Early the next morning. [Eight?] [一(( ?〉〕.

After dying with Lin Guo and Liu Crimson overnight, Mo Li was still full of energy, refreshed, and came to the Changsha Daying School Yard in high spirits, ordering soldiers and horses, and preparing to go on the expedition.

Lin Guo, Liu Crimson, Liang Peijun and others stood at the gate and watched Mo leave the horse, tears in the corners of their eyes. Especially Lin Guo, as soon as he and Moli were reunited, they were about to be separated, and they were inseparable in their hearts, and they were indescribably nostalgic.

Although he was reluctant, Lin Guo also knew that Mo Li had a great responsibility, and now that the rebels were raging, the current situation was unbearable for his children. As his wife, she can only support him silently behind his back.

The early summer sun shone warmly on the armor of tens of thousands of soldiers in the camp, shining a dazzling light.

After a brief oath-taking meeting, Moli announced that he would send troops to Jiangxi to pursue and suppress Zhang Xianzhong's remnants.

This time to pursue the remnants of the enemy, Ma Jinzhong led 20,000 horses as the forward force, and a day earlier had entered Pingxiang from Liling and marched towards Yuanzhou.

Immediately, under the leadership of Mo Li, the 50,000 army drove out of Changsha City and headed straight for Liuyang. Along the way, flags covered the sun, armor shone, and the ranks of soldiers stretched for miles.

Cavalry, infantry, artillery, charioteers and other arms rushed out of the east gate of Changsha one after another, went straight to Liuyang, attacked Yuanzhou through Liuyang, and attacked the rebels in Yuanzhou with Ma Jinzhong.

Two days later, the army was already approaching Yuanzhou.

Previously, Ma Jinzhong led 20,000 horses to the city of Yuanzhou, and first sent people to the city to scold the battle, wanting to provoke the rebels out of the city to fight.

However, Zhang Xianzhong's adopted son Liu Wenxiu was ordered to lead 30,000 people to stay in Yuanzhou to block the imperial court officials and troops from Huguanglai. Liu Wenxiu has fought with the New Liao Army, and he knows how powerful the New Liao Army is, where does he dare to go out of the city to engage in battle? It's just a strong drink that ordered his subordinates to strictly defend and defend the city.

The city of Yuanzhou is relatively tall and strong, and the food materials and equipment in the city are quite sufficient, but if it is defensive, Liu Wenxiu is not too worried.

Now the eight kings are all the way to Nanchang to kill, where they pass, the officials and troops have surrendered, or they have left a city of people to flee for their lives, Zhang Xianzhong has now pulled up a team of nearly 100,000 people, according to this momentum, as long as the official army in Jiangxi no longer appears like the new Liao army such a powerful army, it is only a matter of time before the entire territory of Jiangxi is taken.

Now as long as he holds the city of Yuanzhou, he can block the road for the new Liao army to pursue Zhang Xianzhong, so that he has no worries, and can successfully capture Nanchang and Jiujiang, and then connect with the Wang Ziyong of Wuchang and Huangzhou, and then have a lot of chances of winning against the new Liao army.

For this reason, no matter how hard Ma Jinzhong tried his best, he was extremely insulting and humiliating, Liu Wenxiu was unmoved, and he stuck to the city wall and resolutely did not fight.

Ma Jinzhong was helpless and immediately ordered the siege of the city. Due to the small number of artillery under Ma Jinzhong's department, and the power was not great, after a frantic salvo, after the thick smoke of gunpowder cleared, the strong city wall still stood still, and there was no sign of damage.

Ma Jinzhong ordered the soldiers to rush up against the ladder, but Liu Wenxiu was already prepared, in addition to the 30,000 rebels, he also captured nearly 20,000 people in the city to help defend the city, carry equipment and materials, rescue wounded soldiers, and so on.

Due to the abundant supplies in Yuanzhou City, Liu Wenxiu not only let people fire artillery to fight back at the New Liao Army, but also fired a salvo of firearms, bows and arrows, and the big stones and hot oil took turns to go into battle, and the command was moderate, and Ma Jinzhong couldn't attack it for a while.

Ma Jinzhong, who was frustrated in the siege, knew that he could not be impatient, so he immediately collected his troops and returned to the camp, and ordered Yuanzhou City to be surrounded on all sides, only waiting for the arrival of Moli's army before making plans.

A day after Ma Jinzhong besieged the city, Mo Li led a large army to arrive, and also brought more than 100 artillery pieces of various kinds, of which 40 were new types of artillery newly developed by Lei Luo, although the power was not as good as the Hongyi cannon, but it was not much inferior, and this kind of artillery was half the weight of the Hongyi cannon, which was more convenient to carry.

Mo Li named this kind of artillery the Divine Fire Cannon, and after rewarding Lei Luo and the people involved in the research, Mo Li asked Lei Luo to increase production capacity and seize the time to make more of this Divine Fire Cannon.

In addition, after Mo Li provided the basic sample drawings and design principles, after more than half a year, Lei Luo and others also developed another infantry artifact - mortar.

Mortar is a kind of curved smoothbore gun with short gun body, large firing angle, high ballistic arc, recoil bearing with seat plate, muzzle loading, and tail foil projectiles.

The characteristics of the mortar are that the firing angle is large, generally 45 °-85 °, the trajectory is curved, the initial is small, the minimum firing range is short, the killing effect on unprotected targets is good, and it is suitable for shooting at targets behind shelters and targets on the anti-slope plane.

