Since the Ming army did not have qualified bearings, if the body was too heavy, the axle would be difficult to bear, and the friction would increase exponentially. Although the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty did not understand the reason, they also knew that they could not increase the load of the car body indefinitely, otherwise the frame would collapse.

But for the shield cart to be used to save lives, the heavier it is, the stronger it is. As for the slower speed of the cart and the more strenuous work, these are acceptable for the soldiers who push the cart. They would even wish that the car would fall apart, so that they would not have to rush to the front to die.

However, for the generous reward promised by Shangguan, there will still be many soldiers who consciously take a cheap life to push the shield cart. They can often eat a full meal of oil and water last night, and then eat another meal the next morning after a good night's sleep. In this way, the cheeks are sunken, and the skinny body can nourish some strength.

A few hundred meters away from the anti-thief position, tens of thousands of soldiers and horses had already assembled. Behind the hundreds of vans, there were teams of foot soldiers. With Yao Dusi's order, fifty shield carts were pushed forward with a creaking sound, and there were four or five people behind each cart.

The shield car went first, followed by a side van carrying a cannon, a fire gunner, and a half-van car with a fire gun. Behind them are the foot soldiers of the brigade to protect them. The entire formation is densely packed, and the speed of advancement depends on the shield car at the front.

The east side of Tongzhou leads to the canal wharf, and the road surface here is relatively smooth. The soldiers pushing the cart felt that it was quite labor-saving, and it only took a few minutes to push a hundred meters. And in the direction of the ruins of the defensive city walls, two heavy cannons have already been loaded. The commander of the artillery company in charge of the command determined the elevation angle of the gun with the gun gauge, and the firing range was determined by matching the number of charges accurate to the gram.

Zhou Qingfeng stood on the city wall, he had already delegated his command, and the artillery bombardment would be carried out by the artillery company commander himself. He only held a telescope to observe the enemy's movements, especially the several 'Divine Fire Crows' arranged in the rear of the enemy were very eye-catching. It's that thing that makes it impossible for him to play the trick of dropping bombs in air raids.

The artillery company commander was also equipped with binoculars and watched the enemy enter an effective firing range of 500 meters. He took aim with the help of the crosshairs on the two guns, and then waved the order to open fire - the gunner inserted the ignition rod into the fire hole of the gun, and there were two booms, and the two guns recoiled violently in a roar. They slid down the dug slope, ran out of kinetic energy, and then fell back into the crater again.

Two solid lead balls erupted from the barrel with flames and flew hundreds of meters away with a single breath. In the eyes of the Ming army in the distance, thick white smoke suddenly appeared from the position of the anti-thief, followed by a black ball appeared in the white smoke. At first glance, the ball didn't fly fast, but with just one breath, it was already close to it.

The artillery company raised the angle of fire of the artillery to the maximum, and fired at the maximum effective range, and the first shot was 500 meters away. The shell was aimed at a heavy shield cart in front of the head, but unfortunately missed. The first landing point was two or three meters away from the side of a shield cart, and the shells smashed heavily on the ground, and countless mud and sand exploded and flew in all directions.

The sputtered sediment transmitted the tremendous kinetic energy carried by the cannonballs, crackling and hitting the soldiers pushing the shield carts. These mud and sand were covered with a large number of stones, which could send the flesh of the unsuspecting soldiers to the ground, and the luck almost fell on the spot.

The moment the shells landed, the Ming army exclaimed. All the soldiers unconsciously bowed their heads to dodge, even Yao Dusi, who was commanding in the back. Although he was still quite far from the shelling point, he was still frightened.

And at the moment when everyone in front of the position shrank their necks, the shells that landed on the ground bounced again. It continued to fly forward like a ball, and this time it hit a side van loaded with a killer cannon - it grazed one side of the van to be exact.

But with such a gentle wipe, the side van that was hit immediately fell apart. The planks turned into thousands of sawdust, and the wood fibers burst like steel needles, cracking the skin of the two musketeers standing in the car. They screamed and fell out of the car, one stumbled and ran, and the other ran a few steps before falling to the ground and convulsing.

Not only did the firecrackers suffer, but the soldiers who pushed the vans were also beaten. And before the shell could stop, it fell again, bounced again, and plunged headlong into the queue of foot soldiers following behind the side van.

Yao Dusi prepared a large number of foot soldiers to rush with the chariot, waiting to rush into the city with the help of the chariot's defense. These people are extremely densely formed, and there are often a dozen people standing in a row. When the cannonballs came, a flesh channel was immediately created in the crowd, and any object that blocked the cannonballs was shattered. Immediately, the ground was filled with stumps and severed arms, and the howl shook the sky.

The two shells fired in the first round of shelling had a similar effect, and the shield cart that was originally aimed at hitting was not knocked out, but the Ming army that followed behind was unlucky. Because the Ming army was too dense, twenty or thirty people were killed in two cannons. Many Ming soldiers were frightened and turned around and ran.

"Pass my command, turn around and flee, and execute them immediately." The rear of the Ming army raised a high lookout car, and Liu Wei, who was commanding the troops, saw that some of his own people had fled, and he did not hesitate to order the maintenance of military discipline. After a while, the family who supervised the war was armed with a long knife and hacked to death the people who were running around, and carried the severed heads to repeat the military discipline loudly in front of the battle.

Yao Dusi, who took the lead, felt a layer of sweat on his forehead, and he was frightened by the damage caused by these two cannons after the battle, not to mention the foot soldiers who had witnessed the shelling—it was a panic that could not be controlled at all, and his brain was buzzing and he only cared about fleeing.

