The power of artillery is really unimaginable for a city that has never experienced it.

Although there were only twenty cannons, the low walls of the Japanese city were difficult to defend and were soon torn to pieces.

Before the war officially started, the Japanese generals in Buzen Province were already completely terrified.

He had no choice but to call upon his soldiers and start a defense.

The scattered rubble would prevent the Ming army's cavalry from charging, and the Japanese side had naturally made up their minds not to engage in a battle on the plains with the Ming army.

It was at this time that the Japanese warriors who had never dealt with the Ming army understood why the cities on Kyushu Island were so vulnerable to the Ming army.

Previously, the Shogun of the Shogunate, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, was determined not to confront the Ming army head-on, but after the Ming army landed on the island, he kept urging the guardian daimyo in various places to withdraw their troops.

This incident also caused dissatisfaction among many daimyos, and many people felt that the general was afraid of the Ming army.

It was not until now that everyone understood how terrifying the Ming army was.

"Sword and shield soldiers, form a formation, advance!"

As the military order was conveyed, rows of large shields were erected and slowly began to approach the Japanese city. The Japanese soldiers on the city wall, seeing that the Ming army had reached the range of their bows and arrows, immediately began to draw their bows and draw their arrows.

At present, Japan's archery level is still quite good, and to a certain extent, it is very close to the Ming army.

This is because it is the legacy left behind by the Mongol army when they conquered Japan a hundred years ago.

Ever since the Mongol army was defeated by a hurricane, the people of Japan have loved to salvage Mongol equipment.

Bows and arrows and armor are the pinnacle of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty's development. Now many Japanese warriors have traces of Mongol armor on their bodies.

However, the Japanese cannot wear the Mongolian armor directly, and need to undergo comprehensive modifications.

The reason is very simple, it is the issue of height.

Mongolians have always been big and strong, with an average height of 1.75 meters. This is because the environment in which Mongolians live affects their height.

And what about the Japanese?

As the name suggests, they are naturally short in stature.

Since the introduction of Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty, Japan has been extremely devoted to Buddhism from top to bottom.

Originally, Buddhism prohibits the consumption of meat but does not forbid it.

It was from Emperor Wu of Liang that people stopped eating meat.

This message also spread to Japan.

That year, when Wu Zetian began her regency, Emperor Tenmu of Japan issued a ban on killing animals: "Do not eat the meat of cattle, horses, dogs, and chickens. Other things are not prohibited. Anyone who violates this ban will be punished."

According to this ban, cattle, horses, dogs, monkeys and chickens are not allowed to be eaten.

If you eat vegetarian food and don’t eat meat, you will naturally not grow tall.

As a result, the Japanese, who were already short, became even shorter.

The current average height of the Japanese is about 1.4 meters.

It is hard to imagine how many 1.4-meter-tall Japanese warriors would need to defeat a 1.75-meter-tall Mongolian man with broad shoulders and a big waist wearing armor.

It is no wonder that Kublai Khan had to attack Japan twice. If it were not for the impact of the hurricane, Japan would have had no ability to fight back.

Even now, the height of the Ming army is generally close to 1.7 meters, which means they are a head taller than the Japanese on average. Coupled with their powerful armaments, the Japanese will almost collapse at the first touch in a head-on confrontation.

The bows and arrows caused some casualties to the Ming army, but the proportion was very small and they soon reached the city gate.

The Japanese threw stones that they had prepared long ago from the city walls, causing a lot of casualties to the Ming army.

In terms of attack and defense of city walls, the defenders naturally have more advantages. Even if the city gates were broken, the Japanese still left behind a lot of obstructions, such as large stones, carriages, etc., to prevent the Ming army from advancing.

"It's quite clever."

Upon seeing this, Zhu Di spoke in a cold voice and immediately ordered his soldiers to return.

In this situation, it would take a large number of casualties to capture the city gate, and the Ming army obviously did not want to bear this loss.

The city gate of Japan was not as spacious as that of the Ming Dynasty. There were more than ten horse-drawn carriages and rocks blocking the gate. Behind them were the well-prepared Japanese archers and swordsmen. The Ming army that forced their way through naturally could not perform and were hacked to death.

It seems unnecessary to fill it with human lives.

Therefore, after the retreat, the auxiliary soldiers pushed the artillery forward, and the swordsmen and shieldmen protected the safety of the artillerymen.

For the Ming army, using artillery to clear the way was a familiar way of fighting.

More than ten cannons were aimed at the city gate.

