When the sun rises in the east, the first rays of sunlight are seen on the ground level from a hot air balloon fifty meters above the ground. Zhou Qingfeng and Wu Damen stood in the hanging basket of the hot air balloon early in the morning, grabbing binoculars to observe the movements around Panjim Fortress.

Due to the proximity to the sea, the surrounding terrain is flat, and the view from the hot air balloon is extremely open. In the high-power telescope, you can clearly see clear images within a range of more than ten kilometers. The Old City of Goa is just seven kilometers away, and everything in the city is unobstructed and exposed to the observer's view.

"With this hot air balloon and telescope, the plains and the sea are not afraid of being attacked by the enemy." Wu Damen put down the binoculars and sighed with great emotion, "After practicing so many times in the martial arts chessboard, with our current firepower density, we should be able to withstand a long-term siege by five times the enemy." If the enemy wants to take our fortress, he will either have to fill it with tens of thousands of lives, or bombard it with heavy artillery. ”

As the sun rises, the old city of Goa slowly awakens in the distance. The soldiers in the Portuguese barracks were slowly marching out of the barracks and lined up, and from their lazy steps and laughing expressions, it was clear that these Europeans were not nervous about the upcoming war. Although the appearance of Panjim Fortress was shocking, the colonists did not easily change their minds because of this, they did not realize how terrible the enemy from the east was. In the binoculars, people in the city can be seen still pointing at the hot air balloons. After a night, their curiosity outweighed their fear. Some are even eager to find out.

The sea breeze blows, and the hot air balloon flutters.

The picture in the telescope also shook and blurred. Zhou Qingfeng had to put down his hand and wait for the hot air balloon to stabilize again. He turned his head to look out to sea, where there were several boats in the distance, as well as debris and corpses of ships that had risen and fallen with the waves—it was a Portuguese ship, sunk last night.

After the fortress appeared, the migrant workers repaired the perimeter of the fortress overnight, built fortifications, and cleared the shooting boundary. Six heavy fortress guns began to test fire, determine their respective fire ranges, and calibrate the range references. The rumbling sound of artillery can even be heard several kilometers away.

These six cannons were nominally made by Zhao Ze, but in fact they were the credit of Sun Yuanhua. After the artillery expert of the Ming Dynasty completed the supplement of basic knowledge, he began to take over the work of artillery design and manufacturing - casting, forging, machining, ballistics, etc. were all university questions, and Zhao Ze was really busy. With Sun Yuanhua taking over, he spent his energy on the more important steam engine.

Last night the migrant workers worked all night, and the Portuguese sent a few small boats to try to attack them. As a result, Zhou Qingfeng ordered a round of lighting rockets to be fired every ten minutes at night, illuminating the two-kilometer radius around the fortress, and the attacking ships broke into the death range of the artillery in a daze.

After Huofeng joined, the 'Revolutionary Army' steel plant was finally able to provide qualified low-carbon steel. This was a leap forward in the design and manufacture of artillery.

These fortress guns designed by Sun Yuanhua are all 200 mm caliber, 15 times the diameter of the long barrel, the pipe wall is uniform, the weight is light and can withstand stronger chamber pressure. A two-ton gun could hit an effective range of 1,800 meters. He even copied the hydraulic rifling broaching machine according to the drawings given by Zhao Ze, and pulled out the equidistant winding rifling in the barrel.

Guided by flare rockets, the three heavy guns on the fortress aimed at the attacking ships a thousand meters away, and hit the target with only two volleys. The oval-round-tipped solid projectile of more than ten kilograms had a fairly straight trajectory and high muzzle velocity, and the spin given by rifling brought good stability, and only two hits knocked the enemy ship to pieces.

This incident reminded the Portuguese that warships should not casually confront large-caliber fortress guns, they could not be defeated.

