I want to be emperor

Chapter 378 Perfect Swap
Because Xiong Wencan mobilized troops to reinforce Nanxiong Mansion relatively quickly, basically as soon as he heard the news, he flew a horse to inform the Left Army of the Liangguang New Standard Army stationed in Shaozhou Mansion to reinforce Nanxiong Mansion.

In this way, by the time Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin of the Chu Army led the main force of the Seventh Division and part of the No. 11 garrison division to the front line of Nanxiong Mansion, the Ming Army in Nanxiong Mansion had already received a large number of reinforcements.

Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin frowned slightly as he looked at the large number of Ming troops at Meiguan and the artillery deployed on the top of the city. Unexpectedly, he came a step too late. The Ming army had already deployed heavy troops here in advance.

At this time, Brigadier General Yang Xiangfei, the Chief of Staff of the Seventh Division beside him, said: "It is impossible for us to take this place quickly."

"I have personally visited the surrounding areas before. Meiguan is not easy to fight. Although the overall terrain is not too high, the hills are endless. Although there are small roads to pass through, they are at best It is impossible to pass artillery and ammunition vehicles with small-scale light troops!"

"And these trails are also guarded by enemy troops. Once we send light soldiers to attack through these trails, they will even get reinforcements."

Chief of Staff Yang Xiangfei's words also dispelled Huang Xiangbin's plan to attack by detour.

After personally observing the Meiguan in front of him, Huang Xiangbin still issued an order: "If it is successful, we will fight first, and arrange a regiment to make a tentative attack!"

As he said that, he smiled: "At least I have to try the quality of the opposite party, just in case I'm lucky!"

Yang Xiangfei naturally had no objection to a probing attack, and immediately made corresponding arrangements according to Huang Xiangbin's order.

However, after the tentative attack started, it was discovered that the Ming army in the opposite Meiguan was not a pure mob, at least it did not collapse directly after being bombarded.

On the contrary, these Ming troops even pulled out some long-barreled artillery to fight back.

Seeing this scene, Huang Xiangbin didn't need to guess that there must be a new standard army on the opposite side, and the number was quite a lot, at least two thousand, plus a large number of guards to assist in the battle.

Seeing this scene, Huang Xiangbin decisively gave the order to retreat!
The enemy is well prepared, not only has sufficient troops, but also not weak firepower, and the fortifications are not badly dug. Judging from the current lack of ammunition on our side, if we want to attack by force, I am afraid that there will be heavy casualties.

At this time, Huang Xiangbin regretted it a little, because he played too hard in Ganzhou before!
When he led the team to fight Ganzhou before, in order to pursue the effect, a large number of artillery fired intensively. This was a good fight, and the infantry casualties were not large, but the consumption of ammunition was too large. Now when we fight Meiguan, there is not enough ammunition. up.

The main reason is that when the Seventh Division attacked Ganzhou City, most of the ammunition, especially the artillery shells, was destroyed. The remaining ammunition of the Seventh Division in a short period of time allowed them to perform ordinary combat tasks, and even fight a field battle. Battles and the like are fine, but if you let them storm a pass, there will be a lack of ammunition, especially the ammunition used for the 48-jin mortar.

After Ming Jin withdrew his troops, Huang Xiangbin began to make other preparations. On the one hand, he sent troops to attack Xinfeng, and on the other hand, he simply transported a batch of ammunition from the rear, especially the 48-jin mortar ammunition.

Among the many weapons and ammunition in the Chu army, the most powerful is naturally the 48-jin mortar.

And the senior generals of the Chu army like to use this kind of artillery when attacking the city.

Although this kind of artillery is cumbersome to operate and very dangerous, accidents often cause casualties, but its huge explosive power still makes Huang Xiangbin and other senior generals of the Chu army attach great importance to this kind of artillery.

In a tough battle, dozens of 48-jin mortars were sent over, and all enemies were blown to ashes by him.

What's interesting is that the mortars used in the Chu army actually had similar artillery in the Ming army.

They used to have Feibiao blunderbuss, which belonged to the artillery with ultra-short tubes that fired flowering bombs, but they didn't use them much. On the one hand, their craftsmanship was not good, and the quality of the shells was not good. When they exploded, they often cracked into pieces. A few pieces, it is difficult to form large fragments.

Unlike the shell shells of the flowering shells produced by the Chu army, fragments are reserved. After the explosion, the shell shells will be fragmented according to the traces reserved in advance, forming a large number of fragments.

In addition to technical issues, it is also related to the particularity of the mortar gun.

Mortars these days are often used in tough battles because of their difficulty in operation, slow rate of fire, and poor accuracy. At least when the Chu army is fighting in the wild, they basically never use them.

For the attacker, mortars are used to attack the city.

For the defender, this thing is even more useless. Compared with ordinary field guns, the range is too short, the accuracy is poor, the rate of fire is slow, and more propellants are needed.

Therefore, in terms of lethality and cost performance, they are actually far inferior to field guns.
For the Ming army, with the manpower and material resources to deploy mortars at the head of the city, it is better to deploy a few more two and a half catty field artillery.

