I want to be emperor

Chapter 445: Tianjin Defense Line
In and around the city of Tianjin, there are large Ming army camps and various fortifications and artillery positions built.

More than 7 troops and tens of thousands of civilians gathered here. Naturally, it is impossible to shrink them all in Tianjin City. Instead, they spread all over the periphery of Tianjin City. Around Tianjin City, the Ming Army formed a road about 6000 meters wide and 3000 meters deep. Dense line of defense.

In this dense line of defense, guards blocked the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the passage from the Zhigu River to Youzhou City.

At the same time, multiple highlands were used to build a fortress integrating multiple forts and fortresses.

Among the many undulating terrains, there are parapets, trenches, and small emplacements for deploying a large number of tunics.

Among the many trench fortresses, there are also a large number of obstacles such as distance horses.

Surrounding Tianjin City, the Ming army built a huge field fortress.

This kind of fortress system obviously absorbed the anti-artillery fortification system of the new standard armies when the Ming army fought in the south, and at the same time carried the fortress model that the Liaodong frontier army was very familiar with.

Of course, these are not the point.

The core of the entire line of defense is not such things as fortresses or trenches, but artillery!

Especially more than 70 long-barreled artillery!
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, these artillery were enough to block the entire front.

Such powerful firepower, even in Liaodong, the Ming army has never engaged in it, because there is no need for it...

As far as the ability to attack the fortifications of the East, the Ming army did not actually need to deploy such fortifications specifically for anti-artillery. The traditional city wall as the core, combined with a number of red barbarian cannons and short-barreled artillery defensive operations, can make the lack of Dongyao, who has the ability to attack fortifications, stops short.

Whether it was before or now, Dongyao's attacking ability has always been very limited. In the original time and space until Chongzhen hanged himself, Dongyao failed to break through the Shanhaiguan Pass 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 then brought them in.

As far as the matter is concerned, whether it was before or now, the Ming army's city defense system on the front line of Liaodong is already sufficient to deal with the captives in the east. Dense trenches, parapets, forts.

And these fortifications all have a highly consistent feature, that is, they have a certain anti-shelling effect.

For example, the breast wall, the breast wall built by the Ming army is said to be a wall, but in fact it is more like a mound of soil. The Ming army basically directly put the soil clods dug out of the trenches directly into the baskets or did not even use the baskets at all. It is piled up directly outside the trench, forming a low earth wall protruding from the ground.

And don't look at this kind of earth wall as inconspicuous, it seems to be enough to cut down on workmanship, but in fact the defensive efficiency of this small mound is quite good, especially when defending small and medium-caliber solid shells, its soft soil The layer can effectively absorb the kinetic energy of solid shells and avoid various ricochets.

The trenches behind the parapets are often dug relatively deep, but not too spacious, and some trenches will be supported by wood and covered with soil on the top.

The reason why these trenches were built in this way was also to defend against artillery, but the defense was not solid artillery, but mortars in the Chu army.

Compared with other armies, the Chu army has a very obvious feature, that is, its wealth and power!

Why do you say that?

Because these bastards actually used the extremely expensive mortars as conventional artillery...

Gunpowder is so expensive these days, whether it's the Ming army or the captives in the East, or even the European counterparts who are not stern, the artillery has to think twice about firing a cannon.

However, Chu Bandit not only equipped a lot of field artillery, but also produced hundreds of mortars, and most of them were 48 catties large-caliber mortars...

Every time this mortar is fired, the propellant used is basically equivalent to twice that of a 48-jin cannon.

The 48-pound cannon is roughly equivalent to the 64-pound cannon of the Europeans.

Not to mention the propellant used here, and the shells fired are also grenades.

Grenades, even the most primitive matchlock-fuzed grenades, are much more expensive than solid shells.

The projectile body needs special mechanical equipment for production, higher precision processing for the projectile body, and the materials used for the projectile body should also be better.

And there will be charges in the projectile...

Every time a shell was fired from the Chu army's 48-jin mortar gun, it was a pile of white money scattered.

What makes the Ming army even more speechless is that the hit rate of this kind of mortar is still very low, and the dud rate is also high, which is equivalent to saying that the cost of an effective hit has to be increased several times...

The 48-jin mortar gun equipped by the Chu army is undoubtedly an expensive weapon.

Whether it is the Ming army or the Dong captives, seeing the Chu army using this kind of weapon, there is nothing they can do except to lament over and over again that the Chu thieves are rich.

