Qin Liangyu waved his hand, and dozens of red arrows were fired from the crossbow.
These are ten bed crossbows. They are placed on carriages at ordinary times and lowered to launch during war. When ejected, one crossbow machine can launch three roughly red spears.
The bed crossbow is the pinnacle of crossbow weapons. It relies on the combined force of several bows to shoot out an arrow. It often takes dozens of people to turn the axle to pull it apart. The range can reach more than 500 meters.
The range of bed crossbows varies in different historical periods and different types of bed crossbows.
According to historical records, the three-bow bed crossbow has a range of about 1,000 meters.
In the Song Dynasty, the range of the bed crossbow reached "thousand steps", which is approximately 1,550 meters.
Another description mentions that the range of the three-bow bed crossbow can even reach 1500 meters.
Qin Liangyu's troops are equipped with a small amount of this weapon. It is mainly used for two purposes.
One is to measure the range of artillery, muskets, and crossbows. Just like now, these red javelins mark the distance according to 500 meters. This is used to determine whether the enemy is within the range of the artillery.
The other one is the Tajue Arrow. The heavy arrows fired by these crossbows will be nailed to the city wall. The army can use their hands and feet to climb the city wall. This method is more flexible than the ladder.
During the long-term war in the southwest, a large number of the chieftain soldiers of Shizhu used this method to climb the city. The spears of the white-poled soldiers had hooks on them and rings on the tails, which could be hooked up and down and cooperated with each other to climb the city.
Yue Tuo was among the second echelon of cavalry. As the horn blew, once the cavalry charge started, it was impossible to stop. These were the elite cavalry of the two red flags. They all wore triple armor and carried long spears in their armpits.
, holding the gun barrel with his hand, standing in the stirrups with a cat-like waist, and charged forward.
Seeing that the first wave of cavalry had already passed through the row of red spears stuck diagonally on the ground, Qin Liangyu waved his hand.
The artillerymen immediately set fire. They were all trained skillfully.
Regarding the artillery drill, Yang Fan had already sent someone to Qin Liangyu. They have been training a lot in the past year.
Because the tragic defeat in the bloody battle of Hunhe has always been a shadow in their hearts. The soldiers who have been trained so hard for hundreds of battles were actually shattered by heavy artillery.
This is a problem they worry about day and night. Now that they also have artillery, they naturally have to train hard.
Thirty leather cannons were lined up in a row, aiming at the cavalry group in front.
The cavalry of Jiannu came, shaking the ground with their horse hooves, making it tremble slightly.
But the white-armed soldiers were not at all confused and were preparing in an orderly manner. They were all veterans of many battles and had just come off the battlefield to pacify Guizhou.
This batch of leather cannons is much better than Gustav's original ones. Because Gustav's leather cannons were made of copper inside and tightened with forged iron on the outside.
Because this batch of artillery pieces are lined with high-strength steel from Zunhua, their strength and smoothness are very good. After all, they are made of rolled plates.
The first Jia La, with 1,500 cavalry, increased the speed of the horse to its maximum speed.
They could rush across the distance of one mile very quickly. Although they were very worried when they looked at the black muzzle of the gun. However, no one dared to defecate after the military order.
These cannons seemed to have the same caliber as red cannons, but for some reason, two artillerymen could move them. This puzzled them.
Boom boom boom! In the blink of an eye, thirty leather cannons opened fire. The spherical solid bullets sprayed out of the muzzle under the fierce flames and thick smoke and flew towards the cavalry group in front at high speed.
The gun carriage and gun mount slide to the rear seat under the reaction force.
It has to be said that there is still a gap between the leather cannon and the real red cannon. The charge is less than half of the red cannon. This is because the barrel is not strong enough, and the full charge has to be exploded.
So the red cannon has a range of one thousand meters, but this one only has a range of five hundred meters.
However, five hundred meters is enough.
The red cannon is too heavy and cannot be relied upon on the battlefield. It can only be used to defend cities or be mounted on warships.
The artillery of this era, such as large general cannons and small Fran cannons, which can maneuver onto the battlefield, only have this range, or not even this range.
This leather cannon uses the same projectiles and caliber as the red cannon.
The eighteen-pound shell flew out of the muzzle, but at a significantly slower speed.
But no matter how slow you are, fighting cavalry is still a piece of cake.
In the blink of an eye, thirty cannonballs formed a parabola and fell into the cavalry group. The cannonballs fell diagonally from the sky and smashed into the cavalry. In an instant, forty or fifty knights were hit, including men and horses.
They were beaten into a bloody mist without even uttering a scream.
Broken meat and bones, broken armor, and broken weapons were scattered everywhere.
The cavalry all around were confused. Even though they were all elite soldiers, they were frightened to death.
The era of hot weapons was far more cruel than the fighting in the era of cold weapons. It was a severe torture to human nerves. Especially for these slaves who were still in the era of cold weapons. They had only seen firearms that were not very powerful.
The ground here is hard. Thirty eighteen-pound spherical lead bullets ricocheted as soon as they hit the ground. The projectiles flew up again, then jumped down and smashed out bloody alleys diagonally behind the team.
Fortunately, Yue Tuo divided the three Jia La cavalry into three groups, separated by at least fifty meters.
The first wave of shells entered the open space in the middle after ricocheting three times, bounced twice and finally rolled on the ground and slowed down.
Although the shells tended to stop, there was still an unlucky second echelon of cavalry whose legs hit the shells that were about to stop.
Then, a scene appeared that made Yue Tuo's eyes widen.
Although the cannonball had slowed down enough to be visible to the naked eye, it still shattered the horse's hooves and legs.
There was a splash of blood and flesh, and the war horse neighed and fell to the ground, knocking the knight off the horse heavily. During a high-speed charge, being thrown off by a war horse while still wearing heavy armor would not have a good outcome.
The weight of more than 200 kilograms directly broke people's bones and tendons, vomiting blood, and unable to get up. They did not suffer for long, and the horses' hooves behind them trampled them into a pulp.
Qin Liangyu was very satisfied with the results of the battle. He killed and wounded at least 150 Jiannu in the first opening fire. A Jia La only had 1,500 cavalry. This kill-to-injury ratio was really impressive.
Suddenly, she felt excited, accompanied by a feeling of sadness.
If there had been such equipment in Shenyang ten years ago, why would they have failed so miserably? Thinking of her elder brother and younger brother, her heart hurt like a knife.
"Keep shooting! Fire three rounds quickly and prepare shotgun shells." Qin Liangyu continued to order.
Needless to say, these gunners had already taken advantage of the completion of shooting and immediately took out the long rods wrapped in sponge from the bucket, inserted them into the barrel of the gun, and pumped them repeatedly.
One is to extinguish the remaining sparks in the gun barrel to avoid igniting the propellant of the next shell.
The other is to clean the gun barrel and remove the residue to avoid affecting subsequent shooting.
Qin Liangyu is no better than Yang Fan. She cannot afford silk medicine bags, so she uses paper medicine bags.
If there is any residue after shooting, the barrel must be cleaned.
In fact, Yang Fan is a bit hypocritical. In this era, flintlock guns and even the propellant of artillery were all wrapped in paper until two hundred years later.
After all, paper is not cheap.
The price difference between these two packaging methods is three times, and the shooting speed is twice the difference.
The gunners immediately pushed the propellant into the barrel and loaded the second lead bullet into it.
After taking careful aim, the second gunner stabbed the fire door with a steel drill to let the gunpowder from the charge bag enter the fire door. Then he plugged in the fuse and waited.
Qin Liangyu gave the order and immediately lit the fuse.
Boom boom boom! A minute later, the second round of shelling began.
