The artillery position that Meng He chose was right behind Bai Guangen's infantry, so that he could get as close as possible to the rebel front line and gain more range for his mortars.
On the premise that his own artillery can be properly protected, the closer to the target, the better. However, Bai Guangen's men were a little trembling because the artillery was placed behind him.
The reason is that they believe that when the cannon fires, they will be blown into pieces. Although this is just their whim, it is also a subjective possibility.
Most of the soldiers had never seen a mortar meeting, and the firecrackers installed by the officers and soldiers fired directly. The firecrackers were deployed behind them, so it was understandable that they would be afraid.
"Are you so scared? I am here to kill the enemy with you! If you dare to take a step back, don't blame me for being ruthless!"
Seeing that the formation was almost frightened by the mortars, Bai Guangen hurriedly rushed to the infantry formation and personally shouted to stabilize the morale of the army. At this time, all generals and soldiers were not allowed to fight timidly for any reason.
Bai Guangen is well aware of the direct fire method of mortars. Even if the barrel is exploded, it will explode on the spot. It is impossible to hit the back of his soldiers with the mortar. If it can really hit it, it will be a big joke.
The front row of infantry is only 2,780 steps away from the enemy army on the opposite side. A guy with good physical strength can rush to the opposite side in one breath. But whether to hack the opponent to death or be hacked to death by the opponent, it's hard to say.
Sun Dushuai was willing to move a regiment of mortars to his own formation to provide maximum fire support. In return, Bai Guangen ordered his soldiers not to move without permission without military orders. Anyone who disobeys the order will be killed. He was executed on the spot.
Before the artillery regiment was in position and could fire, even if the troops were injured by the rebels' fire, they had to grit their teeth and hold on. When the enemy rushed over, they had to do their best to protect Meng He's artillery regiment from heavy casualties.
Accordingly, what Bai Guangen could get was to wait until the artillery regiment blasted the opposite side to pieces, then he would lead his nearly ten thousand people to "harvest crops" immediately.
Especially when he used his telescope to see the flag with the word "Luo" on the opposite side, he was very happy. This meant that Luo Rucai, worth fifty thousand taels of silver, was right in front of him.
As long as you hold your ground and wait until the artillery regiment opens fire and the whole army comes forward, you can get fifty thousand taels of silver. This is a very cost-effective deal.
"Commander, our troops are ready and ready to fire at any time!"
After messing around in front for a long time, Meng He came back to resume his duties. The whole army was waiting for them to launch a fire attack on the rebel army.
"...Hmm! Okay! Fire! Shoot ten times first! Then fire again depending on the situation!"
Sun Chuanting looked at the Western clock hanging in the cloth bag on the horse beside him. After struggling for more than half an hour, the fight was finally ready.
The eight general officers on both wings must take orders from the central army. If the central army does not open fire, the left and right wings must not act rashly unless they are attacked by the bandits.
Judging from the qualifications of the many thieves and generals entrenched here, Sun Chuanting speculated that Luo Ru was the leader among them and should be in the central army, so he let Bai Guangen's troops serve as his own central army.
If it were replaced by other generals, three or four men would be needed to reach Bai Guangen's strength. If several people really thought that their soldiers killed Luo Rucai, how should the fifty thousand taels of silver be divided?
At present, there is only Bai Guangen in the front line of the Chinese army. As long as Luo Rucai does not run to both sides, his death will definitely be the credit of this unit. After Bai Guangen receives the money, it is his business how to divide it.
Out of considerations of command and reward, Sun Chuanting placed Bai Guangen's unit in this most important position, otherwise such a good thing would not be available to the chief military officer.
"The guns are ready!"
"Fire!"
"Boom, boom, boom..."
After Meng He gave the order, a total of 108 mortars equipped by the three artillery battalions opened fire simultaneously, and hundreds of packages that heralded death appeared in the sky.
"Why...why are there still cannons???"
When Chang Guoan saw something flying high from the opposite side, he guessed it was a cannon, and the "cannon" was a trebuchet.
There are "single-tip cannon", "double-tip cannon", "car-mounted cannon", "cyclone cannon" and other styles. The first two are mounted cannons, while the latter two are vehicle-mounted cannons. The same thing is that they throw stones.
Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, weapons such as "cannon" have been rarely used. After the world was established, the Ming army mostly used more lethal firearms.
Chang Guoan judged from the parabola of the "stone bullet" flying in the sky that it was a kind of "cannon".
But he still doubted, are all the officers and soldiers so poor?
They couldn't even afford to equip themselves with firearms, and all the "cannons" were moved out.
Can we fight this? Is Sun Gou Thief going crazy because he wants to win?
No wonder I didn't see any firearms in front of the formation just now, tsk tsk...
