I want to be emperor

Chapter 86 Bombarding Songjiazhuang

About 300 meters away from the Song Family Manor, Zhang Malin listened to Luo Zhixue's orders brought by the messenger, especially when the messenger said that Luo Zhixue was going to have dinner at the Song Family Manor tonight.

Zhang Malin said with a serious expression: "Please report back to the general, my artillery post will definitely complete the mission to cover the infantry attack!"

After the messengers returned, Zhang Malin headed towards his own [-]-gun position.

Zhang Malin was one of the first few people in the artillery post to learn artillery, and after becoming a sentry officer, he has not left behind the study of artillery skills. He himself is not only a sentry officer in the artillery post, but also an artilleryman. The gunner with the most exquisite artillery skills in the sentinel.

After the service of the two [-]-jin long guns, he was also the first batch of gunners to train, and he was thinking about how to shoot more accurately and faster all day long.

Zhang Malin stood in front of a 300-jin long cannon, touching the cold barrel in his hand, and squinting at a section of the enemy's courtyard wall about [-] meters ahead, where there were two light short-barreled cannons of the enemy. Visual estimation estimates between one hundred and two hundred catties. If they cannot be suppressed, then when one's own archers and musketeers step forward to suppress infantry firepower, one's own infantry will cause a lot of casualties.

He would personally command two artillery pieces to bombard the courtyard wall where the enemy's light artillery was located, and try to destroy this section of the courtyard wall in the first few rounds of shelling.

When this section of the courtyard wall collapsed, the light cannon deployed by the Song family on the courtyard wall would naturally also fall along with it, unable to continue to exert their due combat effectiveness.

After Zhang Malin withdrew his observation line of sight, he already had some calculations in his heart, and then said to his gunner: "Start loading!"

Immediately, the artillery crew under him moved quickly, and a gunner took out a propellant package from an opened wooden box next to it.

According to Luo Zhixue's early instructions, the propellants of all guns are weighed in advance according to the propellant required for each shell and packed for storage. When fighting, use the packed propellant package directly, and remove the outer sealed package Then it can be loaded directly.

It saves the trouble of weighing the propellant before the battle.

Anyway, the artillery in the Baoxiang camp is basically small artillery, and the adjustment of the range mainly depends on the elevation angle rather than the amount of propellant, so there is no problem with using fixed propellant.

This also further improves the loading efficiency.

While preparing the propellant, the gunner prepared a solid iron round shell, and the gunner checked and cleaned the shell.

After checking the gun bore and confirming that there is no debris inside, the gunner puts the prepared propellant into it and compacts it with a special wooden stick, then puts in the solid shell, and then compacts it.

Immediately, a gunner pierced the propellant charge with a needle from the propellant charge hole, and then put in the fuse.

The entire loading process is much faster than those artillery units that still use bulk ammunition, and the procedure is simpler.

In the early test, the rate of fire of the 1-jin long cannon was able to achieve two shots per minute. After the gun crew became more proficient in the later period, it could even achieve three shots per minute. The rate of fire is comparable.

Of course, even with such a fast rate of fire, it is impossible to maintain this rate of fire for a long time, because the gun barrel cannot withstand continuous rapid fire in a short period of time, even if it is cooled by a kapok brush dipped in water.

Unless it is absolutely necessary, it is rare to continue this kind of rapid fire. It is often faster to fire at the beginning of the shelling, and the subsequent continuous shelling often takes a long time to allow cooling time for the barrel.

Seeing that the gunner had finished loading, Zhang Malin stepped forward and started aiming.

Looking at it from the perspective of others, Zhang Malin's aiming seems to be very simple. He just fiddled with the cannon twice, and he aimed it in a short while.

But these few fiddlings are the real test of whether a gunner is qualified.

Don't think that it's easy to hit an enemy hundreds of meters away with a low-quality front-mounted smoothbore gun. This is a difficult technical job and requires very high experience.

Only an experienced gunner can make the artillery under his hands hit accurately within the effective range.

As for lack of experience, the gunner with mediocre skills can only aim at the approximate target and shoot.

After aiming, Zhang Malin directly lit the fuse!
After the kindling rope was burned, the propellant in the barrel was ignited, and then the whole [-]-jin artillery was shaken violently, and moved back a good distance.

At the same time, everyone heard a loud noise.

At the same time as the loud noise, a cloud of white smoke was released from the muzzle.

Before the white smoke escaped from the muzzle, a solid shell flew out of the muzzle and went straight to the courtyard wall of Gaojiazhuang 300 meters away.

The solid shell immediately hit the courtyard wall of Gao's manor, kicking up a pile of rubble.

A few seconds later, another [-]-jin long cannon commanded by one of his captains also fired, and this shell also hit near the landing point of the first shell.

After the first round of shelling, Zhang Malin urged the gunners under his command: "Quickly, reload, check the barrel carefully, don't leave any residue, and I must clean up all the residue."

