As the herald beside Li Xuan passed the message to the artillery battalion tiger with the flag, the flag soldier immediately reported to Xie Ziwei on the side of the artillery position: "Your Majesty has a decree: order the artillery battalion to fire at the front of the artillery team!" ”

Xie Ziwei nodded slightly: "Re: The artillery battalion obeys the order!" ”

Then he turned to Butcher Chen and said, "Now is the time for us to show our talents!" ”

After speaking, he immediately said to Butcher Chen and another artillery major in front of him in a serious tone: "The first team will fire rapidly at the enemy artillery team due north, and the second team will fire rapidly at the enemy artillery team in the northeast direction."

Butcher Chen and another artillery major immediately said in unison: "Obey!" ”

As the captains of the two artillery teams returned to their respective positions, they immediately ordered the artillery commanders to aim separately, and then reload the gunpowder and shells!

Although he still can't write a complete article, he has studied artillery for so long, and he already knows a lot about artillery, and he is quite proficient in loading and aiming according to a certain range, even more proficient than most artillery commanders.

It didn't take long for the artillery team under Butcher Chen's command to complete loading and aiming, looking at the many Ming artillery pieces that were being pushed by the gunners four hundred meters away.

Immediately, Butcher Chen puffed up his breath and said: "Shoot Lao Tzu!" ”

As his voice fell, the five eight-hundred-pound guns of his artillery team rang out one after another!

In an instant, several loud noises were echoed over the battlefield, and huge white smoke also rose from the artillery position, and the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke instantly permeated the entire artillery position, but it was soon blown away by the north wind blowing slowly on the battlefield.

However, a number of solid ball shells that rose out of the smoke crossed the sky for several hundred meters, and then fell directly into the Ming artillery array.

After the shells fired by the artillery aimed by Butcher Chen personally crossed hundreds of meters and landed, a large pit was hit on the ground, splashing a lot of sand and gravel, and then it was bounced up and continued to fly forward, a Ming soldier happened to be on the route of the shell, and the whole person had not yet reacted, he had already been hit by the shell in the shoulder, and the huge impact force brought his whole person up, and he didn't even have time to scream, his upper body was shattered by the impact, and the whole person didn't even have convulsions after landing, it's just dead.

However, this cannonball still did not stop the pace of advancement, and after bouncing on the ground, the shell hit a Ming army artillery truck on the way forward, and the huge impact force directly smashed the artillery car, and at the same time, the sawdust flew sideways, and even the bowl cannon weighing dozens of pounds on the gun truck also flew far away.

After the artillery carriage was smashed by this shell, it still did not stop the pace of progress, but continued to rampage forward, and when the speed slowly decreased, it seemed to be very slow, it came to the feet of a Ming soldier, who thought that this shell was no longer a threat, and actually used his feet to block it.

The result was far beyond his expectations, and the seemingly slow solid-ball cannonball shell directly brought him to his feet, and then brought his whole person to him.

The screams came out of his mouth in an instant, and if you looked closely, you could see that the foot he stretched out to block the cannonball was already twisted.

In this round of shelling, a total of ten artillery pieces of various sizes, each aimed at the intended target, that is, the Ming army was advancing, and the shells fired by the artillerymen who tried to get close to the shooting achieved large and small results.

If you are unlucky, the shells are empty, and only a crater is plowed in the ground, but it does not cause any damage to the Ming army, but some of the shells have achieved great results.

One of the 800-pound artillery shells directly crashed into a bunch of Ming troops who were carrying artillery ammunition, directly knocking these people on their backs, and also caused heavy collateral damage, the gunpowder of the Ming army was ignited, causing an explosion, although the explosion was not very violent, but it still caused additional casualties to the Ming army itself.

This cannon caused at least more than a dozen Ming artillerymen to be killed and wounded, and it was equivalent to indirectly destroying an ammunition depot of the Ming army.

And this round of shelling, the results can be described as quite rich, the landing point of the shells is very accurate, if you add up, at least fifty or sixty Ming casualties, destroy at least two Ming artillery and part of the ammunition.

Such results can be described as quite rich, and it can even be said that they exceed ordinary standards.

And to be able to achieve such obvious results, it is because this battlefield is the preset battlefield of the Datang New Army, they came a few days ago, and the terrain of this preset battlefield is carefully depicted, and many shooting elements are marked.

When the Ming army arrived somewhere, the gunners of the Tang Dynasty marching army didn't even need to measure the distance, calculate the charge, and directly reload according to the pre-marked Zhuyuan, and then aim and fire the cannon at a certain angle.

As for whether the shot is accurate, it is a problem of the accuracy of the artillery itself, but it is already the greatest possible reduction of human error.

When the ten guns of the artillery battalion continued to fire, the artillery units of the Ming army could only stare dryly and could not return fire, because the distance was too far.

Although the number of artillery pieces of the Ming army is extremely large, if you count all of them, there are at least seventy or eighty pieces, but many of the artillery pieces of the Ming army are actually not considered artillery, because they count some firearms that are only a few dozen catties into the artillery sequence.

Therefore, most of the artillery of the Ming army is actually a small cannon of about dozens of catties to a hundred catties, and only a few cannons that are not known to be cast by Ma Yue in the Year of the Monkey seem to weigh two or three hundred catties.

