Since the General's orders had reached Cornwallis, it was unthinkable for him not to at least try.
So, seeing the dense obstacles, Cornwallis could only discuss with the warship commander how to clear them.
Of course, the men Charles stationed at the river mouth for vigilance couldn't just watch them clear the obstacles.
So, whenever British army ships were dispatched, the defenders would use small boats to carry fire barrels filled with gunpowder.
These sealed wooden barrels, full of gunpowder, didn't necessarily explode when they hit warships, but out of ten, one or two would explode due to a violent impact.
Therefore, upon seeing these gunpowder barrels, the British army could only choose to retreat and evade.
With this back-and-forth, the cautious British army didn't suffer significant losses, but the speed of clearing obstacles was slowed down immeasurably.
Cornwallis was furious, feeling that General Howe was simply making him a street sweeper.
He simply handed over the task of clearing the river mouth to the warship commander and led several thousand British army soldiers to land directly in a small town near the river mouth.
Then, he didn't immediately launch an operation but instead rested in the town, preparing to wait for news that General Howe was about to attack Philadelphia, and then he would outflank Philadelphia from the land route, capture the fleeing Continental army leaders, and seize General Howe's credit.
The British army's excavation at the Philadelphia fortress entrance, however, was officially announced a few days later to have approached the fortress along the entire line.
General Howe didn't wait for news from Cornwallis' side and immediately ordered the artillery to advance with full force and bombard the fortress, returning all the frustration suffered during the trench digging.
At this point, the fortress side was in a bad situation.
These fortresses were, after all, made of wood and stone, unable to withstand the bombardment of siege cannons.
Even if the fortress' own main cannons suppressed them with more intense firepower, only a portion of the British army siege cannon shells actually hit.
But even with just a few shells hitting each day, the damage to the overall structure was very severe.
Commanders on both sides realized that this fortress wouldn't last much longer.
The militia in the fortress didn't give up immediately; they often repaired a portion of the fortifications overnight after a section was bombed down during the day.
But even so, the fortress became more dilapidated day by day.
Five days later, General Howe personally observed through a telescope and felt that the fortress had been sufficiently battered; it would surely collapse in at most two or three days.
However, he no longer wanted to wait; the shelling was not one-sided.
He no longer wanted his valuable artillery to suffer losses.
Under the counterattack of the fortress' main cannons, the British army side was also not having an easy time.
Each fortress was now fully equipped with three main cannons, making nine cannons for the three fortresses.
When firing at full speed, the main cannon barrels could be rotated, allowing the artillery's attack frequency to be the same as eighteen cannons.
General Howe had only brought twenty siege cannons, and under the counterattack of the main cannons, five had been completely destroyed.
Another four needed their gun carriages replaced before they could fire.
Of course, the British army's gunners were much stronger than the Continental army's, even with the cover of the fortress.
The main target of the attack was also the fortress, but even the initial few suppression attacks had resulted in the Continental army losing four cannons.
"Lieutenant Colonel Saint-Neje, go and arrange for the soldiers to prepare; today, we will bombard with maximum firepower, and after that, the infantry will prepare to launch a probing attack!" General Howe ordered his subordinate.
Compared to artillery, which requires specialized knowledge, infantry almost only needs courage.
The greatest losses during these days of artillery warfare, besides the cannons, were the artillerymen.
The loss of dozens of the most excellent artillerymen pained General Howe more than losing dozens of large cannons.
Since the fortress was already tottering, General Howe intended to trade infantry losses for artillery losses.
There were not many reinforcements coming to Philadelphia now, but weapons from Pittsburgh were constantly arriving, so General Howe felt it was better to resolve Philadelphia as quickly as possible.
In his view, with the British army's powerful combat strength, even without the help of Benedict's and Cornwallis' two armies, his nearly ten thousand British army soldiers alone were sufficient to deal with the more than ten thousand rebels inside Philadelphia.
"Yes, General!" Lieutenant Colonel Saint-Neje saluted and went to prepare.
