Daming: At the start of the showdown, Lao Zhu was stunned

Chapter 987 Defeat
"Quick, quick! Send some wood!"

"This place needs to be reinforced! Otherwise, it will collapse if you push it!"

"We are short-handed here! Bring us some more manpower!"

If you want to transform the arrow platform into a well-trampling cart, the most important thing is to add a base with wheels. Fang Xiaoru and Xie Jin were very lucky at this moment, as they learned physics and engineering in the Imperial College.

After discussing with the military craftsmen, the method of modifying the arrow rest was quickly worked out. They first mobilized troops to build a base with wheels directly under the arrow rest with wood and connected it to the arrow rest. Then, they sawed off the four legs of the arrow rest that were originally rammed into the ground, so that the arrow rest was supported by the base instead. Finally, they pushed the arrow rest with the base to the east wall to suppress the Tatar archers.

Zhu Xiongying was in charge of dispatching personnel. Ordinary soldiers could not be moved. They were ready to be breached at any time in the East Camp Wall and were guarding important locations. They might also be sent to the front by Chang Mao at any time. Moreover, he was the military supervisor and could not mobilize soldiers according to the rules. There were obviously not enough craftsmen in the army, so he used his personal guards, political and educational soldiers, and literary and artistic soldiers. He even helped to carry wood and saw wood to quickly renovate the arrow platform.

At some point, it started to rain. The flying rain would undoubtedly weaken the power of the firearms and crossbows on the front line... Zhu Xiongying thought anxiously.

"Your Highness, the base of the first arrow rest broke due to the lack of support... Fortunately, the second arrow rest has been successfully rebuilt." Fang Xiaoru said. "However, we do not have enough manpower to push the arrow rest to the front line. Can we let the archers..."

"No! An arrow platform weighs more than 10,000 jin. If the archers push them to the front line, how can they draw their bows after they are on the platform?" Zhu Xiongying refused. He looked around, rolled up his sleeves, and said, "Mr. Xizhi, you stay here and continue to modify the remaining arrow platforms with the craftsmen."

"I will lead the team to deliver these arrow platforms to the front line."

"Come on! Divide into twenty people! We will deliver these arrow platforms to the soldiers on the front line!" Zhu Xiongying shouted loudly. His whole body was already wet and disheveled, but he had an unprecedented sharpness.

"This... Your Highness, how can we do this?" Fang Xiaoru said reluctantly. "Your Highness is worth a fortune, and there are only twenty people. This arrow platform needs at least fifty people to push it..."

"At this moment, there is no such thing as a body worth ten thousand gold..." Zhu Xiongying wiped the water stains on his face, which he didn't know whether it was rain or sweat, and was about to push Fang Xiaoru away. However, he caught a glimpse of a group of people running quickly from a corner.

"Your Highness, the Crown Prince! Pushing the arrow platform to the front line will be left to us!"

"Although we cannot hold the sword, can't we do something for the victory of the Ming Dynasty?"

"How can we, a righteous army, be defeated by those Tartar bandits?"

"For China, we must march forward courageously! There is no point in staying in the tent and pretending to be dead just because we have suffered minor injuries!"

These people turned out to be the wounded soldiers from the wounded camp! They heard from somewhere that Zhu Xiongying was renovating the arrow platform and sending it to the front line to defend against the enemy, and they all flocked here, wanting to do their best.

"you……"

Before Zhu Xiongying could say anything, he was pushed away from under the arrow platform by a group of wounded soldiers.

The wounded soldiers quickly occupied the position for pushing carts under the arrow platform. Next to Zhu Xiongying, a wounded soldier winked at him and said, "Don't worry, Your Highness. Although we are injured, most of our legs are still good. We can still do these few things."

Most of them were shot by the Tatars on the camp wall. Some were wounded in the chest, and some were blinded. But because their lower bodies were hidden inside the camp wall, most of them were intact. But even so, a group of wounded soldiers, regardless of the danger of bursting wounds and hanging their lives, still wanted to do their best for victory, which still surprised and moved Zhu Xiongying.

"...Good! My Ming Dynasty is full of righteous men, how can we not win!" Zhu Xiongying suddenly felt heroic and felt that there was no reason for him to lose this battle.

"Then I'll leave it to you!" He bowed deeply to the wounded soldiers, then turned around and joined the team that was renovating other arrow platforms.

"Brothers! Work hard! We must not let the Tartar thieves leave our Ming land safely!"

……

"Rumble--"

"Rumble--"

"Let's let one let, let one let!"

Waves of strange noises slowly extended from Zhongying to Dongying.

