Chapter 55: The Battle of the White Emperor City

The military meeting lasted until late at night, and in the end no good solution was discussed. For siege, the Hong army used many habitual methods in the past, such as digging tunnels is one of the commonly used methods.

However, the method of digging tunnels was ruled out in the first place. The White Emperor City was built on a cliff, and it was hard stone not to dig a few feet underground. Digging tunnels in such a place is a laborious task, even if there are mechanical power tools from later generations.

Not only can not dig tunnels, it is also very difficult to blow up the city wall, the city wall of this White Emperor City is different from the rammed earth inside the city wall, covered with bricks, this White Emperor City is on the enemy side, mostly made of mountain stones1, strong and abnormal. Trying to blow up large sections of the city wall with black powder is tantamount to a fool's dream.

At this time, Guan Xing proposed a construction yì: "This White Emperor City is built near the river, I think we can transfer the 'Jingzhou' to bombard the city with ship-borne cannons to suppress the defenders in the city, and then our army will take the opportunity to break into the city, open the city gate and enlarge the army to enter." ”

After all, there are 45 guns on the side of the "Jingzhou", plus two cannons in the bow and stern, and 47 cannons can bombard the city at the same time, which is quite terrifying.

Everyone made some more gossipy opinions, and finally felt that using hot air balloons to throw bombs to suppress the defenders in the city, coupled with the bombardment of the "Jingzhou" naval guns, should be able to empty the defenders on the city wall as before, and then make it easy for a large army to climb the city wall.

The plan stopped, and on the third day, the "Jingzhou" finally caught up, and the Hong army immediately launched the first battle of the siege. Liu Hou lined up ten bronze cannons under the city, raised seven hot air balloons, and ordered the sea, land and air to attack at the same time.

However, the attack stopped abruptly as soon as it began. Because, Liu Fengjun in the city launched a counterattack. At the same time as Liu Hou's ten bronze cannons were sung, the iron cannons on the head of the city also fired.

The iron cannons on the city wall not only surpassed Liu Hou's bronze cannons, there were as many as twenty, but also the caliber and range also exceeded the copper cannons under the city.

Fortunately, the first round of shelling on both sides was for ranging test firing, and the accuracy was very poor, and several artillerymen were killed by the explosion on the side of the Hong army, and none of the copper cannons were blown up.

Liu Hou used a telescope to see at least 20 cannons shining at the head of the city on the watchtower behind, and saw that there were shells exploding in front of and behind his artillery positions, knowing that the range of the opponent's cannons exceeded that of his small-caliber copper cannons.

In desperation, he urgently ordered all the cannons to stop reloading and immediately retreat at full speed. After receiving the order, the artilleryman threw the tongs and ammunition in his hands to the ground, and everyone pushed the cannon and ran back with all their might.

Fortunately, the turrets of these cannons are equipped with iron wheels, and a crew member can run fast when pushing a cannon. By the time the iron cannon on the city wall had completed the second reload, they had already run away, although they had not yet run out of the range of the iron cannon, but the cannon on the city had originally calibrated the shelling Zhuyuan was no longer applicable.

The artillerymen on the city wall had no choice but to shake the handle of the gun mount urgently, raise the muzzle of the gun, and re-aim, because the Hong artillery was receding like a tide, and the time was urgent, and they could not make accurate measurements and aiming, so they could only estimate with the naked eye that they would almost ignite and fire the cannon.

In this way, the effect can be imagined, even if it is not easy to shoot at a running target with a rifle, let alone hit with a cannon, the cannon on the city wall has little effect in this round of shooting, and the flying shrapnel only injured two Hong artillerymen, and not a single one died.

By the time the artillery on the city walls loaded the third shell, all the Hong troops had already withdrawn from the range of the iron cannons. After only two rounds of shelling, the Hong army even fired only one shot, and the artillery battle came to an abrupt end.

The results of this round of shelling were evenly matched, and both armies invariably used flowering shells, apparently with the aim of killing and wounding each other's soldiers. Liu Fengjun's iron artillery had a numerical advantage, wounding and killing several Hong artillerymen, but due to the large interval between each cannon of the Hong army, the number of casualties was limited to single digits.

And the casualties of Liu Feng's army were not less than those of Hong's army at all, because the number of people above and below the city wall was too dense.

In addition to artillery, Liu Feng also sent a large number of soldiers to defend the city wall, in addition, two or three shells crossed the city wall and fell into the city, where there were also a large number of soldiers and people, they were Liu Feng's reserve army and the transportation team of the materials for defending the city. The main casualties actually occurred here.

Of course, judging from the loss of Cheng Dù, the Hong army undoubtedly suffered a loss in this round of mutual shelling, because the Hong army's casualties were all artillerymen, which belonged to a relatively noble branch of the army, and it was more difficult to cultivate such talents.

In the selection of artillerymen, literacy counts this rule, which turned most of the soldiers away. This shows the rarity of artillery.

On the contrary, most of the casualties in Liu Fengjun's army were ordinary soldiers and people, how many such people there were, and it is estimated that Liu Feng would not be heartbroken if they died ten times more.

Zhang Bao and Guan Xing looked angry, and automatically asked Ying to say that they would bring musketeers up to suppress the artillery on the city wall.

There will be no less than 1,000 musketeers in this city, and it seems that the money he left in the "Ministry of Industry" in Chengdu has been obtained by the puppet regime. Isn't this a shot in the foot?

