Chapter Twenty-Six: The Second Pit

Liu Hou arranged the support teams and finally breathed a sigh of relief. At this time, Guo Youzhi also came over to take a look. After listening to the current arrangement of Xingshì and Liu Hou, he also nodded secretly, thinking that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had handled it in a good way this time, and he was becoming more and more like a general.

When Liu Hou saw Guo Youzhi coming, he was not polite, and handed over the follow-up matters to him to deal with. The troops were sent out, but there were still a lot of logistical support, material mobilization and other matters to be arranged, these things were relatively cumbersome, and Liu Hou naturally did not have the patience to do it. In addition, the prisoner camps also need to be closely guarded.

Those who should be dispatched have been dispatched, and those who have been rearranged have also been arranged, and Liu Hou and Guo Youzhi have become the most idle people. They stayed in the tent, quietly waiting for news. Now they are in a hurry, and it will take time to prove what the outcome of the matter will be.

From time to time, heralds and scouts went in and out of the big tent, reporting the battle situation everywhere to the two people, and some came to ask for support or ask for supplies, and Guo Yu dealt with them one by one.

At the time of the fourth watch, the battle situation from everywhere was relatively optimistic, and the outer front of the camp had been firmly held, and the Eastern Wu army repeatedly rushed to the camp desperately, but was repelled by the Shu army.

Relying on fortifications, the Shu army dealt a heavy blow to the Eastern Wu army with long-range weapons such as muskets and bows and crossbows. In the near area, there are obstacles such as rejecting horses and deer, and finally there are rattan armor soldiers to do hand-to-hand combat, in just one hour, the Eastern Wu army has suffered heavy casualties, but it has never been able to break through the defense line of the Shu army, and rushed into the camp.

Gradually, the blood outside the camp has accumulated into small streams, and in some low-lying places, it has even accumulated into small pools of blood.

There is still a steady stream of Soochow troops pouring out of the tunnel where the second division is stationed, but the battle line here has also been stabilized, and the Shu army has surrounded here, constantly killing and injuring the Soochow soldiers pouring out.

The stability of this front was due to the reinforcements of the 1st and 2nd regiments of musketeers, who came up and threw countless thunderbolts. The aggressive offensive momentum of the Eastern Wu army was immediately paused. From this moment on, the expansion of the Eastern Wu army in the Shu camp became history.

From this moment on, the territory occupied by the Soochow army continued to shrink and shrink until it was gradually compressed back to the vicinity of the pothole. And some of the Eastern Wu soldiers who rushed to the battalions to kill people and set fires were gradually wiped out after the Third Division's Tengjia Army joined the ranks of encirclement and suppression.

Liu Hou and Guo Youzhi listened to the good news that came frequently, and their mood was much more relaxed, but at this time, they suddenly heard the sound of "bangbang" gunshots and shouts of killing. The sounds were so close that it seemed to be happening in front of them.

"Bang!" With a thud, a crossbow arrow pierced through the tent and shot into the tent, nailed to a wooden post, the tail of which was still trembling slightly. Although this crossbow arrow is still some distance away from Liu Hou and Guo Youzhi, it is enough to scare the two of them, what's going on? The enemy has all been killed in the tent of the Chinese army, and the crossbow arrows have been shot at the headquarters.

The guards standing guard in the tent immediately surrounded the two of them, ready to shield them with their flesh and blood from arrows that might fly again.

Then, another guard came in and reported: "Prince Qiqi, 100 steps away from the Chinese military tent, there is a hole, the Eastern Wu army has come out of this hole, and now the first and second companies of the guard battalion are blocking the enemy, please move to other camps temporarily." ”

Liu Hou and Guo Youzhi were taken aback, obviously, the Dongwu people found that the first pit opening was not in the Chinese army, and after the soldiers who went up were strongly blocked by the other party, they urgently dug a bifurcated passage underground, this passage should have been relocated and excavated in a targeted manner, but they did not expect to find the Chinese army's tent accurately.

"Let's go, go out and have a look." Liu Hou waved his hand, and as he spoke, he and Guo Youzhi walked out. The pro-soldiers who were surrounding moved together, and the group of people piled up together naturally couldn't go fast. After the group of people slowly moved to the door of the big account, a few people went out first, and after finding out the situation, they sent a signal of safety, Liu Hou and Guo Youzhi went out one after another, and then the other guards also went out in turn. After leaving the tent, they continued to gather around the two of them.

Liu Hou quickly found the mouth of the pothole, and a hundred steps away from the left side of the Chinese army tent, gathered a lot of Eastern Wu soldiers, who used tower shields to block bullets and arrows from all directions, and there were still soldiers crawling out of the hole.

And the guards were scattered around these Eastern Wu soldiers, constantly shooting at them. However, with the protection of the tower shield, the effect of their shooting does not seem to be great. On the contrary, the Dongwu people counterattacked with crossbow arrows from time to time and achieved certain results.

When Zhao Tong saw Liu Hou coming out, he immediately trotted over, and at the same time brought some tower shield hands, which consciously erected the tower shield in front of Liu Hou to prevent the prince from being injured by stray arrows.

"Prince, please move to the garrison of the Third Division first, which is not under any attack at present. Third Company Commander, the prince will be handed over to you, if the prince has any damage, you can come and see him. "The previous paragraph was said by Zhao Tong to Liu Hou, and the latter paragraph was said to the commander of the third company.

