In and around Tianjin City, there are large areas of Ming army camps and various fortifications and artillery positions.
More than 70,000 troops and tens of thousands of civilians gathered here. Naturally, they could not all huddle in Tianjin City. Instead, they were spread all over the periphery of Tianjin City. Surrounding Tianjin City, the Ming army formed a line about six thousand meters wide and three meters deep. A dense defense line of more than a thousand meters.
In this dense defense line, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the passage from the Zhigu River to Youzhou City were blocked.
At the same time, multiple highlands were used to build a fort integrating multiple forts and fortresses.
Among the many undulating terrains, breastworks, trenches, and small gun emplacements for deploying a large number of tunics were also constructed.
There are also a large number of horses and other obstacles between the many trenches and fortresses.
Surrounding Tianjin City, the Ming army built a huge field fortress.
This fortress system obviously absorbed the anti-artillery fortification systems of the new standard armies when the Ming army fought in the south. It also brought with it a fortress model that was very familiar to the Liaodong frontier army.
Of course, these are not the point.
The core of the entire defense line is not some fortress or trench, but artillery!
Especially the more than seventy artillery pieces with long barrels!
These artillery were deployed in different gun positions, and formed a large amount of crossfire. Combined with more than a thousand small-caliber short-barreled artillery pieces, these artillery pieces were enough to block the entire front.
The Ming army had never used such powerful firepower even in Liaodong, because it was not needed at all...
As far as Dongdu's offensive capabilities are concerned, the Ming army does not actually need to deploy such defensive fortifications specifically aimed at anti-artillery. It can use the traditional city wall as the core, combined with a number of Hongyi cannons and short-barreled artillery defensive operations, to defeat the lack of Dongjie, who has the ability to attack fortresses, stopped in sight.
No matter before or now, Dongli's attack capability has always been very limited. In the original time and space, until Chongzhen hanged himself, Dongli failed to break through Shanhaiguan and fought all the way along the Liaoxi Corridor.
The reason why they were able to enter the customs was purely because Wu Sangui became a national traitor and brought them in.
To put things into perspective, the Ming army's city defense system on the front line of Liaodong, whether it was before or now, is sufficient to deal with the Eastern Han Dynasty. It does not need to be like the new standard armies in the south, or even the current Hong Chengchou's troops, which need to go to great lengths to build Densely packed trenches, parapets, and fortresses.
These fortifications all have a highly consistent feature, that is, they have a certain anti-shelling effect.
For example, the parapet built by the Ming army is said to be a wall, but in fact it is more like a mound of earth. The Ming army basically took the soil dug out from the trenches and put it directly in baskets or even without baskets. They were piled directly outside the trench, forming a low earth wall protruding from the ground.
And even though this kind of earth wall is inconspicuous and seems to be a shoddy thing, in fact, the defensive efficiency of this small mound of earth is quite good, especially when it comes to defending against small and medium-caliber solid artillery shells. The layer can effectively absorb the kinetic energy of solid artillery shells and avoid various ricocheting bombs.
The trenches behind the parapets are often dug relatively deep and not too spacious, and some trenches are also supported by wooden roofs and covered with soil on top.
The reason why these trenches were built like this was to protect against artillery, but the defense was not about solid artillery, but the mortars in the Chu army.
Compared with other armies, the Chu army has one very obvious characteristic, that is, it is rich and powerful!
Why do you say that?
Because these bastards actually treat extremely expensive mortars as regular artillery...
Gunpowder is so expensive these days. Whether it's the Ming army or the Eastern Han Dynasty, or even those colleagues in Europe, none of them are fastidious, and the artillery has to think twice before firing a shot.
However, the Chu thieves were not only equipped with a large number of field artillery, but also hundreds of mortars, and most of them were large-caliber mortars weighing 48 pounds...
Every time this mortar fires, the propellant used is basically equivalent to twice the amount of propellant used by a 48-pound cannon.
The 48-pound cannon is roughly equivalent to the European 64-pound cannon.
Not to mention the amount of propellant used, and the shells fired are also grenades.
Grenades, even the most primitive matchlock fuse grenades, are much more expensive than solid artillery shells.
The projectile body requires specialized mechanical equipment for production, higher precision processing of the projectile body, and the materials used for the projectile body must also be better.
And there will be a charge inside the projectile...
Every time the Chu army's forty-eight-pound mortar fired a shell, it was a pile of white money.
What makes the Ming army even more speechless is that the hit rate of this mortar is extremely low, and the dud rate is also high. This is equivalent to saying that the cost of an effective hit has to be increased several times...
The forty-eight-pound mortars equipped by the Chu army are undoubtedly expensive weapons.
