A young Eastern captive soldier who was approaching didn't know what was going on at first. He just heard what the people around him seemed to be shouting. He immediately looked up and saw a high platform in the distance where the Chu thieves were. White smoke.
Then he heard a whistling sound, and when he looked up, there were more than a dozen black spots flying towards them...
The speed didn't seem to be very fast. He stared at it for a while before he saw these black dots slowly falling, and one of them landed two feet in front of him.
Is this the Chu thief's cannonball?
After the black solid shell hit the ground, it seemed to have made a small crater on the ground, and then bounced up.
This speed doesn't seem to be very fast, so it probably doesn't have much power at all?
Such an idea flashed through the mind of the young Eastern captive soldier.
The solid artillery shell in front bounced up, landed a few meters forward, and then slowly rolled towards their queue, seemingly even slower...
There should be no danger from such a slow cannonball, and to be honest, this cannonball is not that big. It should be about nine or ten kilograms.
Ever since, this young Japanese soldier who was on the battlefield for the first time did not move out of the way when he saw the cannonball rolling in front of him. Instead, he stretched out his foot to stop the cannonball that had slowed down a lot. Come down, this is an iron lump after all. You can exchange it for a lot of money if you take it back...
But what he didn't expect was that the next moment, the young Dongji soldier screamed and fell down.
Look at his stretched-out legs... they are now slightly deformed and twisted!
But the solid cannonball, which was black, stained with mud, and looked gray, was still rolling forward, and then hit the right foot of a Japanese soldier behind him, causing the Japanese soldier to scream. He screamed and fell, holding his twisted right foot and wailing on the ground.
The solid cannonball continued to move forward, breaking five or six more legs before it stopped completely.
This shell fired by the nine-pound cannon belonging to the heavy artillery regiment, even though it traveled a long distance of 1,300 meters and landed early, absorbed a certain amount of kinetic energy after several bounces, it still killed enough people in the aftermath. There are seven soldiers captured by the East.
Coupled with several other artillery shells that fell directly into the Dongdu forward formation, this first round of shelling killed and injured dozens of Dongni soldiers.
Even though this casualty was small, it was impossible to cause any actual vacillation to the Dongli forward array, which had more than 2,000 troops.
But it still caused a certain amount of panic, and even made the Donglu generals who led the team worry.
Because at this time, they are still more than 400 feet away from Shanhaiguan. According to the past, they should advance slowly, and then wait until they reach a distance of about 300 feet, and then slowly spread out. , pull out the cannon, and then slowly push it up.
As for attacking the city directly with the long ladder and shield chariot, that is within a hundred feet.
But now...
Those damn Chu thieves actually fired from four hundred feet away, and their shots were extremely accurate.
When will this Hongyi cannon be able to shoot so accurately?
There are also Hongyi cannons in the Dongli army. Ordinary soldiers may not know about them, but most of the senior generals in the Dongli army know about the Hongyi cannons.
This thing is very powerful, and it can indeed hit four to five hundred feet if you let it go, but it is still very difficult to hit accurately, especially at long distances.
It is almost impossible for the gunners in the Eastern Capture Army to accurately hit the enemy from a distance of 400 feet.
Naturally, they didn't know that the Chu army had already marked the distance outside the city in advance and used secret signs to calibrate the distance. The gunnery officer had also made plans to shoot Zhu Yuan early.
The difficulty of this time's shelling was basically the same as hitting a fixed target, which was much less difficult than ordinary shelling.
In addition, the gunners in the heavy artillery unit of the Chu army are all veteran gunners, especially their gunners, who are basically elites selected from the entire army.
I don't dare anyone else, but each of them has fired at least hundreds of rounds of live ammunition.
Hundreds of rounds of live ammunition... For the gunners here in Dongli, they will never be able to shoot out so many shells in their lifetime.
Dongdu is also poor, and it is difficult for their gunners to get opportunities for live ammunition training. Without live ammunition training, the gunnery skills will naturally not be that good.
They also used themselves to save others, so naturally it was difficult to understand why the Chu army's artillery could shoot so far.
In addition to the soft power of these artillery officers and gunners, it is also related to the fact that the quality of artillery in the Chu army is better than that of Dongdu.
The Chu army's army artillery is now all made of copper cannons, and copper cannons are easier to process than iron cannons. In addition, the Chu army has used large hydraulic machinery to process the barrels. Therefore, the cast bronze cannons have The tube should be smoother.
The time gap between shells and artillery is also smaller.
These can effectively increase the hit rate.
The technical level of the Dongji people's forged artillery was actually similar to that of the Ming Dynasty, but not that high. The forged artillery was far inferior to the artillery of the same caliber in the Chu army.
Huang Taiji in the rear naturally saw that the forward was bombarded by Chu thieves, but although he was a little surprised, he still let the army continue to advance.
For an army of two hundred thousand, the casualties of a mere hundred people were nothing.
As a result, there was a situation on the battlefield where the Eastern Capture Army was beaten unilaterally.
The heavy artillery of the Chu army continued to fire, from 1,300 meters to 1,000 meters. At this time, a large number of nine-pound field guns in the division's artillery unit also opened fire.
As a result, the casualties of the Dongji people's forwards became even greater.
