Please ask me to be the emperor

It is said that Zhang Shun boasted about Haikou on the spot and wanted to defeat Zuo Guangxian, the commander-in-chief of Shaanxi Province.

Regardless of whether the generals believed it or not, he arranged for "no closing at night" and sentry posts that night, and ordered the soldiers to rest early.

Although Huayin County is surrounded by mountains and rivers, it is actually only six or seven miles away from Huashan Mountain; it is quite far from the Weihe River, more than ten miles away.

Chen Changzhen has been an escort for many years and is used to eating and sleeping in the open air. He has some experience in setting up camps.

Huayin is located in "the main road of the Three Qin Dynasties and the thoroughfare of eight provinces" and has its own topographic characteristics.

Sixty-seven miles to the south is Mount Huashan, one of the five mountains, and more than ten miles to the north is the Weihe River, the largest tributary of the Yellow River.

To the north of Huashan, the triangular area from the east of Huayin to the west of Tongguan is a high and low loess plateau, which is called "Mengyuan".

The two places on Mount Huashan and the Weihe River here are far away from Huayin City, so they are not sufficient evidence.

Therefore, Chen Changzhen placed the rebel camp on a land plateau at the westernmost end of Meng Yuan, about three or four miles away from Huayin City.

Huayin City is small, less than three miles in circumference. Zuo Guangxian's more than 10,000 men were not enough to support him, so he only sent two thousand soldiers and horses to station in Huayin City, and the rest were in Huazhou.

Don’t look at the smallness of Huayin City. In fact, there is a saying that “big things bring big difficulties, small things bring small difficulties.”

If the city is wide, it can accommodate enough people, horses and supplies, but there will be more attack points from the attackers and more manpower to defend, which will put greater organizational pressure on the defenders.

And if the city is small, although it can accommodate fewer people and horses, there will also be fewer points that can be attacked. As long as the city is not in bad condition, defense will be easier.

During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang was well versed in the art of war, and he once led tens of thousands of troops to attack Hao Zhao. Only a thousand men were stationed to defend the small town of Chencang, and they were still unable to move for more than 20 days. When their food is exhausted, they have no choice but to retreat. This is why.

And even though Zhang Shun has many men and horses and strong military strength, how can it compare to Zhuge Wuhou at the time?

Early the next morning, after everyone had breakfast, they marched forward in formation under Zhang Shun's personal command.

Zhang Shun ordered Li Mou to lead the people in the front, Bai Guangen to the left, He Renlong to the right, and Chen Changzhen to lead the people to the rear.

All kinds of artillery were hidden in the formation, while He Jin led two thousand cavalry to hide in the dense forests of the mountains of Huashan. In addition, scouts were widely deployed to await Zuo Guangxian's main force in Huazhou.

At this time, the guerrilla general Zhao Guangyuan was stationed in Huayin City. Although this man was not as famous as Zuo Guangxian, Cao Wenzhao, Bai Guangen, and He Renlong in history, he was still a veteran general, otherwise he would not have fought with Chen Changzhen. There is back and forth.

He received an urgent report from the soldiers in the morning, so he quickly abandoned his job and ran to the city to take a look. He saw that the rebel troops were neatly arranged and arranged in a regular five-shaped formation.

The four military formations in the southeast, northwest and northwest hold four-color flags of green, red, white and black respectively, making it easier for the commander to command.

Zhang Shun was in charge of the central army. In addition to his iconic banner with handsome characters, he also set up a yellow flag with Wuji and apricot to represent the central position.

This Four Directions and Five Elements Formation has no special characteristics. It has been recorded since the Yin and Shang Dynasties in China. It's nothing more than four divisions in the southeast, northwest, and northwest forming a large square array.

It's just that Zhang Shun's five-shaped formation is quite unique. The square formations of the left and right battalions are composed of five small hollow square formations.

It turned out that Zhang Shun had made sufficient preparations before preparing to reinforce Chen Changzhen.

In the late Ming Dynasty, due to the sharp firepower of artillery, the hollow square formation gradually appeared. However, most of these hollow phalanxes are large phalanxes, which are completely different from the small hollow phalanxes in the later era of queuing and shooting.