Whether it was the Ming army or the Eastern captives, when they saw the Chu army using such weapons, they had nothing to do except lament over and over again that the Chu thieves were rich.
Similar weapons in the Chu army include grenades and some flashy, basically useless landmines...
God knows why the Chu thieves gave up the expensive gunpowder to make this kind of grenade and throw it out. To be honest, the actual combat effect is very average... except for a few times when attacking fortified areas, most of the time the enemy on the opposite side does not give the Chu army's grenadiers a chance to use grenades. .
Or directly use guns and artillery to form a firepower network, so that the Chu army's infantry cannot get close and cannot be used.
Either they will be defeated and run away, and the Chu army infantry will still have no use for grenades...
It can only be used better in some tough battles.
The Ming army basically scorned these weapons mentioned above and would not imitate them at all. They are not stupid. With this money and gunpowder, wouldn't it be better for them to make more field artillery?
Whether it is mortars or hand grenades, they are very limited weapons for contemporary wars in East Asia, especially weapons that are prone to fortified operations.
However... the Chu army just used it.
Therefore, the Ming army could only carry out targeted defenses, add roofs to various fortifications, and build ring-shaped sandbag fortifications to resist howitzer attacks.
However, Hong Chengchou and the others were not sure how effective these fortifications would be.
You must know that the various fortifications built by the local new standard forces in Jiujiang, Yangzhou, and Huai'an were strictly speaking better than those in Tianjin.
In the above three places, the local Ming army spent a long time building various fortifications, but here in Tianjin, it took less than a month to complete the construction.
The lack of time naturally led to the construction of fortifications that were far inferior to the various fortifications in Jiujiang, Yangzhou, and Huai'an at that time.
At least Hong Chengchou failed to build a large fortress with a protrusion outside Tianjin.
Such a large protruding fortress requires too much work and cannot be built without mobilizing a large number of manpower for several months.
The various fortifications outside Tianjin are generally biased towards field fortifications.
Now, these defenses are facing their final test.
On July 23rd, the fourth year of Chengshun in the Great Chu Empire and the eleventh year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, the Chu army, which had arrived in the outskirts of Tianjin for several days and had completed preliminary preparations, finally launched an attack on Tianjin's defense line.
Just like the Chu army's previous critical battles, artillery is always the first to go!
First, there were eight fourteen-pound cannons and twelve nine-pound cannons, a total of twenty cannons. Taking advantage of the range, they took the lead in firing in the outer areas and began to focus on attacking the two Ming army fortresses that had been discovered.
The targets of these two forts are very obvious, and the terrain is relatively high. At the same time, they are located in the middle of the battlefield. The long-barreled artillery deployed by the Ming army on them can basically cover most of the battlefield.
Based on this, Hong Chengchou also deployed more than 30 large-caliber long-barreled artillery on the two highland fortresses.
In order for the subsequent attack to be carried out smoothly, the Chu army needs to conquer this place first, and even if it fails, it must suppress the Ming army's artillery here.
As a result, while twenty cannons were conducting concentrated shelling on the two highland fortresses, the engineers and ordinary infantrymen of the Chu Army wielded hoes and shovels and began to dig communication trenches from a distance forward.
The Chu army has fought many tough battles, so it naturally has more experience.
They knew very well that facing this kind of fortification with fortresses and numerous large and small artillery, sending infantry directly to rush up would be basically the same as sending death. And it would be difficult to completely destroy the enemy's fortress by simply relying on cannons for long-range bombardment.
At this time, engineers are needed!
Rushing directly from the open area is naturally courting death, but it is completely possible to maneuver to the front line through the traffic trenches in advance, and then launch an assault within a distance of only a few hundred meters or even tens of meters.
In addition, and more importantly, these communication trenches not only allow the infantry to approach in advance, but more importantly, they also allow a large number of mortars in the Chu army, especially the lighter 18-pound mortars, to directly approach the infantry together. Near the front line.
When these 18-pound mortars arrive at the front line with the infantry, they can use the characteristics of the curved trajectory to fire and launch grenades directly in the trenches, thereby killing the enemy on the opposite side.
Although the accuracy of the mortars in the Chu army is poor, it can still barely ensure a relatively high accuracy when hitting targets at a distance of one or two hundred. The worst case scenario is that several 18-pound mortars are fired at the same time. Even if the error is large, as long as the bombardment density is high, , can always hit the enemy.
Ever since, when the rumble of long-barreled artillery from both sides resounded throughout the Tianjin defense line, tens of thousands of soldiers and engineers in the Chu army were also digging various communication trenches in the scorching sun, and one after another flew over their heads. The solid artillery shells of the Ming Army did not affect the construction of the Chu Army at all...
