Nanming Engineer

Chapter 293 I will not enter Sichuan and you will not enter Huguang
More than thirty cannons of various types roared at the same time. The smoke suddenly rose and the cannons roared. For a moment, the whole sky seemed to be shaking. Although the spectacle was not as spectacular as the one Wang Huan played a few days ago, it was still very spectacular. shocked.

Dots of shells hit the mounds, blowing up dozens of dust, and the solid iron bullets fell on the ground, making deep craters, and then bouncing and rolling at a speed visible to the naked eye, shattering anything they hit What, an iron bullet hit the wooden fence on the top of the mountain, immediately stirring up sawdust all over the sky, and the solid wooden fence was smashed to pieces like it was made of paper.

However, because of the angle, the shells fired from the back rarely hit the wooden fence. Most of the small cannons have a very short range and cannot hit the top of the mound at all. .

Those tiger squatting cannons caught Wang Huan's attention. Among the thirty or so cannons, there were about ten tiger squatting cannons. Like a celestial maiden scattered flowers, it crossed a distance of hundreds of feet in the air, and fell behind the wooden fence on the top of the mountain with a big parabola. Although the killing effect could not be seen, the sound coming from the wind From the screams of the Qing army, one can roughly estimate it.

Wang Huan touched his chin with one hand and stared thoughtfully without blinking.

In the distance, there was a voice that sounded like a lion's roar, and someone roared loudly: "Come again, this thing is good, play it a few more times, and blow up these turtle grandsons!"

Immediately, the gunners stepped forward again, pulled the gunpowder, reset the cannon, nailed it into the ground again with a big hammer, then washed the chamber and dried it, aimed and aligned it, and finally filled the gunpowder and reloaded the process again. , After everything was ready, everyone dispersed again, leaving a lighter in place.

In the Qing army camp on the top of the mountain, there was obviously commotion, and people shouted, as if they were very afraid of the artillery attack of the Zhongzheng camp.

After the Ming army at the foot of the mountain was ready, they opened fire again. This time the signal to fire was not the red flag, but the lion's roar, and the roar that echoed throughout the battlefield shouted: "Fire! Fire!"

Wang Huan glanced at Li Dingguo, Li Dingguo said with a smile: "This is Gao Yigong's voice. He was born as a blacksmith. He speaks like this. He likes to give orders. As long as he is around, his loud voice can be heard everywhere."

Before the words fell, the cannonball sounded again.

Gunpowder smoke rising everywhere, like the messengers of hell, with teeth and claws accompanied by iron bullets and scattered stones, roared and flew towards the Qing army camp, breaking down the solid barriers, and the screams inside were much more than the first time.

Probably because of calibration, there were a few more cannons hit this time.

However, the casualties were not limited to the mountains. There were two cannons that exploded.

The gunner who was operating turned around and ran away as soon as the ignition was fired, but the blasting speed was very fast, and it exploded almost as soon as the fuze was burned out. The fired cannon shot through countless bloody holes, and he fell to the ground dead without even shouting.

Only then did Wang Huan understand why the gunners had to draw lots to decide who would ignite the fire, and they had to run faster than a rabbit after igniting it.

Gao Yigong's thunderous voice came again: "How did it happen? The chamber exploded after only two cannonballs were fired. Did Guisun put too much medicine?"

After a pause, he roared again: "Keep firing, keep firing, and I'll blow up all those turtles on the mountain!"

The gunners trembled and were forced to go forward again to operate the cannon.

Wang Huan frowned, and felt that there was a big problem in his heart. The cannon exploded after only two firings, which could only explain two problems. Charge and explode the chamber; the second is the problem of the artillery itself.

The artillery casting technology of this era is still in the stage of continuous exploration. The Ming army used traditional crafts to cast cannons. Although the cost of the cannon is low, the quality of the artillery equipped by the Ming army is seriously inferior due to the poor casting technology and the lack of responsibility of the craftsmen, and such things as bombing often happen.

However, the Qing court at the same time harvested extremely valuable cannon-casting craftsmen from Kong Youde who surrendered. , also known as the "investment method", a new type of cannon casting technology, and the investment method has been practical as early as the Shang Dynasty, but it is the first to be used for casting cannons. The cannons made by this method have smooth inner bores and no holes. It was difficult to blow up the chamber, and the Qing government had an extremely strict quality supervision system, and would rather destroy the guns than let the defective ones go to the battlefield. Therefore, in the late Ming Dynasty, the guns of the Qing court had surpassed the predecessors of the Ming court.

Wang Huan thought about this in a short period of time, and when he came back to his senses, he found that the third round of shelling had already begun.

In this shelling, the firing range was significantly shortened. None of the cannons hit the mound, and the shells fell to the ground exhausted outside the wooden fence. Apart from intimidation, they had no real effect.

This is the sequelae of the bombing. The gunners are afraid of hurting themselves, so they deliberately reduce the amount of charge, resulting in insufficient range of the artillery, far from the maximum shooting distance of the artillery. It looks like the rumble of the gun is actually just in the eye It's just fried dirt under the sub.

But this was enough, because the Qing army on the top of the mountain couldn't bear the dilemma that the enemy could hit me but I couldn't touch the enemy, so they opened the gate of the village and came out.

The first person raised the white flag.

The Qing army filed out in a column, all unarmed and disarmed themselves.

"No more fights, no more fights, we surrender!" The person walking in front shouted: "We were originally the Ming army, but we surrendered to the Qing Dynasty out of desperation. We have tied up Yu Shizhong and Ma Jiaolin. , I’m here to ask you to surrender!”

