Han’s Son is Not a Slave

On the sixth day of the fifth month in the ninth year of Yongli in the Ming Dynasty (the twelfth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty), a generation of eminent monks, monk Qilin, who was famous in Guangdong Province, sat in Yutai Temple. Avici hell, to relieve the suffering of the world."

After the death of Monk Qilin, a thousand families of the Taiping Army of the Ming Dynasty buried him in the Forest of Steles in the Back Mountains, and the monks all praised him.

After the news of Monk Qilin's death came out, a small monk in the south of Xinhui City looked at Guifeng Mountain, gritted his teeth, and made a big wish, "If the thief will never die in this life, he will swear to avenge his teacher."

......

With the assistance of Hujie Camp, the Guard Camp took the grain team to Guifeng Mountain in the evening. Although the journey was hard, the road was extremely difficult to walk. Fortunately, no civilians escaped, and no carts and horses overturned.

It was reported that the guard camp had arrived, and Zhou Shixiang immediately sent an order to go down. The guard camp did not have to go up the mountain, but camped at the Qing army camp at the foot of the mountain. Food and civilians were also placed in it. Hujie camp was responsible for guarding and guarding, and the rest immediately rested.

Later, Zhou Shixiang ordered officers above the general banner of each battalion to go to the Daxiong Hall of Yutai Temple to discuss the attack on Xinhui City.

Since last year, Li Dingguo's army was unable to attack Xinhui for a long time, so above the military meeting, the public will not be optimistic about capturing Xinhui. Qin Zhisheng and others even suggested that instead of attacking Xinhui City by force, they should find a way to collect ships to cross the Tan River. Go around to the back of Xinhui City.

Taking a detour to Tan Jiang can avoid the losses caused by the new attack. This is undoubtedly a wise choice for the Taiping army who has just experienced heavy losses in a major war, but how to collect ships is a trouble, not to mention Is there any boats on the Tan River that the Taiping Army can use?

If they stay in the Xinhui area for too long, the Taiping army will fall into a situation where the former Xinhui fortified city is surrounded by the Qing army. As long as the defender of Xinhui City is not stupid, he should have sent a quick horse to Guangzhou for help at this time, and Xu Erxian, the commander of Zhaoqing in the rear, has also figured out the intentions of the Taiping Army. This will probably also be dispatching troops to chase and kill. When the two main forces of the Qing army, which Zhou Shixiang had been trying to avoid, came to kill him, there would be no way to go to heaven and no way to go down to earth.

"You don't have to think about other things, Xinhui City must be fought and taken, otherwise, the whole army will be dead!"

Zhou Shixiang once again reiterated his determination to attack Xinhui City.

"If Qianhu must fight Xinhui City, then the humble office has to remind Qianhu adults that there are more than a dozen red-clothed generals on the wall of Xinhui City."

The one who spoke was Li Fuguo, a trial household of the guard camp, and he was considered to be doing his duty after he was appointed as a trial household of the guard camp. The performance in the process of following the guard camp to **** the food team is also remarkable. With his previous experience as the general manager of the green camp, to a certain extent, he made up for some of the details caused by the bald Jiang He's rough character, and the guard camp Another trial of Baihulin Regeneration was a pleasant cooperation. At least Jiang He did not report to Zhou Shixiang that there was anything wrong with Li Fuguo after going up the mountain.

"The red-clothed general cannon?"

Zhou Shixiang was a little stunned, not knowing what kind of cannon this was. Shao Jiugong, who was on the side, hurriedly told him that the so-called red-clothed general cannon was actually the red-clothed cannon of the Ming Dynasty, but because the word Yi was avoided, Huang Taiji renamed the red-clothed cannon to the red-clothed general cannon.

"The Hongyi cannon was purchased from Macau in the Ming Dynasty during the Chongzhen period. When Kong Youde failed to revolt in Denglai, he led his troops across the sea to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Ask him to make cannons for the Qing army. At that time, the cannons built by Kong Youde were modeled after the cannons of Hongyi. At this time, most of the Qing army manipulators were the **** who forgot their ancestors."

After Song Xianggong said this, Zhou Shixiang immediately understood. Li Fuguo was determined to show off his knowledge, and he continued to follow Song Xianggong's words, but he was talking about the advantages and disadvantages of this red cannon.

Combined with what Li Fuguo said. Coupled with his own judgment, Zhou Shixiang can roughly be sure that the performance of the Hongyi Cannon is roughly the same as that of the artillery used by the Europeans in the same period, and they are all front-mounted artillery. The disadvantage of the front mounted gun is the extremely slow rate of fire. After firing once, the gun must be filled with water, the sparks must be extinguished, the stick should be inserted into the gun chamber with a dry cloth to wipe it dry, then the gunpowder, accelerant, and the shell must be filled, and then fired again. These actions are quite slow and cumbersome. , not including the correction of the emplacement.

However, the advantage that comes with its shortcomings is that the Hongyi Cannon is extremely lethal. In a straight line, the cannonball can traverse dozens of people, and when it jumps into a pit, it can even smash people and horses into pieces. Although it is not as powerful as the bombs of later generations, the scene of the cannonballs flying and flying is still really frightening.

Song Xianggong said something again, saying that the old slave Nuerhachi was killed by the Hongyi Cannon in Ningyuan City. After hearing this, Shao Jiugong and Li Fuguo were a little disapproving, thinking that they had never heard of this.

