Chapter 61: Blasting and Attacking the City

Outside the west gate of Shanghai, Yu Shengjun's camp today is different from the past few days.

In the past few days, except for the first day, Yu Shengjun set up a position to carry out a tentative siege, and in the following days it retreated back into the camp, except for the occasional artillery bombardment of Shanghai City, the infantry only built a large number of fortifications such as the breastwork, which did not know that Yu Shengjun planned to fight against the rebel army of the Little Knife Society for a long time.

However, today, Yu Shengjun's artillery began to fire at Shanghai City early in the morning, although the speed of its shelling is not very fast, often each artillery only fires once in a few minutes, but the time is very long, and after the past few days of shelling, Yu Shengjun's gunners have already figured out the shooting Zhu Yuan, making the shelling more accurate.

The precise artillery bombardment almost completely suppressed any Knife Rebel soldiers in the city.

Amid the rumbling of artillery, Yu Shengjun's soldiers walked out of the camp for the first time in a few days, and then slowly marched in a neat formation towards the west gate of the county seat of Shanghai.

Unlike any of Yu Shengjun's previous military operations, this time there were more than a dozen mobile platforms in front of the infantry queue.

These mobile platforms are not too big or high, the height just slightly exceeds the height of the city wall of Shanghai County not far away, there is a platform on the simple high platform that is not big enough to stand soldiers, there is not even a shield in front of the platform, there is only a simple wooden fence around the perimeter to prevent the soldiers from falling, and the area of this platform is just enough for twenty soldiers to fight.

The rebel army of the Little Knife Society at the head of the city also noticed this unusual situation, Liu Lichuan was standing in the middle of an inconspicuous city wall at this time, looking at the soldiers of Yu Shengjun who were slowly approaching in the distance, he frowned.

Even if he wasn't a professional general, he could guess what these mobile platforms were for, which was to serve as a firing platform for musketeers and archers, and to suppress the fire on his own city.

However, these mobile platforms are bulky and difficult to move, and it is very difficult to get close to the city walls, so you may be able to send someone out of the city to destroy them.

In addition, even if the enemy army climbs these mobile platforms, he should be able to organize firepower to shoot them one by one, hmph, you Qing demons have muskets, is it difficult to achieve when I don't have one?

After the rebel army occupied Shanghai and the surrounding prefectures and counties, the rebel army obtained a large number of guns and artillery left over from the Qing army, especially in Shanghai, and obtained a batch of foreign guns.

At this time, he didn't know that Yu Shengjun's mobile platforms did not intend to get too close to the city wall at all, because these mobile platforms were used as firing platforms for Minnie's rifles, and relying on the ultra-long range of Minnie's rifles, they could completely stop and shoot at a distance of three hundred or even four hundred yards, so as to cover the attack of the troops who climbed the city.

And at this distance, those old-fashioned smoothbore guns and bows and arrows simply could not hit the soldiers on these moving platforms.

As the soldiers shouted slogans and pushed from behind, and in front were pulled by horses seconded from artillery batteries, these bulky moving platforms slowly approached the city walls.

"It's taking a little longer than we expected, but don't worry, you'll be able to get to the booked location soon!" Han Xiangfang, the general office of the Ordnance Bureau on the side, said this to Lin Zhe.

Han Xiangfang is the general office of the Ordnance Bureau, and he is responsible for building these mobile high platforms, in order to make these more than ten mobile high platforms, he has not rested well for several days, and personally supervises the work of those craftsmen every day.

Sure enough, not long after Han Xiangfang's words were finished, Shen Chiyun, the deputy commander of the Second Infantry Regiment who was in charge of commanding these mobile high platforms in front, ordered to stop advancing.

At this time, these mobile platforms were lined up in a horizontal line, about three hundred and fifty yards from the city gate, which was enough distance for Yu Shengjun's Minnie infantry to give full play to their firepower, and to avoid the blows of the enemy's smoothbore muskets and bows at the head of the city.

"Quick, quick, climb up!" Shen Chiyun said as he led his heralds and standard-bearers to climb the simple wooden ladder to a high platform in the center.

As Shen Chiyun's order was issued, the soldiers of the three companies of the Second Infantry Regiment climbed their respective mobile platforms one after another.

The platforms of each high platform can be used by about 20 people for combat, so the soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Regiment use two platoons of each high platform as the benchmark to get on the high platform, and the mobile high platform of more than 10 can fully accommodate the soldiers of the three companies of the 2nd Infantry Regiment.

The first corps formed a standard three-row horizontal formation, standing in front of these more than ten mobile platforms, on the one hand, to prevent the enemy troops in the city from rushing out of the city to destroy these mobile platforms, and on the other hand, they were also at this distance to suppress the enemy troops at the head of the city.

As the soldiers of the three companies of the 2nd Infantry Regiment climbed up these mobile platforms one after another, the narrow mobile platforms were almost crowded, and because of the small area of the front, the soldiers on the high platforms adopted the mode of three rows of horizontal formations, so as to try to face the direction of the city wall at the same time with the fire of twenty people.

