At a glance, there are more than 20 building cars that are about to be completed outside the West City Gate, and there are some timbers that have just been transported from other places next to them.

For the three-zhang high city wall, the building cart slightly higher than the city wall is a huge threat, leaning on the outside of the moat, that is, about a hundred paces away, the archers hidden in the building cart only need to keep throwing into the city, and they can kill and injure a large number of defenders on the city wall without aiming, and the materials piled up on the inside of the city wall are also threatened.

In addition to the front row of building cars, there are some shelves that have begun to take shape, and the thick logs are axes at a glance to know that they are catapults, but fortunately, these siege machines have a characteristic, which is inconvenient to move and has to be moved to a distance close to the city wall to be useful. If you can do long-range weapons, then you don't have to defend this city wall, everyone can fight directly on the ground, and you can't fight back when you are beaten passively.

But everything made of wood has the disadvantage of being afraid of fire, Yuan Bing is very aware of this drawback, and smeared the outer layer of the building car with cement and covered it with a layer of fresh and bloody cowhide and horse skin, the purpose of which is fire retardant.

The siege battles in the wars of the past dynasties all had their own characteristics, and the attackers racked their brains to destroy the city walls, city gates, and even dig tunnels to enter the city. The troops defending the city also resorted to fire attacks, water attacks, the release of poisonous smoke, and the method of taking advantage of the wind to raise dust, etc., in order to attack the besieging personnel and destroy the siege equipment.

It is not only the Yuan soldiers who are building building carts and trebuchets, but also building cloud chariots more than ten zhang high in the city, the main purpose is to look out for the enemy, discover the movements of the Yuan soldiers under the city in advance and pass them to the city defense troops, and the best deployment and transfer of troops.

There are also a lot of catapults on the city wall, seventy or eighty pounds of stone is the most suitable weight to cast, no matter how heavy it is, it is futile to throw it far, and no matter how small the stone is thrown, the lethality is not enough.

When the Jin invaded Bianjing in the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a very large stone throwing battle, after the Jin soldiers besieged Bianjing, they set up more than 5,000 catapults around the city wall, and attacked inward at the same time outside the 50-mile city wall of Bianjing.

The Jin army fired countless stone bullets, so much so that no stones could be found in the suburbs of Bianjing at that time! In order to supplement the insufficient supply of stone artillery, the Jin soldiers smashed the stone monuments and stone mills outside the city, and the stone sheep and stone tigers in the cemetery as throwing stones.

The largest catapult used by Jin Bing back then required more than 200 people to pull its own weight, and it could throw dozens to hundreds of pounds of stones to a hundred steps away at a time. The Jin soldiers often concentrated on attacking one place, and more than 100 catapults fired at the same time, and the boulders shot into the city were like rain, and the Song troops defending at the head of the city could not dodge, and there were many casualties.

During the siege, the moat was filled in first, and then a large number of catapult cannons were fired, supplemented by a large number of strong crossbows, which could defeat the deployment of the defending troops in one fell swoop, and then dispatch a huge building cart as high as the city wall and could accommodate dozens of people to suppress the city.

Zhao Tianyou knew very well this method of attacking the city, and the defenders of the Song army also had corresponding countermeasures, but they were already a little outdated, because now there was high-quality gunpowder and slightly powerful prototype artillery.

However, it depends on the consumption of everyone's strength, and the Yuan soldiers went south with a certain heart of victory, which can be said to be invincible. The last time Lu Shikui gave up Guangzhou and retreated, he had thought about when he was ready to come again, and it was not a one-time victory to take Guangzhou City, and the defending Song army had no chance of winning at all. I never thought that I would be bitten hard by Zhao Tianyou before the war started.

"General Zhao! The delivery ship from Hong Kong Island has just arrived, and Master Zhou Yuan has also come with some craftsmen! ”

Zhao Tianyou nodded, and followed his subordinates to the dock outside the southern city, and he was also anxious to see the new weapons, Zhou Yuan and Lao Feng Tou understood a little bit about the description. Because the current material base is limited, and too many complex mechanisms cannot be realized, Zhao Tianyou moved out the Hongyi cannon imported from Europe in the Ming Dynasty, which is the most powerful weapon that can be manufactured by the current technology and manpower.

The long-range shot of the Hongyi cannon is extremely powerful, in addition to the excellent gunpowder combination, and then the flowering shell designed by Lao Feng Tou is the key to the most important thing. Two semi-circular shells were cast, which could fit together tightly with their teeth, and then sealed with lead and tin to fill the gunpowder.

The mold design is very exquisite, and there is also a dark groove for delayed burning of the fixed fuse, coupled with the shape characteristics of the melon grenade proposed by Zhao Tianyou, after the explosion of this flowering bomb, it can be broken into about 30 pieces evenly, and the power is almost equivalent to the small mortars used in World War II.

The concept of the design is that there is no problem, there is no detour, but the manufacturing process is difficult enough, from the Hong Kong Island after settling down, for the island there is no natural danger to defend the crisis, Zhao Tianyou will distribute the design principle of the cannon to discuss. Nearly half a year ago, countless manpower and financial resources were wasted before there were four simple finished products, and there was no intention of taking them out at all.

However, these siege equipment made by the Yuan soldiers outside the city are extremely threatening and lethal, and just by making such a huge amount, Zhao Tianyou has to take out the treasure of the pressure pocket, although it is not very mature. The body of a cannon cast by Lao Feng Tou weighed more than 2,500 catties, and the prototype red-coated cannon was larger and heavier, and the smallest one was more than four or five thousand catties.

Through the extensive use of pulleys and nooses, Hong Kong Island also specially built a rack car when carrying heavy loads, using the role of levers and pulleys to move the 2,500-pound gun body, which still requires a lot of manpower to cooperate.

The frame car pulled the nearly three-meter-long gun body, which attracted countless eyes when it was pushed on the road. When they arrived at the East City Gate, many soldiers reached out to help, trying to lift this terrifying big guy up to the city, but there was no place to start and it was difficult to use force.

"It's still enough to use the largest pulley to build a shelf, and it is enough to have four long sets of ropes, and it is very dangerous to get off the ramp of the city wall by manpower." The craftsmen of Hong Kong Island are familiar with the principle of lever mechanics, and they all scoff at those who work with brute force.

Zhao Tianyou looked at the mighty and majestic cannon body, and there was a little excitement in his heart, this is the city defense weapon, if there are thirty cannons on the head of the city, there is no need to wait for the Yuan soldiers to attack, and they will directly blast the cannon back to their hometown.

I think that the Hongyi cannon was out of the limelight in the city defense wars of Shanhaiguan and Jinzhou, and even Nurhachi of the Manchus at that time was killed by flowering shells. Now that they have traveled hundreds of years and come to the city of Guangzhou, can they create a better record again? Zhao Tianyou is looking forward to it!