The commander who sent troops from Eastern Wu to attack Changsha was naturally Sun Quan, who was the main battle. Sun Jian allocated him 30,000 infantry, which can be regarded as attaching great importance to this dispatch. However, Sun Quan's luck has never been very good, and this time when he attacked Changsha City, he met Huo Jun, a master defender of the city.

According to history, Huo Jun was a famous general of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms. The word Zhong Miao, a native of Zhijiang in Nanjun. Shu Zitong is too guarded and General Pi. Huo Jun originally belonged to Liu Biao, and after Liu Biao's death, he defected to Liu Bei. Liu Bei advanced to Jiameng (now southwest of Guangyuan, Sichuan), and prepared to return to the south to attack Liu Zhang, leaving Huo Jun to guard Jiameng City. When Zhang Lu learned about it, he sent Yang Bo to lure Huo Jun to defend the city together in an attempt to capture Jia Meng, Huo Jun knew that there was a deception, and said to Yang Bo: "The villain's head can be obtained, but the city cannot be obtained." Yang Bo had no choice but to retreat.

Later, Liu Zhang sent more than 10,000 people to lead more than 10,000 people such as Fu Ban and Xiang Cun, and besieged Jia Meng from Langshui, Huo Jun led the soldiers to hold on, but they failed to capture it for a year, in fact, Huo Jun soldiers in Jia Meng City were only hundreds. Huo Jun took advantage of the other party's fatigue to select the elite, waited for the opportunity to attack, broke Zhang Lujun, and took the opportunity to behead Xiang Cun.

Being able to hold on to Jiameng City for a year with hundreds of people shows that the enemy is really weak, and on the other hand, it is enough to show how powerful Huo Jun is defending the city. Of course, we should also see how easy and difficult it is to defend and attack the Jiameng Pass leading from Hanzhong to Yizhou, and the army under Zhao Xing's command will encounter such a huge problem in the future.

Sun Quan met Huo Jun in Changsha, and Liu Biao allocated tens of thousands of troops to Huo Jun to garrison Changsha, so you can imagine how depressed and aggrieved Sun Quan should be. The Eastern Wu infantry was originally very good at fighting, but because of Huo Jun's method of defending the city with an iron bucket, it was difficult to make an inch of merit in a few months, and it was far less than the harvest of the Yizhou army attacking Jingzhou on the western route.

When the news of the attack on Jingzhou by the armies of Wuzhou and Yizhou reached Crouching Tiger City, Zhao Xing was not much surprised, after all, all this was expected. However, the outstanding performance of Huo Jun, a famous general defending the city, in Changsha reminded Zhao Xing that when the army of the North Road of the Jin Kingdom feinted to attack Yizhou, it would face one fortress after another that did not even leave the city gate. Even if the fortress was only garrisoned by second- or third-rate generals, he might only have a thousand or eight hundred soldiers, but it would be enough to inflict huge casualties on the siege troops of the Protector Army.

If you want Zhao Xing's troops to suffer a large number of casualties, it has never been the character of King Pingxi's style of commanding operations. With doubts in his heart, Zhao Xing went directly to the Crouching Tiger Equipment Research Institute to meet Ma Jun, Zhao Bu and others.

Hearing that King Pingxi personally came to inspect and guide the work, all the personnel of the Equipment Research Institute rushed out, but they knew that Zhao Xing's mind was full of wonderful ideas, as long as he could hear a little bit, maybe he could create new weapons and equipment that surprised him.

After an encouraging conversation with the craftsmen, Zhao Xing summoned Ma Jun and Zhao Bu alone in a very secret room.

Zhao Xing opened his mouth and asked: "Some time ago, I asked Jinsi to send you some artillery design drawings and ideas, have you provided you with reference and help?"

Ma Jun was a little embarrassed, and replied hesitantly: "The drawings sent by the lord are really ingenious, and now we have made some progress, but it is not smooth, and we have not made breakthroughs in several key links." ”

Zhao Xing didn't blame the two, but encouraged them: "It's me who is anxious." It is not long before we have to devote heavy troops to fight on the northern front of Yizhou, and if these firearms are not available, our soldiers will suffer heavy casualties. ”

Zhao Bu said: "Father-in-law, don't worry, the child just doesn't eat or sleep, and he must dare to build the red-clothed cannon before the army is mobilized!"

The three of them talked for a long time, and they were talking about the red-clothed cannon that should have appeared in the Ming Dynasty in the later generations!

In fact, Zhao Xing's so-called red-clothed cannon, in another time and space, is accurately called "Hongyi cannon". This cannon was originally invented by the British, and later introduced to China by the Dutch, because the Dutch were called Hongyi at that time, so it was called "Hongyi". Hongyi cannon is a kind of front-loading smoothbore cannon, compared with the Franc cannon, the Hongyi cannon is much larger in terms of shape and weight, because its firing range is very long, so most of the Hongyi cannon is about 3 meters long, the caliber is 110-130 mm, and the weight is more than 2 tons.

The Hongyi cannon is cast in cast iron, the body of the cannon is cast with a crosshair, the door is illuminated, and there are cannon lugs in the middle. Compared with the Franc machine, the caliber was larger, the pipe wall was thicker, and it gradually thickened from the muzzle to the tail of the gun, which could withstand a large bore pressure, and was the most powerful gun at that time.

If Ma Jun and Zhao Bu were able to build this terrifying weapon of mass destruction thousands of years in advance, I was afraid that the many fortresses that Sima Yi had painstakingly built in the north of Yizhou might not be able to last long.

In addition to this most difficult firearm, Zhao Xing actually instructed Ma Jun and Zhao Bu to develop another large and small firearm separately.

