Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Fire Burns Luanzhou (2)
Outside Luanzhou City, Zhang Chu was organizing people to set fires, and Zhang Chu had made preparations for a long time in order to set this fire. Before sending out the army, he wanted to find an opportunity to set a fire, and it would be good to burn Houjin a place where he hoarded grain and grass, and now Houjin hid in the city, making his fire more valuable.
Zhang Chu had used a trebuchet to set fire to it before, the trebuchet was too cumbersome and inconvenient to use, so how to set fire to it conveniently Zhang Chu thought about it for a long time. Then he came up with a weapon for setting fire—a rocket. Zhang Chu thought of a rocket in the modern sense, which was completely different from what the Ming Dynasty people called a rocket. The Ming Dynasty already had something similar, and it also took a nice name: Fire Dragon Out of the Water. This is the ancestor of the two-stage rocket, which can be used amphibious. The shortcomings of this weapon are also particularly obvious, that is, there is no spectrum, how far it flies after launch, and where it flies is not spectrum. It's not necessary to turn around and fly back.
The people of the Ming Dynasty did not have the knowledge of aerodynamics, so they made rockets into various beautiful shapes and wanted to fly farther, but caused the instability of rocket flight. It was not a problem for Zhang Chu, Zhang Chu installed a wooden guide rail on the side van, referring to the style of the guide rail of the rocket artillery in later generations, for the sake of simplicity, there was only one guide rail, which could launch the rocket out. The shape of the rocket has also been transformed into the appearance of later rockets, with wings, and the rocket rotates under the drive of the tail after launch, and the trajectory is much more stable, and this stability is only relative to the fire dragon out of the water, but it is enough to deal with targets the size of the city. Zhang Chu's purpose was simple, to set fire for the sake of arson. He made the rockets as coarse as possible and made the warheads double-layered. A small amount of gunpowder was put into the middle and the outer layer was poured into Zhang Chu's special gasoline, and after the gunpowder exploded, the gasoline was ignited and splashed everywhere, and the effect of arson was quite good, and the unique whistling sound when the rocket was launched was even more terrifying in the dark night.
It takes a lot of oil to set fire, this is not a problem, the extended oil well finally hit the oil layer with the efforts of craftsmen, and there is oil output every day, and after simple refining, a large amount of impure gasoline is produced, but there is no problem with setting fires, Zhang Chu added condiments to the gasoline.
This time, Zhang Chu brought so much gasoline to deal with the accident, and Zhang Chu was not confident in blocking the cavalry, so he ordered the craftsmen to make a large number of iron barrels, and each chariot was loaded with several barrels of gasoline and pulled from Yanchang, ready to be pushed out and set on fire when it was almost unbearable. It has not been used yet, and tonight Zhang Chu filled gasoline into the warhead of the rocket and began this arson operation.
The unstable trajectory of the rockets has become an advantage, the security forces do not need to aim at all, they only need to launch in the direction of Luanzhou City, and the rockets automatically fly everywhere, almost setting the entire city on fire. The ten rockets per cart were quickly discharged. The security forces immediately packed up their vehicles and moved to their positions.
In Luanzhou City, Haoge and several other generals discussed for half the night, but they didn't think of a strategy to break the enemy, and when they returned to their station, they didn't sleep and thought alone, determined that they must find a way to find out the origin of this Ming army tomorrow. Suddenly a terrible howling sound came, this never-before-heard sound made people feel great fear, Hauge couldn't help but run outside the house, looking for the source of the sound, following the prestige to drag the long tail of fireballs from the sky, the place where the landing immediately burst into flames, Hauge was in the yard also fell a fireball, the flames spread in the courtyard, the guards hurriedly used everything available to fight the flames, but the fire was very evil, no matter what hit the past, it would catch up, and hurt several people at once, The fire was finally extinguished, and the guards were deeply afraid of the fireball, and they had never seen a fire that could be ignited even by a knife or spear, so the enemy must have used some kind of evil magic. The fireball that fell on the roof was not so easy to deal with, and Hauge personally saw that the houses not far away were ignited by the fireball, and the fire grew bigger and bigger in the strong wind of the winter night, and the whole house was set on fire, and there were more and more fire points in Luanzhou City. Seeing that the whole city is about to be set on fire. You can't stay in the city, and you have to run out of the city.
