I want to be emperor

Chapter 206 Mortar debut

For a simple artillery 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 there are a large number of various mechanical equipment to assist in the production.

Even if it was a short time, the Xiangyang Arsenal worked day and night to produce six of these [-]-jin mortars.

It's just that this kind of artillery has not gone through the normal research and development process such as the normal live ammunition test in the early stage. It is completely built after drawing the blueprint.

There is no way, this kind of siege artillery is urgently needed in the frontline warfare, and there is enough time in the rear to test it step by step, and then mass-produce it after improvement.

It can only bite the bullet and directly produce and equip 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 the early use, the first batch of gunners of the artillery battalion were all old gunners directly drawn from the original traditional artillery units.

These old gunners used to play general artillery, Flang machine, tiger squatting artillery, and attacking army artillery. They are all familiar with two hundred catties artillery. Artillery is even more reliable.

A post belonging to this artillery battalion has a total of six 40-jin mortar guns. Under the escort of the Fourth Infantry Regiment of the First Division, it went straight to Nanzhang, more than [-] kilometers away.

They went to Nanzhang not only to support the friendly army in attacking Nanzhang, but also to conduct actual combat tests on the [-]-jin mortar gun by attacking Nanzhang City, gain actual combat experience, and make combat manuals, etc., to lay the foundation for the subsequent storming of Zhongxiang City.

It is easier to attack Nanzhang City, even if there is any problem, it can be covered, but if there is any problem with the siege mortar during the storming of Zhongxiang, it will be caught blind.

----

Nanzhang is located about 40 kilometers southwest of Xiangyang City, and about [-] kilometers away from Yicheng on the edge of the Han River.

The tens of kilometers to the east of Nanzhang City are all plain areas belonging to the Han River Basin, while to the west of Nanzhang City is a large area of ​​mountainous areas.

Because the east of Nanzhang City is a plain area, and going to Yicheng is even more flat. The three or four thousand Ming troops deployed here by the Ming army can threaten Yicheng to the east, and they can also directly threaten Xiangyang.

And as Yicheng was taken by the Ming army, even after the first division of the main force of the Baoxiang Army continued to go south, Nanzhang also logically became a nail for the Ming army to 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, then the rural protection army can only continue to garrison heavy troops in Yicheng, Xiangyang, Yiyangsuo and other places, and need to frequently send troops to escort the transport regiments to and from the Hanshui coast.

This will greatly restrain the limited strength of the Township Protection Army.

For this reason, after Luo Zhixue led his army to arrive outside Zhongxiang City, in order to concentrate more troops to attack Zhongxiang, he specially ordered the Fifth Garrison Brigade to join forces with the First Battalion of the Fourth Infantry Regiment and the First Siege Artillery Battalion to pull out the Nanzhang area. a nail.

Only by pulling out this nail can the Township Protection Army be able to mobilize more troops and attack Zhongxiang City of Chengtian Mansion with all their strength 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 [-]st Battalion of the [-]th Infantry Regiment and the headquarters of the [-]st Siege Artillery Battalion arrived in Nanzhang on time, and joined with the main force of the [-]th Garrison Brigade who had arrived there one day earlier.

The strength of the fifth garrison brigade that came this time is not too large, only more than 3000 people, and nearly a thousand troops are stationed in Yicheng.

And among the more than 3000 troops, half of them are the soldiers who were garrisoned by the Ming army in Yicheng before...

Therefore, the combat effectiveness of the Ministry is also conceivable.

In order to improve combat effectiveness, Dong Mingjie, the brigade commander of the fifth garrison brigade, also spent a lot of thought. First, he mixed the supplementary troops and prevented them from forming a separate formation. Have a conversation.

Then in the past few days, the food supply is fully guaranteed so that they can have enough food.

Of course, the above are all auxiliary means, and the most critical point is to enforce strict military laws.

The military law of the Township Protection Army is similar to that of other armies, and they are extremely strict.

However, although many armies have military laws, they may not strictly enforce them, but the Rural Protection Army is different.

The Township Protection Army is playing a new type of line tactics, which requires extremely high obedience from the soldiers. Therefore, the enforcement of military laws is also very strict. Otherwise, it is impossible to ensure that the soldiers will always maintain and change formations according to orders during the battle.

Relatively speaking, the Rural Protection Army does not have high requirements for the personal bravery of ordinary soldiers, as long as they can honestly follow the combat instructions, it is not required that you can fight ten of them.

Over the past few days, the soldiers newly added to the fifth garrison brigade have basically adapted to it.

But the actual combat effectiveness is still unknown.

Therefore, when attacking Nanzhang, after a brief discussion between Dong Mingjie and Guan Tianlei of the First Battalion of the Fourth Infantry Regiment, they decided to be on the safe side.

After the siege was launched, the ninth garrison regiment under the fifth garrison brigade must be the main force to launch the attack, while a battalion under the fourth infantry regiment was used as infantry fire support and at the same time as a supervisory team.

Even Dong Mingjie, the brigade commander of the fifth garrison brigade, knew that if there hadn't been a strong supervising team to force the ninth garrison regiment to rush up to fight, it is estimated that these surrendered soldiers would turn around and run away before rushing to the Nanzhang city wall.

On July [-]rd, after everything was ready, the rural protection army outside Nanzhang City also took up their positions.