Wang Haohui, the commander of the third company, arched his hand and said: "No! "I was going to step forward and help Liu Hou leave. Liu Hou knocked his hand off with one hand and said:

"Bastard, do you need me to avoid this kind of small scene? You guys hurry up and get them for me, I'm not going anywhere, I'm just watching. Don't sue me, a few Dongwu jumping clowns can't handle the elite of the elite. ”

Zhao Tong and the commander of the third company persuaded hard, Liu Hou just refused to go, but said that he was watching from the sidelines, but in fact, it was not quite, Liu Hou found a high ground, more than 200 meters away from the battlefield, far away from the range of crossbow arrows. With some red and deer barricades here, and a shield wall composed of tower shields in front, plus the protection of three companies and horses, Liu Hou believes that even if thousands of Dongwu people come to attack this position, his own safety will not be a problem.

Zhao Tong saw that the arrangement of the prince was very secure, and he no longer insisted, and turned around to concentrate on the battle with the Eastern Wu people. Although the Dongwu people have the protection of the tower shield, the musket cannot cause them a lot of damage, it does not mean that the Shu army can't do anything about them, the reason why they haven't given them a thunderous blow now is to lure more Dongwu soldiers out of the pit, in order to kill as much as possible the living force of Dongwu.

The sporadic shots of the musketeers around them were not actually intended to kill or injure the Soochow troops, but to suppress them, bring them together, and prevent them from spreading. If these Eastern Wu soldiers run all over the camp, it will take a lot of effort to kill them all, and if they set fire everywhere, the losses of the Shu army will inevitably be very large, and the second division is a good example.

However, the Chinese army has already taken precautions, and it is clear that it will not repeat the mistakes of the second division. When this second pit came out, it was immediately discovered, and it was immediately surrounded by musketeers, and all the Eastern Wu soldiers could not leave the range of 30 steps from the pit, let alone go everywhere to kill people and set fires. Although they also shot everywhere with crossbow arrows, and even tried to set fire to the camp with rockets.

However, the Shu army had already taken precautions, and when the crossbow arrows came, the musketeers retreated to a distance and then shot back, anyway, the range of the muskets was longer than the crossbow arrows, and some used shields or other things as cover, and the Eastern Wu army was fired. When the rocket came, there was also a special person responsible for extinguishing the fire, and after all, the range of the rocket was limited, and even if it was burned, it could only burn to a small area, and under the management of the fire extinguishing team, the fire did not spread.

In short, the losses caused to the Shu army by this newly opened pit of the Eastern Wu Army were much smaller than the losses caused by the first pothole. And Liu Hou's Chinese army guard battalion concentrated the most elite soldiers and even special forces; State-of-the-art weapons: crossbows, the latest muskets, new bombs, new artillery, and more.

When encountering these people and these things, you say, how unfortunate and what a cup these Dongwu soldiers who dug holes and came to sneak attack. Liu Hou stood on a high place, watching the battlefield with a telescope, and the shape on the battlefield soon changed.

The Shu army stopped the sparse shooting and launched five artillery pieces. These cannons are completely different from the ten small-caliber copper cannons originally used by the Shu army, this kind of cannon is very short and short, but the caliber is very large, and it looks like a stone mortar from a distance, therefore, this kind of cannon is called a mortar cannon.

This mortar cannon has a diameter of one foot (about 230 mm), a large angle of fire, and a low muzzle velocity, making it a smoothbore gun with a high arc trajectory. This is a new type of artillery of the Shu army, because the body barrel is very short, so it is also light in weight and more convenient to carry. Its firing range is short, the projectile is powerful, and it is mainly used to destroy strong fortifications.

At this time, it is just right to use them, but they can throw a one-foot diameter flowering projectile into the Eastern Wu army hundreds of meters away, what kind of scene is that? The answer was soon revealed, and the artillery crew quickly completed the work of loading and adjusting the elements.

At least one of the crew members of each gun was a graduate of the academy, and they were responsible for calculating ballistics. Liu Hou only taught some parabolic knowledge to Zuo Ci at the beginning, and over the years, some math masters have developed a discipline of ballistics. Although the ballistics of later generations is very complicated, it is far from being as simple as muzzle velocity, parabola, and air resistance. However, after a large number of practical verifications, these math masters have found out some constants, and used these constants to include a large number of unknown factors, which is still very accurate in practical applications.

No, in the first round of firing of these five mortar cannons, 2 shells fell in the Eastern Wu army, and three were missed, but fortunately, the Shu army understood the situation of the mortar artillery and hid far away in advance, so as not to hurt their own people.

After adjusting the angle of fire, in the second round of firing, there were already four shells blooming in the crowd of Soochow. The one-foot-caliber flowering shells exploded in a dense crowd, and the lethality caused by them was staggering. Hardly a single person could stand within a dozen meters of the center of the explosion, and a certain number of people within thirty meters were also injured.

The five mortars had only bombarded three rounds before they had to stop, because only a few hundred or so of the Eastern Wu soldiers near the pit were left standing. These people are too loosely distributed and too far apart from each other, and it is obviously wasteful to continue to use the horde-killing weapon of the flowering round.

So, Zhao Tong asked the mortar to stop firing and let the musketeers clean up the mess. Zhao Tong waved his hand, and the soldiers of the first company came out from behind the bunker one after another, lined up 50 steps away from the pothole, lined up in a semicircle, and then under the company commander's command, they raised their guns and aimed in unison.

"Bang bang bang" gunshots rang out, only two rounds of shooting, and the remaining Dongwu soldiers who were still standing also fell to the ground. At this time, the demolition team was dispatched, they carried a shield in one hand and an explosives bag in the other, and quickly rushed to the mouth of the hole, the explosive bag had been ignited, and the lead was sneering with white smoke, which looked terrifying.

The thousands of Eastern Wu soldiers on the ground were cleaned up, and there were still Eastern Wu soldiers poking their heads out of the pits and shooting with crossbow arrows. The five Demolitionists fended off the bolts with their shields as they charged towards the mouth of the pit. When he reached the mouth of the pothole, he threw the explosives bag at the mouth of the potter with all his might, and then ran back with all his might without looking at the results.