Hantan County has now become a huge construction site, both sides are building a lot of construction, and the people on the newly built city wall in Hantan County are desperately working overtime to strengthen the city wall one last time. In order to accommodate 50,000 horses, Liangshan had to build a camp large enough, and in order to get enough wood, they had to run far away to get suitable wood, after all, Hantan County would not let these trees fall into the hands of the enemy, and they would have been cut down long ago.

"The situation is not good, the army dispatched by Liangshan is stronger than we expected." Yan Xu stood on the city wall that was raised to two zhang, observed the army of Liangshan, and said to Yan Yi.

"Yes, my lord, the soldiers on the other side are all elite soldiers at the very least, and the proportion of elites is not small, it seems that Liangshan is not in vain." Yan Yi stroked his long beard, although he was cautious, but more of a look in his eyes that was about to face a challenge, obviously he was quite confident in the strength of Hantan County.

The level of a soldier is not everything, those who have received simple training can be called recruits, those who have been systematically trained are elite soldiers, those who have gained enough combat experience on this basis are elite, and then they are elites and warriors of a hundred battles.

The elite is one out of a hundred, and the people who have survived a hundred battles can assume the name of a hundred battles, and the combat effectiveness has exceeded the limit of the level, even the generals can not ignore the soldiers of a hundred battles, and the ancient and modern armies that can be passed down through the ages are all composed of elites and warriors of a hundred battles, which can be seen in its power, and it can also be seen that Liangshan is bound to win this battle.

"If you give me a year, the soldiers and horses of Liangshan are not enough, but unfortunately the time will not wait for me." Yan Xu shook his head and sighed, his training method is very clever, but unfortunately the time is too short, but more than three months, at most he can improve his strength.

"Lord, look, the other party really chose to shell the city gate." Yan Yi stretched out his hand.

"As expected, fortunately, I was prepared." Yan Xu looked up and saw that the Liangshan soldiers were accumulating soil in front of the battle and were pushing the artillery up, and the flashes of swords and guns in the enemy camp were faintly visible, obviously not completely defenseless.

If it comes to siege, Liangshan's thunderous Lei Lingzhen is a figure that has to be mentioned, he is known as the world's first gunner, and the artillery he makes can hit fourteen or fifteen miles away. Of course, there must be exaggerations in this, fourteen or fifteen miles is equivalent to seven or eight thousand meters, and according to ancient artillery technology, the artillery with the largest caliber does not have this range.

At present, Liangshan is using a mountain cannon, a bronze cast cannon body, a bit far, but the size should be in the three-pound to six-pounder cannon, the power is not great without the use of flowering shells, and it is not as good as the catapult, but it is enough to break the city gate, provided that the gate is not blocked, otherwise it will be hit by solid cannonballs until the year of the monkey.

In order to prevent the other party from going out of the city to attack the artillery, Liang Shan launched more than 20 catapults, but Ling Zhen built a wind cannon, firing special flame canisters, scurrying all over the ground, the threat to the infantry is not small, the threat to the cavalry is even greater, and the war horse is all in chaos as soon as it is frightened.

If it was just a simple mountain artillery, Yan Xu would be able to get rid of this threat as long as he sent some cavalry, but with the wind artillery with a good range and rate of fire as a block, he might not be able to rush over, not to mention that there were still elite soldiers in the enemy camp in ambush, so he could only let the other party bombard.

The whistling solid iron bullets smashed the heavy city gate into potholes, which was really good for the hit rate of the old-fashioned artillery pit father, and it seemed that Ling Zhen's ability was really not blown.

It's a pity that Ling Zhen is not the only one in the world who can make artillery, although his skills are exquisite enough, but making cannons is not a matter of one person, Yan Xu holds Tong Guan's favor in his hand, and it is not easy to transfer some people from the Gunpowder Bureau to work, anyway, the identity of these craftsmen in the Great Song Dynasty is only higher than that of the military man, and it is not worth mentioning to the upper class people at all.

Gunpowder in this era is not powerful enough, and although it can be improved, it is not something that can be completed in a while, but there are some trialists who can, and it is obviously more efficient to let them help make new gunpowder.

As for making artillery, the mountain cannon that is not valued is the right way, but the Great Song Dynasty copper is expensive, a bronze cannon is less than 1,200 catties and thousands of catties, even if the Great Song family has a big business, they can't afford to play with the artillery troops, at least they can't do it without mastering the casting of iron cannons.

Special artillery such as wind cannons are much more economical, mainly variants of fireworks and wooden equipment, which only cost some worthless manpower, so they are very popular.

Yan Xu didn't plan to take this kind of detour, now that he had the golden fire power, although it was a little difficult to cast a cannon alone, he could find someone to help.

Yan Xu asked people to find many craftsmen who could cast bells, so that they could melt the fine iron, and control the heat and shape by themselves, so that bubbles and cracks would not be easily produced, which greatly reduced the rejection rate, and the success rate was as high as more than ninety percent, and the cost was naturally less.

