This kind of short-barreled heavy howitzer, which was pioneered by the Tang Dynasty, is actually quite a waste of propellant, in order to ensure sufficient range, a large amount of propellant is required, not to mention the charge in the shell.

Hitting once with this kind of artillery is enough for field artillery to fire more than a dozen cannons, and cost performance has always been a huge problem, and only an army like the Datang Army, which spends more than 20 million a year, can use it without scruples.

The Ming army has always lacked enough ammunition, which has no choice, because China lacks sulfur, and saltpeter is okay to say, you can get some of it, but there is no way to use sulfur, and a large amount of use basically needs to be imported.

In recent years, sulfur has become an important export commodity for Fuso, and many of the daimyo in Fuso's maritime trade have found that they could not sell knives and fans in the past, but sulfur has become very sought-after and made a lot of money from it.

However, Fusang's current maritime trade channels are basically monopolized by the Tang Dynasty!

The Tang Navy basically blocked the coast of China, and the Ming Dynasty originally rejected maritime trade, so the source of sulfur has always been very scarce.

Later, King Hui's department secretly used the Tsushima Strait to trade sulfur through Korea and Fuso, and only then did they get enough sulfur.

Otherwise, he still can't afford to use howitzers, which consume gunpowder.

However, although they also have more than a dozen artillery pieces, including two howitzers, in terms of the artillery strength of both sides, the artillery of the 15th Infantry Division is still more than five times the number of artillery pieces of King Huiwang.

This kind of gap in artillery strength is big enough to make King Hui desperate!

After so many years of fighting, even the most stubborn generals of the Ming army now know that they can't rely on swords, bows and arrows to fight in these years, but rely on cannons and muskets, especially artillery is the most important thing.

However, the matter of making artillery is not urgent, the technical requirements are quite high, and without industrial production, it can only rely on manual construction, and it is impossible to build many artillery.

In the past, when the Ming Dynasty still occupied a large area of the country, it was able to build artillery with a large amount of manpower regardless of the cost, which also made the Ming army in the early years, such as Zhang Yue's department, the 100,000 army led by Emperor Zhengde himself, have a lot of artillery.

But now, there is not much population in Liaodong at all, and there are few craftsmen who make artillery, even if King Hui lets these craftsmen build day and night, he can't make many artillery!

How to fight if there is not enough artillery?

It's a cruel question!

When both sides were observing each other, the first day passed so calmly, but the next morning, the Ming army at the head of the city found that the pseudo-Tang thief army outside the city began to move, and they began to advance, and a large number of artillery pushed the artillery forward.

The soldiers of the Ming army with a little experience know that the puppet Tang thief army is about to start attacking the city!

Because when the puppet Tang thief army attacked the city, it was almost always the artillery that fired first, and used the artillery advantage to completely suppress the artillery counterattack in the city and other defensive forces on the city.

When the suppression is complete, their infantry will rush forward!

In fact, they guessed correctly, Kang Gaozhi was indeed planning to start shelling!

Since he came to Liujing, he didn't expect to really surround the city for a few months, waiting for the enemies in the city to starve to death, which was not in line with the empire's strategy, and the bigwigs above did not give him a few months to slowly besiege the city, but let him quickly open the situation!

Why? Military spending is limited!

The army is out eating, drinking, chewing and using it every day, it's all money!

At the same time, the siege of the city is not in line with the fighting style of the Tang Army today.

Now that the Tang Army is fighting, it has always been offensive and offensive, even if it is a defensive operation, in the final stage, it will rush up to fight a salvo, and then charge with bayonets!

The Tang Army has never relied on siege to attack the city, in fact, they are not good at this, they are even better at blowing up the city wall with blasting, suppressing the defensive force of the city head with artillery, covering the infantry to launch a charge, and when the infantry rushes to the city head, they can basically declare the city broken.

This mode of battle, for them with absolute artillery superiority, is almost invincible.

Today, too, when dozens of artillery pieces began to shell one after another, the Ming artillery on the head of the city still tried to fire back at first, but soon it was dumb.

Because they soon found out that staring at the enemy's absolute artillery superiority and firing back was simply looking for death, they rationally withdrew from the predetermined artillery position.

Soon, except for a few left-behind observers, a large number of Ming soldiers were withdrawn from the city!

Many battles in the past have taught them that the probability of casualties is very high if they stay in the city at this time, and there is no way to fight back except for being beaten passively.

At this time, the best thing to do is to hide!

After waiting for the enemy's infantry to start charging, it is not too late to go up to the head of the city to defend.

Sure enough, an hour later, the Ming army at the head of the city observed that the intensity of the enemy's artillery bombardment was significantly weakened, and there were about 3,000 soldiers of the pseudo-Tang thief army approaching, apparently wanting to attack the city.

