For a simple artillery piece such as a mortar, even a few traditional artillery craftsmen can make it, not to mention the senior craftsmen of the Xiangyang Arsenal under the Ministry of Industry, and a large number of various types of machinery and equipment to assist in production.
Even though the time was short, the Xiangyang Arsenal worked day and night to produce six of these 18-pound mortar cannons.
However, this kind of artillery did not go through the normal early stage live-fire testing and other development processes. It was built directly after drawing the drawings.
There was no way around it. This kind of siege artillery was urgently needed for the frontline war, and the rear also had enough time to test it step by step, and then mass-produce it after improvement.
We can only bite the bullet and directly produce equipment for the first siege artillery battalion, and then find problems and improve them while using them in actual combat.
In order to avoid any problems in early use, the first batch of gunners in the artillery battalion were all veteran gunners directly drawn from the original traditional artillery units.
These veteran artillerymen were familiar with general artillery, Folang machine, tiger crouching artillery, attack artillery, and 200-pound artillery. They temporarily switched to playing 18-pound mortar artillery, which is better than being directly transferred from the First Artillery Regiment to field operations. Artillery also needs to be reliable.
A sentry belonging to this artillery battalion had a total of six 18-pound mortars. Under the escort of the Fourth Infantry Regiment of the First Division, they headed straight for Nanzhang, more than 40 kilometers away.
They went to Nanzhang not only to support the friendly forces in the attack on Nanzhang, but also to test the 18-pound mortar cannon by attacking Nanzhang City, gain practical experience, produce combat manuals, etc., and lay the foundation for the subsequent storming of Zhongxiang City.
"The Exotic Land Development of Vegetable-Growing Skeletons"
It is easier to attack Nanzhang City, and you can survive even if something goes wrong. But if there is something wrong with the mortar when attacking Zhongxiang, you will be blind.
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Nanzhang is located about 40 kilometers southwest of Xiangyang City, and about 40 kilometers away from Yicheng on the edge of the Han River.
The dozens of kilometers east of Nanzhang City are plain areas belonging to the Han River Basin, while the west of Nanzhang City is a large mountainous area.
Because the east of Nanzhang City is a plain area, and the road to Yicheng is even more flat. The three to four thousand Ming troops deployed here can threaten Yicheng to the east, and directly threaten Xiangyang.
As Yicheng was captured by the Ming army, and even the main First Division of the Baoxiang Army continued to move south, Nanzhang naturally became a nail in the Ming army's ambush in the hinterland of the Baoxiang Army.
A nail that the rural protection army had to pull out.
If this nail is not pulled out, the rural protection army will have to continue to garrison heavy troops in Yicheng, Xiangyang, Yiyang and other places, and will need to frequently dispatch troops to escort transportation groups coming to and from the Han River.
This will greatly restrict the limited strength of the Baoxiang Army.
For this reason, after Luo Zhixue led his army to arrive outside Zhongxiang City, in order to concentrate more troops to attack Zhongxiang in the future, he specially ordered the Fifth Defense Brigade to join forces with the 1st Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment and the 1st Siege Artillery Battalion to pull out the Nanzhang area. nail.
Only by pulling out this nail can the Baoxiang Army be able to mobilize more troops and attack Chengtian Mansion Zhongxiang City with more confidence.
At present, the Fifth Garrison Brigade has been ordered to set off from Yicheng to Nanzhang. An artillery post belonging to the First Siege Artillery Battalion is also escorted by the Fourth Infantry Regiment to Nanzhang.
Two days later, the 1st Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment and the 1st Siege Artillery Battalion arrived in Nanzhang on time and joined up with the main force of the 5th Guards Brigade, which had arrived there a day in advance.
The strength of the Fifth Guard Brigade that came this time was not very large, only more than 3,000 people, and nearly a thousand troops were stationed in Yicheng.
And among the more than 3,000 troops, half of them are descendants of the Ming army who had previously garrisoned Yicheng...
Therefore, the combat effectiveness of this department can be imagined.
In order to improve the combat effectiveness, Dong Mingjie, the commander of the 5th Garrison Brigade, also spent a lot of thought. First, he mixed the additional surrendered troops and did not allow them to form separate formations. Have a conversation.
Then we will fully ensure the food supply in the past few days so that they can have enough to eat.
Of course, the above are all auxiliary means, and the most critical point is the implementation of strict military laws.
The military laws of the Baoxiang Army are similar to those of other armies, they are extremely strict.
However, although many armies have military laws, they may not strictly enforce them, but the Baoxiang Army is different.
The Baoxiang Army used new line tactics, which required extremely high obedience from soldiers. Therefore, the enforcement of military laws was also very strict. Otherwise, it would be impossible to ensure that the soldiers would always maintain and change formations in accordance with orders during the battle.
Relatively speaking, the Baoxiang Army does not have high requirements for the personal bravery of ordinary soldiers. As long as they can conscientiously follow the combat instructions, it is not required that you can fight ten soldiers one by one.
After getting used to it in the past few days, the newly added soldiers to the Fifth Guards Brigade have basically adapted.
But the actual combat effectiveness is still unknown.
Therefore, when attacking Nanzhang, Dong Mingjie and Guan Tianlei of the 1st Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment decided to play it safe after a brief discussion.
After the siege was launched, the 9th Garrison Regiment under the 5th Garrison Brigade would definitely be the main force to launch the attack, while a battalion under the 4th Infantry Regiment would serve as infantry fire support and at the same time serve as a battle supervisory team.
