The roar of heavy artillery in Gulang Gorge shook Feng Lun's soul out of his body.
His soul seemed to float to the top of the clouds on the top of Qilian Mountain, overlooking the battlefield, and saw the future in the fragmented Ming army camp.
A quarter of an hour is enough for three thousand-pound cannons to fire ninety times, while a mighty general can only fire three times. However, each time the shells are loaded, they are like thunder, piercing the carriage board as if they were nothing.
Even if the gunpowder was halved, using only the ten kilograms of gunpowder packets prepared by Liu Chengzong, he could still blast through the chariot at a distance of 400 paces. It was not until one-third of the seven kilograms of powder was used that Feng Yu finally saw the heavy artillery bombarding the chariot camp in his imagination. Scene - the cannonball knocked the chariot over.
Within a moment, not counting the rain of bullets fired by the enemy-killing artillery in the middle of the battlefield, they fired a total of ninety-three shots. Among them, the only one that really caused damage to the tank was this shot with the smallest charge, but it was enough to scare the Ming army's chariot camp. .
Soon, the chariot camp from Liangzhou released more than 200 cavalry from behind, and the cavalry formed a dispersal formation in front of the two wings of the chariot camp to cover the orderly retreat of the chariot camp.
The main reason for Ding Shaoyin's retreat was the three thousand-pound cannons fired alternately. The mighty general who only fired three cannons in a quarter of an hour was indeed terrifying, but it was not so conspicuous among the ninety seven-jin cannon shells that were jumping all over the ground. .
Ding Shaoyin also knew the artillerymen of the Marshal's Army. These artillerymen were much more well-trained than the Liangzhou Guard artillerymen. They fired more accurately and loaded faster, especially when operating their own artillery. They even used three thousand-jin cannons. It can shoot at the rate of fire of two thousand-pound franc machines.
Only this mighty general is really slow to reload.
During the long shooting interval between the mighty generals, Ding Shaoyin even thought that the heavy artillery of the Marshal's Army had exploded in the formation. Otherwise, why didn't they shoot for so long?
Ding Shaoyin had to retreat, not because too many of his soldiers were killed by artillery, or because their morale was low due to heavy artillery.
The two car camps spent three days pecking each other's novices, which was a good psychological exercise for the soldiers on both sides. They could not break each other's defenses and fought back and forth. Only a few unlucky ones were injured or killed by stray bullets.
The soldiers' fear of the huge threat of artillery plummeted, and those who were really killed could not complain anyway.
But the camp carried a large number of animals, and these big guys couldn't develop good mental qualities. Several seven-pound cannonballs jumped randomly in the array, passed over the layers of wooden fences to block the horses, and fell into the middle of the pendant, killing them. After injuring a few animals, the whole herd was frightened.
The frightened big animals were covering their heads and bumping wildly in the formation. No amount of wooden fences could stop them. Ding Shaoyin had no choice but to retreat temporarily.
Originally, this was nothing for Ding Shaoyin. He could just retreat to Gulangbao and reorganize his formation. However, he never expected that the people in front of him had just gathered up their formation and retreated in an orderly manner, and the two behind him started to leave directly.
Chai Shihua and Bai Guangen seemed to have discussed it long ago. When they saw the car camp retreating, the first time they saw the two camps, six to seven thousand people, stood up directly from the camp, one behind the other, and walked toward the winding mountain road of Gulang Gorge behind them.
Seeing Ding Shaoyin furious, you were damn prepared! No wonder Cao Wenzhao couldn't trust you two!
In fact, it's not Bai Guangen's fault, it's just his nature. Ever since Zhang Tianlin used Liu Guoneng's force to kill an elite battalion, Bai Guangen has always considered the retreat route and made complete preparations every time he sends out troops.
But he really had no intention of withdrawing directly from the beginning.
It was because Chai Shihua behind him saw that Ding Shaoyin's car camp could not resist, so he broke camp and left. Bai Guangen thought that even a man as fierce as Cao Wenzhao left without saying a word. Chai Shihua, a good bastard, seemed to know something. , they both left, I will leave too.
Then he slapped his butt and gave the order to retreat.
Chai Shihua didn't know anything. He wanted to leave a long time ago, but he guessed that the soldiers wouldn't listen to him, so he had to stand on the battlefield. Now that Ding Shaoyin has withdrawn, it doesn't matter how orderly it is, anyway, this will be issued The soldiers must obey the retreat order, and they will retreat if they can.
Feng Lei on the other side didn't even react. He was still wondering in the camp. My fucking mighty general's ammunition hadn't been loaded yet. Why was there no one there when he raised his head?
He went to Wei Qian'er and asked, "Should we pursue him or not?"
"Can't we chase?"
Wei Qian'er was also stunned. He opened his mouth slightly and looked at the back of the Ming army that was slowly retreating at the end of the canyon. He shook his head solemnly and said: "They cooperate with each other so tacitly. They must be deceitful. Are they laying landmines? Or is it the place in the canyon?" An ambush was set up?"
