I, the Ming Dynasty, can still save me

The night is getting dark, and a crescent moon hangs high in the sky, giving the entire land of Liaodong a touch of silver.

There was also a moment of tranquility in Saarhu City under the moonlight, and the Eight Banners soldiers who stayed up until night finally had some time to breathe.

After two days of continuous bombardment by hundreds of Krupp guns, thousands of shells bombarded Sarhu City indiscriminately. Although the city wall was not reduced to ruins, it was riddled with holes.

The gate tower on the city wall of Saarhu has long been blown down, and the other parts of the city wall have collapsed into gaps in seven or eight places. A row of crenellations on the city wall have also been smashed to pieces, and there are rubbles and limbs everywhere in the corridors. Yes, we can only rely on the Eight Banners soldiers under the city wall to clean it up bit by bit.

Under the constant bombardment from the Beijing camp, Saarhu's defenders suffered constant casualties.The soldiers defending the city wall suffered heavy casualties on the first day.They were either hit by gravel, were too shaken to speak, or were mentally disturbed. The loss was as high as 500 people.

By the next day, the soldiers of the Eight Banners had also learned the lesson. They all knew that going up the city wall and being bombarded by the Ming army was just asking for death, so they were unwilling to go up the city wall again.Instead, except for a few people who monitored the movements of the Ming army on the city wall, the others hid under the city wall, waiting for the Ming army to bombard them. After the bombing was over, they quietly went up to clean up the rubble of the city wall.

Dai Shan originally did not agree with this, but in the end he found out that the Ming army only bombarded and did not attack, so he had no choice but to agree.But despite this, seeing the horrific bombardment of the western city wall by the Ming army made Daishan in the city restless.

First, Mang Gurtai's surrender, then Amin's words about Huang Taiji, and then the Ming army's bombing of hundreds of Krupp cannons, had already made Daishan very anxious.

But this is not a solution. He knows in his heart that the purpose of the Ming army has never been to cause casualties, but to blow down the city wall first. As long as the city wall is blown down, no matter how many people there are in Saarhu, it will be useless.

Now there are cracks and collapses in the west wall. Although the Eight Banners soldiers have blocked it with sandbags when there is no sign of the Ming army attacking, there is really no way to go on like this. The Ming army's artillery position must be removed.

Thinking of this, Daishan immediately called Du Du to discuss, preparing to gather elite soldiers in the city to go out of the city at night to destroy the Ming army's artillery position.

Du Du also quickly agreed after hearing this. He had also been bombarded by artillery in the past two days and was uneasy. The morale in the city was now low. If he just sat there and waited for death, he would be dead.

As soon as the two of them gathered together, they immediately ordered Laerzhen Bukesha and Duonuo, who were wearing red flags, to take the lead. Each led [-] elite troops to leave the city at night and sneak attack the Ming army's artillery position.

So on that night, Bukesha and Dono quietly led people out of the east gate, then walked east and west, making a big detour, and secretly arrived at the Ming Army's artillery position.Seeing that the Ming army had not noticed anything along the way, the two men were confused and excited. They felt that the Ming army's position was really ambitious and that such an important artillery position was not defended strictly at all.So he personally led the team to the front of the position and prepared to attack.

But when they crossed the ditch and rushed through the fence, they were dumbfounded when they saw the scene inside.All the artillery in the Ming army's artillery position was gone, and it was completely empty. When Bukesha and Dono saw this, they immediately screamed secretly.

"No, there's an ambush, retreat quickly!"

Both of them were experienced in the battlefield. They could tell at a glance that the Ming army had been prepared. They secretly felt that something was wrong and quickly called for people to retreat.

But it was too late. There were flames and shouts from the Ming army all around. Huang Degong and Zhao Shujiao looked at the Jianlu who rushed to the encirclement. They were overjoyed. After waiting for two days, they finally got a big fish.

"Kill me, don't let them escape!"

It turned out that Tan Mian had long guessed that the Jianlu would not be bothered by the continuous shelling from the Beijing camp, so he asked the artillery camp to put away the artillery every night, and at the same time asked Huang Degong, Zhao Lijiao and others to ambush in the artillery position. Waiting for Jianlu to fall into siege.

So Huang Degong and others waited in the artillery position for two days, and finally waited for Jianlu to make a sneak attack. How could they let them go when they saw the situation.

"Bang bang bang!"

Suddenly there was a loud sound of gunfire, and the firelight shining in the darkness, like the stars at night, instantly illuminated the two artillery positions.

When Bukesha and Dono saw this, they wanted to call the surrounding soldiers and horses to form a formation to resist the Ming army's attack first and buy time for retreat.But before the soldiers at the front could react, they were hit one after another by raindrops of lead bullets and fell to the ground with a groan.

In the dark night, the Ming army's deafening shouts, the continuous sound of blunderbuss, and the wailing and crying for help of the fallen Eight Banners soldiers were everywhere.

When the Jianlu soldiers who were still preparing to attack saw this, they immediately panicked and became confused.The soldiers behind him didn't even think about it. They didn't resist at all. They didn't care about Bukesha and Dono who were still fighting in front. They immediately dispersed and ran away.

"Kill me!"

But how could the Ming army let go of this opportunity? After one round of shooting, they put a blunderbuss knife on the bird blunderbuss and rushed straight towards the Jianlu soldiers.

