On July 23rd of the eighth year of Chongzhen, the Baoxiang Army outside Zhongxiang City once again came out of camp and took up their posture.
However, the bombardment was not launched early in the morning. Instead, the bombardment was waited until about eight o'clock in the morning.
However, what made Tang Hui more gratified this time was that after yesterday's shelling and after repeated discussions with a group of generals last night, he had adjusted the defense method in time.
Instead of letting a large number of soldiers stay stupidly on top of the city, most of the city's defenders stayed behind the city wall and stayed close to the city wall.
Yesterday, they also discovered that it was easier to avoid the enemy's shells by hiding close to the city wall.
A large number of soldiers guarding the city were hiding behind the city wall. Only a few soldiers were hiding on some fortifications built overnight on top of the city, mainly to observe the bandits.
In this way, there were not many casualties among the soldiers defending the city after the rebels carried out the artillery bombardment.
However, before Tang Hui could breathe a sigh of relief, he saw a large number of thieves starting to move outside. Many thieves were carrying ladders and pushing shield carts forward.
At the same time, the rebels also withstood the shelling on the city.
This situation made many Ming army generals, including Tang Hui, realize what the security forces outside the city wanted to do:
"The bandit army is about to attack the city!"
Soon, the Ming army generals began to shout for the soldiers under the city wall to start going up to the top of the city to prepare for defensive operations.
For example, during the advancement of the rebel infantry, they directly used light artillery, bows and arrows, and muskets to counterattack.
When the rebel infantry climbed the wall, they threw rolling logs, rocks, and even gold juice.
"They are coming, the bandits are coming!"
"Everyone, get up quickly and go to the top of the city to stop the bandit army!"
"The cannons of the rebel army have stopped. Get up here, hurry up and get ready!"
"Don't be afraid. The rebel army's artillery has stopped now. They are not stupid. They can't still fire artillery when attacking the city. Those who will kill or injure their own people will be the only ones killed."
Many Ming army generals shouted to the soldiers and began to climb up the city. Especially in the city walls along the moat that had been filled up by the bandits yesterday, there were even more troops gathered.
Not only did a large number of ordinary guardsmen go to the top of the city, there were even several teams of two to three hundred officers and soldiers wearing heavy armor also went to the top of the city.
These hundreds of heavy armors were drawn from the soldiers under each general after discussions between Tang Hui and the generals yesterday, and finally formed such an elite heavy armored infantry.
These elite heavy armored infantry, which are all composed of personal soldiers, servants or low-level officers, have a combat effectiveness that is comparable to thousands or more ordinary guard soldiers.
And they are Tang Hui's major trump card to resist the thief's siege!
With these 300 elite heavy armors, even if the rebel infantry got to the top of the city, he would be confident to control the situation and even drive the rebels off the top of the city.
Just as the Ming army on top of the city was busy mobilizing troops and generals to set up defenses to meet the increasingly approaching rebel infantry attacking the city, Luo Luo, who was watching the battle on a three-story tower more than 700 meters outside the city, Zhixue showed a smile.
He looked back at Zhang Malin: "It's almost done now. How is the artillery unit prepared?"
Zhang Malin said: "The cannons are all ready. As long as you give the order, the general, we can launch a rapid fire bombardment!"
Luo Zhixue said: "Their heavy armor is already on the top of the city. What are they waiting for? Let's fire a burst of rapid fire first to let them know that fighting can't be too rigid!"
Hearing what Luo Zhixue said, Zhang Malin immediately said: "Yes!"
Immediately afterwards, there was a signal flag bearer on the command tower waving the flag in his hand, leading a large group of infantry forward. Li Chengyong, commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade, who was already only more than 200 meters away from the city wall, saw the flag on the command tower behind him. After shaking, he stopped, and then a smile appeared on his face.
At the same time, a lieutenant messenger next to him read the signal flag on the command tower and immediately said: "Brigadier Commander, the general has an order. Our troops will stop immediately and stand by!"
Li Chengtong could actually understand the flag language himself, but he still nodded and said: "Report to the general: I obey your orders!"
Then he added: "Instruct all ministries to stop and wait for orders."
As he spoke, he chuckled: "Let's wait a moment and let the artillery fire for a while before we talk!"
As the soldiers of the 1st Infantry Brigade stopped, just a few seconds later, dense rumbling artillery fire suddenly rang out from the artillery positions of the Baoxiang Army behind them.
Eighteen siege mortars and twenty-four field guns opened fire at once!
And their shelling area was also very concentrated, targeting a section of the city wall about 200 meters away on the right side of the North City Gate Tower where the Ming army was heavily fortified.
Hearing the intensive artillery fire from the opposite side, Tang Hui seemed to have thought of something, and then exclaimed: "No, the bandits are using a trick!"
"Quickly, let the soldiers go down the city wall, there is no need to go up to the city wall so early!"
But his words were already too late. At this time, the artillery shells of the Baoxiang Army had already landed on that section of the city wall. Those two and a half kilogram solid artillery shells were okay. Most of them either flew over the city wall and landed in the city, or they were Hit the thick city wall directly.
Only a handful of them hit the city battlements, causing a small number of casualties to the Ming army.
