Chapter 60: The Eight-pounder Cannon

A small number of battles broke out on the periphery during the night, and Jiannu imitated the sound of wild beasts howling for most of the night, trying to harass Dengzhou Town. Jiannu has Fuzhou City as the backing, and he can rest well. However, the night defense system of Dengzhou Town has also been tested repeatedly, and the thousands of headquarters have successively sent receiving troops, but they have not allowed Jiannu to break through the perimeter.

Early in the morning of the second day, the army had breakfast and advanced to Fuzhou, and the distance of more than ten miles was quickly reached, and more than 5,000 troops arrived at the city of Fuzhou along the west bank of the Pearl River, like a red and black carpet spread over the fields outside the city, and the loud military trumpets and drums shook the heavens and the earth.

Chen Xin's banner stops on the land hill in the southeast of the city, there is a Yongfeng tower on the mountain, it is said that it was built in the thirteenth year of Chongxi in the Liao Dynasty, and the "Yongfeng sunset", one of the eight views of Fuzhou, is here. Yongfeng tower is seven zhang high, the first layer is octagonal and eight-sided, there is a Buddha shrine on each side, there are more than ten layers of towers in the second order, the wind chimes are hung under the eaves corner of the top of the tower, the overall shape is quite exquisite. When Chen Xin saw it, the exterior wall was a little weathered, looking mottled and vicissitudes.

It seems that the place where the tower is built will look good in the evening, and Chen Xin has no intention of going to see any sunset at this time. He paid more attention to the lack of beauty in the city in front of him. Fuzhou was guarded in Hongwu ten years, the beginning was the earth city, Yongle built a brick city in four years, the circumference was four miles and three hundred steps, the city wall was two feet five feet high, one zhang five feet wide, there was no urn city, as far as the grand Cheng dΓΉ was concerned, there was a big gap with Jinzhou, the height of the city wall alone was enough to reduce one zhang, and in terms of the difficulty of attacking, it was lowered by a grade.

Fuzhou was also an area with access to the sea in the Ming Dynasty, and commerce was once very prosperous, but after the baptism of the ten exploits of the old slave, it was already barren at this time. Only a small part of the courtyards scattered outside the city remained, the others were turned into ruins, and the only business left was smuggling with Dengzhou Guanning, and there was no local trade of shops, and even the surrounding fertile land was barren and overgrown. Only a small number of military camps on both sides of the Pearl River and Fuzhou River were burned by the Dengzhou Sentinel this year, and the remaining small part is not yet mature.

The Chinese Sentinels had already bypassed Fuzhou and headed north to burn the wheat fields of the military forts along the way. Although there were only a few dozen people, they were equipped with one person and two horses this time, and if Jiannu wanted to stop them, he would have to invest at least several times his strength. And they obviously don't have it now, and the more wheat fields they burn, the greater the logistical pressure on the Fuzhou line this winter.

There are three words written on the south gate, Chen Xin doesn't remember how many times he has encountered the Ying'en Gate, at least the west gate of Dengzhou is called Ying'en Gate, and the north gate of Fuzhou is also called Zhenhai Gate, Chen Xin only feels that the copyright problem of the name of Daming City Gate is strict. There is no west gate in Fuzhou, only the east gate is different from Dengzhou, called Mingtong Gate.

This information has long been investigated by the sentinels, and this time Fuzhou City is small. But it doesn't mean it's better than Golden State. Because there are many defenders in the city, after Fuzhou became the front line, the Houjin soldiers also made a lot of preparations, and the equipment to defend the city was much more abundant than that of Jinzhou. It is conceivable that there should also be regular ash bottles and fire bottles.

There is a Hongyi cannon on the south and east sides of the city wall, and Houjin built three to five Hongyi cannons in the fourth year of Chongzhen, and two more at the beginning of the fifth year, but the performance is much longer than that of Guangdong and Fujian. Even it is far worse than the products of the Ministry of Industry.

