Chapter 56 is impregnable

In this unprecedented air battle, almost all the hot air balloons on both sides were damaged by different paths, and all the hot air balloons that could still move were forced to turn back or even make a forced landing.

Eight of Liu Fengjun's pilots died, nearly half of the fatality rate, and with the number of wounded, the number of dead and wounded far exceeded half of the total number.

The Hong army also lost 5 casualties, and another 7 were wounded, which was also the end of more than half of the dead and wounded. This air battle is not without tragedy.

In the short term, all the hot air balloons on both sides were damaged and could not be lifted off, and more than half of the pilots were killed or wounded, which seemed to be a lose-lose situation.

But in the long run, the Hong army took advantage of a big advantage. This is mainly due to the fact that the hot air balloons of the Hong Army are made of fireproof materials and control the vast area outside the city. Liu Fengjun's hot air balloons only escaped back to the city with 5 hot air balloons, and even if they repaired them all, there would only be 5 hot air balloons left at most.

However, the Hong army is different, they originally had 7 hot air balloons, only one of which was damaged and could not be repaired, and the remaining 6 would be repaired as long as it took time.

Of the 5 hot air balloons left by Liu Fengjun outside the city, except for 2 that were burned, the remaining 3 could be repaired.

One of the three hot air balloons was forced to make an emergency landing outside the city because the airbag was leaking too tightly, and was immediately captured by the Hong army.

The other two are losing power and drifting through the air. The two balloons lost power for different reasons, one was due to the death of both pilots and turned into drones, and the other was due to damage to the power system, and the two pilots had to stare at it.

Now is the time to test the character, there is a poem that says: "The east wind does not give Zhou Lang a ben", today's wind direction is not Liu Feng, east, south, west, north four directions of the wind direction, only one direction can blow the hot air balloon back into the city, the rest of the wind direction is blowing outside the city.

With a probability of 1:3, unfortunately, today's wind is not blowing in the city, but in the direction of the Hong military camp. Moreover, the wind speed is slow today, and the speed of the de-powered hot air balloon in the air is about the same as that of an ant.

The drone quickly landed slowly as the fuel in the furnace burned out, and was captured by the Hong army. And the hot air balloon, whose propeller was destroyed and lost power, is still dying.

The two pilots were unable to step on the propellers to escape, so they desperately added fuel to the stove and threw down all the sandbags at the same time, causing the hot air balloon to rise quickly, trying to escape from the sky.

Seeing this, Liu Hou sent a squad of cavalry to chase them. To this end, Liu Hou also specially equipped them with a telescope, so that they can look for hot air balloons in the sky that have turned into black spots.

As a result, it was not until three days later that the 10 cavalrymen returned with two pilots and a hot air balloon, and it is not known where they were chasing.

In fact, the hot air balloon did not escape far, but when it ran out of fuel, it landed in the wilderness, and there was no road to reach it, and the cavalry who tracked it had a great difficulty to reach the place where the hot air balloon landed.

Then they made an improvised wagon and took a lot of effort to transport the balloon back. Fortunately, they had ten horses, otherwise they would not have been able to pull such a behemoth back in the rugged mountain forest.

In this way, after a period of repair, the number of hot air balloons in the Hong army will increase to nine, and the air power will be overwhelmingly superior compared to Liu Fengjun.

Battles in the air are long and exciting, but battles on the water are as short and boring as battles on the ground.

After the "Jingzhou" reached the range of the artillery, it immediately fired artillery, but there were also artillery pieces on the wall of the river in the White Emperor City, although there were not many, only 10 guns, but its threat was big enough.

The artillery on the city wall immediately returned fire, the "Jingzhou" fired flowering shells, which were designed to kill and injure the opposing soldiers, while the artillery on the city wall fired solid bullets, aimed at smashing the bottom of the "Jingzhou", causing it to sink into the water.

Originally, the range of the guns on the "Jingzhou" was slightly farther than that on the city wall, but the artillery on the city wall had a condescending advantage, and the guns of the "Jingzhou" had to fire from the back.

In this case, it is equivalent to being able to hit each other, which seems fair on the surface, but in fact it is very unfavorable to the "Jingzhou". The city wall is strong and cannot be damaged lightly, and the "Jingzhou" is a wooden ship, and if it is hit by a cannonball, it will cause damage to Yan zhòng, and it is even easy to lead the water into the water.

Even if the city wall is a little damaged, it is easy to repair, it is nothing more than some earth and stone works, as long as a few people pick some earth and stone and knock a few times. However, it is extremely difficult for the "Jingzhou" to be repaired.

The ship needs to be driven back to the dock and the entire ship stranded in the dock to be repaired, and this kind of repair work cannot be done by non-specialists.

Therefore, in the current situation, the city wall is a clay pot, and the "Jingzhou" is blue and white porcelain, and the difference between the two is a hundred times and a thousand times. Who wants to take the precious blue and white porcelain to fight the clay pot? At least Li Qiu, the captain of the "Jingzhou", will not be so stupid.

Seeing that the situation was not good, he immediately ordered the "Jingzhou" to retreat at full speed, and reported the situation here to Liu Hou, requesting that the attack be canceled. Fortunately, the artillery on the city wall took a long time to reload, and the "Jingzhou" was only within range, which gave it enough time to get out of the range of the guns on the city wall.

