The stubborn and successful nationalist defense of the town of Heshui was completed unexpected by the enemy, who was hoping for an easy victory, and Wang Zhen, the commander of the communist 2nd Column, had to go to the front line to direct the combat himself. By the evening, the battle mainly continued at the southern sections of the city wall and enemy artillery heavily shelled the nationalist positions in the night. By midnight, the attacking enemy had blown away all of the obstacles outside, but failed to blow up the gate and a section of city wall as they had hoped, and the charging enemy force discovered that there were no gaps they could utilize after reaching the city wall. Taking the advantage, the defenders mobilized everyone including cooks and medics to launch an all-out counterattack, again inflicting heavy casualties on the trapped enemy at the foot of the city wall, especially the 718th Regiment of the 359th Brigade and the 12th Regiment of the Independent 4th Brigade of the communist 2nd Column. After more than two hours of fierce fighting, the defenders had successfully beaten back the enemy once again. The defenders suffered heavily in the counterattack, with the commander of the nationalist Gansu 2nd Security Regiment, Li Hongxuan (), badly wounded in the battle. The attackers would later learn after the campaign that the same extension of the urban defense that prevented them from taking the town had also prevented Li Zicheng from doing so three hundred years before for three times, and it was only after the extension was neutralized, that Li Zicheng and his peasantry army were able to finally succeed in taking the town of Heshui.