In the first year of Chongzhen, the Ministry of Industry created a six-pounder cannon with an iron body and copper heart, this unique casting cannon technology leads the world, Fujian and Guangdong benefited from the technology spread of the Macao Cannon Factory, and the technology of copper cannons and iron cannons is stronger than the north, but the overall decay of the Ming army can not be reversed only by these artillery, but continues to play the role of a transport captain, just the two battles of Daling River and Changshan, Houjin has captured at least seven Hongyi cannons of different sizes, and now the head of Fuzhou City is the capture from the Daling River, respectively, firing seven catties and nine catties of cannons, is equipped with Da Linghe's gunner, which shows that Huang Taiji has put his mind on Fuzhou.

Houjin soldiers still have nearly 2,000 Zhenyi soldiers in the city, 2,000 traitor infantry, and there should be some clothing in Fuzhou City, with the organizational strength of Jiannu, they can all participate in defending the city, and Dengzhou does not have any military advantage. Only the momentum is better than Jiannu, yesterday the white flag broke the courage, although they fled back back to the number of more than 1,000, but out of the city field battle is not courageous, Mang Gurtai's blue flag yesterday The loss is very small, the structure is also very complete, and it is currently the most powerful one in Fuzhou.

The staff officers of the Military Command Department deduced it, believing that it was easy to be pinned down by the enemy cavalry on three sides of the division of troops, and the main force was concentrated at the south gate, and only the 2,000th headquarters of the guards was placed at the east gate, and while dispersing the Jiannu defenders, relying on the Pearl River to block the enemy cavalry from harassing from the east gate and the north gate.

The south gate concentrated three thousand headquarters and cavalry battalions, and the main attack was the 1,000th headquarters of the guards, they were the formation of the mandarin duck formation, and the fighting ability of the killer team was far stronger than that of the spearmen, and they were more flexible in mountain and urban combat.

The attack is still aimed at seizing the city gate, Ying'en Gate does not have an urn city, and there is no jack gate that only has a city like Beijing and Nanjing, and the city wall is low, so the difficulty of the attack is not high.

The Ming army's large array stopped at two miles, and the fourth battalion phalanx thousand headquarters spread out on the west side, guarding against the north gate of Jiannu to send cavalry to bypass the harassment of Xicheng, and the dragoon thousand headquarters rode on the southwest side of the south gate, and the cavalry responded left and right.

More than 40 shield cars were driven by more than 400 coatings, and they went to Ying'en Gate, and the shield cars were divided into two rows, and there were some trench cars in the middle, but there were no simple ladders in the Golden State.

Chen Xin didn't plan to join the city again this time, the last time he was in Jinzhou was because the Jiannu garrison was weak, and this time Jiannu had enough manpower at the head of the wall, and it was difficult for the soldiers who boarded it to stand still.

This time, he will use the tactic of digging the root of the wall that Jiannu is best at, and even the manpower is Jiannu. Although there are also many hard-working people in these coats, Chen Xin can only regard them as enemies now, and it is not bad if he doesn't kill them on the spot and take their heads. Last night, because it was too late to capture and it was inconvenient to cut down trees, only these forty shield carts and some trench wagons were built, and there were hundreds of coats in the back of the battle to rush to make them.

The shield cart creaked and went towards the city gate, surrounded by sentry riders of various departments at a distance of two hundred steps from the city wall, the shield cart was still two layers in front and rear, the first guard always sent a division of more than 400 people, advancing under the cover of the shield cart, between the two layers of shield carts, there were two eight-pounder guns of the Guards Battalion Artillery Team, two four-pounder guns of the two divisions, and the heavy weapons flag team of the Guards Battalion.

Entered the two miles not long after. The Hongyi cannon on the south gate roared, and a nine-pound iron bullet flew out, flying high above the head of the shield car line, and smashed on the ground behind it with a bang.

