It was the end of March 1617. Spring had arrived and the rain had increased.
A few days ago, there had been a rainstorm and the water level of the Xiaoqing River in the southwest of the capital had risen sharply. At that time, the northern troops were stationed in a village on the west side of the river. Du Song, who had received the news, immediately led his troops to attack. It only took him four hours to travel fifty miles.
On a rainy day, the rebels' guns and gunpowder could not be used. This was equivalent to losing half of the enemy's military strength and their strongest attack. The rising of the river was equivalent to cutting off the rebels' path to the east. They could only go south or west, which made it much easier to chase them.
After chasing for half a month, he finally got such a good opportunity. How could Du Song let it go? He personally led two thousand troops and galloped through the rainy night. After suffering enough hardships, they finally arrived at their destination. In the end, they discovered that the rebel bandits' combat engineers had built a pontoon bridge within two hours and escaped.
Du Song and his retainers stared blankly at the destroyed pontoon bridge. They had never imagined that there would be people in this world who could pull out such a unique skill. Just by using wooden stakes and ropes, the rebels were able to pull out such a pontoon bridge. Not to mention the fact that the Ming Army did not have this skill, they were seriously lacking in the ability to command and organize. No craftsman would risk their lives like this.
After realizing that the imperial army was seriously lacking in mobility, Du Song could only report to the imperial court to change the mode of chasing and attacking. Instead, they changed to a mode of guarding the surrounding areas.
More than a hundred thousand people who rushed to the capital to rescue the emperor could not be called an army at all. Many of them were commoners who had been recruited by the government. These people were still thinking about the few acres of land that had not been cultivated in the spring and tried to escape. Rather than letting these people chase the rebels unwillingly, it was better to let them guard the various cities.
It was not known if this was really effective. In any case, the rebels who liked to run around like mice had unexpectedly run to Tongzhou and did not move. Du Song did not dare to be careless. He did not continue the pursuit on light cavalry. Instead, he returned to the rear to regroup his troops and met up with another general, Liu Gu, at the Xiaoqing River. The two of them stood by the river and looked at the section of the pontoon bridge left behind by the rebels a few days ago.
"Was the river rapid at that time?" Liu Gu, nicknamed Liu Da Dao, was a veteran general in the late Ming Dynasty. He was nearly sixty years old. He was old but vigorous, courageously striving to be the vanguard. Among the tens of thousands of men and horses under his command, there were three thousand elite house servants and two thousand Zhejiang soldiers who also dared to fight.
"It was a rainy night and the river was more than three hundred feet wide. The current was rapid and horses could not cross it." Du Song sighed. "I asked the craftsmen in the camp and they all said that it was impossible to build a pontoon bridge in this kind of weather. But the surrounding people said that the rebels were like heavenly soldiers and generals, and that building a bridge on a rainy night was even helped by the gods. Although the soldiers under my command are dubious, it still affects their morale. "
Liu Xiao said happily, "It's just building a bridge. Maybe there's something we haven't figured out yet. It is reported that the rebels have stopped in Tongzhou. The two of us will join hands to kill them and destroy them. "
Yi Er?
Du Song smiled bitterly when he heard this, but it was not appropriate for him to refute her directly. They had been fighting with these rebels for almost a month now, but the imperial army had not gained the slightest advantage. Tens of thousands of men and horses sounded like a lot, but the number who could really fight was only about ten thousand. With such a large group of people chasing the rebels here and there, and if they were not careful, they might even be attacked. It was really exhausting.
Liu Xiao was quite optimistic and said with a smile, "I heard that the rebels have strange birds that can fly and throw gunpowder, so I specially prepared a batch of 'Divine Fire Crows'. If the rebels and strange birds come again, we will definitely be able to break them. As long as the rebels do not run around, the two of us will only care about killing them on the ground. If Brother Du has any difficulties, let me, your elder brother, take the credit this time. "
You haven't tasted the rebels' prowess!
Du Song cursed in his heart, but he couldn't wait for Liu Xiao to touch Zhou Qingfeng's bad luck. He cupped his hands and said, "My men have been chasing them for days and are indeed tired. If Brother Liu is willing to help, I might as well hide my incompetence. "
The two commanders decided on an offensive and defensive strategy and left with several thousand house servants. Within a day, they arrived five li away from Tongzhou. When they learned that the rebels did not leave after entering the city, the two were overjoyed and hurriedly led their troops forward to cut off the road and guard the checkpoint. They did not attack immediately and waited for the tens of thousands of troops to arrive one after another. They actually surrounded Tongzhou in three layers inside and three layers outside.