After receiving the news, Liu Hou immediately ordered the "Jingzhou" to cancel the shelling plan and retreat to stand by outside the range of the enemy's artillery.

This is the end of the naval battle, and there are basically no losses on both sides. Since the first round was a test firing, the accuracy was relatively poor, and only one shell landed on the "Jingzhou", which fortunately did not break the bottom of the ship and did not cause casualties among the crew.

This damage, which did not break the bottom of the ship, did not require the entire ship to be stranded in the dock for repairs, and the ship's craftsmen were able to repair it quickly.

Several of the 47 flowering shells fired by the "Jingzhou" landed on the city walls and inside the city, killing more than a dozen Eastern Wu soldiers and injuring more than 20 others. But none of the ten cannons on the walls were damaged.

Such losses were almost negligible for the garrison in the city. That is to say, both sides are almost still in a state of full blood. The battle, which ended at the beginning, was a draw.

The first battle between Liu Hou and Liu Feng ended like this, and the two sides had their own victories and defeats in the three-dimensional combat of the sea, land and air, and the results were one win, one loss and one draw, and everyone did not bargain for anything.

The Hong army withdrew its troops before noon, and Liu Hou and the generals died halfway through the battle plan that they had worked out with countless brain cells. After collecting the troops, Liu Hou convened the generals to discuss the next battle plan.

In addition to Liu Hou, Guo Youzhi and others, there were also regiment commanders of various units or generals of the corresponding level. It also includes the two original right-hand men of the vulture bone, Tu'an and Xi Ni.

The meeting went on and off for three days, and no one discussed a good solution. For this reason, the Hong army did not attack for three days, which made Liu Feng, who had gathered enough strength to prepare for a hard battle, almost suffocated.

At this meeting, everyone expressed their opinions, and some people thought that they should storm the city at any cost. This faction is mainly people with more nerves, such as vulture bones, E Huan, and Zhang Bao. They thought that they could make the musketeers cover behind, and the vine armor army pressed down and rushed into the city as fast as possible, as long as they entered the city, it was their world.

Naturally, their opinions were opposed by most people, and after testing, the rattan armor could not withstand lead bullets. Although it may not be fatal with one shot, it can also cause a lot of damage. What's more, in addition to muskets, Liu Fengjun's artillery also has artillery, and there must be thunderbolts, so if you attack the city like this, you don't know how many people will be sacrificed.

The other group of people thought that it was better to divert to Shu, they thought that since it was difficult to capture the White Emperor City, it was better to leave it alone, simply bypass the White Emperor City, and enter Shu from other places instead.

Anyway, now our goal is Chengdu, as long as we capture Chengdu, the dust will settle as soon as we take it, and a mere White Emperor City is nothing to worry about, so why waste more troops and time here.

The opposing side believes that if you do not take the White Emperor City in your own hands, it is equivalent to handing over your rear to the enemy, which is a very dangerous move, the enemy can cut off our supply lines at any time, and can also cut off our rear routes, once the army is defeated, it is impossible to retreat, and there is even the possibility of being attacked by the enemy in front and back.

Liu Hou did not approve of a strong attack, he cherished his soldiers very much, and he had never been in the habit of fighting the enemy to the death. As long as there is any other way to take advantage of this, he does not want his soldiers to make unnecessary sacrifices.

Now it seems that this White Emperor City can be said to be impregnable, not only wearing a turtle shell, but even full of hedgehog thorns on the outside of the turtle shell. For such a monster, he has a feeling that he has no idea what to do.

Since he knew that he couldn't do it, he really didn't want his soldiers to die in vain in the siege. However, if you want to take a detour, those people are right, it is indeed a very dangerous thing to leave such a scourge behind.

Seeing that everyone argued for three days without any result, Liu Hou finally made a decision and announced that he would ignore the White Emperor City and take a detour into Sichuan.

Zhang Bao still disagreed with Liu Hou's decision, he said, now everyone encounters this city and can't attack it, so if you encounter another city armed with firearms in the future, can you attack it? If you can't attack it, will you continue to leave it alone and go around the city?

There is also Chengdu, where the city wall is reinforced with cement concrete, the city wall is stronger, and it cannot be collapsed with artillery or explosives, and there must be more firearms there.

When everyone heard it, they felt that Zhang Bao's words were really reasonable, and when they encountered difficulties, they did not overcome it, but chose to escape, what if they encountered the same difficulties or even more severe difficulties in the future? Do you want to run away for the rest of your life?

"This ...... I think that the situation should not be so strict, and with a certain understanding of the "Ministry of Industry", its firearms production should not be so large. The production of thunderbolts may be large, but the production of muskets and artillery has been low.

Looking at the number of muskets and artillery in the White Emperor City, almost the entire output of the firearms factory in a year. In other words, there may still be a small number of firearms in Chengdu, but it is estimated that other cities are unlikely to be equipped with too many firearms. ”

Just when everyone was deep in thought, Guo Youzhi gave a very professional opinion. This opinion is based on his knowledge of the output of the factories and workshops of the "Ministry of Industry".

Others can't get this information, so they can't give such an opinion, and even Liu Hou doesn't know as much about this as he does, and the only one who can compare with him in this regard is Fei Yi, who is far away in Lingnan.