The Ming Dynasty: Starting with bandits, it swept across the land.

Chapter 25 Breaking the City

Upon hearing the cannon shot, Li Chengye knew he couldn't wait any longer.

Fear began to appear in the eyes of Li Luo, Wang Laoqi, and others standing beside him, and even Yang Chongwang and Han Sanhu, who came from the border army, began to get nervous.

After all, being shot by an arrow and being killed by a cannon are two different things. If you are hit by a cannon, you won't even have a complete corpse.

If they don't take action soon, Li Chengye fears they'll lose their courage.

So Li Chengye jumped onto a trench-filling vehicle:

"Push the cart across the moat!"

There was no drumming, but there were shouts.

More than three hundred people roared and surged out from behind the mound like a wave.

At the very front were twenty moat-filling carts, each piled high with mounds of earth and bundles of firewood, pushed by seven or eight men bent over, their wheels rumbling as they rolled across the ground.

Su He's pupils suddenly contracted on the north wall.

"Loose the arrows! Loose the arrows now!"

Sparse arrows fell from the top of the wall.

Li Chengye's group was carefully selected. Apart from the more than eighty old brothers from Qingshi Village, the rest were young and strong men who were still able to run and move among the refugees.

As instructed by Yang Chongwang before they set off, they spread out widely, with those pushing the cart crouching behind it and those running alongside using the vehicle as cover.

The first volley of arrows only felled three or four people.

"Charge! Don't stop!" Li Chengye ran along the flank of the column. "Unload the trucks when we reach the trench!"

Thirty steps, twenty steps, ten steps, and the moat was right in front of us.

"Uninstall!"

Wang Laoqi roared and, along with several men, kicked the car frame violently.

The ditch-filling vehicle plunged headfirst into the ditch, and bundles of earth and firewood rolled down with a crash.

The second and third vehicles came rushing in, crashing diagonally into the wreckage of the vehicle in front, and more dirt and rocks poured down.

"Place planks on top!"

Master Qin, along with a dozen or so young men, rushed up carrying thick wooden planks that had been hastily made overnight.

These planks were taken from an empty truck, nailed together with wooden nails, and then reinforced with hemp rope. They were over ten feet long and two feet wide.

They chanted slogans as they placed the planks on the "bridge piers" built by the moat-filling vehicles.

"Go! Go now!"

Li Chengye was the first to step onto it.

The wooden planks creaked under his feet, but they supported his weight.

He turned around and shouted, "Brother Yang, take the archers and suppress the top of the wall! Han Sanhu, protect the siege engine!"

"Yes, sir!"

Yang Chongwang led more than twenty archers to spread out along the edge of the moat, drawing their bows and nocking arrows.

They were using hunting bows they had obtained from the refugees in the past few days, as well as the two hard bows from Zhao Shouren's family. The arrows were also homemade bamboo arrows and bone arrowheads, but at this moment, their upward-firing shots at the city wall still posed a threat.

"You're the one!" Han Sanhu shouted, and shot an arrow.

An archer who was leaning out to fire an arrow from behind the wall screamed and fell to the ground.

The siege engine was pushed up.

This battering ram, made from an old elm beam, has layers of horseshoes covering its front end, giving it a dark sheen.

The cart had four wooden wheels underneath, and more than ten people were pushing it forward inch by inch while chanting slogans.

"Throw stones! Smash that cart!" Suhe shouted in terror from the top of the wall.

He never expected that mere bandits could build siege engines.

Several stones, each the size of a head, were lifted by the able-bodied men and pushed out from the edge of the battlement.

One piece of debris hit the ground in front of the siege engine, kicking up clumps of dirt; another piece struck the left side of the engine frame, and with a "crack," a supporting timber broke.

"Don't stop! Keep pushing!" Li Chengye had already rushed to the other side of the moat, brandishing his goose-feather saber to indicate the direction to those behind him.

An arrow grazed his cheek, but he didn't seem to care.

Li Chengen and Shi Tou, along with several young men, rushed up carrying spare wooden poles to brace the tilting cart frame.

The siege engine swayed and wobbled, but did not fall, and continued to advance.

There are still fifteen steps to the city wall.

The counterattack from the wall suddenly became fierce.

Not just arrows, but also boiling water.

