The iron hooves of tens of thousands of Mongol warriors struck the ground, causing the distant castle to shake. The countless cavalry are like the raging tide, and the West Fort is like the reef under the stormy waves.

The ground is shaking, the castle is shaking.

The soldiers of the Han army of the 571st infantry were stunned, but the hundreds of herdsmen soldiers were trembling. Many people have never seen so many people in their lifetimes.

There are more than 10,000 people, boundless, and 10,000 cavalry are pouring in groups, which is extremely shocking.

"The original nine-headed bird bless us!" Zhang Huangyan shouted.

"Artillery preparation!"

The only artillery battery of the 571st Infantry Standard began to operate rapidly, and a door gun was pushed up.

"These Mongol Tartars are so arrogant, they plan to charge directly, and it seems that they don't take us seriously at all." The chief of staff stood beside Zhang Huangyan and watched the Mongolian cavalry begin to accelerate from afar, a little surprised, but more angry.

The commander of the first battalion, Zhang Hu, was a tall and thin man, with a pair of narrow eyes, but there was a flash of excitement. "This is a good thing, the actions of the Tartars mean that they underestimate the enemy. They came far away and threw themselves into the siege without resting, which is exhausting warfare. Although we are a small castle, we still have artillery and rifles, and besides, we have a lot of work in front of this fort, and there are horse pits, trenches, deer feet, thistles, and even mines and barbed wire. ”

"The Tartars will pay us well." The Instructor was a seasoned veteran who knew well that the fortifications were by no means fun, and anyone who neglected them would be brutally attacked.

A cold wind blew, carrying with it the stench of horse manure, which was so strong that it was mixed with some fishy smell.

"Sure enough, it's a group of Tartars, and it stinks."

The Tartars really didn't plan to stop and recuperate, and they probably didn't even think about a siege strategy. I just planned to rush up, and then directly break through this small earthen fort with more than 10,000 iron horses.

They whistled, shouted, and rushed to be the first to do so, taking on a huge fan-shaped surface.

"Try the gun!" The commander of the artillery company gave the order calmly.

The artillery company has only 20 guns, and it is also the strongest trump card in Zhang Huangyan's hand. Facing the arrogant Moxi Mongolian cavalry, Zhang Huangyan didn't plan to hold this trump card.

As the cavalry striker approached again, a gun commander with the rank of right sergeant commanded his own gun crew, reloading and correcting the largest 122 mm cannon in the turret.

Now all artillery in the empire is no longer classified by the weight of shells, but uniformly by caliber. 122 mm short canon. That is, the 12-pounder guns of the past. It is capable of loading and firing ten pounds of solid bullets, and its range is the longest.

The gun commander knows the parameters of his own cannon well and can report it at any time. The caliber of this gun is 122 mm, the length of the gun is 18 times the diameter of 2.1 meters, the muzzle velocity is 410 meters per second, the effective range of live ammunition reaches 1,000 meters, the rate of fire is 900 meters, the rate of fire is one and a half minutes per shot, and it is made of steel. The weight is only 1,500 catties. Compared to the earliest copper guns, the weight was reduced by half.

This gun had a standard crew of eight gunners.

A solid bullet whizzed out of the barrel and smashed into the distance.

The cannonballs smashed into the empty ground, and the frozen ground caused the solid iron bullets to bounce. After several more curves and ricochets, he finally rolled and slowly stopped.

The gun commander held a telescope and carefully observed the landing point of the shell.

The loud sound of the cannon made the horses of the Mongol cavalry neigh, but they soon the shell fell far away from them. And only one shot.

"Hahaha, these Han people must be frightened and their hands are trembling, and they start firing cannons so far away. It's stupid. ”

"It seems that the cannon of the Han people is nothing more than that."

"Kill, rush up, take the pass."

The cavalry rushed even faster.

The gunner, however, was already talking quietly to his gunnery brothers, telling everyone what he had just observed, and then ordering some adjustments.

Zhang Huangyan saw that the Mongolian cavalry was still charging intensively, and a smile appeared on his face.

"It seems that our artillery did not scare them."

"This is a good thing, the denser our artillery is, the more lethal it is, which can make up for the shortcomings of our artillery shortcomings."

