"The thief's ship is strong and sharp, and it is more fierce than Zheng Rebellion back then!" The faces of the Qing army guards stationed in Guazhou turned white. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The Ming fleet turned its bow and went down the river. The guns on the port side were all opened, aimed at the city wall of Guazhou, and another round of fierce shelling began, and fireballs continued to erupt from the gun doors, and the shells rained down on the Qing army forts.

The difference in firepower between the two sides is too great, with more than 2,000 advanced artillery pieces on one side and only more than 10 old 3,000-pound cannons and more than 100 small cannons on the other side. In addition to solid shells, the Ming army also had all kinds of flowering shells, grape shells, and howitzers, all kinds of shells were denser than hail, and the Qing army batteries were so hot that the smoke and dust were billowing into the sky, and the Qing gunners on it had no place to stand.

The long-barreled 32-pounder cannon on the Ming battleship had a very powerful destructive effect on the city wall, and every time the long-barreled 32-pounder cannon was fired, the entire battleship shook violently, the thick barrel spewed out a ball of fireball, the deafening cannon sound soared into the sky, and white smoke rose in curling.

The heavy thirty-two-pound cannon shell smashed on the city wall, the whole city wall trembled, the cannonball smashed up, and the bricks and stones on the city wall fell to the ground like rain, and the city bricks that were pasted on the outside of the rammed earth were directly pierced, revealing the earthy yellow soil inside.

"This kind of giant cannon is so powerful, so we can rest assured that we can fight Jiangning! Even if Geng Jingzhong reneges on his promise, if we concentrate artillery fire and continue to bombard, it is estimated that we will be able to collapse the Jiangning city wall in two days and two nights. Zhang Yukun put down the binoculars and turned his head to Zhang Huangyan and said.

Zhang Huangyan also picked up the binoculars and took a look at the effect of the shelling. After he put down the binoculars, he sighed: "With such firepower, not to mention the Jiangning city wall, even if it attacks Xiangyang, the world's strongest city, in the future, it will not be a problem!" I'm afraid that Xiangyang City can't withstand the bombardment of giant artillery! ”

Xiangyang is indeed the first fortified city in the world, but the Mongols were able to blast through the city walls with heavy trebuchets, let alone the Ming army that entered the age of firearms. With the development of human technology to this extent, the defensive effect of the city walls will become smaller and smaller.

Eventually, the city will be replaced by street battles.

After an hour of artillery bombardment, the Ming fleet came and went for eight rounds, firing more than 10,000 shells in total, smashing the city wall of Guazhou to the ground, the forts were bombarded to pieces, and the wooden stakes, deer barricades and various obstacles outside the city were destroyed by intensive artillery fire.

After suppressing the Qing army's batteries, the Ming army began to land.

One transport ship after another came ashore, and groups of Ming army auxiliaries and Minzhuang pushed various siege weapons off the ship. After the Ming army stepped on the beachhead, the auxiliaries and the people assembled siege weapons on the spot.

Modular siege weapons, not to mention small siege weapons such as shield cars and simple ladders, even large ladder vehicles can be disassembled and loaded onto ships for transportation.

Small siege weapons such as shield carts and improvised ladders do not need to be assembled, and can be pushed off the ship.

The auxiliaries and the people stood on the beach, using various tools, and began to assemble nest cars, watchtowers, and large ladder cars. These disassembled large-scale siege weapons are fixed with movable latches, and after connecting the parts, they are threaded in with screws, and after tightening the screws, they are assembled, and it is very fast to assemble a ladder truck, which only takes half an hour.

While the Ming army auxiliaries and minzhuang were assembling large-scale siege weapons, some of the auxiliaries and minzhuang pushed shield carts and began to fill in the open land outside the city that was pitted by shells.

The wooden stakes and deer bars had already been completely bombarded by the shells, and the wooden stakes remaining on the ground, as well as the large pits smashed by the shells, became obstacles to the advancement of siege weapons at this time, and only these obstacles needed to be cleared, and the large ladder trucks could reach the city and allow the marines to attack the city.

The marines disembarked from the ships one after another, and the marines of the South Sea Fleet, armed mainly with rifled guns, and some archers. Because there are not so many rifled guns after all, and the training of rifled gunners is complicated and cumbersome, it is not easy to train a rifled gunner, so most of the marines are still mainly cold weapons, they are covered with strong iron armor, armed with rattan cards and steel knives.

"Minggou is coming up! Shoot the arrows! Stop them! The Qing army guards at the head of the city saw the Ming army auxiliaries pushing the shield cart up, and shouted anxiously.

The Qing soldiers shot arrows at the head of the city, and the feathered arrows and bird gun projectiles fired were blocked by the shield cart, and did not cause much damage to the Ming army's auxiliaries and people. On the contrary, the rifled gunners of the Marine Corps of the Nanyang Fleet and a group of carefully selected sharpshooters counterattacked the city, but they brought great losses to the Qing army.

A total of 200 rifled gunners and 100 sharpshooters with pulley bows, they stood on the nest carts and watchtowers above the city walls, and suppressed the fire on the head of the city.

The rifled gun had a slow rate of fire, but the gunner consumed little physical strength and had high accuracy; The pulley bow has a fast rate of fire, but it still consumes the archer's physical strength, and it is not as accurate as a rifled gun. The combination of these two weapons, the dense bullets and feather arrows rained down, condescendingly on the city, and the Qing soldiers who were standing at the head of the city were shooting arrows at the city fell one after another.

After suppressing the firepower at the head of the city, the Ming army auxiliaries and Minzhuang quickly cleared the obstacles outside the city. Then the large ladder trucks of the Ming army advanced up.

"Minggou ladder truck is up! Shoot with rockets! The Qing garrison shouted.

The Qing archers braved the attacks of the Ming army's rifled gunners and sharpshooters, desperately stood at the head of the city to shoot arrows, and shot locust-like rockets at the ladder carts that were steadily advancing. But the rocket landed on the ladder cart, and the flames were extinguished immediately. The front of these ladder trucks is covered with a layer of copper skin, and the sides are covered with wet felt, and there are buckets of water on the ladder trucks, and it is impossible to set the ladder cars on fire with rockets.

The best way to destroy the ladder car is to use the fire oil tank, but before the fierce shelling of the Ming army, the fire oil tank placed by the Qing army in the city was basically wiped out, and a large amount of fire oil has been burned in vain in the city, and there are few cans of fire oil left in the hands of the Qing army, which cannot threaten the safety of the ladder car at all.

The Qing soldiers defending the city dropped lime bottles, causing some damage to the auxiliary soldiers of the cart.

The Marines standing on the ladder cart pulled out their thunderbolts on their waists and opened heavy fire on the city. The more than 200 Marines who were about to arrive in the city from large ladder trucks were each equipped with a Thunderbolt, a simplified version of the Thunderbolt, which had six short barrels, and after firing one bullet, the barrel was turned by hand to fire a second bullet.

Despite being a smoothbore gun, with a short barrel and low accuracy, it was quite powerful at close range.