Please ask me to be the emperor

Chapter 525 Battle of Annihilation (Part 1)

When Wang Pu and Ni Chong, the chief military officers of the Beijing camp, rushed outside the tent. They stretched their heads and looked out, and saw flags waving and artillery roaring on a high ground in front of the left side of the officers and soldiers' camp. This was where the bandits' artillery position was located.

The two of them couldn't help being shocked, and quickly called the soldiers and asked: "Where did the thief get the artillery?"

It turns out that the Jingying camp often practices Western artillery and Hongyi artillery, but these artillery pieces are heavy and difficult to move and are mostly used for defense. When the Beijing camp was suppressing bandits in the mainland, they left all these in the capital.

Although their combat effectiveness was average, they had fought against the rebels many times and knew that the rebels did not have many large-caliber artillery.

It's just that the sound of the cannons is dull and powerful now, and the impact of the cannons is earth-shattering. It seems that it is not the work of small-caliber artillery. Moreover, the sound of cannons was rumbling, and there must be no less than twenty cannons.

Wang Pu quickly called his soldiers and ordered: "Look for one or two cannonballs with me quickly. I want to see how serious they are!"

Not long after, the soldier ran over carrying a cannonball in a rag. Wang Pu opened it and saw that the cannonball was round and black. When he touched it with his hand, it was still warm.

Wang Pu and Ni Chong picked it up and weighed it, and found that it weighed about twenty kilograms. The two looked at each other and couldn't help but feel horrified.

It turns out that the Hongyi cannons cast according to the paradigm of this era should have weighed three to four thousand kilograms if they could shoot ten kilograms of shells, and six or seven thousand kilograms if they could shoot twenty kilograms of shells.

If converted according to the habits of later generations, they are roughly equivalent to heavy artillery with a caliber between 120mm and 125mm and a caliber between 145mm and 155mm.

Wang Pu and Ni Chong could not imagine that the rebels could actually bring out more than twenty six- to seven-thousand-jin Hongyi cannons to bombard the officers and soldiers' camp. Even if this number is reduced by half, the officers and soldiers in the Beijing camp will still be in danger.

After thinking about this, Wang Pu quickly said to Ni Chong: "But I made a mistake. I thought that although the bandits were good at field battles, they were not good at attacking cities. I never thought that the thieves had already forged such a heavy weapon. If we just sit back and wait for death, we will die without a burial. The land is there!”

"For the current plan, we can only defend the camp by risking our lives and taking away the thief's artillery and destroying it."

No wonder Wang Pu and Ni Chong were anxious. The camp in Beijing was hastily built and crude. It could only be used to bully the rebels led by Zhang Shun, who had few soldiers and horses and weak firepower.

Now that the rebel army's "more than twenty six- to seven-thousand-jin Hongyi cannons" have come out, let alone a simple camp, even a city will be difficult to defend with the capabilities of the Beijing camp.

In fact, this was an empirical error made by Wang Pu and Ni Chong. The cannon used by the rebels was not the six or seven thousand kilogram Hongyi cannon, but the "golden cannon" originally designed and improved by Zhang Shun.

After a long period of experiments, Zhang Shun designed the "golden cannon" that weighed about a thousand kilograms, had a caliber of five inches and was ten times the diameter. It was only because of the lack of copper materials in the hands of the rebels that they did not continue to cast.

Later, when Zhang Shun occupied Luoyang City, Governor Zhang looted the gold statues of Buddha statues from Baima Temple and other temples in Luoyang City, collecting five thousand kilograms of them. Li Jiyu bloodbathed the Shaolin Temple, a thousand-year-old temple, and seized more than ten thousand kilograms of copper materials. In this way, he could collect Enough copper material to continue casting the "golden cannon".

It's just that when Zhang Shun fired the cannon, all data were calculated at the limit, leaving too little margin.

Governor Zhang was worried that the cannon would explode at the critical moment, so he asked Zhang Shun for permission to reduce the caliber of the "golden cannon" to four inches and eight cents. And the artillery powder chamber was designed into a funnel shape to facilitate the firing of "explosive bombs".

After Captain Zhang's improvements, the "Golden Cannon" became more versatile and its weight was slightly reduced. This "golden cannon" can also fire twenty kilograms of solid iron bullets, or fifteen kilograms of "exploding bullets."