So, behind the city wall, a large number of Ming soldiers were urged by the officers to run back to the city, waiting for the possible arrival of the infantry charge.

But at this time, the infantry of the pseudo-Tang Thief Army outside the city stopped, and then, there was a dense rumbling sound outside the city, dozens of solid shells, plus more than a dozen huge howitzers flew towards the city at the same time!

Especially the more than a dozen howitzers, more than half of them fell on the city, or exploded over the city!

Such a violent explosion immediately caused heavy casualties to those Ming troops who had just entered the city and were ready to meet the enemy!

Seeing this scene, King Hui, who personally supervised the battle, couldn't help but curse in a low voice: "Damn! ”

But apart from scolding damn it, he didn't give the order for the soldiers to retreat, because although the three thousand soldiers of the pseudo-Tang Thief Army outside the city stopped, they were still at a distance of about two hundred meters, and they could charge at any time.

"Pull up all the artillery and hit their infantry!" At this time, it was also the generals of the Ming Army who reacted!

Their artillery strength is weak, and it is naturally very nonsense to fight against the artillery of the puppet Tang thief army, but if it is used to attack the infantry of the puppet Tang thief army, the effect is naturally excellent.

But those Tang soldiers outside the city were obviously not stupid, as soon as they saw the black hole running from the city, a colonel regimental commander immediately brandished his saber and shouted: "All turn back, run in unison, let's retreat!" ”

"Spread out the formation, quick!"

A fool would be stupid enough to stand two hundred meters away and let the enemy aim and fight.

So, by the time the Ming army's artillery was finally pulled up and loaded and ready to fire, the 3,000 Tang soldiers had already run more than 400 meters away, and the formation was extremely loose.

At this distance, there is basically no need to worry too much about being accurately hit by the enemy's artillery, even if there are shells flying over, but with their current loose formation that specializes in preventing shelling, one shell can only kill and injure two or three people if it is killed, and there is no hope at all.

What's more, they took the risk to step forward, and naturally they relied on it.

That's their artillery brothers!

When the artillery was pulled out by the Ming army, the artillery units had already carried out a new round of reloading, and then each aimed at the intended target, the enemy's artillery position!

They had already planned, and naturally they were preparing more quickly than the Ming artillery who were in a hurry, so when the Ming army was ready, in fact, the shells also fell on their positions one after another!

One of the howitzers made a great contribution today!

This 48-pound howitzer almost had the best explosion effect in theory, it just exploded on the top of an artillery position of the Ming army, and after the shell exploded, the shrapnel thrown out almost covered the entire artillery position!

As a result, the three guns of this artillery position had just been pulled out, and before they could fire a single shot, more than half of their dozens of gunners fell in a pool of blood!

Such a tragic situation almost frightened the surviving gunners, and then they all ran to the rear one by one, they wanted to escape from this hell on earth and return to the city wall to hide!

Their rout and escape were also stopped by no one, because the commander of the Ming army in this artillery position also died under the shelling!

This is just a small microcosm of the artillery operation, after several repeated artillery battles, the Ming army's more than 10 artillery pieces can basically be used less than half!

This is not to say that the artillery of the Tang Army directly destroyed their artillery, those artillery pieces are big guys, very thick, and it is really difficult to destroy them directly, at most it is just to be damaged by the gun mount, and the main reason is that the gunner's casualties are too heavy.

This is also the sorrow of the artillery units of the Ming Army, from a few years ago to the present, almost all of them are the same, at the beginning of every battle, the gunners of the Ming Army are the most unlucky troops, because the Tang Army in order to suppress the artillery of the Ming Army, the main target of the early shelling is the artillery unit of the Ming Army, and the main goal is to kill and injure their gunners.

There were not many skilled gunners in the Ming army, and the casualty rate was so large, and there were not many people willing to be this kind of artillery, so the Ming army sometimes often had artillery, but it could not find enough skilled gunners, and when it came to the middle and late stages of the campaign, ordinary soldiers were often directly used as gunners.

At that time, there was basically no need to count on any hit rate, and even exploding the chamber was a common thing!

It's the same now, the difference in strength makes all the confidence of the remnants of King Hui before the war collapse in an instant!

When the repeated shelling lasted for two days, almost the entire city head of Liujing City was full of potholes, with an earth-shattering huge blasting sound, the Liujing City Wall was blown out of a gap of more than ten meters, and the Tang soldiers launched the final general attack!

When the soldiers of the assault battalion withstood the casualties and rushed to the city, it was announced that the entire defense line of Liujing City was torn apart!