Lin Chengting is a general of the Taiping Army who grew up from the bottom of the soldiers, and has experienced countless wars in the past few years, even if there are many fierce generals in the Taiping Army, he can be regarded as a general with outstanding military achievements.

However, his past invincible experience was ended at the hands of Yu Shengjun, which made him blamed and began to reflect.

In the past half a year, he will think about almost every day, and think about the original battle of Si'an, he knows very well that his tactical layout was not too wrong at the beginning, the illusion of attacking Changxing attracted the Yu Shengjun stationed in Guangde, and then waited for work in Si'an, and defeated the Yu Shengjun in one fell swoop with his absolute superiority in strength, which was a feasible tactic.

However, his only mistake was to underestimate the sharpness of Yu Shengjun's firearms!

Almost every day, he would think of the countless soldiers who had fallen under Yu Shengjun's guns!

After the fiasco, Lin Chengting calmed down and thought about the pain, concentrated the shotguns captured from the Qing army and built by himself, and then spent a huge amount of money to buy nearly 1,000 foreign guns, and finally armed a musket team of up to 4,000 people.

In order to give full play to the power of these musket teams, he even imitated Yu Shengjun's formation for training, trying to learn from Yu Shengjun to form a pure firearms unit and use the tactics of line infantry.

Such a large-scale ratio of firearms and the tactics of line phalanx are completely different from the contemporary Taiping army and the Qing army.

At the same time, he built a lot of mountain splitting cannons, and even brought all the Hongyi cannons that could be looted, so that his southward troops had more than forty artillery pieces.

However, although he brought with him 13,000 men and horses, 4,000 muskets, more than 1,000 cavalry, and more than 40 artillery pieces, he did not let his guard down.

He knew very well that the Yu Shengjun he was facing was different from any Qing Demon army he had encountered before, and these Qing Demons of Yu Shengjun could not reason with the eyes of the past at all, and it was clear that he led a 6,000-strong army against Yu Shengjun at the beginning, but more than 1,000 people were defeated.

Although he brought tens of thousands of horses this time, he did not expect to win easily!

Therefore, he made quite cautious tactics and did not send soldiers to attack the city at the first time, but sent artillery units to prepare for the shelling of Huzhou City.

Looking at the more than 40 artillery pieces of the Taiping Army pushed up, Shi Langyi on the head of the city looked suspicious, and several 3,000-pound giant cannons in the more than 40 artillery pieces were particularly conspicuous.

These 3,000-pound cannons are the largest caliber cannons that Lin Chengting scavenged, all of which were heavy artillery for urban defense captured from the Qing army, and in terms of shell weight and range, they are about the same as the twelve-pounder artillery equipped by Yu Shengjun, but a 3,000-jin cannon generally only refers to the weight of the barrel, and the whole cannon is at least seven or eight thousand catties.

It was much heavier than the twelve-pounder field gun that Yu Shengjun was equipped with, and the mobility of the two could not be compared at all.

But back to the point, but the range and power of these cannons are not bad, not to mention whether their artillery skills are accurate, just the rumbling cannon sounds, this momentum is very big.

In addition to these few heavy artillery, there were also many thousand-pound cannons and a large number of 800-jin, 500-jin, and 300-jin mountain-splitting cannons in the Taiping army.

As these artillery pieces fired one after another, the cannon roared for a while, and the Taiping army positions outside the city were filled with white smoke.

But after more than an hour, as the Taiping gunners became proficient, the number of shells hitting the city wall increased.

In the face of the cannonballs that began to fall on the city wall one after another, Shi Langyi no longer stubbornly stayed on the city wall, but went down the city wall, so as not to be unlucky to be directly hit by the artillery of the Taiping army, it didn't matter if he lived or died, but the main general was killed as soon as the battle started, which was a great blow to the morale of the first mixed regiment.

However, Xu Peng'an, the chief of staff, still stayed in the city, continuing to observe the movements of the Taiping army!

In the face of heavy artillery bombardment by the Taiping army, the soldiers of Yu Sheng's army stationed at the head of the city began to withdraw from the wall, and most of the soldiers retreated behind the city wall to avoid the shelling, leaving only a small number of soldiers to brave the shelling on the city to observe the territory.

Seeing a large number of Yu Shengjun's soldiers retreating from the city, Lin Chengting rarely smiled!

In the past, it was his own troops who were hit by artillery, but now the situation has changed, and his own artillery team can't lift the heads of Yu Shengjun, these Qing demons!

"Fight well, pass the order, and reward the artillery team!" Lin Chengting was very satisfied with the performance of the artillery team.

Although in fact he knew that the artillery bombardment just now did not kill and wound many Yu Shengjun soldiers, but he finally suppressed them from the city, and the purpose of the shelling of the city wall was not to say how many enemies were killed, the main purpose was to collapse the city wall, and then send infantry to attack the city.

As long as the Huzhou city wall can be blown down, then it will not be in vain for him to work so hard to pull these heavy 3,000 catties of heavy artillery.

Just as Lin Chengting was looking at the artillery bombardment with a full face, suddenly there was a strange loud noise from his artillery position, which was not like the sound of artillery firing.

