The powerful artillery of the Qiongzhou Army changed the concept of the battlefield, and the Qing army also appeared to deal with it, that is, to form a new army. At this time, the offensive and defensive battles on the battlefield had changed from the offensive and defensive battles of the city to the battle for the trenches and fortresses. In addition to fortified cities such as Xiangyang, Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Wuchang, and Xuzhou, cities like Jinhua could be said to be vulnerable in the face of the Ming army's strong attack force, and the Qing army was better off fighting in the field than sticking to small cities.

It was based on such a battlefield concept that Zhuo Butai gave up Jinhua, which could not be held at all, and chose to fight in the field.

This field battle is a key battle, if the Ming army wins, the whole of Zhejiang will fall into the hands of the Ming army, and Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi will be broken by each one. If the Ming army is defeated, the Qing army will be even stronger.

In the afternoon, the Ming army, which had rested for a noon, attacked again. The drums of war in the camp of the Ming army rumbled, the horns sounded, and a neat team walked out of the camp and advanced step by step to the next village called Dongzhai.

"Minggou is going to attack again!" Zhuo Butai overlooks the Ming army camp road.

"My lord! Look! What's that? Suddenly, a soldier next to him shouted.

Looking up in the direction of the soldier's finger, he saw a white object appear in the sky above the Ming army camp, which was slowly rising and rising into the air.

"What's that?" Zhuo Butai was stunned.

"It's Kong Ming Lantern, right?" The well-informed Han veteran Wu Ruyu said.

Zhuo Butai picked up the monocular and looked at the "Kong Ming lantern" that rose into the sky, but found that there was a hanging basket under the "Kong Ming lantern", and the fire was lit in the hanging basket, which was heated away from the fire to let the "Kong Ming lantern" rise into the air, in fact, the Kong Ming lantern was the most primitive hot air balloon. However, what surprised Zhuo Butai even more was that in the hanging basket of the "Kong Ming Lantern", there was still a Ming soldier standing in the hanging basket, and the soldier also held a telescope in his hand and a small flag in his hand.

"KitKat!" Li Sang's forehead sneered.

Zhuo Butai's face changed: "The thief made a huge Kong Ming lantern, which can carry people!" In this way, they will be able to see our battlefield movements clearly! Any ambush and formation will be seen by the thieves! ”

But the Qing army didn't have a temper at all about hot air balloons, first of all, the hot air balloons were far away from them, five or six miles away, and secondly, the hot air balloons flew very high, probably to a hundred zhang high. Even if it was a hot air balloon that approached the Ming army, it was useless, whether it was the artillery, muskets or bows and arrows of the Qing army, they couldn't hit that high.

"Minggou is coming up, ready to fire!" In Dongzhai Village, the Qing army's artillery always looked at the Ming army approaching step by step.

The Qing gunners loaded the shells, adjusted the muzzles, and aimed at the advancing Ming formation.

"Fire!" A small flag waved in the hand of a Qing artillery officer.

Artillery of various calibers roared, and the muzzles of the guns spewed fire, and the shells smashed into the Ming army's formation three hundred paces away.

The shells drilled into the formation of the Ming army, and many of the shield carts in the front row were hit, the shield carts were torn apart, and many auxiliary soldiers fell. In the crowd of soldiers behind, many people were also shot and beaten to pieces.

The artillery of the Ming army also pushed up, and launched a fierce fire with the artillery of the Qing army. The shells of both sides come and go, smashing at each other. However, because the artillery of the Qing army was in the dark, although there were hot air balloons in the air to guide the target, the artillery of the Qing army was under the protection of the fortifications, and the artillery of the Ming army was in the bright place.

At this time, the Qing army saw that the Ming army behind them had launched a trebuchet.

Seeing the trebuchet, the artillery officer of the Qing army laughed: "Minggou even took out such a backward weapon as a trebuchet?" They're really poor in donkey skills! ”

But soon, the smile of the Qing artillery officer froze on his face, because after those trebuchets began to fire, although the huge clay pots launched were extremely poor, as soon as those clay pots landed, there was a violent explosion, spewing out scorching flames from the clay pots, igniting a large number of surrounding houses, and igniting a raging fire in an instant.

Hot air balloons are just one of the new weapons, and Wang Xinyu also has a new weapon, which is a new type of bomb thrown by a trebuchet.

This new type of bomb is actually filled into a huge clay pot with fierce fire oil and "earth road explosives", and thrown out by trebuchets, which can cause a large area of damage. The so-called "dirt road explosives" are actually a kind of explosives made by a certain army in later generations, called Zhou's explosives.

In the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in later generations, that army was unable to produce sulfur acid on a large scale because of the source of raw materials, sulfur acid is known as the mother of modern chemical industry, and there is no nitric acid without sulfur acid, which means that it cannot produce powerful explosives. But the power of black gunpowder was too small. So they developed something called Zhou's explosives, which actually added a very small amount of nitrate [sweet] oil and some other easily available materials to the formula of black [gunpowder], and the result was that the gunpowder was much more powerful than the most primitive black [gunpowder].

The specific recipe can't be said here, it will be hairy crabs.

In addition to using this incendiary bomb to suppress the Qing army's artillery, Wang Xinyu also issued a large number of grenades, all of which were concentrated for the ironclad soldiers and sword and shield hands.

