"Retreat, quickly retreat."
Although he didn't know why the Ming army had crossbows, now was not the time to dwell on this matter. He had already lost two-thirds of the Qing army's Blue-Bordered Sharpshooters, and the surviving officer immediately gave the order to retreat. He didn't care if there was a gong or not and retreated.
If he retreated without any orders, he would be executed on the spot by the supervision team behind him. However, this officer and the retreating Bordered Blue Flag didn't care at all because they were Shang Kexi's direct troops. They were also people of the Han Army Flag. Their status was much higher than those of the Green Camp. Unless they received orders from the commander, these supervision teams wouldn't dare to treat them like the Green Camp soldiers.
Sure enough, everything was as they had expected. The archers with blue flags did not kill them. Instead, they watched them pass by them and retreat into the commander's formation.
Due to the incessant sounds of cannons, gunshots, shouts, and wails on the battlefield, and the fact that these Blue-Bordered Banner Sharpshooters were following behind the Green Army soldiers, the retreating Green Army soldiers did not notice them at all. They continued to charge crazily towards the city wall.
On the city wall, Di Qing stopped paying attention when he saw the few hundred remaining soldiers escape. Instead, he ordered the crossbowmen to start killing the Green Army soldiers who came to attack the city.
This group of archers had followed Wei Qing and Huo Qubing to battle with the Xiongnu, so they were extremely experienced in battle formations. After receiving Di Qing's order to shoot at will, they did not shoot blindly, but instead, they were looking for a target to shoot at. Moreover, this target was not a recruit but a veteran.
That's right, they were aiming at the green soldiers who were as good at dodging as loaches. As soldiers with rich battle experience, they could tell at a glance which were the new soldiers and which were the veterans below the city wall. Therefore, their crossbows were aimed at these veterans to kill.
The battle was going on like a raging fire. When Yun Long saw the Sharpshooters retreat, he immediately went up and questioned them loudly,"What's going on? How come hundreds of people were shot to death before they even got close to the city walls?”
You Yunlong's expression was very ugly. He had seen it clearly through the binoculars just now. His sharpshooters did not even have the chance to fire their arrows, and nearly a thousand people had died. If he had not seen it with his own eyes, he would not have believed it.
A Qing soldier with a crossbow came to You Yunlong and said,""Sir General, our brothers risked their lives to bring this back.”
Yun Long took the arrow from the soldier and looked at it carefully. A shocked expression immediately flashed across his face."This is…a crossbow bolt? The Ming army on the other side actually has crossbows?"
"That must be the case. Otherwise, how could a bow and arrow shoot so far?”The Qing soldier cried and said," More than 1,000 brothers! We haven't even killed a single bandit, but the bandits 'crossbowmen have already killed 700 to 800 of us. Commander, we have fought from the north to the south, from Liaodong to Guangzhou. We have never been so aggrieved in the past few battles…"
You Yun Long's mouth twitched. He stopped talking to the soldiers and told them to rest while he went to Shang Zhi Xin to report the situation.
Shang Zhixin was just like You Yunlong. He was also shocked to find out that the Ming army in the city had crossbows. After the Ming Dynasty was equipped with firearms, they had already eliminated crossbows and only kept archers. It could be said that other than the beginning of the founding of the country, there were no crossbows in the entire Ming Dynasty for the next few hundred years.
Especially after the firearms were fully developed, the flintlock had completely replaced the crossbow. It could be said that if one did not see this crossbow, no one would remember that there was such a thing as a crossbow in the world.
"Which part of the Ming army are they from? Why do they have crossbows that have disappeared for hundreds of years? Moreover, the crossbowmen controlling the crossbows are elites who are not weaker than our sharpshooters?”
Shang Zhixin seemed to be talking to himself and asking the people around him. However, neither he nor the people around him could figure out the reason.
You Yun Long said," Your Highness, our sharpshooters have all retreated. The Green Camp alone won't be able to take down the city gate. Why don't we signal for a retreat first?"”
Shang Zhixin didn't care how many Green Army soldiers died. In his eyes, these Green Army soldiers were just cannon fodder. If there were no more, he could just capture some able-bodied men. However, although he didn't like these cannon fodder soldiers, he couldn't let them be used up for nothing. Shang Zhixin also knew that they wouldn't be able to take down the city wall today, so he agreed to You Yunlong's words.
Without the support of the master archers, these Green Army soldiers were basically live targets. The crossbowmen, archers, and musketeers on the city walls could shoot them at will. It could be said that many of them had fallen forever before they could even touch the ladder.
Faced with this hopeless siege, the Green Army soldiers had already lost their confidence and become numb. As for why they were still charging so fiercely, it was because of their survival instincts. However, without confidence, it was very difficult for an army that relied on survival instincts to attack a city wall that was guarded by good generals.
Just as these Green Army soldiers were filled with despair when they saw their comrades fall one by one, a heavenly voice suddenly sounded. This heavenly voice immediately brought them back to their senses and they retreated like a tide.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The cannons fired again as they retreated, taking one life after another. However, it still could not stop the hopes of the Green Army soldiers. In the end, when the Green Army soldiers retreated, there were less than 2,000 of them.
In other words, in less than four hours, they had lost more than three thousand people at the city gate tower, not including the one thousand Blue-Bordered Banner archers.
On the other hand, the Ming army had lost less than 1,000 soldiers, and those who had died were all the surrendered Green Army soldiers. The summoned elites were completely unharmed.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。