Zhou Shixiang didn't care whether the old slave was killed by Hongyi Cannons. What he cared about was how to deal with the dozen or so Hongyi Cannons and the small cannons in Xinhui City. He has heard a famous saying in his previous life that the cannon is the king of war. Although the king of war will be replaced by new weapons, such as tanks, etc., but before the emergence of new weapons, the power of cannons is comparable to the weapons of the same period. China is indeed the big brother, especially in China in the 17th century. In this era of cold weapons, the impact of cannons on war is absolutely huge.

The most intuitive thing is that when one's own soldiers rushed towards the city wall, the city was constantly shooting artillery shells to harvest people's lives, but one's own side could only be beaten and still not be able to handle it. The blow is also huge.

Zhou Shixiang had to come up with a way to deal with the artillery, otherwise the sound of the artillery, nine out of ten soldiers had never heard the artillery, and the Taiping army had never seen artillery, I am afraid that Xinhui City would really be helpless.

After pondering, Zhou Shixiang asked a question that he urgently wanted to know.

"How many miles can the Hongyi Cannon hit?"

"this?"

Few of the officers had seen the Hongyi Cannon, so how could they know how far the cannonball could hit. Song Xianggong had not seen it with his own eyes, but Qin Zhisheng, Shao Jiugong, and Li Fuguo had met, but the answers given by the three were different as to how far the Hongyi Cannon could go.

Qin Zhisheng said that the Hongyi Cannon could hit seven or eight miles, but Shao Jiugong said that it was not that far, only two or three miles.

Zhou Shixiang couldn't judge which one was right. Everyone can't tell.

"Qianhu asked what is this for?"

Song Xianggong didn't guess which of the three was right, he was concerned about what Zhou Shixiang wanted to do.

"This time when our army attacked Xinhui City, I discussed this with Tiebaihu as early as in Gaoyao. At that time, I was determined to blow up the Xinhui city wall by blasting, and then the whole army broke into it through the gap. Change the decision, we will not attack Xinhui City by force, nor do we have the capital to attack it. King Xining's army of tens of thousands cannot take Xinhui City, and my Taiping Army can take it with only 2,000 troops? Therefore, we have only one way to blast it! "

Tone a bit. Zhou Shixiang explained: "But before that, we must find out how far the army's artillery can hit, so that we can dig tunnels beyond the range of their artillery and bury the gunpowder under the city wall, otherwise the gunpowder will be useless. Send it in, and besides, we can't be a living target for the Qing army's artillery to blow up."

"blasting?"

Among the officers, only Li Fuguo had never heard of this term, so he didn't know what it meant, and Lin Zaisheng explained a few words to him. It was only then that I realized, but then there was a look of doubt.

In Li Fuguo's cognition, all the battles to seize the city were mostly bombarding the city wall. However, Zhou Shixiang used gunpowder blasting to blow up the city wall. He had never reported this method, and subconsciously felt that this method was inappropriate or unlikely to achieve the goal. Can the city wall be easily blown down by gunpowder?

"Qianhu, does the blasting method really work? Can Tiebaihu really blow up Xinhui City?"

Li Fuguo asked suspiciously, after all, he had never seen Zhou Shixiang's blasting test in Luoding Prefecture. Do not know the power of granular gunpowder.

Zhou Shixiang nodded affirmatively: "Yes! Come with me."

After he finished speaking, he got up and took everyone to the trap camp. Tie Yi already knew what Lord Qianhu was going to do, so he ordered someone to carry the two large coffins out of the camp.

Li Fuguo was stunned when he saw the two reinforced coffins. After listening to Tie Yi talking about the purpose of the two coffins, he stared at it for a while before shaking his head, and said to Zhou Shixiang a little worried: "These two large coffins are very large. The target of the coffin is too big, and the Qing troops in Xinhui City are not blind. How can they be comfortable under the city wall? If they are transported by manpower, they are afraid that they will be hit by the artillery on the city or by their guns. , wouldn't it be a waste of time then?"

What Li Fuguo said was the truth. The power of so much gunpowder piled up in two coffins was amazing, but even if it could blow up the walls of Xinhui City, who could guarantee that it would not be hit by the Qing army during the transportation process. Gunpowder is not a joke. It will explode when it touches sparks. If it explodes before it reaches the city wall, it will really blow up a lot of my own people.

Zhou Shixiang smiled softly: "So we have to find out how far the artillery on the new city can reach, and only by knowing the range of their artillery can we safely dig a tunnel and send the coffin under the city wall~www.wuxiaspot.com ~How many miles of tunnels does it take to dig?" Li Fuguo's face paled.

Zhou Shixiang looked at Tie Yi and said, "Don't forget, Tie Baihu and his brothers are all from the mines, and what they are best at is digging holes."

"Last year, the old thief... When King Xining's army was besieging the city, the Qing army in the city set up monitoring tanks everywhere, trapped in the camp and dug tunnels. Digging tunnels, isn't it still useless?" Li Fuguo judged that this method was still useless based on his own experience.

This time there was no need for Zhou Shixiang to answer, but Tie Yi laughed there and said, "We're not digging a tunnel to get to his city, or what if we are monitored by them!"

Zhou Shixiang's face suddenly became solemn: "Tie Yi, can you be 100% sure about the tunnel?"

"Qianhu rest assured, our brothers who came out of the mine can't do anything else. This is the best way to dig a hole and make a hole. I promise to send these two large coffins in, and I will set it on fire and blow up the city wall of Xinhui. If something goes wrong, you don’t need Qianhu to call someone to do it, and the last general wipes his neck, saving Qianhu and everyone from scolding the mother of the last general!” (To be continued..)