The most passionate close-quarters combat was about to begin.
Just as General Howe was observing the position with his telescope, the Continental army in Philadelphia was also observing the state of the fortress and the British army.
"Alas!" Charles sighed.
Relatively speaking, they could see the condition of the defenders in the fortress more clearly; just by looking through a telescope, they could see a multitude of wounded.
Fallen cannons, collapsed sections of the fortress buildings—the entire state of the fortress looked more miserable than ever.
The number of cannons and soldiers lost on both sides seemed similar, but in reality, the Continental army's losses were significantly greater.
Yet, those wounded in the fortress, despite Charles' repeated orders, firmly refused to retreat.
These were all people who had stayed behind after the first wave of militia retreated; they were all determined to fight to the death with the British army.
Now they were all steadfastly hiding under several sturdy bunkers, preparing to come out and fight the British army to the death when the shelling ended and the British army infantry launched their formal attack, vowing to live and die with the fortress.
"Councilor Godfrey! Is it not time for us to execute that plan? Benedict's and Cornwallis' armies might soon rendezvous with General Howe, and once they gather, it will be even more impossible for us to repel the British army." Sullivan cautiously suggested to Charles.
Although Charles hadn't shown much in terms of tactics these days, he constantly produced strange and wondrous items, greatly astonishing General Sullivan.
Sullivan was now quite convinced by this commander who always had unusual methods.
"No, wait a little longer. If we use the plan immediately now, I'm afraid the British army led by General Howe might sense something unusual.
And look at those brave warriors in the fortress; are they willing to retreat without firing a single shot?" Charles shook his head.
Just as the two were discussing, a fierce bombardment erupted from the position.
This bombardment was more intense than any before; Charles and General Sullivan even felt that the British army was preparing to fire all their shells within a few minutes.
Previously, the artillery in the fortress had always suppressed the British army artillery, but this time, the British army's outburst left the Continental army completely unable to fight back, and a large number of Continental army soldiers in the fortress bunkers were killed by this wave of shelling.
Everyone sensed something unusual from this bombardment.
Sullivan immediately sent someone to the team, ready to go to the fortress for support at any time.
—
This bombardment was fierce but brief, ending in just a few tens of minutes.
Just as the Continental army in the fortress was still dazed from the shelling, the sound of drums for assembly and advance rang out from the British army position.
After several days of shelling, the British had finally decided to use infantry for a decisive battle.
The Continental army in the fortress almost immediately knew the British army was attacking as soon as they heard the drums.
In fact, this was also a British army habit at the time.
Commanders generally preferred to defeat the enemy head-on and rarely used tactics like sneak attacks from behind unless absolutely necessary.
Now, as soon as the drums sounded, the people in the fortress had already prepared their weapons.
Although this was a probing attack by the British army, they still deployed a thousand men, who advanced along the trenches to the front of the fortress.
Then, under the commander's orders, they fired densely into the fortress.
Several tall grenadiers also continuously threw giant bombs weighing several pounds into the fortress.
Although the garrison in the fortress was small in number, they bravely launched a counterattack.
For a time, both the fortress and the trenches were stained red with the blood of warriors from both sides.
However, the battle between the fortress and the trenches was vastly different from an open field battle.
The battle lasted for half a day and still had no clear victor.
It was just that the fortress became even more precarious under the bomb attacks of the British army grenadiers.
Charles and Sullivan, observing from the rear, saw that the time was ripe and finally decided to dispatch reserves.
When a thousand Continental army soldiers, urgently arriving from Philadelphia, suddenly joined the battle, the British army in the trenches immediately couldn't bear it.
Under the powerful firepower of the reinforcing troops, they abandoned nearly a hundred corpses and began to retreat along the trenches.
General Howe hadn't expected a large force to emerge from Philadelphia.
By the time he realized this was a good opportunity to crush the reinforcing troops and wanted to mobilize the entire army to press forward, the British army attacking in front of the fortress had already retreated, and the Philadelphia reinforcing troops had successfully entered the fortress.
