In recent years, the Ming Dynasty has cast a lot of Franc cannons, and the quality of these cannons is uneven, and they are basically sent to the nine sides. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

At first, the Franc cannon did play a significant role, but it was limited to the defensive operations of the fortress.

The quality of the Ming artillery was not high, coupled with the stubbornness and arrogance of the border generals, so that the Franc cannon was not used much in the field, and as a result, when the Yulin Acropolis and other fortresses were easily taken by the Tatars, many of the Franc cannons fell into the hands of the Tatars.

However, the Tatars were not very proficient in the Franc cannon, and used the Franc cannon as a means of deterrence, used to show off their strength, and most of the Franc cannons that Yisima plundered were sent to Tumu Fort and finally fell into the hands of Shen Xi.

And the capital is not equipped with a Franco cannon at all, even the old artillery is very few, the defense mainly relies on crossbows and bows and arrows, and the city wall of the capital is also the most tall and steep in the cities of the Ming Dynasty, and the most organs are set up.

"His Royal Highness the Prince, there are crossbows at the head of the city, and there are hundreds of archers, once the Tartars come to attack, keep them and have no return!" Sui Zhong said confidently.

"There is no fart, you haven't seen the world in this palace? What year is it now, and there are still crossbows and archers, do you think this is the Three Kingdoms era that relied on the bravery of military generals more than a thousand years ago? This is the time to use artillery, and when the shells fall and explode, the Tartars fall in pieces, and even if your repeater shoots a man, it will be stopped by the thick armor on the Tartars! ”

Zhu Houzhao said, looked at the Tatars below who were showing off their might, and said angrily, "Now send an artillery cannon to the palace and let them know that it is powerful!" ”

Ma Jiu had seen Shen Xi use artillery when he was suppressing bandits on the southeast coast, and knew how to give full play to the maximum power of artillery, so he immediately summoned up the courage to report:

"Prince, the villain has seen Lord Shen fire, and now our location is four miles away from the Tartar soldiers and horses, even if we are condescending and increase the range, we can't cover the target!"

Sui Zhong and the others all looked at Ma Jiu with disdain, in their opinion, a groveling person beside the prince who nodded his head everywhere he went, actually took the initiative to jump out and "show his eyes", they didn't think that Ma Jiu had any say in the use of artillery.

Zhu Houzhao was very interested in what Ma Jiu said, and asked, "Then tell me, how did Mr. Shen use artillery in actual combat?" ”

Ma Jiu was generally familiar with the operation process and range of the artillery, and if he could explain how to use it, he felt that his head and mouth were glued together, and he couldn't summarize and tell what was in his mind. He held back for a long time before he said, "Villain...... I can't tell! ”

"What a stupid you!"

Zhu Houzhao scolded directly, "It's a pity that Mr. Shen is not here at this time, otherwise the palace will ask him directly, and he will know how to use the artillery to play a role!" ”

Ma Jiu suddenly got the news of Shen Xi from the prince's mouth, and his heart was extremely shocked, what does "Shen Xi no longer exist" mean? He could only hope that things would be different from what he understood, but that the people of Shenxi had not returned from the northwest.

At this time, Zhu Houzhao didn't realize that he had made a lot of mistakes. He had only heard that the Ming artillery was powerful, but he had ignored that the artillery needed people to exert its power.

The Franc cannon was introduced by Shen Xi, Shen Xi knows how to make full use of the Franc cannon and knows how to be flexible in actual combat, but others do not have this ability.

Others just blindly want to use artillery to bombard the enemy, but they do not understand the relationship between range and angle of fire, nor do they know when it is best to fire artillery, let alone how to maintain it...... In many cases, artillery only fired a few shots and then exploded, causing losses in personnel and morale on their own side.

Even if a few gunners such as Zhang Laowu trained by Shen Xi before were sent to Jiubian to train gunners, due to the rapid changes on the battlefield, the fuse of this battle was the Ming Dynasty's dispatch of troops first, and the artillery did not exert its power.

The Tatars flaunted their might outside the capital, and Zhu Houzhao jumped like thunder, but he had no soldiers at hand, and he couldn't lead people out of the city to fight with the Tatars.

Just after noon, the Tatars marched away, still encamping in an open field five miles away from Zhengyangmen.

Zhu Houzhao called the generals who could be summoned around him to discuss the war, but these generals did not have confidence in going out of the city to fight with the Tartars, and they bowed their heads one by one and remained silent.

Originally, Zhu Houzhao could go back to the palace to fill his stomach first and then have a good rest, but he made up his mind to stay in the city to eat and sleep with the soldiers, so that he showed that he was sympathetic to the soldiers and loved the soldiers like children.

I wanted to taste the taste of spirits, but unfortunately there was no wine in the army, Zhu Houzhao was very disappointed, but he was quite satisfied with the food in the army, mainly because he was used to eating brocade clothes and jade food, and suddenly ate some donkey meat roast, mutton pot helmet and millet porridge, which made him feel that he enjoyed the "delicious taste of the world".