Haoge immediately ordered someone to load the stolen gold and silver into the car and run towards the north gate of Luanzhou, these gold and silver are the results of this plunder, and they are also the foundation for strengthening themselves in the future, and they can't lose anything. Now the situation of the Ming army outside the city is unknown, so they can only desperately run in the direction of Yongping Mansion occupied by the Houjin, and dare to take the initiative to attack the Houjin army, the Ming army will definitely not be less, and it must have surrounded Luanzhou City, so there is no need to think about the enemy's weak links, just rush out with all your might.
But it was not so easy to reach the city gate, and Hauge led the team to the street, but was stopped by the people scurrying on the street. Seeing that the burning fire was getting closer and closer, Hauge ordered the guards to open the way in front, and at the same time gathered the team, regardless of the killing, the road ahead was cleared under the strong suppression of the guards, and Hauge's team was able to move towards the city gate, avoiding the block blocked by the fire, and after several turns, Hauge and his party finally arrived at the north gate of Luanzhou.
The situation was even worse in front of the city gates, where a large number of men and horses were closed, and the crowds of people who were scrambling for their lives crowded into the gates so that they could not be opened. At this moment a fireball fell on the crowd at the city gate, and several of the people who were hit were on fire, and the others fled from them in terror, and then watched them turn into humanoid torches, screaming and running, rolling on the ground, and then falling to the ground and convulsing. Fear overcame human nature, for their own lives, someone picked up the knife and gun in their hands to kill the roadway, in order to prevent themselves from being killed, all the people took up weapons to attack all those who tried to get close to themselves, the people who lost their minds killed each other, and gradually the city gate was empty, most of the people fell to the ground, the survivors had their own independent space, holding weapons on guard, at this time Hauge's personal soldiers played a role, and the survivors were gathered aside under the swords of the pro-soldiers, and there was order at the city gate, Hauge ordered the guards to guard the gates, and then opened them. Finally led the team out of the city gate, Hauge breathed a sigh of relief.
In the dark night, Haoge didn't dare to lead the team to run around, and ordered to gather the team that ran out of the city, but fortunately, Yue Tuo and several Gushan Ezhen guards also escaped with gold and silver. Seeing that hundreds of men and horses had gathered, they did not dare to delay any longer, in case the Ming army found out that they had killed them, they would be broken, and the team under the leadership of Hauge fled towards Yongping Mansion in the north.
Not far from the escape, you can hear the sound of gunfire on the side, and the explosions in the front team continue to sound everywhere, at this time there is not so much to do, Hauge ordered his men to ride horses and rush forward desperately, and after taking dozens of casualties, he really made a way, and the follow-up team passed without the sound of explosions, but the guns and bullets on the side also caused a lot of casualties to the fleeing personnel. Houjin's team had no intention of fighting, first fled from this terrible place, left everything that hindered the escape, and fled desperately in the direction of Yongping Mansion, fortunately, the Ming army did not desperately intercept, and all the leaders were able to escape, but there was little gold and silver left from the city.
Zhang Chu looked at the back of the Houjin army fleeing and secretly rejoiced, he bet on the right direction of the Houjin army's escape, and the Houjin army did not turn his head to find him desperately.
The soldiers were ordered to quickly clean up the battlefield, cut off the heads regardless of whether they were dead or alive, and the gold and silver were loaded on the cars, and the security forces withdrew from the battlefield.
The security army was no longer capable of fighting, Zhang Chu was poor again, the materials transported from Zhongyang were exhausted, and it was time for the security army to go home.