national surname chiming

Chapter 249
To be honest, if there is no Shen Shuren, then Li Zicheng's army's tactic of attacking the city by rushing to build a Lu Gong chariot is still very correct and sudden.

The production speed of heavy equipment such as Lügong vehicles is very slow. Most people would never have imagined that such a big guy could be finished in three or four days of truce after the siege of the city.

If it’s the Lvgong car needed to attack a strong city like Kaifeng, it may not be built well for more than half a month, because once the car becomes taller, the difficulty of the project will increase exponentially——

To put it simply, to build a two-foot-high Lvgong car, just cut down a few trees to ensure that the length of the thick and hard part of the trunk of the wood is more than two feet, so the wood can be directly supported without splicing and loss.If it is five or six feet high, it may be necessary to use three pieces of wood splicing, and the difficulty, self-weight, process complexity, and stability can all increase by more than ten times.

So at the beginning, the defenders were really caught off guard by this unexpected equipment.

Although Shen Shuren can sit in command, but he himself can only control the North City where he personally supervises the battle, and Huang Degong is at most alone in the east of the city.

As for the defense of the city walls on the southwestern sides without the commander-in-chief and heavy generals, it depends on the understanding of the officers at the garrison level.

On the northern side of the city, the Ming army was the most effective in responding. Under the direct command of Shen Shuren, the officers and soldiers put the thief's Lu Gongcar within fifty paces, and Shen Shuren lifted the ban on shooting.

Prior to this, the Ming army was nothing more than shooting with bows and crossbows, and they were very disciplined to shoot the crossbowmen who provided covering firepower for the thieves, and a few exposed soldiers who were responsible for looking out and dispatching carts.It didn't waste firepower on the invulnerable LV bus body.

This further strengthened the arrogance of the thieves. Tian Jianxiu's several commanders who rushed forward to supervise the battle all hid behind the car and shouted for encouragement:

"Hurry up and push hard! The cannon of the official army must be fixed on the side gun position! It can't hit us at all! The official army doesn't even have the guts to shoot at the car! When it is pushed to the position, put down the baffle directly Just rush forward and prepare to fight the officers and soldiers hand-to-hand!

The first row of tomahawk warriors split the gap to make room, and the second team of pikemen lined up on the wall once they stood firm! "

The tactics of these thieves commanding the brigade, not to mention meeting the actual needs of the battlefield.

Anyone who has played the "Horse Riding and Blade" siege game knows that even if they are prepared to advance with long spears on the top of the wall, the first echelon still cannot use long spears, because the team that has climbed over the battlements of the female wall and formed a formation In the process, it is still possible to be pushed down by the swarming defenders and unable to deploy troops.At this time, it is very important for the wide-open Tomahawk soldiers to organize expendable death squads and clear the initial foothold first.

It's a pity that all these plans are perfect, but they are destined not to reach the step of implementation.

The Ming army got the order to release the ban when the car advanced fifty steps away from the wall, and it took some time to complete the final inspection and preparation for firing. When Lu Gong's car approached more than 30 steps away from the wall, the first round of aimed shots broke out. up.

"Boom boom boom", on the walls of the northern city, on the six sides of the four horse faces (the side facing the outermost horse faces does not need to be fired, because there is no shooting angle for Mr. Lu's car), at least [-] Francois The machine fires together,
The cannonball flew out, and half of it hit the target in an instant—don't dislike the low hit rate. In the era of spherical shells, it was very easy to hit a large target with a size of more than two feet by a small half after two or three hundred steps. Not bad.Usually when you hit a ladder or trench car with a smaller target, the hit rate is less than [-]%.

Immediately, repeated screams erupted from the bandit army.

Lu's bus was pierced through, and some of the soldiers hiding in it were directly pierced by the shells, but they were killed directly. The screams were mainly caused by the ejected fragments that lost their arms and legs, or were hit by broken and splashed wooden planks and pillars.

The solid bullets originally did not have a large area of ​​damage to personnel, thanks to the large number of "wooden shrapnel" provided by Lu Gong's car itself after it was shattered.

Even a commanding brigade hiding behind the car was injured by shrapnel, causing several nearby cars to lose their unified command, and a few panicked soldiers even ran around and fled from Lu Gong's car, but were instead captured by the Ming army. The musket kills the stone.

In the end, it was the rogue officers who tried their best to suppress them, cut down a few deserters, and yelled frantically, before they stabilized temporarily: "Don't be afraid! The car will be holed by shells at most! It won't collapse! Keep going!"

Shen Shuren at the top of the city couldn't help frowning when he saw this scene.