The two of them looked at me and I looked at you, and finally decided to send the cavalry over to take a look. They would occupy the fort first.
Feng Lei couldn't care about anything at the moment. He lay beside the chariot and wrote a letter to Liu Chengzong.
He knew Liu Chengzong very well. He was a fierce general from ancient times. He was proficient in all eighteen martial arts, but there were no guns and cannons among the eighteen martial arts. Liu Chengzong had not systematically studied, trained, or used guns.
The two people who know the most about guns and artillery in the Marshal's Mansion right now, Cao Yao and Huang Shengxiao, are both stationed in Ganzhou. Feng Yu's experience in the Beijing Army Firearms Battalion made him the closest gunnery expert to Liu Chengzong, so the guns came into his hands.
Feng Rui always felt that Liu Chengzong had a very magical ability, that is, as an army leader, he could endlessly summarize and propose new attempts.
He clearly didn't understand guns, but he was able to come up with designs for lifting guns and artillery, building such a heavy cannon weighing 5,700 kilograms, and letting them experiment with different charge ratios.
When Feng Yu's letter was delivered outside Liangzhou City, Liu Chengzong already had three more newly cast mighty generals in his hands. But the funny thing is that the cannons were cast, but the cannon carriages had not yet been built.
Anyway, after casting a cannon, Liu Chengzong scolded Hong Chengchou in his heart.
Because Hong Chengchou cut down all the trees and demolished the houses in the Liangzhou Oasis, the wood used in their artillery carts had to be collected from Shandan and Yongchang Erwei. The wood was not like iron and could not be cut into small pieces for transportation. This makes it very troublesome to build a gun carriage.
Liu Chengzong read the letter written by Feng Yu outside the city and was happy while reading it. Feng Yu almost wrote him a mighty general's operation guide.
From the different powers and rates of fire brought by different charges to the suitable environment for use, I explained the reasons to him in detail, and also put forward my own conjectures. There were some things he knew, and there were indeed some things he didn't know.
Feng Rui is the user, and Liu Chengzong is the designer. The user has the experience of the user, and the designer also has the fun of the designer. Liu Chengzong found that he was a little obsessed with cannon casting.
Especially after he personally designed and cast a heavy cannon, he found that he had a thorough understanding of the module. This thing was very simple.
For an artillery gun, using a fixed module and multiple diameter, only the caliber and multiple diameter are unknown. When the caliber changes, the size and thickness of the gun body change completely. In other words, as long as you use this set of things, you can know the geometry and times of the bullet weight. What is the diameter, then even with your eyes closed, you can know the size and thickness of the gun body.
Determine the inner diameter of the muzzle to be three inches, then the outer diameter of the muzzle is twice the caliber, and the outer diameter at the fire gate is three times the caliber. The length of the barrel depends on the caliber. The thickness from the chamber to the breech is one caliber. The entire gun The shape is calculated.
In addition, another variable is the material. If the material is good, the thickness can be appropriately reduced. If the material is poor, the thickness should be appropriately increased. On top of this, different magnifications will derive different charges and powers.
The smaller the diameter, the smaller the maximum charge, because the shorter the distance for gunpowder to burn and smoke in the barrel, the shorter the barrel. No matter how much gunpowder is loaded, it will not have time to burn. The shell has already been ejected from the chamber, and the excess gunpowder can only smoke. Angry.
On the contrary, the larger the diameter, the longer the barrel, the longer the time before the shell is pushed out of the barrel, the larger the amount of powder that can be used, and the faster the gun is ejected from the barrel, but the same thing is that the pressure on the barrel is also greater .
For Liu Chengzong, this knowledge gained from practice means that the artillery design concept of the Marshal's Mansion has once again reached a new level. The artillery currently installed by them will become old-fashioned, and the lion cannon and thousand-jin cannon used in the field will produce more new ones. Excellent shape.
But he no longer planned to cast cannons under Liangzhou City, because Cao Yao sent him a letter from Ganzhou. In the letter, Cao Laoji congratulated Liu Chengzong for overcoming the technical difficulties of forging cannons on the battlefield, and also told him some bad news. If you continue to forge cannons like this, Gansu will be unable to withstand it before the heavy artillery blasts away Liangzhou.
Gansu has a large amount of mineral resources, and there are a large number of proven iron ores, copper mines, and lead mines. However, Gansu in this era is not a normal province. Seventy-eight percent of the prime-age men are soldiers, and practitioners in mining, metallurgy, and mining are also Many have military backgrounds.
Under such circumstances, the output of natural resources was appallingly low. In the entire Gansu Province, only a few hundred thousand kilograms of iron was mined per year. Liu Chengzong produced more than 40,000 kilograms under Liangzhou City in less than half a month.
To be honest, Liu Chengzong had never considered the possibility of insufficient materials before this.
Because in his mind, in the land of the Ming Dynasty, there will be no shortage of iron. A county in Shanxi can pay 500,000 kilograms of iron to the court with an iron tax of 15% tax per year. This is also the steel production capacity of the Ming Dynasty. the epitome of.