If it weren't for the fact that he consumed too much iron, he would have been able to cast more artillery pieces and directly flood Liangshan with cannonballs. It's a pity that arming a box soldier is only half a catty of iron, and an elite soldier only consumes two or three catties of iron, even if Tong Guan supports and mobilizes a batch of reserved iron ingots, it is already the limit. At least it's impossible to get more iron ingots anytime soon, after all, this thing is also a kind of currency to some extent, and it's okay to use it for money.

Moreover, there was no iron-making plant in the Great Song Dynasty, most of them were output like workshops, iron ingots, cowhides, cow tendons, etc. were all strategic materials, and they were also part of the local taxes, resulting in very fragmented sources, and only the capital had a large number of reserves. But without the emperor to speak, it is difficult to mobilize in large numbers, after all, 10,000 catties of fine iron is enough to arm thousands of people, this is not a small number, even if Tong Guan is deeply trusted by the emperor, it is difficult to convince the emperor if he does not have enough achievements, after all, even Tong Guan is suspicious of this new weapon that costs a lot of money.

Even so, eight eight-pounder cannons and a newly built stone thrower were enough to cope with the scene in front of them, and they were the defenders of the city.

In order to give full play to the power of artillery, Yan Xu asked people to build eight forts in the name of arrow towers, and test the artillery in the name of night exercises, and divide the attack points.

Eight batteries fired at the same time, and although the eight guns did not hit the cannons, they also scattered the two larger wind guns, killing and wounding many gunners.

"It seems that the news is correct, Hantan County has indeed cast large artillery." Ling Zhen touched his beard, even if he had never cast this kind of artillery, he could still get more accurate data with his previous experience, but knowing that Ling Zhen didn't think he would lose, he also had his own pride.

"Lin has heard the name of Brother Ling for a long time in the capital, and Brother Ling is the first in the world in this regard, it depends on when you open the city gate for us." Lin Chong, who had a leopard's head ringed and eyes and a flower in his ear, said to Ling Zhen.

"I won't teach Sect Leader Lin to be disappointed, look at Ling's ability!" Ling Zhen rolled up his sleeves, revealing his scarred arms, and said confidently, this is about the dignity of one of Liangshan's two trump cards.

Even if Yan Xu had the golden supernatural powers, he had no way to affect the hit rate of the artillery, so he could only watch the other party hurriedly pull the mountain artillery wind artillery back to the camp under the slow artillery fire, leaving only a few scattered wind artillery and unlucky ghosts in place.

The wind and artillery mounts made of wood are not worth anything at all, and the same is true for human life, so it can be said that the other party did not suffer any major damage at all, but picked up a lot of iron bullets.

On the second day, the Liangshan battalion launched hundreds of gun carriages, which were two-wheeled, with a wooden box on them, and a pine cannon with iron rings on it, and gunpowder on one side and stone bullets on both sides, and in terms of value, an eight-pounder cannon was enough to build dozens of gun carriages.

Two cart pullers, two cart pushers, and a gunner with a command flag behind his back, the speed was quite slow.

After the artillery carriage was halfway gone, the brigade of soldiers and horses left the camp, carrying a large number of long ladders and began to attack the city, according to the speed of both sides, they would complete the convergence beyond the range of the defenders, and it was obvious that the commander of the opposing general was not low.

However, Yan Xu and Yan Yi saw at a glance that these soldiers and horses were only stronger than the box soldiers, and they were probably cannon fodder used to cover the artillery trucks.

Although the gun carriage carried a pine cannon and carried a lot of ammunition, it was not slow to run under the gunner's pull forward and push, and came to the city first.

As soon as the specially designed gun carriage stopped, several gunners immediately erected the bracket under the car to stabilize the gun carriage, and the gun commander held the fire fold in his hand and fired immediately after adjusting the angle.

A cannon rang out! A stone bullet shattered a corner of the female wall, startling the soldiers defending the city!

This kind of artillery is rudimentary like firing stones with a wooden barrel, the range is only about 100 meters, and the stone bullets fired are only the size of fists, but I have to say that this rudimentary thing is indeed very effective, and the huge number and huge sound have a great impact on morale.

The distance of the gun carriage exceeded the range of the forbidden army shooters who were projected inside the city wall, and Yan Yi immediately ordered the shooters to climb the city wall to suppress them, and at the same time ordered the gun emplacement and the stone thrower to fire at the same time to suppress the opponent.

The angle was taken into account in the construction of the fort, and with the auxiliary facilities, the opponent's gun carriages did not exceed the angle of effective fire, and the catapults with a close range were also pushed to the foot of the city wall for projection.

The battery took out three gun carriages, and more than a dozen unlucky guys, and that's all the results, obviously not very good, not as good as the catapults.

Yan Xu didn't expect that the other party would come up with such a cheap weapon, in fact, both the eight-pounder cannon and the turret were prepared to suppress the opponent's sharp weapons, and the number of such weapons would definitely not be large, but who would have thought that he would encounter this kind of wooden artillery.

"Catapult launch!"

The density of stone bullets in fifty catapults was still good, covering at least a third of the gun carriages, but in order to increase the hit rate, one or two pounds of gravel were used, which was not bad for personnel, but not so good for wooden gun carriages.

Obviously, it is not difficult to train such gunners, and the other side quickly sent substitute gunners, and the two sides launched a fierce bombardment!