In this case, the musketeers went up and fired at the enemy hiding behind the female battlement, which was undoubtedly a suicidal act. As a result, the battle on the ground ended after only one round, and Liu Hou was completely defeated, so it can be said that he was killed in seconds.

Look at the battles in the air, there are battles in the air? Of course, when the hot air balloons of the Hong Army were about to float over the city, they suddenly found that a bunch of hot air balloons had also risen in the White Emperor City, and when they counted, there were ten, three more than their own.

The pilots of the Hong Army were not mentally prepared, and most of them froze in the hall until the other party's crossbow arrows rained down before they came to their senses, and hurriedly stepped on their pedals like desperates, urging the propellers to flee back.

Hot air balloons were mainly used for reconnaissance and bomb dropping, and air units rarely fought with each other, or never happened before, and the Hong army was poorly prepared, did not bring any long-range weapons, and could only be beaten passively.

And Liu Fengjun has long been prepared, each hot air balloon is equipped with a strong crossbow, although these crossbows are not repeating crossbows, but they are better in terms of long range, strong penetration, and the arrows of the crossbow arrows are tied with cloth strips soaked in fire oil, so the crossbow arrows they shoot are rockets. This configuration is definitely the supreme weapon of air combat in this era.

As we all know, hot air balloons are the most afraid of fire, and they basically do not run well when they are bitten by rockets. Fortunately, after the Hong Army hot air balloon unit learned the painful lesson of being shot down by the Soochow Army last time, each hot air balloon was treated with water glass from beginning to end, so that even if it was shot by a rocket, it would not burn.

Therefore, when the hot air balloons of the Hong army fled back to the sky above their camp, four of the air bags had been shot into a thousand holes, and a large amount of hot gas was leaked out, and it was no longer possible to keep floating.

All four balloons fell to the ground faster or slower, while the other three balloons actively lowered their altitude to prepare for landing.

Liu Hou couldn't help but be furious when he saw the process of air combat, or the process of the air force being unilaterally beaten. He ordered the bed crossbow troops on the ground to launch a counterattack.

The bed crossbows in the Hong army were mainly captured from the Eastern Wu army, especially the anti-aircraft bed crossbows of the Ding Feng army, which were attracted by the 101 airborne troops at that time, and were finally captured by the Hong army.

The craftsmen of the Hong army converted all the captured bed crossbows into a type that could easily and quickly adjust the elevation angle, and installed them on horse-drawn carriages. In this way, these bed crossbows are highly mobile and can be pulled around at any time by human or animal power.

Now Liu Fengjun's hot air balloon has approached the sky above the Hong army camp, and more than 30 bed crossbows in the Hong army camp have completed the winding work, and now the soldiers in charge of aiming are shaking the handle and adjusting the shooting angle.

There is experience in making gun mounts, and those craftsmen are certainly not a problem in making crossbow mounts. The angle of the bed crossbow is now very easy to adjust, and it can be achieved by simply shaking the handle of the runner by a soldier.

One wheel is to adjust the elevation angle, the other wheel is to adjust the left and right angles, as long as the two handles are shaken, the bed crossbow can be moved in three dimensions, light yì to complete the adjustment of the elements, a soldier can complete the aiming process. Targets can be reached both on the ground and in the air.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh" more than 30 arm-thick javelins were shot into the air, and the lethality of these ancient anti-aircraft guns was very terrifying, and seven hot air balloons were hit by arrows when they landed. Among them, there are arrows in rattan baskets, and there are arrows in airbags.

The worst of all was one of the hot air balloons that was shot at the rattan basket, and after the anti-aircraft gun-like crossbow arrows pierced the rattan basket, the castration continued to shoot through the furnace in the middle of the basket. The stove exploded, the flames were everywhere, the two pilots on it were burned, the rattan basket was set on fire, and several twine threads hanging from the rattan basket were also ignited.

After a while, I saw the rattan basket that had turned into a ball of fire falling, and the two fire men also fell out of the basket one after another, screaming and falling to the ground first, "bang, bang" and shattering into countless pieces of barbecue. They used their lives to refute Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa two-ball test.

Liu Feng's hot air balloon fled in a hurry, but the speed of the hot air balloon itself was very slow, and the speed of the arrows was affected by the damage of different strokes.

They had to usher in a second wave of bed crossbow strikes, and after this round of blows, all the hot air balloons were shot with the least one arrow. In the two rounds of blows, most of the hot air balloons hit 2 or 3 arrows, and the most hit 4 or 5 arrows.

Of course, although they all hit the arrow, the damage of each hot air balloon is very different. Some are still alive, some are no longer able to move, and some are descending fast or slowly.

In the end, five hot air balloons failed to escape back into the city, some of them had their propellers damaged and could not move, so they could only drift in the wind; Some of the airbags were too badly damaged and leaked too badly, so they had to make a forced landing in front of the battle; Others were killed because both pilots were shot and there was no one to control the hot air balloon, so it had to float in the air until the stove ran out of fuel and fell to the ground.

The five hot air balloons that escaped back were also damaged by different Cheng dù and are believed to be no longer operational without a period of repair.

In this air battle, the Hong army won a crushing victory thanks to the support of ground anti-aircraft artillery units.

Note 1: The situation about White Emperor City may be different from the facts, this setting is to highlight the easy defense and difficulty of White Emperor City, and increase the difficulty of pig's feet, otherwise he will be invincible and the story will have to end.

Thanks to the longtu168168 brothers for their tips and support