On the fourth watch of the next day, the Ming army buried the pot to cook and had a full meal.

At the same time, several passages were filled in the trench with sandbags and covered with iron plates.

At the fifth watch, everything was ready to stop, and the soldiers of the Ming army began to drag and drag the cannons outside the camp.

Originally, there were two main types of artillery in the Ming army, one was a bowl cannon weighing no more than 100 catties, this kind of small artillery could fire small solid shells, and it could also fire lead or gravel, and its main role was to kill people and horses.

One is the mortar with a short body and a wide mouth, which is a large artillery with a short body and a thick caliber; Its firing range is short, the projectile is powerful, and it is mainly used to destroy strong fortifications. The Hongwu iron cannon cast in the tenth year of Hongwu has a caliber of 21 centimeters and a total length of 3 feet 3. It was the most powerful large-caliber bombardment cannon in the world at that time.

But it has two problems, one is that it is too cumbersome, the naked cannon weighs 900 catties, and it is difficult to pull the two horses, and it is extremely inconvenient to transport. The other is that the cast iron cannon body is easy to blow up, and the gunner will be taken away directly. Therefore, it was not popular with the Ming army.

Think about it, the Ming army in this era only attacked but not defended, and the attack was mainly pursued by cavalry, and the Hongwu iron cannon was not born at the right time. Therefore, after its birth, the Communist Party did not make a few gates, and was gradually annihilated in another time and space.

Fortunately, this time there was the old six, and his navy needed this kind of heavy artillery. Moreover, His Royal Highness the King of Chu, who had deep pockets, changed the cannon body from cast iron to cast copper.

In this era, the advantage of the copper cannon is that the iron cannon is incomparable, it is easy to cast, it is not easy to blow up, and there are no fragments in the blast breech, and it will not cause harm to personnel. Therefore, the barrel of a copper cannon of the same caliber can be much thinner than that of an iron cannon, and the weight is naturally much lighter.

And it is also less prone to rust, which is especially suitable for naval equipment.

Of course, copper cannons also have disadvantages, the main disadvantage is that they are expensive. In this era, copper was used to cast money, and it was unbearable for ordinary people to cast cannons.

Fortunately, Lao Liu is not an ordinary person, and his prime minister, the Haizheng Yamen, has obtained huge profits through the maritime trade share of the city's fleet and the tariff income of the city's shipping department.

At that time, Zheng He's seven trips to the West were able to make the fourth child cast a 46-ton bronze bell. The sixth child also has the generosity of the wealthy families in the south of the Yangtze River, and while building ships and guns on a large scale, he can even build a garden for himself...... Oh no, it's a sanatorium in the Haizheng Yamen.

~~

The Hongwu bronze cannon that Wang Bi pulled down from the ship weighed 700 catties, which was indeed 200 catties lighter than the iron cannon of the same caliber, but it was still deadly.

Without animal power, a cannon requires eight strong soldiers to pull forward and push back. An hour later, the first cannon was finally in place a hundred feet from the stone wall...... It sounds good, but in other words, it is more than 100 meters in two hours.

Of course, the three of them would not sit idly by, and they constantly sent death squads to harass them, but they were all repelled by the Ming army's muskets and trumpet's bowls.

During this period, the three of them also had a heated discussion about whether to send the main force to launch a general attack. But out of superstition about the protector of the country, as well as lack of confidence in front of the Ming army, they finally gave up.

At noon, twenty Hongwu bronze cannons were finally in place. In fact, it is better to go a little further, but the Japanese big bow and arrow have a very long range, and they shoot condescendingly, and then they will enter the range of the Japanese army.

"That's exactly half the range of yesterday, let's try it here first." Wang Bi said in a deep voice: "Let's shoot!" ”

"Fire!" Hu Bo gave a loud order, and the gunners, who had been prepared for a long time, immediately lit the fuse, covered their ears and hid to the side, which was still a habit they developed when using iron cannons.

In the deafening sound of the cannon, twenty fiery snakes erupted from the muzzle of the cannon, and twenty large iron bullets were launched into the stone wall opposite. The sky shook and the earth shook, and the rubble splattered......

When the smoke that enveloped the artillery position cleared, the Ming army saw that the firing range was shortened by half, and the results were immediate, only to see that large holes appeared on the opposite stone wall, and several holes even collapsed directly......

"Good! The muzzle of the gun is lowered and the shooting continues! Wang Bi happily slapped it on the cannon, and quickly lifted it up again, Nima was really hot.

The gunners were also encouraged, and hurriedly brushed the barrel to reload.

~~

Here is happy and there is sad, but the three of them are dumbfounded.

"Nani?!"

"Once it is erosive, how about it again?" Watching a round of shelling bombard that bombarded the Protector God Wall into tofu scum, their tears fell. It's not just a collapse of defense, it's a collapse of faith.

How could the stone walls that once resisted the Mongols be so vulnerable? Could it be that Amaterasu no longer blesses his people this time?

"Hurry up and fix it!" They hysterically urged the ashigaru men to carry stones and sandbags up the walls to fill in the holes.

However, no sooner had the Japanese soldiers climbed the wall than the second round of shelling came. The big iron bullet that roared with the momentum of ten thousand pounds smashed into the wall near the hole.

When he landed, the sky collapsed, and the earth was full of rubble. The flesh and blood of those Japanese soldiers were blown up by the flying debris, and almost none of them survived.

Looking at this terrifying scene, no one dared to go up and fill the hole with their own flesh and blood. The Japanese in this era have not been brainwashed by militarism, and the main thing for the ashigaru to go to the battlefield is to wave the flag and shout to fight the Taiping Fist, how can they stand this tragic scene?

No matter how the samurai drove him, he refused to come forward.

The three of them didn't dare to persecute too much, otherwise it would backfire. These peasant-born ashigaru had no will to fight, but fortunately, this was still to defend their hometown, and if they had changed to other wars, they would have been scattered long ago.

The samurai were not afraid of death, but the trio were reluctant to risk their lives to fill the hole.

Seeing that the stone wall was riddled with holes in the rounds of artillery bombardment by the Ming army, it continued to collapse, and soon it would collapse in its entirety.

"Retreat!" Shao Er Lai Cheng made a difficult decision against his ancestors.

"Retreat to better destroy the enemy!" Otomo's relatives agreed: "We retreat a hundred steps back and wait for the battle, and resolutely block the Ming army rushing in from the gap!" ”

"That's all there is to it." The Shimazu clan has no objection for a long time, if he only knows what he is doing, the Shimazu family will be finished long ago.

~~

The original ecological stone wall built by the jade accumulation method is indeed not very useful, and after a few rounds of shelling, it was blown down for a while.

But Wang Bi did not rush to attack, but ordered to continue the artillery bombardment, and to collapse as many sections of the stone wall as possible to create more breakthroughs for the charging troops.

The artillery bombardment continued until the sun was westward, and the stone wall in front of him was blasted out of a gap more than ten zhang wide, and Wang Bi gave the order to attack.

The officers and men of the Ming army, who had been waiting for a long time, charged towards the gap in the stone wall under the cover of the gunners.

The Japanese did not completely abandon the stone wall, and many archers emerged from both ends of the gap, withstanding the covering fire of the Ming army, and opened their bows and arrows at the charging Ming army.

Ahead, the trio had also reorganized their defenses on the inside of the stone wall. In order to withstand the impact of the Ming army, they all paid a bloody investment, and all of them sent the elite of their descendants to wait for the battle.

A bloody battle is inevitable.

(End of chapter)