He had been trapped outside Daming City for two days. Seeing that the city was close to him but could not enter, Zhang Gui continued to send troops to attack south yesterday, but the results were very little. He watched the camps of the Song army continue to rise, the defense became more and more tight, and his mood became more depressed. He made every effort to make every move and was cautious all the way, but he still fell into the trap of the Song army.

Now more than 60,000 troops are trapped in a radius of less than 100 miles, and are deploying defenses based on Linhe Town, Yuanhe Town and more than ten scattered surrounding villages. However, the Song army only sent a small group of troops to harass and infiltration, and did not rush to launch a large-scale attack, but constantly digging trenches and strengthening camps.

Zhang Gui judged that the Song army was facing two-sided battles and lacked military strength, so he adopted the strategy of defending but not attacking. First, he bought time for the increase in troops; second, he wanted to weaken his combat effectiveness through siege. However, his side only carried ten days of food and grass, which was the gain of his plunder. Moreover, they were passive all the way and their morale was already low. If they were surrounded for a long time, they would have no morale to fight again.

Therefore, Zhang Gui and the generals believed that they could not continue to fight. Instead, they should take advantage of the fact that the enemy's camps were not yet stable and the reinforcements were not yet weak, and they should open the way to enter the city as soon as possible and join forces with Wulu. The city was profound and solid, with a large population, and had accumulated millions of stones of food and grass, which could be attacked and defended, and had already been invincible.

The plan was decided, and Zhang Gui went to the front line to observe the enemy, and found that as he thought, the Song army was insufficient. The battlefield was vast and there was no risk. The front line was long and could only be stationed to defend. In order to prevent oneself from being on the side, he had to place the cavalry on the periphery to block the aid. The Song army besieged was also in short supply, with only 20,000 to 30,000 enemies on the front, and only five miles deep. The defense line was weak, but he had to be attacked on both sides.

The next day, Zhang Gui's army was left behind, leading the front and central troops to fight, and the Song army also sent troops to greet each other, two miles apart. He rode his horse onto a platform and looked at the Song army, but he saw that the Song army's infantry was in front, the artillery army was placed behind, and the cavalry was hidden behind the formation, and the tall city of the palace could be seen from afar.

"Sir Shu, our army has always arranged the cavalry in front and infantry in the back. Why did we go against the rules today?" Both sides lined up their formations, each with the commander's flag as the basis point and stretched towards the two wings for several miles, and they were like two long snakes in the direction of the cavalry in front and disturbing the enemy first. When they found a weak point, they gathered troops to break through, and the infantry followed. But today Zhang Gui was abnormal, and the ten thousand commanders of the front army asked quickly.

"The Southern Army has always used defense as an attack. The cavalry on the front line divided into two wings, first bombarded artillery, and infantry lined up in three layers. When the enemy was in the front, the middle layer was slightly down, and the back layer stood tall. The front layer fired first, the middle layer followed, and the latter layer followed. If our army attacked first with the cavalry, the horse would be broken once it was injured!" Zhang Gui explained. Although he had not fought directly with the Song army, he had also collected a large amount of relevant information and had already understood the Song army.

"Oh, Shushu is wise, how can our army defeat the enemy?" Yesuga nodded and said.

"Your troops break through to the enemy's central army. The artillery army is ahead, first the enemy fires artillery and disrupts its formation. The infantry then line up to receive the enemy's fire, breaks its defense line, and then use the cavalry to break the formation and attack the enemy from the defenders in the city to break the enemy into the city!" Zhang Gui said, "The central army uses the cavalry to harass the enemy's wings, making it difficult for them to take care of each other!"

Yesuge was ordered to lead troops out and reorganize the army and adjust the formation. The artillery launched more than 20 artillery trains first, and the infantrymen at the back were teamed with 100 people. Thirty men were armed with convex guns in three rows in front. There were bows in the back, and there were swords in the back, and soldiers in the back, and there were also arrays of soldiers equipped with guns on the left and right.

The teams lined up in a horizontal line under the command of the commander of the thousand-man commander to form an attack line. The entire array slowly moved forward with the sound of horns. The artillery in front of the queue stopped about three hundred steps before the enemy and began to set up artillery and load shells. The Song army in front of them was not moved and maintained the battle line.

"Fire the cannon!" The quick-belt also issued a fire order, and the sound of horns sounded again. A flash of fire, an explosion, smoke rose, and projectiles roared out of the gun, flew into the Song army array, and smashed into the crowd.

‘Boom, boom, boom…’ The gunshots continued, and the smoke suddenly rose, which quickly covered the sky. The infantry behind them advanced over the artillery positions. About 200 steps approaching the enemy's formation, the pace of advance stopped, and they used a clamp gun to shoot at the Song army's front. At the same time, the artillery positions moved forward, preparing to provide support to the infantry.

"Haha, were the Song army scared by our firearms? They were not moving at all!" Zheng Wen couldn't help laughing as his front line continued to move forward while the Song army was not moving at all.

"No, they are waiting for the opportunity!" Zhang Gui saw more far-reachingly than him. His own artillery shells fell into the enemy's formation, but they just carried away the dead and injured soldiers. The soldiers behind him could not step forward, and the entire formation remained unmoved. The strict military discipline was awe-inspiring.