After a while, the second round of shelling from the artillery post's two [-]-jin long cannons hit the courtyard wall of Gaojiazhuang again.

As the two [-]-jin artillery roared successively, it was also the beginning of the battle to attack Songjiazhuang with the opening of the Baoxiang Battalion.

It's just that after the battle officially started, unlike the regular shelling and various preparations outside, Songjiazhuang was full of panic.

Song Pinghe was still arranging people behind the courtyard wall, but when he suddenly heard a loud rumbling noise from outside, his heart couldn't help but jump violently.

Although he didn't see the scene of the bandit army firing on the courtyard wall, he still knew that it was the long cannons of the bandit army firing. He ran over quickly and saw that a section of the courtyard wall of his house was actually cracked...

Song Pinghe suppressed the panic in his heart, and said in a deep voice: "Don't panic, it's just a few small cannons, and they can't do anything to us."

But before he finished speaking, suddenly another loud noise came from outside!
In the next second, he suddenly saw a small hole in the courtyard wall that was already cracked in front of him. The gravel flew wildly, and a solid black shell came in, hitting Song Pinghe and the others seven times. From a house eight meters away, another wave of sawdust flew across!
"what……"

"Help me..."

When Song Pinghe heard that the scream was his eldest son's voice, he thought his eldest son was injured, so he turned his head immediately.

The result is good, this person is fine.

Song Pinghe's face turned black on the spot, wishing he could stuff this embarrassing thing back into his wife's stomach, you are still more than two feet away from finding a place to play, and it didn't hurt you, you call for help...

But now at the critical moment, Song Pinghe didn't have time to talk to this useless son, so he immediately ordered the housekeeper: "Bring him back to the inner house."

Continuing to let this useless son stay in the front is afraid that it will shake the morale of the army.

After seeing off his son, Song Pinghe hurriedly led his people up to the gate tower again, and as soon as he went up the gate tower, he looked towards a short hill a hundred feet away.

Song Pinghe had seen the long-distance running of the bandits here before.

It turned out that it was indeed the case, white smoke was rising from the short hill on the opposite side, and the bandits were busy continuing to load.

I'm afraid it won't be long before the third round of shelling by the bandits will come.

And seeing that the artillery shells from the bandits just pierced through the courtyard wall and flew in, he was worried that his courtyard wall would not be able to withstand the bombardment of the bandit army's artillery.

At this time, the steward next to him exclaimed, "The small cannons of the bandit army are about to come up."

Looking in the direction indicated by the steward, he could indeed see a group of bandit soldiers coming up with multiple light cannons.

The light cannons of these thieves are also quite weird. They are not mounted on carriages like the light cannons of the officers and soldiers, nor are they made of wooden cannon mounts, but an iron cannon frame with two big wheels on both sides.

This shelling is coupled with a small short barrel, so that it looks a bit nondescript.

These thieves directly pushed these small cannons and continued to approach from about 300 meters away.

This made Song Pinghe very anxious. At least ten small cannons came up from the opposite side. If they were all allowed to bombard the courtyard wall, let alone the courtyard wall, the guards and young adults on the courtyard wall might be killed or injured. Not a lot.

Immediately shouted: "Our cannon, why haven't we fired it yet?"

He also has three cannons in the Song family nursing home.

There was a courtyard guard at the side who wanted to remind Song Pinghe that the probability of their small cannons firing from such a distance was very low to hit the bandits.

But looking at Song Pinghe's appearance, he held back and didn't say anything.

After a while, the Song family's artillery on the courtyard wall also fired, but just as they estimated, the bandit army was still about a hundred feet away. The hundred-jin light artillery they had on hand hit the target at such a long distance. If the rate is zero, even if it hits the lethality, it will be very bad.

So they ran back with three beeps, and the bandits on the opposite side were still fine, not even one lying down.

However, these three cannon shots still gave Song Pinghe and others courage.

At least, they were not beaten unilaterally.

In this way, the two sides began shelling each other at a distance of 300 meters, but Song Pinghe's face became more and more ugly as they shelled each other.

Because one's own artillery had been firing for a while, there was a person on the other side who didn't lie down, and the gunners of the bandit light artillery who were still going forward also stopped.

But on my side, the courtyard wall where the light artillery was deployed has been potholed, many of them have been cracked, and several shells even directly penetrated the courtyard wall and shot in.

Being beaten down like this, the courtyard wall will collapse sooner or later...

As if to answer Song Pinghe's guess, after another round of shelling from the opposite side came, the courtyard wall that had endured multiple rounds of shelling finally failed and collapsed.

Several artillery deployed on the courtyard wall also fell into the ruins due to the collapse of the courtyard wall.

After Song Pinghe saw this scene, he was dumbfounded, and at the same time, there was a lot of horror in his eyes!
(End of this chapter)