1127, the brutal attack and defense of Jiuyuan City
When Yang Fan received the telegram, he was so excited that he almost went crazy with a small cotton-padded jacket.
Although he couldn't go back, it didn't stop him from imagining how cute his little cotton-padded jacket was.
What he didn't know was that more than ten years later, this little cotton-padded jacket not only leaked air, but also often made him angry and almost crazy.
Yang Fan held the telegram in his hand and smiled stupidly. But he was not happy for long, and he went to Beicheng.
The main siege of the Oirats finally began. Starting three days ago, the Oirats, who had built enough siege weapons, launched a truly large-scale attack.
Yang Fan now spends most of his time on the high platform in Beicheng, directing battles at any time.
Early this morning, just after dawn, the horns were blown. After a while, the rumble of war drums came. The loud sound made by dozens of cowhide drums made the earth tremble and shake.
The Oirat people had prepared heavy siege equipment such as chariots and chariots for a long time and finally put them on the battlefield.
Two miles away, hundreds of carriages were slowly walking towards the city wall, pulled and pushed by cattle and slaves. A large number of Oirat soldiers dismounted and formed a military formation, carrying ladders and holding shields.
, rushing towards the city wall.
There were also trebuchets, dragged into the battlefield by pack horses and strong oxen.
Yang Fan used a telescope to carefully observe their formation. He was thinking about how the Oirat people would fight. But he didn't waste too much time thinking, and soon, today's fighting method appeared.
Groups of camel cavalry quickly ran to a stop three hundred meters away from the city wall.
The Oirats driving camels made the camels lie on the ground and then adjusted the bracket of the revolving camel cannon so that the muzzle of the cannon was aimed at the crenellations of the city wall.
Yang Fan narrowed his eyes. The Dzungars were really unstoppable. He could imagine such an advanced combat mode. He actually started playing infantry and artillery coordination with me.
The length of these camel guns is about 1.2 meters, the caliber is about 70 centimeters, and the projectile weight is about one pound. The effective range is about 3,780 meters. The maximum range can reach about 500 meters.
After the camels lay down, the muzzles of these guns were aimed at the crenellations of the city wall and began to charge.
Yang Fan observed more carefully. He could see clearly that the Junggar people used dry gunpowder. This kind of gunpowder had poor performance.
The so-called dry type means that the raw material powders are mixed together. Because the specific gravity of different ingredients is different, during transportation, heavy ones will sink below and light ones will float on top, automatically stratifying. Therefore
, long transportation time, or severe bumps, it will lead to performance degradation or even misfire.
Yang Fan saw them on the battlefield, re-stirring and mixing the gunpowder before firing. He couldn't help but laugh.
It seems that gunpowder technology here in Central Asia is still lagging behind Europe. They don't even have granular gunpowder, nor do they have wet preparation methods.
Only by stirring with water and then drying and grinding the powder can the ratio be fixed together. No matter how it is transported, there will be no problem of stratification and precipitation. Moreover, it must be made into granular materials to increase the gaps between the charges, which is more conducive to combustion.
Soon, the camel artillery team, hundreds of camel cannons, opened fire.
One-pound lead balls and stone balls flew toward the crenellations of the city wall.
Because the mineral lead is relatively expensive, the Oirat people mostly use slaves to polish stone balls to make cannonballs.
This is similar to Japan. Their island is also short of metal, and they basically use stone balls to make Guobeng's cannonballs. They also call Guobeng stone fire arrows. The reason why cannons are rare in Japan is also due to their lack of lead for cannonballs.
relation.
There was a banging sound, and debris flew from the top of the city.
These stone balls hit the crenels built with large stones and cement, causing them to break. The stones and stones building the wall were also damaged.
Because the hardness is almost the same, not only will the stone balls be completely broken, but some pieces of the stone will also be broken off.
The soldiers on the city wall crouched and hid under the roots of the female wall, trying to avoid being hit by the rubble. These broken and flying rubble were about as powerful as shotguns. If they were hit, they would definitely be injured.
For a time, the counterattack on the city wall was suppressed.
The Oirat army below seized the opportunity and advanced quickly. Siege vehicles, building vehicles, and catapults were approaching quickly.
Within the city walls, hundreds of steel trebuchets were also preparing to fire.
These trebuchets are all steel structures and assembled from spare parts.
It was designed and produced after the Battle of the Rock Beach. This kind of trebuchet was only developed for one generation and was eliminated by the artillery. These were all pulled out of the warehouse in the new city.
After Yang Fan succeeded in developing artillery, he basically eliminated these trebuchets and stored them in warehouses to eat dust. Now that the war situation is urgent, these trebuchets come in handy.
Moreover, he was not afraid of the imperial court knowing about this thing. Therefore, Huang Hao was asked to ship it over.
These trebuchets are very simple. It is a portal-shaped steel frame with several steel pipes driven into the soil seven or eight meters below, which are very firmly fixed. The counterweight is a cement prefabricated block with a total weight of ten tons. Each piece weighs fifty kilograms. It can be used as needed.
Increase or decrease. The way to raise the counterweight box is to use a pulley block and manpower to pull the iron chain.
Therefore, the size of this trebuchet is much simpler than the original method of using people to run around in the drum like a guinea pig.
The machine was fixed, and the fifteen-meter launching arm quickly launched the live ammunition after the weight box fell.
This trebuchet can be operated by only five people.
The live ammunition is also made of cement molds. The production speed is very fast. There are both fist-sized Tiannu loose ammunition and a solid cement sphere.
"Fire the trebuchet," Yang Fan ordered.
Now that the city wall has been suppressed, the soldiers dare not stick their heads out at all. Then use trebuchets to deal with these nasty camel cannons.
The biggest weakness of the Beijing camp is still the lack of firearms. Their equipment is not good enough.
"Use the Goddess Scattered Shells." Yang Fan said, "Let's play ten rounds first."
The weight box had already been hoisted high. The soldiers immediately loaded the cobblestones and small cement balls into the net bags.
With the corps commander's wave, a soldier suddenly pulled down the latch. The weight box broke away from the restriction and fell from a height. It hit the ground heavily, and the rocker arm bounced up with a roar.
The rocker arm reached the maximum angle and was blocked by the limit rod. There was a loud bang. The rocker arm stopped moving, and the net bag threw out the dense stones.
There were hundreds of trebuchets inside the city walls. They fired dense stone bullets almost simultaneously.
After the stone projectile flew out, the rocker arm was blocked by the limiting rod and bounced back. The net bag fell back to the ground again.
At this time, the four soldiers pulled the iron chain, passed the pulley block, and worked together to raise the weight box to the top position again.
In the past, a drum-type trebuchet took five minutes to fire one round. It was still very large, covered a large area, and had many people. But now this trebuchet that uses a pulley block has greatly increased the rate of fire.
It can be launched once every minute.
The camel artillerymen saw that the city was being suppressed, and their original fear of the Beijing camp began to gradually dissipate.
After all, the black ship never appeared again.
At this time, just as they were watching the siege army enter a distance of 150 meters from the city wall, they thought in their hearts that if nothing unexpected happened, there would be no suspense about the city's attack today.
Often at times like this, if nothing unexpected happens, something unexpected will happen.
At this moment, they heard a series of loud bangs and bangs, and they immediately recognized the sound of the trebuchet. They looked up at the sky, and there seemed to be a dark cloud rising inside the city wall.
Then, they discovered to their horror that it was not dark clouds, but densely packed cobblestones and stone bullets.
