I really don't want to be emperor at the end of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 400 The skinny camel is bigger than a horse
Chapter 400

To talk about Ning Haijun’s incendiary bomb, we have to mention a key person, and that is Catherine.This is the difference in technology between the East and the West during the Age of Discovery.

Ancient times did not have sophisticated welding technology like later generations, but for wooden sailboats, the Orient used mortise and tenon technology to connect the wooden boards together to form a strong hull.In addition, they used materials such as felt or tarpaulin for padding between the planks and on the bottom of the boat, thereby increasing the sealing of the boat.

In ancient China, people used sewing techniques to make ships watertight.They use materials like hemp rope or bamboo tendons to perforate and stitch between the hull panels to create a tight connection.In this way, not only the strength of the ship is ensured, but also the sealing performance of the ship is improved.

Although the sewing technology has good results, the problem is that the cost is relatively high. However, in the West, asphalt penetration technology is adopted, using asphalt to improve the sealing of ships.For example, many of the ships unearthed in Egypt were coated with asphalt on their bottoms. This coating can effectively prevent water leakage.

As early as the fifth year of Chongzhen, when Catherine returned to the Ming Dynasty from Venice for the first time, she brought four ships of asphalt as strategic supplies. It was a pity that asphalt had very limited use for the Ming Dynasty, and most of the needs were used for it. To make ink, Cheng Shijie discovered that the natural asphalt shipped by Catherine was actually a mixture of asphalt and crude oil.

This time, Cheng Shijie saw another way. The refining technology of crude oil can be said to be complicated or not complicated. Using local distillation technology, crude oil can be separated into diesel or gasoline. After more than a year of tinkering, Instead, it was successful.

In the process of refining crude oil, in addition to diesel and gasoline, several types of oils are also refined, such as lubricating oil. The bearings of the carriage will run more smoothly with a little addition, and gun oil, which the soldiers need after training every day. Use it to clean guns. It contains corrosive gun oil that can break down fire residue in the barrel, and wax flakes. This stuff is also very popular.

But the most popular thing is the transparent liquid of gasoline. Fill half a bottle of this stuff, add some sugar, egg white, sulfuric acid and other things into it, plug the mouth of the bottle with a piece of cloth, light the fire and stir it, and the fire will burn wherever it touches. Wherever it goes, it keeps burning into the bones. It can't be extinguished no matter how you shoot or roll. The more the fire is made, the fiercer the fire is. That horrific scene makes even Ning Haijun's veterans who have spent their entire lives gasping!
He has no way to use diesel on a large scale. He can only use it to clean rust stains when dealing with pig iron and steel parts, but gasoline, gun oil, and lubricants are not difficult at all.

However, the production capacity of Ning Haijun's refinery was too low, and local oil refining was too polluting to the environment. Therefore, Cheng Shijie placed Ning Haijun's small refinery on Luzon Island, imported crude oil directly from the City-State Republic of Venice, and placed it in Luzon. The Song refinery refines the oil, and finally divides it into various refined oils and sends them to Liaodong. Luzon focuses on hoarding gasoline and incendiary bombs, which is very effective against the indigenous people who like to drill for oil in the woods and mountains.

This kind of gasoline napalm bombs have shown their true nature as the king of destruction. In this war, the Heluo New Army brought a total of [-] gasoline napalm bombs, of which more than [-] were rocket-launched incendiary bombs. More than a thousand of them were of the throwing type, intended to surprise the Qing army, but they have never been put to use. This thing is quite dangerous. If it is not used properly, it will burn you. The Ning navy soldiers are a little afraid of it, not so much. Be positive and don’t use it as much as possible.

But now we are fighting a defensive war, and the advantages of the fuel bottle are brought into full play.

The throwing gasoline napalm bombs that hit the Qing army brought huge trouble to the Qing army. How many people were burned to death and burned was second to none. The most terrible thing was to see so many people and horses covered in fire and howling in pain. The whole army shuddered. , morale was naturally hit hard.

After all, being burned alive is not a comfortable thing. Who would be happy?In two consecutive waves of attacks, Ning Haijun used throwing gasoline napalm bombs to hit them back, resulting in many casualties and little progress. This result made the Qing army a little discouraged.

Huang Taiji's face was as sinking as water, and he kept releasing the infantry and cavalry troops in his hands, launching attacks against Ning Haijun's camp again and again.Huang Taiji believed that half of Ning Haijun's combat effectiveness depended on artillery. If they destroyed the artillery, they would win half the battle. No matter what, Ning Haijun's artillery position would have to be destroyed!
After more than half a day of fighting, Ning Haijun fired more than 8000 rocket shells, but the casualties caused to the Qing army were very limited, with only [-] casualties. This made Zhou Ning very dissatisfied, and he was very dissatisfied with Yuan Shiliang, the artillery commander. Officer, severely reprimanded.

