1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3904

Although the vanguard of the Haihan Army successfully occupied the ruins of Zhangjiang Gate, it was still very passive due to insufficient troops when faced with the fierce counterattack of the defending forces in the city, and was unable to advance the battle line into the city.

After the battle lasted for a while, the two companies acting as the vanguard suffered casualties of up to 20%, which was far greater than the data from previous battles in other prefectures of Jiangxi.

The troop transport ships on the Gan River were not slacking off and were continuously sending reinforcements to Zhangjiangmen, but their speed was clearly limited by the environment.

Even though Shi Chengwu's troops had prepared many boats for crossing the river, it was not a bridge connecting both banks and could not transport a large force across the river to Zhangjiangmen in a short time.

Fortunately, after Shi Chengwu informed the other three allied forces of the news of the breach of Zhangjiang Gate, the offensive from the other three directions did not slow down. On the contrary, they intensified their attacks in order to hold back the city's defenders and prevent them from immediately rushing to Zhangjiang Gate's aid.

However, with ammunition already limited, the dozen or so warships in the direction of Deshengmen in the north of the city quickly ran out of shells. Although Deshengmen had been bombarded beyond recognition, without artillery cover, landing on the riverbank outside Deshengmen would still face fire from the city's defenses.

Ha Jianyi did not risk launching a siege, but instead ordered his fleet to continue patrolling the river, taking turns retreating to the north bank to resupply ammunition.

He knew that even if he didn't launch an attack, as long as he maintained pressure on Deshengmen, the garrison in the north of the city would be unable to divert troops to reinforce Zhangjiangmen in the west.

The second wave of troops landing at Zhangjiangmen arrived quickly, and they were equipped with mules and horses to transport their equipment. They brought several mortars and two heavy machine guns, and the addition of heavy firepower immediately relieved the pressure on the vanguard.

Although the Ming army's heavy shields could effectively block rifle fire, they were no match for the more powerful heavy machine guns. When they were less than thirty paces from Zhangjiang Gate, their attack failed, and they were routed by a barrage of fire, leaving corpses strewn across the battlefield.

The Haihan army also increased the number of firing positions set up on the city walls, and the arrival of several snipers finally allowed the firing range to cover the archer team who were hiding in the distance and throwing arrows.

Although the defending troops inside the city were still pouring towards Zhangjiang Gate, the firepower blockade of the Haihan Army had been strengthened, making it not so easy to break through. It was almost impossible for the defending troops to re-seal the gap.

When the number of Haihan troops landing at Zhangjiang Gate exceeded one thousand, the defenders' relentless charges only served to deplete Haihan's ammunition and had no real effect.

However, the defending general clearly noticed this and quickly adjusted his tactics, halting the infantry charge and instead deploying several cannons on the long street facing Zhangjiang Gate.

These were artillery units that were on standby inside the city. They rushed to reinforce the city as soon as they received news of the fall of Zhangjiang Gate.

Using artillery to deal with the Haihan infantry who occupied Zhangjiang Gate was a tactic that was not inherently problematic. However, the problem was that the city had limited space, which greatly restricted the deployment of these artillery pieces. They were less than half a mile from Zhangjiang Gate and still within the range of Haihan's firepower. In the rush, it was also impossible to build a solid fortification.

This made them easy targets for the Haihan Army near Zhangjiang Gate. Before these cannons could even get into combat mode, they were unsurprisingly hit by mortar fire. The cannons themselves weren't badly damaged, but the artillerymen weren't so resilient, and several of them immediately fell to the ground.

However, due to the street conditions, the defenders' artillery could no longer retreat in order to maintain an effective firing range over Zhangjiang Gate. Two cannons fired a round despite the difficulty, but failed to accurately hit the target at Zhangjiang Gate. The shells flew over the ruins and went directly outside the city through the gap.

The Haihan army, of course, would not give them a second chance to fire, and immediately destroyed the two cannons that were still capable of fighting.

Ding Baoguo had already arrived nearby to oversee the battle. Upon hearing that the artillery units that had come to reinforce the troops had also been wiped out by the Haihan army, he was greatly disappointed.

When he was formulating the battle plan, he had actually considered the resistance measures after the Haihan army breached the city. Therefore, he left a considerable number of troops and heavy weapons such as artillery in the city, preparing to use the complex environment of the city with its undulating terrain and numerous waterways to deal with the Haihan army.

However, the tactics and strategies of the Haihan army still exceeded Ding Baoguo's expectations. He originally thought that with his advance deployment, he could hold out for at least ten days to half a month. Even if the Haihan army managed to break through the city by then, they should be nearing their end. At that time, with the fresh troops in the city, he should be able to put up a fight against them.

But who could have imagined that on the second day of the official battle, the Haihan Army would break through the city's defenses in one fell swoop, and that was at Zhangjiang Gate, which Ding Baoguo thought could not be the main direction of attack.

The defending troops that came to reinforce the city after its fall failed to plug the breach as Ding Baoguo had anticipated. Instead, the breach was held by the enemy with very few troops, and even the cannons that had been deployed in advance in the city failed to play their expected role, losing more than ten cannons in just one encounter.

What pained Ding Baoguo even more was that the artillerymen, whom he had finally trained, fell on the battlefield before they even had a chance to fire.

The two heavy machine guns that Haihan had set up on the ruins of Zhangjiang Gate terrified the Ming army. They could not imagine how these things could fire almost continuously without interruption. Moreover, their power and range were comparable to the small-caliber cannons in the Ming army camp. Ordinary armor and shields were still completely unable to withstand them at a distance of 100 zhang.

Upon witnessing the heavy machine guns firing at the Ming troops from afar, Ding Baoguo realized that these weapons were no match for his own forces and had to abandon his plan to continue the infantry assault. Had he understood the characteristics of heavy machine guns, he might not have made such a decision.

After firing continuously for a while, the barrel temperature will rise to a level that is enough to melt metal. Even if the barrel is covered with a water cooling device, its performance will still be greatly reduced, directly affecting the service life of the barrel.

Furthermore, the amount of ammunition it consumes is quite astonishing. The ammunition capacity of a single machine gun is almost equivalent to that of an infantry company, and the rate of ammunition consumption when firing is much faster than that of an infantry company.

The continuous barrage that repelled the Ming army's charge had already used up several hundred rounds of ammunition from each of the two machine guns. If they continued firing at this rate, they would soon run out of ammunition, at which point these things would become useless lumps of iron, even less useful than rifles, which at least allowed for close-quarters combat with bayonets.

If Ding Baoguo were to harden his heart and let the Ming army charge a few more times, they might actually be able to temporarily exhaust the combat power of these two machine guns.

(End of this chapter)