After seeing the situation outside the city, Li San beckoned one of his officers to come up, pointed to the rebel cannons and said, "Come and see, can you knock out those three cannons after the battle?"

That officer, just an artillery non-commissioned officer, is the gun commander of the cannon he brought this time, the rank of sergeant, after looking at it, he borrowed Li San's telescope to observe it, gave a thumbs up, visually measured the distance, hesitated for a moment and then replied: "The two cannons in front are not a problem, the key is the Hongyi cannon, the small one is afraid that it can be knocked out, this distance is a little too far, I'm afraid it will be difficult to hit it directly, but the small one will do its best to knock it out!" ”

Li San nodded in understanding: "Okay, you do your best, but pay attention to saving ammunition, we didn't bring much ammunition this time, even if it was sent in last night, there were only a few dozen solid bullets, if it didn't work, just change the scattered bullets, mainly hit those living people, where there are more people to hit me!" ”

"Yes!" The artillery commander immediately wanted to salute with his legs, but Li San quickly glared, and he immediately realized that this place didn't seem to be suitable, so he quickly bowed down and knelt down on one knee and said, "Little one understands!" ”

The rebels didn't talk too much, they sent people to force surrender and the like, and now they all understand that the Ninghai Prefecture government in Muping County will definitely not surrender in Kaicheng now, only to come hard.

So under Chen Guangfu's order, those non-core elite soldiers and horses were all sent out, holding rattan cards in black pressure, as well as temporary patchwork shields, and temporary shield carts, driving a large number of people, including even small-footed women and some children, each of whom was forced to carry some dirt bags or bundles of firewood, ready to fill the trench.

The war drums rumbled, the rebels beat so lively, seeing the rebels start to move, the defenders also beat the war drums under the order of Zhao Zhizhou, the rumbling war drums on both sides echoed repeatedly in the sky, the sea wolf's artillery, at this time, was also dragged to the city wall by dozens of village soldiers and gunners, found the best shooting position, ordered people to pile up a ring-shaped simple fortification with sandbags on the gun emplacement, and at the end of the cannon against the inner city wall, also piled up a large pile of sandbags.

The twelve-pounder howitzer was enclosed in it, leaving a certain width of passage on both sides so as not to block the passage of people on both sides of the city wall.

Everyone was very curious about the cannon that Xishan Village got from, because the cannon jacket was never revealed, so they couldn't see what this cannon looked like.

When the cannon jacket was uncovered, everyone felt that their eyes lit up, and then they were surprised and delighted, because although they had never seen this cannon, they could also see that this cannon was so well made that it definitely surpassed all the cannons used by the rebels, including the officers and soldiers.

This cannon doesn't look big, and the barrel is not very long, but the muzzle is quite thick, and the cannon wall looks a little thin, far less than the big hair wall they have ever seen, the cannon wall of the Hongyi cannon is thick, and the outer wall of the entire cannon barrel is smooth and shiny, and it is coated with a layer of grease to prevent rust, and it is very well maintained.

What's even more surprising is that the gun carriage of this gun, although it is also mostly made of wood, but it is all very hard lychee wood, even iron wood, many load-bearing structures are also reinforced with iron, there are two hardwood wheels with a large diameter, the cannon is mounted on this gun carriage, the tail does not have a step to adjust the height, but there is a bolt made of thick steel erected, and there is a runner with a handle at the top of the bolt, and I don't know how to adjust the high and low firing range of this gun.

In addition, this cannon can also be adjusted left and right, and it is also controlled by another set of mechanisms, but the adjustable range is very small, even so, it is not easy, whether it is a naval gun or an army gun, the left and right lateral firing boundaries of the artillery, all of which have to rely on manpower to adjust the gun carriage and aim at the target, can only adjust the upper and lower firing boundaries, the operation is complicated, and the consumables are very large.

However, after the installation of this set of transverse adjustment of the firing boundary, the gun no longer needs personnel to repeatedly and constantly fine-tune left and right, only need to point the muzzle of the cannon roughly at the target, and the rest will be left to the gunner.

This not only saves effort, but also has a huge help to improve the shooting accuracy, the gunner can make slight adjustments by shaking the handwheel, and with the simple aiming mechanism, the shooting accuracy of the gun has been greatly improved.

Of course, Zhao Zhizhou and his gang don't understand this, but they can also see that this cannon is well-made, strange and ingenious, and it is a pretty good cannon, but they don't know how powerful it is, and they all have some concerns about the thickness of the cannon wall.

