The mortar cannon is an ancient curved artillery, named because the cannon body is short and thick, and the shape resembles a Chinese stone mortar.

The advantages and disadvantages of mortars are equally prominent. The advantages are a large caliber, high power, no shooting dead angles, the possibility of hitting targets behind obstacles. The disadvantage is that the height is not far away, the range is not ideal, and it is relatively bulky...... After the advent of mortars and howitzers in later generations, mortars were quickly eliminated, small-caliber mortars were replaced by lighter and more flexible mortars, and large-caliber mortars were replaced by howitzers with longer range and more reasonable ballistics.

Ancient China also had primitive mortar artillery, but in the late Ming Dynasty, the war was mainly concentrated in the north, and the battlefield was mostly a plain with a flat river, without too much terrain undulation, and the curved firing ability of the mortar cannon was not used, so few people used it.

It is normal for Zhang Tianlu to have never seen a mortar cannon, and in this era, it is the world of Franc machine guns.

For primitive artillery, shooting accuracy is the most important, and you must know that if the cannon is not accurate, everything else is nonsense. However, the shooting accuracy of the smoothbore gun is difficult to guarantee, until the Franc cannon was introduced into China, because it can shoot directly, so it is more accurate, and the low flat trajectory can take into account the range and power, and was soon copied by the Ming and Qing armies in large quantities, and the so-called red-coated cannon is the standard weapon of the Qing artillery.

(The Franc cannon has a low trajectory, but in fact it still sacrifices a certain range.) But its biggest advantage is that it can shoot accurately, and it can also correct the shooting twice, which was a very advanced weapon at that time. It can even be said that after the Fran cannon was introduced to China, the artillery really had a real combat effect. ）

There is one more disadvantage to mortars. When using solid shells, the trajectory curve of the mortar is too large, and the shells fly high and fall high. The kinetic energy is lost, and the killing effect of the secondary bounce is worse than that of the Furlong cannon. After all, the main damage of solid shells is brought by secondary and tertiary bounces.

All in all, the shooting accuracy, range, maneuverability and so on of the mortar gun. It has no advantage over the Furlong cannon, so the Furlong cannon will be popular for a while, but the mortar cannon is difficult to find.

But the mortar has one of the biggest advantages, it can fight cattle across the mountains!

In a sense, mortars and mortars are very similar. Regardless of the obstacles in between, the mortar can hit the enemy, and it is not very useful in the plains of the north, but it is an invincible weapon of great destruction in the hilly areas of the south.

Mortars contain too much technical difficulty, not to say that they can be built. Wang Kefan made the mortar cannon in preparation for using it as an earth-made mortar. For the infantry, the fire support of mortars is too important, especially the flintlock guns have a limited range, and small-caliber mortars can greatly increase the fire coverage distance of the Chu army.

In order to develop the mortar cannon, the Chu Army Arsenal spent three years before and after improving the shortcomings of the mortar cannon, and finally produced a new mortar cannon of two calibers, large and small, which can basically meet the requirements of actual combat in terms of performance.

In terms of shooting accuracy. The mortar of the Chu army was not too high.

In the ambush battle of Sijing Mountain, the artillery position of the Chu army was less than 200 steps away from the Qing army, and for the artillery, it was almost against the nose of the opponent, but a third of the shells were missed. Only four of the six mortars hit the Qing army.

After the second correction, there are two shots, and after the third correction. There were three shots...... The angle of the trajectory curve of the mortar gun is too large, and it is difficult to control it accurately. It's like a weakened version of a conscienceless cannon, but fortunately, the general direction is generally not wrong. Even if you can't hit the enemy, you won't accidentally damage your allies.

In terms of power, the mortar is good.

Although the secondary bounce lethality of the mortar gun is slightly inferior to that of the Furlong cannon, it is superior in caliber. Because the barrel is unusually short and thick, the caliber of the mortar gun of the same weight is larger, and it can fire larger shells, and there are no too high requirements in terms of range anyway, so the weight of the shells can be as large as possible.

In terms of mobility, the mortar artillery of the Chu army has been significantly improved.

Unlike lightweight mortars, mortars require a complete set of recoils, so they are bulkier. In order to solve this problem, the Chu military arsenal equipped the mortar with a gun carriage and a gun carriage, the iron gun carriage axle and iron wheels can bear a huge weight, a mule horse or two or three soldiers can carry a mortar cannon.

The gun carriage is equipped with relevant mechanical devices, when the cannon is fired, the mortar can be lowered from the gun carriage, fixed on the ground, most of the recoil is absorbed by the base, and then turn the agitator after the cannon is fired, the mortar cannon is raised again, and it is transported away on the gun carriage.

The mortar artillery of the Chu army also had the advantage of firing both iron and stone shells.

The main reason for the use of stone shells is to reduce costs and reduce the pressure on logistics and transportation. For this purpose, the Chu army specially recruited a group of stonemasons to act with the artillery unit, and when necessary, they could use local materials, and after simple processing, they had a steady stream of artillery shells...... Of course, the main reason is to save money, big stones are cheap, smash them hard, it doesn't matter if you can't hit it accurately, you can always cover it once or twice with a few more shots.

In addition to stone shells, the Chu army also sent a batch of iron shells to the mountainous area of Ningzhen, but "this expensive weapon of mass destruction" was specially designed to deal with the Eight Banners, and Hao Shangjiu's green battalion soldiers were not blessed......