Even Dong Mingjie, the commander of the 5th Guards Brigade, knew that if there had not been a strong supervising team to force the 9th Guards Regiment to rush forward and fight, the soldiers would probably have turned around and ran away before they could reach the Nanzhang City Wall.
On July 3, after everything was prepared, the troops protecting the countryside outside Nanzhang City also set up their formation.
Naturally, the first to bear the brunt were the six 18-pound mortars at the first post of the 1st Siege Artillery Battalion. At about 7:30 in the morning, these six 18-pound mortars opened fire on time.
At first, the Ming army defenders at the top of the city saw a few short robes brought out by the security guards, and thought they were just slightly larger squatting tiger cannons.
The shotgun shells fired by ordinary short-barreled artillery pose no threat to the city wall. The soldiers stationed on the city head only need to hide behind the battlements to ensure safety.
But what they didn't expect was that after the rebel artillery fired, it was not shot shells, but black cannonballs.
At first glance, I thought it was a solid cannonball.
But then, after these cannonballs flew into the sky and fell towards the city wall, they exploded...
One of the shells was still in the process of falling and exploded directly in the air without completely landing.
After the shell exploded, the shrapnel from the prefabricated fragments and the iron beads in the grenade flew out in all directions, sweeping away all life.
Then there was a scene that terrified the Ming army at the top of the city.
The opponent only launched a few rounds of shelling, but their troops preparing for war at the top of the city and behind the city wall had already killed and injured hundreds of people.
This immediately stunned the Ming army defending the city.
What's happening here?
Why do the bandits' iron cannonballs explode? Why is it so lethal?
This is unreasonable!
The reason why the Baoxiang Army's howitzer bombardment was able to cause so much damage was also related to the Ming Army's defense method.
These Ming troops did not consider guarding against grenades at all. They only considered guarding against the small Hongyi artillery and short-barreled shotguns of the bandits.
Preventing these artillery pieces is also very simple. According to traditional experience, you only need to hide directly behind the battlements and you will be fine.
As long as they didn't stand in groups of stupid people at the battlements, the rebel artillery wouldn't be able to hurt many of them.
However, just relying on the battlements cannot protect against the mortar grenades with curved trajectories.
The grenade launched by the mortar first flies into the sky at a high angle, and then lands at a high angle. To put it bluntly, it can bypass the battlements and land directly on the top of the city wall or not far behind the city wall to explode.
The killing method of grenades is not straightforward, but depends on the shrapnel and iron beads that sweep across the surrounding space after the explosion. Well, there is also a shock wave by the way.
Under such circumstances, as long as a cannonball lands on the top of the city wall, it will be able to cause damage to the Ming army defending that section of the city wall.
If it explodes in the air, the damage range will be larger.
It doesn't matter even if it falls behind the city wall, soldiers can also destroy some buildings behind the city wall.
After all, when defending the city, not all soldiers are on the top of the city. In fact, there are quite a few troops behind the city wall to reinforce a certain section of the city wall at any time.
Under such circumstances, although the Baoxiang Army only had six mortars, the killing effect caused by fighting was extremely good.
After the Ming army was stunned and killed hundreds of people, they finally realized that they could no longer stay on top of the city, or even in the open space behind the city wall. Many soldiers began to spontaneously look for various bunkers. , to avoid shelling.
Seeing that the situation was not good, many smart soldiers directly greased the soles of their feet, fled from the vicinity of the city wall, and plunged into the city and disappeared without a trace.
After Dong Mingjie saw that the enemy troops on the city began to be confused and even fled, he decisively ordered his ninth defense regiment to launch an attack.
These soldiers of the Ninth Garrison Regiment pushed wheelbarrows with thick wooden boards or even iron sheets in front, and carried long ladders with iron hooks. Some soldiers also carried sacks filled with sand and gravel, wooden boards, etc. to fill the moat. thing.
In addition, the musketeers of the 1st Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment and the archers of the 5th Guards Brigade, as well as some short-barreled artillery, gradually moved forward and began to provide medium-range fire suppression.
To cover the friendly forces of the 9th Garrison Regiment filling the moat.
The ensuing battle went without any surprises. The Ming army defending the city was stunned by the siege mortars of the Baoxiang Army from the beginning, which led to a sharp decline in morale and morale, and many deserters appeared.
Although the subsequent defenders wanted to continue to resist, they found it extremely difficult to resist in the face of the increasingly powerful suppressive firepower of the Baoxiang Army's offensive.
At around 10:30 in the morning, the ninth garrison regiment of the Baoxiang Army, which had filled the moat, launched its first attack on the city, but failed and dozens of people were lost.
At 11:40, the Protecting Army made a comeback. This time, the guns and artillery of the Protecting Army opened fire, throwing almost all available long-range firepower on the city in front.
At the same time, Dong Mingjie also specially selected a hundred heavily armored soldiers as the core, and paired them with more than 200 ordinary armored soldiers to form a city climbing commando team for combat.
This time, they finally successfully occupied the city head, and then began to welcome more friendly troops into the city. At 12:30, the 1st Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment followed closely and entered the city, and began to sweep across the city. .
At around one o'clock, the Baoxiang Army captured the Nanzhang County Government Office. The Nanzhang County Magistrate hanged himself, and the other officials either fled or surrendered.
At around two o'clock, the Baoxiang Army took full control of Nanzhang City and began subsequent purge operations.
At this point, the Baoxiang Army completely captured Nanzhang City and pulled out the last nail in the Ming army's rear hinterland!
On the next day, the 9th garrison regiment of the 5th garrison brigade, the 1st sentry of the 1st siege artillery battalion and other troops began to move south in a hurry.
They headed straight for Zhong Xiang.
