At dawn, Li Zicheng was awakened by Liu Zongmin's voice.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Something is happening!" Liu Zongmin shouted loudly outside the tent.
The eunuch who was in charge of serving Li Zicheng dared not stop Liu Zongmin, let alone wake Li Zicheng up. He could only kneel on the ground and kowtow to Liu Zongmin: "General Liu, please spare me. Your Majesty slept very late last night. If you wake him up now, I will have to pay with ten heads."
"Commander-in-chief, please keep your voice down!"
"Get out!" Liu Zongmin was furious and slapped the young eunuch on the head.
But it was just a slap.
Li Zicheng was the emperor after all, and even if there were urgent military matters, he could not take harsh measures against the eunuchs around him.
As the young eunuch screamed, Li Zicheng's voice rang out: "Who is making noise outside?"
"Your Majesty, it's me."
"Oh Zongmin, come in!" As he spoke, Li Zicheng had already put on his clothes.
Liu Zongmin rushed into the tent, lifted his clothes and knelt down: "Your Majesty, something big has happened. The Ming army is gathering outside the city."
"Assemble outside the city?"
Li Zicheng was stunned at first, then he picked up the armor and asked someone to put it on him as he walked out.
After days of fighting, the Ming army was having a hard time defending the city, so how could they go out of the city to assemble?
There must be something fishy going on!
Under his leadership, a group of generals quickly came to a slope.
Picking up the clairvoyance, Li Zicheng finally believed what Liu Zongmin said.
A large number of Ming troops were gathering outside Xizhimen, Fuchengmen, Xibianmen and Guang'anmen in Beijing.
These soldiers were wearing armor and holding various weapons.
They were obviously regular troops of the Ming army, not civilians recruited temporarily.
"What do you think?" Li Zicheng asked the people behind him.
Niu Jinxing squinted his eyes and looked for a while, then said, "Your Majesty, the Ming army is planning to fight head-on! Look carefully," he pointed at the city wall, "I roughly counted them, and there are about 20,000 Ming troops, all infantry, no cavalry. They have chevaux de frise, deer horns and various chariots in front of them, and it is obvious that they are going to fight to the death with infantry."
"When the battle between the two sides reaches a stalemate, the Ming cavalry will enter the battlefield. Our army will then be in chaos, and the Ming army will take advantage of the situation to attack us."
Li Zicheng nodded seriously, "What should we do then?"
"I think yesterday's plan was a good one. Why don't we act according to the plan?"
"Not appropriate..." Liu Zongmin shook his head. "Yesterday's plan was to send the peasants to die in the front. Now that the Ming army is out of the city to fight, we can't send those peasants! Otherwise, if the front is defeated, the people behind will be swept away."
Li Zicheng understood the reason well and nodded seriously again.
After careful consideration, he gave an order: "Pass the order, let 10,000 civilians continue to attack the city, and the rest return to the camp to repair. Draw 5,000 people from Zongdi's command to assist Zongmin in attacking Fuchengmen. The rest of you should pay close attention to the city gates and notify me immediately if there is any change!"
"Yes, sir!" The messenger left quickly, and as the order to attack the city was issued, the siege involving tens of thousands of people began.
Walking in the front were the civilians, with sad faces, and were forced to walk forward with knives pointed at them by the soldiers who had their hands outstretched.
I originally wanted to follow King Chuang to make a living, but I didn't expect that King Chuang would not only give me food, but also take my life!
Every time a city is attacked, they are always at the front and cannot escape even if they want to.
Behind the civilians were the ordinary soldiers of the Shun army, and behind them were the elite infantry of the Shun army.
Outside the range of the artillery, the Shun cavalry sat on their horses, wearing bright armor and in high spirits, and their huge Shun flags fluttered in the north wind.
Without Li Zicheng's orders, everything on the battlefield had nothing to do with them.
Cavalry fights in the field and will not rashly attack a city.
Tens of thousands of Shun troops deployed in a line and slowly attacked the western wall of Beijing.
The Ming troops under the city were no longer as calm as before, but instead a little panicked.
After all, they were occupying the city wall before, overlooking the enemy, with grenades, flammable oil and thousands of enemies.
Now that both sides have reached the same level, panic is inevitable.
Boom! All the panic was completely blown away by the sound of artillery fire on the top of the city.
The artillery on the city wall fired first.
The large solid bullet hit the charging Shun army with lightning speed.
Amid the rumbling of artillery fire, the Shun army began to suffer casualties.
The Shun army was not to be outdone. They used horse and ox carts to pull artillery into trenches dug in advance and fired back.
While the artillery was firing at each other, the front armies of both sides had already begun fighting.
The Ming army used the classic three-stage attack.
Three people form a group. Under the cover of the chariot and the mound, the musketeer in the front takes the lead in firing. After firing, he retreats to the end of the team, cleans the barrel and loads gunpowder and bullets. The second musketeer goes to the position of the first musketeer, fires, and then returns to the end of the team.
The firing speed of the three-stage attack was very fast, and the casualties of the Shun army rushing in the front increased rapidly.
The Shun army fought back with bird guns, bows and crossbows, and various firearms.
Suddenly, bullets and arrows were flying in the air like rain.
Looking at the rain of arrows, the Shun army advanced forward step by step with shields raised. They were determined to capture Beijing today.
The Ming army did not retreat because they had no way to retreat.
As the shouts and screams got closer, the screams became clearer and clearer.
The two sides came into close combat.
There was no flashing of swords and sabers as imagined, only the clanging sound of swords hitting armor, and the screams when the sharp weapons pierced the flesh.
A Shun soldier took a hammer and smashed it on the head of a nearby Ming soldier. This weapon ignored the protection of armor and directly caused internal injuries to the enemy.
The Ming soldier was unable to dodge and was hit on the head. The iron helmet was directly dented and the man fell to the ground instantly.
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It’s even more exciting later!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