Boom boom boom!!

With just one round of salvos, the city gate was blown to pieces.

"Keep going, don't stop. I want to see how much stuff these Japanese have to put away."

Upon seeing this, King Zhu Gang of Jin shouted and issued military orders.

The gunners who received the order quickly loaded the shells and started the second round of salvos.

The Japanese soldiers on the city wall could only watch as the Ming army bombarded the city gate.

At this time, the Japanese had to retreat and open the city gates to prevent being killed by artillery shells.

When the second round of artillery fire was launched, the obstacles under the gate of Buzen Castle were completely shattered, and the powerful force directly blew everything away.

"Cavalry, charge!!!"

With a loud shout and waving flags, the three thousand cavalrymen under Zhu Di rushed directly towards the city gate.

Of course, they were not going to rush into the city directly, but to reach the city gate as quickly as possible and then seize it.

Seeing this, King Zhu Gang of Jin naturally refused to fall behind, and waved his hand to his adjutant, immediately arranging his own 3,000 cavalry to charge all the way.

How powerful are the six thousand cavalry guards of the princes?

As Zhu Yuanzhang's legitimate sons, their personal guards are the elite among the entire Ming Dynasty, and each of them is an expert in archery who can bend the bow and shoot arrows on horseback.

In ancient times, archers in the regular army had a very high status and were a high-level soldier. Not anyone could join the army with just a bow.

In the general impression, it seems that archers hide behind swordsmen and shieldmen to shoot arrows to deal long-range damage, and their physical fitness is even much weaker than that of the previous vanguard warriors.

This is an illusion and a typical stereotype.

In ancient times, the only people who could use bows and arrows, besides ordinary hunters, were archers on the battlefield.

Compared with the hunters' homemade bows and arrows, archers on the battlefield all use hard bows without exception.

Although firearms had become popular in the Ming army, bows and arrows were still important equipment in the army. The status of archers was much higher than that of fire commanders, and their military pay was also much higher.

Archers who can pull a hard bow are at least strong and have waist and arm strength far exceeding that of ordinary soldiers.

At present, the bows of the Ming Dynasty are divided into three grades: high, medium and low.

The bow force of a top-grade bow is 120 kilograms, the bow force of a medium-grade bow is 80 to 90 kilograms, and the bow force of a low-grade bow is around 60 kilograms.

The 6,000 elite cavalry of the Ming army currently charging are all equipped with top-quality bows.

According to elite standards, the average height of these cavalrymen is about 1.78 meters, and they ride tall horses. In the eyes of the Japanese, they are like giants. The deterrent power of the charge alone is enough to scare the Japanese army.

The Japanese generals naturally knew the importance of the city gate. If the city gate was captured, the soldiers in the city would not be able to resist the Ming army, and Buzen Castle would be completely defeated.

At that moment, a large number of Japanese troops rushed to the city gate, trying to resist the attack of the Ming army with their flesh and blood.

Fortunately, the city gate was only two meters wide. If they attacked directly, at most only four or five cavalrymen could rush forward together. The Japanese army added wooden shields to guard against the Ming army's charge.

The Ming army's drum beats suddenly changed from rapid and fierce to dense beats.

In this kind of charge, it is impossible for the cavalry to look back at the flag, and shouting is useless. What controls the cavalry formation is naturally the sound of drums.

As the dense drum beats sounded, all the Ming cavalry began to draw their bows and draw their arrows. A wave of cavalry rushed to the city gate, shot a round, and then split to the left and right.

Then came the second wave, and the third wave.

Dense arrows continued to pour into the city gate like raindrops. Even though the Japanese army had wooden shields to resist, many Japanese soldiers were shot and fell to the ground.

About half an hour later, thousands of soldiers had been shot dead at the gate of Fengqian City.

However, the cavalry was also exhausted, and the Japanese soldiers on the city wall were constantly shooting arrows. Although they could not cause any casualties to the elite armored Ming army, they still had a great impact.

When the cavalry began to withdraw, a new round of artillery fire followed.

Avoid the Japanese soldiers at the city gate.

Next, the sword and shield soldiers advanced in front, and the soldiers in the back row followed with spears in hand.

In the cold weapon era, wars, if not on plains, and especially siege warfare, were mostly in a stalemate.

For regular armies, forced sieges are generally rare, and would result in a large number of casualties.

Because of the limitation of the city gate, no matter how large the army is, the only wave that can actually attack is the one in front of the city gate.

