Nanjing South City is like a convex character, and the treasure gate is in the center of this convex character, which is also the focus of Ma Cheng's defense. From the beginning of the year when Ma Cheng tinkered with a new type of artillery to the present, a total of more than 300 pieces have been produced, and 110 pieces have been concentrated here in Jubaomen. The wall here is about six miles long, and an average of one cannon is placed every 30 meters, which is already the first in the world in terms of firepower density.

In addition to these new artillery, Ma Cheng also moved all the old firearms in the city to the city, what Hongwu year system of Shenwei general, Wanli year system of all kinds of large and small sample Franc machine, as long as it has use value, all were collected by Ma Cheng, after repair to play the residual heat.

But in this way, Ma Cheng is still not at ease, because he knows that it is not weapons that determine the combat effectiveness of an army, but people. And on their own side, there is a lack of qualified gunners.

Ma Cheng's gunners, except for a few of the instructors who were artillery shooters of the original Ming Dynasty army, the others were all homeless people half a year ago, although they looked good after more than half a year of training, but after all, they had not experienced actual combat, and they didn't know what kind of grandparents this first battle could be.

The battle began in Ma Cheng's anxiety, and with Ma Cheng's order, one hundred and ten artillery pieces in the southern city roared, and the lead bullet weighing eight catties reached an initial velocity of 430 meters per second under the impetus of 626 yuan of new gunpowder, and headed towards the Manchu army a mile away.

First of all, the unfortunate ones were the tall buildings of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which were thirty meters high, a large piece higher than the city wall of Nanjing, and at the top was a small room covered with raw cowhides, which contained twenty soldiers, who were the main force of the siege.

Because of its large size and slow movement, this kind of building car immediately became a target for artillery. Facing Ma Cheng, the building car was hit by more than ten shells, and the raw cowhide could not resist the cannonballs blessed by gunpowder in its toughness, and the small room full of soldiers on the top was broken into a plug, although it was impossible to see how the soldiers inside were, but it was estimated that there was basically no way to live.

Although the Ming army's artillery salvo was earth-shattering, the results achieved were very limited, except for the ricocheting that killed dozens of unlucky ghosts, the impact on the Qing army's siege vehicles was not great.

Although Ma Cheng's new artillery is powerful, it is a solid bullet after all, and the hard steel on the front is of course invincible. However, the vehicles of the Qing army were all made of thick wooden planks, which were punched by shells, and as long as they did not hit the core devices such as axles, they did not have much effect on such shoddy vehicles. So in addition to killing dozens of unlucky ghosts, the first volley did not stop the Qing army's advance.

Ma Cheng lay on the head of the city to watch the results of the battle, and when he saw that the vehicles of the Qing army were not damaged, he knew that he was wrong, and he should not take the main body of the car, but the wheels and axles of the car.

Ma Cheng hurriedly called the herald and asked him to inform the artillery to aim at the axle, even if it missed, the ricochet of the cannonball could kill a few more people pushing the cart.

The artillerymen who received Ma Cheng's instructions immediately adjusted the muzzle, and the results of this were immediately achieved, and a building car was completely lying on its stomach after the axle was broken.

Ma Cheng was happy to see the results, but at this time, a puff of white smoke came out of the Qing army, and Gu Yong, a soldier who followed Ma Cheng, pressed Ma Cheng quickly with his hand, and the Qing army's artillery also fired back.

Although the quality of firearms in the Qing army was not as high as that of the Ming army, the quantity was not much less than that of the Ming army, after all, Kong Youde's artillery battalion was the essence of Sun Yuanhua back then. With the blessing of the artillery battalion, the Qing army's siege troops had a total of 500 small sample Franc machines, 300 large Franc machines, and thousands of various firearms. However, the range of the Qing army's firearms was not as far as that of the Ming army, and they could only advance to four or five hundred meters to return fire.

For the first time, there were casualties on the city wall due to the firearms of the Qing army, and several unlucky ghosts around Ma Cheng were hit by the shells of the large Franc machine, one of them was also shot off his head, and several others with broken hands and feet were lying on the ground wailing.

Ma Cheng pushed away Gu Yong, who was lying on top of him, and shouted to the ambulance team behind: "Your mother, what are you looking at?" Come up and save people! ”

Several people carrying stretchers stepped forward to carry the wounded soldiers away, and Ma Cheng showed one eye behind the battlement, watching the Qing army under the city.

At this time, the Qing army had already arrived at the edge of the moat and was operating the moat bridge car, which was similar to the bridge erection vehicle in later generations, but it was all manually operated. Ma Cheng knew that as long as the Qing army crossed the moat, the next step was to attack the city. Ma Cheng didn't care about the shells flying sideways, stood up and pulled a gunner, leaned in his ear and shouted: "Aim at the bridge builder, interrupt Lao Tzu!" ”

The gunner nodded, turned the muzzle of the gun and began to bombard the trench bridge car, but at this time the quality of the soldiers appeared, although Ma Cheng's gunners were well-trained, but they had no battlefield experience, and now tens of thousands of troops outside the city were attacking the city, and the cannonballs were whistling overhead, and the comrades who were shot and fell to the ground from time to time were around, these gunners could not give full play to the usual three successes, and the two guns did not hit the target, Ma Cheng saw that the Qing army successfully built the bridge, and a large number of Qing troops rushed to the city wall.

