Tongzhou City, outside the southeast corner gate, in the open space in the southeast.
The carriage camp formed a square formation with cut corners, actually having eight corners. This is to enhance the density of defensive artillery at right angles.
At this time, on the corner tower, Dong Jishu, Zuo Liangyu, Hu Dawei, Meng Ruhu and others were staring at the battlefield intently. This is an extremely rare scene, a showdown between the Ming Dynasty's most elite troops and the rebels.
The numerical disparity between the two sides was huge, with the rebels and government troops outnumbering each other four to one. But in terms of weapons, the ratio of heavy artillery was 500 to 73. The proportions are also very different.
The car camp had been silently holding back under the bombardment of the red cannons. Not a single shot was fired back. Until they were surrounded by rebels on all sides, and after the rebels pushed the shield vehicles and artillery to the firing position and fixed the gun positions, the vehicle camp finally opened fire first.
This firing caused the earth to shake.
There are one hundred heavy copper-fired cannons on each side of the camp.
There are twenty-five heavy cannons on each of the four angular faces.
Behind the artillery cart, there are densely packed arrow towers and small artillery turrets. There is a platform built with steel pipe scaffolding at the center of the army, which is four or five stories high.
Obviously, that was the commanding position. From a high position, one could see the surrounding situation very clearly.
Dong Jishu saw a dark green firework bomb flying from the platform, very conspicuous in the clear sky. It exploded at high altitude, leaving behind a thick cloud of smoke.
Then, flames suddenly burst out from all sides of the camp. For a while, the sound of shelling came one after another.
Dong Jishu and others clearly saw that the densely packed gun barrels were like waves, spurting out angry flames one after another, and then slowly retreated into the gun window.
In every direction, there were a hundred spherical solid bullets flying out of the muzzle. The bullet holder shattered under the action of stress the moment it came out of the chamber. The cannonballs roared, spun, and flew forward.
The rebels had just fixed the artillery, and this distance was officially the combat distance of most of the Ming Dynasty's artillery.
They knew that the firearms of various armies of the Ming Dynasty were the best in Ji Town. They have the confidence to shoot against each other in any situation.
They were almost stunned when they saw the rows of heavy artillery barrels suddenly pushed out from the gun window.
this! this! this! It's a copper-fired cannon, or a heavy one. There are so many, but the specifications are all the same.
The Ming Dynasty was equipped with a variety of firearms from the frontier army to the capital camp, and from the camp soldiers to the garrison. There has never been an army uniformly equipped with artillery of the same specifications.
The reality can no longer help them to be surprised and dazed. Because the speed of the cannonball exceeds the speed of sound. At a distance of four hundred meters. Just past one second, it roared in. There is no reaction time at all.
Eighteen-pound artillery shells hit the rebel formation like a violent storm.
Hu Youlu, Zhang Shengwu, and Zhao Dianming were musketeers. The three of them were hiding behind the wooden wall of the shield cart and had already installed three muskets. They are in the car. Behind them, there were ten people on each side of the car, responsible for holding the shaft and pushing the cart. There were six more people divided into two rows, between the two shafts, responsible for loading ammunition.
The configuration of this shield vehicle is that three people are responsible for shooting and six people are responsible for loading. A total of nine bird cannons are recycled.
The three of them were waiting in the car for an opportunity to poke their heads out and aim and shoot. Kill the soldiers guarding the carriage camp.
The vehicle moved forward quickly, driven by twenty people. The infantry behind the cover rushed forward to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
These temporary modified shield cars are made by removing the old elm door panels from ordinary people's homes and nailing them into one-foot-thick wooden walls. There are more than a dozen quilts nailed to the outside of the wooden shield wall with large iron nails. Used to cushion the blow of a firearm.
This thickness is enough to block musket fire. The No. 5 General Cannon and the Xiaofolang Machine Cannon also have certain defensive capabilities at long distances.
At this moment, from their perspective, a fire shone in front, thick smoke spewed out, and a sharp whistling sound came towards them.
Bang bang bang! A series of loud bangs.
The eighteen-pound shot put struck.
The three of them were so frightened that they quickly retreated behind the shield wall. Fortunately, this round of artillery shells did not fire at their shield vehicle, and naturally there were no artillery shells.
Hit their shield wall.
But shells were flying left and right.
The shield cars on both sides of them were hit by eighteen-pound spherical solid bullets.
Whether it is a thick quilt or a foot-thick old elm wood, it has no resistance to the high-speed flying artillery shells. The spherical bullets rotated at high speed and hit at the speed of sound. The cotton was directly twisted into pieces and flew into pieces. The shells penetrated the wooden wall behind without any hindrance.
The entire shield wall exploded into dozens of pieces and scattered. Because these shield walls are not assembled from one-foot-square wooden cubes at all, but door panels with different sizes, thicknesses, and degrees of decay are nailed together with large iron nails. The strength is inherently insufficient. After being hit a few times by high-speed cannonballs, it shattered and flew away.
Zhang Shengwu screamed, and a piece of wood weighing more than ten kilograms was blown away by the cannonball, and then hit his helmet.
The eight-petal helmet deflated under the heavy blow from the heavy elm block. Zhang Shengwu's brain exploded and sprayed everywhere.