But the grenades fired by the eighteen mortars were different. After the shelling of these mortars yesterday, the gunners basically had a good feel for them. In addition, they never moved, and the distance and orientation were constant. Therefore, it was decided early on to shoot Zhuyuan.
The hit rate of the shells fired was pretty good. Most of the shells landed at the front and rear of the city, and a large number of them detonated smoothly.
One of the artillery shells exploded directly on the heads of a group of heavily armored Ming army elites...
Just this one shell killed at least twenty or thirty heavily armored elites of the Ming Army.
Although the power of black powder these days is not very good, the Baoxiang Army's mortars fired a lot of grenade charges.
The average front-loaded field artillery of the army only weighs about 12 pounds at most, which translates to about 9 pounds, and the caliber is about 110 millimeters. No matter how large the caliber is, it will be difficult to maneuver with the army in the field.
The same goes for howitzer shells fired by artillery of this caliber!
But the mortar is different. This thing exists purely for the power of the shells.
The Baoxiang Army's 18-pound mortar, even though it weighs only four to five hundred kilograms, has a very large caliber, a full 150 millimeters. This charge is comparable to that of a twelve-pound field cannon. There are a lot of grenades going out.
Such power is naturally not that small.
The 48-pound mortar being produced by the Xiangyang Arsenal in the rear has a larger caliber, 200 mm.
As for artillery, its caliber is its power, and it is also justice!
Especially for exploding grenades, caliber is even more important.
Although the shells fired from the eighteen-pound mortar cannon have a poor hit rate and a high dud rate, and sometimes explode early to watch the fireworks, as long as one can hit accurately, the damage caused will be huge.
Especially in this kind of siege operations, when the ballistic trajectory is flat and small-caliber field guns are basically useless, the role of siege mortars is further amplified.
It is worth mentioning that this air-explosion grenade above the enemy's head was an obvious mistake.
Because when the mortar gunners fired, they would leave a little more time for the matchlock fuze.
Because if it is too early, the shell will easily explode in mid-air, which will only show the enemy a big firework. If you are unlucky, it may explode over your own position just after it is discharged...
If you reserve more time, even if the grenade does not explode immediately after landing, it will explode after a while. As long as it explodes, it will be considered a success!
It's just that in actual combat, this kind of airburst bomb, which is obviously a mistake, is actually more effective. As long as one explodes on the enemy's head, it can definitely kill a large area.
The problem is that this kind of street-level air burst bomb relies on current technical means and cannot be controlled in detail. It can only rely on luck, and the probability is very low.
Most of them explode after landing, or pause for a while before exploding.
It was just a round of covering artillery. Even if the hit rate was not high, the effect of field artillery was extremely limited. However, when the enemy troops swarmed the city and deployed densely, the results were still very great.
This was not yet fun, and then the artillery unit of the Baoxiang Army launched the second and third rounds of shelling.
Tang Hui looked at the wailing wounded soldiers on the wall hundreds of meters away and the defeated soldiers who fled back under the wall. His right hand couldn't help but tremble, forcing him to clench his fist directly to prevent his subordinates from seeing the panic in his heart.
"The security guards are so treacherous that they pretend to stop the artillery attack, but in fact they are trying to lure our soldiers to the top of the city and then burst out with artillery fire."
"It's really abominable, these thieves don't have martial ethics!"
"The two armies are fighting openly, and the thieves resorting to such despicable methods is really despicable. I must spread the despicability of the thieves throughout the world and make everyone in the world despise them!"
All the civil and military officials in the city cursed loudly when faced with the insidious army protecting the thieves, and the elite generals who were transferred to guard this section of the city wall were even more furious.
In order to defend the city in this battle, Tang Hui mobilized a lot of elite soldiers, servants and other elites from his generals. As a result, before the rebel army on the opposite side could rush over, they were tricked by the rebel army. At least one of them was killed or wounded. No. 45 Elite Heavy Armor.
This loss is not small.
But after they shouted for a while, the artillerymen of the anti-Japanese army outside the city stopped shelling again. About two quarters of an hour later, Tang Hui saw the infantry of the anti-Japanese army outside the city coming up again...
Come again?
If it had been placed half an hour ago, he would have ordered the soldiers to garrison the city without hesitation to prevent the bandits from entering the city.
However, after what he had gone through before, he hesitated.
If we go to the city in advance to prepare, what will happen if the security guards outside the city suddenly open fire again?
There must be heavy casualties again. If this happens a few times, it is estimated that all the three hundred elite heavy armors will die, and the other thousands of soldiers and more than two thousand guard soldiers on the wall will also suffer heavy casualties. .
At that time, there will be no need for the rebel army to fight, they will have to collapse on their own...
But if we hadn't prepared in advance at the top of the city, we would have just watched the rebels run to the city wall and climb the city wall leisurely like they were on an outing.
You know, the armor-wearing rate among the thieves is quite high, and their proficiency in heavy armor is several times that of the defenders in the city.
If you really put hundreds of thieves in heavy armor on the city wall, then it will be extremely difficult to drive them off the city wall.
Tang Hui is now extremely confused:
This doesn't mean that the soldiers should go to the top of the city, and it doesn't matter if they don't!
Both sides are in a dilemma.
It’s so uncomfortable to fight against the thieves!
