The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 526: Great Victory in Pyongyang
A cannonball accurately hit the arrow tower in front of the Qixing Gate. The iron ball weighing ten pounds passed through the chaotic rain of arrows in front of it and directly smashed a hole the size of a bowl in the wooden board. Then, hundreds of shotgun shells hit the arrow tower like a wall. Amidst the wailing, the archer of Simida who was drawing his bow and shooting an arrow was beaten into a sieve by the iron sand and fell to the ground like a fallen leaf.

The Qi army bombarded the city walls continuously, with dense shells hitting the walls, wood and stones flying everywhere. Occasionally, one or two shrapnel shells fell into the crowd behind the battlements, exploding violently. The people who were running around screaming and in despair were instantly turned into spring mud to protect the flowers.

Thanks to the reliable time delay fuse developed by the workshop, the shells are fired on a straight trajectory and are not easily detonated. The shells are hollow round shells with wooden sabots.

The hollow iron ball is filled with gunpowder, caltrops, porcelain pieces, etc. to block the hole. Once released, the firepower is amazing wherever it reaches.

According to the workshop's test records: "(The shrapnel bullet) will explode immediately. The powder inside the bullet is mostly sulfur. It can strike a distance of one to two hundred steps. The bullet explodes into pieces of iron. Together with the iron edges stored inside, they can rush forward, penetrate flesh and bore into objects. One shot can be equivalent to ten artillery pieces."

The shells exploded behind each battlement in turn, and each explosion killed and injured a large number of defenders. The Korean artillerymen occupied the higher terrain of Mudan Peak, and bombarded the Qi army infantry with the general cannon and suspected red cannon from a high position. The artillery on both sides fired back and forth. Han Zhenyi put down the telescope and a proud look appeared on his face.

"This Korean soldier's artillery is quite good, but it's not accurate."

At this time, the artillery styles and mechanism principles of both sides were basically the same. They were both muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons, still belonging to the muzzle-loading smoothbore era using black powder as propellant.

However, the design of the Korean army's artillery was still a continuation of the Red Cannon of the late Ming Dynasty, with some slight improvements on the original basis.

Wang Congzhi looked towards the artillery positions of the Korean army on Mudan Peak. After a long pause, he stroked his beard and said with a smile, "There are quite a few types, but they are all unusable."

Heavy red cannons, light cannons, and sky rockets were placed in order on the Mudan Peak position. The Korean gunners were as anxious as ants on a hot pan. Although the Qi army's artillery at the foot of the mountain was not at an advantage, the enemy could shoot farther and more accurately than them, and would occasionally fire two shrapnel shells, and the gunners who were hit would be completely wiped out.

"Hey, why are there Westerners here?"

Wang Congzhi was surprised to find that there were several Frenchmen among the panicked Korean gunners. Of course, the artillery chief did not know that these Frenchmen were artillery instructors hired by Li Jong at a high price, and most of them came from the East India Company.

"The Red Haired Barbarians are also going to help North Korea?"

Han Zhenyi said with disdain: "Even if the king of heaven comes, he will have to lie at our feet. Today, the emperor will launch a general attack on Pyongyang. No matter who dares to stand in our way, we will kill them all. God will kill God, Buddha will kill Buddha!"

As he spoke, a shrill whistling sound resounded across the north bank of the Taedong River. Thousands of divine fire crows took off into the sky, avoiding the dense artillery fire from both sides. They rose into the sky, then plummeted rapidly in a dizzying white light, shooting towards the hillside of Moran Peak like meteors.

boom! boom!
Accompanied by bursts of dull explosions, clusters of orange-red mushroom clouds rose from the hillside of Moran Peak. Rockets filled with sticky oil powder burned violently, and the dead trees and grass around the hillside caught fire. The North Korean artillery near the forest was immediately engulfed in the raging flames. From a few miles away, countless dancing fireballs could be vaguely seen rolling down the cliff...

The North Korean army fired a few symbolic artillery shots and then stopped retaliating. Their heavy red cannons with the longest range could not even hook the Divine Fire Crow that fell to the ground like a meteor, and they had no power to fight back at all.

Fortunately, Liu Zhaosun did not plan to turn the area around Pyongyang into a sea of fire. After three rounds of rocket coverage, the artillery battalion ordered a suspension of rocket launches.

Next, the protagonists of this war became the artillery battalion gunners.

The artillery of the Qi army has been standardized in shape and structure. Thanks to the advancement of artillery technology in the workshop, the artillery battalion now has cannons with long barrels and low trajectories, howitzers with medium barrels and more curved trajectories, and land mortars with short barrels and curved trajectories.

With the popularity of fixed ammunition, the firing procedures of the Qi army artillery were greatly simplified: flushing the chamber, loading the ammunition, tamping, setting up the gun carriage, aiming, igniting, and firing. Naturally, the firing rate was faster.

The firing rates of various types of artillery of the Korean army were roughly at the level before the Kaiyuan army participated in the mixed battle in the 47th year of Wanli.

Qi's field artillery fired 70 or 80 times a day, usually requiring two gunners and 2 assistants, while small artillery such as the Eagle Cannon could fire 10 times a day and required fewer people.

The North Korean army's muzzle-loading smoothbore cannon (red cannon) had a complicated ammunition loading procedure and a low firing frequency.

The "Haiguo Tuzhi" records the process of firing artillery of the Korean army: "Close the gun door, clean the gun barrel with a wet gun brush, then put the powder, send it into the barrel with a wooden stick, then put the bullet, and use a sesame ball, if it is the size of the barrel mouth, to stuff it into the barrel so that the powder does not leak out and the gun is ejected forcefully. After loading, fire it again, and after firing, reload it as before, and then fire continuously. After four or five shots, you must stop for a while to prevent the gun body from getting hot."

