On May 15, at the head of Huai'an City, Zheng Kaicheng looked at the Jiangbei army surrounding the city and scolded a thief. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

As everyone expected, the Jiangbei Army really took advantage of Li Zhi's attack on Henan to attack Li Zhi from the south. The 160,000 Jiangbei army poured out of the nest and met the Tiger Ben Army and the Southern Route Army defending the city in Huai'an.

Although Huai'an Mansion is the government of Nanzhili, Li Zhi set up a court and a tax bureau here, and stationed a large number of personnel. Because the court and the tax bureau protected the powerless people, many local people bravely stood up to defend their legitimate interests and offended the local gentry. If Li Zhi gave up Huai'an and let Huai'an be occupied by the Jiangbei army, the local gentry would obviously jump out and counterattack the peasants.

So Li Zhi advanced the defensive position of the Southern Route Army to Huai'an Province.

Compared with the thieves, the Jiangbei Army's weapons are much better.

At the head of Huai'an City, cannons rumbled, and whistling cannonballs flew everywhere in the sky. The 1,000 heavy artillery pieces of the Jiangbei Army lined up five miles south of the city and fired towards the city wall. Although the distance was a bit far, the solid bullet of the Jiangbei Army still smashed heavily on the city wall of Huai'an Fucheng, smashing black holes on the blue bricks outside the city wall.

Occasionally, cannonballs were fired onto the horse roads above the city walls, killing the Tiger Ben soldiers guarding the city.

Zheng Kaicheng had long known that the Jiangbei Army had bought a large number of artillery pieces from Hongyi, and this time the Southern Route Army brought 800 heavy artillery pieces to defend the city. At this time, the heavy artillery was arranged behind the battlement wall above the city wall, and returned fire at the artillery positions of the Jiangbei Army. The flames from the muzzles of the cannons rose one after another, illuminating the city head incomparably brightly.

Eight hundred artillery pieces were protected by battlement walls, and the gunners of the Tiger Army were significantly more sophisticated, suppressing the artillery of the Jiangbei Army.

But despite having the upper hand in the artillery battle, there were casualties. Although Zheng Kaicheng made the soldiers on the city wall stand in a loose formation, the shells of the Jiangbei Army still hit the soldiers from time to time.

More than a dozen catties of iron balls were smashed down, and the hands and feet were cut off at the lightest, and the life was lost at the worst.

Seeing the continuous casualties among the soldiers defending the city of the Tiger Ben Army, Zheng Kaicheng's heart was like a knife, and he was so angry that he gritted his teeth. In recent years, the Tiger Ben Army has rarely suffered casualties in the Quartet, and Zheng Kaicheng does not want to suffer large-scale battle losses in order to repel the Jiangbei Army.

The gunners of the Jiangbei Army can be recruited after death, but the elite of the Tiger Ben Army cannot be sacrificed at will.

Fortunately, the artillery of this era does not shoot continuously. Ten rounds of artillery were fired, and the guns of both sides overheated and stopped firing.

The Jiangbei Army sent 20,000 soldiers and began to attack the city.

The Jiangbei Army sent heavy infantry, which wore thick two-layer iron armor and slowly touched the foot of the city wall. The Jiangbei Army obviously didn't know that Li Zhi had begun to equip with steel-core bullets, and hoped to use heavy infantry to gain an advantage on the battlefield.

The Southern Route Army was not polite, and at a distance of three hundred meters, the soldiers of the Tiger Ben Army at the head of the city shot at the heavy armor.

The steel core lead bullet is no different from the ordinary conical lead bullet in use, which is very convenient. In the crackling gunshots, the heavy armored soldiers of the Jiangbei Army were shot one after another, and fell to the ground screaming. These heavy armor soldiers wore fifty or sixty pounds of armor and walked slowly, making them the best targets for riflemen.

Seeing the soldiers of the Tiger Ben Army shooting the heavy armor soldiers at a distance of 300 meters, the soldiers of the Jiangbei Army were obviously shocked.

The heavy armoured soldiers walked very slowly, and it was estimated that they would be exhausted by the fire from the city before they reached a range of 200 meters. Where do the heavy armored soldiers on the front line dare to move forward? One by one, they were so frightened that they lay on the ground, looking for obstacles to dodge.