"Super Shu was worried too much. If we made such a big noise, the city must have known that we would send troops to respond when we started attacking. And under the attack on both sides, the Song army was worried that once the formation changed, it would cause chaos to be taken advantage of by me!" Zheng Wenyan said.

"I hope so!" Zhang Gui said lightly. His eyes did not leave the battlefield. At this time, facing the approaching Yuan army, the Song army finally moved. The soldiers in the front line dispersed in formation and began to shoot at the target. The artillery behind the rear formation also began to bombard the moving artillery, and the sound of explosions shook the sky.

"The situation is not good!" In the burst of smoke, Zheng Wen found that his side had lost in just a few rounds of shots.

On the battlefield, only the continuous gunfire of the Song army seemed to be heard, and the whole side was almost inauspicious. The archers behind also joined in the counterattack, trying to get a chance to breathe for the musketeers, but they were difficult to pose a threat to the Song army a hundred steps away, and instead fell into the rain of bullets of the Song army, and the spearmen behind did nothing.

After the moving artillery army was counterattacked by the Song army artillery, they also tried to set up artillery to fire, but the Song army's artillery shells seemed to have eyes, and they kept exploding near them, the artillery was overturned, and the gunners fled one after another. After the ammunition truck that followed was hit, it exploded with a blast, not only blowing the flesh and blood of the soldiers who had not yet escaped, but also affected the infantry in the surrounding queue.

At this time, the Song army finally began to move. Several teams of jumping soldiers broke out of the formation and formed a scattered line to attack the Yuan army's chaotic front. Their experienced three men formed a group, and the two shot quickly with muskets to chase the fleeing Yuan army. The other one kept dropping grenades to the stubborn Yuan army array, and soon shattering their formation.

After the Song army jumped, the brigade began to form a formation, lined up with a hundred people in two lines, pressing forward, and launching a counterattack towards them. Seeing the forward collapse, Yesuge urgently ordered the two thousand-man teams in the rear to move forward quickly. At the same time, the thousand-man teams of cavalry that were harassed on the right wing of the Song army were turned into an attack to restrain the Song army's middle route.

After the Song army found that it was attacked by a brigade of cavalry on the right wing, they did not retreat, but quickly gathered three tight columns to form a solid square formation. The scattered soldiers who were originally responsible for expelling the Yuan army's cavalry in front still maintained the formation of scattered soldiers, and shot the enemy cavalry with cold guns. The direct mortar team also began to shoot, and the shells continued to explode in the enemy group.

Zhang Gui looked at the cavalry that was turning into the attack, shuttled through the Song army's bullet rain, shooting dense rain of arrows at the Song army, trying to break through the enemy's phalanx. Some of them were constantly shot down, but it was still not enough to make them retreat, trying to get close to the enemy's phalanx and connect with them, making the Song army's advantage in the firearms unable to be exerted.

Under the attack of the cavalry of the front army, the formation of the Song army was loose at one point, causing them to approach less than thirty steps of the phalanx, making it difficult for the artillery to exert its power. However, the Song army quickly stabilized the formation and fired a more dense rain of bullets. They threw grenades regardless of the danger of self-injury, and continued to explode under the horse's belly, but they still did not retreat.

However, after the two rapid-fire cannons of the Song army joined, they fired shotguns one after another to smash the Yuan army's offensive. Seeing that the casualties were increasing, the firepower of the Song army became more intense and fierce, and the cavalry had to turn around and retreat. Although they still tried to attack the right wing of the Song army, the offensive became weaker and weaker, and they had to give up on continuing the attack.

When these cavalrymen returned to their camps, they had suffered more than 30% of the losses. Zhang Gui looked at the soldiers who seemed to stand out from the ashes and could not blame them. Moreover, these people brought back all the casualties and wounded according to military customs. They could only let them retreat and rest for the time being and prepare for another battle.

Zhang Gui's gaze turned back to the front battlefield again. At this time, the Song army was also in full swing of artillery fire, and there were bursts of shouts of killing. He realized that the defenders in the city had discovered his intentions and had sent troops to respond and fought fiercely with the Song army. The Song army on the front maintained an offensive and launched an attack with the infantry pressed by the front army.

Both armies kept fighting lines and moved against each other. After getting close, they raised their guns and fired at each other. The gunshots continued, and the smoke rose up soared into the sky. Zhang Gui was originally full of confidence in defeating the Song army after changing the firearms of the guards, thinking that at least they would not be defeated in one blow when fighting against them, and they did not have the power to fight back.

But the scene in front of him still shattered Zhang Gui's fantasy. He found that the range and hit rate of the muskets equipped by the Song army were higher than that of their own. They would open fire first when the two armies were nearly 200 steps apart, and their muskets were not reaching at this distance, let alone ensuring hit rate and killing the enemy.

In addition, Zhang Gui also found that the formation of the Song army at this time was already two horizontal lines, but their shooting speed and density were far better than that of their own three-stage shooting, and they did not have any advantage in shooting. This shows that the Song army had replaced more advanced muskets, and even with a small number of people, they could still ensure the same firepower density.
Chapter completed!