"Stop - raise your guns!" the officer ordered loudly. The musketeers stopped, raised their guns and pointed them at the top of the city wall.

"Open fire!" As soon as the words fell, a roar was heard, thick white smoke rose, and countless lead bullets whizzed towards the top of the city.

It is an indisputable fact that within range, muskets are more powerful than bows and arrows. Given the same level of armor, lead bullets are definitely more lethal than bows and arrows.

The advantage of bows and arrows lies in their speed. A skilled archer can shoot continuously in a very short period of time. However, with a musket, two or three shots a minute is almost the limit.

If it is fixed ammunition, the fastest speed can only reach five rounds. This is only theoretical, two or three rounds is the normal shooting speed of musketeers.

However, with reasonable tactical application, the replacement of bows and arrows by muskets was a historical trend and a powerful weapon for farming peoples to defeat nomadic, fishing and hunting peoples.

The Chahar tribe wanted to show the Ming army its own combat capability, but it failed miserably and the siege was unsuccessful, which was a disgrace. The Ming army also wanted to take the opportunity to intimidate its temporary allies to prevent them from being disobedient.

With row after row of musket fire, the Ming army advanced steadily.

The flying lead bullets hit the rammed earth walls, splashing dust and debris. Combined with the suppression of the Zalantu tribe's bows and arrows, the Khorchin defenders on the city were unable to raise their heads.

Fire suppression was just the beginning. Now, the Ming army began to demonstrate real siege techniques.

Holding shields, a dozen Ming soldiers covered each other and rushed forward carrying an iron cabinet. Judging from their appearance, the iron cabinet must have weighed at least 100 to 180 kilograms.

Needless to say, the iron cabinet contained granular gunpowder. Only with sufficient restraint could the gunpowder explode with such force. Besides tunnel blasting, this external blasting, similar to a dynamite pack, was also quite powerful.

The key point is that the city built by the Khorchin tribe was not tall enough, nor strong enough. The city gate was very narrow, only a little over two meters high.

By the standards of the Central Plains, Gelezhuergen City was only the equivalent of a fortress, not even at the county level. But on the grasslands at the time, it was already considered a very impressive city.

The Ming army soldiers held up their shields and carried iron cabinets, crossed the filled trench, ran a distance of dozens of meters, and entered the narrow city gate.

If you just put the iron cabinet on the ground and call it a day, it would be too unskilled. But don't underestimate this iron cabinet, it has Zhu Youxiao's instructions and has been tested by the Gunpowder and Weapons Bureau!

The Ming army soldiers pressed the iron cabinet against the heavy door and the wall on one side, took out several thick iron chisels, swung a big iron hammer, and fixed the iron cabinet firmly to the ground through the thick iron rings welded on the corners of the iron cabinet.

Then, the Ming army soldiers inserted a fuse more than one meter long into a small hole at the bottom of the iron cabinet and sprinkled a small bucket of gunpowder on the end of the fuse. Only then was everything completed.

Raising their shields once more, the Ming soldiers lightly advanced into battle, or rather, retreated lightly, running back to their own camp. The Ming army began to retreat until they were seventy or eighty meters away.

"Let me come!" Ma Chengfei held a large bow and smiled as he took out a long arrow with an arrowhead wrapped in oil cotton. A soldier stepped forward and lit the arrowhead with a torch.

Ma Chengfei took a deep breath, drew his bow like a full moon, aimed at a pool of gunpowder on the ground at the city gate, exhaled, fired a shot.

The flaming arrow landed, igniting the gunpowder on the ground, sending sparks flying and a cloud of smoke rising. The fuse was ignited, flashing with sparks, and quickly rushed towards the iron cabinet and slipped into it.

A moment later, a deafening explosion suddenly sounded in full view of everyone.

It was as if a monster suddenly emerged from the city gate. The narrow space could not accommodate its huge body. It broke through the earth wall, broke through the city gate, and came out again in a flash.

The earth shook violently, and pieces of earth, mixed with dust and shrouded in thick black smoke, rose into the air. The monster rapidly expanded, roaring and leaping into the air.

Under the shocked and terrified gazes of the Mongolian coalition forces and the Ming army, smoke and dust obscured this section of the city wall at the gate, and nothing could be seen except for the screams and cries coming from the smoke and dust.

"Good boy——" Man Gui's mouth was wide open for a long time before closing. He didn't know how to describe it, so he muttered with his eyes wide open.

Hu Dawei and Meng Ruhu's throats moved, and they swallowed their saliva at the same time. Then they looked at each other and saw each other's shock.

Ma Chengfei squinted his eyes and looked ahead, then turned slightly to ask Xiao Rongzhe, "Is once enough?"

Xiao Rongzhe wanted to brag, but he kept it low-key: "If it doesn't work, try again. Anyway, I brought three iron cabinets and three hundred bombs!"

"What a waste!" Ma Chengfei rolled his eyes and turned to the messenger beside him and said, "Go tell Ang An to prepare for the attack!"

The smoke gradually cleared, and the scene became clearer, allowing both the Ming and Mongol forces to see clearly. The city gate had collapsed, reduced to a pile of rubble and dirt, with clothing, swords, spears, bows and arrows buried among the rubble.

The sound of war drums rumbled, and Ang An woke up as if from a dream. His son Nuk was already waving a scimitar, howling and leading his troops to charge forward.

The sudden thunderous explosion not only collapsed the city gate, but also affected the adjacent city wall, forming a gentle slope of nearly two meters that could be climbed with bare hands.

More importantly, the defenders were stunned by the sudden change, and those who were close to the explosion point were killed or injured, losing their combat effectiveness.

The troops of the Zalantu tribe rushed forward, with bows and arrows drawn on both wings to suppress and cover; the troops in the middle rushed forward, abandoned their horses and walked, stepping on the broken earth and ruins to kill and rush into the city.

The city was breached, and the defenders' mentality collapsed. In addition, the Mongols believed in gods and Buddhas, so after the thunderclap, many people knelt down and prayed to the sky.

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