Ming Empire

Chapter 228 The Power of the New Artillery

Cao Yue, who was watching the battlefield from the watchtower, couldn't help showing a cruel smile when he saw that the strike effect of the new artillery was much stronger than that of the old artillery.

This kind of artillery has just been produced by the Nanjing Armory Factory. The rear-loading rifled guns, the manufacturing technology is still provided by those Western technicians recruited, and the shells used are no longer paper shells, but copper shells.It's just that the gunpowder is still black gunpowder, and its power is far from being comparable to that of cannons and howitzers in later generations. No trigger fuze is used, and the detonation of ammunition is still an old technology.However, this kind of advanced rifled artillery, which was far ahead of the original artillery manufacturing technology owned by the Ming Dynasty, was already an epoch-making change for the people in the late Ming Dynasty.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, the Nanjing Arsenal and other weapon workshops devoted all their efforts to building, and only 95 weapons were produced before the army set off.Fifteen of the 95 rifled guns belonged to the First Guards Division led by Cao Jie, ten of the other Guards divisions went out, and the rest were installed on the naval warships that accompanied Cao Yue.

This kind of artillery, which is much more powerful than the Hongyi cannon and has a longer range, brought huge casualties and shock to Jiannu when it first appeared.Cao Yue was very satisfied with the performance on the battlefield of these powerful gadgets he created under the order of death.

After two rounds of flowering bombs, the charging Jiannu was blown to pieces, and could no longer organize a formation attack. After fleeing one after another, they couldn't help but put down their binoculars, and said to several generals around them: "Everyone, I have seen the new The huge lethality of the battle, right? No matter how good the Jiannu cavalry and archery is, when encountering the artillery supervised by the governor himself, their chances of rushing into the range of the bow and arrow are very slim."

Huang Degong, Gao Jie, Liu Liangzuo and others witnessed the enormous lethality of the artillery just now. After a few rounds of artillery fire, the Jiannu who charged in the first wave were defeated. When the third round of artillery fire started, no one dared to continue to risk it. The artillery that exploded everywhere rushed forward, and they all chose to flee, stunned.

"Governor, today's artillery battle really opened the eyes of the general. I didn't expect that our Ming Dynasty guards were equipped with such powerful artillery. According to the general, the power of this new type of artillery is far greater than that made by foreigners. The Hongyi cannons are big, and the interval between two shots is much shorter." Huang Degong, whose eyes were a little straight, couldn't help but exclaimed: "My Ming army is equipped with such sharp weapons, how can Jiannu compete with them?" I fight? In this battle, our army is fully capable of wiping out all the Jiannu who commit crimes in the future, as long as Dorgon dares to keep fighting like this."

Huang Degong was also thankful that he did not confront Cao Yue and chose to obey the imperial court's order and hand over his military power.Otherwise, the new guard army led by Cao Yue would definitely interfere and destroy them as rebels.Although Huang Degong thinks that the combat effectiveness of his men and horses is also good, and half of the battalion is equipped with muskets, he dare not imagine what his men and horses will look like after being subjected to such a tragic shelling just now.

Even if it is not defeated immediately, it is impossible to continue the offensive.

This new type of artillery has great lethality, greater deterrence, and a very strong psychological blow to the attacked party.It is impossible for the troops who have been severely injured to rush to the opponent's line and be defeated, just like Jiannu's charge this time.

In fact, this wave of attacks by Jiannu only lost a thousand men and horses at most, but in the successive explosions, countless fragments of human bodies flew into the air, there were explosions of air waves everywhere, and the sky was filled with black smoke from the explosions. can not see.Under such circumstances, how could the extremely frightened people organize an orderly attack again?

Huang Degong knew that this was just a long-range attack on Jiannu. If the remaining Jiannu could continue to attack, the musketeers waiting in full force would attack them with dense bullets.Huang Degong had seen the musket shooting performance of the New Guards Army in the Yanziji camp, and the shooting density was far beyond the comparison of the musket battalion under his command.If there are still Jiannu who can rush to the front of the Ming army, it can only be said that these people are too lucky.

Like Huang Degong, Gao Jie and Liu Liangzuo felt lucky.They are also battle-tested veterans. They have experienced many scenes of confrontation between the two armies. It is not uncommon for them to personally lead troops to charge and kill them. However, this is the first time they have encountered such a powerful shelling.They knew that this was just the firing of forty artillery pieces on the naval warship, and there were at least dozens of such artillery pieces on the shore.There are more cannons whose performance is a little worse than the new ones, and there are still a large number of Franco cannons on the naval warships, but the range is relatively short.

These cannons haven't fired yet. If they fire again, it will be the end of the world.

They were also thankful that they did not choose to fight against the imperial court, Cao Yue and the new Ming guard army led by him, but chose to compromise.

Before the start of the war today, they were worried about whether the outnumbered Ming army would be able to withstand Jiannu's attack.Because in the past, the Ming army, which was several times larger than Jiannu, could not resist Jiannu's attack. Even hundreds of Jiannu could defeat tens of thousands of Ming troops. It was basically difficult for the Ming army to defeat Jiannu with inferior forces.But the war had just started, and after witnessing the tragic situation on the battlefield, they no longer worried about the outcome of the battle. They fully believed that the new army of the Ming Guards would definitely defeat Jiannu in this battle.

Dorgon, who personally commanded the battle, also received the same shock as Huang Degong, Gao Jie and others. He did not expect that the Ming army was equipped with such advanced artillery, with such a long range and such great power.After several rounds of shelling, the first attacking Qing army suffered heavy losses and was completely defeated. There were no more organized troops to attack in the direction of the Ming army formation.

In addition to being shocked, Dorgon was extremely angry. He couldn't accept that the first wave of attacks ended in such a disastrous defeat. He immediately ordered that the fleeing troops be killed without mercy, so as to maintain military discipline.And then ordered, the second wave of multi-directional attacks will begin immediately.

Following Dorgon's order, most of the Han troops who were blocked from attacking from two directions and fled were shot and killed by the Jurchen cavalry enforcing military discipline.

Because the black smoke from the bombardment was very heavy, the sights of both sides were blocked, and they couldn't see the opponent's position at all, including Cao Yue who was standing high on the watchtower.Seeing the opportunity, Dorgon immediately ordered more troops, including nearly [-] Han troops, [-] Korean troops, and [-] Mongolian soldiers, to use the cover of black smoke to attack in the direction of the Ming army array.

Seeing Jiannu's retreat, Cao Yue, who didn't notice the second wave of Jiannu's attack, ordered to stop the bombardment.He didn't know if Dorgon would change his strategy after Jiannu's first wave of tentative attacks, or continue to use this crowd attack tactic.

At this time, a gust of wind blew away some of the black smoke. In the remaining black smoke, Cao Yue vaguely saw countless figures flickering through the binoculars. He was taken aback and immediately ordered another bombardment.

Following Cao Yue's order again, the artillery, which had been silent for a while, began to roar again.

(End of this chapter)