"Colonel Su, the Elephant Trunk Mountain Battalion has sent a signal!" On the tower of the east gate of the town, an artillery lieutenant pointed to the three yellow ceremonial flowers blooming in mid-air and said loudly.

"I see it, I'm not blind!" A young officer of the Taiping Army, who was only 18 or 9 years old, shouted angrily: "Light a bonfire and send a signal!" Attention to all gun positions, prepare to launch rockets according to the steps of our drill in the afternoon, pay attention to each gun position, three rounds of rapid fire! Remember the steps! When you encounter a rocket that has not been launched, remember to water it and extinguish it immediately! Beware of being burned by rocket tailfires! ”

The bonfires were lit, and the bonfires on the other two city towers were also lit, and more than ten rocket artillery positions on the city wall of the east gate of the town were lit step by step under the loud command of Colonel Nasu.

The sharp whistling sound began to sound endlessly, and countless rockets dragged a long tail flame to the inner city of Guilin, which was miles away, and the entire city gate tower was suddenly shrouded in gunsmoke, and the choking smell of gunpowder almost made it impossible to breathe.

"Check the launch frame! Clean up the unlaunched rockets! Remember to water! Make no mistake! I don't want to be blown up by my own rockets! Discharge the rocket as soon as the inspection is complete! Remember to adjust the rocket tail positioning copper sheet! In the smoke of gunpowder, Colonel Su roared loudly, and a group of Taiping troops next to the rocket rack quickly and orderly re-prepared the rockets, and soon the second round of rockets was launched.

After the second round of firing, then the third round, when the third round of rockets was all fired, the artillery lieutenant shouted: "Each gun position reports the firing situation in detail!" ”

"Twenty-nine explosive warhead rockets and one dud were fired from the No. 1 gun position. Thirty incendiary warheads are fired, and there are no duds! "Twenty-eight explosive warheads and two duds were fired from the second gun position. Thirty incendiary warheads, no duds! After all the reports from the No. 1 gun position to the seventeenth gun position were completed, the artillery lieutenant stopped the charcoal pen in his hand and said loudly to Colonel Nasu: "Report to the colonel!" A total of 1,020 rockets with two warheads and 18 duds were launched at the rocket launch site at the east gate of the town, and there were no casualties! ”

Colonel Na Su pressed the sword on his waist and looked at the captains of the various artillery positions in front of him, and said slowly: "Very good." There were no firing errors, but we took too long to prepare! And the pre-launch inspection is not detailed enough! Double-check the rocket fuse before each launch, you guys aren't good enough! Immediately arrange for someone to blast the duds! Be sure to ask for safety! Once the task is complete. The teams disbanded and returned to their positions! ”

After the captains of each artillery team received the order loudly, they each took their subordinates and went busily, and Colonel Nasu and the artillery lieutenant still took a few guards to inspect the artillery positions and guide the artillerymen's movements from time to time.

"Alas, what is the origin of this Colonel Su? Isn't he just a hairy boy? How did you become a colonel? "On the first gun position. A bearded Taiping artilleryman looked at the back of Colonel Su, who had just inspected the past. asked his companion in a low voice.

"Don't you even know this guy? His name is Su Ji, don't look at his young age, but he has been a veteran for several years, and I heard that he followed the king of the west when he fought in Changsha. When he was still a youth army, in the battle of Jinling City, he led more than a dozen youth troops to kill Lu Jianying, the governor of the Qing Demon Liangjiang, do you say it's powerful? A Taiping Army artilleryman who was tidying up the rocket racks said in a low voice: "Later, he majored in artillery in the Jiangwu Academy, and I heard that the artillery team he led still holds the fastest firing record for the 32-pound cannon in the Jiangwutang!" ”

The bearded man sneered: "Our army will not be equipped with such heavy artillery." No matter how fast the heavy artillery is, what is the use of our field army artillery? ”

I don't know if Colonel Su Ji has good ears or if the two of them are talking louder, Colonel Su Ji seems to have heard it. I saw him stop, turn around and slowly turn back to the first gun position, the two artillerymen were a little flustered by his sharp gaze, and the movements of their hands slowed down a little.

"As a Heavenly Artilleryman, whether it is a 32-pounder gun or a six-pounder cannon, whether it is a cannon or a howitzer, whether it is a front-loading gun or a rear-loading gun, it must be skillfully drilled. One day, maybe we will be transferred to the coastal defense unit, maybe we will be transferred to the naval artillery unit, no matter what kind of artillery, we will have to play it in our hands! Got it? Corporal! Su Ji's tone was not hurried, and the volume was not too loud, but the surrounding artillerymen could hear it clearly, and the four words Heavenly Artillery seemed to have an unusual meaning and magic power, which made the eyes of all the artillerymen ignite with flames.

"I don't think the artillery of your First Army is qualified enough to be the artillery of the Heavenly Kingdom! If you can only play artillery under eighteen pounds, you are not a qualified heavenly artilleryman! Su Ji's tone gradually became stern, making many people lower their heads.

"We were armed with field artillery from the beginning, and the largest cannon was an eighteen-pounder howitzer, and we didn't have a chance to fiddle with no matter how big the cannon was." I don't know who muttered quietly.

