After saving the Empress, I became the top scholar in the imperial examination.

Chapter 678 Between Cannons

"Bang bang bang bang bang!"

Before the dark, imposing army, laborers carried loads on their shoulders and piled up a nine-foot-high earthen platform, upon which stood rows of heavy cannons, each weighing a thousand pounds, roaring and spewing forth tongues of fire.

After the first round of shelling, the second round followed immediately.

Heart-wrenching screams echoed from the city walls.

"They're here!"

"hide!"

"Get to the side! Quick! Quick!"

"Bang!"

"Ahhhhh!"

"Artillery! Aim the artillery at their cannons!"

"one!"

"two!"

"three!"

"put!!!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

On the north city wall, the cannons and gunners hidden behind the raised ramparts and battlements also began to fire their cannons.

The mother-and-child cannons of Daliang weigh between 200 and 500 catties. These cannons were designed to deal with enemy troops attacking the city, but now the enemy troops have stopped a mile away.

The gunners in charge of the mother-and-child cannon fired a few rounds, naturally missing the enemy, only smashing a large hole in the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust. The gunners gritted their teeth and roared:

"Sir! It's too far!"

At this point, they could only rely on the twenty heavy cannons with a weight of 1,000 jin (approximately 500 kg) deployed on the city wall to retaliate.

"Prepare the cannons!"

Inside the horse-faced watchtower, the artillery commander's neck veins bulged as he gritted his teeth and roared!

One gunner used a cleaning rod to clean the cannon barrel, while another gunner immediately began pouring gunpowder into it.

Next, the two of them used a tamping rod to compact the gunpowder.

After compaction, a gunner would lift a ten-pound iron cannonball and put it into the cannon barrel.

A rolling sound rang out.

The round cannonballs crashed to the bottom.

"Aim at their cannons!"

Aiming at the target is destined to be inaccurate; only by bombarding it with a whole row of cannons can one rely on luck to see if they can destroy a few of the enemy's cannons.

A gunner holds a fuse and inserts it into the breech of the cannon.

Even after practicing countless times, his hands still trembled slightly at this moment.

"Bang bang bang bang bang!"

The enemy's artillery bombarded the city walls and battlements incessantly.

My ears were exploding.

After one failure, the gunner successfully inserted the fuse into the tiny fire hole.

He gritted his teeth, his ears already stuffed with cotton.

"Open your mouth!" he shouted anxiously.

Only when they open their mouths and light the firecrackers can their ears feel a little better.

The artillery captain also roared, "Open your mouth!"

The gunners responsible for cleaning the cannon barrels and filling them with gunpowder covered their ears, opened their mouths, and squatted down.

A flame lit up.

The gunner in charge of igniting the fuse used a match to light the fuse.

"Hiss hiss hiss hiss!"

The fuse burned rapidly!

Sparks flew into the cannon barrel!

"boom!"

The gunpowder inside the cannon barrel was ignited, and a horrifying explosion occurred within the extremely small space of the cannon barrel!

The heavily forged steel cannon, weighing thousands of pounds, firmly controlled the explosion, confining it within its small chamber.

The temperature soared to several thousand degrees in an instant, the cannon barrel turned red instantly, and the heat was conducted in a flash, making the entire cannon barrel extremely hot!

And it was precisely because the cannons firmly controlled the explosion.

The enormous kinetic energy generated by the explosion was all poured onto this ten-pound iron cannonball!

In an instant, in an instant.

Everything happened in this one moment!

"Bang!"

The shell generated extremely rapid friction with the cannon barrel. In a negligible amount of time, it collided with the barrel, producing a short, thunderous sound, before flying out of the barrel, out of the gun port on the cannon face, blasting through the wind that blocked it, and carrying extremely high temperature and enormous kinetic energy, it flew towards the enemy's formation!

The red-coated cannon had a range of over a mile, and this single shot reached right up to the enemy's lines...

Meanwhile, inside the horse-faced watchtower.

"Water it!"

"Clean the entrails!"

The overall instructions were issued one by one.

Everyone's ears were ringing, and they couldn't hear what the captain was saying at all, not even the captain himself.

The group acted solely based on their physical memory.

Someone carried water and poured it onto the red-hot cannon barrel to cool it down.

Someone was using a cleaning rod to clean the cannon barrel.

The immense recoil sent a cloud of dust flying from above them and cracked the brickwork beneath the gun carriage.

The commander kept a close eye on the command flags outside.

The twenty red-coated cannons could not be fired simultaneously; at most, only half of them could be fired at the same time, otherwise the city wall would not be able to withstand such a huge recoil.

"Boom! Boom!"

The enemy's shelling continued.

Upon seeing the commander's flag raised outside, he roared:

"Load!"

Preparations begin for the second round of shelling...

In addition to the newly acquired Great General Cannon by Yue Zhongqi, the original fifty Divine General Cannons weighing one thousand catties and two thousand catties from the three major battalions were also brought over.

With the addition of the ten newly built Divine General Cannons by Nian Xiyao, a total of sixty thousand-pound cannons began to move forward.

The earthen platforms ahead, about a mile in, are quite spread out.

With the earthen platform providing cover, the cannons on the city wall were not so easy to hit them.

The same process: clearing the chamber, loading powder, loading the ammunition, opening the mouth wide, igniting, firing...

Then came watering, cooling down, and continuing the cleaning process...

The two sides fired artillery round after round.

The Northern Dynasties had far more cannons than the Southern Dynasties.

Especially the enemy's general's cannon.

Dong Anguo opened his mouth wide and shouted at Jiang Luzhi:

"It's at least a 5,000-jin cannon! It could even be 7,000 jin!"

Jiang Luzhi's ears were ringing, and despite his efforts to guess and understand, he still managed to comprehend Dong Anguo's meaning.

Daliang also had cannons weighing 7,000 jin, but they were all deployed on the river defenses to block the river and attack warships in order to prevent the Northern Dynasty from crossing the river.

Jiang Luzhi glared and roared:

"Hold on! They can't fire more than a few shots!"

To prevent their cannons from exploding, the enemy's general cannons would fire at most two rounds per quarter of an hour under such bombardment.

Jiangpu City had only about fifty red-coated cannons in total. Twenty were deployed on the north side, and the rest were deployed on the east and west sides. Only three cannons were deployed on the south side of the city wall.

Most of the red-coated cannons weighed 1,000 or 1,500 jin, and four of them weighed 2,000 jin.

There was only one precious cannon weighing 5,000 jin, which was placed in a gun emplacement inside the city to prevent excessive recoil from damaging the city walls.

Shells rained down on the city walls like a meteor shower.

Several battlements were destroyed by the enemy's general's cannon fire.

After blasting out a relatively large breach, the enemy's artillery began to concentrate on that spot.

Once that section of the slope is blasted open, the enemy can easily scale the city walls using ladders.

Jiang Lu waved his hand, his face ashen, and ordered the artillery battalion to move several mother-and-child cannons to the blockhouse over there. As long as the enemy soldiers transported the ladders there, they should fire the cannons and destroy them, even if it meant their lives!

The sun gradually rises above the horizon.

Repeated artillery barrages.

After the sun rises to its highest point in the sky.

"Waaaaah—"

"Bang bang bang bang bang!"

The sounds of horns and drums rose from the dark, heavy clouds ahead.

Dark clouds began to gather.

The Northern Dynasty Green Standard Army soldiers, wielding shields and clad in iron armor, began their charge!

"kill!!"

"kill!!!"

"Attack! Attack!"

"Charge! Charge with me!"