At this time, the lookout on the mast shouted: "Big boss, a group of people and horses came from the west gate, and it seems that it is the Qing army." ”

Yan Qingshan below heard the great joy and scolded: "Call me to take charge, call him a big boss, do you still think it's a water bandit?" We are now officers and soldiers. After speaking, he took out the monocular that the king of Chu bought at a high price from the Francophone and looked at the west gate.

Liu Liangzuo and the others still wore the Mandarin duck robe of the Ming Army, but the hat on their heads was replaced with the red hat of the Qing Army, after all, Liu Liangzuo had 200,000 horses, and it was also a big expense to change their clothes.

Seeing that there was cannon fodder coming again, Yan Qingshan was overjoyed and shouted: "Raise the flag, let the other four ships get ready, this time there are more than 50,000 people." Little ones, get ready, another grenade salvo in a moment. ”

The sailors on the ship, having received the order, began to descend to the artillery deck to begin preparations.

Liu Liangzuo saw five big ships on the dock from a long distance, and he had never seen such a big ship. The largest ships on the Yangtze River are not half the size of these ships. Just now, Liu Liangzuo heard that there were artillery on these ships, so he kept an eye on it and stayed at the back of the team.

Yan Qingshan, who was on the boat, saw that the Qing army on the opposite side was lined up in a dense formation, and it was still two miles away from here, and the grenades were still a little far away. Order the first three rounds to be all solid.

After all the loading was completed, Yan Qingshan gave an order, and one hundred and fifty rounds of solid lead bullets were fired.

These 150 rounds of lead bullets ploughed out 150 bloody alleys in the crowd, and all of them broke bones and tendons. This salvo killed more than 500 people in Liu Liangzuo's department, but it was just a drizzle for 50,000 horses. The others, regardless of the lives of their companions, rushed to the north gate, trying to rush into the north gate under artillery fire.

Liu Liangzuo saw the first round of shelling from the big ship on the pier, and shouted: "Rush into the north gate!" In his understanding, the cannon is surprisingly slow, and he can take advantage of this opportunity to rush in.

But I didn't expect that as soon as Liu Liangzuo's words fell, the sound of the second shelling came, and it was another hundred and fifty bloody alleys. Liu Liangzuo was also stupid, he didn't expect the other party to be so fast.

After three rounds of salvos, Yan Qingshan ordered to replace the shrapnel with a howitzer, which is now less than a mile away from the north gate, which is the effective range of the shrapnel.

This time, Liu Liangzuo's team poured blood mold, and a large number of projectiles exploded at a distance of five to eight meters above the soldiers' heads. Each explosion creates a wave of blood in the crowd below. But at this time, the crowd was stuck at the gate of the city and could not enter.

Seven or eight thousand people were killed at the gates of the city during the first shelling just now, and now there are corpses and blood stains everywhere. When Liu Liangzuo's vanguard entered the city gate, several people were slipped by blood, and it was nothing in normal times, and it would be over when they got up. But now there is something that kills people overhead, so the people in the rear team have to rush into the city to save their lives, as a result, more and more people are tripping, and for a time a human wall is formed at the door, and a large number of soldiers in the rear team cannot enter.

Liu Liangzuo saw the soldiers in front of him huddled together, and the shells on his head kept exploding. Liu Liangzuo scolded angrily: "Come on, bring my own soldiers, and go and hack to death those who block the city gate." Everybody into town at once! ”

The captain of the pro-soldier came to the front with Liu Liangzuo's order, and there was nothing to be done, the people in front had formed a waist-deep human wall, and the people behind couldn't climb up at all.

The captain of the pro-soldier found a few familiar hundreds of households on the side, "The commander has an order, rush into the city!" ”

"I can't get in!"

"I know, you find dozens of people, push open the human wall, don't crowd the rear team, and enter the city in an orderly manner!"

The captain of the personal soldiers led more than 100 people to work at the gate of the city for half an hour, and finally pushed through a section of the human wall, and the soldiers behind were able to enter the city. Then the captain of the pro-soldier led people to guard the gap, and someone who did not follow the rules stepped forward with a knife.

In this way, Liu Liangzuo's team finally entered the county seat of Jiangyin after being exposed to naval fire for half an hour. However, this half hour reduced Liu Liangzuo by a quarter, and more than 10,000 people fell in the open space outside Beicheng. Together with the more than 7,000 people killed in the first battle, nearly 20,000 people died at the small north gate. Now this place is full of dead bodies and mourning.

Liu Liangzuoman thought that he would be safe after entering the north gate, but after entering, he found that it was not the case. The houses around the north gate had already been destroyed by Qian Yong and them, and only a few brick houses were left standing, but they were already full of holes.

At this time, Qian Yong had already cleared the Qing soldiers around the north gate, and rushed to the three city gates in three ways, and it was Han Shirong, the commander of the artillery regiment, who stayed at the north gate to guard.

Han Shirong was originally a pig killer in Yanchuan County, Shaanxi, and he was five big and three thick. Later, he couldn't join the Liukou, and he has been wandering in the Central Plains. When he was in Henan, he was caught by Zhu Hongsan, and followed Zhu Hongsan to mix, which is considered a professional cannon fodder.

Zhu Hongsan saw that this guy was tall and powerful, and he was a mechanic who carried artillery shells, so he made him the company commander at the beginning of the creation of the artillery company. I didn't need him to come this time, but Han Shirong, don't look at the five big and three coarse, he is a little splendid in his heart. He knew that if he wanted to break the earth and seal the marquis here in Zhu Hongsan, he had to have military merits, so he had to follow Qian Yong if he found him.

