The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 205: The End of Hetuala
"The heaven and the earth are unkind and regard all things as stupid dogs; the saints are unkind and regard the common people as stupid dogs."

In the second year of Taichang, the new flintlock rifle was fired by faith in the hands of musketeer Yang Tong.

The actual location this thing hits is very different from where it was originally aimed.

It is normal to aim at the head and hit the feet, not to aim at the head.

When European armies of the same period shot, they used the outer wall of the barrel as the baseline to aim at the target.

Then pray to God.

The flintlock warfare tactics of this era were basically line-up shooting.

Hundreds or even thousands of people approached each other until they were within a hundred steps or less, and then they raised their guns and fired at each other.

As a sane musketeer, the only thing you need to do before pulling the trigger is to close your eyes and pray to God.

Unfortunately, Yang Tong does not believe in God.

He shoots more accurately and harder than anyone else, and he doesn't need to pray to any gods.

Ever since he rescued the woman in the dungeon, Yang Tong has been feeling more worried.

If some external factors delayed the sharpshooter's shooting speed.

It could only be a woman.

He believed in Taoism.

Every time you shoot an enemy, you must pray to Laozi.

I hope the old man will bless the musket so that it doesn’t explode.

I hope the old man blesses him to hit the target.

"Man is weak in life, but strong in death."

There was a blast from the flintlock, and a cloud of white smoke rose around the long shield.

On the top of the city wall fifty steps away from the Mandarin Duck Formation, a Bayara of the Plain White Banner fell to the ground.

After a moment of panic, dozens of armored soldiers behind him quickly locked onto the sniper's position, and more than a dozen longbows shot towards this side.

The heavy arrow whizzed towards him, and the long shield holder defended in time, and the arrow hit the long shield with a bang.

The Jiannu archers had to continue shooting arrows, but the wave of soldiers in front had already rushed to them.

The Jiannu had to abandon their bows and draw their swords to fight against the spearmen who were charging at them.

Yang Tong took out the pebble from his arms and added a black line on it. This was the twelfth Later Jin soldier shot dead today.

This team of temporarily assembled mandarin ducks immediately moved towards the bottom of the city wall. The long-shield players walked to the front, followed closely by Yang Tong, and the sword and shield players and spearmen brought up the rear.

Behind him, soldiers kept jumping onto the top of the city wall. Facing the hail of arrows shot from inside the city, more and more soldiers appeared on the top of the city wall and began to attack the main city.

Yang Tong and his five teammates had just reached the corner of the steps of the city wall when three or four Zhenyi armored soldiers rushed towards them. The four Jiannu soldiers were covered in blood and were gasping for breath. It was estimated that they had just experienced a bloody battle.

The four Later Jin soldiers and the five Kaiyuan soldiers met unexpectedly, or it could be said that they met on a narrow road, and they were all a little panicked. The leading Jiannu looked over Yang Tong's head and looked at the dark mass of soldiers climbing up the ladders in the distance, with a look of horror on his face.

He stayed for a moment, then turned his attention back to the five Nikans in front of him.

Yang Tong glanced at the steps in the distance. Blood was dripping from them, and the bottom of the steps was littered with the bodies of soldiers. It seemed that the hundreds of Kaiyuan soldiers who had just climbed the city in the first wave had all been killed or wounded.

Further away, countless Bayalas with white triangular flags on their backs climbed up the stairs from both sides of the city wall. They were all aggressive and looked like they were blood-thirsty and vowed to take back the lost city wall.

Both sides shouted at the same time.

"kill!"

Yang Tong suddenly pulled out two flintlock pistols from his waist, pointed them forward without taking aim, and pulled the trigger.

Almost at the same time as the musket exploded, a short axe chopped fiercely towards the joint of Yang Tong's left arm. He dodged hurriedly, and the axe hit the flintlock in his hand, knocking the gun out directly.

The swordsman and shieldman behind him was unable to dodge and was hit in the chest by the axe blade. He fell to the ground and screamed twice before he became motionless.

At the same time, two javelins were thrown out from the Mandarin Duck Formation at the same time, piercing the body of the Jiannu who threw the axe.

In a flash, three of the four Zhenyi armored soldiers on the opposite side were killed and one was seriously injured. A swordsman and shieldman from the Mandarin Duck Formation was seriously injured, but the others were unharmed.

The swordsman and shield-wielder soon died. Yang Tong had no friendship with this young man, and it was not even a chance encounter. They were separated by life and death before they even knew each other.

Yang Tong's expression remained calm. Death was a common sight on the battlefield; stray arrows wouldn't avoid you just because you were a new recruit. He gently closed the young man's eyes and gazed at the Zhengbai Banner soldiers swarming forward a hundred paces away. Suddenly remembering he was still a sergeant, he barked out orders to the remaining survivors to start moving. "Reinforcements won't arrive for at least half an incense stick of time. The Tartars will arrive first. You two, pile up the bodies and stones against the steps to form a parapet!"

"You guys, go push that small cannon over here! Point the muzzle at the Jiannu."

Everyone immediately split up and got busy. At this time, the Jiannu who rushed to the front began to shoot light arrows, which made clinking sounds when they hit the bluestone slabs on the top of the city wall. At first, there were only a few sparse arrows, but the rain of arrows became more and more dense as time went on.