Zhao Xing asked Ma Jun to design a bird gun.

Bird gun was originally from the late 16th century to the middle of the 19th century, China's Ming and Qing Dynasty armies were equipped with a single gun that fired projectiles with an arquebus, made of wrought iron, weighing about 5~6 pounds, with a crosshair, a door, and a wooden support. There is a fire hole at the bottom and is connected with the gunpowder pool (the gunpowder used to ignite), the pool is covered with a copper cover, which can shield the wind and rain, the mouth of the gun grows out of the wooden support 2 inches, and the support is 7 inches after the support is bent downward, the belly is hidden with a cane (through strip), weighing 3 taels, the rod (through strip) is inserted on the wooden support under the barrel for filling ammunition, and the bottom of the barrel is sealed with a bolt to facilitate the removal and scrubbing of the barrel. There is also a fire rope, each 2 zhang long, weighing 3 taels. Each time the granular black gunpowder was loaded for 3 yuan, and the lead weighed 3 yuan. Use a faucet-type arquebuster.

When the bird gun is fired, the fire rope is lit and installed into the dragon head, the right hand opens the fire door and holds the gun tail, and the index finger buckle plate machine is used to move back, the dragon head falls on the fire door, and the fuel is fired. "Wu Bei Zhi" said that the name of the bird gun comes from the fact that this kind of gun is quite accurate, and it is called a bird gun because it hits nine out of ten birds in the forest, and it is also called a bird beak because of the curved butt it is installed to resemble a bird's beak, and some people call it a bird gun. Although they have different names, they are the same in their basic construction and way of launching.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the bird gun has been greatly improved, from the old-fashioned arquebus to the flintlock pistol, flint, commonly known as flint, the main component is silica, the texture is hard, in ancient times it was often used to make fire, make arrowheads, plowshares, etc. In the later stage of the development of flintlock pistols, an independent flintlock ignition mechanism was formed, and its anvil was a hinged steel primer plate, on which flint was mounted. During the action, the hammer rotates, and the flint strikes the anvil, producing a spark, and the primer disc opens, exposing the primer powder, so that the primer is ignited. Compared with the arquebuses of the past, flintlock pistols were widely used on the battlefield because of their fast rate of fire, small caliber, short gun shot, light weight, small recoil, and not afraid of strong winds and rainy weather.

Obviously, the Bird Gun is a weapon intended to equip individual soldiers.

Zhao Xing asked Zhao Bu to design the Franc machine gun, which was originally the general name of the Portuguese and Spaniards in the Ming Dynasty, because this kind of artillery was introduced by the Portuguese, so it was called the Franc machine. This kind of artillery in the middle and late Ming Dynasty of China is actually a short-barreled cannon, this type of artillery is composed of three parts: the barrel, the belly, and the sub-cannon (the sub-cannon is also known as the heart cannon, which is equivalent to the medicine room part of the artillery), so it is also called the sub-mother cannon. After a large number of imitations in the Ming Dynasty, it was called a certain general cannon according to different calibers. The mother barrel is slender, the caliber is small, and there are gun lugs on both sides of the gun body, which can be placed on the support, and the outside of the gun body is wrapped in wood, and the iron hoop is used to prevent explosion and bursting, and the firing angle can be adjusted by pitching. The rear part of the cannon is thicker because of its shape, which is called the "giant belly", which has long holes and slots for loading the sub-cannon. The sub-cannon is similar to a small gun, each mother gun is equipped with 5 to 9 sub-guns, which are loaded with ammunition and fired in turn into the long mouth of the abdomen. The Franc machine is characterized by the separation of the mother gun and the sub-gun, which is a form of rear-loading gun, but it is different from modern rear-loading guns. There is a front sight in front and a door in the rear, which can be aimed from the hole in the door, and there is a gun carriage, which can be rotated up and down, left and right.

After China's own research and development, it has made three kinds of large, medium and small samples, some of which are cast in copper and some are cast in iron. The large Franc fuselage is 2 feet 8 inches 5 minutes long and weighs more than 300 pounds. In the "Martial Chronicles", the imitation of the Buddha Lang machine is divided into No. 5. No. 3 and No. 4 are lightweight. No. 3 is four or five feet long, each containing lead weighs 5 taels and 9 yuan, and the medicine is 6 taels. No. 4 is two or three feet long, each containing lead weighs 3 taels, and the medicine is 3 taels and a half. No. 1 and No. 2 are heavy-duty. No. 1 is eight or nine feet long, each containing lead weighs 1 catty, and the medicine is 1 catty. No. 2 is six or seven feet long, each containing lead weighs 10 taels, and the medicine is 11 taels. No. 1 and No. 2 Franc machines can be used in water warfare.

Because the caliber of the Franc machine is relatively small, the power of firing flowering bombs is not great, and it mainly fires shotguns, with a fast rate of fire, great close-range lethality, and a wide killing area. The "Invincible General" cannon has 500 lead bullets in each sub-cannon, and the dispersion can reach more than 20 zhang. The Franc type artillery has low requirements for the inner chamber, the process is simple (the three parts are cast separately), and the materials used are small and can be cast in large quantities. Since the subcannon bears part of the pressure of the cannon when it is fired, it is not easy to explode, and the damage to the subcannon does not affect the cannon itself. Moreover, the technical requirements for the artillery soldiers are low, and there is no need for long-term training. All these advantages led the Ming Dynasty to introduce and imitate a large number of this Franc cannon.

The red-clothed cannon, the Franc cannon and the bird gun, three epoch-making artifacts, are now being developed and built in Crouching Tiger City, once they are released, after all, they will cause shock and panic in the world.