Completely contrary to Wu Haogu's expectations, he was actually a great military strategist...... It's a Vauban military strategist!

Vauban was Marshal Sebastian of France. Le Prestri. Morality. Vauban was a famous military engineer who wrote military works such as "On the Attack and Defense of Fortresses", "Essays on the Construction of Cities" and "On the Siege of Cities".

In the days when Huang Shilang, He Tianran, Zhou Daxia, Zhu Xingshu and others rushed to Kaifeng Mansion, Wu Haogu also began to write two works of great significance to later generations of military science, one is "Engineer Science" and the other is "Gunpowder Weapons Science".

Don't underestimate the role of these two military theoretical works, "Engineer Science" laid a theoretical foundation for the emergence of the engineering arm. Although digging trenches and building cities has long been a part of the military, the sappers are not a branch of the army, but are mixed with ordinary infantry or auxiliaries.

Because there is no engineer as a branch of the army, the study of various military engineering projects cannot be carried out systematically, and at the same time, there is no professional military engineering unit. Therefore, the efficiency of the Song army in siege and fortification was not brought into full play.

As for "Gunpowder Weaponry", it is even more powerful, and later generations almost regarded this work as a sign of the advent of the era of hot weapons!

In this military work, Wu Haogu regarded the manufacture, research, and use of firearms as a discipline guided by positivism.

At the same time, Wu Haogu also put forward three major research directions for firearms research, namely: gunpowder research, firearms research, and firearms application research.

Moreover, Wu Haogu also "creatively" proposed two types of firearms: "blasting firearms" and "tubular jet firearms". It also proposes some possible applications of sapper firearms and naval firearms, including the cave blasting siege method......

There is a direction, there are tools (positivism), there is money, there are a little bit of research talents, and there are also "brain holes" for research. Will research on firearms be slow?

Of course, in the late autumn of the third year of the founding of Yasukuni, Wu Haogu's "Science of Engineers" and "Science of Gunpowder and Weapons" had just begun, and it was far from the time to finish the book.

However, the cave blasting siege method has begun to be tested in practice!

In the northwest of Kaifeng Prefecture, a corner of the Mu Daogang Horse Farm owned by the Tiansi Prison is used to hold the school field for the imperial martial arts. Among the Wu Haogu henchmen in Kaifeng Prefecture, various military-related leaders gathered together. Tong Guan and Pan Xiao'an, as well as Mi Youren, who had just returned from Haizhou, and a military attache named Gao Shixuan, who was a little related to Gao Yu, also came, all dressed neatly, surrounded by Wu Haogu, and looked at the half-rammed earth city wall in the school field a thousand steps away with strange eyes.

This half of the rammed earth city wall is less than 50 steps long, about 15 steps wide, only a little more than a zhang high, and there are no battlements or towers on the city, in fact, it is a smooth rammed earth wall.

Several craftsmen with military status who had been transferred from the ordnance superintendent and firearms were sweating profusely carrying bags of freshly mixed gunpowder into a crypt.

The surrounding spectators were talking.

"This method is new, dig a hole in the ground, transport gunpowder to the bottom of the city wall, and then ignite it......"

"Can it be useful? That's the city wall! Can it collapse with gunpowder? ”

"Hanging, I'll look at the hanging!"

"You have to try it, this is called practical verification!"

"Hehe, "Positivism" can still be used to fight."

"Not really! My teacher's Positivism can be used anywhere! ”

Wu Haogu was also looking at the city wall in front of him with his hands behind his back, and people's discussions were not heard. Although he knew the method of "attacking the city in the cave", he didn't know how many catties of gunpowder it would take to collapse a city wall. Therefore, people used 1,000 catties of nitrate, sulfur powder, and charcoal powder at a time in a ratio of 15:2:3 - this formula comes from the memory of Wu Haogu's later generations, but the gap with the formula provided by gunpowder craftsmen is not very big.

There are three standard formulas for gunpowder, which are used to make "gunpowder" for the purpose of deflagration, combustion and poisoning. Among them, the gunpowder formula for deflagration is 40 taels of nitrate, 21 taels of sulfur, and 18.2 taels of charcoal.

It's almost 50% nitrate, which is about one-third less than the formula provided by Wu Haogu. So the explosion didn't work well, but the general direction wasn't wrong. If you use the scientific method provided in the Positivist Theory to conduct experiments, it will not take long to find the correct formula.

However, granulated black powder did not appear, and the purity of nitrate and sulfur was not very ideal. In addition, the technology for the manufacture of bomb casings and the barrels of tubular firearms is very primitive. Therefore, it is very difficult to create a firearm that can be used in field battles.

But the blasting of the tunnel with gunpowder to blow up the city wall should be technically mature!

This is a golden finger of Wu Haogu that can reverse the course of the Song and Xia wars! It's just that this method is not difficult, and it can be completely imitated for the Liao State and Western Xia, which can also produce gunpowder......