The Dengzhou soldiers who escorted the car shouted and cursed loudly with their blades, telling them to continue their advance, and the Hongyi cannon on the city tower fired again, this time closer. The pacifiers loudly reminded Bao Yi that the Hongyi cannon would lose its effect when it approached the city wall.

The coats fought with all their might in a panic, and the shield cart went faster and faster, and finally hit by the Hongyi cannon when they reached a mile. A shield cart in the back row on the left side broke like a pile of toys, and the ferocious kinetic energy of the nine-pound iron bullet exploded the thick trunk of the bowl into countless pieces, and the flesh and blood of the cart flew sideways, and it was ejected a few feet away, and a killer team behind it also fell down most of the time, and the miserable howl sounded to the sky.

The coats in the shield car array were in chaos, and the Dengzhou soldiers slashed and killed more than ten people in a row before the coats continued to advance, but fortunately, the Hongyi cannon seemed to be an iron cannon, and after the three cannons, it stopped firing after the Jinchengtou cannon rang out again and again. More than a dozen puffs of smoke erupted from the city. In total, there were more than a dozen salvos of the general and the second general's guns, which also came from previous captures.

The general's cannon began to be manufactured in the Wanli period, weighing more than 300 catties, and made great contributions in the anti-Japanese aid war, but by the end of the Ming Dynasty, it was far behind. The accuracy of these two or three hundred pounds of artillery was extremely poor, and the firing range and firing range were insufficient, and only two shield carts were overturned. However, in terms of firepower, Fuzhou is very different from Golden State this time. Although Chen Xin had obtained the information in advance, he was still a little worried when he saw the constantly flickering fires in the city at this time.

The rest of the shield carts walked safely one hundred and fifty paces. Hongyi cannon is a naval cannon, the trajectory is straight, there is a large dead angle after being placed on the city wall, the bow and arrow are basically no threat to the shield car, enter the city to shoot, Dengzhou musket has an advantage.

After entering the hundred steps, the head of the Houjin City shouted repeatedly, the bird guns of Wuzhen Chaoha roared in all directions, the firearms team behind the second row of shield cars immediately began to fight back, and the archers of the city head Jiannu also joined in the shooting, and the bullets outside the south gate were blank and smoky, and people on both sides were shot and fell to the ground, but the shield cars in the front row of Dengzhou still advanced forward to the side of the moat.

The moat of Fuzhou is more than two zhang wide, forced by the threat of the Ming army in Jinzhou, Jiannu organized an excavation this year, the situation was better than that of Jinzhou at that time, the river water drawn from the Pearl River filled half of the trench, the stone bridge on the trench has been destroyed by Jiannu, it is impossible to pass directly, and it will take at least half a day to fill the trench.

The cart behind it was quickly pushed up, and this kind of equipment was also a simple copycat version, with two wheels and a long thick plank, and a bag of earth and stone piled on it, which could be directly erected on the trench, so that the shield cart and the soldiers could pass through the guΓ², and the pile of earth and stone bags on top was used to put arrows and fill the trench, so that the soldiers who set up the cart in the trench could have a foothold.

Under the coercion of the Dengzhou soldiers, the coat of the cart desperately threw the earth and stone bags into the trench, which was only more than 20 steps away from the city wall, and the long-range troops on both sides fought more intensely. Constantly the coat of the trench was shot, and he fell to the ground and wailed loudly.

Houjin's direct musket beat the shield car to sawdust, the body was full of arrows, there were constantly Dengzhou soldiers falling, the Ming army's flintlock pistol cover was also very fierce, they fired a salvo according to the unit, and quickly overpowered the bird gun in the rate of fire, Wuzhen Chaoha except for the first round of salvo is good, the back of the shooting is very scattered, and the interval is getting longer and longer.

The first two four-pounder guns left in the back row fired scattered bullets on both sides of the city, and the archery of the Houjin soldiers had a long process of drawing the bow and aiming, often standing at the battlement before starting to draw the bow, and was knocked over by the muskets below, and the Ming army could be fired quickly, and then hid behind the shield cart. The bow and arrow did not pose the slightest threat to the shield cart, and the golden archers fell sharply in such a covered counter-fire.