For a time, there were shouts of killing everywhere, and many soldiers who fled with their lives could not escape at all. They were caught up by the Ming army behind and stabbed to death several times.Some soldiers ran for the road and were not caught by the Ming army behind them. Instead, they slipped and fell into the ditch and were killed.

Attacking at night is a taboo for military strategists. If they fail, they will not be able to escape. All the misfortunes are too terrible to watch.

On the wall of Sarhu City, Daishan couldn't help but feel despair in his heart when he heard the shouts below. He didn't know what to do for a while.

How about also sending an envoy to ask for surrender?
This thought couldn't help but pop up in Daishan's mind, but as soon as Daishan thought about it, he shook his head and cleared the thought away.Not to mention whether he can agree to surrender, he just said that he has offended Mang Gurtai and Amin. If after surrender, his status will be lower than that of Mang Gurtai and Amin, they will definitely not know how to humiliate themselves.

"Don't open the west gate and let the defeated troops gather at the east gate. Don't open the door at night. Wait until daytime to open it again to prevent Ming army spies from sneaking in."

"As ordered!"

Daishan in the city was in despair, but the Ming army below the city won another victory.

With the Sarhu city wall as a cover for Jianlu, Huang Degong and others saw the Jianlu deserters fleeing to the foot of Sarhu city, so they stopped pursuing them and went back to clean up the battlefield until the morning.

"Sir General, after a preliminary count, we found that there were more than [-] casualties among the captives yesterday, and our army captured more than [-] people."

Huang Degong looked at the report sent by Guo Zuoguang and couldn't help but nodded. He was very satisfied with this result.

"Hurry up and send the results of the victory to the camp, report the victory to General Tan and the Governor, and ask Deputy General Zhang to prepare the artillery and get ready to work."

The night's episode did not disturb Zhang Mingshi. The Krupao showed its prowess in the past two days, which also made Zhang Mingshi energetic and not tired at all.

Today is the last day of the bombardment ordered by Tan Mian. Zhang Mingshi will naturally not miss this opportunity. The first two were shelled city walls, but today a big one will be built for Jianlu.

"Bring me the sky cannon you gave me today and push it forward a hundred feet to blow up the city wall for me. In addition, all the Krug cannons today will be loaded with explosive shells and they will be fired into the city for me."

Zhang Mingshi gave an order, and the people below quickly started to operate.Soon a group of battalion soldiers brought five new artillery pieces.

This kind of artillery requires five horses to drag, but its barrel is not long, but very short, but its muzzle is very large, like a huge dwarf winter melon.

This is the latest achievement of the Tongzhou Firearms Workshop: the mortar.

This kind of gun is also called a mother-and-child gun. It is similar to a modern mortar or mortar and is a medium-sized artillery.

The whole body is made of bronze. The barrel is very short, only two feet and five inches, and the wall is thin. However, its muzzle is very large, one inch long, and can shoot seventy kilograms of shells.

Although this kind of cannon looks small, it is heavy and has a short range. However, because it can fire heavy shells, it is most suitable for breaching city walls.So this time it was specially transported from Beijing by Chen Liangbi for use in siege.

It's just that because the artillery shells are troublesome to transport, there are not many of them, so they must be used at the most critical time.

Half an hour later, the five cannons were placed neatly.Waiting for the gunner to load the gunpowder into the powder chamber, the three of them took iron tongs and put the shell into the front chamber. They filled the shell with gunpowder, separated it with a layer of wet soil, and sealed it with wax.

After Zhang Mingshi waved his hand, the gunner adjusted his angle to aim at the Saarhu city wall and quickly ignited the fuse.

"Boom! Boom!..."

Accompanied by five loud noises that shook the sky, five [-]-pound iron cannonballs were like five heavy hammers, hitting the city wall of Sarhu so hard that the wall of Sarhu shook a little.open
Mingshi looked at the position of the city wall and secretly thought that the power of this sky-reaching cannon was really great. A single salvo fired three huge holes in the city wall.

"Keep shooting, don't stop until we smash a few big holes in the wall of Sarhu."

After reading this, Zhang Mingshi immediately began to command the sky cannon to continue firing without stopping. Then with a wave of his hand, he ordered all the other Kru cannons to adjust their calibration and prepare for a new round of bombardment.

Upon hearing the order from the Commander-in-Chief, the artillerymen behind him immediately raised the angle of the Krug cannon, while the auxiliary soldiers opened the shell box on the side. The shells in the box were completely different from those in the past.

It is not as solid as the previous iron bullets. Instead, it leaves a small hole with a long lead inserted into the hole.

If you look carefully through the small hole, you will find that there is either gunpowder and several edges and corners hidden inside, or a mixture of bean powder, rosin, dry paint and gunpowder.

I saw these soldiers skillfully stuffing the cannon shells into the barrel, and then plugging in the fuse. The direction they aimed was not the Saarhu city wall, but the Saarhu city, waiting for Zhang Mingshi's order.

Hundreds of artillery fired again, and the Jianlu soldiers under the city wall once again heard the thundering sound of artillery, and once again skillfully approached the city wall to avoid it.

But this time they did not hear the trembling of the city wall. Instead, they heard the "swish" sound of the cannonballs flying directly over the city wall, flying into the city wall, or hitting the houses on the city wall, or falling next to the soldiers, making them look at each other in confusion. . (End of chapter)