The firing rate of the Qi army's heavy field artillery is 3 rounds per 2 minutes, and 6 rounds can be fired in 9 minutes. The firing rate of small artillery is faster than this.

In short, the firing rate of the Qi army's heavy artillery was about 10 times that of the Chao army.

~~~~~~
"Report! The First Corps has crossed the Taedong River and arrived at the city. Should we attack immediately?"

Emperor Wu Ding looked at the messenger, pointed his sword forward, and shouted:

"Destroy Pyongyang and destroy North Korea!" Teams of musketeers, carrying new muskets, marched in orderly steps towards the Qixingmen city wall under the command of battalion commanders and captains.

In front of them, more than two thousand North Korean prisoners had become corpses filling the trenches, lying quietly in the trenches dug by their own people.

The auxiliary soldiers carried ladders and pushed shield carts, walking with difficulty along the banks of the Taedong River. Although Pyongyang City was close at hand, it was still very far away for them.

The weapons and equipment of the Qi army soldiers had undergone earth-shaking changes, and rifled guns began to replace smoothbore guns.

The rifled gun was not invented by the Qi people. As early as the late 15th century, rifled firearms had appeared in Europe, and Maximilian, the Holy Roman Emperor, used a rifled matchlock gun.

However, the spiral rifling was first invented by Liu Zhaosun.

According to the emperor, shooting with straight rifling helps improve accuracy and makes shooting more stable, and deeper rifling has better effects.

Song Yingxing and Mao Yuanyi jointly designed a new type of rifle, and ingeniously designed the diameter of the rifle's chamber to be smaller than the inner diameter of the barrel.

This rifled gun uses a spherical projectile that is slightly smaller than the inner diameter of the barrel, so the bullet can be loaded into the barrel smoothly; and when the bullet reaches the narrowed chamber, it will be stuck. At this time, using a cleaning rod to hit it hard will cause the lead projectile to deform and embed into the rifling.

However, the spherical projectile will become flat when hit by the cleaning rod, affecting its stability during flight, and it is not suitable for use in rifles.

The two improved the design and developed a tapered bullet, which greatly improved the stability of the bullet.

When Emperor Wuding learned of this, he rewarded the two men handsomely and promised that after their death, Song Yingxing and Mao Yuanyi could be enshrined in the Taimiao, just like Kang Yingqian and Qiao Yiqi.

Emperor Wu Ding believed that with the steam engine providing a steady supply of power, mass production of rifled guns would soon no longer be a problem.

Later, the workshop continued to improve the tapered bullet until the Minié rifle and Minié bullet appeared. Of course, this happened more than ten years later.

By the time of the Eastern Expedition to Korea, all the musketeers of the First Corps, the elite of the entire army, had been equipped with the latest rifled rifles.

Compared with its predecessor (Type 27 flintlock), the Type 31 flintlock uses rifling technology, the range of the musket is increased to meters, and the accuracy is greatly enhanced.

It is said that some well-trained snipers can use the Type 31 to suppress the Tiger Crouching Cannon and the General Cannon at a distance of steps.

Since the first year of Taichu, the Qi army's artillery and musket technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. Of course, the Koreans are not bad either. Their military technological progress is mainly reflected in defensive fortifications.

Under the guidance of the Portuguese and the shogunate, Korea completed the construction of field fortifications under the military system - Pyongyang Xijincheng, also known as Lianzhai. Craftsmen twisted clay and tree roots together to make walls. The walls they built were as hard as stone and indestructible.

Under the supervision of the experienced Spanish military technician Vasily Nacibaydon, the perimeter of Pyongyang was built into a bastion-like defensive fortification: on the one hand, its lower and thicker shape improved its defense against heavy artillery, and on the other hand, it could arrange cross-fire city defense firepower to cause heavy casualties to the attackers.

However, due to lack of time, this "reduced" version of the bastion is very shabby compared to the pure bastions in Europe, but it is a great improvement compared to the original square city wall defense.

~~~~
However, in the face of the Qi army's absolute artillery advantage, the Koreans' chain camps and bastions were of little significance.

At noon on November 15th, thousands of golden rays of light shattered the dense fog that enveloped Pyongyang, and everything below finally appeared clearly to the soldiers on the western ramparts. The Great Qi soldiers swarmed over them like a dark cloud, carrying with them the Qi army's ultimate weapon: rockets of all kinds.

At this time, the Moran Peak artillery had been completely suppressed by the Qi army's artillery. The Portuguese cannons and general cannons placed by the Korean defenders on the Qixing Gate had limited power, and most of the gunners had already fired most of the shells before the Qi soldiers attacked, and used them to deal with the cannon fodder for filling the trenches.

Three thousand musketeers of the First Corps crossed the river and began shooting at the remaining soldiers on the city wall.

The artillery counterattack on the city wall was ineffective, and only some archers and musketeers who had not been killed or burned continued to resist desperately.

The weapons in their hands could not be compared with those of the Qi army in terms of range or firepower.

The battlefield became even bloodier and turned into a one-sided massacre.

As the saying goes:
The crackle of gunfire, the rumble of artillery, the scattering of shrapnel, the deafening sound. At the climax of the charge, the North Korean army was trapped, but trapped beasts still fought, and there was a cry of killing. The brave men were brave, sometimes running and sometimes stopping, corpses were scattered all over the field, and the rifles were dominant. The Qi army was magnificent!
(End of this chapter)