Regardless of the style, under the action of the lever principle, the range of the "cannon" is very short, mostly only fifty or sixty steps, and those exceeding a hundred steps are extremely rare.
The large "cannons" were extremely large in appearance. Even if they were placed behind the infantry formation, they could still be seen with the naked eye. However, the rebels saw nothing.
The most frightening thing is that just by looking at the flying height of these "stone bullets", experienced "industry insiders" can roughly calculate the approximate landing point, and they are sure to fall into the rebel formation.
It's just that the leaders of the rebel army were suspicious as they watched. The officers and soldiers began to use "stone bullets" to hit people. Even if hundreds of them were hit, how much damage could they do? Can this move really win?
If the stone bullets could hit such a distance, they would indeed have many results, but the rebels did not believe that the "guns" equipped by the government troops could have such a long range.
But facts speak louder than words. These "stone bullets" could fly so far, and the rebel soldiers watched helplessly as they fell into the formation.
"...Boom, boom, boom!"
Everyone even prepared a defensive posture with their shields raised sideways, waiting for a sudden hit. Those who didn't get hit were considered lucky, and those who got hit had to consider themselves unlucky.
But what fell was not a stone, but a lumpy package. Since the fuse was long, if it was pulled out in time, no one would be harmed.
The problem was that they had never seen such a novel object before and did not think it could pose any threat to themselves, so they stood still and stared at it for two seconds...
As a result, there was a series of explosions that could be called earth-shattering. Hundreds of fireballs suddenly formed in the rebel army's formation, expanded rapidly, and quickly devoured all surrounding creatures.
Wang Pu's rebels had encountered this kind of thing, and the Eight Kings' tribe had also experienced similar hardships, but they would not send people over to tell the group in front of them.
This kind of unexpected situation beforehand, as well as the feeling that life is worse than death afterwards, whether it is the leader or the minions, as long as they are beaten once, they will never forget it for the rest of their lives.
Faced with this unreasonable disaster that fell from the sky, the rebel army was completely unable to guard against it, let alone parry it. Behind the lightning and flint, all they could hear were howls and screams of varying sizes.
"Ouch~! My forehead hurts so much..."
The scene was as miserable as a slaughtered pig. On the edge of the smoking crater were soldiers rolling in pain. Occasionally, there were broken limbs and fragments of weapons and shields.
Mortar shells do not use explosive effects to kill enemy troops. The flames dissipate after being burned at high temperatures for only a few seconds.
The ability to kill enemies in a large area relies on the splash damage caused by the hundreds of nails tied to the explosive pack gaining kinetic energy.
It is more difficult for nails to deal with targets wearing iron armor, but it is very easy to penetrate leather or bamboo armor. Almost a nail driven into the body can make people miserable.
The soldiers who were closer to the explosion point but not seriously injured also had their eardrums damaged by the violent explosion, and thus entered a state of auditory hallucinations. They froze in place and were at a loss.
Many leaders and big and small bosses still don't understand how this "stone bomb" can explode? It is simply unbelievable that so many soldiers could be injured.
A single package could knock down dozens of soldiers nearby. In comparison, it was much more powerful than stone bullets thrown from a cannon.
"No running around! Everyone, wait, form a formation immediately! Anyone who disobeys the order will be killed!"
Seeing that many of his own troops were blown up by "stone bombs", although the number was not too large, the impact was great. There were signs of chaos, so Chang Guoan immediately ordered his subordinates to appease the good soldiers.
"Ming Fo Lang's machine is open..."
Luo Ru realized that he could not be beaten passively and had to counterattack immediately. However, before he could finish the order, he saw a large group of black spots flying in the sky. For a moment, he forgot to even shout.
Meng He gave his men an order to fire at a constant speed, that is, the first four times, one fire every minute, and the last six times, because the barrel was hot, it was changed to one fire every two minutes.
Such ten volleys were fired within the time of a cup of tea. Although the rate of fire was not very fast, it was very fast for ordinary fire guns.
The senior officers of the artillery regiment only have the privilege of being equipped with a Western clock, so as long as this object does not suddenly break, the officer orders it, and the intervals between firing of each squadron are very accurate.
For the soldiers who had only been trained in the capital a month ago and had no actual combat experience, the two extreme shots per minute were a bit too tight and prone to errors.
Meng He believed that firing once a minute was almost the minimum time for his soldiers to figure out each process. If it was any shorter, they might die on the battlefield.
But for the rebel soldiers on the opposite side, being beaten once a minute was obviously completely beyond what they could bear. This was almost comparable to the rate of fire of the Franco machine.
Before the formation was completed again, the soldiers were still in a state of panic. Their nervous and anxious mood had not yet calmed down, and they received a second attack from the opponent.