Seeing that the soldiers under his command were ready, Shen Chiyun decisively gave the order to shoot, and after the dense gunshots rang out, it also meant that under the city of Shanghai, Yu Shengjun relied on these mobile high platforms to once again use the tactics of the queue shooting mode that he was best at.

At the beginning of the establishment of Yu Shengjun, due to the influence of Hunter William, it was almost completely built according to the British colonial army, which led to the main tactic of Yu Shengjun's army was to line up and shoot.

Coupled with the factor of the long range of the equipped Mini Infantry gun, it has formed a very distinctive and unique combat mode of Yu Shengjun in this era.

That is, he attaches great importance to the play of medium and long-range firepower, and usually uses artillery with a large range to suppress enemy artillery and disrupt the enemy's formation, which is also the fundamental reason why Lin Zhe desperately hopes to buy more twelve-pounder guns.

Because in this day and age, only the range of a twelve-pounder front-loading smoothbore gun could match the long-range of the Mini rifle, and of course, it would be better to use a gun with a longer range than a twelve-pounder front-loading gun.

After their own artillery had suppressed the enemy's artillery units or disrupted the enemy's formation, the infantry phalanx began to fire a dense salvo at a distance of about four hundred and fifty yards.

At this time, the enemy's infantry was limited by range and could not return fire, and if they wanted to return fire against Yu Sheng's army, who were using Minnie's rifles, then they could only continue to advance to a distance of about one hundred and fifty yards.

It was only by the time the enemy rushed to a distance of about one hundred and fifty yards that they had already suffered multiple salvo blows from Yu Sheng's army, and more than half of them had suffered casualties.

If the enemy is a hand-to-hand combat unit equipped with cold weapons, unless the difference in strength is really huge, it is impossible to break through the death line with a span of more than 400 meters and engage in hand-to-hand combat with Yu Sheng's army.

If the enemy did not take the initiative to attack, then they could only be shot one by one by Yu Shengjun's Minnie rifle.

To put it simply, Yu Shengjun's various tactics now rely on the range of artillery and Mini rifles to bully people, and if they encounter an army with an infantry gun with the same range or even farther than them, then they can only rely on each other's better training after losing the range advantage.

And fortunately, now only Lin Zhe and Yu Shengjun's family in China use Mini Bu's gun!

As the 2nd Infantry Regiment on the mobile platform opened fire in unison, the Knife Rebellion, which had been inflicting continuous artillery blows, suffered even more casualties.

The current situation is that unless the knife on the city wall is hidden behind the city wall all the time, the slightest appearance will be shot by the dense and accurate fire of the Second Infantry Regiment of the Yu Sheng Army!

Seeing that his own troops were completely suppressed at the head of the city, and he didn't even dare to take the head, Liu Lichuan was even more worried in his heart, in case this situation continued, how could he resist when these Qing demons on the opposite side sent troops to approach the city wall and attack the city?

No, it can't go on like this, we must knock out these high platforms of clear demons!

Having made up his mind, he quickly passed down the order, and it didn't take long for the gunners of the Knife Society rebels to sneak out with a few remaining mountain splitting cannons, and peek out of the cracks in the walls.

Watching the enemy launch the artillery, Shen Chiyun was anxious, he knew that the enemy's smoothbore guns or bows and arrows could not threaten him at this distance, but the artillery could bring a great threat to himself even if it was just those old mountain splitting guns, so he immediately ordered: "Target enemy artillery group, shoot with all your might!" ”

As the soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Regiment focused most of their attention on these guns, countless bullets hit the gaps in the walls of the guns, and the www.biquge.info of rubble, and the gunners, who had little left, suffered heavy casualties.

At the same time, Fu Linyang, who had been paying attention to the city in the rear, had already ordered his artillery to shift the target in time, striving to kill these fish that had slipped through the net as soon as possible to cover the safety of the infantry.

As Yu Shengjun's artillery began to fire rapidly, the three companies of the Second Infantry Regiment also temporarily abandoned other targets and concentrated on attacking the gunners of these guns.

The four small cannons that Liu Lichuan had high hopes for did not fire a single shot, that is, one of the guns was directly destroyed, and the gunners in the other three guns were also heavily killed and wounded.

Just when the artillery of Yu Sheng's army and the second corps completely suppressed the firepower of the rebel army of the Little Knife Society, the rest of Yu Sheng's army also began to act.

The soldiers of the First Infantry Regiment were now slightly closer to a distance of three hundred meters, and their guns were raised to suppress the fire on the head of the city, although their fire suppression efficiency was far less than that of the soldiers of the Second Infantry Regiment on the mobile platform, but it was somewhat effective.

At the same time, from the rear of the first step corps, more than ten meters of soldiers rushed out, and what was very strange was that although they were carrying guns, each of them was carrying a big bag.

One by one, they either stuffed their heads or let out various shouts.

The leaders of the Knife Society at the head of the city were a little puzzled, these Qing demons were only a few dozen people, could they just rely on them to attack the city?

But they didn't bring the traditional climbing tools and ladders.

But soon they reacted, these demons were carrying things on their backs, and in this case, a small number of enemy troops approached the city wall with a large backpack, and their purpose was already clear at a glance:

They're going to blow up the walls!