A swarm of bee fire vans did not show up for the time being, because the Qing army had not yet assembled on a large scale, and it was not appropriate to expose this weapon too early, but the Thunderbolt fire vans must keep up in time, which can be used to suppress the impact of the Eight Banners cavalry on the two wings.

The reason why every soldier was not equipped with a grenade before was because the grenade made of black [gunpowder] was made in order to increase the power, and the weight of this grenade was also relatively heavy, and the average soldier could not throw far, in siege warfare or city defense warfare, as well as in street fighting, grenade is a good weapon, and the effect of one grenade per person in field combat is not necessarily good. Imagine how far a pikeman or musketeer can throw a grenade weighing almost two pounds in one hand and a spear or musket in the other? Those who throw far can't vote, and if they throw close, they will accidentally hurt themselves.

The ironclad soldiers and the sword and shield bearers are both a group of soldiers with great strength, so they use grenades in the afternoon attack.

The incendiary bombs thrown by the trebuchet made the Qing army suffer, and the explosives in the clay pot exploded, spraying the oil in all directions, and everywhere they went, there were raging fires. The raw materials of these fierce fire oils are dug from the side of the Outer Khing'an Mountains, and after the simplest refining, they are mixed with pine oil and added sulfur to become a very lethal fierce fire oil.

Incendiary bombs burned in the village, a large number of Qing gunners were burned to the point of crying fathers and mothers, and some artillery powder barrels were also ignited, and a violent explosion occurred.

At this time, the Qing army realized that those trebuchets fired a very powerful weapon.

"Aim at the trebuchet and fire!" The Qing army officer yelled.

However, the trebuchet was hiding behind the shield vehicles, infantry and artillery of the Ming army, and it was difficult for the Qing army's direct artillery to destroy the trebuchet. So the Qing army used mortar artillery to bombard.

More than a dozen mortar shells smashed down, two trebuchets were blown up, and the incendiary bombs placed behind the trebuchets were also ignited, and a violent explosion occurred, the trebuchet exploded into pieces, and dozens of auxiliaries responsible for launching the trebuchets burst into flames, wailing and struggling in the fire.

The hot air balloon in the air discovered the position of the Qing army's mortar artillery and immediately guided its own mortar to counterattack.

The Ming army's mortar artillery fired a volley of shells and smashed on the Qing army's mortar position. At this time, the mortars of the Qing army were being loaded, and a row of shells exploded on the ground, which immediately blew up their mortar positions into a mess, the gunners were killed and wounded countless times, and the flowering shells piled up on the ground were also detonated, triggering a chain explosion.

"Attention, the Tartar cavalry is coming from the flanks!" The pro-soldiers on the hot air balloon signaled with flags.

The Ming army was a horizontal formation, and the flanks were weak, but not only the dragoons, heavy cavalry, and flying cavalry artillery were protected on the flanks, but there were also fifty thunderbolt fire vans on each side.

Fifty Thunderbolt fire vans, each with a hundred barrels, a salvo is equivalent to a salvo of 5,000 musketeers! Moreover, the barrel of the Thunderbolt fire box is longer than the barrel of the musket, so the power of a single shot projectile is also large, the range is longer, and the accuracy is higher.

The Qing cavalry rushed over, and the Ming dragoons dismounted one after another, firing with bows and muskets.

A part of the Eight Banners cavalry also dismounted, took out their infantry bows, and counterattacked the dragoons. The bows and arrows on both sides came and went, and there were casualties on each other. Some of the Qing army's artillery turned around and opened fire on the Ming army's dragoons, causing certain casualties to the dragoons.

The cavalry of the Eight Banners on horseback rushed up, and the dragoons got on their horses and quickly separated to the two sides, revealing a large piece of barrel in the middle aimed at the fire box of the Eight Banners cavalry.

"What's that?" Suddenly seeing a large number of vehicles appear in front of him, the Qing cavalry was stunned.

"Whatever he is! Rush up and kill all the bright dogs behind you! A Qing army leader shouted.

The cavalry of the Eight Banners galloped on horseback, and the flying cavalry artillery behind the Ming army fired a few shells, which crossed into the crowd of the Eight Banners and knocked over many Eight Banners soldiers and horses. However, this loss is nothing to the Eight Banners.

Seeing that the Eight Banners were getting closer and closer, the garrison officer of the Thunderbolt Fire Box shouted: "Ignition!" ”

The soldier holding the torch lit the fuse behind the Thunderbolt fire box, only to see the fuse quickly shortened into the fire door, and the barrels of the guns broke out one after another with a roar, and each Thunderbolt fire box car was spewing fire, and a hundred barrels spit out dazzling tongues of fire in turn, making a sound that only later machine guns have.

I saw fifty fire sickles sweeping through like a whirlwind, and dense projectiles drilled into the crowd of Eight Banner soldiers, and the Eight Banner soldiers fell one after another as if they had hit an invisible wall. Even if they were wearing two layers of thick armor, it didn't help, the powerful power of the Thunderbolt Fire Box Projectile penetrated the thick armor and drilled into the human body, and the Eight Banners soldiers who were shot turned into a hornet's nest one after another.

Some of the Eight Banners soldiers performed the stunt of hiding in the stirrup, but this stunt was useless, even the war horses could not withstand the intensive shooting of the thunderbolt fire box, and one after another the war horses fell with a sad scream. (To be continued.) )