Flying white flags, the group pulled two bloody men tied to horseback with ropes. The two men lay on the horse like dead dogs.

Gao Yigong's lion's roar sounded again, loudly ordering the Qing army to descend the mountain obediently and orderly, kneel on the ground in order, and wait for the loyalty camp to be tied up.

Seeing the well-behaved appearance of the Qing army, Wang Huan slapped his forehead. After so many days, he could not last half an hour of the artillery bombardment. It seems that intimidation does not lie in the time, but in the means.

Cannons are a good thing, but unfortunately the ones in my hands are all scrap metal. Only a batch of them were captured from Zeng Ying, which are not of much use. The largest cannons are medium-sized flanges, mostly from the Chongzhen period. The defective products are probably similar to the ones that Gao Yigong exploded just now, so they cannot be put on the table.

It's a pity that they left Zhaoqing too hastily. If there is enough time, stealing a few people from the Portuguese gunners recruited by the imperial army in Zhaoqing city might be of great use. We need to work on it in the future.

The cavalry of the Kuizhou Army stared blankly at the side, watching the Zhongzhen Camp count the number of prisoners, clean up the weapons and ordnance, and send the two Qing generals who had been beaten to death to imprison them, and then retreated to Xinhua City to set up camp.When the cannons were carried onto the cannon cart and pulled by animals and passed in front of them, the eyes of the white armored soldiers were full of envy.

Standing among the white-armored soldiers, Wang Huan glanced over the cannon one by one, expressionless, as if he didn't care, just looked at them indifferently, then smiled, and greeted Gao Yigong who urged the horse over.

Back on the Yangtze River, Wang Huan and Gao Yigong had an acquaintance. Gao Tiejiang was deeply impressed by the young man wearing white clothes and pretending to be on the bank of the Fengjie River. When they met again, he arrived before the others arrived and shouted at the top of his lungs. up.

"Is this general Wang Huan, the commander-in-chief of Ming Kuizhou?"

The voice was rough, carefree, and without respect. Li Dingguo and others raised their brows and were not happy.

Is your lord's name also called by a fool like you?Although you Gao Yigong are both rank-ranking and general-insigned generals, but breaking into the old army is nothing compared to the Hongmiaozheng Yufeng Sichuan-Shaanxi General Soldier. Even if you are on the same level, you will greet each other with respectful words. It's like yelling, obviously rude.

Li Dingguo, Ma Wannian, Liu Yun and others wanted to stand up and scold him, but Wang Huan waved his hand to stop him. He stood there with a smile and said with cupped hands: "It's me. General Gao, are you okay?"

Gao Yigong took strides while speaking, and within a few steps he came to Wang Huan, he was tall and strong, half a head taller than Wang Huan, stretched out his slap the size of a cattail leaf fan to touch his head, staring and angrily said: "It's really you? "

This man was full of beard and had a ferocious face. He was calm and intimidating, which made Li Dingguo wary. He secretly used his strength to prepare himself to take action at any time.

But Wang Huan didn't care about it, he spread his hands and said, "It really is me!"

Gao Yigong stared at Wang Huan for a long time, his tense face suddenly burst open, his wide mouth grinned to the ears, his laughter went straight to the sky, he grabbed Wang Huan's hand and shouted: "Hahaha, come on!" At that time, Li Xianggong mentioned that Wang Zongbing, a hero in troubled times and a young hero, wanted Gao to get close to him. After we said goodbye to Baidi City, Li Xianggong and I have always kept Wang Zongbing in our hearts, and we have never forgotten it. We can see you today , I got what I wanted!"

His voice was like thunder, which made people's ears buzz, but Wang Huan was calm and composed, holding Gao Yigong's hand and said with a smile: "Mr. Wang Huan is very pleased to serve under the governor's tent, and his military achievements are outstanding."

Gao Yigong waved his hands and said: "People are at the end of the road, and they have to do it. Besides, Governor Du is loyal and courageous, and his righteousness is not as good as the sky. He is very angry with me. Li Xianggong also deeply feels that he is not as treacherous and cunning as ordinary officials. , That's why we followed him and let him fight the Tartars. Brother Wang, you are different. We are old acquaintances. Although we met for the second time, Mr. Li kept talking about you in Lao Gao's ear every day. I could hear it. Cocoon is here, how do you say that sentence? God, God, yes, it's been a long time."

Hearing Gao Blacksmith's uncivilized words, Li Dingguo and Liu Yun were a little friendly. Although this man was muddled, he was straightforward, and he spoke without restraint. Although he was a bit rebellious, he was very appetizing.

But the surprise is, Mr. Wang and Gao Yigong seem very familiar, when did they become friends?

Ma Wannian had experienced the past of Kuimen's white cloth hanging over the river, and whispered it to the two of them. They were shocked. It turned out that Mr. Wang was far-sighted and had laid the foreshadowing so early.

Gao Yigong and Wang Huan hooked up, got on their horses together, and walked side by side to Xinhua City, talking while walking, halfway, when they talked about Du Yinxi's battle in Changsha, Wang Huan suddenly thought of him. There is also Du Yinxi's autographed letter, so I took it out to have a look.

The letter is not long, just a few words.

The handwriting is in a hurry, flamboyant and dancing, it can be seen that it was written in a hurry.

"The king lives in the west and Xi lives in the east. We help the community together and go to the country together. We are willing to put the world first. Personal life and death, loyalty to the king and the country, work together, the king does not enter Huguang, and Xi does not enter Sichuan."

(End of this chapter)