"Good cannon! What a cannon! But Li Zhuangshi, who bought this cannon from you? Isn't the barrel a little too thin and thin? Will this cannon explode? Be careful! Zhao Zhizhou kindly asked Li San a question and admonished.

Li San was a little contemptuous of these dirt buns as officials, so he began to fool them, boasting: "This cannon is our master, the year before last, went to sea, went to a far place in the South Seas, and bought it from a group of people who are said to be called Frenchmen, it is made of fine iron, not made of ordinary pig iron, a cannon is worth four thousand taels of silver, our master bought two or three guns, and shipped them back here for the purpose of guarding the village!"

This kind of cannon is not big, the barrel is not thick, but it is solid and sturdy, and it will definitely not explode! Since you are worried, then please stand back, and you will naturally know the power of this cannon for a while! ”

When Li San was promoted to an officer in the army academy, Yu Xiaotian went to give them a lesson on European shape, and he occasionally heard about it, but he took it out at this time and began to violently fool Zhao Zhizhou and others.

How could Zhao Zhizhou and the others have heard of what France is, in short, they are probably Taixi people! Of course, they didn't know if there was this country of France, and they couldn't even imagine where Tessie was and how far away it was, but they had more or less heard of the red-haired people, the dry wax people, and the Francose people, and knew that these people were all Tessians who came from Tessie, so they didn't ask any more.

But they were still a little worried, seeing that these gunners in Xishan Village had begun to reload this cannon, so they hurriedly retreated to a far away, whether this thing was safe or not, of course they didn't know, and looking at the barrel so thin, they were still very worried, so it was better to hide farther away, it would be troublesome to take them with them.

The gunners came here to choke enough, followed the infantry on duty every day, and had to fight with rifles and pretend to be infantry, and there was no chance to handle their baby.

As soon as the cannon was on display, they began to load, and with skillful action, they completed the loading in a few breaths, and then the gunners immediately began to aim, and their first target was to focus on the rebel Dafa Kai not far from the front, and after visual inspection, they determined the distance, and began to correct the range of fire from the left and right of the artillery and the high and low elevation angles until they were aimed.

The artillery commander at the head was not very relieved, so he personally checked the aiming, and after fine-tuning it, he ordered: "Don't wait for them to fire first, knock them out!" ”

At this time, the gunners on the rebel side are also busy around their cannons with their heads bowed, loading and adjusting aiming, although the big hair is relatively large, but it is still an old-style artillery, the charge is all estimated by estimates, and there is no aiming device, all rely on the gunner's own estimation, in addition, the barrel bore is thick in front and thin in the back, which is very inconsistent with the actual principle, but the charge is larger, the actual power is not very large, the muzzle velocity of the cannonball is low, the trajectory is also very unstable, the accuracy is also very poor, and the recoil is also very large.

Playing with this kind of cannon is a test of the gunner's experience, although these gunners have received a certain amount of training under Sun Yuanhua, but all kinds of things have to rely on pure estimates, if they don't shoot enough shells, it is difficult to find full experience, so they, the rebel gunners, are actually a little unsure whether their guns can hit the city wall.

Just on the side of the rebels, when they were still busy loading, the first shot of today's decisive battle was fired on the city wall, only to see a flash of fire on the city wall, spewing out a ball of flames, and then a large cloud of gunpowder smoke, a moment later, only to hear a loud sound like thunder.

There was a sound of a cannonball piercing the air in the air, and a black dot almost visible to the naked eye flew out of the city wall, and in the blink of an eye, it smashed into the location of the rebel cannon.

The rebels only felt that their scalps were tight, especially those rebels who Zhang Tao had brought to Xishan Village, and they all felt that things were not good, and they found that the cannon on the head of the city was the kind of cannon that Xishan Village had beaten them before, and they were afraid that they would be in trouble today.

Sure enough, the cannonball roared and fell, and smashed directly into the position very close to the big hair, several rebels who were watching the battle, too late to dodge, were torn apart on the spot, this cannonball was very close to the big hair, it can be said that it was close at hand, startled the rebel gunners, almost scattered.

The two sides completely opened the prelude to today's war, and began to bombard each other with artillery, and for a time the city was up and down, and the cannon sound came and went, of course, it was not intensive, but it was also quite lively.

At such a distance, the Seawolf's gunners gave full play to the performance of their cannons, and with only three shells, they overturned a large hair to the ground, and the gun carriage was destroyed on the spot, including the rebel gunners who were waiting for the big hair, and they were also killed and wounded by the fragments.

(Can you still get a commuter pass?) I don't have faith anymore! ）