"The power of the times has begun to show..." the observer in the command post, the British Delaney, said quietly. The civil war in the Qing Dynasty in front of him was just a show to him.
The British get excited when they see battleships. This is their national emotion. Even three small river battleships make him feel excited.
The essence of human war is actually nothing more than firepower output. Even in the cold weapon era, when a soldier stabs the enemy with a dagger, the essence is just a small burst of biological energy released by human muscles.
Firepower is actually a kind of violent energy output. The cold weapon era relied on human beings' own biological energy, while the gunpowder era relied on the chemical energy exploded by various chemicals!
What energy does the future hold? Delaney didn't know, but Xiao Letian knew that electromagnetic energy, nuclear energy... and even various surreal cosmic energies in science fiction novels can actually be used in war as long as they can kill the enemy.
Everything remains the same, everything is firepower output!
No matter how sophisticated the Qing Dynasty's bows and arrows are, they can't compare to muskets. No matter how good muskets are, they can't compare to cannons. No matter how powerful the field artillery is, they are nothing compared to the main guns of battleships.
The confrontation between battleship artillery and coastal defense artillery has always been a disadvantage!
There is a firepower output platform problem here. The more powerful the firepower output, the greater the instantaneous reaction force generated.
The platform that reduces this reaction force determines the upper limit of the weapon's power!
An ordinary soldier's body can easily pull the trigger to fire a bullet, but the subsequent force will also hit his shoulder, which is too much for a weak person.
What about a cannon? This reaction force is not something the soldier's body can bear.
The launching platform of the cannon must be the earth, and the reaction force will ultimately be digested by the earth. However, field artillery also needs to consider the issue of mobility, so the choice of firepower output can only be balanced.
But battleships are different. When a battleship's artillery is fired, the reaction is carried by the keel of the ship's hull, and eventually the reaction is reflected on the water body.
In fact, it is the huge body of water under the hull that absorbs this huge force, so that theoretically the cannon can be made more powerful.
The 88-caliber field gun currently produced by the Chinese is already the largest caliber among all field guns in Asia. Xiao Letian will not climb this technology tree for the time being. This is a custom-made weapon.
And what is the caliber of the guns on the gunboat? 120ah! The caliber of this artillery piece is larger, and the power output is not larger, but doubled.
Three 120-meter naval guns that could be moved at any time were fired, instantly shocking the entire battlefield!
When the Marco Polo Bridge was built, no consideration was given to the passage of steam warships. Only small wooden boats could pass through the bridge opening below. Three gunboats came from the lower reaches and could not cross this historic bridge at all.
But King Dun never thought of letting the gunboats go upstream. As long as three gunboats can guard the east side of Marco Polo Bridge, it is enough!
But I didn't expect that these three gunboats completed their tasks so well. They were like three rampaging war elephants, driving the rebels on the river to pieces.
Boom boom boom... Hundreds of rebels were turned into ashes by the main gun salvo. The power of the explosion was several times greater than those of 88-caliber field guns, and the smoke column was much higher!
Not only that, there are Chinese veterans on the three gunboats in the name of training, several of whom are very skilled artillery observation posts.
This is a real technical branch. He must skillfully use various optical measuring instruments and be able to quickly calculate the angle of artillery firing and the amount of fired charges.
No matter how chaotic the battlefield is, in their eyes it is just a pile of data!
With them here, they can even calculate the counterattack data through the fire fired by the rebel artillery. After two rounds of salvos, Guiziliu's artillery position will be in disaster!
The imperial artillery position on the north bank of the Yongding River cannot hit Guiziliu's cannons, but these 120-caliber naval guns on the Yongding River are different.
It has a long range and great power, and there are professional surveyors. Under the artillery bombardment, the rebel artillery position was suddenly in chaos!
Yi Xin was so distressed that he was bleeding. He watched the cannons purchased with a lot of money being blown into parts. The artillerymen who were as heartbroken were dying in batches!
Those who were killed on the Yongding River were all dead soldiers, and they were all worthless lives. Yi Xin would not feel sorry for him at all, but the artillery was a technical branch, and these were all precious little things. It would take at least a year for a dead soldier to train a new one!
What makes Yixin even more worried is that at the urging of King Dun, two airships near the battlefield finally risked their lives and forcibly took off!
The rattling sound of heavy machine guns sounded in the sky again, and the water dragons set off by bullet chains rolled back and forth on the Yongding River, and the screaming soldiers fell into the river.
The participation of warships and airships in the battle suddenly relieved the pressure on the imperial army, and the number of rebels who were constantly rushing to kill was finally reduced!
King Dun clenched his fists excitedly, "Just survive this fight, block Yi Xin's three axes, and withstand their crazy energy!"
"Under the circumstances, the imperial court will definitely win! Our reinforcements will become more and more powerful in the future!"
"After surviving tonight, I will go and thank everyone! The court cannot treat my brothers badly!"
King Dun laughed, but Yi Xin cried. Guizi Liuyi punched the map and his eyes popped out, "Damn it! How many devilish things did Xiao Letian create? How many big things have he ruined for me!"
Can you not be angry? Yi Xin knew very well that without the blessing of this weird war weapon created by Xiao Letian, his rebellion would have been successful long ago.
What was flying in the sky today was an airship, and what was patrolling the river was a steel gunboat. It was useless to blast my own artillery on it, and it would be completely inexplicable beyond the blackened point.
A few scattered modified upward-firing machine guns could not keep up with the speed of the airships. These ghostly airships never stayed in one place.
By the way, there are also two materials, cement and steel bars. Without such a big killer, how could Zaichun build such a difficult Yongding River defense line?
British military attaché Delaney walked over and said, "Your Majesty! Please calm down...Have you forgotten our strategy?"
"This is a feint attack here at Yongding River. Why do you feel like it's the main attack area now?"
"As long as we can put pressure on the enemy here, and let the enemy make wrong judgments... the real battlefield is not here!"
Ah... Yimin Yangtian sighed, "It's my fault. Let's follow the plan..."
It seems that the Yongding River defense line will be difficult to conquer tonight, but Yi Xin will not relax the pressure on the other bank. Under his order, countless rebels began to transport wet charcoal and various flammable materials to the river bank.
Because this was all within the plan, a lot of flammable materials were prepared and piled up like a hill!
Some were loaded onto boats, lit and pushed into the river, while others formed a long queue on the south bank. Soldiers lit the wet charcoal and then poured kerosene on it.
This is not arson, this is pure smoke. The dark smoke ribbon is like a wall pressing towards the north bank.
