At the mention of "that thing", the senior officers who knew what Cai Yubin was referring to changed their expressions. A staff officer asked hesitantly: "The chief of the general staff said that the hot air balloon will not be released until the critical moment." It's still far from this critical moment......"

"It takes at least an hour or two to raise the hot air balloon, and if you don't prepare it now, I'm afraid it's too late when you really need to use it." Although Ju Junfeng, deputy chief of staff of the War Department, wanted to maintain his strict appearance, his expression of not closing his mouth at this time had completely exposed his excitement at this time.

In the center of the military formation, there were more than a dozen large cloth flags raised high, each of which was seven or eight feet wide and two or three zhang high, and more than a dozen of these large cloth flags were next to each other, and a hot air balloon was surrounded on all sides. At this time, the hot air balloon has not fully risen, and on the shelf made of four bamboos more than three feet high, a rather strong hemp rope hangs the top of the hot air balloon.

The basket below is made of bamboo branches as lightly as possible, and at the entrance of the airbag above the basket, several copper pipes attached to a manual blower are connected to the hot air inside. Delicate charcoal was burning in several furnaces, and the pure heat was constantly channeled into the balloon's air bags by the blower.

Wei Ze started to build hot air balloons before he went to the north, and when he came back, the military industry department had already put this thing in order. Since Wei Ze's subordinates are basically southerners, they have seen a lot of water, and they have a natural advantage in their understanding of buoyancy. Draining the real yàn is also very easy to do. Wei Ze even used a terracotta pipe to drain a very small amount of water. This gave them a thorough understanding of what it means to be "buoyant equal to the mass of the liquid discharged by the object".

With this foundation, Wei Ze only needed to make a few Kong Ming lanterns to these people, and the military industry department had a feeling of sudden enlightenment. These people are all selected to be more "nerd" and "feel" about modern physics and chemistry. In the face of such an intuitive thing, everyone immediately admitted two things, first, the law of buoyancy is right. Second, air has its own mass and weight.

When the military industry department positioned the hot air balloon as "a Kong Ming lantern that can be raised and lowered repeatedly", the research was completely put on track. The silk is brushed with oil to insulate heat, prevent scorching and prevent air leakage, and the material is carefully sewn and then equipped with a hanging basket to use. Wei Ze thought that this thing should belong to the tall thing, but in China, the homeland of silk and tung oil, the problem was easily solved. The prototype was successful at one time.

When the troops saw the hot air balloon with their own eyes, everyone was dumbfounded. Since then, the outstanding personnel in the training have been rewarded with the ability to take a hot air balloon ride into the sky.

Chinese culture has been tempered for thousands of years, so the materialism in the core of culture is deeply rooted. Weezer asked the best men in the army to come and ride, and the gang soon volunteered as volunteer propagandists to spread the concept of human-operated hot air balloons throughout the army. This made Wei Ze's propaganda slogan of "learn science, use science" to be echoed by more fighters.

At this stage, Weeser does not have the ability to produce high-pressure gas storage equipment, electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen, or the use of chlor-alkali industrial methods, although there is no theoretical difficulty, but there is still a difficulty in collecting gas. Weeser couldn't make the materials for processing airships.

In modern hot air balloons, the source of hot gas is combustible gas contained in a high-pressure gas tank. Weeser can't solve it, which dooms Weese's hot air balloon to be clumsy and inefficient. Clumsy and inefficient hot air balloons themselves are not of much military use. The artillery observation post is set up on a hot air balloon, and the observation position is greatly raised, and the field of view and perspective can achieve better results. So Weeser temporarily "mass-produced" this thing.

Each brigade was temporarily equipped with one of these things, and Weeser did this to get the logistics department used to it, but he didn't really think it would be of much use in actual combat. Because the Qing army was not able to fight Wei Ze's troops for a long time, I was afraid that many times the hot air balloon had not yet been raised, and the battle was over.

But for Cai Yubin, Ju Junfeng, and the Fourteenth Army, they are extremely interested in this. Wei Ze's army had a "war history research" department, and the battles of Wei Ze's troops had to be recorded in it. If you can use a hot air balloon for the first time on the battlefield, you will definitely be able to write it down. So as soon as Cai Yubin did it, no matter what the others said, they had already decided to use a hot air balloon in their hearts.

The attitude of the senior commanders is unanimous, and the fighters are enthusiastic. The 14th Army, which faced the Jiangnan Admiral and Chun, quickly took action.

Admiral Hechun, who was on the other side, of course didn't know that he was about to see something that he would never forget, and he was experiencing his unforgettable scene at this time. The artillery of both sides engaged in artillery battles with each other, and he knew about such things, at least he could have imagined them completely. More than a year ago in Changsha, the artillery of the Qing army defending the city and the artillery of the Taiping army who occupied Miaofeng had an artillery battle.