A large pot was lifted onto the edge of the stack, and then boiling water, steaming with white vapor, was poured down.

The two men pushing the cart were drenched in water, screaming and rolling to the ground, their skin instantly turning red and blistering.

"Raise your shields! Raise your shields!"

The makeshift shields, made from door panels and straw hats covered with cloth, were raised, but the boiling water seeped in everywhere, and several more people were scalded.

The team began to panic.

"We can't retreat!" Li Chengye's eyes reddened. "Retreating means death, advancing means death too. Only by breaking through the wall can we survive!"

He personally rushed to the back of the siege engine and braced his shoulder against the frame.

"One, two—push!"

"Hey, yo!"

With a roar from the crowd, the axle groaned under the strain, but finally broke through the last slope and crashed hard into the new brick wall.

"Thump!"

The dull thud sounded like a muffled thunderclap.

The city wall trembled slightly, and mortar from between the bricks fell in a rustling sound.

"It works!" Han Sanhu's eyes lit up. "Hit it again!"

The siege engine was dragged back a few steps, and the group charged forward again with renewed force.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

After three consecutive impacts, cracks appeared on the blue bricks of the new wall, and a section of it dented inward.

Su He, standing on the wall, was deathly pale. He could clearly see that the wall was shaking!

"Pour kerosene! Set the car on fire!"

Several soldiers struggled to carry over a can of kerosene.

The oil tanks were smashed in front of the siege engine, and torches were thrown down.

"boom!"

Flames erupted, instantly engulfing the front of the siege engine.

The men pushing the carts cried out and retreated, but some of them, covered in kerosene, were instantly engulfed in flames and howled as they plunged into the mud of the moat.

Li Chengye was also forced back two steps by the heatwave, but he knew he couldn't back down now. He gritted his teeth and shouted to those around him, "Quickly, throw soil on top!"

Upon hearing this, Chengen and the others disregarded the arrows shooting from the city wall, bent down, grabbed handfuls of soil, and threw them at the flames.

The fire subsided slightly, but the iron plating at the front of the siege engine was glowing red, and the wooden frame was charred in many places.

"The car is going to fall apart!" Wang Laoqi cried out in despair.

Li Chengye looked at the new wall.

The surface is covered with a dense spiderweb pattern, but it has not yet collapsed.

Are we just going to retreat like this? But where can we retreat to?

He knew this was his last chance.

If they still can't break through, and the defenders of the south wall come to reinforce them, they'll unleash arrows, stones, and boiling water all at once, and all three hundred of them will perish here.

"Brother Yang!" he roared, "Bring the archers forward and suppress those on the wall!"

Yang Chongwang responded and led his archers forward at great risk, hurling arrows upwards like locusts.

The soldiers guarding the wall were suppressed and unable to raise their heads for a while.

"The rest of you," Li Chengye's gaze swept over the soot-blackened faces around him, "push the cart with me, and do it again!"

He tore off a piece of his shirt, wrapped it around his hand, and pressed it against the scorching hot frame.

A burning pain shot through his palm, but he held on tightly.

Li Chengen, Shi Tou, Wang Laoqi, Han Sanhu... one after another, their hands pressed down on him.

"Collide!"

The crowd roared in unison, their steps faltering yet resolute. The siege engine, like a wounded old ox, dragged flames and thick smoke as it charged towards the city wall once more.

"Thump!!!"

This loud bang was far greater than the previous ones.

The cracks in the new wall suddenly widened, the entire wall folded inward, and then collapsed with a roar!

Bricks and stones poured down like a waterfall, and dust billowed into the sky.

A gap more than ten feet wide was suddenly opened.

"The wall is broken!"

Cheers, screams, and shouts of battle mingled together.

Suhe, who was on the wall, was so shocked that he fell to the ground and watched helplessly as the rebel army poured in through the gap like a tide.

"Block it! Block the gap!" He struggled to his feet, but was shot in the thigh by a stray arrow and fell down with a scream.

Li Chengye was the first to step through the breach, and the city was truly destroyed.

He glanced back: the wooden planks laid on the trench were trampled and crooked, the siege engines were turning into charred frames in the firelight, and corpses and wounded lay scattered on the ground.

The cost was heavy.

But the goal was achieved.