This is also the reason why the Ming army did not follow suit on a large scale even though they knew that the Chu army was equipped with mortars on a large scale.

On the contrary, the Chu army belongs to the attacking side, and most of the time they are fighting fortified battles, and there is a great demand for mortars.

For this reason, the Great Chu Empire has successively developed and produced several kinds of mortars.

At present, there are three types of large-scale equipment: 48-jin mortars, 24-jin mortars, and [-]-jin mortars.

And these mortars have gradually changed from iron cast artillery to bronze artillery.

In the early days, in order to save costs, iron casting was mostly used, but later it was found that the cost of mortars was more derived from the cost of ammunition and mules and horses. As for the purchase cost of the artillery itself, it was relatively not high.

In addition, the life of the copper-cast mortar barrel is better, and in the case of the same caliber and the same range, the weight of the artillery can be made lighter, and it is easier to process and shape to increase production capacity.

Well, the most important thing is that after controlling Daye, the Great Chu Empire obtained a large amount of copper materials here. I dare not say too much, but it is still enough to cast artillery.

This also made even the mortars in the Great Chu Empire begin to be cast with copper materials.

For example, the 48-jin mortar gun made of bronze, the whole gun weighs about 48 jin, and it fires [-]-jin iron shell bombs (external matchlock fuze). Like all field artillery in the Chu army, it also has a large double-wheeled gun frame, and the gun frame adjusts the height angle through the screw.

When launching, it is necessary to ignite the fuse of the shell and the fuse of the propellant at the same time. A slight error in this time interval will cause the shell to explode in advance or delay.

So although this kind of artillery is powerful, it is very troublesome to operate.

At the same time, there is a very critical problem, that is, the consumption of ammunition is also very large.

In order to launch a 48-jin shell, and the mortar is an ultra-short-barreled artillery, the propellant required is several times more than that of a long-barreled artillery of the same caliber.

The propellant required for firing a 48-pound mortar is basically equivalent to the propellant required for two or even three 48-pound cannons.

This consumption may not be a big deal for modern warfare, but for the era of handicraft industry and the only machinery powered by water, the production capacity of ammunition is already very low, and the price of ammunition is also more expensive.

However, the power brought about by these huge and expensive consumption is also just now.

Every time the Chu army attacked fortified battles, mortar guns were indispensable.

Even in siege operations, the role of mortars has surpassed that of the main field artillery in the Chu army.

Without a large number of mortars, the Chu army's siege ability would directly drop by a large amount.

The mortars and ammunition carried by the Seventh Division were consumed a lot during the Battle of Ganzhou. Although there are still some, it is impossible to meet the operational needs of storming Nanxiong.

After all, although mortars are powerful, their accuracy is too bad. You can't expect to kill a large number of enemies directly by pulling up a few artillery pieces for a few rounds.

In order to solve the poor accuracy of mortars, the Chu army was rude and simple, and directly stacked numbers to play cover bombardment.

When enough shells are fired, an entire area can be blown up one by one.

This theory is a bit like musketeers with muskets playing line combat.

Since precision shooting can't be played, then play coverage shooting...

When the musketeers line up to fight, you aim at a target and shoot, the bullet will most likely fly to other places, but don’t worry, your target still has a great probability of being hit, but the one that hits him is not The bullets you fired were the bullets fired by your comrades...

On the contrary, the bullets you miss may also hit the intended target of your comrades!
A wave of perfect swaps, wouldn't the hit rate go up!

This is how the musketeers play, and the mortar troops of the Chu army also play this way. Every time they fight, they pull out a lot of mortars and directly play cover bombardment.

So you will see that the scale of the Chu army's mortar equipment is getting bigger and bigger, and the caliber is also getting bigger and bigger.

There are as many as eight independent mortar regiments, and all of these mortar regiments are attached to the 48-jin mortar regiment.

Although the standard establishment is a regiment of 36 guns, when it is actually equipped, the number of 48-pound mortars assigned to each regiment is different depending on the combat mission and location, coupled with continuous wear and tear. .

There are as few as twenty or so, and as many as more than 40.

During the war, it is very common to have shortages or overstaffing.

Except for the newly formed troops, there are very few troops that are neither too many nor too few, and just happen to be fully staffed.

If the total number is calculated, it is probably around 250 doors.

And this is just the 48-jin mortars in the eight independent mortar regiments.

In fact, among the ground combat troops of the Great Chu Empire, quite a few divisions belong to artillery regiments, independent mixed brigades, and mixed regiments, and they will also be equipped with 48-jin mortars.

Adding the two together, the Chu Empire Army and Guards possessed a total of more than 48 300-jin mortars.

And this is a very scary number.

Because this is not the total amount of artillery owned by the Chu army, but only the amount of 48 catties of mortars.

And the Chu army also has hundreds of 24-jin and [-]-jin mortars, as well as a larger number of field guns of various calibers.

(End of this chapter)