But that kind of artillery battle was completely different from the one he experienced at this time. In the artillery battle outside Changsha, the artillery of the Taiping army and the artillery of the Qing army could basically see each other, and the frequency of artillery bombardment on both sides was not high. Under the shelling in front of Admiral Hechun's eyes, the Qing army could not see the artillery in the hollow phalanx of the Taiping army at all, and the shells flew directly towards the artillery of the Qing army over the human wall of the Taiping army. The Qing army has not been able to fire a single cannon, and the Taiping army on the opposite side has already fired at least 20 cannons. Moreover, the artillery of the Taiping army became more and more accurate, and the artillery battle between Changsha City and Miaofeng Peak, after dozens or hundreds of shells on both sides, the shells occasionally hit each other's batteries. Or the ground under the battery was damaged, and the cannon could not fire normally.

And the artillery of the Shu Yue bandits, as in the literal sense of the word, directly destroyed the cannons of Hechun with shells. For the first time, Kazuharu knew what the sound of a solid cannonball on an iron cannon was, a sharp and fierce sound he had never heard before. The location of the sonorous and powerful voice was far away from Hechun, but the sharp sound stimulated Kazuchun's eardrums, making him feel his teeth and legs weak, as if his whole person had turned into steel and collided with other steel.

Looking at the Qing artillery that was hit, the cannon body was broken in two at the location where the cannonball shot by the Shu Yue bandits, and He Chun never thought that such a thick artillery would be broken in two.

In the subsequent artillery battle, although the artillery of the Qing army did not continue to be directly hit by the artillery of the Cantonese bandits, the gunners next to the artillery and the position where the gunpowder and lead were placed were constantly hit, and each time the artillery was hit, the Qing artillerymen who had not yet been hit lost some of their will to fight. At first, the Qing artillerymen could still tremble with their hands and feet and try to fire back, but ten minutes later, He Chun saw with his own eyes that as long as Shu Yue bandits fired a cannon, all the artillery of the Qing army unconsciously hid. The Shu Yue bandits kept firing artillery, and the Qing army was beaten and did not fight back.

If the artillery battle continued in this way, it was clear that it was towards destruction, and He Chun hurriedly ordered the troops to drag the artillery back to the Qing army's position.

When the Qing artillerymen saw that someone had come to replace them, they immediately hid in the ranks of the Qing army helping to drag the artillery, as if this would reduce the chance of being recognized by the shells, and thus reduce the possibility of death. In the process of dragging the artillery, the artillerymen of the Cantonese bandits continued to shoot mercilessly, and the number of Qing troops who were shot increased.

In such a situation where they could not fight back, the Qing army, who had a mental breakdown, shouted, suddenly threw down their cannons and fled back into the array. He Chun's mental pressure was already extremely great, and seeing such a situation, he shouted angrily, "Arrest the escapee and cut it down!" ”

More than a dozen Qing soldiers who turned pale with fear were dragged out of the array, and Hechun's personal soldiers rushed up and pressed them to the ground, swinging down with a single sword, and more than a dozen human heads rolled to the ground with a grunt. The headless corpse lay limply on the ground, blood gushing out of the empty neck.

"There is no forgiveness for those who escape!" He Chun shouted.

And Hechun's personal soldiers and officers also shouted, "Those who escape from the battle will not be spared!" "Those who escape from the battle will not be spared!"

Such thunderous means finally worked, and the Qing army, which was about to collapse, finally restored order. He Chun did not choose to continue to be beaten here stupidly, he ordered the Qing army to retreat as a whole, and at the same time ordered the Qing army to send people to continue to drag the artillery back, after half an hour of tossing, the Qing army withdrew to a position two miles away from the Shuyue bandits. No matter how you look at it, the number of Qing troops is higher than that of the Shu Yue bandits, but in the face of the inferior number of Shu Yue bandits, the Qing army, which has a large number of advantages, can only choose to take a defensive position.

"Lord Admiral, do we have to wait for the general army of Yindebu to attack the Cantonese bandits from the side?" Some of the more astute officers asked. After saying this, the other officers all looked at Kazuharu with a look of approval on their faces.

This artillery battle left too deep an impression on them, and the combat effectiveness displayed by the artillery of the Shu Yue bandits made the Qing army dare not think about it. The accurate shooting, the frequency of intensive artillery bombardment, and all the qiē made the Qing army feel that the Shu Yue bandits had used some demon techniques to have such an effect.

The commander of the artillery was a guerrilla, and he was lucky not to be injured in the artillery battle. With a frightened expression, the guerrilla commanding the artillery stepped forward to salute He Chun, "Lord Admiral, I might as well put red on the cannon and toast it now." Exorcise evil spirits! ”

As soon as this Jian yì came out, not only did the other officers have an expression of approval, but even He Chun also nodded again and again. Kazuharu didn't just pretend to do this. In the eyes of the Qing army, artillery was a business that relied on luck to eat. Therefore, before the start of the war, each cannon must be draped in red and hung with colors, toasted, incense, and offerings.

He Chun believed that the failure of the artillery battle this time should be caused by factors other than non-human beings. He was ordering the guerrilla command of the artillery to "drive away evil spirits", but there were people who jumped into the big tent like Chun's personal soldiers and rabbits. This is the pro-soldier who just participated in the beheading of the deserter, so he is also brave, at this time he was so frightened that his voice became sharp, and after kneeling down in the face of Hechun, the pro-soldier arm pointed straight out, and screamed: "Admiral, you go outside and have a look!" ”

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