It was carried on an artillery mount designed by Zhang Shun and dragged by six mules and horses, running over mountains and ridges like flying. There is no need to worry about not having any siege weapons when encountering a city, and there is no need to worry about hindering the movement of the rebels.

Of course, the "Golden Cannon" can achieve such good performance except for using brass with better performance and higher price. Compared with the Hongyi cannon, which often has a diameter of more than 20 times, the "Golden Cannon" deliberately reduced the diameter of the artillery by more than half, significantly reducing the gunner of the artillery.

But as a result, the accuracy and range of this "golden cannon" have also been reduced a lot. After Zhang Shun's actual test firing test, the effective range of the "Golden Cannon" when laid horizontally was about 530 steps, which was far lower than the 700 steps of the 67,000-jin Hongyi Cannon.

However, there are gains and losses. In the end, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Although the "Golden Cannon" loses some range and accuracy, as long as it can catch up with the battlefield in time, everything is worth it.

As expected, Jingying suffered a loss from this "golden cannon" this time. Wang Pu and Ni Chong had no choice but to give up the idea of ​​holding on to the camp and sent their cavalry to try to seize the rebel artillery positions.

Zhang Shun has been planning for a long time, how can he get his wish? He had already deployed Xiao Qinhu's "Children's Camp" in front of the artillery position as a blocker, and also deployed He Jin's and He Yilong's cavalry to roam around the position to provide cover.

The officers, soldiers and cavalry were divided into three groups, with about 1,600 or 700 cavalry. Although they did not want to fight to the death with the rebels, this time the commander-in-chief Wang Pu and Ni Chong issued death orders, asking them to hold off the rebels and buy time for the officers, soldiers and infantry to form their formations.

Zhang Shun was overjoyed when he saw the entire army of officers and soldiers dispatched from a distance. After all kinds of calculations and considerations, I cast out the big net and finally attracted this big fish, and the fishing time began.

He quickly ordered Zhang Sanbai, Wei Zhiyou, Cao Bianjiao, King of Luanshi, and King of Zhishi who were hiding behind the hillside to be ready to launch an attack at any time. At the same time, he ordered Li Shi'an to suspend the artillery bombardment of the camp and quickly replace it with shotgun shells to prepare for the coming attack. cavalry.

In fact, Li Shian does not have so many "golden cannons" in his hands. Although the rebels had fifteen thousand kilograms of copper in their hands, they were short of "Japanese lead" for a while.

Governor Zhang followed the procedure and cast only ten doors in total. In order to annihilate these two groups of Beijing camp officers and soldiers, Zhang Shun spent a lot of money and simply asked Li Shian to take them with him. The remaining ten were actually made of wrought iron, field cannons capable of firing ten pounds of iron gall bladders.

The cavalry from the Beijing camp were divided into three groups from the bottom of the hillside. They came at a galloping pace, first slowly and then quickly. However, they did not dare to confront the enemy head-on. First they ran back and forth in front of the rebel formation, conducting tests, which made the earth tremble.

It was the first time for the child soldiers in the "Child Camp" to encounter the cavalry, and all of them turned pale with fright and their hands and feet became weak.

For those who have never faced cavalry directly, it is difficult to imagine what it would be like to have dozens of cavalry charging forward. What's more, the opponent has more than a thousand riders. When they run, the mountains roar and the sea roars, and the earth collapses. This is not enough to describe the power of their galloping.

Xiao Qinhu couldn't help but feel his lips go dry, and cursed loudly: "What are you afraid of? How dare you be so arrogant even if you have defeated a general!"

However, no matter how loud his voice was, it was still covered up by the sound of roaring horse hooves.

Xiao Qinhu was a little anxious and subconsciously turned to look at Zhang Shun. However, they saw the old god Zhang Shun sitting on the horse, unmoved by the momentum of the officers and cavalry. He had no choice but to resist the thought of turning around and running, and forced himself to hold on.

Xiao Qinhu didn't know how long he could hold on, nor how long the boy soldiers under his command could hold on. He only hoped that when the officers and soldiers' cavalry charged up, the children under his command could hold on longer.

Thank you to fan "Wang Yao" for the large reward, thank you to fans "Bayuan Shengzun", "Really Want" and "2001zlr" for the reward. Thank you for your support! Today's second update depends on the author's hand speed. If there are no surprises, it will be updated at 11:30.

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