"I dare not!" Zhang Kui bowed his head quickly. "I have no selfish motives, I just consider the war situation."

"What the hell!" Tian Shizhong finally got angry. "Didn't you just see that there was still enough manpower for this battle, so you got selfish? Open your eyes and look at me. The battle ahead is so fierce. If we retreat and the situation collapses, who will be responsible? And don't we need to attack the city after this battle? Yuancheng is so big, with a circumference of more than 40 miles. The lowest part of the city wall is 30 feet high, and there are 70 or 80 towers, which is equivalent to eight famous cities... I don't know how much effort it will take? Get back with me! Guard the headquarters and wait for the order to attack!"

Zhang Kui fled in a panic.

After Zhang Kui left, Tian Shizhong's face darkened. He shifted his attention back to the battle line in front, but he couldn't help taking off his leather gloves and holding them tightly in his hands.

Moreover, as the actual commander of this battle, Tian Shizhong certainly had a higher perspective. Just as Zhang Kui did not care about the death of a single soldier, how could he care about the thoughts of a commander? He should have only cared about one thing at the beginning, that is, to hold the gap and ensure that the Jin army could not break through this line of defense.

However, from a macro perspective, this strategic goal was actually achieved from the moment the fighting began.

When the two armies met on a narrow road, they were fighting for their lives. If they could hold on, they would hold on, and if they couldn't, they would not. The Song army obviously held on. Not only did they hold on, they also had enough troops to set up a second line of defense in the rear.

Therefore, in this situation, just as Zhang Kui began to think about participating in the war and making meritorious contributions, Tian Shizhong, who had just returned from the front line, actually had some ideas - although he had been mentally prepared, the elite troops of the two armies were crowded in a narrow space, unable to advance or retreat, and could only consume each other's lives. This made Tian Shizhong, who had not fought a hard battle in several years, a little panicked. What he was worried about now was, what if this battle destroyed the three thousand long axe and heavy infantry and the foundation passed down to him by his father-in-law?

To put it bluntly, he was a little frightened by the cruelty and intense consumption on the front line.

But I have to say that no matter how worried you are, the current situation is that you cannot risk breaking the front line by making any replacements. You can only wait for the navy ships to arrive, and use the eight-ox crossbows and artillery carts to turn the tide of the war starting with the Ali tribe.

The sun gradually moved again, and as it was afternoon, the battlefield became more and more chaotic.

Fierce fighting was still going on at the gap in the front line. The Jin army still broke through the defense line on the east side of the Yongji Canal from time to time. At the same time, behind the second line of defense of the Song army, no less than seven or eight hundred corpses were lying there, and thousands of wounded were forced to be placed in the open air. Screams and groans were everywhere.

It's funny to say that in the morning, the civilians who were so frightened by the casualties that they needed a supervision team to maintain order, became much quieter when they saw more and more corpses and wounded people. They just kept digging trenches despite feeling extremely tired.

Of course, Zhang Kui finally got the chance to go into battle and fill a gap.

It was at this time that the river channel of the eastern branch of the Yellow River North Road was finally cleared, and the ships of the Song Army's Imperial Camp Navy were finally in place, and soon launched a salvo at the Ali tribe.

This time, the Eight-Ox Crossbows on the small steamer that were almost on the verge of being eliminated worked wonders. With one shot, three crossbow arrows as strong as iron spears were shot out directly and levelly, taking advantage of the height of the steamer. They were just within the maximum range of six or seven hundred steps and were pressed down to the ground. Combined with the densely packed Jin army, the lethality of this weapon reached a certain limit.

Often, a single shot of three arrows could instantly render dozens of people incapable of combat, with blood and flesh flying everywhere, or even limbs separated on the spot.

In comparison, even if all the guns on a large ship that relies on projectile trajectories are added together, they probably won't cause as much damage as the eight-ox crossbow on a small ship.

There were a total of eight of these small steamers equipped with eight-ox crossbows in the Imperial Camp Navy.

By the end of the third round of salvos, the casualties caused to the Ali tribe by the naval attack had reached the total casualties in the ground combat in the previous morning.

What's more fatal is that faced with this unexpected and visually stunning attack, the Jin army of the Ali tribe finally began to waver. They no longer maintained their formation and battlefield discipline, and without waiting for Ali's military orders to be conveyed, they took the initiative to gather and squeeze towards the inner direction of the Yongji Canal to avoid the attack of the Eight Ox Crossbows.

For a moment, a blank area of ​​seven or eight hundred steps was left on the narrow land north of the defense line, adjacent to the Yellow River channel on the east side.

Faced with such a situation, the Jurchen veteran Wanhu Ali, who was over 50 years old, was a little hesitant. But when he noticed that the two northernmost large ships had given up bombarding the river bank with artillery carts and turned directly to the north, he finally made up his mind and rode his horse directly onto the extremely simple floating bridge on the Yongji Canal.

Soon, they arrived under the Shaohe flag which was almost level with their own flag.

"Retreat!"

Ali got straight to the point. "It won't work in half a day, and it won't work in another half a day. Don't waste your troops here!"

Shaohe looked at Ali coldly: "If you can't charge a hundred or eighty cavalrymen back and forth, can you still call yourself a cavalryman?"

"There are ships of the Imperial Navy on the east river, all equipped with crossbows... Seven or eight hundred steps along the river, we can no longer stand." Ali said slowly with a blank expression. "Although I don't know what the situation is under the city, it is definitely weaker than us and can't hold back many people... If I were Yue Fei, I would definitely send a troop out along the east river to surround us from both sides."

"It won't be too late to retreat after they come out." Shao He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "There may still be soldiers in Yuancheng trying desperately to hold on to Yue Fei, waiting for us to get there."

My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It’s even more exciting later!