"Dear Khan, the ones I sent out are all my most elite Nak'er and guards. We can't let them be lost under the city. We must find a way to withdraw them."
Seeing that it was impossible to continue the attack today, this black ship with an iron shell kept circling in the moat, completely cutting off the siege forces. The defenders on the city also became more energetic, throwing racket sticks and rolling logs down as if they were free of charge.
For a time, the Mongols were scurrying between the moat and the city wall.
No one dared to climb the ladder anymore. The dense shells from the Franco machine gun from behind were too terrifying.
With the blast of a cannon, a swarm of steel balls swatted at them, just like a fly swatting a fly on the wall. The warriors who climbed the city fell down with a crackling sound.
Mo Zuo did not allow the use of the red cannon on the bow. This thirty-six-pound cannon was too powerful.
Mo Zhui knew that An Sanxi had built the earth city in half a year and had not even finished laying the bricks. I guess it won't be too strong. If this thing that was hurriedly worked on was destroyed by him, An Sanxi wouldn't fight for it.
The five small flags on the ship also ran to the starboard side, and fifty flintlock muskets and handguns also aimed at the Mongols and shot at them. For a while, the Mongols suffered heavy casualties and fell to the ground.
At this moment, traffic inside and outside the moat was cut off.
All the pontoons and ladders were destroyed by the steamboat. If we can't support from the outside, we can't withdraw from the inside. There were shots from steamboat cannons and muskets, and the city walls also took the opportunity to stick their heads out of the crenellations and shoot arrows downwards.
Khan Ahai also had veins twitching on his forehead. These people who went up were the cronies and elites of various Taijis. If everyone is still under the city wall, something big will happen.
"Dear Khan, I think it's better to use a trebuchet to hit the ship. If we can destroy the ship, we can remove our people first." Chubuqingtabu Nang suggested.
"Well, that's a good idea, kill them with a catapult. Just do it, Chu Buqing, I'll give you both the catapult and the catapult, and you go and beat them hard." Khan Ahai said fiercely.
When the Morning Light turned around on its fifth lap, Mo Zhui saw many trebuchets pushing up on the flat land in the north of the city, and some human-powered trebuchets were also dragging this way.
The whole body of the trebuchet is made of wood. A rotatable shaft is placed horizontally above the gun frame. The long rod fixed on the shaft is called a "tip" and acts as a lever.
Those with only one wooden pole are called "single tips", and those with multiple wooden poles are called "multi-tips". The more tips, the heavier and farther the stone bullets can be thrown. In ancient times, the number of cannon tips could reach up to 13.
The wood chosen needs to be specially processed to make it both strong and flexible. In addition, since the trebuchet is manufactured using the lever principle, the length of the gun tip and the ratio of the force arm and the resistance arm must be carefully calculated. Generally, the gun tip is about 2.5 to 2.8 feet long.
One end of the tip is tied with a "skin nest", which is filled with stone bullets. The other end is tied with a gun rope, which is about several feet long. The number of gun ropes for small guns ranges from 1 to 10, and there are more than a hundred for large guns. Each gun rope is Pulled by 12 people.
The largest stone cannon was dragged and launched by thousands of people. It could be said that rocks penetrated the air and the bullets were like locusts.
However, at this time, the Mongols were already inferior to each other. The Huihui artillery and Xiangyang artillery of the year had been thrown away long ago. After they were defeated and retreated to the grassland, they no longer had the ability to manufacture.
These cannons were made by plundering Han craftsmen and imitating the relatively backward trebuchets and catapults of the Han people.
For these relatively primitive trebuchets, when throwing stone bombs, one person would aim and place them first, and the person pulling the rope would pull the gun rope violently at the same time. When one end of the gun tip rope suddenly fell, the leather socket at the other end quickly lifted up.
The stone bullets are thrown violently by inertia, with a range of up to a hundred steps.
There is not much wood on the grassland, and there are not many carpenters. They are all Han slaves captured from the invaders' passes.
In recent years, there has been a great famine on the grasslands. More than 30,000 Mongolians from the three tribes of Duoyan and Haraqin have starved to death, and the craftsmen have not recovered.
The siege weapons we have seen so far have reached the manufacturing limit of the Mongols.
Chen Xi had good eyesight and saw the catapult approaching in the distance, and hurriedly shouted: "Look, they have a catapult. Our ship's armor is designed to prevent arrows, but it may not be able to block stones."
Mo Desi followed Chen Xi's finger and looked at it for a while.
Mo Zuo sneered and said, "I thought it was some kind of good stuff. It's just embarrassing to show off these rags. It's simply embarrassing."
Chen Xi looked at him in confusion.
Mo Zuo sneered and said, "Back then, the Sa family was in Baihusuo City on the rocky beach, and they followed the master to resist the siege of the slaves. The master built a counterweight trebuchet and a torsion spring trebuchet."
"My master's counterweight and counterweight trebuchet, the boom alone is about 15.2 meters long, and the counterweight is 10 tons. The trebuchet can throw 90-136 meter stone projectiles about 274 meters away. The maximum throw The projectile weighs nearly 454 kilograms. These Tatars make junk, and they have the nerve to call it a trebuchet."
Chen Xi had studied the battle on the rocky beach and naturally knew that the master had a very good trebuchet. Made of steel and wood, it is light and easy to use.