Without that thousand British army soldiers suppressing the fortress, and with the Continental army already inside, General Howe naturally didn't want to send out more troops.
Seeing that it was already getting dark, he regretfully announced a temporary ceasefire for the day, vowing to send several thousand more soldiers tomorrow to completely resolve this fortress.
The sky was dark, and inside the fortress, apart from the occasional flickering torchlight, the situation was largely unclear.
The British army didn't perceive anything unusual about the fortress that night; they only felt that the Continental army's enthusiasm for repairing the castle was not as high as in previous days.
They concluded that the Continental army believed the fortress was beyond repair and had already given up on restoration work.
They all eagerly prepared for a major push the next day.
When the sun once again illuminated the earth, the assembly bugle call sounded in the British army camp.
Aside from the two thousand British army soldiers preparing for battle, most of the other troops were also fully armed and ready.
Learning from yesterday's lesson, General Howe was prepared to immediately dispatch the rear army to intercept if he saw any reinforcements emerge from Philadelphia again.
In his mind, resolving as many rebels as possible was far more important than taking down a fortress.
General Howe even decided that if the city of Philadelphia was willing to continuously send troops to rescue this fortress, he wouldn't even mind delaying its capture for a while, as long as he could destroy those reinforcing troops.
The drums sounded again, and the British army rushed forward quickly along the trenches.
Although several sections of the trenches had collapsed in yesterday's battle, under the order to charge, these soldiers had to charge even if it meant exposing their bodies to enemy gunfire.
Fortunately, not a single bullet fell upon the exposed British army soldiers today.
It wasn't until the British army had arrived and deployed in front of the trenches that, under an order to "aim," most of the British army realized there was no target to aim at in the fortress, and only then did they sense something unusual.
Commander Lieutenant Colonel Saint-Neje lay on the edge of the trench, looking at the fortress, unable to utter the command to "fire."
"What's going on?" General Howe and the commanders around him all noticed the anomaly in front of the position.
Soon, a messenger from Lieutenant Colonel Saint-Neje's command quickly came before General Howe to report the unusual situation in the fortress to them.
"Your Excellency, General! The Lieutenant Colonel has captured the rebel fortress; there are no enemies in the fortress, not a single one.
They have all retreated to a more rudimentary fortification further back.
The Lieutenant Colonel requests your instructions; should we continue the attack?"
"No enemies? You mean the rebels have all fled?"
"Yes, General! The rebels must have retreated last night; the fortress is now empty."
General Howe and the people around him exchanged glances; these senior commanders didn't know why the American militia had fled without a fight.
However, the established goal was to capture the fortress, and although it was a pity not to eliminate more enemies, since the fortress had already been captured, it was still worth celebrating.
"Hahaha! In front of the valiant soldiers of Great Britain, these American farmers ran away without firing a single shot or cannon!"
"God Save Great Britain!"
Several commanders laughed and cheered.
Learning from Washington's several sudden departures and subsequent attacks from another direction, General Howe smiled and waved to the messenger, ordering:
"Tell Lieutenant Colonel Saint-Neje to rest in the fortress for now.
Do not attack the fortifications below yet.
I will make a decision after I go and see."
"Yes, Your Excellency, General!"
The messenger saluted, turned, and prepared to leave.
General Howe also smiled and invited several generals to accompany him, leading the army into the fortress.
Just as they all started to move, a tremendous "boom" echoed through the sky.
The fortress, just occupied by Lieutenant Colonel Saint-Neje, was already enveloped in a thick cloud of explosive smoke.
Flying stones and wood fragments blew many British army soldiers who had just emerged from the trenches into pieces.
"Whoa..." Even battle-hardened warhorses couldn't endure such a massive sound, neighing and running wildly, causing General Howe and the other commanders on horseback to frantically tighten their control over their mounts.
The British army, from commanders to ordinary soldiers, was in chaos.