Qian Yong was so troubled by him that he had no choice but to promise him, but he came and could only be used as a battalion commander. Han Shirong became an official in order to make meritorious service, and he gritted his teeth and admitted it. In this way, he became the commander of the artillery battalion of Qian Yong's advance army to the north.

When he first entered the city, Qian Yong handed over the artillery to Han Shirong to be in charge, and it took a lot of effort for this guy to get the equipment of the four artillery companies from the ship. You must know that one cannon is seven or eight hundred pounds, and on the dock where there is no special take-off and landing equipment, it takes a lot of effort to get down 60 guns.

However, when he entered the city with sixty cannons, Qian Yong had already repelled the Qing soldiers at the north gate, and the task given to Han Shirong was to guard the north gate. Han Shirong was so angry, he scolded Qian Sibao behind his back for not being righteous. At this time, the sound of cannons began to sound outside the city, and the gunboats were bombarding the Qing troops outside the city.

As soon as Han Shirong heard the cannon on the ship, he knew that there was a situation and sent a soldier to the city gate to take a look. The soldier came back and told Han Shirong the truth.

Han Shirong was very happy, he didn't expect to be hit by a pie while lying down. He immediately ordered his subordinates to set up a semi-circular defensive formation outside the city gate, and sixty artillery pieces were lined up in turn to wait for the Qing army to enter the city.

Liu Liangzuo's vanguard evaded the naval bombardment, thinking that it would be safe to enter the city, but he didn't expect to see the black hole outside the cannon port as soon as he walked out of the inner city gate.

Han Shirong was born in a professional class, and sixty guns formed a semicircle, wrapping the city gate in the middle, and each artillery could tilt its maximum firepower against the city gate.

Han Shirong saw a group of Qing troops rushing out of the inner city gate, and ordered loudly: Fire! For a time, the city was full of gunsmoke and dead bodies.

In order to deal with the dense formation at close range, Han Shirong used shotguns, and the shotguns used by the army had a shorter range than the howitzer shotguns used by the navy, only 300 to 500 meters. But there are much more submunitions inside. Sixty guns could fire tens of thousands of submunitions with each salvo, and the first few hundred to rush into the Qing army were immediately broken into corpses.

There was army artillery in front of the interception, and naval artillery fire in the rear. This group of new annexes has fallen into bad luck, but at this time it also inspired their little courage, anyway, they are dead, and they may still have a way to survive if they rush over. So these guys burst out with the last fighting spirit, screaming and rushing forward desperately.

On this side, Han Shirong only had four artillery companies under his command, plus less than a battalion of musketeers, and there were less than a thousand people in the full battle. Just now, the Qing army was caught off guard, but now that the Qing army is desperate, Han Shirong's side is a little unable to resist, after all, there are more than 30,000 people on the other side.

At this time, Han Shirong's deputy shouted from the side: "Sir, they are going to enter three hundred meters, should they use platoon guns?" ”

The deputy's words reminded Han Shirong that he still had ten platoons of guns on his side. This thing is dead, and it was finally unloaded from the ship, and now is the time to use it.

Han Shirong ordered ten platoons of guns to be placed in front of him. This platoon gun is a rapid-fire weapon newly developed by the arsenal, and the principle is very simple, twenty barrels are loaded together and fired in turn. Zhu Hongsan also asked them to build a barrel separation system for rapid reloading, but he didn't expect it to be used in actual combat at this time.

The four operators of the platoon gun were also on the battlefield for the first time, and when they saw that the enemy on the opposite side was about to rush to them, they hurriedly loaded the ammunition box and began to shoot under Han Shirong's order.

The caliber of the platoon gun is not an ordinary ten-millimeter caliber, but thirty millimeters, which should be classified as a cannon in later generations, but under the current technology, it is not possible to load gunpowder into a thirty-millimeter bullet, so it is all solid bullets.

As soon as the ten platoon guns were fired, they immediately slowed down the offensive of the Qing troops on the opposite side. This primitive machine gun fire is so ferocious that it can fire non-stop.

Han Shirong saw that this thing was useful, and immediately sent ten soldiers to each platoon of guns to help load ammunition.

Platoon guns are easy to use, but they are too troublesome to reload. Fortunately, at the suggestion of Zhu Hongsan, the loader was obtained, but this could not reach the rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute of the later Maxim machine guns. Zhu Hongsan roughly measured that if this platoon gun has enough ammunition, it can shoot a rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute. That's pretty good, considering that a skilled soldier can only fire three shots per minute these days. This thing is equivalent to an infantry company, but there are many shortcomings, one is heavy, and the other is more deadly, that is, the barrel strength is not enough.

Although Zhu Hongsan was able to make a lot of steel that surpassed this era, he could not make this kind of steel that met the intensity of machine gun fire. Therefore, after firing for half an hour in these ten rows of guns, the barrel has turned into a reddish iron bar, and it cannot be loaded at this time, and the temperature of the barrel will directly ignite the firing charge.

However, the opposite side is not easy, under the double blow of artillery and platoon guns in the past half an hour, the human shield really can't withstand the blow of iron and fire. The Qing soldiers on the opposite side saw that there was no hope of rushing in, so they turned around and rushed out of the city. Liu Liangzuo of the rear team couldn't intercept it at all, and the pro-soldier team couldn't stop the rout at the city gate.

Seeing that the general trend had gone, the captain of the pro-soldier said, "Dashuai, if it doesn't work, let's run too!" ”

Liu Liangzuo sighed and rushed out of the city in the chaos.