On the 26th of November, it had been two days since Li Wen led his army to break through the first line of defense of Liuba. But in these two days, he still hadn't made any progress. After breaking through the defensive area on the hill, he stopped in front of Deng Zilong's second line of defense.
Deng Zilong had set up the second line of defense in the narrow passage. If they wanted to attack Liuba, they had to pass through this passage.
Deng Zilong had arranged a large number of cannons here, and even placed two Hongbaran cannons here, as well as a large number of cannon soldiers and two hundred rifled gunners. He planned to turn this place into a graveyard for Li Wen's troops.
Li Wen racked his brains to think of a way to defeat the enemy, but he found that he had no idea. Whether it was a strong attack or a sneak attack, they were all useless. Deng Zilong was firmly guarding against them. Not to mention that Deng Zilong's firearms were far superior to his, and his fighting strength was also comparable to theirs.
The most difficult thing was that the weather was getting colder and colder, and the water had already frozen. His hope of helping to transport food through this stretch of water had been dashed. Of course, he was more worried about Du Tong's troops.
That group of people was taking the Qishan Ancient Road, which was a road that used a lot of water. Now that the river was frozen, how were they going to move forward and transport food?
The grain road was their lifeline. If the food supply couldn't keep up, it would be more terrible than anything else.
It wasn't that difficult for them to transport food here, but if they continued to move forward, it would be even more difficult.
Right now, there had been no food delivered for seven days. According to the rules he set, each wave of food should be delivered to the front line in at least seven days, but now, it was already overdue.
He couldn't help but worry about whether something had happened in the rear. If the food supply ran out, how could he support it with only three days left?
Progress was not smooth, and the rear was weak. Li Wen was even worried that his troops would all starve to death here.
The attack of a thousand troops two hours ago had been beaten back.
The number of the enemy's Francis machine guns was far beyond his imagination, and the number of gunners was also far beyond his imagination. Before the army could even get close to engage in close combat, they had already been beaten into a river of blood and a mountain of corpses. His own side's muskets and crossbows couldn't compete with them at all, and were defeated after a few rounds. He didn't know how they trained.
Not to mention the two extremely terrifying Red Barbarian Cannons, which he had never even heard of before. They were actually able to hit an area of two li. Although they were only solid projectiles, he was very clear about their destructive power against a tightly packed square formation.
Unfortunately, if the army didn't get into formation, they wouldn't be able to fight. However, the Red Barbarian Cannons were able to carve out a bloody path with each shot. After a few shots, the army collapsed. They were terrified of the cannons and couldn't even think of attacking.
Li Wen was extremely worried.
What infuriated him even more was that there was still no news from Li Ruzhang's troops. There were no more sounds of fighting coming from the defensive line at Liuba. This made him certain that Li Ruzhang's troops had not started fighting with the Zhennan Army at Liuba. In fact, they might not even have reached the frontline.
He began to suspect that Li Ruzhang had ulterior motives. He suspected that Li Ruzhang had no intention of fighting with Xiao Ruxun, and was planning to wait for the outcome. Perhaps, it wasn't just Li Ruzhang, even Du Tong had the same thoughts. At the very least, Du Tong still had Zanhua, who he had sent to be the Army Supervisor, while Li Ruzhang didn't.
On Li Ruzhang's side, only Shaanxi Inspector Liu Guangguo could supervise him, but the two of them didn't belong to each other. If Li Ruzhang didn't follow orders, Liu Guangguo couldn't do anything to him. The power to punish him was in his hands and the Yan Sui Inspector's hands.
Li Wen began to regret that his preparations weren't thorough enough. He actually believed in the integrity and sense of duty of a general.
Now that they were trapped here, they couldn't even communicate with the other two armies, let alone advance.
Once they ran out of food and didn't have the strength to advance, they would just be waiting for death.
Unless they could take down Liuba and find Li Ruzhang's troops along it, there would only be a chance of turning things around.
Li Wen was more and more convinced that only by taking down Liuba would there be a chance of turning things around.
In fact, Deng Zilong didn't intend to stay at Liuba for long at the beginning. He only planned to delay for a while and then retreat, lengthening Li Wen's supply line and making Li Wen suffer. But after fighting for a while, he suddenly found that he had overestimated Li Wen's fighting strength.
Not only that, he also overestimated the Guanzhong Ming Army's ability to cooperate in battle. Although they said they would advance on three routes, until now, except for Li Wen's troops, he didn't see any trace of Li Ruzhang's troops. It felt like Li Ruzhang's troops had disappeared in Baoxie Road, and the troops led by Du Tong on the Qishan Ancient Road hadn't fought with Liu Gu yet. Liu Gu was a little annoyed staying in Lueyang County.
Were they going to fight or not? They put on a battle formation that looked like Mount Tai was pressing down on them, but in the end, there were only a few small fry?
Deng Zilong dealt with Li Wen with ease. Firearms and spears were fired. If he hadn't taken the initiative to retreat, it was estimated that Li Wen and his troops wouldn't have been able to break through those hills. Two hours ago, the thousand-man team was beaten to the point that they ran back desperately. Even the supervising troops couldn't stop them.
Deng Zilong found his deputy, Li Xia, and discussed it. He felt that there was a reason why Li Ruzhang didn't come. He probably wanted to wait and see. Along the way, they had seen too many situations like this. If Li Wen was here, they could force him, but if Li Wen wasn't with them, they would naturally think of ways to wait and see.
After all, if Li Wen was defeated, they didn't even know if he could survive. Once Li Wen was finished, the whole northwest would be almost finished.
They had no reason to throw away their lives for Li Wen.
The reason was very clear and easy to understand. In the face of the general trend, no one was a fool. Except for people like Li Wen who couldn't afford to lose, the others might not. Even the Ningxia soldiers that Li Wen was currently commanding were probably not of the same mind as Li Wen.
Deng Zilong's army also had old soldiers from the Ningxia Three Thousand Firearms Battalion. When they saw the military uniforms and style, they knew that it was the border army of Ningxia. They really couldn't let go of the idea of fighting with fellow countrymen. They also felt a little sad and didn't want to fight with fellow countrymen.
Everyone knew that Xiao Ruxun came from the Ningxia army. He used to be the main general of the entire Ningxia army. And these Ningxia soldiers might have fought alongside Xiao Ruxun six years ago.
And now …
Deng Zilong was actually very much looking forward to getting rid of Li Wen and then stop fighting with the Ningxia soldiers. But this was easier said than done.
Not everyone had the courage to follow Chai Guozhu's example.
Li Wen didn't want to see his own defeat. He knew that his only hope was to attack Liuba, so he attacked the defensive line of Liuba more and more fiercely. He constantly sent elite Ningxia soldiers to form thousand-man teams to attack the defensive line of Liuba. There was no long-range firepower to cover them, so they just had to charge forward with shields.
When faced with the bombardment of the cannons, even the big shield carriages were useless. When they saw them from afar, they first used two Hongyi cannons to disrupt their formation. When they got closer, they used the French machine guns. When they got closer, they used the archers and archers to shoot. When they got closer, they used the long spears and broadswords to hack at them.
Often, when they got close, there were only a few hundred of them left. The well-trained cannoneers could always hit them the most times in the shortest amount of time, making it impossible for them to break through the defensive line with their advantage in numbers.
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