Bang bang bang! The flames spewed, the white smoke surged, and the side card in the hand of a strong brand head with a card wielding an axe more than ten steps away from the city head burst, and the iron leaf armor pieces on his body exploded, and there were several more blood holes in his body, and blood gushed out.

The brand's eyes widened in disbelief, even though he wanted to throw the big axe in his hand with all his might, and kill the few Song soldiers who were shooting at him ten paces away. However, the lead shot is not as good as the arrow, the arrow enters the body, and it can also be a dying fight, the lead shot penetrates the body, and the cavity effect of rolling and colliding and mashing all the internal organs instantly relieves the combat effectiveness. No matter how hard the head of the brand struggled, no matter how unwilling he was, the big axe in his hand was raised and he did not obey the will of the owner at all, but fell to the ground.

"Kill!" A Song spearman rushed forward and stabbed a shot into the throat of the brand's head, killing the last soldier of the enemy army in this wave of siege.

Looking at the corpses stacked all over the ground, Huang Tian took a long breath and wiped the smoke on his face, this musket is so good! If it weren't for this sharp weapon to resist, the Yuan soldiers would have attacked the city earlier.

In the past few days of the Yuan army's siege of the city, the attack and defense of the city head were extremely miserable, a large number of arrows were consumed, and the crossbowmen were also damaged a lot, and finally they had to use rough wooden arrows and bamboo arrows, but the lost crossbowmen could not be replaced.

The Song army has few soldiers, and qualified crossbowmen are not easy to train, so don't think about it for a year and a half. Lacking enough long-range weapons to suppress, it is even more difficult to defend the city.

Luckily, they had a squad of musketeers.

Musket pellets are easy to make, and the amount of propellant used is also small, and a barrel of gunpowder is enough to fight until next year. The replenishment of musketeers is also simple, and they can go to the battlefield after three or five days of training, and they do not need elite soldiers, even ordinary auxiliaries can be competent. So far, the Yuan army has attacked the city no less than seven or eight times, and the hand-to-hand combat is flesh-and-blood. Even though they were guarded by gunmen, there were inevitably casualties. Over the course of a few days, more than half of the musketeers were killed or wounded. But as long as the musket is not damaged, one dead can be replaced, and the combat power is hardly affected.

Huang Tiancong only thought that the long range, strong power, simple operation, cheap and easy to make ammunition were the advantages of muskets, but after a series of fierce battles, he was surprised to find that the simple training of musketeers and the continuous replenishment of energy were the real horrors of muskets.

At this time, the defenders at the head of the city moved out of the way: "Wen Xianggong and Zhang Shuai are here." ”

A group of armor soldiers with heavy cards and heavy soldiers surrounded Wen Tianxiang and Zhang Shijie and strode over. The soldiers are in danger, and the next attack of the Yuan army does not know when, Zhang Shijie needless to say, even Wen Tianxiang, a civil minister, is wearing heavy armor.

Although Wen Tianxiang is a Wenchen, he is also tall, and after repeated hardships, this body has also been trained, wearing dozens of pounds of heavy armor, and his steps are still calm, smiling. Although there is no lupine scarf, high crown and big sleeves, it is wearing a crimson scarf, flying with the wind, and has a handsome bearing.

Wen Tianxiang traveled all the way, constantly pacifying the soldiers guarding the city. This Prime Minister of the Great Song Dynasty has a noble status, a handsome appearance, and a bearing that is impressive, although it is half a word, it makes people feel like a spring breeze. Many of the injured Song soldiers were inspired by it and cheered up.

Over there, Wen Tianxiang was soothing spiritually, and here Zhang Shijie was inspired by material: "Everyone played well!" Today's additional meal, each piece of meat is three taels, one fish, and half a liter of rice. As long as the monarchs fight hard, protect the city without losing, and the court does not hesitate to reward, those who have made outstanding achievements can be awarded the rank of ......"

As he spoke, Zhang Shijie had already approached the team of musketeers, and looked at them one by one, and the sergeants in front of him were all full of gunsmoke, black or gray, looking dirty, but their expressions were all brave - yes, after a bloody battle, even the new Ding had become a pawn, not to mention that many of them were veterans.

To these musketeers, Zhang Shijie added another sentence: "The original auxiliary service can be effective, and the utility can be the envoy." ”

The musketeers were excited. Among these people, nearly half of them are conscripts, and what they used to do was just the odd work of building cities and bridges and transporting baggage, but now they have become utility, envoys, and even can be awarded medals, can you not be excited?

It's not that Zhang Shijie and Huang Tian never want to be sergeants or even veterans with battlefield experience, but that there is too much shortage of such people. Crossbowmen, spearmen, spearmen, sword players, which class doesn't need a certain amount of time to train? Got time to train now? Only the musketeers were the only ones who did not have the skills required, not even the basic physical requirements, as long as they were not disabled, they could be filled by the old and weak. And in terms of killing effect, it is stronger than all classes.