Zhang Huangyan nodded, "Gather the three battalions of mountain grenades and use them, we don't need to hide them, just give the Tartars a ruthless one." ”

Mountain grenades are loved by the Han army for their lightness, especially for the infantry, at the Xieyi level, there is an artillery battalion, the standard level, and at least an artillery company. At the battalion level, they had no artillery support, and they could only rely on mountain grenades as their own fire support.

In the equipment department of the military department, mountain grenades are not even included in their artillery category, but the battalions and companies of the infantry are deeply in love with this light but powerful weapon. Almost every company was equipped with this light support fire, with four mountain grenades per company, twenty mountain grenades per battalion, and a mountain howitzer team in the battalion in addition to four per company.

The 571st Infantry Standard has three infantry battalions plus an artillery company, and the standard headquarters. Each infantry battalion has four infantry companies, plus a battalion headquarters with artillery.

The entire 571 Infantry Standard has a total of 20 artillery pieces of various types of field artillery companies and a total of 60 infantry grenades.

In the eyes of Zhang Huangyan and other Han generals, this amount of artillery fire is too small, and the firepower is too weak. But that is compared with the field artillery battalions and heavy artillery targets of the Han army, and if it is compared with the Mongolian cavalry roaring outside, the artillery configuration of the 571 infantry standard is too powerful.

There were eighty guns of various types and more than 2,000 rifle-wielding infantry. This is an army armed to the teeth.

"Tartars into range, a thousand meters!"

The observer shouted.

The Tartars did not know that outside the fort, every fifty meters, the Han army had already buried many white-painted wooden stakes on the ground, and the white lines composed of these little white stakes were distance markers, allowing the artillerymen to accurately and quickly grasp the distance of the enemy.

The 122 cannon, which had been silent for a while, had already finished reloading, but had been waiting for orders.

"Put!" The commander of the artillery waved the command flag, and suddenly the artillery roared again.

The solid iron ball smashed into the dense cavalry group, smashing a large crater splattered with the blood of the Mongolian cavalry and mounts, and then the cannonball continued to bounce, bringing a rain of blood, killing and wounding many cavalrymen, and the last remaining strength also caused the rolling iron bullet to break many horses' legs.

Dense cavalry. This caused this shell to deal amazing damage.

"84mm short canon, 108 short zhinong, loaded with solid bullets, full force rapid fire!"

The commander of the artillery company gave the order at the right time, and in addition to the 122 gun, the remaining four 84-mm short canons and two 108 short canons were also fired together.

With the shouts of the company commander and the artillery commanders, the guns that had been loaded were fired in turn, and with a huge roar, six iron balls suddenly burst out, carrying a puff of white smoke. smashed into the enemy cavalry, ploughed out six gaps, killing and wounding hundreds of horsemen in an instant.

The officers at the head of the city were all holding binoculars and watching the results of the battle, and the lethal effect of this round of shells was very satisfactory to everyone.

Zhang Huangyan saw that immediately after this round of cannon bombardment, the remaining artillery of the artillery company also began to roar in turn.

Seven cannon howitzers of various calibers, three howitzers, and even the three large-caliber siege mortars were not willing to be lonely to join in.

Solid bullets, shrapnels, etc., constantly blasted into the enemy group with a screaming sound.

"Okay, that's it, fuck it. Let these Tartars be so light, boom, take advantage of this good opportunity to shoot with all your might. When they come to their senses, our artillery won't have such a good opportunity. ”

The heavy blows cost the Mongol cavalry heavy casualties, but they did not retreat immediately.

Maybe they think they just need to push harder and rush forward. You can level this small castle.

The Mongol cavalry did not retreat but advanced and continued to rush forward.

At this time, both mortars and cannon howitzers stopped loading solid shells. Instead of a shrapnel.

Although these shrapnel shells are not as far as solid bullets, and they are not as terrifying as the power of directly blasting people and horses into pieces, these shrapnel grenades have delayed fuses and countless shotguns, which fly over the enemy group after being launched and explode violently, like pieces of scattered flowers killing and injuring enemy troops.

The shrapnel factory, which has the full support of the emperor, has invested a lot of financial and material resources in recent years to continuously research and improve this kind of mass killing weapon. At present, although the fuses of these shrapnel are still delayed, they have not been able to truly develop the contact fuses proposed by the emperor.

But now the delay fuze is also constantly improving its quality, the timing accuracy is higher, and the explosion is more powerful.

