An Jiangchen and Song Seong-eun looked at each other in dismay, watching the Qin Army's artillery team operating those terrifying cannons.
This cannon was attended by a dozen or so men, who laboriously pushed it to the predetermined position, set it in place, adjusted the height of the muzzle, cleaned the barrel, and then loaded it with gunpowder and a seemingly heavy solid iron ball.
These were not lead bullets, but iron bullets.
It seemed that this cannon was specially used to deal with walls that could not escape. It was so heavy that it could not be used in field operations. Field operations should use those relatively flexible and convenient vehicle-mounted Francis cannons. Qi Dayong had more than a hundred of those cannons, and their roar was probably quite terrifying.
They had heard that Xiao Ruxun, the first general of the Daming, was good at using firearms. In the Battle of Korea, he mobilized more than 200 cannons to defeat the Japanese pirates and annihilated more than 200,000 Japanese pirates. They thought it was just a legend, but now it seemed that it was true.
It was said that the Daqin army marched in five routes, with a total force of 160,000, and there were more than a hundred Francis cannons on each route. Adding up the five routes, there might be more than 600 cannons.
With so many cannons, even if they were not powerful individually, they were very frightening when added together. Not to mention the power, the sound alone was frightening enough.
It was said that in the early years of the reign of Hongwu and Yongle, cannons and firearms were used to deter the enemy by sound and formation, and their lethality was actually quite limited.
Later, during the reign of Jiajing, after the Francis cannons and muskets were introduced into the Daming, they also saw this kind of firearm and found that it was indeed much stronger than the bowl guns and the Five Thunders.
But it was also quite limited.
But the huge cannons in front of them were too terrifying. Just looking at them made people feel terrified, and they didn't know what kind of formation it would be when it roared.
Perhaps it could be as frightening as thunder and lightning. If so, even if it couldn't hit two miles, it could still play its role.
At least the enemy's cavalry would be affected, and the horses would be easily frightened.
"Get ready, everyone. The first round of test fire, determine the distance!"
The artillery team officer roared.
"Yes!"
The artillery team shouted in unison.
They were quite fond of shooting live targets that weren't dangerous. They could kill the other party, and the other party's weapon wouldn't be able to reach them. This kind of feeling wasn't ordinary.
Not to mention, the Bozhou Army also attached great importance to firearms. Moreover, they had indeed introduced Francis autocannons and muskets.
However, Yang Yinglong wasn't that rich. Firearms were a money-burning toy, and he wasn't that good at them. He wasn't like Xiao Ruxun, who set a specific research direction and cut off all the other weird firearms.
There were Three-eyed Cannon, Four-eyed Cannon, Swarm of Bees, Divine Flame Flying Crow, Crouching Tiger Cannon, Bowl Cannon, and so on. There were also heavy Great General Cannons, Mighty Cannons, Bird Cannons, Francis Cannon, Zhu Yuanzhang's and Zhu Di's Early Hand Cannons, Great Lifting Spears, and so on.
It was a hodgepodge of early first-generation firearms and second-generation improved firearms.
This situation also existed in the Chinese army from the middle and late Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. Basically, there was no firearm unit that used a complete set of standard firearms.
There used to be one, but after a series of shocking events after Mao Wenlong's death, the artillery unit surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.
Xiao Ruxun generously cut off the Ming Army's firearms research department, which was developing in a strange direction, and specifically developed it in the direction of guns and cannons. He also proposed the concept of grenades and recruited civilian firearms talents from all over the country to enrich the talent pool.
Yang Yinglong didn't have this kind of awareness, and he couldn't foresee the importance of the development of firearms. Therefore, when new firearms were introduced, a large number of firearms from the previous generation were also retained. Because of the tedious operation, there were very few troops willing to use new firearms.
Like the Ming Liaodong Army, because they were used to using the three-eyed gun, they were unwilling to suddenly change to a musket.
After all, it was much more troublesome to operate a musket than a three-eyed gun, and there was a risk of it exploding. The Liaodong Army also knew how fragile the inferior firearms produced by the Ming Army's military department were.
Of course, Yang Yinglong's troops also knew that it was better to use the old guys than to use those unstable new firearms.
Therefore, the situation became like this. On the wall of Luomeng Pass, there were not only Francis guns, but also Weiyuan cannons, General cannons, and bowl guns. In the hands of the soldiers, there were not only muskets, but also three-eyed guns, four-eyed guns, and soldiers operating strange firearms such as the God Fire Crow.
Of course, most of them were hand-to-hand combat troops with standard crossbows, long spears, and long knives.
The Bozhou Army's hand-to-hand combat ability was not weak at all, and they were not afraid of hand-to-hand combat. However, when they learned that the Qin Army was coming, everyone had a nervous and panicked look on their faces.
There was no other reason. The news that the three-way attack had been completely annihilated had also spread to Luomeng Pass. Although Yang Yong personally led the troops to guard the pass and put on an appearance of leading the troops, they still couldn't help panicking.
This was the old army without strict military rules, discipline, and organization. They fought very fiercely, but once they encountered a setback, they immediately became timid and did not have the courage to face the difficulties.
They fought for pay, to fill their stomachs, and for women, not for anything else.
This was admittedly a driving method, but an army without strict military rules and discipline and organization, no matter what, could not be considered a strong army.
Once this kind of army encountered a stronger and more organized army, it would inevitably be routed. This was the reason why the Qing army lost to the British army.
During the period of Yi Ya, the firearms of the Qing army and the British army did not fall too far behind. The British army had even praised the Qing army's cannon casting skills.
Throughout the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the firearms of the Qing army were slightly behind in the beginning, but later caught up. After the Westernization Movement, the difference in weapons between the two sides was almost non-existent. No matter how new the weapons of the European countries, the Qing army was equipped with them.
When the Beiyang Navy, the Nanyang Navy, and the Fujian Navy were established, the foreigners exclaimed that the China Navy was the number one navy in Asia and the world's eighth ocean power. During the Gengzi War, the Qing army's arsenal even had more advanced firearms than the Eight-Nation Allied Forces, including repeating guns and Krupp heavy cannons.
The Qing army had never fallen behind in weapons and equipment to the point where it was enough to be defeated. This was because of the qualitative difference between the feudal army under the old system and the modern army. The difference was not in weapons and equipment, but in some of the components that the army itself needed.
The Qin Army under Xiao Ruxun was transforming in the direction of the modern army. This was a qualitative difference. The army that fought for pay, food, and women could never understand why some armies, for some reason, would fight until the whole army was annihilated and not collapse.
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