If there is no musket team in these days, it is hard to say whether Nancheng can be saved.

Zhang Shijie's biggest regret now is that he did not bring back more muskets from the Wan'an Army, when he first watched the Longque Army musket array, he only felt sharp, thinking that there was another sharp weapon in the army, and he never thought that he could play such a great role in defending the city, otherwise he would have asked Zhao Lie to provide 300 or even 500 muskets.

Zhang Shijie casually drew a musket from a musketeer, opened the faucet to hit the hammer, deducted it a few times, and saw the flint clattering out of the spark, and nodded with satisfaction. Looking at the empty barrel again, he couldn't see why, but remembered that Zhao Lie had said that the barrel has a service life. If it is well maintained and not overused, about 100 to 200 rounds of lead, the barrel will be scrapped and need to be returned to the furnace for reforging.

And what bothers Zhang Shijie the most at the moment is the forging of this barrel - it is too time-consuming. When the Yuan army attacked the city for half a month, he ordered more than 20 gunsmiths and related blacksmiths, carpenters, and gunpowder craftsmen to make all their efforts. Although there were five or six guns, they could make up for the lost muskets. Many of the musketeers were novices, unfamiliar with the performance of guns, and lacked training, so they suddenly faced the fierce enemy soldiers who were close at the head of the city.

Therefore, the use of each musket now has made the deputy marshal of the Great Song Dynasty pay special attention.

"How do you use the medicine?" Zhang Shijie asked Huang Tiancong, who was waiting, while watching.

Huang Tian was angry from his worries: "It's easy to say that lead, but gunpowder can't do it." Using the customized paper tube medicine brought back by the deputy marshal, you can injure the leather armor enemy soldiers at a distance of seventy or eighty steps, and you can break the enemy's iron armor in fifty steps, but with the new medicine of the gunpowder smith, you can break the leather armor in fifty steps, and as for the iron armor soldiers......, "Huang Tian pointed to the head of the Yuan soldier who was being carried down by the auxiliary service at the head of the city, "You need to wait for the enemy to rush to the city, and you can kill the enemy within twenty steps." ”

Chen Zhi, who was following behind Zhang Shijie, turned pale: "You mean, Xin'an Hou has a private ......"

Zhang Shijie categorically denied: "Regarding this matter, the gunpowder craftsman has reported that because a large amount of egg white is required for the purification of gunpowder, the inventory of this material is insufficient, and it is difficult to improve the satisfactory purity, so the power of gunpowder is damaged. In addition, Ben Shuai only obtained 1,000 rounds of muskets and medicine from Xin'an Hou, and did not involve the rest, so Chen Jun should not lie about it. ”

Chen Zhi hurriedly apologized, ashamed in his heart.

Because the Southern Song Dynasty already had relatively mature gunpowder, and even produced the primitive giant grenade of the earth-shaking thunder, Zhang Shijie only asked Zhao Lie for a musket and ammunition, as for the gunpowder formula, in Zhang Shijie's mind, everyone is the same, is it possible that he Zhao Hunt invented the musket and can improve the gunpowder formula? Is he a royal or a craftsman?

In fact, Zhao Lie's gunpowder formula is indeed more advanced than the formula of this era, and it is easy to make in large quantities, and it does not require any egg white purification - when have you ever seen such a luxurious method used in later generations?

Zhang Shijie didn't ask, even if he asked, Zhao Lie wouldn't give it - he has all kinds of means to ensure that his craftsmen will not leak secrets, who knows if Xingchao can keep secrets here? Then why don't he come and provide ammunition for Xingchao, and use machinery to make ammunition, which is not a hundred thousand times stronger than handmade by Xingchao here?

Huang Tiancong still said stupidly: "Even though the Marquis of Xin'an did not hide his secrets, it is also a fact that he provided too few muskets. We waited for the forbidden army to have only thirty or fifty guns, but his dragon sparrow army had ten times as many guns. Who exactly are the Praetorian Guards? If the last general could have a hundred musketeers, how could he let the enemy rush to the city? ”

Zhang Shijie didn't say anything this time, he turned around and walked to the wall, holding the battlement with both hands, looking at the Yuan army that was regrouping under the city, and sighed in his heart: "What Junhao said is not bad, there are still too few muskets." If there are 300, no, only 200, the situation will be greatly improved. It's just that the muskets are so sharp and the defense of the city is so easy to use, why did the Dragon Sparrow Army, which has hundreds of muskets, be defeated early? ”

Zhang Shijie couldn't help but turn his head to look east, worried in his heart, not knowing what was going on on Wan'anjun's side. Defeated? Withdrawn? Or is it a rout?