Of course Wan Yanliang's face is disgusting. He has lost the battle. How can he still have a good face?
Wanyan Benjian was very ashamed.
"I am guilty. I underestimated the rebel army."
"A lot of people died just now, right?"
Wan Yanliang took a deep breath and said, "What else do you have to say?"
"The rebel army is very defensive. It is very difficult to fill up the moat ditch in one go. We can only fill it up bit by bit at night. Other than that... there is no other way."
Wanyan Benjian honestly admitted that his abilities were limited. Although Wanyan Liang was angry, he couldn't think of a better way, so he could only wave his hand with a dark face and tell Wanyan Benjian to get out.
The army started out unfavorably, and suffered considerable setbacks and obstacles in the first battle. The toughness of Hejian City far exceeded Wan Yanliang's imagination, which made Wan Yanliang begin to worry that too many troops would be lost in subsequent battles.
However, Hejian City was very important and had to be captured. He had no choice but to continue to appoint Wanyan Benjian, who knew the soldiers, to continue to command the army.
In the next few days, Wan Yanliang asked the army to organize attacks day and night, to fill the river ditch with the arrows and firearms of the Liberation Army, and to exchange the lives of soldiers for the progress of filling.
Because of the investment in firearms, the Jin Army suffered hundreds of casualties every day. The number of killed and injured soldiers continued to increase. Fortunately, the filling progress also continued to increase, and the advantage of using people to accumulate was not lost.
But this was when the war just started.
Even for the goal of conquering Hejian City, it is just the beginning. Even if the moat ditch is filled, attacking the city wall will definitely take a lot of effort and lose a lot of troops. If we continue to fight like this, won't the losses be too great? ?
The rangers who dispersed to investigate the news came back and reported that there were no signs of human habitation around Hejian City. It was as if Hejian City was just an ancient city, and there was no one around who could help. It seemed that they were just fighting a trapped beast.
Isn't it true that such an important Hejian City doesn't have surrounding supporting troops?
Logically speaking, there should be, right?
Wanyan Benjian was a little confused about what the Liberation Army wanted to do, but he could only order the rangers to continue deep into Hebei and continue to explore the existence of the Liberation Army's field troops and the existence of human settlements.
He didn't believe that he really couldn't find anyone.
Just when Wanyan Benjian was worried, the Jin army's firearms reserve finally arrived.
Wan Yanliang was overjoyed and immediately arranged for the army to prepare to launch a counterattack with firearms on Hejian City to enhance the attack power against Hejian City.
They also have many different types of firearms, but the two most common ones used on the siege side are still two.
One is a rocket - an arrow fired with a gunpowder barrel tied to the front end of the arrow. It is essentially the same as the rocket of the Liberation Army.
The other is artillery - an incendiary firearm that uses gunpowder to ignite it.
This is very different from the fireball of the Liberation Army.
The Liberation Army's fireballs were designed to explode and damage the enemy. After improving the quality of the gunpowder, the Liberation Army mastered more advanced gunpowder manufacturing and storage technology and obtained new gunpowder weapons.
The main purpose of the artillery used by the Jin Army is to burn, and the purpose is to burn damage.
Of course, they also had explosive gunpowder weapons. The thunder cannon, which was derived from the Northern Song Dynasty, was called iron artillery. It could be used by a single soldier, or it could be thrown with a trebuchet when it was larger.
However, their explosion effect is very poor.
The sound is indeed very loud, like thunder, but the way to kill the enemy is not the impact caused by the gunpowder explosion, but the impact of the iron shell after the iron shell is broken.
It is said that the fragments of the iron shell after the explosion of the iron cannon can penetrate the iron armor, and the terrifying flames can burn the iron armor red.
It sounds powerful.
However, after testing the Jin Army's individual iron artillery captured by Su Yonglin, it was not the case at all.