The two eight-pounder guns of the Ming army did not fire, and stopped by the moat facing the gate, the two guns were sandwiched between the three strong shield carts, and the gunners were hiding behind the shield carts, and the muzzles of the black holes were aimed at the gate of the Ying'en Gate.

The artillery of the Guards Battalion was composed of four eight-pounder guns, and the workshop, which had just begun mass production, was not able to give them to each

The battalion was fully supplied, so he had to equip the Guards Battalion and the Fourth Battalion with two each, the first and second battalions each had one, and Zheng Sanhu simply didn't have one. Leading the artillery team of the Guards Battalion was the nervous artillery commander Gao Yang on Shenmi Island, he was sitting behind the shield car at this time, the two artillery groups were operating by themselves, Gao Yang took out a cigarette leisurely, and grabbed the torch of the No. 2 gunner.

The eight-pounder cannon on the left roared, and the six-pound iron bullet whistled out, and the iron-clad wooden gate was pierced like papier-mΓ’chΓ©. The left door leaf shook violently, making an unpleasant rattling sound, and a huge hole was punched in the door.

"Don't rush to shoot the No. 2 gun." Gao Yang probe glanced at it, retracted and said to the artillery crew on the right, "There is no earth and stone behind that door, and the Tartars may run out." Gun No. 1 continues to fire, smash that one for me. ”

The first cannon on the left fired two more in a row, and the latch behind it was torn into several pieces by the second shell, and the left door leaf collapsed violently, and the right door leaf also fell crookedly. The black doorway was exposed, there were several corpses on the ground, and the backs of more than a dozen Houjin soldiers desperately fled backwards, and after leaving the doorway, they hid left and right behind the city wall. Then there were a lot of people who looked like they were going to pile rocks on the streets.

At this time, the coated earth and stone bags were thrown down. Then the trench car was pushed down, and the front section of the trench car fell into the trench, splashing a large area of water.

The Dengzhou soldiers forced Bao Yi to jump into the trench, and they stepped on the earth and stone bags below, removed the wheels of the trench carts, and then lifted the planks to the edge of the trench opposite.

Under the cover of the moats, the bows and arrows at the head of the city could not hit them, but the townsmen of Dengzhou shouted and cursed, urging them to set up as much as possible. These panicked coatings desperately held the planks. Block by piece the edge of the trench was erected.

Gao Yang had smoked several cigarettes. He hummed softly to the sound of firecrackers, and leaned his head on the front guard of the shield car, from which there were constant vibrations.

"The two-winged shield car is ready to cross the trench!" The voice of the infantry officer came. Then most of the commanders of the first division came over and said to Gao Yangyi: "Captain Gao, your cannon will come to the root of the two wing walls for a few shots. Loosen some of those coatings to dig up. ”

Gao Yang narrowed his eyes and replied, "You don't enter the city gate?" ”

The general shook his head, "The staff officer came just now, and said don't rush in, there may be many Tartars in the city gate." From there, there is a doorway that can attack us all around, and there are birds on our heads. Dig both sides of the city gate first, and you can see clearly when you dig it down. ”

The general said that he continued to move forward, and the No. 1 gun immediately turned the muzzle of the cannon and fired directly at the root of the wall next to it, and the masonry there was cracked, and the city wall of Fuzhou was old, and in some poorly maintained places, the masonry had collapsed automatically, which was very beneficial to the excavation.

A moment later, a military horn sounded, and the two-winged shield cars began to cross the river one by one, each car was followed by a team of killers, the musket design in the back row was more violent, and the Wuzhen Chaoha on the wall screamed again and again, and the counterattack weakened.

