The same artillery is used, but the technical level of the two sides is different. The artillery used by the coalition of the princes of the Eight Kingdoms was a bare barrel with no movable gun mounts.

Therefore, when the artillery was laid, the allied forces of the princes of the Eight Kingdoms would send a few soldiers to the front of the battle with the barrels of the cannons. Then, people were asked to dig in front of the battle, leaving a depression in the barrel to fix. Then, the barrel will go forward.

In order to counteract the strong recoil of the artillery, the bottom of the barrel of the Allied artillery was sunk into the pit. In this way, when the cannon is fired, the reaction force of the cannon can be transmitted to the earth and absorbed by the earth, so as not to displace the artillery.

However, in this way, this old-fashioned artillery deployment method will inevitably raise the muzzle of the gun, and it is difficult to fire flat, so it can only be fired in a curved way. But the curved shooting is a great test of the gunner's experience, if the experience is not enough, the angle is not well adjusted, it is easy to hit the.

The artillery of the Beihai Kingdom is very different, and the artillery of the Beihai Country generally has cannon ears. Moreover, the infantry guns were mounted on gun carriages with wheels. The tripod behind the gun carriage is directly on the ground, but there are rake teeth at the bottom of the tripod to increase the friction with the ground.

This kind of gun with gun mount is very simple to fire at, just push it directly to the front of the formation and lay it flat forward. Then, the gunner aimed at the target from behind the barrel with a hole in the lookout hill perpendicular to the barrel, and then fired flat.

After firing the gun, the entire gun will retreat because of the recoil. The teeth under the tripod rub against the ground and then retreat, counteracting the recoil of the gun.

After that, the gunner then holds the gun mount to push the gun to the previous position to load, and then uses the lookout mountain to aim and shoot......

Therefore, although the artillery of the Beihai State was deployed later than the artillery of the alliance of the princes of the Eight Kingdoms, it was deployed first. At this time, the gunners of the Eight-Nation Coalition were still digging pits and debugging artillery......

……

The Beihai ** team brought a total of 45 three-pounder guns this time. Originally, Marin wanted to bring more, and even planned to bring a few Caron naval guns. However, considering the inconvenience of transportation, only light three-pounder guns were brought with them. Anyway, the power of the three-pounder cannon is enough.

Although the effective range of the three-pounder gun was only 365 meters, the range of the opposing infantry guns was even worse. The gunpowder of the coalition forces was mostly a pound or two of light artillery. Moreover, it is also a rear-mounted Furlong cannon. Because the breath is not good, the range is even worse. Its effective firing range, up to 200 meters. Therefore, the three-pounder cannon brought by Marin was enough to crush the opponent.

Moreover, this artillery battle is very interesting. Because, the shells of both sides are not iron balls......

Yes, although the shells used by both sides this time were spherical shells, they were not iron balls or other metal balls.

The artillery shells used by the coalition of the princes of the Eight Kingdoms are stone-polished spherical shells. The shells of the North Sea Country are all cement shells......

Why? Because, in this era, there were no iron-making blast furnaces in Europe, and they were all small workshops producing iron. Small workshops produce iron, and the unit of measurement is pounds, not tons. Therefore, the cost of iron balls in this era is very high, and ordinary people cannot afford to use it. Even if Marin built a simple iron-smelting blast furnace, the daily output of iron was only 10 tons. Because iron production is low, it is expensive. Therefore, European artillery, at this time, in combat, mostly used stone shells, not iron ball shells. The application of iron ball shells is mainly used in the combat occasions with large profits such as ship confrontation and bombardment of city gates. In general, everyone uses stone shells as cannonballs. Especially in field battles, whether it is an iron ball or a stone ball, hitting a person is a burp anyway, and it is obviously more economical to use a stone ball.

And the cement shells of the Beihai country are more economical......

To process stone ball shells, stonemasons also need to select stones of suitable shape for manual polishing, which is more time-consuming and laborious. The cement shells of Beihai Country are very simple to process, directly mix the cement and put it into an empty ball mold divided into two. Then, squeeze firmly. After extrusion, direct sun-drying and air-drying are fine. In terms of cost, it is much lower than stone ball shells. Moreover, it is also faster to make and the quality is guaranteed. Of course, shells made in the summer need to take into account the coefficient of expansion. After all, heat expansion and cold contraction.

For shells, the main thing is to fit the barrel. If the shell is larger than the caliber, it will not be loaded. If it is smaller than the caliber, it is not good to hold your breath.

The three-pounder cannons of the Beihai Kingdom are all bronze cannons cast with iron molds, which are not only fast casting, but also have a relatively consistent caliber. Therefore, Beihai only needs to pay attention to controlling the size of the mold, and can quickly produce a large number of shells that meet the requirements. And the artillery put together by the princes of the eight countries, because of the process, often has errors in caliber. Therefore, each artillery must be equipped with suitable stone shells, which is very troublesome.

Therefore, the artillerymen of the alliance of the princes of the eight countries need to match each cannon with corresponding shells, and they must not make mistakes, so as not to mismatch the artillery and shells.

And the artillery of the Beihai State is more trouble-free. As long as it is an artillery of the same caliber, the shells can be used universally......

……

While the artillery of the allied forces of the princes of the Eight Kingdoms was still digging holes and arranging artillery, the artillery of the Beihai Kingdom had already aimed a row of three-pounder guns at them......

Marin has always believed that among the allied forces of the princes of the Eight Kingdoms, the greatest threat is probably their artillery. As for those arquebuses, they are certainly no match for the musketeers of the North Sea Country. But these cannons are different, no matter how hard the artillery is, one shot can also take the lives of several soldiers. The threat of 40 guns, that's just a lot of pressure. It was Marin, in order to avoid being blinded by the enemy's artillery, so he specially stood on the high platform behind the formation to watch the battle, at least three or four hundred meters away from the enemy's artillery, to ensure that it was out of the range of the enemy's artillery. Otherwise, if you are hit by an enemy stone bullet weighing one or two pounds, even if you are a traverser, you will have to die.

Therefore, in this operation, the biggest task given to the Central Route Army by Marin was to suppress and destroy the enemy's artillery positions and make the opponent's artillery "dumb fire".

With an order, the artillery of the Beihai Kingdom suddenly moved. The artilleryman in charge of charging first unpacks the oil-paper bag and takes out a certain amount of gunpowder particles. Then, pour into the barrel that is slightly upturned because the tripod will be placed in the dug pit. Then, take out a cement ball shell, stuff it into the barrel and push it to the bottom with a pusher......

Subsequently, the artillerymen pushed the artillery cart forward, came to the predetermined place, and began to aim at the opponent's artillery positions......

"Aim!"

As the artillery officer gave the order, the artilleryman in charge of aiming half-crouched behind the barrel, looked forward from the lookout hill behind the barrel, and used a simple "three-point and one-line" visual inspection to aim at the enemy's artillery position in front......

"Ignition!"

With the order of the artillery commander, more than forty torches stretched out together to the fuse on the fire hole behind the artillery......

With the sound of the gunpowder burning rapidly, the fuse burned out quickly. Then, more than forty artillery pieces roared. And on the artillery position, bursts of gunpowder smoke also rose......

The shells made of cement, after leaving the chamber, whistled towards the enemy positions. Under the frightened gaze of the enemy's artillery, the cement spherical shells flew closer and closer until they smashed into the artillery positions of the allied forces of the princes of the Eight Kingdoms......