Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 54 Disappointment
The so-called beacon fire was the most important means of transmitting military intelligence in this era.

Burn smoke during the day and light fires at night. Once the signal is sent, it can be seen clearly within ten to twenty miles.

Therefore, the fire burning on the Yaofang Gate was not only discovered by people in the city, but also seen clearly by someone in a small lake more than ten miles outside the city.

This small lake is far away from the mainland. In the past, it was difficult to see human traces in the lake except for the fishermen nearby. But now, although it is still as quiet as before, if you search carefully, you will find hundreds of young men with weapons hiding in the lake under the leadership of a middle-aged man.

"Sir, why don't we attack his camp?"

A young man holding a red-tasseled spear said something and then looked at the middle-aged man with hope in his eyes.

"The enemy's situation is unclear, so there is no need to mention the attack on the camp."

The young men were extremely disappointed when they heard this, but the middle-aged man was also upset for missing this good opportunity.

These young men were veterans who had followed him in fighting against pirates and bandits for many years, and they had done things like attacking the camp at night more than once or twice.

But not a single one of them was wearing armor, and the Tartars could tell their identities at a glance from their clothes.

How could the ferocious Tartars panic because of an attack by a group of civilians?
"Call them all up."

After giving the order, the middle-aged man turned his attention to Yingtian.

Although the beacon fire on the city had only been burning for less than two quarters of an hour at this time, he had already begun to think of retreating.

God bless him, this middle-aged man is definitely not a coward who is afraid of death and brings 600 young men to support Yingtian. However, according to his understanding of the garrison in the city, there is an 80% chance that Yingtian will not be able to be defended once the Tartars climb the city.

As a result, his most important task changed from rescuing Yingtian to how to bring these teenagers back to Jiangyin safely.

"Sir, it's not daybreak yet, wait a little longer, besides."

"Besides what?"

"Didn't the messenger say that the Crown Prince is far superior to that tyrant?"

The title of "tyrant" is considered treasonous in any dynasty, but the middle-aged man, an official of the imperial court, acted as if he had not heard it. He just raised his head to look at the sky and then looked towards the source of the fire again.

He had led troops for many years, so he naturally knew how destructive a night attack could be to the poorly trained and battle-hardened Yingtian defenders.

But as a Chinese citizen, how could he not have hope of repelling the Tartars?

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the group of people who stood at the top of power either surrendered, fled, were defeated and killed under the constraints of all parties, or retired to the countryside after becoming disillusioned.

On the contrary, many people of noble character and lofty ideals emerged among the lower-level officials and ordinary people, and with their passion alone they delayed the Qing Dynasty's unification of the country by more than ten years.

Because Zhu Cilang was clear about this, he focused on clerks, ordinary soldiers and the common people in the city at the beginning of his time travel.

It must be said that this strategy was absolutely correct, otherwise the Qing army would not have had to bother charging, and the defenders would have been completely defeated as soon as they entered the city.

But the time given to him was too short. Just when the Yingtian defenders showed some signs of improvement, Duoduo unexpectedly launched a night attack.

Faced with the huge gap in strength, the Ming army's formation could not even hold out for a few breaths before being killed.

"Bang!"

The goose-feather knife in Li Chaodong's hand chopped Wusitu's left shoulder hard.

The victim didn't know what he felt when the knife was stabbed, but he felt so much pain in his palm that he almost couldn't retract the knife.

At this time, the Tatars had already broken into the formation through the gap opened by Ustu, and the originally dense formation became sparse as the soldiers retreated.

Li Chaodong knew that if this continued, his soldiers would be defeated in no time, but at the same time he also saw clearly that the two Tatars in the lead were the key to breaking the formation.

So he took advantage of the opportunity when Ustu was dealing with the situation in front of him and rushed out from the side to attack his head. But who among those who were chosen by Duoduo to go first were not elite?
Even though the Tatars who came up later were not wearing double armor due to their physical strength, their ability to respond and coordinate in battle formations were beyond the imagination of a rookie like Li Chaodong.

When Li Chaodong rushed out, Ustu seemed unaware, and the Tartar behind him was also dealing with the attack of the Ming army. But when the knife was about to fall on Ustu's head, the Tartar turned sideways and exposed his left shoulder covered by the shoulder pad to the enemy, and his right hand holding the sword suddenly raised up.

Finally, in Li Chaodong's resentful eyes, the Yanling knife chopped on the iron armor, and he himself used too much force and crashed straight into Ustu, who had clenched his teeth.

Logically speaking, wearing cotton armor inside and iron armor outside, ordinary knife and gun stabs would hardly cause any damage to Ustu unless he was hit by a blunt weapon.

But he didn't know whether it was because his muscles were not tense, or because of the angle of force, but when the knife came down, he only felt a pain in his shoulder blade as if it was about to break.

If it were a battle between two equally powerful forces, the body would naturally block out the pain, but since climbing the city wall, the weak Ming army had never posed any threat to Ustu at all.

Therefore, although the knife did not cause much damage to his body, the pain was transmitted to his brain without any omission.

Stimulated by the pain, the animal nature hidden in Ustu's body was finally aroused.

At this moment, he didn't care about the cone formation. He twisted his body and used his left arm to flip the unbalanced Li Chaodong onto his back.

"Qianhu!"

"grown ups!"

Following several shouts, the surrounding soldiers attacked Ustu with various weapons, but he was now like a mad beast and did not even care about his unprotected head.

"when!"

"when!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

After several rounds of clanging sounds, all the weapons attacking Ustu's head were blocked by the Tatars beside him, while those hitting his body only made a few muffled sounds and no further results were seen.

The cooperation between the Tatars amazed the Ming army, but as the initiator of this confrontation, Li Chaodong could only discern the general situation from the expressions of his subordinates and the sounds he heard.

"It's over."

Since his comrades failed to stop the Tartars, what awaits him can only be a fatal counterattack.

As far as his own life was concerned, he didn't really care how he would die.

But as the actual commander of this battle, he could not help but regret his recklessness.

The soldiers under his command were able to hold on for such a long time only by holding on with all their might, but his death in battle would very likely make that momentum disappear without a trace.

"I have finally failed Your Highness."

The reluctance finally turned into self-blame, but just as this thought arose, Li Chaodong, who was about to fall on his back, saw an arm falling rapidly from above his face, followed by a huge force coming from his neck and back at the same time, and then his whole body was lifted into the air.

"Why is this? Does he want to break me?"

Li Chaodong was confused, but in a flash he realized that if he could lift him up in this position with one arm, he might even be able to break him.

"I have finally failed His Highness."

According to some people's suggestions, readers can jump directly to Chapter 62 and start reading, because the following chapters starting from this chapter are all about how a dozen Qing soldiers (author's note: these are white-armored soldiers, not ordinary cats and dogs =.=) chopped melons and vegetables on the city wall, killed people in all directions, as if they were in an empty space. Skipping it will not affect the reading of subsequent plots at all.

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(End of this chapter)