Indeed, he somewhat overestimated the damage effect of solid bullets of this era on wooden structures.

His previous actual combat experience in this type of combat all came from the Dongting Lake battle between Shen Lian, Li Yu and Liu Wenxiu a few months ago. At that time, because it was a water battle, the enemy ship sank directly because it was a water battle. It gave Shen Shuren a lot of hints, and felt that it was easy to smash the giant wooden structure with solid bullets.

But at this moment, what we are facing is a car, not a boat, and the car will not sink even if it is smashed into a hole.As long as the main structure does not collapse, at most the internal stairs will break some steps, or a few holes will be made to splash the broken wood and kill people, but the car can still be used.

"The morale of Li Zicheng's soldiers is good, but they still continue to charge after smashing a hole? Careless. It seems that to completely destroy the giant siege equipment, we must either rely on shells to break the main beams that bear the load, or wait for the invention of blasting ammunition, otherwise You can only punch holes and kill people."

Shen Shuren is also open-minded and good at accepting new things. After two or three short rounds of shelling caused certain obstacles to the enemy, he recognized the difficulties in reality.

At the same time, a strange idea naturally appeared in his mind - he had played many naval battles and sailing games in his previous life, especially "The Age of Navigation". He knew that Western artillery in this era has already been used in naval battles The ammunition "chain bomb" has been developed in China.

To put it bluntly, chain bullets are also a type of variant of solid bullets. They are nothing more than loading two slugs in the barrel at one time, and there is an iron chain between the two slugs.After shooting out, it will dance and spin in the air like a meteor hammer.

The biggest role of this kind of chain bomb in naval battles is to interrupt the mast and boom of the enemy ship and make the enemy ship lose power.Because of the superstructure of these wooden pole structures, the target is too small, and it is difficult for ordinary solid bullets to aim.

With the chain bomb, the sweeping coverage during the spin is relatively large. Once the iron chain is wrapped around the mast, the kinetic energy of the shell can be transmitted as much as possible, and it can be easily cut off in the middle.

And Shen Shuren immediately thought of this type of ammunition, which is very useful for destroying the superstructure of wooden ships, as being used to destroy heavy and large-scale siege weapons.What they need is to destroy the load-bearing structure, rather than punch a hole to let water in, and the principle and professionalism are perfectly matched.

"After this battle is over, we must go back to Zheng Chenggong and the Spanish instructors and consultants, surpass the ready-made chain bomb technology, secretly build a batch and put them away first, so as to be prepared!"

Shen Shuren was already thinking about the future ahead of time. It can be seen that although there was a small accident, he was still very confident and knew that the situation was controllable.

As far as the Ming army was concerned, Frangji couldn't directly bomb Lu's bus, and it was indeed just a small episode.

Because of the new type of fixed ammunition, the gunners of the Ming army can fire far faster than their counterparts. Even though some of the bandit soldiers have seen it a few days ago, most of them are new to them, and they are still overwhelmed by the continuous bombardment. I couldn't hold my head up, and my morale plummeted.

In particular, the shooting angle of the artillery of the Ming army is very consistent with the side line of the horse-faced wall. The closer the thieves are to the two outer sides of the horse-face that has just been piled into a pentagon, the more soldiers will be crowded on the firing longitudinal line of the artillery.

After all, the body of Lu Gong’s car is only so big, and it can’t hide many people. More soldiers need to line up to hide behind the car. After the soldiers in the front climb up the ladder in the car to climb the city, the soldiers behind can pour into the car from the back door. , ascend the city one by one.

The thief managed to push the car to the base of the wall, but the artillery of the Ming army began to shoot horizontally at the rear edge of Lu Gong's car, and the soldiers crowded behind the car could not rely on the cover of the car body at all.

"Swish, whoosh—" After discovering that he had switched to shooting fixed targets, Shen Shuren also gave up solid ammunition and asked the troops to use shrapnel shells. This ammunition finally ushered in actual combat for the first time.

The cannonball flew over a distance of two hundred steps, and when it flew over halfway, the shell fell off due to wind resistance in mid-air, leaving dozens of grape-sized lead beads flying out, immediately stirring up blood mist in the crowd .

Shen Shuren asked Song Yingxing to make this kind of shrapnel. In the tube in front of the cartridge holder, seven lead beads were installed in each layer in a honeycomb shape, just enough to ensure that the plugs were tightly packed and the gaps would not be too large.

In this way, the diameter of the lead ball is only slightly less than one-third of the barrel. In order to ensure that the barrel is long and cylindrical, at least three layers of lead beads must be installed in the longitudinal direction.

