In the evening, the aroma of broth wafted from the siege camp.
The auxiliary soldiers digging trenches outside the city put down their shovels, wiped their sweat and looked to the west. The setting sun was shining brightly and slowly sinking into the mountains.
The sergeants in the south of the city were lining up, and the surrounding auxiliary soldiers looked at them with contentment.
People knew that it was Commander Cao's artillery.
It's time to fire off the cannon again.
On the east and west sides, there were more than 200 people on each side forming two small square formations facing each other. They sat on the ground in the cracks in front and stood in the cracks in the back.
Cao Yao stood in the middle, raising his hand and patting his precious red cannon: "Come on, today it's the left team's turn, and the right team is watching from the side."
The Liangshizhan auxiliary soldiers could not restrain their excitement for a long time, and ran forward from left to right.
Then he was scolded by Cao Yao again: "Damn it, grandma, I told you not to stand behind the cannon, stay away from the barrel where the gunpowder packets are placed, and don't go up!"
Cao Yao especially liked to quarrel with soldiers.
This will give him a sense of reassuring contentment.
It was like going back to twelve years ago, when the sky did not fall and the earth did not sink, he was still a top soldier undergoing training in the Beijing Army's firearms camp.
As time passed, he also became an artillery instructor.
"What are you afraid of? It's no different from the Pearl Cannon. Come on, load it up."
The powder package was Liu Chengzong's idea. The gunpowder particles, Trojans and shells were wrapped in fabric in advance and stuffed directly into the barrel.
This thing doesn't make much sense in a short period of time. The necessary condition for customization to realize its significance is to set consistent specifications for the artillery.
Currently, they only have more than 70 large and small cannons, but they are divided into four categories: Yongzhu, Tiger Crouching, Folangji, and Hongyi. These four categories are divided into sixteen different calibers.
That is to say, their artillery shells have been mixed and used by capturing them, otherwise they can also discharge more than 30 ways of loading gunpowder and artillery shells.
Liu Chengzong thought for a while, and it was completely nonsense to get the drug loaded under such circumstances. The side effects far outweighed the positive significance.
This was also the original intention of him asking the workers to make a batch of artillery in Shanxi and finalize the specifications.
Once the calibers are unified, regardless of whether there are three or four types, fixed charge packages can be used later to reduce problems in gunpowder transportation and allow artillery to reload faster.
The fixed charge brought out by the artillery this time was made of yellow gauze from Mr. Huo's curtains, and the shell was made of red cloth.
The red cloth looks good when shot out, but the cloth wrapping the cannonball cannot be burned out, so with a bang, the cannonball breaks through the smoke and is shot out. Then the smoke gradually dissipates, and a piece of red cloth falls from the sky.
In fact, when Liu Chengzong designed this, he especially thought of Luo Rucai.
Luo Rucai loves to collect fabrics, and everything on that guy's body can be wrapped in cannonballs.
After catching Luo Rucai and pressing it next to the powder barrel, it won't take long for the answer to what kind of fabric is most suitable to come out.
The artillerymen successfully completed the process of checking the gun barrel, stuffed the yellow gauze powder packet into the barrel, then used an awl to pierce the powder packet at the gun's fire door, and the igniter poured the gunpowder and stood on the side.
Those who charge and fire are auxiliary soldiers, aiming at combat soldiers.
Cao Yao said from the side: "This cannon is very good. The barrel is very flat and straight. You must memorize the artillery tips I teach you carefully. If you don't memorize it, how will you know how far it can shoot?"
He knew a set of formulas for various firearms to fix the weight of the projectile and adjust the projectile range at different angles and charges.
However, recently he found that the artillery formula was outdated, because the current Hongyi cannon was a long-barreled cannon, and the artillery formulas he used to memorize in the Beijing camp were all short-barreled cannons.
After he mentioned this matter to Liu Chengzong, they both decided to let the sergeant carry it like this for now. Later, when they have time and new cannons, they can recalculate a set of artillery tactics.
Such a small thing seems simple, but for them, it requires huge manpower, material resources and energy.
But now it's very good. This post city must be bombarded with artillery no matter what, and the distance is fixed at 200 steps. The artillery fires at regular angles, which is very suitable for experiments with fixed charge packages.
The soldiers who were aiming had retreated to the side of the artillery. With an order, the igniter used a small sickle tied with a match rope to ignite the gunpowder.
Immediately, the cannonballs blasted out and hit the gate tower of Yi City.
"Well done!"
Cao Yao turned around and praised, without even looking at the reaction from the city. When the smoke cleared and the auxiliary soldiers had finished cleaning the cannon barrel, he looked at the debris hooked out of the cannon barrel and nodded secretly: "This is not bad, the price is as good as the brocade. Silk is about the same, not as expensive as Pingluo or Lu silk."
He has tried many materials in the past few days, including silk and satin, gauze and silk yarn, and GeRong brocade. There is almost nothing they can't grab.
The best and most expensive silk is Lu silk, which is thin, dense, and most importantly, flammable.
Almost nothing will be left in the barrel after burning. Even if there is a little bit left, it will fall off like ashes as soon as it is wiped.