At the end, Huang Taiji, with a dark look on his face, gave the order for the forwards to retreat temporarily!
The artillery fire of the Chu thieves was too sharp, and the forward troops continued to advance in such stupid formations. He sent tens of thousands of forward troops before they reached the predetermined position, and more than half of them would probably be killed or injured.
This battle is not fought like this!
Ever since... Dongjiu Ren's massive attack only lasted for about half a day, and it was actually suspended for more than a quarter of an hour after being shelled.
Because the Dongjie forwards, advancing in a dense and unobstructed array, suffered hundreds of casualties.
Although the Donglu people are good at fighting, it doesn't mean that they are stupid... It doesn't mean that they can regard death as home!
As soon as the attack was launched, there were so many casualties even far away from the Chu bandits. If they continued to get closer, when the other small artillery in the Chu bandits also opened fire, wouldn't it be possible that there would be thousands or even tens of thousands of casualties every minute.
What a slap in the face!
As Huang Taiji gave the order to retreat, the Dongli forwards who were bombarded in front all breathed a sigh of relief.
If they are not ordered to retreat later, but are allowed to continue to press forward, the forward generals cannot guarantee whether their soldiers will mutiny on the spot...
After all, this battle was too frustrating.
It would be fine if they were to fight face to face with the Chu thieves on the opposite side and injure so many of them. Infantry fighting at close range has always been their specialty in kidnapping people.
They relied on heavy armored infantry to capture people from the east. As for the large-scale cavalry to play mounted archery, that was only done after they recovered a large number of Mongolians.
But the Chu thieves on the opposite side didn't give their heavy infantry a chance to rush forward and fight. Just the long-range shelling would cause them a lot of casualties. If they continued, they would lose a lot of casualties before they even reached the top of the city. A thousand.
After the Dong captives temporarily retreated, Huang Taiji called Zu Dashou again with a dark look on his face to discuss the war.
"The Chu thieves are really sharp with their guns and have a lot of heavy artillery. Do you have any good strategies to defeat the enemy?" After speaking to a group of people, Huang Taiji asked his ancestor Dashou: "King Liao, your troops have used firearms for many years, and you have also fought with the Chu thieves. We have had fights within the pass, what do you think should be done?"
After Zu Dashou heard this, he cursed in his heart!
I know nothing!
If I knew how to deal with these Chu thieves, I would have killed those Chu thieves with Hong Chengchou as early as in the pass. To say the least, I would be able to defend Shanhaiguan in the future. Why should I humble myself and join forces with you barbarians? Don’t just hope Since you Dong captives have many cannons and a large number of troops, you can fight the Chu thieves to the death!
But since Huang Taiji asked, Zu Dashou couldn't say anything. After thinking about it for a while, he remembered the previous siege methods of the Chu thieves, and immediately said: "The Chu thieves have sharp guns and cannons, and they rely on infantry to rush forward rashly." , even though our Qing army is invincible, I’m afraid it’s still powerless, after all, guns and artillery cannot be stopped by manpower!”
"The current plan is to imitate the Chu thieves in attacking the city, use mortars to open the shells, and use heavy armor to defeat the enemy!"
Huang Taiji murmured: "Mortar cannons? There are some squatting cannons that are similar to the mortar cannons among the Chu thieves, but they are few in number and not large. Moreover, we don't know the blooming bullets they use. We are afraid that they will be destroyed in a hurry. It’s unsustainable!”
But Zu Dashou on the side said: "Your Majesty, the Chu thieves' mortar cannon is similar in shape to our tiger squatting cannon and other old short-barreled cannons. Previously, the Ming army in Guan Nei also obtained some Chu thieves' small mortar cannons and copied them. "This mortar is not difficult to make. It can be made of copper or iron."
"However, the explosive shells are more troublesome. We have imitated mortars before. The cannons can be made, but the manufactured shells have many problems. They either fail to explode, or they break into two halves after explosion. The damage is limited. Unlike It's like the Chu thief's explosive bomb. It shatters evenly after explosion, greatly increasing its lethality."
In the past, the Ming army basically imitated all kinds of artillery of the Chu army, and the mortar artillery was naturally no exception.
But again, in defensive operations, mortars are far less cost-effective than field guns, and they also consume a lot of gunpowder during combat. The cost of use is almost several times that of field guns.
At the same time, the Ming Army has not been able to solve the problem of shell fragmentation after detonation, so the Ming Army only made a start, and then lost interest in this thing, and instead started to imitate various types of two and a half kilograms. Most of them are five-pound field guns.
Zu Dashou was no exception. He actually asked his craftsmen to imitate mortars, but he quickly gave up. After all, this thing was of no use to him and he couldn't make it.
But who would have thought that the Liao army, which had always been engaged in defensive operations, would actually engage in siege warfare after surrendering to the Ming army...
If he had known about today, Zu Dashou would have asked craftsmen to specialize in mortars and explosive shells in advance. Even if they couldn't come up with them for a while, if they had been done in advance, it would be easier to do them now.
It's a pity that there is no if, so whether it's Zu Dashou or Huang Taiji, they can't come up with any mortars for a while.
In the end, we can only use stupid methods and continue to slowly build fortresses and dig trenches to advance!
