The Ming Jingshi, once the political center and heart, is now a wither.

In the era of hot weapons, the biggest problem is that the destruction of buildings is extremely strong, and if it is replaced by an ordinary city, it will be destroyed, anyway, with the advent of the era of hot weapons, these defense modes that protect the city with tall walls will also be gradually eliminated.

In addition, in the future, the city will become larger and larger, and the population will increase, and the cost of building urban defense facilities will also become an astronomical amount.

However, the use of artillery to attack the Beijing division at this time made the artillerymen up and down Hongtang feel intimidated and unable to show their strengths, and the reason for this was that they were told by Shang Kexi and Geng Zhongming from the beginning to try not to destroy the palace complex in the city.

Anyway, this Ming Jingshi, since the Spring and Autumn Period Yan State as the royal capital, has gone through several dynasties of the royal capital functions, among which the palace complex, all of them are the treasures left by art and history, and no one can bear to let it turn into a wreckage and ruins in the battlefield.

"I could not fight this battle, and I called us in to teach us a lesson before the war began, so that the brethren did not dare to use their means in a big way; Turning back to the city for a long time, we can't open the situation, and these division commanders have taught us a lesson again, saying that we are not doing things well!! ”

Jian Haibin, the commander of the Second Artillery Battalion of the First Division, came back from the division commander's tent with a gloomy face, and his mouth couldn't hold back his complaints.

"Do you think that you were trained, which of us was not trained to be like a turtle grandson?"

Ma Rudong, the commander of the First Artillery Battalion, did not follow Jian Haibin to the division commander's tent for training because he wanted to command the battle, but he could also imagine the storm that Jian Haibin encountered in front of the division commander Shang Kexi.

"What a grievance!"

Jian Haibin grabbed his hair and rubbed it vigorously, venting his dissatisfaction.

At this time, more than half a month has passed since the Hongtang army came to the city of Beijing, since the last time Cao Bianjiao's 30,000 troops went out of the city to test the combat strength of the Hongtang army, were strangled nearly 20,000 horses, and finally fled back to the capital in a hurry, the Ming army has never been out of the gate of the Beijing Division.

The Ming strongholds within a radius of more than 30 miles have been completely uprooted by Shang Kexi, and then although they also launched several tentative siege operations, but because they want to ensure the strength of the army, they still use two artillery battalions in their hands, a total of more than 50 snake cannons, to bombard the Beijing division.

At the same time, on the side of Tianjin Wei, which was close at hand, the main force of Hongtang's Liaodong army, under the personal leadership of Wu Jie, launched a fierce offensive against Tianjinwei, an important coastal defense area.

There were fifteen warships in the Hongtang fleet on the sea, and they used the heavy artillery carried on board, far exceeding the power of the Hongtang field artillery, to unscrupulously launch an artillery bombardment on the Tianjin Guard.

In the north and west of the city, Hongtang's 60,000 troops were reasonably distributed in the meantime, and the sea artillery fire cooperated tacitly, sometimes the artillery covered the city, and suddenly a large number of Hongtang soldiers appeared outside the city, and more than 10,000 soldiers in Tianjin Weizhong played around.

The commander of the Beijing Division, Du Yinxi, was already very insightful, and knew that Tianjin Wei, a heavy coastal fortress, could not afford to be lost, so he was stunned that 20,000 soldiers were arranged in Tianjin Weizhong, so he was able to hold on for more than half a month under the fierce offensive of Hongtang's army.

However, the soldiers in the city have not yet collapsed, but the city fortifications of the Tianjin Guard, which is several chips different from the Beijing division, can not be destroyed, in the shelling of the Hongtang fleet, seeing that it is becoming more and more broken day by day, no one knows which day it will be in the shelling, and it will collapse.

Since the Ming Dynasty cabinet has been financially relaxed, the investment in firearms is not small, and the Tianjin Wei, which used to not place 10,000 catties of red-coated cannons, now also has five or six red-coated cannons that can fire 20 catties of iron bullets.

Most of these red-coated cannons came from the Xiangshanao Cannon Foundry, and after Hongtang broke the technological blockade of Westerners and produced the most advanced artillery comparable to Western Europe, Westerners gave up restrictions on the sale of firearms.

In line with the view that the enemy of the enemy is a friend, although the Westerners do not dare to show the slightest hostility to Hongmen on the surface, but secretly they are constantly making all kinds of small actions, as long as they can bring trouble to Hongmen and will not set themselves on fire, they Westerners are willing to lend a hand.

Since then, all kinds of iron-cast, copper-cast red-coated cannons have begun to appear frequently in the army and city defense of the Ming Dynasty, coupled with the wisdom of the Chinese nation itself is not stupid, the official has increased its efforts and invested in talents to imitate artillery has also made rapid progress, and it is no longer a unique thing for Westerners and Hongmen.

But in the final analysis, the backwardness caused by the Ming Dynasty's lack of attention hundreds of years ago is not something that can be caught up with the efforts of the past few years or more than ten years.

Not to mention that Hongmen can be called the most advanced cannon casting technology in this era, that is, compared with the relatively backward cannon casting technology used by the Western Portuguese in Xiangshanao, there are many gaps in the casting technology of the Ming Dynasty.

After making his own voice for a week or so, in the next ten days, the roar of artillery on the Tianjin Acropolis became less and less, almost nothing.

"Boom! Rumble! Rumble! ”

"Wow! Bang! ”

The sound of dust falling sounded, and then what imprinted into the eyes of Hongtang and the Ming soldiers was a Tianjin guard that had collapsed half of the city wall, and in the face of a group of Hongtang soldiers like wolves and tigers, it was no longer possible to stop their footsteps.

The siege method of the Hongtang army is really lackluster, because the defects of their army are there, compared to the Ming Dynasty, which can pull out hundreds of thousands of troops casually, every soldier of the Hongtang army is an extremely valuable asset, but also a heavy burden.

The reason why the combat effectiveness of the soldiers of the Hongtang army dominates the world is because Hongmen is an iron-blooded army smashed out with money.

When the Hongtang soldiers were alive, their monthly salary was more than the total salary of the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, and they also had various benefits; And when the Hongtang soldiers died, they had a pension that could allow a family of three to live for more than ten years.

Therefore, under such a high salary and high welfare, the soldiers under the command of Hongtang are all attentive and not afraid of death, so as to create the spirit of their Hongtang army.

Therefore, in order to avoid the loss of the already valuable wealth, every time there is a siege battle, the crowd tactics will be used in other armies, but in the Hongtang army, they prefer to use artillery, and use money and resources to blow up a gap, so that the losses of the Hongtang army soldiers are minimized.

In this way, for the Hongtang army, before the artillery fire opened the city defenses, the life of these soldiers was the most boring and lackluster.

But when the gate of the city defense is opened, the strength that Hongtang's soldiers can burst out will be overwhelming.

(End of chapter)