The shield cart stopped a few steps away from the city wall, and several triangular roof carts were directly on the city wall, and the coat below began to dig the root of the wall under the watchful eye of the following townspeople. The head of the city shouted and scolded, and there were no rope control weapons such as yaksha slaps on the position of several chariots, and the Jin soldiers quickly threw down stones again and again, and smashed them on the chariot with a banging sound, and the top of the chariot was triangular, which had the effect of unloading force on the stones and wood, and similar pointed wooden donkeys and hook crashing cars were of this shape.

The coating in the cart was very nervous, they could hear the movement on the roof, this cart was Wendeng with the army craftsmen to guide them to do it in a hurry, they had no bottom in their hearts, stuffy their heads with shovels and shovels to dig desperately, after taking out the bricks and stones that were loosened by the cannonballs, they began to dig the rammed earth inside, these rammed earth is old, the part that has been eroded by the rain of the brick joints is better excavated, and the inside has long been pressed tightly, and a shovel can only dig a small piece.

Chen Xin looked at the city wall with a telescope on the land post, and it took a while for a piece of dirt to be thrown out, and he couldn't help but say to Liu Pojun: "Didn't you say that the excavation was very fast during the simulation?" ”

"The soil they are looking for doesn't seem to be right, and I'm afraid it's going to be harder. I think those coatings are also afraid at this time, and they will never delay time. ”

"Go back and let Zhu Daichun make a training syllabus for gunpowder blasting, and using a coating every time is not a way after all." Chen Xin raised the telescope again.

Liu Pojun said suddenly: "My lord, the last time my subordinates cleared the Linglong Gold Mine, before leaving, I heard that Mr. Liu arranged for those miners to use gunpowder to open the mine, saying that it was to expand production. ”

"Huh." Chen Xin turned his head to look at him, thought about it and smiled: "Exactly, miners digging holes are old professions, and those miners are not bad when they hear about the brawl?" ”

"Wang'er Mountain has fought a big one, those captured standard battalion soldiers even used the three-eyed guns, and they were still killed more than 20 times, those miners are indeed ruthless, and they must be strong after months of training."

Chen Xin nodded and said, "Well, that's good." When he went back, he asked Zhu Daichun to form a real company at the Pingdu base, send some veterans to enrich it, and then recruit miners from the gold mine to train, specializing in siege techniques and street warfare techniques, which is called a combat engineer company. ”

Liu Pojun was not surprised by Chen Xin's ideas that often popped up suddenly, so he found a notebook to write it down, and Wang Mafu also recorded it at the same time, so as to facilitate later supervision.

"Also, the captured war horses can expand the cavalry battalion, and the new war horses bought from other places should not be sent to southern Liaoning. There are only dozens of horses in the cavalry department of martial arts, and it needs to be expanded, and the outstanding ones who are excellent this time will be selected as instructors. These coatings are good inside and can also be pulled out. If it is found that no one has been harmed, it can be introduced into the army and some grievances can be held in various departments......"

Before Chen Xin finished speaking, there was a shout of killing at the south gate, Liu Pojun and others stopped recording and hurriedly looked at the south gate.

Piles of firewood and grass were thrown down the wall, smashed on the triangular backs of the two carts, and then slid down to the sides and piled up, all of which fell on the firewood and grass, and some people risked their lives to drop something like tung oil. Then a few torches were thrown. The firewood and grass were suddenly blazing, and several burning people rushed out from under a chariot, rolling and hissing on the ground.

Gao Yangyi didn't care about the howl next to him, his eyes kept staring at the location of the doorway, and he reached out and patted the barrel of the cannon to remind the two gun commanders: "Pay attention to the doorway." Check the torches. ”

As soon as the two artillery commanders finished their returns, a horn sounded at the head of the city, and many birds and gunners appeared at the battlement at the same time, firing a fierce salvo at the shield cart under the city. Several unsuspecting Dengzhou musketeers were hit and fell to the ground, and some strong Jiannu threw the ash bottles far away and smashed them on the shield cart that crossed the trench, and immediately the lime powder was splashed everywhere, and several blinded wrappers covered their faces and rolled on the ground.