In fact, Cheng Shijie was not surprised, because he knew that although the power of weapons was getting bigger and bigger, the killing effect was getting lower and lower, just like in the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian army fired more than [-] rocket shells, only to It caused hundreds of casualties. On average, ten rocket shells may not be able to kill or injure one person.

Cheng Shijie found that the Qing army was just a small group of sporadic cavalry. Like flies, they circled around Ning Haijun's defense line, testing, and once they discovered Ning Haijun's loopholes, they immediately swarmed forward.

Cheng Shijie had to sigh: "The Qing army has become very smart now, using smart tactics, constantly looking for weak points in our defense line, and constantly launching attacks in small groups in small groups, consuming our army's physical strength and ammunition, and preparing for the coming coming." They are very good at preparing for the decisive battle!"

"If they hadn't conspired to blow up our ammunition depot in Sanhe, we wouldn't be so passive!"

Zhou Ning smiled bitterly and said: "It's just that they certainly didn't expect that our ammunition reserves are much more than they imagined. In addition to the 120 rounds of ammunition carried by each soldier, each regiment's supply camp also reserves 120 rounds. They want to use up our army's ammunition." Ammunition? I want to see if they have enough lives for us to consume!"

As for consuming physical energy...

Zhou Ning didn't even bother to comment on this issue.Ning Haijun is a professional army. What they have been doing is fighting and preparing for war. Other Ming armies are considered elite soldiers if they march more than fifty miles a day. However, under normal circumstances, Ning Haijun trains fully armed for ten kilometers in the morning and evening, that is, This means that under normal training conditions, they have to march forty miles in full gear every day.

What's more, the Ning navy officers only need to stay on the position and shoot and drop bombs, while the Qing army has to run around shooting arrows and charging. Who consumes more physical strength?Not only the strategic but also the tactical advantage also went to Ning Haijun. Zhou Ning really couldn't think of any reason for him to lose this battle!
Cheng Shijie looked at Zhou Ning and said, "What are your plans next?" "

"General, I'm going to give them a little sweet taste!"

Cheng Shijie guessed that Zhou Ning was planning to trick someone.

Sure enough, with Zhou Ning's successive orders, the density of firepower of Ning Haijun's officers on the battlefield was significantly weakened, and it was felt that Ning Haijun's firepower was weakening.

Huang Taiji said happily: "They don't have much ammunition, that's great!"

The soldiers of the Qing army were worthy of being the kings of the cold weapon era. Although they suffered heavy casualties, they became more and more fierce. They just opened a bloody alley in Ning Haijun's defense line and attacked with difficulty.

Huang Taiji stared nervously at the battle on the front line, his knuckles turning white. When he saw a large ball of fire rising from an artillery position, he shouted out uncontrollably: "Successful! Breakthrough!"

Jilharang's forehead was covered with sweat, and he was extremely nervous. At this moment, he finally breathed a sigh of relief: "The price is not small, but if you can destroy Ning Haijun's artillery, no matter how high the price is, it is worth it..."

In fact, Huang Taiji did not know that this artillery position was abandoned by Ning Haijun on his own initiative. Your violent explosion only detonated the explosives buried on the artillery position to encourage the Qing army to continue the attack.

The Qing army continued to attack, paying heavy casualties with every step forward.

Unconsciously, the battle lasted for more than two hours. The Qing army attacked and advanced and successfully broke through Ning Haijun's seven lines of defense. Unknowingly, Ning Haijun's oval defense line had turned into a concave moon shape.The sun began to set in the west, and the Qing army's battle flags were illuminated by the sun. The layers of corpses and pools of blood formed a magnificent and terrifying picture.

If you look down from the sky, you will find that the Qing army's offensive vigor is no longer there.

"Your Majesty, the soldiers are too tired and the horses are about to run out of energy!"

Hauge, who was in charge of the frontline command, was very unhappy. During the fierce attack for most of the day, more than 2000 lives were lost just by raising the yellow flag.Even now, he had to admit that no matter how fiercely they attacked, it would be difficult to break through Ning Haijun's defense line.

What makes them even more unbearable is that Ning Haijun is distributing meals. From the aroma wafting from Ning Haijun's camp, it can be judged that Ning Haijun's lunch consists of potato stew and fragrant milk tea. In fact, these The Qing army didn't know that Ning Haijun's lunch was very rich, including not only off-season vegetables, but also a lot of fresh fruits.

The soldiers of the Qing army were hungry themselves, but now they smelled the tempting fragrance, how could they endure it?
The Qing army obviously did not receive such good treatment.Although Huang Taiji looted Beijing again before setting off, trying his best to provide better materials for his army, Beijing at this time was a consumption-oriented city, and all food and vegetables depended on the national supply.