Second, it can be equipped with a variety of shells. It is mainly equipped with anti-personnel blasting shells, which are used to annihilate and suppress the enemy's living forces and technical weapons, and destroy obstacles such as barbed wire; It can also be equipped with special shells such as smoke and flares.

Third, it is small in size, light in weight and simple in structure. It is easy to operate, and when shooting, the recoil energy of the body tube is absorbed by the ground through the seat plate. When marching, the body tube and seat plate can be disassembled, so it is easy to carry.

The principle of firing of mortars is also very simple. There is a thimble at the bottom of the mortar barrel, and when the mortar shell slides from the mouth of the barrel to the bottom, the thimble will push up to the detonator of the shell, so that the projectile of the shell explodes (there is a delay from the top to the detonator to the gunpowder explosion, not immediately), and the shell will shoot out under the thrust of the gunpowder.

It is characterized mainly by the large curvature of the parabola, which is suitable for direct fire at close range at targets that cannot be reached by artillery fire.

The history of mortar exhibition can be traced back to 1342 AD. At that time, the Spanish army besieged the city of Alihquiras, which was entrenched by the Arabs, and the Arabs erected short horn cylinders on the battlements, the mouth of the cylinder was raised high and facing the outside of the city, and a bag of black powder was put into the mouth of the cylinder, and then an iron ball was put in, and the powder twist was ignited and shot at the Spanish soldiers outside the city.

This primitive artillery, known as "Mod", can be said to be the prototype of the modern mortar.

The world's first real mortar was built during the Russo-Japanese War in 19o4 by Russian artillery captain Leonid Nikolayevich Gobiato.

As a military enthusiast, Mo Li is naturally no stranger to this kind of infantry artifact, and after handing over the design ideas and design drawings to Lei Luo, it is basically up to Lei Luo and them to complete and improve it.

Lei Luo did not disappoint him, and now, hundreds of such mortars have been manufactured and equipped to the New Liao Army, except for the two hundred mortars sent to Cao Bianjiao, all the remaining three hundred Mo Li have been brought.

Although the range of mortars is not too long, and the siege is not ideal, it can play a great role in field battles, and can kill and injure enemy soldiers and destroy opponents' targets.

Moreover, as long as they can get close to the city walls, mortars can also be used to siege the city.

Therefore, as soon as Mo Li arrived, after communicating with Ma Jinzhong, he ordered the siege of the city.

A divine fire cannon was pushed out, and the long cannon barrel pointed murderously at Yuanzhou City, like a steel monster staring at Yuanzhou City, majestic and majestic.

At this time, it was already afternoon, and Mo Li didn't have the time to talk nonsense with Liu Wenxiu, so he directly ordered the artillery battalion to open fire and bombard Yuanzhou City.

Boom Boom Boom ......

In the earth-shattering roar, the sky above Yuanzhou City was filled with gunsmoke and artillery fire.

A cannonball roared and smashed on the wall of Yuanzhou City, only to blow up the bricks and stones, and the dust and smoke were filled, and the rebel soldiers were blown up in the bombardment, and the ghosts cried wolf.

Liu Wenxiu was a little frightened, why was the artillery fire of the New Liao Army so fierce? I haven't seen them have such ferocious artillery fire in Changsha before!

In addition to the forty divine fire cannons, there were also more than 100 small cannons of various types and Franco machine guns, which were pouring ammunition towards Yuanzhou City at this time, and the earth was trembling.

What's even worse is that the individual equipment of the new Liao army has also been replaced with a shotgun, almost everyone has a flint gun, and the dense ammunition is about to rain towards Yuanzhou City.

Because Lei Luo brought advanced and powerful firearms from Lingchuan, as well as very sufficient ammunition, the siege of Yuanzhou this time seemed closer to the level of modern warfare, and the artillery fire was continuous, which was quite a bit of the flavor of World War I and World War II.

The powerful artillery attack caused all the rebels in Yuanzhou City to change color, and Liu Wenxiu personally climbed to the top of the city after receiving the report, and soon his face turned pale.

In less than a cup of tea, the soldiers defending the city had already been killed and wounded two or three thousand people, as well as the flint guns of the new Liao army, which also caused great casualties to the rebels, and the remaining soldiers were also frightened and panicked.

Under the cover of the divine fire cannon, Bai Zhicheng led hundreds of people to break into the city of Yuanzhou, and in an open space less than fifty meters away from the south city gate, two hundred mortar men brought from Lingchuan began to skillfully operate one mortar after another, putting shells into the barrel one by one.

The firing pin at the bottom of the barrel struck the gunpowder of the shell, and the shells of the gate whistled out of the barrel and fell towards the south gate and the adjacent city wall.

Boom, boom, boom......

Countless cannonballs flew out of an arc, and then landed accurately behind the city gate and city wall, and the rebel soldiers who were hiding behind the battlements of the city wall were blown to pieces on the spot, and the stumps and broken arms flew all over the sky, raising bursts of bloody red rain, the scene was very terrifying and disgusting.

The surviving rebel soldiers were stunned by the scene in front of them, and after a loud scream, they turned around and fled, no longer daring to stay behind the city wall, the rebel generals couldn't drink, and the generals themselves were also frightened, where did they dare to stop the soldiers from retreating, and even fled with themselves.

The southern gate was hit by dozens of shells, and it didn't take long for it to be blasted open, and the soldiers of the New Liao Army poured into Yuanzhou City like a tide......