"Great Confucius! He was learned but not famous."
"Boom boom boom..."
"When the Master heard about it, he said to his disciples: 'Why do I hold on? Do I hold on to control? I hold on to control.'"
"Boom boom boom..."
In the darkness, the sounds of reciting "The Analects of Confucius" and the sounds of Hongyi cannons firing alternately sounded, giving people a rather fantastic feeling... At least in the eyes of Zhu Heji, the initiator of everything, the scene in front of him was really real. It's a bit unserious.
Well, he is a good grandson of Zhu San. Now he is wearing a kerchief and cloth robe, a long sword and a bronze hammer, and he is also carrying a flintlock gun taken from the Great Eastern. He looks like a disciple of Confucius who is out hunting. On the battlefield with the roar of artillery.
Next to him, there were sixty "horseless knights" led by Su Zhanhai who were dressed like him...the horses were all left in Jieyang without bringing them, and they were planning to seize the Portuguese's ocean horses directly after taking Macau.
These guys didn't walk well, and were reciting the Analects of Confucius loudly as they walked. According to Zhu Heji, there was a powerful Western Bishop Santos in Macau, and he was asking the Western Lord Jesus for help. Therefore, Zhu Heji also had to recite the Analects of Confucius and ask Dacheng to help resist.
This statement would sound laughable to later generations, but in the seventeenth century... it was perfectly normal!
Nowadays, when Westerners build cannons and battleships, they have to ask priests to consecrate them. When making granular gunpowder, they also use the priest's boy urine to wet the powdered gunpowder!
In some relatively backward places, when poor and lower-middle peasants finally get a wife, they have to ask nobles or priests to consecrate her!
In fact, in the West in the seventeenth century, only a small group of upper-class intellectuals talked about science, and most people were very superstitious. Even Newton studied science and theology at the same time.
Most of the people who followed Zhu Heji were also very superstitious. If you told them about scientific truth, ten out of ten of them would not understand. If you tell them about feudal superstition, everyone will understand.
If Zhu Heji wanted to hold high the banner of "original Confucianism" and arm the minds of his followers with the progressive ideas of "the world is for the common good" and "the unity of the world", of course he had to engage in some mysticism.
This does not mean that we should do things the same way as Master Hong, but we must also let the people below know the effectiveness of "original Confucianism".
For example, if you recite "The Analects of Confucius" and go to the battlefield now, the Hongyi cannon will not be able to hit it, which can prove its effectiveness.
Whether it works or not, Hongyi Cannon will prove it!
Of course, the reason why the Portuguese's red barbarian cannons could not hit Zhu Heji and others was definitely not because they memorized "The Analects" well, but because the Portuguese did not see them at all.
It was almost dark now. Twelve infantry leaders, two artillery leaders, and two cavalry leaders commanded by Zhu Heji and Lin Ahu were walking in the dark along the road along the bank of the Haojiang River. The Portuguese artillery fire from St. Paul's Fort did not detect them at all... so the artillery shells flew over their heads. Zhu Heji could "avoid the artillery fire" no matter what they memorized, even if they recited children's songs.
Even if these Portuguese artillerymen discovered that thousands of Ming troops were coming towards the fort, it would be difficult to hit them with Hongyi cannons.
Because this Hongyi cannon does not fire quickly and it is difficult to adjust the shooting angle, it does not pose much of a threat to enemies who move quickly in a squad of 60 people.
Moreover, there are only thirty-six 12-pound cannons placed on the St. Paul's Fort, and they are scattered among the four triangular towers located at the four corners of the core fort and the four walls of the core fort. Zhu Heji's troops only had nine cannons.
If Zhu Heji's army formed a square formation or a dense formation of lining up to be shot, they might be beaten to death by the nine Hongyi cannons.
However, the current tactics used by Zhu Heji's Jinyi troops are to use the leader as a unit to send out hammer soldiers to cover the artillery equipped with "hammer throwing cannons" and disperse them on the battlefield. Then try to find favorable terrain as much as possible or simply build fortifications yourself to withstand enemy artillery fire or cavalry impacts.
Their main and most powerful means of attack are hand-thrown grenades and bronze hammer-throwing cannons firing explosive grenades.
The spears, knives and muskets equipped by the hammer throwers are only used to cover bomb dropping, firing bombs and launching the final blow to the enemy.