Zhang Shun had heard a little bit about the hollow square array in his previous life, but he didn't actually know the details. However, this did not prevent him from using his practical military experience to improve the rebel formation.

Therefore, the two battalions of Bai Guangen and He Renlong who were staying in Luoyang for rest at that time became the subjects of Zhang Shun's experiment.

He then used the two battalions as units to conduct hollow square formation training. Then, they were equipped with small artillery pieces weighing no more than 500 kilograms, such as the captive cannon and the second general, which were carried on vehicles.

Guerrilla general Zhao Guangyuan was puzzled by what he saw in Huayin City, but he soon realized that these had nothing to do with him.

It turned out that after the rebels formed their formation, they slowly advanced the formation to about a mile outside Huayin City, then launched their cannons and started bombarding the city.

It can be said that those "golden cannons" and "field cannons" are not very powerful and pose little threat to Huayin City.

But the "Qingtian General Cannon" and "Flying Biaogun" were really horrifying. One was loud and powerful, like a thunderbolt;

Others don't know how powerful this artillery is, so why doesn't Hong Chengchou?

When he saw these two big guys being pushed out by the rebels, his eyes almost popped out.

"King Shun? Where did this Hongyi cannon come from?" he asked in surprise.

"Of course it was cast by our Governor Zhang himself!" Zhang Shun smiled and pointed at a middle-aged man in his forties beside him.

After hearing this, Hong Chengchou couldn't help but stare at the man in surprise, not knowing what to say for a moment.

On the other hand, Governor Zhang looked a little embarrassed and said: "Young Master Shun put a lot of money on my face. If I had relied on my ability, my face would still be bombed outside the city of Nuxiang!"

"These two cannons are really all due to the power of King Shun. One is forged from wrought iron and is specially designed to attack the top; the other is cast from pig iron and has been corroded for dozens of miles!"

How do you think Hong Chengchou was surprised? It turns out that this method of casting red barbarian cannons does not exist in China.

It was only later that the Ming Dynasty learned it from the Spaniards who occupied the Philippines and called it the "Luzon Big Bronze Cannon". Later, they also learned how to cast cannons from the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and other countries, and they were collectively called Hongyi cannons.

In fact, this so-called "Red Cannon" was originally a naval gun on the warships of various European countries, and the largest one was only a seven- to eight-thousand-pound blunderbuss. Its caliber is about 200 millimeters, roughly equivalent to a 60-pound smoothbore cannon.

The 10,000-kilogram Hongyi cannon made by Zhang Shun can fire 50 kilograms of shells, which is almost the same as the 68-pound smoothbore cannon.

Not to mention that due to the thicker wall thickness and more reasonable design of the "Qingtian General", it can also be loaded with more gunpowder and fire faster shells, and its power is even more powerful than the largest Hongyi cannon Ming has ever seen. .

As the governor of the Ming Dynasty, Hong Chengchou, the governor of the five provinces, naturally knew the current level of firearms.

He was completely convinced that in today's world, there was no cannon heavier and more powerful than these two 10,000-pound Hongyi cannons.

No wonder Chen Changzhen was able to capture the natural barrier of Tongguan, and no wonder King Shun had the confidence to capture Huayin County in one fell swoop. That’s it!

At this time, not only Hong Chengchou understood the reason, but the guerrilla general Zhao Guangyuan standing on Huayin City also understood why the rebels launched the attack with great fanfare this time.

There was only a loud noise, and then the Huayin City Wall shook, and the guerrilla general Zhao Guangyuan standing on it couldn't help but be horrified.

He quickly shouted loudly: "Quickly, light the smoke! Quickly, send a messenger quickly and let General Zuo know how powerful the thief is!"

Before Zhao Guangyuan finished speaking, he heard another loud noise, and a virgin wall not far away happened to be shattered by a cannonball. The flying bricks and mud flew across the city wall like shotguns.

The officers and soldiers suddenly wailed, and many of them quickly turned around and hid, which provoked the military judge to dance with the sword in his hand, shouting and scolding them and driving them back to defend.

How the hell can we fight this battle?