Zhu Houzhao secretly thought: "My father didn't treat the soldiers badly, and the camp ate so well, why worry about not winning this battle?" But he didn't know that only he and a few people around him could enjoy donkey meat and mutton pot helmets, and others could eat white flour steamed buns, which was already a big luck, and most people could only eat fried noodles or fried rice with hot water.

Just after noon, the scout brought the latest news from the front to the city: "...... Tatar five people, from Fangshan, Zhuozhou, Gu'an everywhere to kill the capital, the current army stationed in Fahua Temple! ”

Zhu Houzhao looked at Sui Zhong and asked, "Where is Fahua Temple?" ”

"Back to His Royal Highness the Prince, Fahua Temple is in the southeast of the capital, south of Chongwen Gate, and right of the Temple of Heaven and Earth!" Sui Zhong pointed in the direction of Fahua Temple and said.

Zhu Houzhao was shocked and sighed: "Five Roads Soldiers and Horses, how many people are this?" Is there a hundred thousand? ”

Sui Zhong replied: "His Royal Highness the Prince, I reported that the Tatar army is about 60,000 Xu, and the specific ...... The last general doesn't know! ”

As the guard of Zhengyang Gate, Sui Zhong didn't know much about the overall situation, Zhu Houzhao found that he couldn't get more news in the city, so he immediately burned down the city, Sui Zhong also thought that he had done something wrong and caused the prince to be dissatisfied.

Zhang Yuan was going to follow Zhu Houzhao's steps and go down to the city, but he knew how to see the stitches, and walked over and whispered to Sui Zhong, whose face was uncertain: "You have to learn to do things in the future, don't always annoy the prince!" ”

Seeing Zhang Yuan giving himself a look, Sui Zhong suddenly understood what he had done badly, and he didn't send the filial piety silver to him, so he immediately nodded yes, but he was thinking in his heart: "Fortunately, Gonggong Zhang reminded him in time, but he didn't know that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is also a greedy person?" ”

At this time, Zhu Houzhao was bent on investigating the total strength of the Tatars and the direction of its main attack, he knew that it was useless to ask the generals on duty at the head of the city, so he went directly to the six departments on both sides of the Daming Gate, and he was going to find Xiong Xiu, who was the acting secretary of the military department, or Zhang Mao, who was in charge of the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies, to ask about the situation.

……

……

Just when the war in the capital was about to break out, Shen Xizheng led his troops to fight a fierce battle with the Tatar Yibu in the grassland area thirty miles west of Juyong Pass.

At this time, it was the third day after Shen Xi left Tumu Fort.

Shen Xi's advance speed was not fast, because there was a lot of baggage in the army, most of which were obtained from the Tartar battalion before, and many livestock were used for "Mare" operations, so that the number of livestock to transport the baggage was seriously insufficient, and many times he could only rely on manpower, and even some horses in the cavalry of the border army that he integrated also joined the ranks of transporting grain and livestock.

The main force of the Chinese army led by Shen Xi at this time was about 10,000, which was different from the previous infantry, and the number of cavalry in the army at this time was nearly half. After the wooden fort was unearthed, he divided a road of about 3,000 soldiers and horses to go to the north road of Juyongguan, and Shen Xi's own people and horses took the official road from Juyongguan to Xuanfu Town.

On the way to the garrison site, Shen Xi only briefly rested in the Huailai Acropolis, and when he found that the Huailai Acropolis had become an empty city after being trampled by the Tatars' iron hooves, he gave up his plan to garrison on the Huailai Acropolis, marched all the way east, and just crossed the Fushui River, he encountered the rear army of the Yibula Division.

Cavalry against cavalry, the front army of Shenxi was led by Lin Heng, about 500 cavalry, and the number of cavalry of the rear army of Yibu was roughly the same.

At this time, Shen Xi's troops and the garrison of Juyong Pass formed a front and rear attack on the Tatar soldiers and horses, and confronted the 10,000 soldiers and horses of the Tatar Yibu Department outside the Juyong Pass.

Juyong is still the commander of Long Qingwei, Li Pin.

Shen Xi sent a large number of scouts to get in touch with Juyong Pass, with a letter he wrote to Li Pin, asking Li Pin to cooperate in the battle, and under the condition of ensuring the stability of Juyong Pass, he chose the opportunity to attack without cutting the flanks and drawing his attention.

"Senior brother, let me go, the march has been slow in the past few days, and I didn't catch up with the previous battle with the Tartars, so I'm almost suffocating!"

Wang Lingzhi will take the initiative to ask Shen Xi to fight at any time, this guy has too much energy, he used to have no chance to fight with others, but he can finally show his strengths on the battlefield, and that unstable heart is out of control.

Shen Xi said: "Our Chinese army has a total of 5,000 cavalry, and the loss of a soldier and a pawn will have a great impact on the next battle. Ling Zhi, no matter what you want to do, you have to calm down, wait for the opportunity, I will definitely let you have a good time and show what you have learned! ”

"Okay, this is what you said, senior brother, I wrote it down!"

Wang Lingzhi was very excited, as if he had received some kind of gift, but in fact, Shen Xi just made a promise to let him fight.