In the seventh year of Hongwu, August 29th.
The sea breeze passed coldly from the city head of Jiahe Fort. On the low city head, there was no trace of a single soldier, nor any trace of fortification. There were only a red scarf Song Army's sun and moon flag and A recognition flag with flowery characters is dancing.
Based on the understanding of this era, this Jiahe Fort is a vulnerable castle.
First of all, the city wall was too short, only over a foot high, which was about four meters when converted into meters in later generations. Moreover, it was not perpendicular to the ground, but had an oblique angle of about 60 degrees. The surface is not smooth either, but is made up of sandbags. The gaps between the sandbags are so big that you can climb up with bare hands.
Secondly, this fortress was not "fortified" and was a "naked city" according to the standards of the Song Dynasty. The city defense of the Song Dynasty was different from the city defense of the Ming Dynasty, which later relied mainly on firearms. The city walls of the Song Dynasty had a lot of "fragments" on top, bottom, and inside. There is a wall outside the city, a ditch outside the wall, a pit outside the ditch... There are tunnels under the city wall, there are gate walls, and there are tigers falling. On the city wall, there is a female-headed wall, a wooden fork, a magpie platform, a cannon, a crossbow machine, various sheds, planks, and of course stoves and irons for rolling logs and stones and boiling "golden juice". pot. Inside the city wall, there are trenches and inner walls. Like the outer walls, the inner walls are filled with "odds and pieces".
Moreover, these "bits and pieces" are basically items that are easy to wear and tear, so a large number of spare parts must be prepared and ready to replenish losses at any time.
Most of these "bits and pieces" are not easy to preserve, such as cannons, crossbows, etc. If they are not carefully maintained and stored carefully, they will be eaten by insects or rotten by mold in a few years. Therefore, there is no way to prepare large quantities in normal times, and they are usually built just before war.
In addition, it is very inconvenient to transport these things. They are all shoddy handicrafts and may break if they are disassembled and assembled.
Therefore, in an era dominated by cold weapons, the cost of fully defending a castle was extremely high... The cost was far higher than that of defending a bastion in the era of front-loaded artillery.
Even according to the high standards given by Zhao Kai, a six-sided and twelve-cornered bastion requires the deployment of 72 artillery pieces of various types, and the cost is only tens of thousands of dollars. Moreover, bronze cannons are durable goods and are easy to transport. It is absolutely possible to move artillery to the east, supplement artillery to the west, and use good artillery in key places.
For example, now, the total number of cannons that Zhao Kai brought to the Pingzhou front line is more than 300, and the number of "spare cannons" is also included (casting cannons is not difficult for the Northern Song Dynasty now, but the artillery crew and cannon pullers are , the ammunition cart has insufficient draft horses). But he still scraped together 72 cannons, equipped with artillery crews, plus three battalions of infantry, and handed them over to the Ninth Army's artillery general Meng Lin. Let him take artillery and infantry to garrison the first bastion in human history-Yanghejiahe Fort. And looking forward to him being the one to make history...
But at this time, Meng Lin was far less confident than Zhao Kai... Although he had heard Zhao Kai explain in the artillery school how shotguns fired sideways to form crossfire could greatly improve the killing efficiency. of.
But now there are tens of thousands of Jin soldiers surrounding Jiahe Fort!
How can a 5-pound cannon and a 10-pound cannon be so efficient? How many tens of thousands of people can be killed by more than forty cannons? Are you kidding?
Meng Lin was now huddled behind the crenels made of sandbags, using a telescope to observe the huge lineup of gold thieves that had spread out around Jiahe Fort. He felt so cold in his heart!
So many... If they come up one after another, the cannons of Jiahe Fort may still have time to kill them. If they were to swarm forward and concentrate their forces to attack several triangular fortresses, how could they be killed in time just by the crossfire of four or eight long-barreled cannons?
In addition, the golden thief also has cannons, and there are many of them!
Meng Lin had already seen dozens of carriages filled with sandbags and hundreds of civilians, escorted by dozens of dispersed Jin Army horsemen, driving out of the Jin Army's formation and approaching the East Fort of Jiahe Fort. Three or four hundred paces away to the east. Then the carriage stopped, and the civilians began to carry sandbags down from the carriage, and under the command of the mounted Jin soldiers, they piled these sandbags up to form crescent-shaped artillery bunkers.
Meng Lin counted and found that there were thirty-two gun emplacements in the East Fort of Jiahe Fort alone!
If one cannon is placed in one emplacement, there will be thirty-two cannons in thirty-two emplacements!
If the gold thieves who besieged the West Fort of Jiahe Fort also had so many cannons, then the gold thieves would have used sixty-four cannons to bombard Jiahe Fort!
Although the Song Army in Jiahe Fort had 72 cannons, which seemed to be a relatively large number, 24 of these 72 cannons were hotpot cannons of little use. What can really be of great use in defending the city are the forty-eight long-barreled cannons... There are actually a lot of them, but these forty-eight cannons are scattered in various gun positions and cannot be used together.
Placing 4 cannons on a triangular fort is already very crowded, and there will be no room for more. Since the city wall of the core fort is blocked by the triangular tower fort, it can only fire some hot pot cannons with direct fire.