During this time, the rebels' strange birds did indeed come out to cause trouble. Liu Xiao hurriedly used the 'Divine Fire Crows' he had forged with a large sum of money to drive them away and prevent them from approaching his position. On the ground, his foster son Liu Zhaosun was the vanguard, repeatedly probing and confirming the rebels' formation.
"Foster Father, the rebels have entered Tongzhou and forced the people in the city to build fortifications for them. They clearly want to occupy this place. However, they are not good at construction and their fortifications are extremely sloppy. They only dug a few trenches that are neither wide nor deep within a hundred meters of the breach on the east side of the city. It is truly laughable.
In addition, the rebels lack manpower and actually did not defend the other walls outside of the east, allowing our army to occupy them. They only built a few barricades inside the city and set up some spears and firearms. This weak defense is clearly because they do not know how to use their troops and have placed themselves in danger to wait for death. "Liu Zhaosun was young and full of vigor. He eloquently expressed his opinion.
Liu Xiao was a veteran general after all. He thought of the rebels building a pontoon bridge to escape on a rainy night and shook his head slightly. "There must be a reason for this abnormality. If these rebels really do not know how to use their troops, they would have been eliminated long ago. Why would they wait until now to cause a disaster? Take some people to investigate again. Our army has many soldiers and it doesn't matter if a few people die. "
Liu Zhaosun immediately nodded in agreement and took people to investigate. The breach on the east side of the city was clear at a glance. It was not quite possible to set up an ambush. Thus, he took people into the city and drove some miscellaneous soldiers to explore the winding streets.
This exploration revealed many problems — the complicated streets were filled with a large number of mines and explosives. Some tripped and some pulled hair. More than a hundred miscellaneous soldiers who entered rashly were almost all killed after a few explosions.
It was common knowledge among the officials that the rebels were good at using gunpowder. Liu Zhaosun did not dare to risk his life to test the explosives that could be bombarded with ninth-level spells at the drop of a hat. Thus, he went back and suggested that Liu Xiao pretend to attack with miscellaneous soldiers inside the city and kill his way in through the breach on the east side of the city.
Liu Xiao led the officials outside Tongzhou to make arrangements, while Zhou Qingfeng also made arrangements inside the city. When he saw a large number of officials surrounding them, he wanted to use a triplane to throw the explosives, but he did not expect the opposing officials to use a strange puppet that could fly into the sky. That thing fearlessly threw itself at him and blew up, scaring Zhou Qingfeng badly. The triplane did not have the ability to attack from the air, so he could only drop the explosives.
Neither side could easily launch an attack from the air, so the battlefield returned to the ground. Zhou Qingfeng wanted to teach the officials a lesson, but he did not have enough troops and could only defend half of Tongzhou. Other than the east side, he abandoned the other walls and allowed the enemy to enter the city and fight in the streets.
In view of the lack of enthusiasm in the feudal army without an officer to supervise them, Zhou Qingfeng was not worried that the enemy could break through from inside the city. The good show that he had set up for the imperial army was in the east of Tongzhou City, which had been blown up. There was a 10-meter-long wreckage there, and two passageways had been cleared out of the wreckage, each with a 45-degree firing range.
Behind the passage were two 150-millimeter Type 1617 short-barreled heavy cannons.
Since Zhao Ze, who was in charge of engineering development, had gone to defend the HaiGai defense line, he had no time to develop cannons for Zhou Qingfeng. But Zhao Ze did not have to do it himself. The Revolutionary Army had recruited many craftsmen with experience in making firearms from the Nanjing Military Bureau, and the Ming Army had long had experience in using cannons. Thus, Zhao Ze simply issued a task for the recruited craftsmen to make cannons themselves.
The technical details of the cannons were drawn up by Zhao Ze. The Type 1617 short-barreled heavy cannon was an imitation of the famous Napoleon howitzer. It had a retractable structure, a tall two-wheeled mount, and a high and low machine to adjust the angle of fire. The direction could only be adjusted by adjusting the mount.
