The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 306 Shelling Macau
Three or four miles to the east of Macau City, more than 700 Ming troops gathered here, but the formation was loose and the weapons were uneven.It is the headquarters of Shi Ditan, who inspects the Haidao in Guangzhou.

This inspector of Haidao Shi is responsible for controlling Australia and defending against the Japanese. Now that the imperial court is using troops against Australia, he has no choice but to lead the army.When Jianlu invaded Fujing in the south, those officers who sat idly by and did not send troops to reinforce them were still bloody at the entrance of Caishi. Who would dare to make the same mistake again?

A soldier with a blunderbuss on his back looked at the dense cannons on the top of the city, and said with lingering fear: "I said, are we really going to fight Hongyi? I feel dizzy just looking at these cannons."

"No, I've been a soldier for so many years and I've only caught smugglers, but I've never come to attack a city..."

"Don't say a few words!" The flag officer on the side frowned and reprimanded, "Since the Wanli Dynasty, His Royal Highness the Assistant King is the first one who dared to drive the red barbarians into the sea with swords and spears. !"

Seeing that his subordinates were silent, he said again: "According to the progress of the imperial court's army restructuring, after this battle is over, we will change to be policemen and live a stable life.

"Also, we have said that we are feinting an attack, so we are still afraid of an egg? Look at the Dragon Guards, that is the real hero who killed Hong Yi with a cannon!"

Before he finished speaking, he heard three gunshots from all around, followed by the beating of military drums behind them.

The flag officer immediately swung his sword with one stroke and said loudly: "Stay still, follow me!"

With the sound of military drums, two other teams of more than [-] Dragon Guard soldiers each lined up in a scattered formation, and attacked Macau City at the same time as Di Tan's troops from the west and south directions.

Since the city of Macau is only less than seventy feet wide, even if there are only more than a thousand people on each side, it seems extremely dense, as if overwhelming the sky.

Lopez looked around with binoculars at the top of the city, and a faint smile could not help but float on the corner of his mouth.These orientals only knew how to attack desperately because of their numbers, and at least six soldiers piled up at a distance of one yard.

With such a dense formation, more than half of them can be killed with just a few shots.And the remaining ones are dealt with by well-trained Portuguese musketeers, and I am afraid that one shot can penetrate two or three people.

He quickly deployed and divided 400 of the 1000 infantry into three teams, guarding the east, west and south.As for the north side, he also arranged for a hundred people, and more than [-] Ming troops did not show up. Of course, he will not take it lightly.

He then said to the herald next to him: "Tell all the gunners that the enemy must not fire until the enemy approaches one mile."

He said that one mile was about one mile and six.Calculated based on the effective range of two to three miles of the cannon at the head of Macau, this is a distance that is absolutely sure to hit.

"Yes, sir!"

Not long after several heralds left separately, more than a dozen cannons roared suddenly.

Could it be that the enemy army is approaching so quickly?Lopez hurriedly raised his binoculars to check, and saw that the nearest Ming army was still three miles away.

He was furious, and shouted at his adjutant: "I just said to wait for the enemy to approach before firing! Go and see which idiot violated the order!"

"Yes!"

The adjutant only took two steps, and then heard the cannon fire again, and then a scout rushed over and said to Lopez: "Sir, the enemy army on the north side..."

A burst of artillery roar interrupted him, and he continued after the buzzing in his ears faded, "I was fired at by the enemy's artillery, and the artillery fire was extremely fast!"

As if to confirm his words, there was another sound of cannons.

Lopez couldn't help frowning, he could estimate the shelling just now without looking at the watch, at least twice the normal speed!
But he quickly calmed down. The enemy was only firing faster, most likely using breech-loading guns.The breech-loading gun he was talking about was the Franc machine gun, not the bolt-type breech-loading gun of later generations.

"Fool! Why didn't you fight back?!" he yelled again.The range of the Frang cannon is extremely short. If the Ming army used the Frang cannon to attack the city wall, they would be within half a mile at least.

"Report sir, the enemy is still far away..."

"Is there something wrong with your brain?" Lopez pushed the scout away, and ran towards the north side of the city quickly, regardless of the danger.

It wasn't until he got to the north of the city that he realized that the scouts just now didn't talk nonsense.The cannons of the Ming army were still far away in a bush at the limit range, but it was hard to see how many there were under the smoke.

Suddenly, there were two muffled sounds, and Lopez felt a tremor under his feet.He knew that it was a shell from the Ming army that had hit the city wall.

"These stupid orientals actually want to bombard this city with cannons?" Lopez snorted coldly. "The British mobilized more than a dozen heavy cannons back then, and bombarded them for more than half a month, but it didn't work. The current city wall is even worse than it was then. thick!"

But immediately, an iron ball hit the parapet of the city, and immediately the stones and soil foam flew, and several Portuguese soldiers were crushed to death by the crushed stones.Lopez's adjutant was shocked, hurriedly protected him behind him, and dragged him away from the city.

"Sir, are we going to fight back?" Afterwards, the artillery commander on the north side of the city chased after him and asked.

"Fight back? Gesell, how can you say such stupid words?" Lopez spat out the dirt in his mouth, "The enemy is still one mile away and five hundred yards away, how many shots do you need to hit them? "

"This..." Gesell said, "But we're just looking at it like this?" He looked at the soldiers who were killed by the rubble just now, "Maybe they will be fooled again later."

Lopez was stunned for a long time, and he didn't want to understand the Ming army's tactics for a long time. In the end, he had to order: "Leave 20 people to monitor the enemy's movements, and the others leave the city."

"Yes, sir."

The Ming army's shelling continued for more than an hour, and one of the shells even hit the cannon at the top of the city, overturning thousands of catties of copper cannons to the bottom of the city.

However, the Ming army surrounded by the other three directions seemed to be timid, and they were always dawdling three miles away from the city of Macau.

After a while, the Portuguese got used to the uninterrupted roar of the cannons. Seeing that the enemy did not make any other moves, they gradually relaxed, and even began to chat a few words between the cannons' firing.

"It seems that they really want to blow down the city wall." Lopez looked at the map and smiled at the adjutant. "When they understand how strong our city wall is, they will have to turn around and deal with the Guangxi army..."

Before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly seemed to have discovered something, stood up abruptly, frowned, and said, "Aznar, did you hear..."

"Sound of hooves, it's cavalry!" His adjutant replied immediately.

"Crazy! Are these Easterners crazy! They actually used cavalry to attack the city?" Although Lopez said so, he didn't dare to neglect at all. He turned around and went to the top of the city again, taking out the binoculars to observe.

In the thick gunfire smoke in the distance, a large group of cavalry was galloping towards Macau City from several directions.

(End of this chapter)