The two-layer heavy armor built by the Jiangbei Army did not achieve any effect in actual combat, but became a burden to the soldiers' hands and feet.

Zheng Kaicheng looked at the Chinese army of the Jiangbei Army with a telescope, and sure enough, he saw a stir among the generals of the Jiangbei Army. The generals and guerrillas were a little flustered, and gathered around a civilian official in the middle to discuss. Soon, the Jiangbei Army sounded the golden sound of retreating.

The heavy armor soldiers left behind more than 2,000 corpses and retreated.

Heavy armor soldiers are meaningless, and the armor built by the Jiangbei Army with heavy money is just a waste in the end.

A quarter of an hour later, 20,000 unarmored soldiers armed with rifles rushed out of the Jiangbei Army array. These soldiers seem to be heavy armorers who have taken off their armor. They rushed to the foot of the city wall with their new rifles, hoping to rush within range and shoot at the Tiger Army.

Crackling gunfire rang out at the head of the city, and five thousand riflemen on the southern wall rained bullets at the unarmored riflemen who rushed forward.

However, in the face of stragglers, the shooting rate at three or four hundred meters is not high.

When shooting at a dense crowd of enemies on the ground, a standard rifle with a scope is capable of hitting 70% of the time. That's because in this case, the rifle is not aimed at a single enemy soldier, but actually an entire enemy platoon. As long as the bullet does not shoot away and does not hit the enemy in the middle, it will also hit the enemy on the left and right or in the back row.

In European smoothbore gun fire, the armies of both sides often opened fire fiercely at a distance of 200 meters, fighting for the indiscriminate flight of stray bullets.

But if you shoot down from the walls, the hit rate will be slightly lower. Because shooting from above on the city walls, it is easier for bullets to get into the land, and there are relatively few opportunities to kill and injure soldiers in the back row.

What's more critical is that the Jiangbei Army is lined up in a skirmish town at this time, and the distance between the soldiers and the soldiers is several meters, and once the bullet misses, the probability of hitting the other soldiers next to it is very small.

If it's a stationary target, the scope is easy to use and can be aimed at the enemy. But if it's a moving skirmisher, it's hard to aim the scope at the target. The scope magnifies the scene several times, and the moving skirmishers can easily flash in the mirror. At this time, the soldiers at the head of the city only had a hit rate of about two or three percent.

The stragglers of the Jiangbei Army fell more than 2,000 people under the fire of the riflemen at the head of the city and rushed within 200 meters of the city wall. Then the soldiers, armed with their rifles, began to shoot at the Tiger Ben army at the head of the city.

Although the city wall is protected by a battlement wall, the battlements on one wall are limited, and only 5,000 shooters can stand. Faced with the firing of 20,000 rifles under the wall, the soldiers behind the battlement wall obviously felt suppressed.

After loading the bullets behind the battlement wall, the soldiers shot as soon as they put their heads out of the battlements, not daring to expose their heads to the battlements for too long.

From time to time, GIs of the Tiger Army who showed their heads were killed by bullets from the Jiangbei Army.

Under the threat of death, the Tiger Army GIs shot more and more hastily, and the hit rate was reduced to a very low level.

But in any case, the Tiger Ben soldiers behind the battlement wall still have an advantage. The casualties of the Jiangbei Army outside the city wall can be said to be five or six times that of the Tiger Army. The two sides crackled four or five rounds of fire, and the riflemen of the Jiangbei Army collapsed and began to flee behind with great brazenness.

Thousands of corpses were left on the battlefield, and the Jiangbei army was unable to storm the city wall, ending today's battle.

But for the 160,000-strong Jiangbei Army, such casualties did not seem too bad.

On the city wall, the screams of the wounded of the Tiger Ben Army came and went, and the medical team nervously took the warheads for the wounded soldiers, disinfected and bandaged them. The bodies of some of the fallen soldiers were carried down for burial.

Hong Chengchou stood beside Zheng Kaicheng and said: "Chief Officer, how do I think that the Jiangbei Army is fighting unhurriedly, it seems that there is still a backhand. ”

Zheng Kaicheng nodded and said, "These gentry don't know what other bad plans they have. ”