The fleeing foot soldiers kept pleading and wailing before they died, but they were still mercilessly executed. Even if the other foot soldiers in front of the formation were frightened, they were able to continue to push forward with their heads.

In the first three minutes, two breech heavy guns would fire once in half a minute. After each fire, several gunners do their part, grabbing the water-soaked brush to clean the chamber and extinguish any remaining sparks. The next step was to reload the gunpowder, and the two gunners would use a wooden frame designed to carry the projectile into the muzzle and stab it tightly.

The loading process is tedious and orderly, and it takes a long time to train to be able to make mistakes in the hectic. It was the first time that the newly formed artillerymen had gone into battle, and they were all a little nervous.

The commander of the artillery company is from Golden State University, which has just completed integration, and he was appointed to lead this artillery unit because of his good math. He didn't expect that he, a poor scholar, would one day be able to control artillery, and the first time he went into battle was a battle of tens of thousands of people. He also panted and walked back and forth between the two gun positions, constantly instructing the gunner to adjust the height and direction of the muzzle, and try his best to do a good job.

Fire......

The second round of shelling came.

Two more shells erupted from the breeches, and they flew again at a distance of several hundred meters, smashing heavily on the Ming army's line. A cannonball hit its target accurately, smashing a shield cart in front of it. It doesn't matter what kind of absorbent quilt or thick wooden planks or even mud and sand, if it is hit by this 50-caliber shell, God can't save it.

The shield cart that was shot seemed to sink into the space it was in, and then exploded completely, completely shattering. The soldiers of the cart were dead on the spot, and their flesh was mixed with the debris of the blasted wood. The cannonball smashed through the shield cart and did not stop, it continued to bounce forward, once again destroying and injuring the Ming troops that stood in its way.

The Ming soldiers tried to dodge the terrible shells. But in fact, the moment they dodged, the shells had already hit their companions. Those who are hit directly will be shattered into pieces of flesh on the spot, spreading an area that can cover one or two basketball courts, and the exploding flesh will splatter their teammates' heads and faces, causing them to run in a frenzy on the spot.

Each bombardment caused a large amount of commotion, which could be suppressed by the Warlords once or twice. But the number of shellings increased, and the number of frenzied foot soldiers increased, and they would grab their weapons and hack to death all the soldiers who supervised the war, and then scatter and flee.

In just three minutes of burst fire, seven or eight tanks were knocked out on the entire attack front, and more than a hundred people were killed and wounded. The corpses of the war dead were spread all over the front of the position, and the black and gray ground was littered with a large amount of blood-red minced flesh, which was unbearable to witness.

Yao Dusi, who was in charge of the command, was already drenched in cold sweat, he kept wiping the sweat drops from his forehead, and tried to drive the soldiers to the front line again with a hoarse voice. At this time, there are very few soldiers who are willing to turn back. Although there were not many chariots that were knocked out, they would rather lie on the ground than push the cart again unless the officers themselves came up and kicked their butts.

And after more than 10 percent of casualties, there were fewer officers willing to run to the front than foot soldiers. Even Yao Dusi himself only dared to stand far behind and shout. However, let him shout at the top of his voice, and no one in front of him paid attention to him. He himself didn't understand, how could this anti-thief artillery shoot so fast? So accurate? It's so powerful!

The Ming army's extermination cannon, which had high hopes, only had a range of 100 meters, and the barrel charge was small and the power was small. If there is more charge, it will be blown up directly. Before they could get into range, the heavy artillery on the opposite side smashed them and the gun carts.

In addition, due to the small charge of the Ming army, the caliber of the barrel is also small. The projectiles they fire often hit a single point, and compared to the heavy artillery that can richete and attack in a line, the two are not at all opponents of the times. The anti-thieves are so ruthless artillery, the Ming army has never seen it.

However, in the city, the temperature of the barrels of the two guns has risen, and it is no longer possible to continue firing. At this time, the propellant is stuffed into the chamber of the gun, and the high temperature will directly ignite them. There was also little that the gunners could do to cool down the guns. At this time, the water is poured up, and the barrel is directly wasted. The only way to do this was to reduce the rate of fire and allow the barrel to cool naturally, with solid shells only firing one shot a minute.

Less than a quarter of an hour after the start of the battle, the attack of the entire Ming army came to a standstill. Liu Zhaosun, who served as the leader of the war, was suddenly restless, and he rode back to Liu Wei's side and shouted loudly: "Father-in-law, the anti-thief artillery fire is sharp, but the fight will inevitably stop after a long time." It's better to force those miscellaneous soldiers to arch forward, and when the anti-thief artillery can't fire, I'll lead the horse team to charge. ”

Fighting a war is to exchange reasonable casualties for victory, Liu Wei is a veteran, and he definitely does not care too much about the lives of the soldiers under him. He looked at the car and saw that the anti-thief artillery was indeed powerful, but there were only two. As long as the rate of fire drops, the horse team can rush past a few hundred meters away, and you can kill it with a full breath.

"Son, do as you say. Let Yao Guofu's waste come down, and change to someone who is not afraid of death. "Liu Wei promised in front of Juniper that he wanted the thief's first skill, and he didn't care about the damage of hundreds of people at all." Let the Zhejiang military camp prepare Zhou Yiming to go up. Zhejiang soldiers can fight, and Zhou Beiyu is also a tiger general. ”