The 1,000-meter artillery range scared the Portuguese enough. Until dawn, their ships did not come close to the coast, but retreated to a distance of 1,500 meters to take refuge. Although they were still within the range of the fortress guns, Zhou Qingfeng ordered not to open fire and go with the enemy.

The sunken Portuguese ship turned into pieces of tattered wood and floated around the sea, warning the others not to get too close to the enemy's fire, and also making the Portuguese realize that their opponent was not an ignorant native. But the lessons learned by the Portuguese were clearly not enough.

"Marshal, the enemy is mobilizing artillery." The gondola stabilized again, and Wumen raised his binoculars to continue to observe the direction of the old city of Goa. "Their artillery is also very big."

Zhou Qingfeng also stretched out the telescope to observe.

The Portuguese had lived a good life in India for more than a hundred years and never imagined that their dominance would be challenged. In order to live more comfortably, they chose to build the city a little inland. As a result, now that Zhou Qingfeng is stuck in the mouth of the river, they find themselves unlucky.

Perennial bullying of the indigenous Indians, the Portuguese army in Goa was not of high quality, slow to act, and morale was average. If it weren't for Zhou Qingfeng's insufficient troops, if he wanted to lure the snake out of the hole to fight a battle of annihilation, he could take the initiative to block the door and annihilate them in the barracks. Now the Portuguese are carrying their own artillery, and it seems that they are all big guys.

"It's a twenty-four-pounder cannon with a range of more than a thousand meters, and it weighs about the same as our fortress guns." Zhou Qingfeng roughly identified the artillery model. 'Pound' is actually the British term, and the Portuguese also use 'league' instead of 'meter' as a unit of length. These weights and measures of the European are actually quite messy, and he only gives a general description.

"That's fine, our artillery is more powerful." Wumen attaches great importance to the enemy's artillery, and feels that once the battle begins, it is necessary to destroy the enemy's heavy equipment first. The effective range is one thousand meters, and the maximum range is definitely two kilometers, so there is no problem at all in hitting such a large target as a fortress.

But Zhou Qingfeng shook his head and said, "This is not the most powerful artillery of the Portuguese. They also had some heavy fortress guns of more than five tons, although they were not many in number and had a slow rate of fire, they were powerful, and the range could reach 3,000 meters. Those are the biggest threats to us. ”

"Three thousand meters!" Wu Damin's forehead was a little sweaty, "Then we must send a force outside the city, and it must be a strong attack to knock out the enemy's artillery positions and destroy these heavy artillery." Five-ton heavy artillery is bound to be difficult to transport. Our cavalry has just been replaced with new cavalry guns, and should be able to take on this heavy duty. If it really doesn't work, you can only ask the marshal to use planes to bomb. ”

Hehe...... Zhou Qingfeng chuckled twice, satisfied that the officers under his command had finally grown up. In the past, he was the one who came up with the idea of how to fight. Now these cadres at the battalion and company level are gradually having their own ideas.

The five-ton heavy gun was rather cumbersome for the current road conditions and could only be used on stationary batteries, with no mobility at all. If you really want to force the Portuguese to mobilize such a big guy, then you don't need planes, just cover them with rocket salvos. Anyway, it's slow, like a fixed target.

Zhou Qingfeng wished that the enemy would bring out the heavy artillery and bombard him. Because he used iron to make his cannons, but the enemy's cannons were all bronze. Each one is a lot of money.

At the moment of war, the morning exercise was canceled.

As migrant workers who were tired all night, they all returned to the dormitory to rest, and these people were armed and ready to go into battle at any time as a supplement. And the soldiers of the Guards were getting up and lining up for breakfast in preparation for the next battle.

When the sun rises, the weather gets hot. Zhou Qingfeng felt like he was being roasted by fire on the hot air balloon, and there was really a stove fueled by coal tar above his head, constantly producing hot air. "Go down and let the observers come up."