And similar weapons are in the Chu army, there are such things as grenades, and some flashy, basically useless mines...

God knows why the Chu thieves are willing to use expensive gunpowder to make this kind of grenade and throw it out. To be honest, the actual combat effect is very mediocre... Except for a very few times when they are attacking a critical situation, most of the time the enemy on the opposite side does not give the grenadiers of the Chu army a chance to use the grenade. .

Either directly use guns to form a firepower net, so that the Chu army infantry cannot get close and cannot use it.

Either they were defeated and ran away, and the infantry of the Chu army still couldn't use any grenades...

It can only be used better in some tough battles.

The Ming army basically scoffed at the above-mentioned weapons and would not imitate them at all. They are not stupid. With this money and gunpowder, wouldn’t it be more fragrant for them to get more field artillery.

Whether it is a mortar or a grenade, for contemporary wars in East Asia, they are all weapons with very large limitations and are especially inclined to attack tough battles.

However... Chu Jun just used it.

Therefore, the Ming army can only make targeted defenses hard, add a roof to various fortifications, and build a circular sandbag fortification to resist howitzer bombardment.

It's just that Hong Chengchou and the others don't know how effective these fortifications will be.

You must know that in Jiujiang, Yangzhou, and Huai'an, the various fortifications built by the local new standard army are strictly speaking better than those in Tianjin.

The above-mentioned three places have all been built by the local Ming army for a long time to build various fortifications. As for Tianjin, it took less than a month to fully attack and calculate.

The lack of time naturally led to the construction of fortifications far inferior to the various fortifications in Jiujiang, Yangzhou, and Huai'an at that time.

At least Hong Chengchou was not able to build that kind of large fortress outside Tianjin City.

Such a large salient fortress required too much engineering, and it would not be possible to build it without mobilizing a large number of manpower for construction within a few months.

The various fortifications outside Tianjin are still biased towards field fortifications on the whole.

Now, those fortifications are being put to the ultimate test.

In the fourth year of Chengshun of the Great Chu Empire and the 11th year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, on July 23, the Chu army, which had arrived in the outskirts of Tianjin for many days and had completed preliminary preparations, finally launched an attack on the Tianjin defense line.

Just like the Chu army's previous fortified battles, the artillery is always the first to enter the field!

First, there were eight [-]-jin cannons, and twelve [-]-jin cannons, a total of [-] cannons. Taking advantage of their range, they took the lead in firing in the outlying areas, and began to concentrate on attacking the two Ming army fortresses that had been discovered.

The goals of these two fortresses are very obvious, and the terrain is relatively high, and 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 pieces on the two highland fortresses.

In order for the subsequent offensive to be spread out smoothly, the Chu army needs to conquer this place first, and then suppress the artillery units of the Ming army here.

As a result, while twenty cannons were shelling these two highland fortresses intensively, the engineers and ordinary infantrymen of the Chu army brandished hoes and shovels and began to dig traffic trenches from a distance to the front.

The Chu army has had a lot of tough battles, so naturally there will be more experience.

They knew very well that in the face of this kind of fortification with fortresses and many artillery pieces, sending infantry directly to them would be no different from sending them to death. However, it would be difficult to completely destroy the enemy's fortress simply by relying on cannons for long-range bombardment.

And at this time, engineers are needed to play!

Rushing directly from the open ground is naturally courting death, but it is absolutely possible to maneuver to the front line in advance through traffic trenches, and then launch an assault within a distance of only a hundred meters or even tens of meters.

In addition, what is more important is that these traffic trenches not only allow the infantry to approach in advance, but more importantly, they can also allow a large number of mortars in the Chu army, especially the relatively lightweight [-]-jin mortars, to directly attack the infantry together with the infantry. near the front.

When these [-]-pound mortars arrive at the front line with the infantry, they can use the characteristics of the curved trajectory to directly fire and launch grenades in the trenches, thereby killing and injuring the enemy on the opposite side.

Although the accuracy of the mortars in the Chu army is poor, they can still barely ensure relatively high accuracy when shooting targets at a distance of one or two hundred. At worst, several [-]-jin mortars are fired at the same time. Even if the error is large, as long as the shelling density is high , can always hit the enemy.

Ever since, when the rumble of the long-barreled artillery on both sides resounded through the entire Tianjin defense line, tens of thousands of soldiers and engineers in the Chu army were also digging various traffic trenches in the scorching sun, and flew over one after another overhead. The solid artillery shells of the Ming army will not affect the construction of the Chu army at all...

(End of this chapter)