Chapter 451: Advancing Layer by Layer

When Mei Fuxi was hauled out of the bushes, he was completely dazed.

The young man who'd taken a free ride on an earth plane was now in wretched shape: his chest had been scraped raw from skidding along the ground, crisscrossed with bloody streaks, and his back, after being violently swept by the shockwave, was likewise a mess of tattered uniform and blistered skin — his backside was nearly exposed.

Fortunately, none of these were serious injuries. A wipe-down with iodophor, a wrap of bandages, a fresh set of green jackets, and two sulfonamide tablets by mouth, and after everyone took turns clapping him on the shoulder and calling him a brave fellow, the young man was back to full strength.

What's worth noting is that, injured as he was, Mei Fuxi's face remained completely unscathed. It goes to show that the love of beauty is universal — you can lose your head but never your hairstyle. At the critical moment, the young man had instinctively grasped Hollywood's ultimate secret: never look back at an explosion.

While one side was bandaging wounds, over on the other, Beile was already organizing a charge.

Charge where? Nanmen.

After witnessing the M2 Machine Gun massacre at the North Gate with his own eyes, the men sent to the East Gate had brought Beile another piece of information: the drawbridge had been blown up.

As expected of a battle-hardened Beile, he immediately sniffed out a path to survival from the two gates' different defensive measures: "That repeating iron cannon must be the only one they have — otherwise why blow the bridge?"

"Charge Nanmen! Send men charging at Nanmen!"

"Aye!"

Amin did not dare charge the West Gate. Over there were not only large numbers of Flower-Clothes Soldiers but also plenty of baggage, clearly marking it as the Ming Army's main camp. That Cao Zong, the Regional Commander, was surely stationed there — he didn't believe for a second there was no repeating iron cannon there.

So for now, he could only send men to charge Nanmen and probe once more.

Although Nanmen faced the direction of Ming's interior, meaning even if they broke out they'd have to circle the city and head north, given the current situation, Amin no longer wanted the bicycle — just breaking out would be enough to thank the heavens and earth.

And so the Great Lords of the Banners soon witnessed another novel method of blocking their path.

Burning.

The defenders at Nanmen had neither an M2 nor a big boom-bringer, but they did have kerosene.

Kerosene, this stuff — not only can it cook horse meat, it can also burn drawbridges. Truly a household essential for travel, home life, murder, and arson.

So when the drawbridge at Nanmen was lowered, over a dozen leather pouches filled with kerosene were hurled across.

The next moment, as a torch traced an arc through the air, raging flames erupted on the drawbridge, throwing every Tartar rider already halfway across off their horses... Warhorses naturally fear fire; the instant blaze made the horses brake hard, and many Tartar Soldiers were flung into the flames.

The Tartar Soldiers, their bodies on fire, had no choice but to jump into the moat. However, these men were, first, poor swimmers, and second, still wearing heavy armor, so they sank like weights the moment they hit the water. The few who survived, sprawled on the shore and vomiting water like drowned rats, were finished off by the grinning Flying Tiger Team members who came trotting over.

The drawbridge, burning with raging flames, was like the legendary Flame Bridge — not only was the path itself filled with death, but grinning, gun-wielding devils awaited at the far end.

And on top of that, after a while, the drawbridge burned through and collapsed. Now, even if you wanted to go to hell, there was no door.

Learning that the Nanmen drawbridge had been burned, Beile, who had by now relocated to the Drum Tower, groaned inwardly: this meant they could only hold the city and defend to the death, and then, under cover of night, find a way to send out messengers to summon the over two thousand troops at Zunhua and Santun Camp to come to the rescue and extract him alive.

"But with these people's weapons so deadly, I fear even defending the city will be difficult?"

Amin, who had mentally sketched out half an escape plan, raised his head helplessly and looked with furrowed brow toward the West Gate directly opposite.

Unexpectedly, what he saw was a flag signal being sent from the West Gate tower.

The flag signal's message was simple: troops were gathering below the city, massing toward the West Gate.

Amin froze for a moment, then shot to his feet and bellowed, "This is bad! The Green-Jacket Soldiers are going to hit the West Gate! Send men to hold the gate, quickly!"

Flag signals cannot convey complex meanings. The signal being repeated over and over from the tower was not the common "a large army approaches from afar," but rather "troops are gathering at the foot of the wall."

Amin reacted in the first moment: these weren't newly arrived troops — so where did they come from? They could only be the troops from outside the other three gates!

Of course! Since the three drawbridges had been destroyed, the men blockading those gates could free up manpower to converge on the West Gate!

Why gather troops? To attack the city, naturally!

In an instant, Amin sorted out the logic, and then he loudly issued orders to seal all four gates, with heavy troops defending the West Gate, preparing to withstand the Green Jacket Army's first wave of assault and drag things out until nightfall.

There's a saying that ignorant youths are the happiest, and it seems Beile had grasped its deeper meaning. He had no idea that at night, the Transmigrators' combat effectiveness actually doubled.

Fortunately, the Transmigrators had no intention of dragging today's battle into the dark either. This era was simply too frustrating — after dark, the streets had no lamps, the city was pitch-black, and all sorts of variables could arise, the main one being scattered routed soldiers starting fires.

So, upon learning that the other three gates were all under control, Qian Tieshan used the walkie-talkie to recall fifty men from each gate: he was preparing a direct assault. If they hurried, they could be drinking horse-meat soup in the Prefectural Yamen before dark.

Outside the city, cavalry were circling the City Wall to gather at the West Gate; inside the city, the Manchus were frantically making defensive preparations.