Chang Mao, who was commanding the battle in Dongying, heard the sound and turned around in surprise. He found a huge monster being pushed towards Dongying by a group of wounded soldiers wrapped in white bandages.

"This is... a well-shaped cart? His Highness actually modified the arrow platform and sent it here!" Chang Mao was surprised and delighted. He quickly sent people to take over the wounded soldiers and push the well-shaped cart that was modified from the arrow platform to the wall of Dongying.

He called over a wounded lieutenant who was pushing a cart, looked at the bandage on his chest which was once again stained with blood and said, "Why are you pushing this thing? What if it makes the brothers' injuries worse?"

"Duke, we heard that your Highness was short of manpower, so we volunteered..." said the deputy general. Chang Mao slapped his forehead and came to his senses. Although he agreed to Zhu Xiongying to dismantle several arrow platforms, he did not expect that they could do it so quickly.

To put it bluntly, he didn't really believe that Zhu Xiongying's strategy of moving the arrow platform could really keep up with the battle here. Therefore, he didn't think of risking the defense of the camp being disrupted and mobilizing troops to help. But at this time, seeing that the arrow platform well was really pushed forward, his confidence has increased greatly.

"You guys, hurry back to the wounded camp to rest. This is not a joke. Don't die from exhaustion in your own camp instead of being killed by the Tartars' arrows!" Chang Mao was moved to see these wounded soldiers so righteous. However, they were not dead yet, and it was not the turn of these brave and wounded comrades to burn their lives.

"Quick! Let the military doctors check the brothers' injuries again! Also, transfer Captain Zhou and Captain Huang from the rear camp to serve His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and help them rebuild the arrow transport platform!"

Chang Mao gave the order in a hurry. With the arrow platform in place, his confidence in defending the camp wall had greatly increased, so he naturally didn't need to worry about arranging the defense in the camp. At this time, he had the same idea as Zhu Xiongying.

Even the wounded soldiers had such a determined determination. Since everyone is united, how could they be defeated?
……

Outside the camp, the Tatars' attack on the camp wall was becoming more and more fierce. Under their reckless human wave attack, even the sharp blades on the mountain of knives had been worn out by the blood and flesh of the Tatar cannon fodder who had no way to retreat.

Below the knife mountain, corpses had piled up into a mountain, and on top of the knife mountain, there were countless corpses and pieces of meat. Even so, there were still countless Tatar cannon fodders with red eyes, tears, and howling, but they still climbed up madly.

On the camp wall, the Ming army's crossbowmen and musketeers were almost suppressed by the rain of arrows from the Tatar archers and could not raise their heads... Almost all the Ming army's crossbowmen could only squat and load the crossbow arrows, and then quickly stand up. Under the protection of the shield soldiers, they shot an arrow, and then squatted down and loaded the crossbow arrows again. The frequency of shooting was greatly reduced. The musketeers no longer cared about the standard action of three-stage shooting.

Knowing that the battle was at a critical juncture, the archers in the Tatar army boldly moved closer to the city wall, which made the rain of arrows even more torrential.

Seeing that the Ming army on the camp wall had been completely suppressed, Alutai in the central army finally breathed a sigh of relief and revealed a look of confidence in victory: "King Liao, looking at this situation, the Ming army has become a caged beast."

"If we can capture the Ming Dynasty's crown prince, we will have won a great victory this time."

"Humph," Azashili's eyes were filled with bloodlust and excitement. He was already looking forward to the scene where the camp wall would be breached and he would lead his men into the Ming army camp.

"I will never let Zhu Xiongying escape from my hands!"

The Tatar soldiers on the front line were already bleeding profusely, but Aluta and Azhashili were more delighted.

I didn't think there was anything wrong with leaving behind the remains of so many fellow countrymen for the sake of Zhu Xiongying.

However, the Khan Bayanchur, unable to understand the situation, had already hidden himself in the rear army.

"Huh?" While talking to Azhashili, Aluta was caught off guard and saw something suddenly popping out from behind the Ming army's camp wall.

"What is that?" Arutai asked.

"That seems to be... an arrow platform?" Azhashiri was a little hesitant. Behind the Ming army's camp wall, there were indeed several arrow platforms that were taller than the camp wall. These arrow platforms were also the only defensive facilities that could slightly suppress the archers outside the city.

But... I've never heard that an arrow platform could grow out of thin air. Could it be that the Ming army had been behind the wall all along and temporarily built a new arrow platform?
Sure enough, Ming army archers began to climb up the newly "grown" arrow platform, and then stood on the high platform and began to pour arrows at the Tatar soldiers outside the city. Because of this new Ming army arrow platform, the casualties of Tatar archers began to increase.