In addition, there are a small number of cavalry in Zhu Heji's Jinyi troops, which are used for the same purpose as the cold weapons equipped by the hammer throwers. They are used to cover bombing and firing, and when the enemy's formation collapses or the enemy flees. , launching the final blow and pursuing the pursuit.
This new set of tactics revolved around sweet gunpowder, hand grenade hammers and blooming grenades. Zhu Heji, Zhuge Sanhe, Lin Ahu, Su Zhanshan, Zhao Hongkui and Yu Xiaoqian used them in a series of drills and actual combat. It was summed up slowly. It's not yet mature, but as long as the sweet gunpowder is powerful enough and it's the only one from the Third Prince Zhu and Grandson Zhu Third, it will be enough to defeat average opponents.
Although this is a bit weapons-only, Zhu Heji is the "inventor" of a series of advanced weapons such as sweet gunpowder, grenade hammer, blooming grenade, and bronze hammer-throwing cannon!
"Inventing" a powerful new weapon is completely different from spending money to buy several new weapons from the imperialists!
Because every powerful new weapon has the power to change the rules of war to a certain extent.
Of course, the military leader who is the first to come into contact with the new rules can discover and use this power earlier than others. He is of course a great military strategist!
Tonight, those who want to experience the power of the new rules of war are the artillerymen on the northwest triangular platform of the Macau Fortress.
Because they were using nine cannons to continuously fire at the British commercial building in the inner harbor of Haojiang, and they were also firing incendiary bombs. This required a stove to be heated on the triangular platform, and the result was a blazing fire that could be seen from a distance. You can see them.
So Zhu and Ji knew where to go without lighting up the lanterns!
When the St. Paul's Fort and the outer walls of the fort were built, there was no sweet powder and no bronze hammer cannon capable of firing sweet powder grenades, so no defense was considered. The defense around the fort was not very open. There were only two moats outside the outer wall, forming a peripheral defense zone thirty or forty steps wide.
This outer defensive zone is more than enough to withstand the enemy's muskets and bows... Equipment such as trebuchets will definitely not be able to withstand the bombardment of Hongyi cannons and Hongyi small cannons at close range.
The enemy's artillery will definitely not be able to hit the bastion of St. Paul's Fort, and most likely it will not be able to hit the outer wall of the fort.
But the defense outside the fort could not stop the bronze hammer-throwing cannon that Zhu Heji had just invented. It was called a hammer-throwing cannon, but it was actually a small-caliber mortar.
It consists of two parts: the gun body and the gun frame. The gun body looks like a small copper pot and weighs only about 20 kilograms. It is much lighter than a squatting tiger gun and can be carried everywhere by one person.
The gun mount is made of wood, just like an ordinary mortar gun mount. It is made of relatively solid materials and weighs more than 20 kilograms. It can also be carried by an artilleryman.
This small-caliber mortar can be used to fire two types of explosive grenades, one large and one small. Among them, the small grenade weighs only three kilograms. It can be stuffed into the barrel of the gun and fired out. It can hit a relatively long distance, up to 150 steps away.
The large grenade weighs eight kilograms and is a super-caliber projectile. A wooden stick is installed at the end of the grenade. When loading, the wooden stick is driven into the barrel, while the projectile remains outside the barrel.
Because this kind of super-caliber bullet is larger in size, it naturally has more charges and is certainly more powerful. Moreover, there is an iron cap on the head of the projectile that can protect the match rope. It can be ignited first, then capped, and then launched. The reliability is also high and it is not easy to misfire.
However, this small cannon can't hit very far if it hits big bombs. It can only hit more than a hundred steps at most. The effective range is slightly farther than that of muskets and bows, but incomparable to the cannons mounted on top of the city.
However, this small-caliber mortar is a curved cannon. It is small, light, and easy to transfer. It can be placed behind a bunker to fire. You can also roam around the battlefield and deliver a few hard hits to your opponents without warning.
Tonight was the first battle of this kind of hammer-throwing cannon. Due to time constraints, Zhu Heji only had time to let the craftsmen of Nanchang cast twelve hammer-throwing cannons. Moreover, each hammer-throwing cannon is only equipped with forty super-caliber ammunition, and there is no ordinary-caliber ammunition... There are only 480 shells in total, and they will be gone after they are fired!
Therefore, Zhu Heji planned to use the night as cover to get as close as possible to the Portuguese fort and launch explosive grenades at close range.
Although these more than 400 rounds of ammunition are not much, their power is quite amazing. As long as they can be 10% accurate, it will not be difficult to break through the St. Paul's Fort!