First, they drove large numbers of surrendered Ming soldiers out of the barracks.

Previously, fearing these men would cause trouble, the Manchus had locked them up, intending to burn them all to death when it was time to leave.

Now that the tables had turned, these men were released again. Under the threat of blade and gun, they began clearing the four gates, then hauling earth and stone to seal the gate tunnels shut.

The first to be sealed, naturally, was the West Gate, which posed the greatest threat. Through the live feed from the watch posts atop the wall, the Manchus inside the city had learned that the enemy force outside the gate had all dismounted and was forming ranks and readying guns, looking as if they were about to launch a major assault on the city.

So the Manchus began frantically driving the surrendered troops to block the gate. At the same time, large numbers of men were sent up to the gate tower, where all manner of bows and arrows and captured weapons like Frankish Crouching Tiger Cannons were set up atop the gate, ready at any moment to deal a head-on blow to the attackers.

The remaining cavalry were all lying in ambush along both sides of the West Gate's main avenue. For some reason, everyone — including the group of Later Jin Nobility still atop the Drum Tower — had a vague feeling deep down that the city gate alone would not be enough to stop the enemy, and that street fighting would be unavoidable.

Five minutes later, the offensive officially began.

At the loudspeaker's command, the half-exposed heads atop the West Gate wall first took a round of precision fire.

The 7.62mm bullets easily peeled back the skullcaps of one row of men; others had their chests pierced by rounds that punched straight through the brick battlements.

After two punishing volleys, the Banner Troops, wailing for their mothers, finally understood the power of the assault rifle, and from then on, no one dared show their head above the City Wall.

Next came the drawbridge.

The old method: after several bursts of gunfire, the wrist-thick ropes were severed, and the drawbridge slammed down with a thunderous boom.

Learning that the drawbridge was lost, every Tartar Soldier lying in ambush behind the gate clenched their teeth, staring fixedly at the gate, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The Transmigrators did not keep their opponents waiting long.

With a deafening blast, the city gate was blown open amidst the flames.

The last three RPGs remaining in the Empire's Armory were all used here today.

With the detonation of the first thermobaric warhead, the city gate was instantly blasted to pieces. Flame and searing heat swept through everything behind the gate, scattering the hastily piled earth and stone in all directions. The Ming people and the few Manchu Overseers working behind the gate were all blown away in an instant.

The second RPG followed closely, flying into the gate tunnel. The violent wave of fire sent the dead on the ground flying and set them alight; the once-dark gate tunnel became blindingly bright as a great fire raged.

The last warhead, trailing white smoke, struck the street behind the wall, blossoming into a brilliant firework of death.

After personally firing the three RPGs, Qian Tieshan lowered the launch tube from his shoulder, gave it a light pat, and sighed: this launch tube would never see use again. As for a "domestically produced" RPG, considering the faces of those people in the Cabinet, he truly wasn't sure he'd live to see one.

After blasting open the gate, the attackers waited outside the city a while longer, because the wooden board fragments inside the gate tunnel were burning fiercely.

When the flames died down, the Flower-Clothes Soldiers, like demons, raised their guns and stepped into the gate tunnel, one step at a time.

At the same time, under the fire-direction of the drone overhead, Qian Tieshan and Du Dewei began a new round of rapid fire — grenade rounds.

After those defenders on the wall got headshot, no one dared look outside the city anymore. But that didn't stop them from turning around and aiming their bows at the Special Operations Team members about to exit the gate tunnel.

So Qian Tieshan fired grenade rounds from outside the city.

He and Du Dewei were seen steadying themselves on one knee, one hand propping up the grenade launcher, the other pulling the trigger. The next moment, the grenade rounds arced over and exploded on the wall, giving the Tartar Soldiers a ride on an earth plane.

Watching the pilots come crashing down overhead, the Special Operations Team members huddled in the gate tunnel remained unmoved and did not advance. Only after the continuous blasts above had blown the city wall into a complete mess did the walkie-talkie relay the order to "push forward."

By this point, they had to rely on the Special Operations Team — the Flying Tiger Battalion, lacking sufficient automatic firepower, would certainly suffer heavy casualties in brutal street fighting against cornered Tartars, so they could only enter the city as the second echelon.

This battle marked the first time since departing Tianjin that the Special Operations Team was at its fullest. A total of 52 team members, including Qian Tieshan and Du Dewei, maintained a two-column formation and threw themselves entirely into the fight.

And so, on the long street leading from the West Gate to the Drum Tower, the dense sounds of automatic rifles, grenade blasts, and sporadic pistol shots rang out.

Cavalry charging out from both sides of the long street were constantly gunned down by flame-spitting bullets. At this moment, the team members no longer held back on ammunition; seeing cavalry swarm toward them, they would toss a steel-ball grenade without a second word, then start sweeping fire.

Yet even under such dense firepower, the Bordered Blue Banner Tartar Soldiers, numbering seven to eight hundred in total, still charged out recklessly, utterly fearless... or perhaps "beasts fighting desperately in a cage" is more fitting, since they had no way out.

In the end, flesh and blood fell before the cold, indifferent gears of industry.

When the Flying Tiger Battalion charged in, forming neat battle arrays, the Special Operations Team ahead had already killed the majority of the Tartars in the city and fought their way to the base of the Drum Tower.

The dense crack of bullets rang out as the Later Jin nobility, including Amin, made their final stand, holding the narrow staircase of the Drum Tower.

So, a tear-gas canister was tossed up. Billowing white smoke instantly stuffed the Drum Tower, and Amin and the others could see nothing at all.