Then there was a sudden shout of killing from the doorway, and a dense crowd of people poured out of both sides, rushing towards the outside of the city.

"Gun No. 1." Gao Yang waited until it was crowded with people, and then he stepped back and patted the cannon on the left, "Shoot!" ”

With a loud "boom", six catties of iron bullets rushed out of the cannon in the white smoke, and flew into the door with great speed, tearing apart all the objects in front of him, and the limbs in the door flew sideways, and even the soldiers who were not hit by the iron bullets were also hit by the flying limbs.

"It's stronger than a four-pounder cannon." Gao Yang said in a low voice, with a little excited look on his face, this cannon knocked the Houjin soldiers into a rainbow-like attack, and the dead and wounded were everywhere in the doorway, and the echo effect of the screams spread far away.

The sound of Chinese scolding sounded in the doorway, and some people swung their knives to slash and kill the soldiers who stopped, and the remnants of the soldiers howled and rushed out of the doorway, and the muskets on the side of the trench fired a round, and several Houjin soldiers were shot down, and the people behind were still swarming out.

Gao Yangyi raised his right hand and didn't put it down, and the commander of the second cannon was a little anxious.

"Captain, this, do you want to fight?"

"Wait for them to rush out and stop the ones behind, and the ones in front have no backup, and it's easy for the killer team to clean them up."

When the Houjin people rushed out of more than 40 people, and the No. 1 cannon was also loaded with loose shells, Gao Yangyi waved his hand violently, and 140 scattered bullets from the No. 2 cannon were splashed towards the door, and the stone chips flew everywhere in the city wall of the door hole, and more than ten people who had just rushed out rolled to the ground with blood arrows.

Then the No. 1 cannon also fired a round, and the front of the door hole was full of Houjin dead and wounded soldiers, and the earth-shattering continuous shooting from twenty zhang away broke the fighting spirit of the Houjin soldiers behind, which was more terrifying than the Governor Clan, and they fled back to the city in spite of the officers' slashing.

The killer team behind the shield car rushed out of the shield car, and the front of more than 40 Houjin soldiers, Dengzhou Town's mature mandarin duck formation tactics became more and more courageous, those who did not form a formation of the Houjin traitors suffered heavy losses, as soon as they engaged, they were defeated and retreated, and finally couldn't bear to turn around and flee, the total shouted, and a flag team that had crossed the river chased the tail of the defeated soldiers to rush to the doorway.

"Aren't you going into the city?" Gao Yangyi whispered, the commander of the second cannon had done the infantry, and when he heard it, he raised his head and said: "Maybe this man and horse are guarding the door, they are scattered, and they will break the city when they rush in." ”

As he spoke, the flag team had already stepped on the layers of corpses on the outside of the doorway, chasing more than a dozen routs into the doorway, and just walked to the inner exit, a series of artillery and muskets on both sides of the street fired a volley, and the shells smashed diagonally into the crowd of killers, which also brought a bloody rain, and the Ming troops in the front row fell in pieces. Loud noises from behind were loud, and a group of golden archers appeared in the street, firing into the doorway.

More than half of the Ming army was killed and wounded in an instant, and the remnants hurriedly retreated.

"It's the sound of the general's cannon, and the Tartars have used them to block the door." Gao Yangyi scolded.

He turned his head to look at the base of the wall, and there were two carts burning, and the other two carts were still digging in the earth, and firewood and oil were poured on them, and the people in the two carts fled with a loud cry, and threw down the torches from above, and continued to burn.

After Gao Yangyi sat back in the shield car, he said to the two artillery commanders: "If it is enough to fight, we just seal the city gate, and I don't know if there are any equipment." ”

"Yes, here we are." The second gun commander pointed a finger.

Gao Yang turned his head to look, and several more carts came up in between, sticking to the root of the wall and began to dig holes in other places.

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