Hu Youlu and Zhao Dianming were so frightened that they hurriedly lay down on the car.
Hu Youlu shivered and saw a mess on the left side. After the shell shattered the shield car, it not only shattered the three people behind the shield wall into pieces, but then penetrated the two rows of people loading the ammunition behind again, and then fell to the ground.
As soon as the shell grazed the ground, it jumped up again, flew more than ten meters, and then hit the dense crowd of infantry behind.
Hu Youlu couldn't see the cannonballs, but he did see a dozen arms, legs, and other human parts flying. Amid the screams and screams, he saw a black figure that seemed to jump up again, flew more than ten meters and then crashed into the crowd again.
Huang Tengyuan's position was relatively high, and he could clearly see that almost every shell fired led to a bloody alley with flesh and blood flying everywhere. The first salvo fired four hundred heavy guns and four hundred shells. At least three hundred of them hit the shield truck in front and then penetrated the infantry group behind.
He took a breath of cold air. This round of shelling would cause two to three thousand casualties.
"Hurry! Let the infantry rush forward. Fight hand-to-hand with them. The artillery in front won't be able to hold on for long." Huang Tengyuan shouted loudly.
This round knocked out one-third of the various firearms that had been pushed into the firing position. Because the gunners in the side cars are all veterans, they have experienced the baptism of actual combat. They know what the current threats are. According to the code of conduct, they will give priority to shooting the targets with the greatest threat.
Undoubtedly, those large and small artillery are the targets that pose the greatest threat. Because the infantry's bird guns, three-eyed guns, and bows and arrows are basically ineffective against armored vehicles like them. Therefore, they all aimed at the artillery truck on the opposite side and opened fire. Only those with shield vehicles and crowds in sight had no choice but to fire at these low-value targets.
After the first round of shelling, the officers of the infantry group also reacted. They immediately jumped over the shield vehicles and gun emplacements in front, and rushed forward like a tide.
The commanding officer of the shield vehicle also reacted and shouted loudly: "Push the vehicle, rush forward, and engage the enemy as soon as possible!"
"Go to the opponent's wall first and reward fifty taels of silver."
"Hurry up and push the cart. Don't stay here waiting for the next wave of shells to come. If you don't want to die, just rush forward."
They were all veterans and knew that reloading heavy artillery was impossible without a minute or two.
There was no fixed load of ammunition in this era, and the gunpowder needed to be simply weighed before it could be filled into the barrel. The use of paper-wrapped fixed propellants had just begun in Europe at this time, and the Ming Dynasty did not yet have such advanced technology.
Therefore, they all understand that the most correct choice now is to rush forward with all their strength. Instead of waiting here without bombardment. As long as you run fast enough, they won't have many chances to fire. After all, it's only less than a mile away.
The thick barrels of the guns stuck out of the rear gun windows of the car, roaring and spitting out thick smoke and flames.
Then the barrel recoiled quickly. Under the braking of slide rails, pulleys and ropes, it slowly retreats into place.
Gao Changlin stuck his head out of the observation window to take a look, and cursed: "Are these rebels exhausted from fighting? They are all rushing up like crazy. Hurry up and load the next round."
At this time, a red firework bomb flew into the sky and exploded. This is the order for free fire.
"Free fire, hurry up and reload"
The artillerymen in the car immediately took action. The second gunner came from the side
A silk propellant pack was taken out of the wooden box. The third gunner took out the cork holder from the other side, and the fourth gunner held the spherical lead bullet and put it into the muzzle.
The first gunner immediately loaded the copper-fired cannon with silk powder bags, cork cartridges, spherical solid bullets, etc., and pressed them firmly with the push rod. The five people worked together again to push the muzzle out of the rear gun window.
Gao Changlin saw a shield car being pushed so fast in the distance that its wheels hit rocks several times, causing the car to jump left and right and almost overturn. The two people in the car were still looking for opportunities to shoot outside.
"When you see that shield car, it's the one at the front, hit him. I'll take aim." Gao Changlin shouted loudly.
The four gunners immediately used pulleys and ropes to move the muzzle up, down, left and right. Gao Changlin aimed at the shield vehicle through the front sight and rear sight.
He murmured: "Don't move, yes, just walk in a straight line, okay."
The fire in his hand suddenly hit the fire door. Then he quickly dodged to the side.
With a bang, the artillery sprayed out flames and shells, and then violently recoiled.
Gao Changlin could see with his naked eyes that the shield vehicle hit a rock again and jumped up to the left. Then the shell accurately hit the floor of the car body.
The powerful impact directly smashed the two shield vehicles into pieces. The shells were directly fired from the front and back of the vehicle floor. The shield wall of the shield vehicle was shattered, the shaft was shattered, and the floor was shattered. Then it was mixed with human body parts and flew in all directions.
The shell shattered the shield car and flew directly towards the crowd behind. From Gao Changlin's perspective, broken limbs and broken arms flew out in front of him. Then I saw the cannonball hit the ground, suddenly jump up again, fall into the crowd behind, and then disappeared from sight.
"Good shot, keep loading and try again." Gao Changlin shouted excitedly.