It's just that in order to develop muskets and artillery, after the Battle of Rock Beach, these big guys were put in the warehouse to eat ashes.
"Although these catapults are lagging behind, they still pose a threat to us." Chen Xi said.
"Our Folan cannon is loaded with solid lead bullets and has a range of more than 400 meters. It is loaded with shotshells and has a range of more than 100 meters. Their human-powered trebuchets are so short that their range is estimated to be no more than 120 meters. . Don’t worry, girl, let’s see how we destroy them.”
"Stop the ship and aim the artillery at the catapults and trebuchets in the south of the city." Mo Zuo ordered loudly through the microphone. "
Chen Xi knew that it would not work without stopping the ship. The technology of this era does not have a two-way stabilizer, and the hit rate during sports is not good.
It is necessary to stop the boat and shoot quietly.
In the engine room, the steam was immediately cut off, and the ship was reversed briefly to quickly stop the ship.
The black muzzles of the three Franco cannons on one side immediately pointed at the trebuchet being assembled and the trebuchet being pushed forward.
Catapults had a shorter range than trebuchets and were towed by a dozen oxen. The trebuchet uses an ox cart to pull the accessories and assembles them within the range.
"Everyone is here, change to solid bullets, target, catapult in the distance." An officer shouted. The soldiers immediately began loading ammunition.
"The first catapult on the left, one hundred and fifty meters away, three solid rounds, ready."
The soldiers shook their helicopters one after another and aimed their sights and crosshairs at the catapult that the Mongols were dragging with a dozen oxen.
The land on the grassland is not particularly solid. When it rains, it becomes mud. The problem here is not that the roads are in poor condition, but that there are no roads at all.
On the grassland, you can walk wherever you want.
Autumn has begun now, and it’s getting cold on the grassland. A few autumn rains have fallen, and the roads are muddy.
These heavy equipment were stuck in the mud, and even though they kept whipping the bullocks, they moved very slowly.
At this time, three cannons were already aimed at the catapult.
"Let it go!" the commander-in-chief gave the order, boom! boom! boom!
Three Franco machine guns spewed flames, and three six-pound lead balls hit the catapult.
At such a close range, the shells arrived in an instant, and one shot flew away. The lead bullet ricocheted several times in the muddy water, and I don't know where it went.
One shot fell into a group of alert cavalry, killing five of them.
A lead bullet hit the ox pulling the cart. There was a loud bang, and half of the ox's body was smashed to pieces. After the shell grazed the side of the ox's body, it broke the beam of the catapult.
After destroying the catapult, lead balls fell into the crowd of gunners following behind. After a few ricochetings, I didn't know where to end.
The people following behind are for rotation. Firing stone projectiles is a physical job, and it won't take long before someone has to be replaced.
Broken wood chips and wooden thorns flew backwards, and a group of Mongolians fell down with howls.
These wooden thorns were so sharp that they flew backwards after being hit by the cannonballs and penetrated directly into the bodies of the Mongolians.
The Mongols who followed were not regular troops, but herdsmen recruited temporarily. There were only ten regular troops in this catapult.
The officer in charge of this projection vehicle is a captain of ten. The captain of ten is also called the leader, and is the lowest-ranking officer of the Mongols. Mongolian as "Alban Nayan"
"Nayan" means "official, leader, chief". The official position of Nayan is somewhat like a director in later generations, which can be big or small. The head of a street office is also called a director, and some heads of ministries are also called directors.
In the Qing Dynasty, in addition to the three major Khan tribes of Zhasak Tuhan, Tushetu Khan, and Chechen Khan, there was also a Sanyin Nayan tribe in the Khalkha Mongolia. The four families respectively controlled the territory of Khalkha Mongolia.
In Mongolian military positions, the head of a hundred households is called "Zhawen Nayan", the head of a thousand households is called "Minhan Nayan", and the head of 10,000 households is called "Tumian Nayan".
He was standing in the car giving instructions when a wooden thorn happened to be inserted into his left eye. He rolled down from the car in pain and rolled all over the ground.
There are a total of five catapults in this team. The captain was a captain of fifty.
Captain of Fifty is not a permanent official position. Similar to the brigades of later generations. Generally, such an official position, which is smaller than a centurion but larger than a brand head, is established due to special needs.
Tu Lai is the captain of the fiftieth slinging team, that is, the head of the fifty households, and is called "Tabinayan".
"This is artillery, get down quickly, everyone get down."
Turai Tabinayan has seen the world, and he knows that this is a Folang machine gun. He had seen this thing when he followed Khanduhai to attack Malanguan Pass.
I heard from the old people on the grassland that the Han soldiers in Zhejiang had a lot of these things.
The commander named Qi Jiguang often brought his car camp and pulled this thing to sweep the grassland.
The range of this thing was much further than that of a bow and arrow, making the lives of the thirty-six members of Duoyan's family worse than death.
All the Mongols fell to the ground in a commotion.
"After destroying the beam, well, this catapult is considered useless. Okay, aim at the next closest vehicle, prepare! Release"
Mo Zui put down the telescope and nodded with satisfaction.
One of the three hits hit the crossbar, which was not bad.
At this time, the six trebuchets also arrived at the shooting position and began to assemble. The trebuchet's boom was much longer than that of the trebuchet, and its range was also longer. It stopped about 200 meters away.
Five updates tomorrow. I've been quite busy recently and have a lot of debts.
