The cannonballs rained down at a rate of one every five seconds. The fist-sized cannonballs whizzed past the formation with a whistling sound. Because the cannonballs were small and had less ammunition, their jumping ability was far inferior to that of heavy artillery. However, more than thirty cannonballs were fired in three minutes. The North Korean gunners who were under attack felt that the cannonballs were simply overwhelming and endless.
The North Korean Marshal Jiang Hongli sent a thousand men in an attempt to bypass Zhou Qingfeng's left flank. In the end, the thousand men only managed to get halfway when their flank was bombarded. The dense crowd was like flies in a nest when the bombardment started, screaming and scurrying in all directions.
In the eyes of these 'headless flies', thick smoke suddenly rose from a woodland about two hundred meters away, followed by a series of hot iron balls blasting their formation into pieces. Because it was a flank attack, the formation was quite dense. If they were lucky, a cannonball could often hit a few people. The soldiers who were shot would disintegrate on the spot, as if they had been hit by some extremely terrifying magic.
Some of the officers in the North Korean thousand-man squad also tried to regroup. Several of the generals discovered that their flank was being attacked and hurriedly rushed over on short horses to try to stabilize the formation. However, when they got closer and saw that they were being attacked by artillery, these leading officers immediately turned around and fled. They had no intention of attacking the cavalry artillery platoon.
After the three-minute surprise attack, the cavalry artillery platoon's position was already shrouded in white smoke. They couldn't see the effect of the bombardment at all and quickly retreated in fear.
On the city wall of Zhenjiang, the very confident Marshal Jiang Hongli was dumbfounded. His thousand-man squad continued to advance after losing a few dozen men.
To be precise, these North Korean gunners soon discovered that the enemy's cannons were only aimed at one place. Because many cannonballs hit the mud and didn't bounce out, although many people died, the chaotic situation was quickly stabilized. They just needed to avoid the bombardment point and stay far away.
"The Ming rebels' artillery is sharp." When Jiang Hongli saw that the enemy had such powerful cannons on the flank, he was worried that the artillery from the front would be even more powerful. But without waiting for him to adjust his attack, the North Korean gunners relied on a simple evasive maneuver to avoid the attack, and continued forward.
"Strong troops, your troops are really strong!" Mao Wenlong was originally eager to give it a try, but when he saw the group of North Koreans getting beaten up halfway, he started to have second thoughts. He had little capital now. Other than borrowing Ming Ting's tiger skin, he basically had no other ability.
However, Mao Wenlong was surprised that the thousand-man North Korean squad was so thick-skinned that they could continue fighting even after being ambushed by the artillery.
Jiang Hongli was shocked when he saw the cannons, but Mao Wenlong's praise made him feel more at ease. In his eyes, the strange performance of the thousand-man army at the front was not worth mentioning. The thousand-man army was lined up more than two hundred meters horizontally, and only a small part of it was hit by the cannons. Only a few dozen people had died. Many of the North Korean gunners only heard the sound of the cannons, but they had no idea what was going on.
In the undulating terrain, it was rather difficult to transmit information from the battlefield. Cutting off vision often led to confusion in the party. Part of the army had already been destroyed, while the rest were still foolishly charging forward. This fact was not unusual in ancient warfare.
Jiang Hongli clearly knew that the opponent's mobile artillery was still wandering around and could fire again at any time. However, he could only stand on the city wall like a fool. The thousand-man army responsible for the detour a few hundred meters away was already unable to accept his command. Now, he could only hope that this unit could make a miraculous achievement and defeat the enemy on the flank.
On the left flank of the Imperial Guard's main formation was Ye Na. She had less than a hundred imperial cavalry guards with her, as well as more than a hundred personal guards sent by Zhou Qingfeng. On the other side, although the thousand-man North Korean squad had been hit by the cannons, they still had an absolute advantage in numbers. The enemy was barely advancing in a formation of three shots, and they had already entered the range of two hundred meters.
The situation of being lined up to be shot was approaching …
Since the effect of fire arrows against mobile targets was very poor, they did not appear on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Zhou Qingfeng was holding the Wind and Cloud Banner in front of him to set up a formation. He was also facing the two thousand-man North Korean squads on the other side, and did not have any extra troops to support him for the time being. The only thing Ye Na could do was to rely on herself … and the newly equipped flintlock guns of her personal guards.
After Zhou Qingfeng donated the remains of the "Road Bully," Shi Dong made a crucible specifically to melt the high-quality steel and forge a new batch of spring steel. Zhao Ze used this batch of spring steel as the foundation to produce a small batch of Type 1617 flintlock guns.
In order to make this batch of flintlock guns perform as they should, Zhao Ze used the rather good processing accuracy of his own factory to draw out the rifling of the gun barrels. He created the "Iowa Wooden Rifling Machine" and produced the Minnie bullet — this was a groundbreaking advancement.
Before the Minnie rifle, the precision of the machining was not enough. This caused the barrel and the projectile to often not match. One of the important reasons for using lead bullets was that lead was relatively soft. Even if the projectile was slightly larger, the bullet could still be forced in with a rod. Sometimes, the shooter even had to use a hammer to smash the projectile in.
And because of the leaking of the gun barrel, in order to ensure the power of the gun, the gun designers had no choice but to use barrels of more than twenty millimeters. For example, the famous "Muscotte" matchlock gun had a caliber of thirty millimeters. This heavy matchlock gun weighed more than ten kilograms. It was powerful but heavy and clumsy. It was very difficult to aim, so the shooter had to be equipped with a stick as a support.