The thirty-two cannons of the Jin soldiers can even be concentrated to bombard a triangular fort - in fact, Wanyan Xiebao was planning to do just that!
He is now standing on a high platform piled with straw bags filled with grain on the east bank of the Yang River. The high platform is located a thousand steps away from Jiahe Fort. It should be difficult for the cannons on Jiahe Fort to hit this high platform.
"Your Majesty, the Hedong Cone Team has just arrived to report that all thirty-two ten-pound cans are in place, and the Gunpowder Team is preparing gunpowder!"
The person who reported to Wanyan Xiebao was his deputy Wanyan Huonv. Because her father, Lou Shi, was killed by the artillery of the Song army, Wanyan Huonv decided to "learn pot" and became the founder of the Dajinguo Army. Later, he learned how to use barrels and cannons, and became a firearms expert proficient in pot, barrel, and cannon skills.
Except for the tactics of Shao Pao, which Wanyan Xiebao copied from the Western Tang Dynasty, the tactics and tactics of the Jin Army's Guo Army and Tongzi Army were all figured out bit by bit by him and his men... .. Of course, we also borrowed some methods from the Song Army during this period.
For example, using sandbags to pile up "hot pot bunkers" and "tube bunkers", "frying gunpowder" in front of the formation, and using silk bags to hold powder, etc. were all copied from the Song Army - Zhao Kaigang started using them. When using hot pot cannons and fried pots to deal with the Western bandits, they did not prepare granular black powder, but "fried the powder" in front of the formation. This method was seen by the Western bandits and later spread to the Jin people.
Therefore, the three armies of the Jin people's "Pot, Tube, and Cannon" are now also followed by the "Medicine Cooking Team" who look similar to the cooks... At this time, the "Medicine Speculating Team" has already entered the field, right at the tube position. At the back, a "gunpowder pick" similar to a "wonton pick" was set up, a brass "small pot" was set up, and then the saltpeter, carbon powder, and sulfur powder were weighed with a small scale, and they were poured into the "little pot". Then use a small wooden spatula to stir the saltpeter, carbon powder, and sulfur powder in the small pot until they are completely mixed.
Although the "Powder Speculators" of the Golden Thief still don't know how granular gunpowder is made, they have roughly figured out a relatively easy-to-use gunpowder formula, so the power of the gunpowder is still passable.
After the gunpowder is mixed, the "powder fryer" will pack the gunpowder in the pot into a silk bag and hand it to the deputy soldier on the side, who will send it to the "box soldier" in front for use...
When the gunpowder packets and stone pellets (the Jin soldiers rarely use iron bullets and lead bullets in their big barrels, but prefer to use stone bullets that are easy to polish) are stuffed into the mouth of the barrel and pressed tightly with a poke rod. The "gunner" (gun commander) of the Jin Guozi soldiers would take aim personally and then raise a small red flag.
When all thirty-two small flags are raised, it means that the thirty-two large tubes are ready for volley fire - salvo fire, but without concentrated sighting.
Because the casting of "bottles" is relatively sloppy and there is no pursuit of standardization. They are all different in height, short, fat and thin (later camel bobbins have begun to pursue standardization), and the caliber and bullet weight are also different (10 kilograms is only about 10 kilograms). Naturally There is no way to unify the sights.
However, Wanyan Xiebao had already issued an order before. The soldiers on both sides of the Yanghe River were to choose a triangular tower fort as the target for their concentrated bombardment!
"Put the tube in!"
Wanyan Xiebao shouted loudly, "Hit him ten times first, then the solitary king will destroy the triangular platform in the middle of the front!"
"Here!"
Immediately, another ordering soldier responded, and then a large red flag was raised!
The red flag is raised, the tube is released!
Balls of fire suddenly appeared at the mouths of the tubes, followed by smoke and the roar of the earth shaking.
Meng Lin, who was lying behind the wall of Jiahe Fort watching the battle, saw this scene and his heart was lifted. He also shouted in his heart: Bastion, you must withstand it!
Thirty-two "stone balls" have been sprayed out of the mouth of the tube, roaring through the air, carrying strong wind, and swooping towards the Song Army's fortress!
Looking out from Meng Lin's position, he saw many black spots flying towards him at a speed visible to the naked eye... so fast that he couldn't even think of hiding.
It was too late, but it was so fast that in the blink of an eye, a dozen black dots had already hit the bastion, making a loud "pap-pap-pap" sound...and then, as if nothing happened, The bastion stood still! The stone balls were either bounced away, or simply got into the "body" of the bastion and disappeared.
The target selected by Wanyan Xiebao was the No. 2 triangular bastion of the Jiahe Fort - it was a castle used to protect the No. 2 city gate. The triangular bastion is its scientific name because it is geometrically Viewed from an angle, it is a rather solid triangular platform, with one side facing the outside and one side facing the city gate.
Therefore, the stone balls blasted out by the big barrel of the Jin Bing can usually only hit the two sloping sides of the triangular platform, and they cannot use much force at all. Moreover, even if they use some force, they are of little use. The most a stone ball can do is punch through the straw bag of a sandbag and then dive in...