Gunpowder of this degree and magnitude can generally only blow the iron shell into three or five pieces. Some of the poor quality can only blow it into two pieces. It can indeed penetrate the iron armor at close range, but it must be quite close and you must be very lucky. Hit the target, otherwise just listen.
As for the ability to burn iron armor red after an explosion, it is an exaggerated traditional skill that can only be seen on paper and not in reality.
What is really effective is that the sound after the explosion is really loud. If you are not careful, your ears will be deafened. This is really scary.
However, this kind of individual iron artillery is generally not used in field battles, but for city defense. When defending a city, soldiers will light the iron artillery and throw it under the city, waiting for it to explode and damage the enemy. There is almost no possibility of using it in a field battle. .
The effect is just like that.
And a very important point is that the probability of successful explosion of iron artillery like the Jin Army is very low.
Su Yonglin took apart the iron artillery pieces that failed to explode and looked at them. There were only a few problems.
Either the gunpowder is filled too much, there are not enough gaps between the gunpowder particles, there is not enough air, the combustion is insufficient, and it does not explode.
Either it's damp and lumpy, and it won't burn.
Either the gunpowder was bumpy during transportation, and the sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal separated by themselves and could no longer explode.
Among a hundred iron cannons, more than half had such problems, which shows the practicality of this kind of firearm.
Gunpowder that has not been granulated cannot be stored for a long time at all. To a large extent, it must be made and used immediately. Otherwise, it will either separate by itself or become lumpy due to moisture, making it unusable.
In this era, the firearms of the Jin Army and even the Song Army were all troubled by this and could not go further.
So when the Jin Army used firearms to fight back against the Restoration Army in Hejian City, this problem arose.
Firearms are of course useful, at least they sound loud and explode in a decent way, but their lethality is hard to say.
Jiang Liangping used a wooden curtain as a shield to protect the defenders at the top of the city. The wooden curtain was not only made of wood, but also made of raw materials with certain elasticity such as rawhide. It was very effective in defending against attacks. In order to prevent fire, it was also Smeared with mud.
In addition to making a sound, the Jin Army's firearms could not destroy the wooden mantle by burning, and the explosion efficiency was not enough to destroy the wooden mantle's defense, so the damage to the Liberation Army was very limited.
As for the rather large throwing iron artillery, not to mention, some of them really exploded successfully.
The sound was very loud and the power was pretty good. It did cause damage to the Liberation Army on the city.
Many soldiers of the Liberation Army were hit by fragments of iron shells, some were seriously injured, some were killed, and some soldiers had an arm blown off by the fragments, and they bled to death.
There were also some iron artillery pieces that crossed the city wall and crashed into the city, killing and injuring some reserve militia members of the logistics transport team.
But in addition to those that successfully exploded, there were also many that misfired. The Liberation Army even recovered dozens of unexploded iron artillery pieces for study.
Jiang Liangping had received training in the use of firearms. He looked at the iron artillery that the craftsmen had dismantled and saw that the problems inside were indeed the same as what Su Yonglin had said.
Either the gunpowder got wet and agglomerated, or the gunpowder components separated by themselves, or it burned a little but didn't start burning.
"The golden thief's firearms are of low quality and cannot be used. Using such firearms to attack my city is a wishful thinking!"
Jiang Liangping was very unhappy and kicked away an iron artillery cannon and asked the craftsmen to dispose of the discarded gunpowder inside. The iron shell was left behind to prepare for later use in defending the city.
If the Jin Army wants to use such inferior firearms to fight against the new firearms of the Liberation Army, don't even think about it.
But it should be said that although the power of the Liberation Army's firearms has increased, it cannot completely defeat the Jin Army unless Jiang Liangping has 10,000 thunder cannons.
There are only a few thousand thunder cannons in total, and Jiang Liangping is aware of this output.
In the end, firearms cannot play a decisive role. More traditional but numerous weapons must be used, and even hand-to-hand combat on the city walls can be used to defend Hejian City.
Jiang Liangping was worried as he looked at the densely packed Jin Army attack formation outside the city.
