On the next day all the besieged expected that the assault would take place. Indeed throngs of the rebel infantry, the mob, and other wild warriors marched with Yifan towards the camp from the early morning, and approached the trenches like dark clouds moving on the peak of a mountain. The soldiers were astonished by the sight of the sea of heads. This was not yet a real storm, but an examination of the field, ramparts, and the camp. They struck in one place and another, withdrew, then struck again, testing the resistance, trying to convince themselves that the sight of the masses arrayed against their foe would break their spirits before their bodies. 

They fired cannon as well, and the balls fell thickly about the camp. Many fell low at the base of the ramparts, showering those inside with earth; others roared overhead and struck the thick walls of the city. This was answered by six-pounders and small arms from the camp.

Bang Chan looked to the field, and unable to restrain himself muttered, “They should go back to rearing chickens and keep away from cannon!” For in truth most northerners were bad gunners, and being drawn from the populace of the north of Nanwian the rebellion was in dire need of good artillerymen to crew their guns; Bang Chan could not look calmly on such clumsiness and waste of powder. 

It was evident that Yifan felt sure that his assault would be successful, such that he ordered only few trenches to be made to emplace his cannon, and did not undertake other earthworks to threaten the camp. Trumpets, kettle-drums, and drums roared like thunder from the rebel camp. At that moment thirty cannons bellowed with one voice, and the countless legions rushed with a terrible cry to the ramparts. It felt to the besieged that the ground under them was trembling; the oldest remembered nothing like this. Jinki waved his baton and pointed in the direction of the enemy; fifty guns roared in response to the rebel cannon, wrecking havoc in the deep and dense ranks of those marching towards the rampart. 

Before the rebels half- herdsmen drove forward crowds of oxen and livestock with clubs and burning brands. The animals, driven mad from fear, bellowed and charged forward blindly. Some scattered or rushed towards the rear; they were lashed with whips and burned with fire, and they went forward again to the ramparts. Bullets tore through them, but not sufficiently enough to stop the wave of desperate animals, which fell into the ditch in droves and filled it with terrified screaming and trampling. Quickly afterwards the unarmed mob came with sandbags and thick bales of wood and hay. Braving the unceasing fire from the ramparts they hurled their burdens into the ditch to bury the animals alive as well as to fill up the ditch even more, paving the way for the armed warriors behind to scale the rampart. 

Despite the best efforts of the defenders, the ditch was soon filled with bags and bloodied bodies; at last it was evened to a level that could be walked over, and the enemy rushed over with a great shout. The choicest men went to the quarters and troops of Jinki, for they knew that there was weaker resistance to be found there. The companies of Ohjinam therefore came up; then after them the formidable men of Chamsang, the regiments of Hambang, Kilchae, Chosan, Sonam-kol, Toyang; also the men of Jeongseon went, and afterwards the double-regiment of Igen — in all twelve thousand men. They followed one another so closely that the hot breaths of those behind were felt on those in front. And with them Yifan went himself, in the red fire, exposing his to bullets, with the face of a wolf and the eye of a hawk, in chaos, smoke, confusion, and tempest, observing everything, ordering everything. 

The enemy began to clamber on the ramparts. It appeared for a time to Jinki as if the scene at Yizhang Plain was repeating itself, but this time powder was not forthcoming for the pig-iron guns that had been hastily cast just days before, and he was not working with a barbarian horde, but his own countrymen, driven wild by their newfound liberty and all of its ensuing abuses. Bombs rained on the attackers as they scaled the rampart with their bare hands or with ladders placed atop the corpses in the ditch, making bright day in the darkness. Bang Chan’s musketeers, the pistoliers, and Jinki’s arquebusiers poured fire and lead into the faces and s of the rebels. Soon the fighting reached the top of the rampart, where the soldiers of the Crown and the infantry under Bang Chan pushed against the onslaught, finding little space to swing swords, struggling with fists and teeth, discharging guns at point-blank range. The sound of gunfire was soon drowned out by the terrible roar of the battle, in which no commands could be issued and all order was consumed in the broiling of blood and fury. 

They struggled for hours without quarter. The men of Jeongseon were slaughtered almost to the last man; the Chamsang warriors lay side by side around the wings of the rampart; the regiments of Hambang, Chosan, and Sonam-kol were decimated. Yet the assailants pressed on, pushed from behind by the regiments of the former royal colonel Jo Jinho, the men under Heechul, and the guards of Yifan. But disorder rose in the ranks of the rebels when the royal infantry, dismounted pistoliers, and Bang Chan’s musketeers drew back not a step. Panting, dripping in blood and perhaps maddened by the smell of it, they tore over one another at the enemy, like a pack of raging wolves over a flock of sheep. At that juncture Yifan pressed on the remnants of his first regiments and the rest of his force. Rushing forth with arquebuses, Hoseok’s regiment killed a fair few of the Crown infantry before scaling their ladders frantically, only to be met by gunfire from Stepan’s Kosaks, who now joined the fray and prevented the rampart from being summitted. But the impetus of the rebel assault was formidable too, and as evening fell and darkness engulfed the combatants, the churning of bodies along t