Months of fierce fighting cut off water transportation through the Grand Canal, and the Ming army captured almost all the prefectures and counties around Beijing. This meant that Beijing had no way to obtain supplies from the outside world, and there was a large supply of fresh vegetables, meat, and eggs. Minus, the grain trade on the market has almost completely stopped. Under this situation, even if Huang Taiji has great skills, he can't get more good things.

So now, the best thing the Qing army can eat is a bowl of rice with thickened wheat grains, covered with a thin layer of bacon foam.Forget about big fish and meat. As for fresh vegetables and fruits, most Qing soldiers said they had never seen such things since entering the customs.

The war horses ate better. The auxiliary soldiers had chopped fine ingredients for them early, mixed them with eggs and sugar, and when they were full, they fed them half a catty of spirits with a blood-stimulating effect. The Liaodong war horses were satisfied with this meal. So great that after eating, he kept digging his hooves on the ground, urging his master to go to the battlefield, looking impatient.

After a full meal, the Qing army couldn't wait to launch an attack on Ning Haijun. The effect of the attack was similar to that in the morning. It was still bleeding all the way.

Until the sun was about to set, the Qing army still had not made a breakthrough visible to the naked eye.

The Qing army was now exhausted. They had not slept all night and fought hard for another day. The iron-clad people could not bear it. Just when Huang Taiji was about to order the Qing army to suspend their troops and fight again.

Ning Haijun launched a rare counterattack. Of course, Ning Haijun's counterattack still used artillery and rocket launchers to open the way as usual.

"Your Majesty, this slave is incompetent, please punish me!"

Huang Taiji sighed, at this moment.

"Boom boom boom..."

The rumble of artillery shattered the silence of the battlefield. The artillery shells whizzed past with fierce air waves, landed in the Qing army's formation, and exploded into dazzling fireballs. This was a test firing of the artillery.

Immediately afterwards, more three-inch guns and four-inch guns joined the ranks of test firings, and the rocket launchers also opened fire in sequence, each firing two shells, exploding rows of uneven craters in front of Ning Haijun's position, with thunderous explosions. , smoke and flames billowed, and shrapnel roared and flew through. This scene was also quite terrifying.

As the artillery began to fire, Cheng Shijie also stood in front of the entire army and made the final mobilization. In fact, this did not require mobilization. Ning Haijun's morale was like a rainbow. Of course, Cheng Shijie would not let go of this opportunity to show off.

"Commanders of Ning Haijun, today is the final decisive battle between us and Jiannu. It is a matter of victory or defeat, and life and death. The winner will stand and the loser will lie down! We, Ning Haijun, came out from Ninghai Prefecture, Dengfu, Shandong. Denglai rebels, Japanese pirates, Mongol Tatars, rogue bandits, pirate groups, Western Yi Legions... these powerful enemies have all fallen in front of us!"

Cheng Shijie yelled: "Our enemies of Ning Haijun have shown the world an ironclad fact with their blood. Any enemy who stands in front of our Ning Haijun is destined to be crushed by us. Jiannu is no exception. The Qing army No exception! I gave them a chance to go back to their hometowns, but they refused, so we have no choice but to send them back to their hometowns with gunfire and swords!"

Ning Haijun roared like thunder: "Send them back to their hometown!"

Cheng Shijie waved his hand and pointed at the Qing army's slowly moving formation: "Kill!!!"

"kill!!!"

The thunder that rumbled across the earth shook up the clouds in the sky, followed by the roar of mountains and tsunami. Hundreds of rocket launcher shells placed in front of the formation rushed up diagonally with long smoke and flames, turning into fire dragons with claws and claws. Pounce on the Qing army!

At the moment when the rocket launcher shells took off, the heavy artillery of Ning Haijun and the Qing Army let out terrifying roars at the same time, and explosive bombs, incendiary bombs, and solid lead balls flew toward each other with a heart-stopping whistling sound.

At the end of the short trajectory was a large cloud of explosion smoke that bloomed like fireworks. The explosion shock wave threw broken weapons, human bodies, and armor fragments into the sky. Shrapnel that was so hot that it was almost burning flew densely in all directions, and no armor could resist it. It was able to withstand the debris flying at high speed, and the soldiers within the killing radius, whether they were white-armored soldiers or red-armored soldiers, whether they were elites of the Eight Banners of Jiannu or Mongolian servants, all fell in clusters like wheat.

Seeing Ning Haijun's artillery becoming more and more fierce without any sign of stopping, Huang Taiji had a terrible thought in his heart: "Fell into a trap? Could it be that the explosion of the Sanhe ammunition depot was a hoax?"

Huang Taiji actually thought too much. Although Ning Haijun's ammunition depot in Sanhe was bombed, the problem was that a skinny camel was bigger than a horse. No matter how many shells Ning Haijun lost, it would still be enough to crush the Qing military capital.

(End of this chapter)