In fact, Shen Shuren installed five layers to ensure that the aerodynamic shape of the cannonball was optimized as much as possible, so each shrapnel was 35 [-] large grape shot puts, each weighing more than one or two, and the total weight of the barrel was three catties—— This is the standard when using a thousand-jin Flang machine. If it is a three- to five-hundred-jin small Flang machine, it will be reduced in proportion. Each shot is only the size of a hickory nut and weighs half a tael.

Such a precise weapon killed the bandit crowd in a single blow, and hundreds of soldiers fell down in a few breaths, screaming again and again.

The few who rushed up the city wall by Lu Gong's car were also powerless. Some dead soldiers with long-handled battle axes managed to kill and wounded one or two Ming army guards, but found that the comrades behind them couldn't keep up. If it is interrupted and it is difficult to rush up quickly, it means that the follow-up troops are blocked by artillery fire.

In the absence of backup, a small number of dead warriors were stabbed back by the Ming army's random guns and stabbed back, and died of blood.

In the other directions of Shangcai City, the situation may be better than those where Shen Shuren and Huang Degong personally sit in town, but the difference is not too big.

Shen Shuren brought Shen Lian and Li Yu, the two "famous firearms generals" who participated in the Dongting Lake Battle, with him, and today they just happened to let them guard one side of the city gate alone.Although they did not have the ability to make strategic decisions, they carried out firearm defense tactics unambiguously. In front of the highly efficient artillery formation, the bandits' offensives were disintegrated wave after wave, leaving heavy casualties in vain.

Lian Li Zicheng personally participated in today's supervisory battle. At the beginning, he was at the north gate, seeing that Shen Shuren was tightly defended and there was no chance, so he hurriedly galloped to the other sides to see if there were any weak links.

However, Shen Shuren only relied on more than 60 flexible Flang machines to guard sixteen horse faces, each with only four gates, but he had a momentum of at least a dozen or even dozens of gates in each gate.

With the blessing of the new gun mounts, all the artillery can be dispatched quickly, and they can shoot wherever the pressure is high. They always concentrate their superior firepower. Cannons are fired, where can we find the so-called "weakness"?
The siege battle lasted less than half an hour. As most of Lu Gong's vehicles collapsed and shattered under repeated bombardment, and the soldiers were killed and wounded, the bandits finally got rid of the dilemma of "retreating and reluctant to retreat". The tide generally collapses and retreats.

What depressed Li Zicheng the most was that on the battlefield in the east of the city, when Liu Fangliang, who was in charge of the attack, retreated in a rout, the Ming army actually opened the city gates. Huang Degong personally led more than 1000 cavalry and went out of the city to fight back.

Liu Fangliang, who was fleeing, was killed terribly, and thousands of additional casualties and routs were added.Liu Fangliang himself also discarded his helmet and armor, and abandoned all the distinctive armor that could prove his identity, only to escape Huang Degong's pursuit, which really frustrated the thief's spirit.

……

After Li Zicheng went back, he learned that all the ministries had failed in the siege, and Liu Fangliang suffered a particularly heavy loss, so he was very angry.

The five main forces under his command, Tian Jianxiu and Liu Fangliang were beaten by Huang Degong successively, which has already lost face.

The morale of the troops, I am afraid that they will not support the continued attack on Shangcai.

But if you don't attack, is it so exhausting?Li Zicheng fell into a dilemma.

"A few days ago, who said that the officers and soldiers were not afraid, and that a mere 3 people could easily attack the city! Tried twice in different ways, but still the same, so many people died in vain! Tell me, what should be the next step!"

At the summary of the military discussion that night, Li Zicheng also rarely lost his temper.

It is impossible to fight back after a failed attack.Losing so badly twice, or losing in different ways, no one can stand it.

Song Xiance, who suggested an all-out attack before, is also silent now, and dare not fart.

However, Yuan Zongdi, who was critical four days ago, jumped out. He didn't know what to do with Song Xianzhi. He just pointed at Sang and scolded Huai, crying about the number of casualties today, and stimulated Li Zicheng's nerves in different ways.

"Your Majesty is so right! At the end of today, we will be in the west of the city, and we will lose no less than 3000 people! If the end of the day hadn't seen the firing, he would have given up on the two Lü busses at the back and never pushed them up again, for fear of casualties. There will be more. General Tian and General Liu, you are attacking with all your might, and your losses must be greater than mine!"

When Tian Jianxiu and Liu Fangliang were asked, they could only sigh and tell the truth, they each lost three to five thousand people, and now the camp is full of wounded soldiers.

Even if there are hundreds of thousands of thieves in the army, human life is worthless, so it's not good to throw it away like this.