When this kind of terrifying production capacity is projected onto the military, it means that an army of the Ming Dynasty may be short of anything. They may be short of money, food, soldiers, or even maintenance costs, but artillery, gunpowder and iron , never enough.
It was Liu Shishi's turn to find that he was short of iron for making cannons, which caught him off guard.
In addition, Cao Yao also brought good news and bad news to Liu Chengzong.
The bad news is that after calculation, the forage soybeans in the two oases in Suzhou, Ganzhou are not enough to supply the expeditionary army's huge mules and horses with winter food.
The good news is that the autumn grain that can be harvested from the oasis in Gansu cannot satisfy the 37,000 field troops and the 12,000 city garrison troops.
So the problem was solved. The solution proposed by the Gansu Governor's Office was to slaughter 9,000 donkeys and mules and 4,200 horses, which would solve the two problems of human rations and horse rations.
Regarding the problem of military food, Liu Chengzong had already anticipated that they had more war horses, donkeys and mules in Gansu than soldiers fighting, and there were more soldiers fighting than ordinary people farming, so a shortage of food and grass was an inevitable result.
But the solution Cao Yao came up with still made Liu Chengzong give him a thumbs up in his heart. This birdman is really a genius at solving problems - he was sure that Liu Shizi was stingy and urged the army to advance.
Killing horses would treat the symptoms rather than the root cause. By annihilating the Ming army in the Zhuanglang Valley, the problem of human and horse food would be solved directly from the root.
But Liu Chengzong had no idea how to attack the Zhuanglang Valley, so he had to hold a military meeting under Liangzhou City, summoned Yang Yao, Yang Qi, Gao Yingdeng and others, and asked them: "I want to annihilate the Zhuanglang Valley as soon as possible." The Ming army is trying to connect the Subei River to Huang, but with Liangzhou City behind and Gulang Gorge in front, what can you do?"
When the generals heard this question, they all bowed their heads and remained silent for a short time. Seeing that no one else spoke, Yang Qi said, "Commander, the narrow mountain roads in Gulang Gorge are easy to defend and difficult to attack, and heavy weapons and baggage cannot be transported. To go up there, we can only divide into small groups and go up the ridges and canyons to attack from all sides. If we attack hard, we will inevitably defeat the many with a small number."
"And the current military strength cannot be divided into how many people are attacking Gulang Gorge." Yang Qi was confused: "Liangzhou City is large and strong. Even if we dig a trench thirty miles long and besiege it, we must retain enough troops. After all, the city There are more than 10,000 troops, and they cannot leave unless they capture Liangzhou City first."
Liu Chengzong shook his head slowly without saying anything.
It was as if he had said it and not said it.
"Commander." At this moment, Gao Yingdeng raised his head and asked, "Can we stop surrounding Liangzhou City?"
"No siege?" Liu Chengzong asked: "How can we not siege?"
"Withdraw all the troops and leave two thousand people in the west of the city. Watch and prevent them from leaving the city to trample the crops."
Gao Yingdeng said: "I will go to the south to fight the Gulang Gorge. If the soldiers from Liangzhou City come out, our troops outside the city will withdraw to the west to Yongchang, or at worst to Shandanwei or even Ganzhou. By then They are the ones who are afraid.”
After that, he seemed to feel that his words were not credible, so he added: "I forgive them for not coming out."
Liu Chengzong began to think that Gao Yingdeng's words were indeed a bit ridiculous, but after thinking about it carefully, it seemed to make sense: "They are in the city. We don't fight, not because we can't capture the city, but because the cost of capturing Liangzhou is higher than possible." The amount of food and grass we obtained...makes sense, hey, what you said makes sense."
Liu Chengzong took a few steps in the tent, turned around and said, "Even if I withdraw all the troops, if Li Hongsi dares to go out of the city, he will only be able to survive by trampling on my crops. He will not dare to go out ten miles from Liangzhou."
"The commander is right!" Gao Yingdeng received Liu Chengzong's recognition and said excitedly: "That's what the general meant. He dared to go ten miles away. It would be better. I immediately led troops back from the south to kill him. A bunch of remaining soldiers were defeated." .”
"remarkably brave!"
Liu Chengzong smiled and praised, and then asked Yang Qi: "Gulang Gorge can't transport heavy artillery, but horses can run and carts can walk?"
"Of course it is possible. There are several stations and important transportation routes in the middle." Yang Qi thought for a while and said, "It's just the throat of Gansu, with several dangerous places."
Hearing what he said, Liu Chengzong felt confident: "I am not afraid of the mountains. I, Liu Shizi, came out from northern Shaanxi and went up and down the plateau... If we cannot conquer the Zhuanglang River, we will kill 13,000 mules and horses in the autumn. I think even if the war horses are going to die, they will die on the battlefield. As long as the horses can run on this road, we can overrun them even if we charge!"
Good evening!