Su Ji smiled slightly, and said slowly: "There will be a chance, and later the artillery of each unit will take turns to return to the martial arts hall for further study, and then they will be able to fiddle with those heavy artillery." ”

All the artillerymen were overjoyed when they heard this, these soldiers usually like to manipulate artillery, and naturally have another enthusiasm for artillery, and after listening to Su Ji's words, they all became interested and asked.

"Colonel Sue, really? Will they really take turns to go back to the martial arts hall to train again? "Is there any new artillery?" "I've wanted to fiddle with those big heavy cannons for a long time, I've only heard of them before, and I've never even seen them!"

Su Ji pressed his hands a few times, and said with a faint smile: "Don't think about anything else, we have to train the rocket launch more proficiently early tomorrow morning, and my request is to make it start immediately, without delay!" But let's talk about it first, if the artillery team can stand out in this exercise, I will take this artillery team member as the first batch of personnel to return to the lecture hall for further study. ”

After the cheers erupted, the enthusiasm of the artillery teams became even more enthusiastic. Su Ji continued to move forward with a smile on the corner of his mouth, and the artillery lieutenant behind him followed, and said in a low voice: "Colonel Su, the firing situation of the other two rocket artillery positions has also been reported, and the situation is similar to ours, except that a soldier in the rocket position at the west front gate was burned by the rocket tail flame, and the rest were not injured." ”

Su Ji breathed a sigh of relief and said: "Fortunately, the first army is worthy of being the first army of the kingdom of heaven, and the artillery is really second to none, and he learned the launch of the rocket in one afternoon, and there was no big mistake in the first test launch, and the next thing is to make everyone more proficient." The southwest is mountainous and inconvenient to carry artillery and ammunition, and in the future, this kind of rocket will become another important means for our artillery to provide fire support, so it must be used as well as an arm and a finger. Oh, send a herald to inform the battalion of the launch, and send a team of men to follow the front-line infantry regiment into the inner city, survey the results of the rocket artillery, and count the rocket landing points, calculate the deviation of the angle of fire......"

Su Ji explained a lot of things, and the lieutenant took notes on the small book he carried with him with charcoal, and then gave a military salute and hurriedly went to do it.

Su Ji stood on the battlements next to the city wall, stared blankly at the inner city that was spontaneously burning with skyrocketing fire, and muttered: "The King of the West once said that the French emperor once admired artillery and bluntly said: Artillery is the god of war. Now it seems that I am the god of war who dominates the battlefield! ”

The raging fire in the Jingjiang palace in the inner city of Guilin has been burning for a day and a night, the Qing army seems to have stored a large amount of gunpowder in the inner city, and violent explosions occurred from time to time when burning, but fortunately, the tall city wall of the inner city blocked the spread of the fire, and the Taiping army also demolished the houses close to the inner city wall in time, and was charged with fire in the inner city.

Most of the Qing troops who fled into the inner city were Chu Yong, who followed Jiang Zhongyuan, but these soldiers did not expect that they had set fire to the city in Zhaoqing a few months earlier, and that they had ended their lives in the inner city of Guilin in the same way a few months later.

On the third day, the fire was gradually extinguished by a winter rain that was cloudy over Guilin. When the Taiping soldiers tried to open the thick iron gate of the inner city, they found that they could not push the gate, and finally had to blow up the gate with explosives.

But when the thick city gate fell, the hundreds of Taiping soldiers present were stunned by the scene behind the iron gate. The city gate cave behind the iron gate was densely packed with the corpses of Qing soldiers, they bared their teeth one by one, and their expressions were still the same, many of them were not burned to death, but trampled on each other to death, or were smoked to death by the thick smoke.

It took a morning to clean up the corpses at the entrances of several city gates, and the corpses of Qing soldiers who were burned into a pile of charcoal could be seen everywhere in the inner city, and it was roughly estimated that tens of thousands of Qing soldiers were burned alive in the inner city of Guilin.

For the first time, Chen Yucheng ordered the passage to the inner city to be blocked, and no other idle people were allowed to enter except for transporting the corpses and cleaning up the people in the inner city. When he stood on the gate tower of the inner city and watched the tragic situation in the city, he didn't speak for a long time, and finally said slowly: "Back then, Zhuge Kongming burned 30,000 vine armor troops, thinking that it was too cruel to break his life calculation. ”

A few days later, the corpses of the Qing soldiers in the inner city were cleaned up and buried in several large pits outside the city. Later, Fei Chengli mobilized the common people in the city to continue to clean up the ruins, because it was rumored that there were many gold and jewelry shells in the Jingjiang Palace, which attracted thousands of people to come to the inner city every day to clean up the ruins. It was not until the ninth day that several people dug out a secret room in the Jingjiang Palace, at first people thought it was a treasure room, but after opening it, they found that it was a secret room where a group of Qing generals were hiding.

This secret room was built underground, and there was drinking water inside, which was enough for dozens of people to survive for half a month, but unfortunately this group of Qing army generals leaked air. Due to the burning outside, the oxygen had long been exhausted, and dozens of Qing generals and officials were suffocated to death in the secret room, but their only advantage was that their bodies were not burned, and their faces could still be recognized.

In the end, the Taiping army found the Qing army who had been captured before to identify the corpses, including Jiang Zhongyuan, the old enemy of the Taiping army, several of his brothers, and more than a dozen of Chu Yong's generals. (To be continued......)