The shrapnel exploded in volley, and the lead bullets shot mercilessly into the bodies of those cavalrymen with sparks and gunsmoke.

Countless lights and fires, and non-stop loud noises.

The cavalrymen suffered heavy casualties, and they expected to be able to cross the zone of death, rush to the fort, and kill them.

They are indeed brave, but it is a pity that wars can be won not only by bravery.

As they got closer, they found that the blows were getting harder and harder.

Pieces of bullets fell, and so did the cavalrymen.

Seeing that the castle was close in front of him, countless traps hidden under the grass suddenly appeared in front of him.

Although it is easy to dig a trap, digging a fist-sized pit that is about elbow deep only takes a short time, and then cover a ball of grass to simply camouflage.

It doesn't take much time to dig thousands of pits.

However, these simple traps posed a fatal threat to the galloping horses, and many of the horses' hooves stepped into the pits and then fell.

In the blink of an eye, it was another piece of people turning on their backs.

Some of the cavalry who were lucky enough to cross the trap area were immediately wounded by another obstacle. It is a trap such as deer's foot and thistle, a trap with a very low cost, but it has a great lethality.

When they had crossed the area with many more casualties, there was a trench in front of them, and a barbed wire fence on the opposite side of the trench.

They didn't pay much attention at a distance, but when they got closer, they realized that the trenches and barbed wire, with the guns in the turrets of the city, and the rows of musketeers on the walls, seemed to be an impassable death trap.

The Mongol cavalry charged more and more slowly, and people kept falling.

However, the artillery fire of the Han army was pouring out its firepower to the fullest.

Those Tibetan soldiers standing at the head of the city were already dumbfounded, if when the Mongol cavalry rushed like a tide before, their hearts were full of fear, then at this time, they were already full of incomparable awe for the Han army, like gods.

Those fierce cavalry charged in groups, but they didn't even touch the side of the Han army, and they had already suffered countless casualties, and by this time, the Han army had not injured a single person.

"Infantry ready!"

Zhang Huangyan shouted loudly, when the trench was dug indiscriminately, but dug at a good distance, this trench was the first of the three trenches outside the fort, and this trench, together with the twenty steps outside him, had already entered the range of the Han rifle.

Adjutant Zheng Danian took his subordinates to choose a position with those blockers and observers, and looked out a little lazily. They didn't plan to make a move yet, there were just a few trash fish outside, and they didn't need their blockers yet. They are blockers, not ordinary infantrymen, they only block those worthy targets, and if not, then they prefer to wait.

"First battalion, now it's our turn to exert our might, pick up your rifles, aim at the enemy outside the trench, add glory to the emperor, and add glory to the empire!"

"Aim and fight!"

Horse traps and deer's feet and thistles slowed down the cavalry, while trenches and barbed wire blocked their path.

Large groups of cavalry were held back in front of the trenches, unable to advance or retreat for a while.

The ammunition in Dingxi Fort was limited, and the officers hoped that the soldiers would take advantage of the rare opportunity to kill as many enemies as possible with the fewest bullets.

Even the artillerymen, except for the seven cannons that were once again replaced with solid shells and kept bombarding the rear of the enemy's formation hundreds of paces away to break up their formation, the rest of the guns were replaced with shotguns.

This kind of shotgun has the most reserves, and even when necessary, it can directly stuff and shoot messy things such as gravel, rotten nails, etc.

Patches of hail blasted out, killing the cavalry blocking the trench in a river of blood.

Countless blood flowed out and poured into the trench, and the trench became a river of blood.

Zhang Huangyan felt drenched in joy, it was so happy.

The Mongols did not make full use of their numerical superiority, they were too light on the enemy, and in the face of the Han Imperial Army, they still fought with the traditional methods of warfare for thousands of years.

Now you can only roar angrily in front of the barbed wire fence of the trenches of the Han army, and wail in pain under the bombardment of artillery fire!

"These Tartars are much more stupid than we imagined, this round alone, they are already broken, they are not so terrible."

"Yes, these Tartars are no longer so threatening to us, but we can't take it lightly, no one knows if there will be more Tartars coming!" Zhang Huangyan said very calmly.

"Long live my emperor, the Tartars have finally retreated!"

A low and sad horn sounded, this time no longer a horn for the charge, but for the retreat! (To be continued.) )

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