Chapter 552: The Last Moment

Not long after this "Fengyun Cannon" appeared, the heavens and the earth had already changed color.

To the north of the castle of Santiago, the 32-pounder and 30-pounder guns on the castle battery, the 12-pounder, 16-pounder and 18-pounder cannons on the corner fort of the wall, and the 6-pounder and 9-pounder cannons on the battlements of the wall, more than 200 guns of all sizes and sizes, bombarded in a frenzied manner. Even the thick stone castle wall was shaken out of thick dust and smoke, and the wall was even more obscured by thick gunsmoke.

This was just the feeling of the painters who watched from afar outside the battlefield, and within two miles of the city walls, both the city and the city were shaken by the dense sound of cannons.

"The Spanish red-haired are scared crazy, the big guy helps them wake up"

Zhao Hanxiang couldn't see this battle, he gave an order, and the artillery group that advanced to within two miles of the front line also spoke suddenly. An even more turbulent tide of cannon fire rose, rolling up a huge wave that collided with the sound of the Spaniards' cannons in mid-air. As the number of cannons participating in the chorus increased, the giant* soon made the Spaniards retreat.

Manila has been under fire for more than two months, but today there has never been such a battle. A total of 5 or 600 artillery pieces on both sides of the enemy and us fired in unison. Cannonballs shuttle back and forth in the sky, rubble flies on the ground, and gravel is scattered, no matter how brave a person is, he must also feel the insignificance of people and the fragility of flesh and blood.

On both sides of the Fengyun cannon, the gunners who have been waiting for a long time have no time to be sad, their blood is burning, just waiting for their own moment to come.

There was a rattle in Galala, and the front edge of the iron cart carrying the Fengyun cannon reached a low dirt slope, where the shallow ditch and railroad tracks also ended. The gunners swarmed up, and this was the firing position of the Fengyun cannon.

Many of the Spaniards' large guns can cover a range of two miles, and although the Fengyun cannon is huge, it is only a little bit away from two miles, and if it can directly hit the Fengyun cannon, the gunner is afraid that he doesn't know where to repair the slam blessing.

But just in case, and at the same time to block damage similar to ricochet and stray bullets, a circular copper shield was still erected in front of the Fengyun Cannon and to the left and right. This is a temporary casting of copper ingots with abundant local resources, in fact, a copper plate about a foot thick is mounted on the car and surrounded by a half-circle around the wind and cloud cannon.

In the sunlight, both the shield and the cannon glowed with a golden halo. The two groups of people in front and behind the cannon were shirtless, and in front of them were five groups of men and horses, and the first group of two people cleaned the barrel of the cannon with a long-handled thing that looked like a large feather duster and was stained with water. The second group of two people dried the breeches with almost identical-looking objects wrapped in dry towels.

The third group of two people used a long fork to send the medicine bag into the medicine room, a pack of five catties, a full 12 bags stuffed into it, and then pressed into the round wooden pallet. The second group is four strong men, using a tool similar to a slide rod to send 180 pounds of iron bullets into the barrel, and the third group of four people desperately compacting the shells with a pressure rod.

At this time, it was the turn of the people behind the cannon to go into battle immediately, first the aiming group, the sighter commanded more than a dozen people on the left and right sides, and with his order, he shook the lower part of the gun carriage vigorously, and the long handle protruding from the left and right, and the muzzle of the gun slowly rose from the horizontal state.

"Jesus Christ is on top and cannot stop for a moment"

Juan hurried to a section of the wall where the cannon had been targeted, and cheered up the gunners on the left and right corner forts and battlement walls. Through the binoculars, he could clearly see that the huge cannon was already in the middle of his neck.

The gunners wanted to reply, but they were disturbed by the continuous vibrations, and the artillery fire of the British and Chinese troops with 30 catties of guns as the main force was also constantly bombarding the city wall, although it was difficult to damage the main body of the city wall, but the diagonal fort and the battlement wall had a full threat. Coupled with the smoke and dust, it is even more impossible to aim and shoot.

The gunner of the Fengyun cannon steadily completed the adjustment of the gun position, and then the fireman inserted the letter tube into the fire door, pulled out a long letter cable, and connected it to the flintlock platform a few feet away on the right.

At a quarter past three o'clock in the afternoon of 16 August, the pennant fell, and amid the shouts of "ready--" the surrounding Lifu and the gunners hurriedly avoided and entered the trenches to the left and right of the cannons.

The call for "ignition" fell, and the gunner pulled the mechanism, ignited the letter cord on the flintlock, and then turned and rushed into the cover trench next to it.

