As the army approached, Imam al-Kuri again sent a mission to sue for peace, and also tried to make some excuses. However, this time, when Xiao Xuan made up his mind to speak by force, he did not give the other party such a chance. Even such peace talks may be able to delay some time in preparing for the fortification.

Before all the heavy buckshot is fully ready, the tentative blasting battle begins. In order to make the 50 pounds of lead bullet have better accuracy when attacking. In addition to the special preparation for fire reinforcement, the launch crater is also carefully reinforced with copper with good ductility and easy processing. The quality, batch number, and shape and weight of the projectile were examined in what looked like a decent degree. In this case, a third heavy buckshot hit a stone castle building from a distance of more than a mile.

The energy of the 50-pound heavy lead bullet projectile thrown from 500 meters away is enough to tens of thousands of joules, and it is already like an artillery shell to a large extent. However, the striking power of momentum far exceeded that of the ordinary field artillery shells of this era, almost the same as the 140-kilogram heavy stone projectiles fired by the largest 15-ton counterweight trebuchet at a distance of 200 paces. However, what made people a little discouraged at the beginning was that even such a powerful projectile did not seem to smash the opponent's castle in the first place.

After thinking for a while, Xiao Xuan did not order to smelt other specifications of heavy bullets after all, but still launched as accurate a blasting attack as possible with a heavy lead bullet of about fifty catties at a distance of about a mile. At least fifteen blasting attacks in a row, at least ten or so hits did not seem to have any effect, which also made the officers and men of the demolition team begin to be a little discouraged.

Xiao Xuan also didn't expect that the enemy's palace castle building would be so strong. In the case that the improvised fifty pounds of ammunition were not too much, after hitting the enemy's fortified castle ten times, they did not launch a blasting attack, but let the light artillery team launch a tentative artillery bombardment of the castle after the explosion attack in a company.

Because of the carrying needs of the 10,000-mile expedition, the final cannon in the team was only a 2nd general cannon with a body of about 100 kilograms, and only when using high-quality black powder and a certain degree of over-standard charge could the seven-kilogram bullet be launched at the standard estimated at half the speed of sound.

However, what people did not expect was that when such shelling went on for the second time, and the seventeenth time the shells hit the fortified fortress of the enemy castle complex, the originally seemingly solid stone fort suddenly collapsed by at least a small half, and the wails of many defenders were clearly heard by the nearby officers and soldiers. It is clear that those field artillery shells, which at best have a momentum of tens of thousands of joules but are not very large, will not have this effect, and the previous blasting attack finally played a decisive role.

This combination of blasting with artillery fire also brought an advantage, that is, because most of the projectiles could not break through the stone wall in the first place, many of them bounced back under the resistance of the hard stone wall. This made at least forty percent of the lead material in a recyclable state, which also greatly increased Xiao Xuan's intention to continue to use this kind of blasting and artillery cooperation to clear some key obstacles on the periphery. After all, if you attack the fortified area of the castle guarded by the enemy's elite soldiers, no one can be sure of the extent of casualties and losses that will be suffered in the end.

In this way, the continuous shelling and blasting attacks lasted for a full five days, and under the precise bombardment of more than 500 precision blasting attacks, 50 pounds of bombs and even tens of thousands of field artillery shells, although most of the entire Emir's summer attack was still relatively intact, at least the tall castle buildings that were very threatening gradually collapsed in the rumbling sound of cannons and explosions.

Xiao Xuan was reluctant to let the team develop the habit of relying too much on artillery and blasting attacks, after all, there were probably countless fortified areas and castles like this in Europe and even the Middle East, even if there were many captures in future battles, it would be overwhelming to rely entirely on field artillery and explosives to attack the fortifications.

Therefore, when the defenders felt that such preparations for demolition and artillery fire should be far from over, with the sound of explosions from the explosion of the explosives approaching from multiple directions, the long-prepared assault and assault battle finally began on the sixth day on the verge of the Emir's summer palace, and thousands of elite archers, all the double-barreled flintlock musketeers of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Volunteer Division, were put into battle. For a time, the sound of guns and bowstrings breaking through the air came and went, and the assault battle was in full swing in all directions.

Because the number of troops that were put into attack at the first time was not large, only about 10,000 people, and there was no too large-scale artillery cover. So at the outset, Imam Curry still thought that just the best men in defense would be enough to crush the attack of an arrogant opponent in defense. But the news from the guards was becoming more and more disturbing, which made Imam Curry, who had some combat experience, feel a little confused. Could it be that with such an obvious defensive advantage, the strength of the troops is not in a clear weakness compared to the attacking opponent, how can it be difficult to even carry out an effective counterattack?

It wasn't until the heavily armed Imam Curry personally came to the place on the verge of battle that he realized that the enemy's ability to play from archery to battle was far from his imagination. In previous encounters with the Persians or Kazakhs, Imam Kuri had not seen an elite combat force in marksmanship. But almost all of them can reach this level, but it hardly exists in any team with more than 100 people. A handful of generals or the king's core guards may have or exceed that level, but very few can reach this level of battlefield performance.

Even if the arrow buttress is only the size of a head, the enemy more than ten feet away can easily shoot the armor-piercing arrow with the strength of the war bow into the multi-buckle, so that the elite with iron protection will feel terrified when they return fire at the enemy.

On the other side of the battlefield, the elite of the volunteer troops in charge of the offensive also felt that they had really encountered a decent opponent like the main force of Jianzhou. Although the marksmanship of the defenders was much worse than that of the elite selected from the volunteer troops, they were not suppressed one-sidedly. The attacking team also suffered more than 200 casualties in the continuous fighting.

In order to avoid greater casualties, after the ranks that broke into the Emir's summer palace gained a foothold, preparations for the blasting and artillery bombardment began to be in full swing again. Gunpowder is precious, and so are these excellent officers and soldiers, which makes Xiao Xuan have to find a balance in the offensive combat mission.

(End of chapter)