Alutai frowned slightly, but soon relaxed. He smiled at Azhashili and said, "The Ming army is really at its wit's end. They resorted to such a futile method."

"What good is it to build a new arrow platform?"

"Can the situation be reversed?"

He continued to order the archers to shoot and fight back against the Ming army. As he said, although the Ming army's long-range suppression capability was slightly improved because of the addition of an arrow platform, that was all.

But soon, his expression began to change drastically.

"this!"

Aluta looked at the Ming army's camp wall in great surprise, his mouth almost open unable to close.

I saw that three arrow platforms had "grown" behind the Ming army’s camp wall!

"……How can it be!"

"Could it be... a well-trampling carriage?"

The Tatar Grand Master was quite clever after all, and he quickly figured out how the Ming army had "grown" these four arrow platforms so quickly. It was definitely impossible to build them temporarily, and there was no other way except for the well-shaped cart that could be moved around.

But even so, he still couldn't understand why the Ming army, which was clearly the defending side, built siege equipment such as the siege wheel in the camp?
But he had no time to think about it. As more Ming army archers boarded the "Jinglan Cart", the situation on the battlefield began to change qualitatively.

Originally, the defense of the hedgehog-like camp of the Ming army could be called impregnable. Under the mountains of swords, forests of spears, and the sharp long-range offensive of the Ming army, the Tatar soldiers just repeated the process of charging and then being shot to death by the Ming army with crossbows and muskets, and achieved absolutely nothing.

Only under the suppression of the archers could the Ming army on the camp wall be unable to free their hands to shoot the charging infantry. These clumsy infantry, or cannon fodder, could find gaps, climb up the mountain of swords, and pose a threat to the walls of the Ming army camp.

The numerical suppression of long-range troops is almost the only chance for the Tatars to win.

But now, the sudden appearance of those arrow platforms broke this situation.

Previously, because the Ming army's camp walls could not accommodate more crossbowmen and musketeers, the Tatar archers were able to rely on their numerical advantage and use the obviously inferior shooting method of upward shooting to suppress the Ming army on the camp walls.

But at this time, the Ming army had "grown" four arrow platforms out of thin air, and on each of them, there were hundreds of archers fighting. These archers, together with the crossbowmen and musketeers on the camp walls, numbered three thousand, and they were in a commanding position, occupying the advantage of the terrain...

The number of Tatar archers falling was obviously increasing.

"Hurry!" Azashili grabbed Arutai's shoulder, causing him pain. "Add more troops! Keep adding more troops! Let the infantry capture the camp wall as soon as possible!"

He had already seen that the situation was not good, and he was afraid that in a while, the morale of the archers would not be enough to support them to continue shooting at the Ming army on the high ground.

Alutai also knew the seriousness of the situation. He had no time to worry about the pain in his shoulder. He hurriedly issued an order and dispatched another 3,000 people to forcibly attack the Ming army camp wall. Under this high wall that was like a mountain of knives, countless Tatar corpses had already piled up. It seemed that if a few more people died and became cannon fodder, the Tatars would be able to level this mountain of knives...

"Eternal Heaven!" Aluta, who was giving orders, suddenly heard someone wailing in Mongolian.

He looked up in astonishment, only to see two new "well-locking cars" "growing" behind the wall of the Ming army camp.

"There is more!" Alutai was extremely shocked. Something in his heart seemed to begin to break...

With the appearance of these two huge monsters, some of the archers who were shooting at the Ming army finally lost their courage. They threw down their bows and arrows and began to run towards the rear in twos and threes, trying to get out of the Ming army's range.

Then, like a broken window effect, the archers' morale began to collapse.

They began to disperse in large numbers.

At this time, the last two "jinglan cars" were not even full of Ming troops.

"What? They are cowards! Hurry! Stop them! Let them go back and continue to suppress the Ming army camp wall!" Azhashili roared.

The supervisors rushed out immediately and began to slaughter the Tatar archers who dared to flee. However, what Azashili and Alutai did not expect was that these fleeing Tatar archers would rather draw their swords and fight to the death with the supervisors than turn back to face the Ming army.

The supervisory team and the collapsed archers were immediately engaged in a battle.

"Damn it!" Azashili roared, and rode on his warhorse. "I will go there myself! I must stop these cowards!"

However, before he could raise his whip, he saw the sword and shield soldiers who were climbing the "knife mountain" under the camp wall suddenly shouted and began to flee back with their backs to the Ming army's camp wall.

The increasing number of Ming army's arrow towers and the increasingly dense rain of arrows and bullets were like a heavy burden on the hearts of the Tatar soldiers.

Finally, at this time, the morale of the Tatars completely collapsed.

(End of this chapter)