The three-foot-long cord was expected to burn out in nine to ten seconds, but the dozens of people who were hiding in the surrounding trenches, the thousands of people watching around, and even the tens of thousands of people in the entire north felt that these nine to ten seconds were a long time.

I don't know how long later, a gunner who was so impatient that he couldn't hold back looked impatiently, but he heard a boom and exploded in the depths of his heart. At first, he didn't feel how big it was, but his body and mind were instantly snatched, and the invisible sound turned out to be like a physical storm, knocking him to the ground. , No one paid attention to him, the thunderous cannon sound, the shaking of the earth, had made the dozens of people around him temporarily lose their senses.

Unlike the movement of hundreds or thousands of catties of gunpowder in siege warfare, although 60 catties of gunpowder is small, the violent concussion emitted by the copper and iron cannons of twenty or thirty tons is also a chilling power. Guan Fengsheng and Mead Zheng, who had already experienced it, warned the gunners not to stand within three feet of the cannon body, and at the same time cover their earbuds tightly and open their mouths on the ground.

The first launch of the "Fengyun 1" shook the ground into a circle of light dust and mist, and the huge cannon muzzle spewed out thick white smoke, carrying an orange flame, if you are standing between the artillery and the castle of Santiago, and at the same time have enough eyesight, you can see a blurred black shadow, is drawing a parabola, towards one of the castle's walls.

The speed of the cannonball was close to the speed of sound, two miles away, in more than 3 seconds, and in less than 4 seconds, the parabola was connected to the city wall.

The muffled sound of a thud was similar to the sound of a hammer smashing on a stone, but the sound was countless times louder.

Jia Hao stared at the city wall in front of him, Guan Fengsheng and Mead were staring blankly, Han Zaixing and other generals were watching, and tens of thousands of officers and soldiers and people were also watching. At this moment, the whole north seemed to fall silent, and the non-stop cannon fire of the Spaniards was ignored and became an insignificant background.

The expected scene of the stone cracking and wall collapse did not appear, and there was not even much rubble that collapsed, and one hundred and eighty catties of iron bullets fell down, except for the muffled sound, the effect seemed to be less than thirty catties of cannonballs.

It turned out that he was scaring himself, and he had thought about it a long time ago, Chinese it was impossible to create a real siege artillery......

On the city wall, Juan held his head and followed hundreds of officers and soldiers lying on the back edge of the wall, which was the experience of the Europa people in defending the city, so as to avoid the collateral damage of heavy artillery bombardment of the city wall. Of course, Marshal Vauban invented the ricochet attack in response to this, allowing the shells to jump over the front edge of the wall and on the back edge and the sloping wall below, killing and injuring people and artillery. But Juan believes that the Chinese are not advanced enough to master such artillery technology.

For the Spaniards, the feeling of this cannon was just a violent shock of the stone wall under them, and the feeling was vaguely like an earthquake, that is, the brain was slightly dizzy.

Juan let out a long breath and got up as he reviewed his previous cowardice.

But as soon as he stood up straight, he felt that the dizziness was getting worse and worse, and he patted his head, trying to sober himself up, but found that other people were also in the same situation.

Exclaimed, this is not dizziness, this is the wall under your feet shaking......

Juan subconsciously reached out and grabbed it, hugging the soldiers who had fallen.

At this moment, the British and Chinese officers and soldiers in the north, and even the Chinese laborers, let out a long sigh in their hearts, but they still didn't move, it seems that this San Diego castle is indeed indestructible, and even such a huge cannon can't shake it in the slightest. Even Jia Hao frowned, and his heart sank slightly.

Reloading, a shot doesn't tell the story

The artillery crew of Fengyun No. 1 was unwilling to give up, and Guan Fengsheng and Mead were even more reluctant to give up, so they went to the gun position in person and instructed the people to drag the gun carriage that had been sitting several feet back again.

Guan Fengsheng was still thinking about whether he should fill an extra twenty catties of medicine, the people and gunners suddenly stopped moving, and he was about to reprimand in anger, Mead was also stunned, hit Guan Fengsheng with his elbow, and said in a suppressed voice: "Look"

Guan Fengsheng turned his head to look at it, and he was also stunned.

Whether it is gunpowder smoke or dust smoke, after the castle of San Diego is really surrounded, the smoke and dust have not stopped, but the movement of this smoke and dust in front of me is quite strange.

