“Boom, boom, boom…”
Artillery fire roared like thunder.
All the muzzle-loading cannons and mortars were concentrated in front of Pingzhou City. In an instant, dense cannonballs formed a barrage flying towards Pingzhou City.
Beishan and Best, who were still arguing, were utterly horrified. At this moment, they dared not linger on the city wall and scrambled to run into the city.
Behind them, the cannonballs striking the city wall produced a tremendous sound of metal colliding with stone. The lime bombs and explosive shells fired by the mortars exploded simultaneously, brilliant like fireworks.
Outside the city, plate-armored soldiers and musketeers simultaneously charged towards Pingzhou City. They shouted, seemingly venting the anger accumulated over several days.
Barbarian soldiers also charged out from the city at this time. They entered the trenches and engaged in fierce combat with the Great Yu Empire soldiers. For a time, the entire battlefield fell into chaos.
Wuzhugu was stunned. He had not expected the Great Yu Empire soldiers to launch such a sudden attack, and this fierce momentum was clearly an all-out final battle.
At this point, he suddenly regretted dispatching a portion of his cavalry to Jinzhou, but there was no time for him to think now. Because under the fierce artillery fire of the Great Yu Empire, they were caught in a passive position, and the trenches in front of Pingzhou City were being seized bit by bit.
“Woo woo…”
At his signal, a bugle call sounded in the cavalry unit. A chiliarch led the cavalry to charge towards the city front. Although the Great Yu Empire’s chariot formation blocked their way, now was the time for a desperate fight.
Outside the Great Yu Empire camp, Lei Ming had already assembled 30,000 cavalry. Looking at the barbarian cavalry staring at them, he shouted loudly, “Brothers, now is our time to fight desperately! We have trained soldiers for a thousand days to use them for a short while! For the Emperor, for the glory of the Great Yu Empire, kill!”
“Kill!” At this moment, the cavalry raised their sabers, their morale soaring.
At the same time, on the right flank of the cavalry, five hollow square formations composed of musketeers were forming. This formation consisted of two divisions from the Huben 3rd Army.
In this siege, Lu Fei was using two divisions from his Huben 1st Army and two divisions from the Huben 2nd Army in the fierce fighting.
The other two divisions of the Huben 2nd Army, meanwhile, were, under Luo Xin’s command, blocking the barbarian cavalry’s assault.
As the battle for Pingzhou City grew fiercer, the battlefield centered around Pingzhou City became increasingly chaotic.
If viewed from above, the soldiers of both sides on the vast battlefield resembled dense swarms of marching ants engaged in combat.
As the charge bugle sounded, the hollow square formation formed by the Huben 2nd Division marched in neat steps towards the barbarian cavalry. Lei Ming, meanwhile, led his cavalry on both flanks of the square formation.
Their purpose was not to annihilate this batch of cavalry, but to prevent them from intervening in the battle. So Lei Ming decided to use musketeers to gradually force them back.
This time, the cavalry led by Wuzhugu was short of thirty thousand men, but even so, ninety thousand was not something they could shake.
Precisely because of this, he could only use musketeers to offset Wuzhugu’s advantage.
Facing Lei Ming’s tactics, Wuzhugu frowned.
He was not afraid of a head-on clash with Great Yu Empire cavalry, but he feared this peculiar musket square formation.
On the first day of battle, he had tested the power of firearms. The result was that the charging cavalry fell completely without even touching a single soldier.
However, although he knew the formidable nature of this musket formation, he now had no choice. If this continued, Pingzhou City would only fall. If that happened, they would lose Pingzhou, this frontline fortress, and Jinzhou would directly face the threat of the Great Yu Empire.
“Kill!”
Wuzhugu shouted loudly. Hooves thundered as a tide of barbarian cavalry began to charge in Lei Ming’s direction.
Seeing this, the soldiers of the hollow square formation halted. In fact, to avoid being shot, barbarian cavalry had always stayed five hundred meters away.
Now, their choice to engage meant closing the distance. After entering the 500-meter effective range of the Conqueror Musket, the musketeers were ordered to open fire.
Although Pingzhou City was very open, so many cavalry gathered together could not disperse at all. And once they dispersed, the barbarian cavalry would be unable to effectively counter the collective charge of the Great Yu Empire cavalry.
“Bang, bang, bang…”
The hollow square formation performed three-stage firing. Bullets flew over a distance of five hundred meters, landing on the bodies of barbarian soldiers and their horses.
After the first round of firing, a large number of continuously advancing barbarian cavalry fell, causing some confusion among the marching barbarians.
Lei Ming calmly observed the barbarian cavalry’s movements. The hollow square formation performed well. If this continued, even if the barbarian cavalry charged to their front, they would suffer heavy losses, which would greatly reduce the barbarian cavalry’s morale.
“Bang, bang, bang…”
Gunfire rang out again. Another batch of barbarian cavalry fell, and the distance of the barbarian cavalry continuously narrowed.
From five hundred meters to three hundred meters, the barbarian cavalry suffered immense casualties. Three to four thousand barbarian cavalry fell on the charging path.
When the barbarians reached two hundred meters, the division commander commanding the hollow square formation shouted, “First rank, kneel down! Bayonets angled upwards! Second rank, continue firing!”
Looking at the continuously closing barbarian cavalry, Lei Ming, wielding his saber, charged ahead. This war was a destined battle for the Great Yu Empire.
And if they won, the balance of power between the Great Yu Empire and the barbarians would change forever. Then, the vast grasslands would become the Great Yu Empire’s horse-breeding grounds.
At this time, the battle below Pingzhou City also entered a white-hot phase.
Under the artillery bombardment, a large section of the Pingzhou city wall had now collapsed. The entire Pingzhou City was exposed before Lu Fei and the others.
With his flanks protected by Luo Xin and Lei Ming, Lu Fei concentrated all his efforts on seizing the trenches.
Two ten thousand plate-armored new recruits, plus twenty thousand elite musketeers, fought simultaneously at the city gate.
Facing the Great Yu Empire soldiers who were clad in full plate armor, like iron barrels, the barbarian soldiers had no effective methods. Often, it took three men to deal with one, otherwise these armored Great Yu Empire soldiers would easily kill them.
However, after several days of fierce fighting, the musketeers who first charged into the trenches made them realize that they were even more terrifying than these plate-armored soldiers.
These soldiers, wielding bayonet-fixed firearms, were experienced and ruthless, killing people as calmly as cutting vegetables.
Moreover, some musketeers, after seizing a trench, immediately occupied the wall in the middle of the trench. Standing on the wall, they continuously fired at the soldiers coming as reinforcements from inside the city.
As more and more Great Yu Empire musketeers arrived, the barbarian soldiers inside the city could no longer reinforce, because they were killed before even reaching the trenches.
With fewer and fewer reinforcements, the trenches became a one-sided slaughter. After two hours of fierce fighting, the soldiers under Lu Fei finally captured the trenches.
Looking at the large section of the Pingzhou city wall that had collapsed, Lu Fei grinned and laughed. He cursed, “Why are you still standing there? Go and capture Pingzhou City!”