Ma Cheng stretched out his head and looked around, seven or eight trench bridges had been successfully erected outside the entire southern city, thousands of Qing troops had already crossed the moat, and there were countless Qing troops preparing to cross the river. Seeing this, Ma Cheng gritted his teeth and shouted: "Change the shotgun, double the charge!" Fast! "Read a book with a quick eye

Because the smoothbore gun is front-loaded, it has good airtightness, can withstand relatively large chamber pressure, and can withstand double charge when the situation is critical.

This is also Ma Cheng's helplessness, if the Qing army is given a chance to rush to the city wall, according to the morale of his army, it is likely to collapse at the first touch. So now it is necessary to beat the morale of the army, and there is no way Ma Cheng has no choice but to order the artillery to make a desperate bet.

The gunners beside Ma Cheng heard Ma Cheng's order, and hurriedly asked the loader to take two shotguns, which consisted of one hundred and eight musket lead bullets, and now the Qing army under the city has arrived under the city, the distance is less than a hundred meters, which is the right distance for this kind of shotgun to work.

The two shotguns were more than 200 lead bullets, which roared towards the Qing army under the impetus of gunpowder, and the Qing troops under the city were not protected by shield carts made of thick wooden planks at this time, and the cotton armor they wore was like pieces of paper under the power of lead bullets. These Qing troops had just crossed the moat and were gathering together to set up a ladder, when they were hit by more than 200 buckshot bullets, and for a time dozens of Qing soldiers were beaten into meat sauce, and the Qing soldiers who were hit in the hands and feet were lying on the ground and shouting for help.

This first shotgun alerted all the gunners on the city wall, and they immediately switched to shotguns to attack the Qing troops under the city, this kind of fire density was not something that the human body could resist, and thousands of Qing troops under the city were slaughtered in less than ten minutes.

The Qing army, which had not crossed the river, had never seen this new type of artillery, and after seeing the comrades on the other side of the river being broken down into body parts, they immediately dropped the siege vehicles and began to retreat.

Seeing the retreat of the Qing army, there was a thunderous cheer on the city wall, and some of the guards who were the second-line troops were ready to turn around and slip away, but when they heard that the Qing army had retreated, they stopped again.

Ma Cheng stood on the city wall and looked at the city, except for the dead corpses, the Qing army retreated, and then looked at the direction of Zhengyangmen, the Qing army over there also retreated, and saw that Zhang Guozhu fought well.

This time, the Qing army was caught off guard by the power of the new shotgun, and the next time the Qing army was prepared, it would not be so smooth.

Ma Cheng looked at the cheering soldiers on the city wall, and knew that he had forgotten the most important thing, that is, he had not set up a warlord.

Ma Cheng pulled Ma Bao and whispered: "Sixth uncle, you arrange for your henchmen to stay under the city, if anyone dares to retreat to the city, they will not be spared!" ”

Ma Bao nodded and went down to arrange, Ma Cheng was vaguely afraid in his heart after speaking, fortunately his artillery was powerful enough, if there was no artillery blessing, when the Qing army went to the city, the troops defending the city would immediately disperse.

Ma Cheng still has some confidence in the 25,000 troops he trained, mainly because he is not at ease with the guards who are the second-line troops, these guys are very slippery, if they run first, their 25,000 people will inevitably be affected by them. But it's not realistic to let these guys all get out, is it possible that the entire city wall of more than 20 miles of Nanjing City is only defended by 25,000 people?

After the soldiers finished cheering, they immediately came to the soldiers and shouted: "Everyone has seen it, these northern captives are also flesh, and they will die if they are hit by firearms, so everyone don't have to be afraid, and the next time the northern captives go to the city, they will greet them with the guys in their hands!" ”

This battle has boosted morale a lot, and the soldiers have said that they will definitely do what Ma Junmen commands.

The Qing army outside the city retreated to the starting point of three miles, and the deputy general who led the team reported the news of the front line to the main general Liu Liangzuo, and the deputy general naturally exaggerated the firepower of the Ming army in order to shirk his responsibility.

Although Liu Liangzuo's ability is not very good, after all, he was a senior general of the Ming army half a month ago, and he knew about Nanjing's firepower configuration. What hundreds of red-coated cannons, it is estimated that the soldiers defending the city concentrated the firearms of the whole city in the south city, which is so powerful. If the Ming army really had hundreds of powerful red-coated cannons, would they still need to hold on to the city? The Manchu waste has already been driven back to Liaodong.

Today, Duoduo's task to Liu Liangzuo is to make a feint attack and buy time for Kong Youde and them to set up an artillery position in Yuhuatai, and now it is almost dark, Kong Youde and they should be about the same, let's talk about it tomorrow.

After Liu Liangzuo decided, he ordered his subordinates to set up camp three miles outside the city first, and wait until dawn tomorrow.

After receiving Liu Liangzuo's news, Li Benshen, who was in charge of Zhengyangmen, also decided to wait until tomorrow, after all, his losses today were much greater than Liu Liangzuo's. Liu Liangzuo is only facing a city wall of Jubaomen, and Li Benshen is facing two city walls of Zhengyangmen and Tongjimen, Li Benshen, who originally did not have many troops, lost nearly 3,000 people in Zhengyangmen, which is only 30,000 descendants of Li Benshen is already a little broken, so after careful consideration, Li Benshen also followed Liu Liangzuo's example, camped and rested three miles outside the city.