Moreover, just now, Meng He saw clearly with a telescope and found that after the first launch, the explosive bag fell into the opposite infantry formation and did not explode immediately.
After thinking for a while, I suddenly realized that it turned out that the fuse was too long. Fortunately, the bandits on the opposite side were ignorant and didn't know the power of this thing. Otherwise, they would have to remove the fuse.
Without the fuse, the explosive package would definitely not explode, so Meng He ordered his subordinates to shorten the fuse this time. It would be best if it exploded in a crowd of people when it landed.
It is not ideal to explode above the heads of thieves, because many people on the opposite side are holding shields. It is hard to say whether they can prevent it, but at least the least ideal consideration must be taken.
"Here we go again..."
Someone saw an object flying from the sky. The situation was exactly the same as before. This was an extremely terrifying bullet, so they started to shout at the top of their lungs.
This directly led to an instant chaos in the rebel infantry formation, and order was lost. Even if the small leader tried hard to stop it, he could not manage his soldiers who were trying to escape.
But more than a hundred explosive charges leaped three hundred steps very quickly. Before the crowd dispersed, they fell from the sky and suddenly exploded among the extremely chaotic crowd.
The most ideal weapon for fighting an infantry phalanx is not a Franco machine or a Tiger squat gun, but a mortar that can shoot in a straight direction and the shells can splash.
The advantage of curved fire is that you can hide in the formation and fire concealed, and you can also deploy the artillery behind the hill, which can completely avoid the opponent's direct artillery strike.
The benefits of sputtering artillery shells are more direct. They are almost the natural enemy of the infantry phalanx. It can be said that as long as there are mortars, the opponent will not be able to form a defense at all.
The cost of forming a formation is that every minute, the rebels will suffer at least seven to eight hundred casualties. If they stand in place for fifteen minutes, seven to eight thousand people will be knocked down.
If they really suffered such heavy casualties and accounted for nearly 20% of the total strength, the rebel army would have collapsed across the board and would have lost all will to fight.
"Brother! What should we do?"
Chang Guoan was already anxious. If he continued to fight like this, not to mention waiting for the official army to attack, he would have to surrender all his troops here.
Only now did he finally know why Sun Gouzhi dared to lead his troops to invade. There were no firearms in front of the formation, but they were hidden in the formation. He was really cunning and hateful.
"Quickly order the cavalry on the left and right to rush into battle! If you wait any longer, the whole army may be defeated!"
The current situation is critical, and if we continue to waste time here, we will be beaten in vain, and Fo Langji will probably not be able to have much effect.
When it was broken, it was broken. Luo Rucai could only let the horse soldiers who had previously planned to wait until the official infantry rush into the formation before attacking immediately rush over to buy time for the infantry to retreat.
This Sun Dog thief is really too insidious. I didn't expect that after being in prison for a while, he would be so powerful just after being released. Even if he can't win the battle, he has a long time to come, and then the old and new accounts will be settled together.
"……good!"
"One Dragon" and Chang Guoan both agreed on this method. The longer the time went on, the greater the losses of the rebels would be, especially since it seemed that Sun Dog Thief's gunslinger was specialized in attacking their central army, but both sides were not beaten. It was too hateful.
"coming!"
"Run!"
"Shizi???"
"Forehead……"
Before the order was issued, the third wave of exploding "stone bombs" came. From the explosion of musket bombs, casualties of infantry, and chaos in the military formation, to the leaders discussing and deciding how to act, there was actually no time left for everyone. is very short-lived.
Luo Rucai and others thought they had done it quickly enough, but they couldn't resist the opponent's faster attack, and they couldn't fire bullets according to their reaction speed.
"Boom boom boom boom..."
After being bombarded three times, the rebel infantry formation had completely collapsed. The main reason was that the bullets fired from the opposite side were so powerful that we could not defend ourselves and did not have time to counterattack.
If this object falls on the cart, it can explode into a huge "bonfire", not to mention the flesh and blood of ordinary people. After realizing the danger, everyone chose to escape in unison.
Even the gunners of the Folang machine had turned around and ran away, and the big boss and the little boss were not interested in fighting. Maybe the bullets fired at them would fall at their feet and explode.
Seeing the miserable situation of their subordinates who were wounded or dead, no one would be stupid enough to stay and fight to the death with the dog officers and soldiers. They were not afraid of close combat, but it was unacceptable to stand here and get beaten in vain.
In such a battle, the officers and soldiers can reach themselves, but they cannot reach the officers and soldiers. They can only let the horse soldiers rush forward to charge into the formation. Taking advantage of this period, they can gather the infantry and rely on Yunxian County to resist the officers and soldiers of Sun Gou. .