Cloth is cheap, but it does not burn out. If you are not careful when cleaning the gun barrel, it will be stored in it. If it is not cleaned properly, it will easily ignite the gunpowder during the next charging.
Raw silk is actually good, but it requires secondary processing.
But they don’t have much of those things.
Of course there is not much Lu silk.
But Lu silk is silk and satin made by Lu'an Mansion.
During the Wanli year, there was excess production capacity and every household in Shanxi Province had Lu silk.
The place of production is right next door, which is very easy to get.
After the shooting was completed, Cao Yao began to teach the artillerymen again, explaining his knowledge of firearms on the spot.
To put it simply, all firearms are the same, regardless of whether it is a Yongle fire gun or a bird gun, a three-eye gun or a five-eye gun, a short gun or a long gun, a small gun or a cannon, they are all the same in his eyes.
It's just a tube that seals one side. The only difference is the size.
If the tube is long and straight, the hit will be accurate; if the tube is thick, the hit will be severe.
Nothing can change without departing from its roots.
To the west of the siege camp, Liu Chengzong was holding a telescope and looking deep into the river valley, where a team was marching eastward.
The leader was wearing a helmet with the word "Yong" on his head, black satin narrow-legged cotton trousers, and a short open-armed sheepskin jacket. A clean cloth was bandaged from his neck to his navel. He walked with a knife on his shoulder and walked with a arrogant attitude.
Judging from the way she walks and the way she wears her clothes, it’s Luo Ru who is right.
This guy's high-spirited attitude made it impossible to tell that he was being chased like a rabbit just a few days ago.
energetic.
The people behind him were all riding horses, and Liu Chengzong knew that there were Shangtian Monkey, Zhang Tianlin and Song Shouzhen among them.
Zhuantianmao Academy has been open for half a year. Shanxi has gained so much, and there will be more in the future. People who are not educated can really not understand it.
So he asked Heavenly Monkey to go home and bring back the eighty thieving students.
Zhang Tianlin led his troops to protect them. As for Luo Rucai, Luo Rucai was picked up on the road.
This guy was also unlucky. He had recruited more than a thousand new men. When he went out to do anything, he bumped into Aimu's officers and soldiers. The recruits all ran away when they saw the officers and soldiers.
Just four hundred old thieves and habitual bandits, fighting and retreating all the way, can be considered capable of escaping.
When they approached the siege camp, Liu Chengzong went out to meet Luo Rucai. As soon as he saw Luo Rucai, he fell to the ground and said, "General Liu, thank you for avenging me. This Aimu beat me so hard!"
Luo Rucai paid his respects sincerely. He had indeed been bullied too hard. He had never experienced such a battle since the uprising.
No matter how brutal or violent he is, no matter how he responds, he will never be able to fight back.
No one has many people; no one has good soldiers; no one can beat him; he can't escape if he runs.
He was originally injured and was sent to a mountain village to recuperate. He became the king of the mountain. When he heard that Liu Chengzong had surrounded Ai Mu in Wen'an Yi, he had to come over.
Liu Chengzong was also very curious about this matter. He helped Luo Rucai up and asked: "They are all riding horses, how can you come here?"
Luo Ru just recovered, stood up slowly, turned around and patted his butt: "Tell the officers and soldiers to shoot him with an arrow. He can't sit still."
Liu Chengzong smiled, bowed his hands to everyone one by one, and then ushered them into the siege camp.
Zhang Tianlin followed him into the camp, looking in both directions as he walked, first at Liu Chengzong's camp, and then at the post city where Ai Mu was besieged, and secretly sighed in his heart.
Liu Chengzong's camp cannot be said to be very exquisite, it is quite satisfactory, but it is very impressive.
It is in the shape of a crescent to surround Wen'an Post from the west, south and east. They are digging a second trench and building a mountain of earth as high as the post city in an attempt to surround the army.
Looking back at Yicheng, the soldiers at the top of the city were so densely packed that they neither fired artillery nor broke out, which Zhang Tianlin couldn't understand.
He asked: "Lion, how many officers and soldiers are there in Wen'an Yi?"
Liu Chengzong smiled and raised two fingers: "Originally there were one thousand and two, but in the past two days, more than 600 people were let in."
"Put in six hundred people?"
Liu Chengzong nodded and asked Zhong Bao to set up camp for Zhang Tianlin's people, and then led a few people to his Chinese army tent.
After entering the Zhongjun tent, he explained in detail: "I haven't fought since I came here. Aimu has three sentries and horses, all guarding the west. There is one sentry in the north and south mountains, and there is another sentry in the west village outside the city."
"I came quickly and blocked the sentry in the village into the city, and then surrounded the southern sentry. But by the time I attacked the northern one, they had already set up camp and it was difficult to break through, so I surrounded this side first."
Speaking of this, he smiled: "Two days ago, the government troops in the mountains to the north attacked. As soon as we retreated to the west, they wanted to enter the city, so they only intercepted the baggage and left the people alone."
Zhang Tianlin asked: "Do you want to starve them to death?"
"It's not that cruel. Just surrender when you're hungry."