Shen Gouguan is too vicious, every time the thief sees hope and opportunity, makes a big bet, and then flips the table to eat it, it is really despicable and shameless!
"Okay! Now is not the time to complain!" Li Zicheng also found that the atmosphere was a bit too much, so he stopped the complaints and led the topic to the right path.
He knew that his subordinates were afraid to speak at this time, so he decided to act arbitrarily, and made an idea himself: "There is no need to pursue the responsibility of attacking Shangcai. I made the decision alone. I won't blame you. The important thing right now is What to do next!
Gu decided to give up the idea of ​​destroying the city and robbing food from Shen Shuren, and let the troops continue to fight to block it, as long as Shen Shuren was not allowed to advance to the city of Kaifeng, and the grain was transported into Kaifeng to rescue Chen Yongfu.

As for our army's lack of food, we had to gradually divide up our troops to get food, and we all worked together to solve the problem.If it doesn't work, let Ye County pick soft persimmons and beat Zuo Liangyu to grab food.

Or force Zuo Liangyu to hand over part of Yang Sichang’s grain storage left in Nanyang during his lifetime, and threaten to beat him if he doesn’t hand it over. "

All the generals looked at each other in blank dismay, no one dared to say anything to persuade the king to admit his cowardice, so they could only prevaricate with the words of a car, saying that the king's decision must be wise, and we will do what the king says.

Li Zicheng was also depressed and helpless, but he had no choice but to take the blame himself, and never dared to face up to the city that attacked Shen Shuren.

……

In Shangcai City, Shen Shuren's side still did not relax their guard after the Chuangjun's second siege defeat.

Because the "bastion-style pentagonal horse face" is very useful, it has been tested in actual combat. After the battle, Shen Shuren continued to supervise the soldiers to repair the city defense and optimize the structure.

With more time and the experience of the last time, the soldiers of the Ming army became more and more proficient in repairing fortifications, which can be regarded as practiced in actual combat.

Shen Shuren immediately brought up the issue of how to build chain bombs to ensure that when encountering giant siege equipment in the future, it can deal structural damage to the load-bearing beams and columns.

Anyway, the chain bomb was a mature technology used by the Western navy at that time. It was not difficult. Just find two blacksmiths and weld two ordinary cast iron shells together with iron chains, so it was taken out in just two or three days. sample.

And Huang Degong was by the side, seeing that Shen Futai was able to "summarize the practical experience and lessons" so quickly. A few days ago, he couldn't think of how to blow up Lu's bus, but now he has come up with countermeasures.

After it was built, Shen Shuren also conducted a rigorous live ammunition test. He didn't ask someone to build a Lu public car, but dragged a few enemy cars that were damaged but not collapsed a few days ago, and carried out bombardment. A few shots collapsed.

Shen Shuren still felt uneasy, so he asked people to try the sentry towers and arrow towers made of logs, and found that the log pillars could be easily broken, and the arrow towers would collapse quickly, so he was very satisfied.

In this way, even if there is no heavy siege machine in the future, this kind of ammunition has some other multi-functional magical functions. When attacking the enemy's camp in the future, it can easily use chain bombs to instantly kill and collapse the wooden pillar and arrow tower.

"My lord, you are amazing. You just saw some new tactics of the enemy on the battlefield, and you can figure out a solution in a few days. The last general has been in the army for 20 years, and I have never seen you with such a quick mind!"

When Huang Degong saw the test results, his admiration was like a surging river, out of control.

However, Shen Shuren still had the calm expression: "It's nothing. I have read thousands of books and traveled thousands of miles. I just came from a wealthy family, and I've been running a lot since I was a child.

This kind of chain bomb is available in the navy of the Hongmao Yi people. It is specially used to hit masts. I use it to hit wooden pillars and towers.

By the way, there has been no news from Li Zicheng these days?Did you really give up completely after retiring? "

Huang Degong quickly cheered up and replied: "That's true, the general has been cautious these days, and since yesterday he has sent a large cavalry scout to scout the way.

Chuangjun has indeed given up his plan to attack Shangcai, probably because the casualties are too terrible.I estimated that since Li Zicheng came to confront you, my lord, it is estimated that the Chuangjun has lost tens of thousands of people. "

Only then did Shen Shuren show a sneer: "If Li Zicheng can't come, then it's time for us to do something."

-

PS: The comments are still not restored... Today's update is actually a lot of words, more than 5000 words, which is no different from [-] words.

Let's wait and see again. It just so happened that my son vomited several times last night, so I took him to see a doctor today.Both today and tomorrow are [-]-character chapters, and two more chapters will be resumed on Friday.

(End of this chapter)