In the artillery battles between the two sides in the past few days, in fact, each other's artillery suffered a lot of casualties, because the artillery of both sides basically bombarded each other more than 400 meters apart!

However, the casualties of the gunners of the Ming army were far greater than those of the gunners of the Tang Army, and the most important factor was that the Tang Army was equipped with howitzers on a large scale!

Because the front of the artillery on both sides is protected by sandbags made of sand and gravel, the Ming army didn't play like this before, but after fighting with the Tang army for so many years, they also learned a lot, and they also knew how to build sandbags in front of the artillery for defense.

Therefore, the lethality of solid bullets to the artillery position has dropped a lot, even if it is a direct hit, it is also hit on the sandbag, and the damage to the personnel is limited, if there is no direct hit, if it falls on the side, then there is basically no threat, only the ricochet, or directly fall in the artillery position, so that it will cause a certain amount of damage.

But grenades are different, they explode!

Moreover, the shell and arquebus fuse of this year are not good, and it often occurs in the embarrassing matter of exploding in advance before landing or exploding after a period of time after landing.

This kind of embarrassment has caused unexpected results in actual combat, that is, those grenades that explode in advance, when they explode directly over the city, the lethality is much stronger than the explosion after landing, often a shell explodes over the enemy's crowd, and its shrapnel can kill and injure several people is more than 10 people, and if the personnel are dense, it is possible to directly reimburse dozens of enemy people.

After all, the heavy howitzer of the Tang Dynasty is a 48-pound grenade with a large charge, and the explosion will not only produce a large number of shell fragments, but also a loaded solid lead bullet flying around.

If a 48-pound grenade explodes just right over an enemy's infantry phalanx, the killing range is enough to cover a radius of tens of meters, and it is possible to directly reimburse this infantry phalanx.

Of course, this kind of artillery shell still can't be called an air-burst howitzer, because its explosion time cannot be controlled by even the most experienced artillerymen, so whether it can appear in an airburst can only depend on luck.

And most grenades explode after landing, and of course, it is not uncommon for them to explode halfway through the flight and before they reach the enemy.

How to say it, whether this kind of grenade equipped by the Tang Dynasty Wangshi is exploded in advance or exploded when it landed, or it exploded after landing for a while, or whether it could even fly to the enemy's position, it was purely based on character.

However, even such an unreliable grenade has become a big killer weapon of the Tang Army, especially in the battle of battles, which is very, very useful!

With its special curved projectile, it can land on the head of the city, or behind the city wall, and then explode, and if you are lucky, the killing effect is very considerable.

And after such a continuous battle, the gunners of the Ming army suffered heavy casualties!

The gunners of the Ming army are not as many as those of the Datang Army, and when the Datang Army is playing artillery battles, there are back artillery groups on standby at any time, and there are gunners killed and wounded on the front line, and someone can immediately replenish them, not to mention these artillery crews prepared in advance, even in those supplementary brigades, there are a large number of artillery that can be replenished to the front line at any time.

In this way, the artillery of the Ming army naturally became weaker and weaker, and in the first few days, the two sides were still able to carry out fierce artillery battles back and forth, but by now, the artillery of the Ming army has almost been completely suppressed.

On a hill on the outskirts of the city, Hao Bonian watched the Ming army retreat on the top of the city, and after its artillery was suppressed, he immediately ordered: "It's almost over, order all departments to prepare to attack the city according to the predetermined plan!" ”

Although the Ming army tried every means to strengthen the defense, as long as they did not have revolutionary weapons and tactics, it was basically difficult to resist the Tang Army's strong offensive tactics of relying on artillery to open the way.

At the same time, at the head of Yangzhou City, Xiaoqi Zhao Dong was hiding behind the battlements, bending over, half-squatting, looking at the pseudo-Tang thief army outside the city.

Behind him, two gunners were loading a five-pound field gun, and two other gunners were doing the same job.

Originally, a few days ago, there were seven people in the crew of his five-pound field artillery, but in the artillery battle that lasted for several days, more than half of his comrades-in-arms were killed and wounded, two were killed, two were wounded, and only the three of them were left.

At first, he also heard that the adults above were going to replenish his artillery crew, but soon no one said so, because the continuous artillery battle, the gunners were too many casualties, and there were no extra gunners to supplement him.

Although this small flag went to a thousand households above to explain it, it still didn't work!

In the end, there was no way, only three people could operate this heavy five-pound field gun.

Looking out from the battlements, you can see that the artillery of the puppet Tang thief army outside the city is continuing to fire, and many shells are constantly flying to the city.

At this time, the two artillery skills behind him were also loaded, and then they also came to him, and then one of them said: "My lord, the artillery of this thief army is too fierce!" ”

Zhao Dong glanced back slightly, and then said: "If you don't want to die, squat down, the cannonball doesn't have long eyes!" ”

He didn't want his last two gunners to lose their lives in a daze, one of his loaders was unlucky enough to get up, and then was hit by a solid cannonball!