His understatement made Zhang Tianlin secretly speechless.
The tactics are very ordinary, even a bit dull, just surround them and prevent people from running away.
But in northern Shaanxi at this time, no one could sustain fighting with the government and the army like this.
"There are two thousand officers and soldiers. I think you have four thousand people, right? There are also mules, horses and livestock." Zhang Tianlin looked at his relaxed expression and calculated: "You consume twice as much food as him every day."
"Stand around, why don't you eat food?"
Liu Chengzong's Lion Battalion was greatly inspired by Zhang Tianlin, and the framework of the current military auxiliary army was all learned from Zhang Tianlin.
But he is an enlarged version of Zhang Tianlin. Zhang Tianlin only has more than a hundred veterans of the frontier army, while he has more than a thousand veterans of the frontier army.
And the biggest difference between the Lion Camp and others is that it has a logistics outpost.
Speaking of food and grass, Liu Chengzong couldn't hide his pride and said: "I fought several battles in Shanxi and defeated 4,000 soldiers. They are all from Shanxi and have family members in the guardhouse. There are not many who are willing to follow me. Net profit .”
The most difficult thing to feed these days is the mouth.
The flag troops of Fenzhou Guard and Pingyang Guard came over with grain and fodder. They beat them and left behind the grain and fodder, as well as the dead horses and mules.
On the contrary, because others did not want to follow him, the number of mouths to eat did not increase.
"So even though we didn't collect much food, we still have plenty of food for the troops, enough to starve the people in the city to breakout... That's right."
Liu Chengzong was halfway through speaking, then raised his hand and quickly pointed in the south and north directions: "In fact, all I have been eating these days is food from the two sentries outside Aimu."
Aimu in the city would be furious to death when he heard this.
When the six hundred officers and soldiers in Huoshuogou called for the door, Ai Mu didn't want to open the door.
What are you doing here in such a good way?
They were stationed in the Huoshaogou. Anyway, they had their own food and built a camp. They couldn't break it for a while. If they really needed to break out, they could just set fire to the sky.
Good thing now, there are more than 600 more mouths, which makes the already poor food supply even worse.
Zhang Tianlin laughed out loud, raised her hand and said to Liu Chengzong: "You have figured out how to play the bandit."
He felt that Liu Chengzong was really a bandit, and a bandit who was more organized than anyone in northern Shaanxi.
The whole person jumped around to attract fire, and the result was that the more he jumped, the more fat he got.
Moreover, under his wings, he cultivated a large group of bandits near Yan'an Prefecture.
There were hundreds of bandit leaders like them, but when they arrived in Yan'an Fucheng, they couldn't move and became sitting bandits.
"How is Wangzhuang? It's almost time to harvest the wheat?" Liu Chengzong asked: "I saw a wheat field in Yanchuan, and it was very short."
Zhang Tianlin nodded when she heard this and said: "Yes, we will harvest next month. When the spring freeze begins, we will be on the banks of the Xingzi River, Panlong River, and Yan River. This year, we don't need a sickle, we have to pull out the wheat."
Pulling wheat, Liu Chengzong shook his head when he heard it.
As the saying goes, an aunt is most afraid of raising children, and a good man is most afraid of pulling wheat.
There are two reasons for pulling wheat. One is that the wheat does not grow well and is short, making it difficult to harvest with a sickle. The other is that the wheat straw can be used as firewood.
This is the most tiring thing.
"By the way, Lion, I have to tell you something. You and Chengzu first fought against King Qin Zhuangzi." Zhang Tianlin said, seeing Liu Chengzong nodding, she said: "I heard Chengzu said that the land there is very good, I want to Then take it, do you think it’s okay?”
"You're being polite. You can take over the Xichuan River. But it depends on whether the dam is still there. If you can open the dam, it's best to open it so that more people can live... for another year."
Zhang Tianlin was very happy when she heard that he didn't mind, and immediately asked: "If you wait for another year, what do you want to do next year?"
"In July and August, I built a fort in Shanxi. The fort was full of corn. I took it back as seeds and tried planting some."
In another memory of Liu Chengzong, one acre of wheat could be harvested 700 to 800 pounds, which was so outrageous that he wished he was a farmer in his mind.
Their wheat fell down and suffered disasters, and it was normal for them to harvest thirty or forty kilograms from one acre of land.
The harvest of eighty or ninety pounds not only met expectations but also went smoothly.
When it reaches 200 kilograms, it can no longer be simply described as a bumper harvest.
Then you have to ask your ancestors to show their spirits.
Liu Chengzong scratched his neck. There was nothing he could do about it. He knew that production would be reduced, but he still had to farm. There was nothing he could do.
He shook his head and stopped thinking about agriculture. The military was the most important thing. If the military did not solve the problem, there would be no chance of farming.
Liu Chengzong took a deep breath: "I'm just taking a gamble now to see whether Ai Mu will break through first or Du Wenhuan's reinforcements will come first."
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Note:
In 1952, my country's average wheat yield per mu was 48.8 kilograms.
In 1950, the wheat yield in North China reached 250 kilograms per mu, which was among the highest yields and was even featured in the People's Daily.
