege, Sun Kewang could only say with a gloomy face, "Ming Jin, withdraw the troops!"

"yes!"

Dang Dang Dang...

The sound of ringing gold sounded one after another from all directions in Chengdu.

It was extremely dark, the rain stopped, and the defenders withstood the most violent first wave of the siege.

If the fight had to continue, the Great Western Army would not only suffer heavy casualties, but the soldiers would also be confused due to problems such as being unable to see at night, and even cause an inexplicable rout.

Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong, Li Dingguo and others could only withdraw their troops no matter what they thought in their hearts.

Sun Kewang returned to the camp and ordered Zhang Sheng and other generals to gather their soldiers, take a good look at the camp, and then led a group of soldiers to Zhang Xianzhong's old camp in the north.

With armies camped on all sides, Sun Kewang didn't need to light a torch when he was traveling at night, but after all, the road was nearly ten miles away, and the horses ran slowly after the heavy rain, so it took him a quarter of an hour or two to reach Zhang Xianzhong's old camp.

After getting Zhang Xianzhong's permission, Sun Kewang entered the tent alone.

Zhang Xianzhong naturally didn't look good because he failed to take advantage of the heavy rain to capture Chengdu.

He glanced at Sun Kewang and said: "Sit down and wait for a while. The second and third sons are probably coming too. We just have a meal together and plan how to attack the city tomorrow."

"yes."

Sun Kewang agreed, but did not really sit down. Instead, he stood and waited patiently.

Not long after, Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu arrived one after another.

Zhang Xianzhong asked people to serve the food, and together with Wang Zhaolin, the five of them talked while eating.

Liu Wenxiu said: "Father, the two holes I had people dig under the south wall were washed away by heavy rain, and they will have to be dug again tomorrow."

Sun Kewang and the four of them ate a little cautiously, but Zhang Xianzhong ate happily.

Hearing this, he chewed the brittle bone in his mouth and said, "Just dig it again, it's no big deal."
Chapter completed!