The person who sent the information was a senior undercover agent of the Ministry of Intelligence in the Wei army, and had successfully infiltrated the command of the Wei military.

The content of the intelligence is that the Wei army secretly transported hundreds of large wooden boxes from the joint military factory of Wei and Wu in Jiujiang in the middle of last night.

In the middle of the night, they were quietly transported into Xiangyang City, and the length of these large wooden boxes was one and a half feet, and they were unusually heavy, and he saw with his own eyes that a four-horse carriage could only carry one box.

The chests were temporarily placed under the city walls, heavily defended and covered with waterproof tarpaulins.

Because these boxes were very secretive, he couldn't know what was inside them for the time being, but he heard from his superior, Chen Gong, that it was a secret weapon.

In order to manufacture this batch of secret weapons, it took a lot of manpower and material resources from both countries to produce them before the Battle of Xiangyang.

Lu Bu looked at this information and frowned, what can such a big wooden box hold, it should be a firearm, thinking of this, a name is about to come out.

The Yangtze River Fleet was blocked by Soochow with mines in Dazhai County, and the Han River was also blocked, and the most convenient and low-cost water transportation could only be changed to land transportation, which increased the cost sharply.

Lü Bu decided to start the siege as soon as possible, and he ordered the various troops in Nanyang to shrink their battle lines and concentrate on the city of Xiangyang.

The city of Xiangyang was surrounded by the Han army on all sides, and its east gate was close to the Hanshui River, but the naval troops of the Wei State had already fled to the upper reaches of the Han River, and there were no big boats, all of them were some Mengchong boats.

The first batch of troops to participate in the siege were the main divisions of the Han army, the first, second, seventh, and ninth divisions.

Four divisions surrounded the four city gates, and this time Lü Bu learned the lesson of Jiangling, not only sent troops to patrol the banks of the Han River, but also chose to camp the besieging troops at relatively high places.

The siege of the Han army still followed Ma Chao's method, mobilizing twelve artillery battalions of six divisions, including six mortar battalions and six field artillery battalions.

The preferred target for the attack was the northern gate of Xiangyang City, or according to previous experience, first long-range artillery fire was prepared, and then the infantry began to dig trenches to prepare the final starting position.

Just when the 3,000 men of the 1st Division, which was in charge of the siege, began to dig trenches, the familiar sound of artillery firing sounded on the head of Xiangyang City, and the cannon rumbled, obviously a lot of them.

Many shells landed on the soldiers of the 1st Division, who were digging trenches, and the unexpected surprise attack left the unprepared Han soldiers suffering heavy casualties.

The experienced officers immediately shouted loudly and told everyone to lie down or hide in the half-dug trench.

Xu Rong, who was commanding the siege on the front line, saw this scene and immediately ordered the artillery unit to suppress the artillery on the city, and sent someone to report the emergency to Lu Bu.

As soon as Lu Bu heard that the Wei army in the city also had artillery, he immediately thought of those large wooden boxes, and what he guessed was really not bad, the secret weapon sent into the city was the artillery developed by the Wei army itself.

It makes sense that they can even make muskets, and muskets work the same way as artillery, and they can use artillery as an enlarged version of muskets, so it's not difficult to make.

In fact, the Wei army's artillery was indeed like Lu Bu's conjecture, that is, the flintlock pistol was magnified dozens of times, and it was also developed as a front-loading smoothbore gun.

Because the process of manufacturing the barrel is not up to standard, and the quality of the cast iron is slightly inferior, the barrel of the Wei artillery is thicker and heavier than the barrel in order to prevent the bore, and the weight is much heavier.

And in order to ensure safety, the charge was slightly less, which led to a reduction in the power and range of the artillery.

A five-inch cannon can shoot a distance of about 350 zhang.

The Wei army placed twenty artillery pieces on the wall on the side of the north city gate, because their guns were very heavy and there were no gun carriages, so they could not be moved after installation.

Cao Cao spared no expense this time, building a total of ninety artillery pieces, including some of the artillery produced for the Wu State, all of which were transported to Xiangyang City, as well as thousands of shells.

However, these guns also have an Achilles' heel, that is, because of the poor quality of cast iron, these guns have a very short barrel life.

I'm afraid that each cannon is only about 100 rounds, so Cao Cao didn't prepare extra shells, and he couldn't use any more.

Therefore, the artillery of the Wei army only caused great trouble to the Han army besieging the city, delaying for some time, but it could not change the situation of the battle as Cao Cao hoped.

The six field artillery battalions of the Han army had 36 field artillery pieces, plus more than 200 mortars with a range of 350 zhang, and the fire density was far greater than that of the Wei army.

In particular, the mortar unique to the Han army is not limited by the angle and can directly hit the artillery on the head of the city.

Even Zhou Yu thought of using sandbags to build artillery bunkers, which greatly increased the safety factor of the artillery and weakened the advantage of the Han army in the number of long-range attacks.

However, the gap was too great, and finally after a day of fierce fighting, all 20 pieces of Wei artillery were wiped out.

Either it was destroyed by the artillery fire of the Han army, or its own barrel reached the end of its service life and was scrapped by itself.

Before dark, the Han army stopped the siege, but did not stop digging the siege trenches.

During the day, both sides were basically engaged in artillery battles, with the artillery on the city attacking the mortars and trenches of the Han army, and the artillery of the Han army suppressing the artillery at the head of the city.

After the Han army was shelled and suffered a large number of casualties, they stopped digging trenches and continued at night.

Zhou Yu also had a countermeasure, they secretly used ropes to lay down a group of brave soldiers, touched the position of digging a trench, and fought hand-to-hand with the Han army, the two sides were entangled together, and muskets were used as sticks.

However, the process of digging the trench was greatly delayed, and when it was getting lighter, the survivors of the Wei-Wu coalition ran back to the city with ropes.

The twenty artillery pieces at the North City Gate were completely annihilated, which gave Cao Cao and Zhou Yu a great problem.

They had secretly entered Xiangyang City with the artillery the day before, and now they were faced with the problem that if the Han army continued to attack the northern city gate tomorrow, then they would need to disassemble the artillery from the other city gates tonight.

However, if the Wei army transferred the artillery to the north city gate, but the Han army attacked other city gates, it would be too late to dismantle the artillery and transfer the position.

The Wei artillery had no gun carriages, and it was unusually heavy and difficult to maneuver.

Now it's a bit like a game, betting on which gate the Han army will attack.

In the end, Cao Cao decided to transfer five cannons from each of the east and south gates, and then reinstall the spare ten cannons on the north city wall.

(End of chapter)