Wu Damen threw a token down the rope, and a set of ratchets on the fortress watchtower began to rotate, and the thick hemp rope that pulled the hot air balloon was wrapped around the ratchet, pulling Zhou Qingfeng and the two down.

After jumping off the hot air balloon, Zhou Qingfeng said to Wumen: "The weather here is too hot, let the accompanying craftsmen build a light pergola on the hanging basket of the hot air balloon, otherwise the solar energy in Goa at noon will cause people to suffer from heat stroke." Observers should bring more salt soda when they go up, and change shifts every two or three hours to avoid unnecessary non-combat attrition. Every one of our people is precious. ”

After Zhou Qingfeng came down, he saw Wen Ruolan leading the people of the medical platoon to check the bodies of the soldiers one by one, feeding them some pills to remove miasma and clear heat. There are many mosquitoes and diseases in this tropical area, which can easily cause water and soil adaptation. Many colonists were not afraid of the attacks of the indigenous soldiers, but talked about all kinds of diseases in the wilderness.

Sister Wen can really do any job, she is very good at research, and she is also very meticulous in practice. With her in the barracks, the soldiers felt very relieved, and any injuries and illnesses could be treated. Compared with the heroic and atmospheric Zhou Qingfeng, Wen Ruolan's gentle and amiable personality gave the soldiers great comfort - the marshal and his wife were on the front line, and the soldiers really had nothing to complain about.

"How much non-combat attrition is there now?" Zhou Qingfeng approached Sister Wen and asked.

Wen Ruolan hadn't closed her eyes since yesterday, and at this moment she wiped the fine sweat on her forehead due to the high temperature, turned around and smiled: "The weather here is too hot, and it is completely different from our Tianjin." If you hadn't burned the wasteland before, the miasma would have been thick. I have now boiled some decoction for the soldiers to drink, and there are about a dozen wounded and sick people at the moment, but all of them are fine. ”

What Zhou Qingfeng is most afraid of now is not the external enemy, but the internal epidemic. In war, it is all too common to suffer inexplicable casualties and defeat due to epidemics. In ancient times, poor hygiene habits, a few bites of mosquitoes and a malaria or something infectious disease, that fun is great.

"Don't worry, husband. I'll keep an eye on the things inside the fortress for you. You can fight wars with peace of mind, expand your territory, and achieve a lifetime of fame. I promise you won't get any trouble in the future. "Wen Ruolan is considerate and lovely, and she thinks about everything for Zhou Qingfeng.

Zhou Qingfeng felt that he probably saved the world in his last life, and only in this life did Sister Ruolan commit to him. With her alone, it really saves him countless efforts. He wanted to step forward and hug and love him, but Wen Ruolan pouted and retreated, and said angrily: "You bad guy don't want to mess around, there are people all around." ”

"Come at night, come at night." Zhou Qingfeng left with a smile, only feeling beautiful in his heart. He went to check the soldiers' meals again to make sure that all the details were perfect, only to see his sister Hezhuo getting on horseback and commanding a cavalry company of less than 100 men in the fortress on 'dog meat'. At this moment, the cavalry had eaten breakfast, and seemed to go out for a walk.

The Shandong Raiders are now coming to an end, and the entire land of Qilu has been broken by He Zhuo more than a dozen cities, and the heads of the officials and gentry who have been killed are rolling and their souls are scattered. Even the Confucian Mansion was bulldozed and liquidated by her. For example, today's scholars all hate her to the core, and even many old-fashioned literati in the 'revolutionary army' curse her.

Zhou Qingfeng clearly stated in the newspaper that it was his personal order to liquidate the decadent and backward feudal ideology and its carriers. But outsiders didn't dare to do anything to him, and the slander and resentment all went towards He Zhuo.

He Zhuo didn't care about this, but was still happy, and was ordering the fortress gate to open at this moment. Seeing Zhou Qingfeng coming, she raised her hand and shouted, "Wait, my sister will go and cut off a few heads of the ugly ghost of Tessie for you." ”