However, there is another characteristic of the artillery of the Ming army, that is, most of them are short-barreled artillery, which cannot fire solid-ball shells, but can only fire scattered shells.

The power of the shotgun is indeed good at medium and short range, but the range is too close, and there is no way to hit hundreds of meters away.

At this time, the two sides gathered more than 1,000 meters away, and the close ones were four or five hundred meters, and the heavy artillery of the Datang New Army could hit the Ming army more than 400 meters away, but the Ming army had no way to hit the Datang New Army more than 400 meters away.

In terms of the artillery strength of both sides, in fact, the Datang New Army is far superior to the Ming Army, and the artillery battalion of the Datang New Army has ten long-barreled cannons, and they are all 500 catties and 800 catties of heavy artillery.

In addition, according to the establishment, each infantry regiment will also have a battalion artillery team, each with six battalion guns of 150 pounds, even if it is now thought that there is a shortage of artillery, only the battalion artillery of the First Infantry Corps and the Second Infantry Regiment is full, and most of the others are lacking.

But when you add it up, there are almost thirty battalion guns.

The battalion guns of the new army of the Tang Dynasty are all 150 pounds of artillery, and the ultimate range can reach 150 meters, which is much stronger than many bowl guns of the Ming army in terms of range, even if it is the same weight of the Ming army's bowl guns, it is not as long as the battalion guns of the Tang army.

In such a comparison, the artillery strength of the Ming army is far inferior to that of the Datang New Army, which also creates a very favorable situation for the Datang New Army, that is, the artillery of the Datang New Army is unilaterally slaughtering the Ming army.

And the object of the massacre was still the artillery unit of the Ming army!

According to the plan agreed before the war, the most important task of the artillery battalion and even the artillery units of each regiment and battalion in the early stage of the battle was to suppress or even destroy the artillery units of the Ming army, so as to prevent the artillery units of the Ming army from advancing to within 100 meters, so as to fire scattered shells and cause a large number of casualties to their own infantry phalanx.

Among the more than 20,000 people in the Ming army, only their artillery units and cavalry units can pose a greater threat to the Datang New Army, and their infantry, to be honest, many generals of the Datang New Army do not pay much attention to it.

Therefore, the artillery unit of the Ming army is the most priority target of the Datang New Army!

In fact, not only artillery, but even the musketeers in the infantry, their first mission target is the enemy's artillery!

Just when Xie Ziwei's artillery battalion opened fire on the artillery of the Ming army, the infantry of the new army of the Tang Dynasty was still advancing!

Although from the moment the artillery opened fire, it was already announced that the battle was launched, but the infantry on both sides still did not exchange fire, but continued to enter the battlefield in the process, and continued to adjust the formation, involving tens of thousands of decisive battles, definitely not to simply form a few phalanxes to pull up, and then the two sides can fight to determine the winner.

This battle, centered on the Acropolis of the Bronze Drum, will likely unfold at the same time within a radius of several miles!

Because both sides are constantly maneuvering, changing formations and positions in order to find the most advantageous formation for their side.

This is the same as a naval battleship engagement, where both sides will try to seize the T-shaped as much as possible to maximize their sideboard firepower.

In this process, both sides are constantly changing.

And that's why a large-scale battle lasts for a long time!

But this maneuver eventually stops as the distance between the two sides decreases, and then it evolves into a full-blown large-scale engagement!

The artillery under Xie Ziwei's artillery battalion is constantly firing at a speed that is neither fast nor slow, and the frequency of shelling is accelerated as much as possible on the premise of ensuring that the barrel does not explode.

With the shelling, the ammunition hoarded on the artillery position was gradually reduced, and hundreds of solid ball shells continued to fly into the Ming array, and the gunners' physical fitness even began to be insufficient, so that they had to replace the artillery to replace them.

The soldiers of the fifth team of the artillery battalion, that is, the artillery transport team, are constantly carrying more ammunition from the rear to the front line to replenish the consumption of artillery.

For this strategic Armageddon, the artillery battalion prepared at least five thousand shells!

In addition to the ammunition that was transported with the artillery, the artillery battalion artillery transport unit also carried a reserve of ammunition, which was 300 rounds per gun.

These shells, if piled up in the artillery positions, are enough to pile up into a hill!

In order to transport the artillery and these ammunition, in addition to the artillery team itself and the artillery transport team, the baggage unit also sent two additional teams to help.

If you use the number of people, then in order for these ten artillery pieces to fight smoothly, the Datang New Army mobilized more than 500 people to serve them, and there are nearly 200 horses!

Just these two figures, you can know why the artillery is a big gold eater!

The two armies were fighting, naturally it could not have been the artillery of the Datang New Army that was firing all the time, and everyone else was watching the show, in fact, about a quarter of an hour after the artillery fired, the infantry on both sides launched the first tentative contact.

It is worth noting that this first wave of contact was not a battle between the main force of the Tang Army and the main force of the Ming Army under the actual command of Li Xuan and Hao Bonian, but the Ming Army in the Tonggu Acropolis took the initiative to attack and tried to break through the interception of the two infantry battalions led by Li Chunjing and the convergence of the main forces of the Ming Army.