The Military Governor in Dream of the Red Chamber

A loud bang suddenly rang out.

Several civilians were blown away by the bomb.

They've stepped on a landmine.

The explosion startled everyone else, who immediately turned and ran back.

But as they ran back, the Northern barbarian cavalry behind them immediately shot arrows and shouted at them to go back.

The people were crowded in the middle, neither daring to move forward nor backward.

At this moment, a rider from the Northern Barbarians squeezed through the crowd of people and stopped a hundred paces away.

He clearly knew that Jia Chen could hit the target at eighty paces.

Of course, they were also afraid of the landmines that might suddenly explode, so they didn't dare get too close.

"Lord Jia, my Taiji has something to say to you: as long as you open the gates and surrender, I guarantee the safety of you and your men." This northern barbarian was fluent in Chinese, which is why he sent him over to make this message.

"If you refuse, you see?" He pointed to the people of the Great Hong Dynasty beside him, "They can easily fill in the moat. How long can your Qianshan Fortress hold out then?"

The surrounding people quieted down, their faces showing both fear and anticipation.

Thinking that the soldiers in the city had opened the gates and surrendered, they thought they wouldn't have to die, right?

"Fellow villagers!" Jia Chen did not answer the Northern barbarians' words, but instead shouted loudly to the people below the city, "I, Jia Chen, am incompetent and cannot save you, but I must defend this city! I, Jia Chen, and the soldiers of Qianshan Fort swear here and now that we will avenge your grievances! We will make those Northern barbarians pay with their blood!"

He didn't believe the Northern barbarians' words.

Can Abner let himself off the hook?

This was nothing more than a trick he was playing on me.

If I were to surrender, I would probably be humiliated and then tortured to death.

"If you take another step forward, Qianshan Fort will consider you all as Northern barbarians and kill you all." Jia Chen's voice was a little hoarse. "Please forgive Jia Chen for being so sorry!"

If these people are allowed to continue like this, the people of Qianshan Fort will die, but these people will not have a good end either.

They were either captured and enslaved or killed.

Jia Chen couldn't claim to be particularly noble; he simply wanted to survive and ensure the survival of the people at Qianshan Fort as much as possible.

Only the living can avenge the dead.

That was his decision.

After Jia Chen finished speaking, he grabbed the torch from a soldier next to him.

"My lord, let me do it!" Wang Baisheng shouted as he saw Jia Chen preparing to light the fuse of the breech-loading cannon, trying to snatch the torch from Jia Chen's hand.

"Step back. I, Jia Chen, will bear all the sins alone." Jia Chen lowered the torch and lit the fuse.

With a roar, the breech-loading cannon fired a solid shot that landed among the Northern Barbarian cavalry, who were about two hundred paces away. The shot bounced up again after landing, continuing to pound forward.

Wherever they went, several horses were torn to pieces, and the northern barbarians on them were smashed.

"Abunai, listen to me, this is my attitude, Jia Chen! If you have the guts, then break through Qianshan Fortress!" Jia Chen shouted.

Abunai's face turned ashen upon hearing the report from the front.

The shells just now didn't hit him. He knew that there were cannons at Qianshan Fort, but they were small cannons, and they could only hit about a mile away at most. So he was a few miles away, and that distance was safe.

"This kid is really ruthless, completely disregarding the lives of so many people from the Great Hong Dynasty," Abunai sneered. "Very well, let's go after them. I want to see if he really dares to kill so many people."

Having received orders, the Northern barbarian cavalry began driving them away again, using even more brutal methods.

Arrows were shot, swords were slashed, and the people fell one after another in pools of blood.

Some people couldn't bear the fear and turned to rush towards the fortress.

"Halt! Death is inevitable either way, so why not fight those Northern Tartars to the death?" an old man shouted. "Those damned Tartars..."

He charged towards the Northern barbarian cavalry with a loud shout, but before he could take a few steps forward, he was cut down by a cavalryman.

The people who initially wanted to rush out with them backed down.

"My dear husband, the baby and I are coming to find you..." Tears streamed down the face of a woman carrying an infant on her back. "You Tartars, Heaven will not forgive you..."

She screamed, her face filled with fear, yet she still charged towards the Northern barbarian cavalry.

An arrow whistled through the air and pierced her chest.

Even so, she managed to push herself forward several meters before collapsing.

The baby on her back was crying loudly, but unfortunately no one paid any attention.

"Damn it, are we not even as good as a woman?" someone roared. "Kill the Tartars!"

"Kill the Tartars!"

"Kill them!"

Shouts of "Kill the Tartars!" quickly spread, and the battle cries echoed across the sky.

The people charged back towards the northern barbarians, and faced with their arrows and swords, they did not hesitate any longer.

Jia Chen watched as people fell one after another, his eyes turning red, but there was very little he could do at the moment.

This distance can only be reached by using a breech-loading cannon; neither arquebuses nor tiger-squat cannons have sufficient range.

However, there were only four breech-loading cannons.

Only the heavy breathing of the crowd remained on the city wall, their faces filled with anger and murderous intent.

They can only watch helplessly as their people are slaughtered by the northern barbarians.

"Archery squad, advance!" Jia Chen said in a deep voice. "Everyone, prepare yourselves, the Northern barbarians are about to attack."

With the people falling, in the end, the northern barbarians had no choice but to take over.

A group of Northern barbarians dismounted and charged forward carrying ladders and sandbags.

The area in front of the trench was a minefield. When the Northern barbarians charged forward, many of them stepped on the mines and were blown to pieces.

The northern barbarians practically risked their lives to carve out a safe passage.

Because of the presence of landmines, the northern barbarians dared not charge recklessly, thus limiting their assault to a single area, which allowed the defending soldiers to concentrate their aim more effectively.

"First team, prepare, 150 paces, 120 paces, 100 paces, fire!" Huang Xiuer stared at the approaching Northern barbarians until they were within 100 paces before giving the order to fire.

Seven gunshots rang out almost simultaneously.

You can see the three northern barbarians in front of the charge falling to the ground screaming in agony.

Two were motionless, while the other was struggling and screaming.

Without Huang Xiuer saying anything, the first team immediately stepped down, and the second team of seven took their place.

The three-stage firing caused several northern barbarians to fall with each burst.

These northern barbarians had virtually no armor, making them highly vulnerable to arquebus fire.

Huang Xiuer and her team's accuracy was actually not very high. One reason was that the muskets were not very accurate, and another was that Huang Xiuer and her team had too little live-fire training.

The results so far are already quite good, mainly because the Northern Barbarians are numerous and their numbers are quite high.

The fact that they were killed within a hundred paces instilled some fear in the northern barbarians who were charging forward.

However, with Abunai behind them, they dared not stop and could only continue filling the trenches.

"Tiger Crouching Cannon, prepare!" Wang Baisheng and the others shouted.

The arquebus squad consisted of only 20 men, so their effectiveness in stopping and killing the enemy was limited.

This is the southern direction. From the other three directions, the northern barbarians are feigning an attack, but they haven't actually sent many people.

In order to better kill the enemy, the eight tiger-squatting cannons prepared were naturally set up on the south city wall.

"Boom boom boom~~", the Tiger Crouching Cannons were also divided into several teams and fired in turn to ensure continuous firepower suppression as much as possible.

Each shot meant that hundreds of lead bullets were fired, resulting in an astonishingly large kill radius.

Since the Northern barbarians had little effective armor, they were no match for these projectiles.

The northern barbarians at the front fell in droves.

Terrified, the Northern barbarians screamed and ran back, no longer caring that Abunai was watching them from behind.

Compared to the musket, the tiger crouching cannon was far more powerful.