In the face of the internal panic, Xiao Ruxun stepped forward bravely and used his prestige of winning every battle to subdue the entire army. While Ye Mengxiong was busy taking over Wei Xuezeng to handle logistics and Mei Guozhen was busy writing a letter of impeachment against Wei Xuezeng, as well as selecting the latest candidate, he replaced the two of them to lead the army. He became the actual commander of the Ming Army that was continuously increasing to fifty thousand people.
For the next few days, Xiao Ruxun was personally present at the siege and personally commanded. He continuously honed his command skills and his ability to command large armies. Combined with his past experience, it caused his level of command to increase by leaps and bounds.
These few days, Xiao Ruxun ordered people to focus on attacking the South City while the other three cities were surrounding it and feigning attacks. However, once the thieves attempted to attack, the entire army would suppress them. No matter what, they would not allow the thieves to attack successfully. They won several consecutive victories and beheaded nearly a thousand people. Gradually, they stabilized the morale of the Ming Army and regained their fighting spirit.
The number of horses in the city decreased. The first time was the most. They sent out a thousand horsemen to attack the main camp of the Ming Army that surrounded the West City. The defending general, Zhao Wu, was caught off guard and could not resist for a while. Xiao Ruxun immediately ordered Xiao Ruhui to lead troops to support them. The two armies merged into one and killed most of the one thousand horsemen back into the city.
The rebel army naturally suffered heavy losses and could not replenish their horsemen. This time, they returned and only attacked again on the third day. This time, only five hundred people came out. They were trapped by Zhao Wu, who was holding his breath. After a round of cannons, only one hundred and thirty-seven horsemen escaped pathetically. The rest were all killed.
The third time the thieves attacked was at night. Only three hundred horsemen took advantage of the darkness to attack. The direction of the attack was towards the North. This time, they were unlucky and were caught by Ma Gui, who was patrolling at night. The six hundred horsemen attacked on all fronts and completely destroyed the three hundred horsemen. Ma Gui alone beheaded eighteen levels. His bravery was unstoppable. The Ming Army obtained another victory.
The father and son of the Feng family in the city wanted to kill someone!
After killing Liu Dongyang and Xu Chao, the original one thousand eight hundred horsemen were left with about one thousand six hundred. The first attack lost five hundred, the second attack lost three hundred, and the third attack lost three hundred. Counting on fingers, one thousand one hundred horsemen had already lost their lives.
Not only did they die, but their horses were also destroyed and became of the Ming Army's meals. The Ming Army that had made great contributions were eating horse meat and drinking meat soup every day and were full of vigof.
The city of Ningxia still had eight hundred cavalrymen, but no matter what, Lao Bai didn't dare to split his army to fight again. These eight hundred cavalrymen were reserved for when they had no other choice but to forcefully break out of the encirclement. After all, infantry couldn't be used to break out of the encirclement.
In these few days, they finally knew who the Ming General that had surrounded them so tightly that not even water could trickle through was.
Xiao Ruxun, born of a northwest general's family. In the battle of Ping Lu City, he first defeated Tu Wenxiu's few thousand horsemen, then killed Bo Yun and Mighty Rabbit. He almost wiped out nine thousand of their troops. Then, he led his army to attack from Ping Lu City. Along the way, he attacked the cities and strongholds, causing them to be battered and bleeding. In the end, he fought to the outskirts of Ning Xia Town and captured all the fortresses in the North, including the Northwest and Northeast directions. He sealed off the entire North. He was the main culprit that caused their current predicament!
It was the Ping Lu City General that they did not care about!
God knows why this guy was so good at fighting! So fierce!
Also, these days, the intensity of the Ming Army's attacks on the city had increased. Other than the number of times they attacked by force, there were not many hours during the day when they did not use firearms to attack the city.