The soldiers ran back and forth carrying round shields, and soon some of them were shot in the legs and feet by arrows. After falling to the ground, they lost the protection of the shield and were soon shot into hedgehogs.

Yang Tong did not move the corpses and artillery, but hid behind the chest cavity to load ammunition.

He shook off the burnt gunpowder residue in the barrel, carefully stuffed the spherical iron ball wrapped in a layer of paper into the barrel, compacted it with a cleaning rod, turned the flintlock upside down, opened the rear sight, and added gunpowder to the powder pool.

After loading, he fixed the well-made flintlock rifle on a fork more than three feet high.

Two bricks weighing more than ten pounds were placed on the fork frame, which greatly improved the shooting accuracy of the flintlock rifle, which originally fired at random.

In fact, during his usual training, Yang Tong could hit the target nine times out of ten within a hundred steps.

At this time, the soldiers pushed the Tartar imitation four-pound cannon in front of the breastwork of corpses. The three men were exhausted and panting, leaning on the gun barrel to breathe heavily. A spearman who was a Sichuan soldier screamed when he saw Yang Tong loading iron balls.

"The immortal is very good, the lead he uses is different from others!"

The Zhejiang soldier who was playing cards next to him said with disdain:

"You don't know a great man, don't you? He's a sharpshooter from the 2000th Headquarters. He shot and killed 55 Tartars in Hunhe River. If he hadn't offended Captain Deng, he wouldn't be just a small sergeant..."

A Shaanxi native swordsman heard this and cleaned up with disdain:
"Oh my god, one man killed fifty-five Tartars? How is that possible? That's nonsense!"

Seeing that the people around him were quite interested in Yang Tong, the Zhejiang captain began to talk endlessly about Yang Tong's brilliant achievements.

The words came to his lips but he swallowed them back. He saw the host glared at him fiercely and shouted to the surroundings:

“Who will fire the cannon?”

Behind the breastwork mixed with Tartar corpses and stones stood twenty or thirty soldiers. They came from three thousand headquarters and more than a dozen flag teams. There were sword and shield soldiers, spearmen, halberd soldiers, but no artillerymen.

After shouting twice with no one answering, Yang Tong sighed and decided to do it himself.

Yang Tong had never been an artilleryman, but once the artillerymen climbed to the top of the city wall, he could come and collect their bodies.

He had seen artillerymen firing cannons, and he basically understood every step from cleaning the barrel to compacting the gunpowder. However, the situation was urgent and they could not care about these things. If they did not fire, they would soon be killed in battle. If the barrel exploded, perhaps a few of them could survive.

At this moment, a deafening roar came from behind, and more than a dozen iron balls whizzed past their heads three or four feet high.

Yang Tong could feel his hair being lifted up by the heat wave and floating backwards along with the shells.

Three hundred steps away, the six-pound cannon roared again, and the cannonball flew over the city wall and flew into the city, hitting the two yellow flags formation that were gathering in the city.

~~~~~~
Looking towards the west gate from the position of the central army flag, a huge black dragon battle flag was erected at the corner of the city wall.

The 1,000th headquarters soldier appeared on the city wall continuously. They brandished their weapons and killed the wounded Later Jin musketeers on the city wall one by one. However, they continued to rush towards the two wings of the city wall, trying to expand the results of the battle and pursue those Zhengbai Banner soldiers who did not have time to withdraw.

"The dust has settled, and the war should be over."

Ping Liaohou turned his gaze towards Deng Changxiong, Kang Yingqian, Sun Chuanting, and the others, a triumphant smile finally breaking across his face. With the two red flags completely destroyed, the Bordered White Banner surrendered, and the Bordered Blue Banner far away in Yehe, Huang Taiji's remaining forces consisted of only the two yellow flags plus the Plain Blue and Plain White Banners. He was confident he could annihilate the Later Jin in one fell swoop.

~~~~~
The light-bodied sword and shield soldiers entered the corridor of the city wall from the steps on both sides. They pushed aside the corpses of the Later Jin soldiers and opened the city wall gate from the inside.

The heavy city gate creaked open, and the soldiers waiting in front of the moat immediately poured into the small city wall like a dense swarm of ants.

The entire city of Hetuala is about to be captured.

After the city wall was captured, the 1,000th general combatant rested in the city wall. The spearmen were responsible for guarding, and the combatants were busy drinking water and eating fried noodles.

The 2000th headquarters, which had not participated in the siege before, continued to attack the four gates along the city wall.

Soldiers wear iron armor to fight, and their physical strength will be exhausted if they run more than two miles. It is particularly important to maintain sufficient physical strength on the battlefield. Strong soldiers who can kill for dozens of miles only appear in the mythological world.

The artillerymen commanded the surrendered soldiers of the Bordered White Banner to drag 32 cannons to the top of the west gate and began to bombard the stubbornly resisting Later Jin soldiers at the east, south and north gates.

The Plain White Banner troops stationed in the center of the street also became the focus of artillery fire.

The soldiers entered the inner city from the barbican in units of flag teams. After passing the Yongding Gate, they arrived at the main city of Hetuala. Like many cities in the Ming Dynasty, the main street of Hetuala was the north-south street.

After the Zhengbai Banner fled from the city wall, they built a barricade in the middle of the street. The armored soldiers stood guard behind the barricade and used the remaining artillery to continuously bombard the street entrances on both sides to prevent the Kaiyuan soldiers from infiltrating along the street to the other city gates.

(End of this chapter)