About thirty or forty zhang wide, the wall, which was held up by two angular fortresses, was poured down like a waterfall. The scene was like the Spaniards shaking cement powder down from the top of the city.

In a matter of moments, the cement powder turned to rubble, and the roar was incessant, as if the upper part of the wall was crushing.

"Help—"

In the smoke and rubble, several human bodies also poured down, shouting in horror, but they seemed to be swept down by the water flushing the toilet, and the shouts were extremely desperate and poignant. Planted from the battlements more than ten or twenty meters high, there is still rubble and gravel like a torrent on the head, and it is lucky to fall to death, and if you don't fall to your death, you will have to suffer another crime of dumping and burying.

Colonel Juan was lucky, several Spanish soldiers joined hands and feet, and they grabbed him, and the battlements that were originally flat and ten meters wide had broken most of them, leaving only a small corner of the edge of the city, like a craggy cliff. What happened?

The British and Chinese soldiers and civilians under the city were full of doubts, and at first there was no movement, which would create a gravel waterfall, and this cannon was really full of unpredictable surprises.

After a long time, the smoke and dust cleared, and everyone took a sharp breath as they looked at the gradually clear city wall.

The upper part of the flat wall has cracked into a large gap, and not only does the wall outline a clear boundary between the top and bottom, but even the boundary between the inside and outside of the wall is clearly visible.

Jia Hao's brows furrowed, but Clinton, a Briton beside him, was already jumping up excitedly.

In this way, the castle of Santiago was built by the Spaniards for more than 100 years, and it was divided into many layers, and the bottom layer was the city wall of the Luzon natives. Right now, this cannon is to peel off the outermost layer of them."

The hope that Clinton saw was Juan's despair, as the soldiers pulled up the remaining part of the battlements, looking at the cracked upper half of the wall, his despair was genuine, and there was absolutely no water.

Although only the upper part was damaged, and the lower half of the city wall was stronger, all the defensive forces were in the upper part, and as long as the Chinese had patience and swept away the front wide enough, the remaining part of the wall was no longer able to stop them.

Remembering the cheers of the tide, even the sound of the Spaniards' artillery was muffled, Juan said to Governor Lebando, who had rushed to check on the situation: "Although I am unwilling to give up the glory of the soldiers, the facts tell me that the castle of Santiago is no longer impregnable, and we have no strength to continue to hold on under the heavy siege artillery of the Chinese." In order to take responsibility for the more than 10,000 civilians in the castle, I, in the name of the commander of the city defense, ask the governor to ......"

He closed his eyes in pain and uttered the words that he had never thought of before: "Surrender to the Chinese"

Lebandu's face turned pale from the shocking cracks on the wall, and when he heard this, he instantly turned to iron.

"Colonel Juan, you're no longer the commander of the city's defenses"

Without the slightest hesitation, the Governor dismissed Colonel Juan from his post on the spot, and imprisoned Juan in the castle prison for disturbing the morale of the army.

Surrender...... Even if Lebandu wanted to surrender, it would depend on Archbishop Arusso's face.

"The governor is leaving, the Chinese are about to fire again"

There was no one standing on this section of the wall, and the soldiers escorted the governor to leave in a hurry, and just after he got off the wall, the ground shook significantly, and the governor suddenly fell on his back and faced the sky.

Lying on the ground, Governor Lebandu saw the corner fort at the edge of the wall collapse, and the few cannons contained in it, as well as dozens of soldiers, were suddenly annihilated under this cannon.

"Archbishop, it's time to ......"

Governor Lebandu hurriedly found the archbishop and passed the grim whiteness on his face to the other party, and the archbishop stared at him for a long time before nodding slowly.

"Lord, your people are waiting for your mercy......"

The archbishop prayed non-stop, and outside the city, the third shell of the "Fengyun No. 1" once again fired, rubbing against the city, and smashed into the fort behind the corner fort, as if the heavens continued to favor Yinghua, this shot shot out of the "lore ricochet", with an irregular sweeping momentum, the two 32-pounder guns, together with dozens of officers and soldiers, along with the corner of the fort, smashed into the sky.

After nearly a quarter of an hour, the Fengyun No. 1 stopped, and the fire of the Spaniards in the north fell silent, frightened by the power of the heavy artillery, and the Spaniards were dragging their guns back in horror while rearranging the line of fire.

"It's almost time."

Jia Hao was relieved and said to the people around him.

"Xiaomin, let's prepare."

The man said respectfully, it was Fan Sihai who came from his hometown.

Chapter 552: The Last Moment.

Chapter 552: The Last Hour is By,