A young craftsman named Chen Jian, a young man named Chen Jian, who had made gunpowder, ran to Wu Haogu: "Xuanzan, can you start?" ”

Wu Haogu glanced at the young man in front of him, but he was quite heroic. I just don't know how the craft of blasting is?

"Let's get started!" Wu Haogu retracted his mind, gave the order, and then covered his ears with his hands.

Chen Jian answered, and rushed to the entrance of the tunnel, took the torch from a craftsman named Shi Lang, who was from a firearm, and lit the fuse placed in the bamboo tube that had been split in half.

The cotton threads soaked in the nitrate water quickly burned, and the flames quickly advanced along the pit supported and fixed by large wooden horizontal planks, and in an instant they were buried into a coffin filled with gunpowder. The contact of the flame gunpowder quickly produced a violent chemical reaction and opened a new era!

Thundered......

At the same time as the dull sound of the explosion came, everyone, including Wu Haogu, felt the ground under their feet suddenly tremble, as if some giant beast hidden deep in the ground was desperately swinging its body and roaring.

"Collapsed, collapsed!"

Wu Haogu's attention was attracted by the vibration from under his feet, and suddenly someone shouted in his ear. He hurriedly looked up and looked ahead, the side of the rammed earth "wall" that was only fifty steps wide collapsed at some point, maybe there was too little gunpowder, maybe it was the location of the tunnel, the city wall was not completely shattered, but it also collapsed about half, and the hard rammed earth collapsed, forming a slightly steep "hillside". The infantry should be able to climb up the hill!

Everyone who followed Wu Haogu to watch the blasting was shocked by the scene in front of them.

Can a wall really collapse with gunpowder?

Tong Guan turned his head and looked at Wu Haogu with a look of demonic eyes-this master is too good, right? Even such a difficult thing as fighting a war could not bother him.

Cai Jing, I'm afraid I'm going to make a big miscalculation!

"Xuanzan has really become a ......"

Huang Shilang, who was appointed by Wu Haogu as the commander of the sappers, said to himself with trembling words, "This is a great achievement!" ”

Wu Haogu shook his head, it's not ideal! He beckoned to Huang Shilang: "Shiro, come here." ”

"Xuanzan, are you looking for me?"

Wu Haogu nodded, and said to Huang Shilang, who walked in front of him: "This is the first time...... How to dig the tunnel, how to determine the direction, and the amount of gunpowder are still uncertain. So we have to keep experimenting! Give you five days to build the walls well. Let Zhu Xingshu lead people to dig another tunnel.

Also, make some tape measures to measure distances. Visual estimation is not as accurate as measuring with a ruler. ”

"Xiaguan understands!" Huang Zhisheng hurriedly responded.

Wu Haogu said to Tong Guan again: "Great official, it seems that the cave ground blasting siege method is feasible!" Let's go to the palace to report to the official's house...... This time, we need to bring some saltpeter and sulfur on the road, and it is better to send more craftsmen made of gunpowder to accompany the army. ”

"Okay," Tong Guan already showed a smile, "Our family will accompany you into the palace." ”

"Okay! Yuan Hui, you can come together. Wu Haogu said to Mi Youren again, "The official family hasn't seen you for many days, but I miss it so much!" ”

……

The purpose of Wu Haogu entering the palace with Tong Guan and Mi Youren was not just to return to the cave to blast the effect of the siege method. Or to ask Zhao Ji for more government soldiers and equipment!

According to Murong Wangwu's suggestion in the letter, Wu Haogu was prepared to form a combat force of more than 10,000 people, known as the "Inner Mansion Guard General". However, this "general" cannot fight alone, but is assigned to the dragon warrior straight.

During marching battles, the troops of the internal guard generals will be organized into the various commands of the dragon warriors in the unit of "department" - this is because the internal and external generals' government soldiers do not have much time to train, so they cannot be guaranteed to master the more difficult bows and arrows and shield swords (swords), so they are all equipped with spears. And all the warriors under the command of the Imperial Dragon who fought with the internal guard generals were equipped with swords, shields, bows and arrows, and abandoned spears.

In this way, the Inner Guards (Imperial Soldiers) will be responsible for charging or defending with spears, while the Dragon Warriors will use bows and arrows to attack from a distance or fight with shields and swords.

In addition, Wu Haogu also hoped to get at least 10,000 government soldiers to serve as auxiliaries and reserves.

If you add the adjusted Imperial Horse Straight in front of the palace and the newly temporarily formed engineer commander and the strength of the two Zhidu Yu Hou Si, the two direct armies commanded by Wu Haogu will have a total strength of nearly 30,000 people!

This is no longer "straight", but has reached the scale of the Fourth Army!

However, such a scale of troops is also very necessary, because unlike the fighting method in the Hehuang area, which is mainly based on rushing attacks, the battle in the Wuding River Valley must be mainly based on urban warfare. Either build a city or siege it, and if the number of people is small, it will not be able to take charge alone.