Lin Chengting, who felt something strange, looked at his artillery position, and saw that his face turned black in an instant.

On the artillery position, one of the 3,000-pound giant artillery positions was in a mess, the barrel of a 3,000-pound gun was blown into two, and the surrounding artillery was lying on the ground, with broken hands and feet everywhere, and blood flowing.

"It's blown up, damn it, what are those artillerymen eating, how can a good one blow it up!" Lin Chengting was in a very bad mood.

You must know that in order to bring these cannons to Huzhou, he used all the mules and horses that he could find, and dozens of horses were tired to death along the way.

Lin Chengting didn't know that this was not the fault of these Taiping gunners, they fired according to the mode of long-term shelling, and the firing frequency was relatively low, just to ensure that the long-term shooting would not blow up the artillery.

However, these gunners still overestimated the quality of the guns in their hands!

Except for a small number of hundreds of catties of mountain splitting guns, which were self-made, the rest of the artillery in their hands were basically captured from the Qing army, and the difference in the quality of the Qing army's artillery has always been obvious to all.

Before the First Opium War, the artillery cast by the Qing army was better, although the performance was not as good as the Western artillery of the era, but it could barely ensure a certain quality.

However, during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, due to the tight war, the quality of the artillery cast by the Qing army was uneven, and the artillery cast by itself in many places was simply defective.

These artillery pieces of poor quality will explode in the hands of the Qing army, and in the hands of the Taiping army, they will naturally not give the Taiping any face, and the chamber will still be blown up.

Lin Chengting looked at the messy artillery position with a black face, and Xu Peng'an at the head of the city was relieved to see the enemy's artillery exploding.

If the enemy's artillery is frequently bombed, it will further reduce the rate of continuous shelling, so that it will take more time for them to destroy the walls.

And time is what Yu Shengjun needs most now.

Sure enough, as Xu Pengan expected, half an hour later, another Taiping Army artillery exploded, and the angry Lin Chengting killed the low-level officer of the Taiping Army who was in charge of the blown up artillery on the spot.

However, with the explosion of two guns in a row, Lin Chengting in order to avoid the city wall of Huzhou City from being blown up, his own artillery was all blown up, and he immediately ordered all the guns to reduce the rate of fire.

Although this reduction in rapid-fire can avoid the occurrence of explosions, it inevitably also greatly reduces the intensity of the artillery bombardment, which is good news for the Yu Shengjun in the city.

In the first three days of the Taiping army's arrival at Huzhou, they did not rush to attack the city, but only did two things, one was to use artillery to continue shelling, and the second was to cut down wood to build siege equipment.

Seeing that the Taiping army outside the city did not attack the city, but instead focused on building siege equipment, which made Shi Langyi quite worried.

Although he was very confident in his troops, in the final analysis, his first mixed regiment was now only about 1,500 people, even if he added the hundreds of green battalion soldiers of the imperial court and the thousands of people who were temporarily conscripted, this force was still at a great disadvantage.

Not to mention that those green battalions and the people can't fight at all, at most they can only wave the flag and shout to be strong.

If the Taiping army breaks through the city wall or builds a large number of siege equipment, their defense will become extremely passive at that time.

"Brother Shi, it's not okay to go on like this, let alone defend it for ten days, I'm afraid that the city wall will have to be thrown away in three or five days, and once the city wall is broken, those green camps and Minzhuang will definitely collapse, and it will be very difficult for our two battalions to defend it!" Xu Pengan said worriedly.

Shi Langyi also frowned: "Today's plan, I'm afraid I have to take the initiative to go out of the city to fight!" ”

But Xu Pengan said again: "Your Excellency's order is for us to hold on to Huzhou, and not to let the thief army cross Huzhou for a single step." If we go out of the city and take the initiative to meet the battle, without the use of fortifications and the support of artillery, it will be difficult to face tens of thousands of enemy troops! ”

Even if the infantry of Yu Shengjun's infantry is sharp and their morale is high, if the phalanx takes the initiative to go out of the city to meet the battle, not to mention whether they can outdo the more than 10,000 people of the enemy army, the dozens of artillery pieces of the Taiping army alone are enough to eat a pot of their own.

Although the performance of other people's artillery is poor, and it is always exploding, but it is also artillery, and a solid ball shell hitting the infantry phalanx of Yu Shengjun can also make Yu Shengjun's soldiers suffer heavy casualties.

"What should I do in the opinion of the Chief of Staff?" Shi Langyi asked Xu Peng'an.

Xu Pengan said: "It's not okay to go out of the city to face it head-on, but don't we still have a second cavalry company!" ”

"Now the biggest threat to us is the enemy's artillery, if our cavalry company can attack the enemy's artillery positions and destroy them, then Lin Chengting is equivalent to a toothless tiger, it is easy to hold Huzhou!"

"Let the cavalry storm the enemy's artillery positions? Although this is the reason, I am afraid that it will be difficult to pass on the road! Shi Langyi frowned and said, "The artillery position of the thief army must be defended by many enemy troops, and it is not easy to rush over!" ”

Xu Pengan said: "Attacking the enemy's artillery position, this matter is naturally not easy, but if we plan carefully, there may not be no possibility of success!" ”