Before the battle began on the third day, Shen Zhixiang ordered dozens of boxes of silver to be moved to the top of the city. These silvers were all seized from the official offices in the city after the Haihan Army captured Cangzhou. They were all official silver of the same standard. There was also a seal on the box that was affixed after the Fifth Lu Division counted it.
The Fifth Lu Division went north to attack Shuntian Prefecture. These heavy silver boxes were inconvenient to carry, so Sun Bing left them in Cangzhou City and handed them over to Shen Zhixiang for safekeeping.
According to military regulations, after the property seized in the war is sealed, it should be transported back to the rear and confiscated and stored in the warehouse. No one is allowed to use it without authorization. However, the current situation in Cangzhou is critical, and Shen Zhixiang urgently needs to provide substantial rewards to stimulate his subordinates, and these money will come in handy.
Although military merit is tempting, it can only be obtained after the war, and the most practical reward at the moment is this kind of ready-made benefit. This amount of money is a lot of official silver. After the war, it can be exchanged for official banknotes at any Haihan bank. Its value is beyond doubt.
At the critical moment, Shen Zhixiang didn't care about the military regulations. He only knew that if Cangzhou City could not be defended, the money could not be saved either.
According to the number of people counted by each army this morning, after two days of fierce fighting, one-third of the strength of the defenders has been lost, and the remaining people are already in a very tired state.
Distributing this money to the soldiers guarding the city can somewhat boost morale, and maybe it can last another day or two.
As for whether he can hold out until reinforcements arrive, Shen Zhixiang is not sure. Now he can only take one step at a time and try his best to hold on to the city.
After these two days of fighting, the Ming army outside the city obviously knew that the Haihan army in the city had limited strength and was about to be unable to defend it. Therefore, at the beginning of the war on the third day, the Ming army decisively invested most of its troops, intending to overwhelm the Haihan army's defense line in one fell swoop.
The firepower on the city was no longer as intensive as the previous two days, and the Ming army suffered fewer casualties when passing through the open areas outside the city.
Moreover, the Ming army clearly learned the lessons of the previous two days and realized that the defenders deliberately made the ruins of the city gate appear like a weakness in the defense line to lure them to attack. Therefore, today's offensive no longer uses the ruins of the city gate as the only direction of attack. Instead, more siege ladders were built overnight and multiple attacks were launched.
Although this will cause the offensive force to be dispersed, the defenders with limited strength will be more affected. Even if Shen Zhixiang put all the personnel who could participate in the battle on the front, he still seemed to be stretched thin, and the defense line in the south of the city soon became shaky.
Although the Haihan army responded with all its strength, the Ming army once again attacked the city one hour after the battle began, and three places were lost one after another.
Most of the people who could fight were already on the city wall. Shen Zhixiang had no one to mobilize and had to lead his own soldiers to help in the battle again.
When things came to an end, Shen Zhixiang became calmer. He took his own pistol from the hands of the soldiers, fixed the bayonet to the gun body, and once again confirmed the number of bullets he carried.
This seven-shot rifle was one of the gifts given to Shen and his son by Qian Tiandun after he took refuge in Haihan. Although Haihan now has a more advanced rifle, Shen Zhixiang still retains this seven-shooter as his sidearm.
Before coming to Cangzhou, this gun had not been used in actual combat for several years. The last time Shen Zhixiang used this gun to achieve meritorious service against an enemy, Shen Zhixiang remembered that he killed several Qing soldiers on the battlefield in Liaodong.
As a descendant of the Ming Army who grew up in Liaodong, Shen Zhixiang never imagined that one day his opponent would be the Ming Army who would fight to the death on the battlefield. He hasn't led an army in a war for more than ten years. This time he finally got a combat mission, and it might actually be his last battle.
Military orders are like mountains. Since there is no order to retreat from above, the defenders of Cangzhou can be defeated, but they cannot retreat. As the commander, Shen Zhixiang can only fight until the last moment. "Brothers, if I am in Cangzhou today, I will meet you at the Martyrs' Shrine!"
At this point, Shen Zhixiang was ready to die in battle. He didn't have much to say, so he simply said a few words and took the lead to rush out.
These soldiers under him are all the original children of the Dongjiang Army. Their lives have been sold to the Shen family a long time ago, and they will definitely fight to the end with him.
The footpath on the Cangzhou city wall is only six feet wide, and the space for maneuvering is extremely limited. As long as two or three groups of infantry are assembled to form a rotating firepower, the Ming army can be defeated.
The Ming army's individual shields could not prevent the Haihan rifle from firing at close range, and could only provide short-term cover for the archers and musketeers behind them. However, their superior strength allowed them to take action even for a moment, which was enough to cause a lot of damage to the defenders.
It's just that more than half of the troops commanded by Shen Zhixiang are militia troops who lack combat experience. If the officers leading the team are casualties, it will be difficult to cope with changes in the battle situation.
Although the number of Shen Zhixiang's personal guards is not large, they are after all serious elites in the army, and they all use repeating rifles. The volley after rushing onto the city wall caused the Ming army to fall immediately, and quickly stabilized their position, allowing the retreating defenders to regroup.
At this time, Ming troops were still pouring into the city. Shen Zhixiang shouted loudly, asking others to follow his own troops and push the front back together.
A combination of rifle fire and grenade damage finally wiped out the hundreds of Ming troops who had poured into the city, halting the rout.
However, the Ming army continued to climb up the city. Seeing that there were at least three to four thousand Ming troops gathering below the city, and more siege ladders were being erected, Shen Zhixiang began to feel desperate.
Nearly half of his men and horses have been lost. If the battle continues like this, even if the defenders still have ammunition available, they will not be able to withstand the rising number of casualties. It is only a matter of time before the defense line falls.
If it can't be stopped, the next step is to abandon the city wall defense line, shrink the front line into the city, and use the barricades to continue to deal with it.
But the temporary defenses built in the city are no match for the city wall, and they certainly won't last long. Is it really going to end in such a defeat?
Just when Shen Zhixiang was hesitating whether to retreat, several gunshots suddenly sounded in the distance outside the city.
When the Ming army was attacking the city on a large scale, they would definitely not bombard the city at this juncture. Shen Zhixiang's eyes lit up, could it be that reinforcements had arrived?
Sure enough, a red and blue flag appeared on the plain in the distance, and then hundreds of cavalry rushed out, charging menacingly towards the flank of the Ming army's formation.
"Reinforcements have arrived! Reinforcements have arrived!"
The people who noticed this scene immediately screamed, as if a shot of cardiotonic shot into everyone's body. What was originally thought to be a doomed situation finally had a chance of life.