It could be said that almost all the time, they used firearms to attack, or beat drums to boost morale and pretend to attack all at once. They toyed with them, and then used firearms to attack the troops that were rushing up the city walls to defend, catching them unprepared. The number of horsemen in the city had dropped to about sixteen thousand, and the loss of the Ming Army did not reach four thousand.
To be precise, it was three thousand and five. Three thousand and five died in battle, and even more were injured. However, the injured survived and were given emergency treatment by the medical camp. In less than ten days, they could recover and return to the camp. Their fighting power was even stronger.
The admiration of these tens of thousands of Ming Army soldiers towards Xiao Ruxun increased day by day. The thinking of the soldiers was very simple. They were all willing to follow a strong general to fight because when a strong general fought, the casualties of his subordinates were small. The more you could protect everyone's lives, the more people were willing to give their lives for you, and the higher their morale was.
The medical camp that Xiao Ruxun arranged was considered by Mei Guozhen to be the place with the most number of doctors and the most professional division of labor, other than the Emperor himself. It could even become a model for the whole army to promote.
Basically, all the doctors in Ningxia Town who were good at treating knife and gun wounds were either invited or brought by Xiao Ruxun to set up a special medical camp in the army. With strong alcohol as a disinfectant, the wounds of the wounded soldiers were never inflamed. Most of the ordinary wounds of the soldiers were applied with medicinal herbs, bandaged, and changed once every two or three days. After two or three times, they were as good as new, full of energy.
The death rate of the wounded soldiers in this army was the lowest that Mei Guozhen had seen since he joined the army. Therefore, in such an intense seesaw battle, the Ming Army lost only three thousand. Most of them died in battle and could not be treated. After returning, because the wounds were too deep, there were only a few hundred who died. There were more than two thousand who recovered and returned. There was no need to replenish troops.
On one hand, Xiao Ruxun's tactics were appropriate. On the other hand, the rescue measures were timely. After more than ten days, all the departments in the Ming Army had a very high evaluation of Xiao Ruxun. Some generals who were not satisfied with Xiao Ruxun in the beginning also began to admire this young commander-in-chief.
The military supervisor, Mei Guozhen, treated Xiao Ruxun with a nitpicking attitude. Unexpectedly, he could not find any areas that could be harshly criticized. Therefore, he respected him even more. Other than submitting a memorial to impeach Wei Xuezeng, he also specially wrote a memorial to recommend Xiao Ruxun's tactics and tactics to Emperor Wanli. He recommended to Emperor Wanli this "excellent general that is hard to come by in fifty years".
Ye Mengxiong inspected the army. He found that the army was well-organized, the soldiers were full of fighting spirit, and their work was orderly and meticulous. The low morale from ten days ago had been completely pulled back. Therefore, Ye Mengxiong was extremely satisfied with Xiao Ruxun's ability to command troops. He was relieved to hand over the command of the frontline to Xiao Ruxun. He himself was in charge of logistics, ensuring food supply, medicine and gunpowder, and was concerned about the army's ultimate trump card, the tunnel blasting.
The reason why the tunnel blasting was delayed for more than ten days was that three of the tunnels were discovered and destroyed by the extremely sensitive rebel army in the city. Xiao Ruxun personally led a team to block the tunnels and stop the crazy counterattack of the rebel army. Therefore, the remaining two tunnels were carefully carried out.
Every day, they only dared to dig when the army was attacking the city, so the progress was slowed down. Even so, the remaining two tunnels were almost finished. One of them could be dug in about a day, and they could begin to fill it with gunpowder.
One day later, on the evening of the 21st day of the fourth month of the 20th year of Wanli, Ye Mengxiong, Mei Guozhen, and Xiao Ruxun carried torches and carefully walked towards the tunnel that had been reported to have been dug. Looking at the tunnel supported by wooden frames, Ye Mengxiong and Mei Guozhen, although they had seen it many times, were still amazed by the precision of the construction. Especially when they saw the large space dug under the foundation of the city wall, they were inexplicably shocked.
"Ji Xin, such a large space, are we going to fill it with gunpowder?"
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