When fighting in front of a city gate, the arrows shot by the defending soldiers on the city wall would cause great casualties.

This is also why Zhu Di and Zhu Gang constantly used the tactic of taking turns to attack, in order to gain the opportunity to capture the city gate with minimal casualties.

Cannons cannot be used continuously. After each shelling, they must go through a cooling and cleaning process.

Otherwise, continuous use will not only reduce the number of times the artillery can be used, but also pose a risk of barrel explosion.

"It should be about the same."

Zhu Gang, who was riding on a horse, looked at the exhausted soldiers in front of him after four or five rounds of attacks, and then he spoke.

More than two hours had passed since the siege began, and the meals for the auxiliary troops at the rear were almost ready.

It's time to eat.

As the drums were sounded to call back the troops, a large number of soldiers retreated like the tide and began to rest five miles outside Fengshou City.

When the combat soldiers were attacking the city, the auxiliary soldiers would set up camp in the rear and prepare meals.

After such high-intensity combat, the soldiers were extremely tired. Soldiers who did not participate in the battle to conserve their energy were on duty, while the remaining soldiers rested.

After all, in terms of numbers, there are more than 100,000 soldiers in Fengshou City, and it is obviously unrealistic to attack them in one go.

After eating, they rested for half an hour and then started the second round of siege in the afternoon.

During this rest period, the wounded soldiers of the Ming army began to receive treatment.

According to the latest military ratio, every centurion must have three military doctors under his command.

These doctors have extensive experience with trauma and can quickly help soldiers treat their wounds and increase their chances of survival.

After a morning of siege, the Ming army suffered more than a thousand wounded soldiers and less than a hundred deaths.

On the Japanese side, the casualties were at least over 2,000.

This was a great boost to the morale of the Ming army.

It doesn't sound like it was a direct knockdown. In fact, this is very rare in many siege cases.

This result can only be achieved under the pressure of artillery.

Sieges in the cold weapon era are completely different from those in later generations. The difficulty of sieges has increased exponentially.

For example, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, when the Ming Dynasty had not yet been established, Zhu Wenzhen had 20,000 soldiers guarding Hongdu, and Chen Youliang claimed to have an army of 600,000 to besiege Hongdu, but he failed to capture Hongdu after 85 days.

You must know that Chen Youliang has no shortage of firearms.

In terms of armaments, Chen Youliang was much richer than Zhu Yuanzhang. He had a large number of artillery that was constantly bombarding. It was completely different from the artillery that was currently attacking Japanese cities. They could bombard for half an hour without a break.

But even so, they failed to capture Hongdu.

But Zhu Wenzhen is not too strong.

The Mongolian army was powerful enough, considering the state of the Southern Song Dynasty. But they still took six years to capture Xiangyang City and besiege the city.

The tug-of-war before and after the Battle of Diaoyucheng lasted for thirty-six years.

It can be said that the city's newborn babies were beaten all the way up to middle-aged people who had experienced war for half their lives.

Even when Zhu Yuanzhang, with Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, and a super luxurious lineup including a large number of generals from the early Ming Dynasty, went to besiege Suzhou, the lair of Zhang Shicheng, who was already at the end of his rope, it took him ten months to take it.

Therefore, in history, if Li Jinglong had not opened the city gates for Zhu Di and used Nanjing as the capital, Zhu Di might not have been able to break into the city, let alone defend it for a year or two, even for three to five years.

The siege on the Central Plains Dynasty's side would not be completed in just a few dozen days, or one or two months.

Just talking about preparation, start with three months.

However, the situation in Japan is different.

Zhu Di and Zhu Gang also decided to attack the city after careful planning.

First, there is the issue of morale.

Because the current Japanese emperor has surrendered, the Japanese soldiers believe that since they have already surrendered, the morale of the defenders will naturally not be very high.

Secondly, the city walls of Japan are not as high and strong as those in the Central Plains, but are relatively low.

In addition, with the assistance of artillery, the Japanese soldiers can be completely suppressed, which is a dimensionality reduction attack.

This is the confidence of Zhu Di and Zhu Gang.

If there were no artillery, there would be no need to consider siege at all.

The siege works alone would delay the arrival of the imperial edict from the capital.

According to the current time calculation, Zhu Di and Zhu Gang do not have much time left. If they cannot capture Fengqian City within fifteen days, they can only give up.

In the next ten days or so, they used such rapid and continuous attacks to constantly wear down the Japanese city gates and kill Japanese soldiers.

It wasn't until the twelfth day that the situation changed.