The first to bear the brunt was naturally the six [-]-pound mortars of the first post of the First Siege Artillery Battalion. At around [-]:[-] in the morning, the six [-]-pound mortars fired on time.

At first, the defenders of the Ming army on the top of the city saw a few short robes brought out by the security guards, and thought they were just slightly larger tiger crouching cannons.

However, the shotgun shells fired by ordinary short-barreled artillery did not pose much threat to the city wall. The soldiers stationed on the city head only needed to hide behind the battlements to ensure safety.

But what they didn't expect was that after the artillery of the bandit army fired, it was not shotgun shells, but black shells.

At first glance, I thought it was a solid shell.

But then, these shells flew into the sky and then fell behind the city wall, where they exploded...

One of the shells was still in the process of falling, and it exploded in the air without fully landing.

After the shell exploded, the shrapnel of prefabricated fragments and the iron beads inside the grenade flew out in all directions, sweeping away all life.

Then there was a scene that terrified the Ming army at the head of the city.

The opponent only fired a few rounds of shelling, but their troops preparing for battle at the top of the city and behind the city wall had already killed or injured hundreds of people.

This immediately stunned the Ming army defending the city.

What's happening here?
Why did the bandit army's iron lump shells explode?Why is it so lethal?
This is unreasonable!
The reason why the howitzer bombardment of the rural protection army can cause such a large amount of damage is also related to the way the Ming army deployed its defenses.

The Ming army did not consider the situation of guarding against grenades at all. They only considered the small red cannons and short-barreled shotguns for guarding against the bandits.

It is also very simple to guard against these artillery. According to traditional experience, you only need to hide directly behind the battlements and you will be fine.

As long as they don't stand in the battlements in groups of fools, the artillery of the bandit army can't hurt many of them.

However, just relying on battlements, there is no way to defend against mortar grenades with curved ballistics.

The grenades fired by the mortars first flew into the sky at a large angle, and then landed at a large angle. To put it bluntly, they could bypass the battlements and land directly on the top of the city wall or not far behind the city wall to explode.

And the killing method of the grenade is not straight, but relies on the shrapnel and iron beads that sweep the surrounding space after the explosion, um, and the shock wave by the way.

Under such circumstances, as long as a shell falls on the top of the city wall, it can cause damage to the Ming army defending that section of the city wall.

If it is a volley explosion, then the killing range is even larger.

Even if it falls behind the city wall, it doesn't matter. Soldiers can also destroy some buildings behind the city wall.

After all, when defending the city, not all soldiers were on the top of the city. In fact, there were still quite a few troops behind the city wall, so as to reinforce a certain section of the city wall at any time.

Under such circumstances, although the rural protection army only had six mortars, the killing effect caused by the fight was excellent.

After the Ming army killed hundreds of people in a daze, they finally realized that they couldn't stay on the top of the city, and they couldn't even stay 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 fled from the vicinity of the city wall with oil on their feet, plunged into the city and disappeared without a trace.

After Dong Mingjie saw that the enemy troops on the top of the city began to be confused and even fled, he decisively ordered the ninth garrison regiment under his command to launch an attack.

The soldiers of the Ninth Garrison Regiment were pushing wheelbarrows with thick wooden planks or even iron sheets in front, carrying long ladders with iron hooks, and some soldiers were carrying sacks filled with gravel, wooden planks, etc. thing.

In addition, the musketeers of the [-]st Battalion under the [-]th Infantry Regiment and the archers of the [-]th Garrison Brigade stepped forward with some short-barreled artillery and began to provide medium-range fire suppression.

Friendly troops of the Ninth Garrison Regiment filled the moat with cover.

There were no surprises in the ensuing battle. The Ming army defending the city was stunned by the siege mortars of the rural army at the beginning, which caused the morale of the army to plummet and many deserters appeared.

Although the follow-up defenders wanted to continue to resist, they had a very difficult time resisting the offensive of the rural protection army, which suppressed and fired more and more powerfully.

At around 10:30 in the morning, the Ninth Garrison Regiment of the Rural Protection Army on the filled moat launched its first ascent to the city, and dozens of people were lost if it failed.

At [-]:[-], the Rural Protection Army made a comeback. This time, the Rural Protection Army's guns were fired, and almost all the long-range firepower available was thrown at the front of the city.

At the same time, Dong Mingjie also specially selected more than 100 armored soldiers as the core, and teamed up with more than 200 ordinary armored soldiers to form a city-climbing commando to fight.

This time, they finally successfully occupied the top of the city, and then began to welcome more friendly troops into the city. At [-]:[-], the [-]st Battalion under the [-]th Infantry Regiment also entered the city and began to sweep across the city .

At about one o'clock, the township protection army captured the Nanzhang county government office, the Nanzhang county magistrate hanged himself, and the rest of the officials either fled or surrendered.

At about two o'clock, the Township Protection Army took full control of Nanzhang City and began the follow-up purge operation.

So far, the Township Protection Army has completely captured Nanzhang City, pulling out the last nail of the Ming Army in the hinterland behind the Township Protection Army!
On the next day, the ninth garrison regiment of the fifth garrison brigade and the first sentry of the first siege artillery battalion began to rush southward.

They went straight to Zhong Xiang.

(End of this chapter)