With the continuous improvement of the machining accuracy, the Minnie bullet appeared in the middle of the nineteenth century. This was also a type of rifle that could be loaded from the front, but its projectile could easily fit into the barrel. The projectile was no longer a pure circle, but a semi-oval shape. When fired, the rear end of the projectile inflated to prevent the gas from leaking out, so the accuracy, power, and range of the bullet were all greatly increased.
It was a pity that the Minnie rifle appeared too late in history, and the weapons of the nineteenth century advanced too quickly. The Minnie rifle, as the pinnacle of muzzle-loading guns, met the epoch-making Dreiser breech-loading gun ten years after its appearance, and it was quickly eliminated.
And now, in the early seventeenth century, there was no one else in the world who had the measuring equipment of 0.01 millimeters. This was almost an extravagant metal processing ability. The highly efficient Minnie bullet provided a good airflow, so the speed of the projectile increased, and the time it took to fly the same distance was much shorter. This not only increased the range, but also greatly increased the accuracy.
At the same time, because of the good airflow, the loading of the bullet was also reduced, and the barrel did not need to be too thick. Zhao Ze even reduced the diameter of the barrel to 12 millimeters, and the weight of the gun was reduced to only five kilograms, making it much more convenient to carry and shoot. Using fixed bullets, a novice could fire two shots per minute, and an experienced could fire four shots per minute.
And as the opponent, North Korea's gun was naturally the old matchlock gun. They would start shooting from a few hundred meters away. But at a long distance, the speed of the bullet's flight would be even greater than a human figure. In other words, aiming at the head would not even hit the toe. Only by aiming at the sky, would it be possible to hit one or two shots in the form of a parabola, but the probability was extremely low.
The advancement of technology caused the form of war to constantly change.
Ye Na herself had an old flintlock gun, the spring action came from a piece of good steel that the blacksmith had accidentally forged. But after trying out Zhao Ze's new flintlock gun, she immediately threw her family heirloom to the side. Seeing that the enemy was about to enter the effective range of two hundred meters, she waved her hand and loudly signaled — ready, aim, fire!
Bang bang bang …
The bodyguards didn't use any three-stage attack, and the hundred or so people lined up in a thin horizontal line. The moment they opened fire, they could feel the recoil from holding their breath — the caliber was obviously smaller, and the charge was also smaller, but the recoil was more than double that of the old matchlock gun.
A row of white smoke puffed out, and the bullet that was tightly stuck to the barrel was ejected out of the muzzle. The caliber was small, and the weight of the bullet was also small, but the speed was fast, and the kinetic energy was even greater. The distance of two hundred meters was crossed in an instant, and the gauge on the gun barrel planned out a slightly upward parabola for the bullet, accurately hitting the enemy two hundred meters away.
One of the specialties of the Mini rifle was its high accuracy. Its effective range was even more than five hundred meters, and at this distance, without the help of a scope, it was very difficult to hit with the naked eye. Two hundred meters was the optimal range for concentrated fire, and the rain of more than a hundred bullets immediately caused a large amount of damage to the dense formation of North Korean gunners.
The thousand North Korean soldiers in the roundabout way had actually been firing nonstop, from far to near, not only to encourage themselves, but also to provide a deterrent to the enemy. Although they were being bombarded by the cavalry artillery platoon, they saw that the so-called "Ming Kingdom rebels" actually only had about a hundred people, and they still felt that they had the upper hand. But they didn't see any results from firing along the way, and on the other hand, when the enemy opened fire …
The bullets entered the bodies of people, and flowers of blood blossomed. Some of the gunners in the front row were advancing, some were aiming, and some were reloading. In the end, without any warning, thirty or forty people fell just like that — the thousand North Korean soldiers were so stunned that they didn't even know how their own people fell without even making a sound.
Just now, the cavalry artillery platoon had only killed a few dozen North Korean soldiers after firing with all their might for three minutes, but now, so many had fallen in one go. Moreover, these people weren't lost in one group, but scattered in front of the entire formation, and the impact was much greater.
The thousand North Korean soldiers in the roundabout way immediately stopped, as if they were stupefied, trying to figure out what had happened to them. Ten seconds later, another group of white smoke appeared 200 meters away from them. Concentrated gunshots rang out once more — by the time the gunshots came from 200 meters away, the North Korean team of a thousand had lost dozens of their members.
F * ck … even an idiot would realize that something was wrong this time.
Could it be that the enemy's guns could fire 200 meters?
The gunners in the front row began to retreat in fear, and the gunners in the back were confused as to why the formation had stopped. The commander of the thousand North Korean soldiers was also hesitating whether or not to rush forward and start shooting. After all, it wasn't easy for them to run for a few hundred meters, and they could already see the enemy's face. It wouldn't be good to retreat just like that, right?
Ten seconds later, the third volley came.
This time, the volley was a critical hit, and the bodyguards were getting used to it. In one breath, they actually killed 50 to 60 people. Their hit rate was close to 50%, it was simply heaven-defying!
Gunfire after gunfire rang out, and flowers of blood blossomed, and corpses fell one after another. The thousand North Korean soldiers were in an uproar. The enemy was still 200 meters away, and their firepower couldn't reach them at all. In less than a minute, their casualties had exceeded 10% — what the hell was there to fight? Turn around and run!
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