Hao Shangjiu was attacked in Sijing Mountain, but the other Qing army units knew nothing, their heads were stunned, their faces were dizzy, and they continued to advance towards the hinterland of Ningzhen Mountain.

Soon after Mu Lima passed through the town of Zhuohua, he came to the foot of Fang Mountain.

Fangshan is a not too high flat-topped mountain, close to the east bank of the Qinhuai River, this place has become the urban area of Nanjing in later generations, but now it is a wilderness.

Mulima marched along the embankment of the Qinhuai River, and saw that this was a dangerous place where mountains and rivers meet, so he specially sent a team of green battalion soldiers to climb Fangshan, and after reconnaissance confirmed that there was no ambush, he ordered the brigade to continue to advance.

This kind of drudgery of mountaineering and pathfinding, of course, has to be done by the green battalion soldiers, and the Eight Banners Taijun continued to ride his horse and walked along the river embankment.

Murima's men and horses were 7,000 men, and the ranks were longer, but fortunately, the grain, grass and baggage were transported by sailors, so the march was relatively fast. The forward troops quickly passed Fangshan, the Chinese army was in the area of Fangshan Yang Village, and the rear guard troops were still dragging near the Dinglin Temple behind the mountain, and suddenly heard the shouting of killing on Fangshan, and the gunfire sounded like bursting beans, as if it had been attacked by the enemy.

Mu Lima hurriedly sent a team of soldiers and horses again to check on the mountain to check for support, in addition to the two hundred green battalion soldiers, there were also three hundred Eight Banners Taijun also jumped off their beloved war horses and climbed up the mountain on foot. They had just climbed halfway up the hill, but the sound of gunfire and killing on the top of the mountain had disappeared, and they were stunned when a dense rain of lead bullets suddenly shot out from the oncoming woods, and more than 20 Qing soldiers were hit, crackling and rolling down the hillside like a stake.

The Green Battalion soldiers hurriedly lay down on the spot, but the Eight Banners soldiers held high the tiger tooth swords, shouted and rushed up to the woods, and several officers drew their sabers and forced the Green Battalion soldiers to charge together. They were greeted by a volley of guns, not only from the oncoming woods, but also from the flanks and from high places.

The Qing army attacked from the bottom up, and wore riding boots and cotton armor, and the speed of the charge was affected by Yan zhòng, although it was only a few dozen paces away, but it was next to each other six or seven times in a row, and after more than one-third of the casualties, the green battalion soldiers were the first to retreat, and the Eight Banners could not resist retreating.

Mulima didn't blame them.

The tactics of the Chu army are really strange, they can even shoot a three-stage salvo in the woods, and there is cross-fire cover between them, which is obviously specially trained and carefully prepared before the battle. The Qing army was caught off guard, and it was inevitable that they would suffer a loss.

"It's not a big deal, the southern thief wants to lure me to attack the mountain, and I will just ignore him......" Although Fangshan was occupied by the Chu army, Mulima was not worried. There is still some distance between the mountain and the bottom of the mountain, and the fire guns and bows and arrows cannot be shot, if the Chu army dares to come down the mountain to attack, let them taste the power of the Eight Banners Tiger Tooth Knife.

"Pass my general order, don't pay attention to the southern thieves on Fang Mountain, do your best to move forward, and pass guò ......"

As soon as he said this, a rumbling cannon suddenly sounded on the hillside, and more than a dozen swarthy cannonballs roared into the sky, and then smashed down towards the river embankment, becoming bigger and bigger in the field of vision!

……

On the Danyang side, Jumala was also ambushed.

After conquering Jintan County, he divided the Gongyi Battalion and the Pingjiang Battalion into two, and then left a few thousand men and horses to monitor the Pingjiang Battalion, and he led the main force north to attack the Gongyi Battalion and the Changsha Battalion.

Capture the thief and capture the king first, a fierce general like Zhu Mala, of course, does not want to waste time on the Pingjiang battalion, but chooses the Gongyi battalion as the target of the attack. As long as the Gongyi battalion is defeated, the Chu army in the entire mountainous area of Ningzhen will fall into a state of leaderless dragons and be slaughtered by the Qing army.

Although he left a few thousand men and horses to monitor the Pingjiang battalion, there were still 15,000 Qing troops around him, which was twice as many as the strength of the Gongyi battalion and the Pingjiang battalion, and he launched an attack on Danyang County with great momentum.

Wang Kefan retreated without a fight, and Zhu Mala's advance was still twenty miles away from the county seat of Danyang, so he led the Chu army to abandon the city and flee, retreating towards Jurong County in the west.

Zhu Mala pursued relentlessly, abandoned Danyang County, and rushed to Jurong County in two ways, one way to continue to pursue the Chu army from behind, and the other route was led by him personally, from the northern foot of Maoshan County to the northwest direction, ready to cut off Wang Kefan's retreat and surround him in Jurong County.

Advancing lightly all the way, when Zhu Mala arrived at Tangshan, he stepped into the ambush circle that the Chu army had prepared long ago.

On the narrow mountain road, nearly 10,000 Qing troops dragged into an intermittent long line, enduring the shells fired from the mountains on both sides.

The frequency of the Chu army's mortar firing was not too fast, unhurried, but rhythmic, and Jumala could even guess the time of each shot.

Although the frequency of the shelling was not fast, it was too demoralizing to be beaten and not fought back. (To be continued......)