The biggest feature of this thing was that it could be easily disassembled. Because it was made of wood, the barrel was short, and it weighed only about 300 kilograms. After disassembling, the heaviest barrel was only a little over 100 kilograms, and it was very mobile. If necessary, it could even be dragged by a carriage to keep up with the marching pace of the army.
In order to make these two cannons, the Revolutionary Army's engineering department made a series of technological leaps. Sand casting alone was a black technology with a wide range of uses. In addition, a hydraulic boring machine was also made to solve the problem of processing a meter deep barrel. As for adjusting the thread and locking structure of the high and low machine, it was a problem that had to be faced in mechanical production.
Due to the lack of copper, the cannon was made of wrought iron. But due to the lack of steel testing equipment, the steel factory did not have much confidence in the quality of their steel, so they did not dare to use too much charge for fear of the barrel exploding.
As a result, the cannon's caliber was not small, but the range of the solid shell was only about 500 meters, and the canister shell was reduced to 200 meters. Explosive fire was fired twice per minute, and continuous fire could only be reduced to one shot per minute.
A total of four cannons were made, and one of them was damaged during the limit test. One was left in Jinzhou for training, and the other two were brought by the newly formed artillery company to Tongzhou by water and placed in the ruins of the city wall east of the city.
In addition to the cannons, the 500-ton barge also brought a large number of spare matchlock guns, armor, gunpowder, bullets, medicine, and rations. These things were enough to allow the north advance detachment to last a long time in Tongzhou.
Zhou Qingfeng had high hopes for these two cannons. Before the Ming Army came, he had asked the artillery company to conduct live firing exercises. He was also very satisfied with the results of the training, and he was very much looking forward to how the Ming Army would face their new toys.
On the last day of the end of March, both sides felt that they were ready and couldn't wait to fight. The old general Liu Gu had already surrounded Tongzhou, and tens of thousands of troops had been arranged. He adopted the suggestion of his adopted son Liu Zhaosun, attacking from two sides and attacking from the east. The first to go into battle was City Secretary Yao Guofu, who had been transferred from Nanjing.
It was said that anti-thief firearms were powerful. City Secretary Yao didn't have much else, but firearms were powerful. He brought two thousand men with him to follow Liu Gu, and the army also brought a large number of carriages. On the first day of the battle, these carriages with metal plates and even wooden shields were pushed toward the gap on the east side of Tongzhou.
Each carriage was equipped with a Muzzle Extermination Cannon and two Musketeers.
There were many types of firearms in the Great Ming Dynasty. Even though most of them were just for show, there were still some that could be put to use. The extermination cannon was one of them. It was a medium-sized cannon in the Ming Army that was mounted directly on the carriage, and there were three of them. The barrel was strengthened with iron hoops, and each cannon weighed fifty kilograms. It could fire a projectile weighing about one kilogram.
Don't laugh, this thing was like the crouching tiger cannon. It was a rare and practical firearm in the Ming Army. As for the firearms soldiers, they were similar to the matchlock guns used by the female guards. However, they were crudely made, had a slightly awkward appearance, and were slightly heavier. They were also weapons that could be fired and killed.
These carriages were cheap to make, costing two to three hundred yuan. The front row was also filled with fortified shield carriages. The front of the shield carriages were covered with two layers of wooden planks that were a finger thick. The middle of the planks was filled with sand. Before the battle, they would also fill the sand with water and even cover them with a layer of watered cotton quilts.
This thing was similar to a mud tank. It was clumsy and heavy, and four or five people had difficulty pushing it. It was difficult to advance with the slightest potholes on the ground. But its defense was very good. Ordinary firearms would not be able to penetrate it. If the Ming Army used their own cannons to attack, they would need the General Cannon used to defend the city to fire four to five kilograms of lead bullets to defeat them.
But the General Cannon easily weighed thousands of kilograms. It was difficult to move and inaccurate. Tongzhou didn't have such a thing. Although there was news not long ago that the anti-thieves had also brought cannons, it was said that the anti-thieves' cannons were very small. The Ming Army speculated based on the power and weight of their own cannons. They felt that the power of the anti-thieves' cannons was extremely limited and would not be of much use.
At this moment, the battle had begun. City Head Yao, who was in charge of commanding, stood several hundred meters away and saw that the anti-thieves seemed to have set up cannons in the ruins of the city wall. Based on the size, the cannons were not very large. More importantly, there were only two of them.
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