The model was so miserable that people couldn't bear to look at it, and the whole person was smashed.

After that, he just saw a small black dot in the sky flying quickly towards him, and before he could say anything, the small black dot fell on the head of the city more than ten meters away, and then made a dull explosion!

The air wave set off by the explosion also carried a lot of sand and gravel fragments to fly towards them, but fortunately, in their artillery position, there were sandbags on the left and right to protect them, so although the three of them were a little dizzy from the shock, they were not injured.

He shook his head, shook the sand and dirt off his head, and then looked back to the side, only to see that a gun crew next to him was already in disarray, and several gunners were staggering, either dead or wounded.

This is the flowering bullet of the thief army!

If Zhao Dong had to say anything that he hated the most, it would definitely be the blossoming bullet of the thief army!

This thing is difficult to defend, even if it has battlements and sandbags, but once this thing falls on the artillery position, it will definitely set off a bloody storm, and the four dead and wounded gunners under his command, except for one unlucky guy who was hit by a solid bullet, the remaining three were killed and injured by a flowering bullet that fell nearby, and one was killed and three injured on the spot.

And what was even more unfortunate at that time was that the first artillery group next door to him, including the small flag that commanded the artillery, was all reimbursed.

So in the past few days, for the sake of his own life, he is desperately thickening and heightening the sandbag!

sighed, but Zhao Dong didn't look at the situation, because he didn't need to know, he was either dead or disabled, and it was not helpful for him to look at the situation in the past, he still had his own tasks now.

I saw him bend his waist, walk to the rear of the gun, and then let the two remaining gunners help push the gun to the muzzle position, and then he just started aiming!

His aiming, like that of most of the Ming army's small flag artillery commanders, was entirely based on experience and instinct.

Because the past few years have passed, although the Ming army is equipped with a lot of artillery, the training of artillery commanders and artillery commanders has not learned much, and can only learn to operate artillery according to the words and phrases that circulated from the puppet Tang thief army.

However, the technical difficulty of artillery is not low, and a qualified artillery commander needs to master arithmetic and geometry, and know how to calculate the trajectory on the spot and control the amount of gunpowder to hit accurately.

This kind of skill, even on the side of the Tang Army, is difficult for systematically trained artillery commanders to master, and artillery commanders who can calculate and shoot Zhuyuan require long-term training.

On the side of the Ming army, the situation was even worse, and in the end there was no way, they could only let those most experienced gunners act as artillerymen, relying solely on their experience and instinct

Zhao Dong is also an old gunner in the Ming Army, he was born in the border army in his early years to play the Franc machine gun in the north, and later after coming there, he began to play this five-catty field gun.

I can't say how good it is, but if you shoot a few more shots, you can find a feeling and improve your hit rate.

After Zhao Dong took aim carefully, and then he personally lit the fire rope, after the fire rope burned to a low level, the five-kilogram bronze field gun built in Huaibei in the early years was a violent shock, and the entire gun body was retreated a few feet, and at the same time a loud noise sounded, and a cloud of white smoke was raised.

But Zhao Dong was in charge of this artillery, but his eyes were wide open and he observed the sky in front of him, relying on experience, he quickly found the cannonball he shot.

The shell drew a slightly curved curve in the air, and then landed on the artillery position of the puppet Tang thief army four hundred meters away, but when it landed, it just fell in the middle of the two puppet Tang thief army artillery crews, although it bounced a few times, but it did not cause any damage.

However, Zhao Dong didn't feel sorry, because the cannon just now was already a good hit in his opinion, only a few meters of deviation, it was nothing at all, as long as he kept the existing angle and charge, he would always be able to hit it a few more times.

So he said, "Come again!" ”

However, just as he was speaking, the gunner on the side hurriedly said: "Look, my lord, the thief army seems to be coming up!" ”

At this time, Zhao Dong looked to the other side, and sure enough, the pseudo-Tang thief army array that was originally six or seven hundred meters away had separately divided into a phalanx of about 1,000 people, which was already slowly advancing, and the pseudo-Tang thief army of this thousand-person phalanx was all wearing the kind of bright and dazzling armor unique to Tang thieves, Zhao Dong knew that this kind of armor was called plate armor, but he also saw that in this thousand-person phalanx, almost half of the people were wearing full-body armor, and most of the rest were also half-body armor.

As soon as he saw these people, Zhao Dong immediately had a bad feeling, and then shouted: "Quick, load the shell!" ”

"That's the assault battalion of the Tang thieves, they're going to attack the city!"

The assault battalion of the puppet Tang thief army is almost as famous as their guns, and in almost every siege battle, the puppet Tang thief army will dispatch this kind of assault battalion, once they are allowed to climb to the top of the city, it is almost a massacre!

————

There is a chapter update at twelve o'clock in the evening, book everyone's guaranteed monthly pass, next month, the rainy day will break out of the update, all just for the subscription and monthly pass, and please continue to support more, the rainy day is grateful!