There is no need to elaborate on the repeated crossbows of the Shang Shui Army. In the Yaling Gorge, due to the local terrain, the Shang Shui Army only moved out 300 of the 500, and almost defeated the 5,000 Jie clan in one go.
The advance cavalry was so powerful that even a general like Sima An could not help but feel excited. He wished he could steal a few of them and hide them with their Dangshan army.
And now, listening to the tone of His Highness Prince Su, it seems that the Shang Shui Army has another incredible war weapon.
catapult
Sima An secretly thought about this other weapon of war besides the serial crossbow of the Shang Shui Army.
To be fair, he was no stranger to catapults.
In fact, I believe that most generals in the world are not unfamiliar with catapults. After all, this siege weapon has been included in the history of wars and attacks in the Central Plains countries for a long time. If any general
If he doesn't know how to use a catapult, then he is really ignorant.
Generally speaking, any general who leads an army to attack an enemy's city knows how to make a catapult, even Sima An knows how to do it.
However, Sima An would never be so naive as to think that the catapult in his impression and the catapult mentioned by His Highness Prince Su in front of him were the same thing.
For example, those five hundred repeating crossbows, in Sima An's impression, did not have the power to rival heavy crossbows.
But the problem is that the area around Luodi is full of plains. Where can I find stones to polish the stone bullets?
"Are you worried that there is no material nearby to polish the stone bullets?"
Sima An asked tentatively.
The so-called stone bullets refer to natural rocks that are integrated into one piece. The power of this kind of stone bullets when attacking a city is simply appalling. Sometimes, a single stone bullet is enough to destroy a city wall, making this ancient defense method impossible.
, is no longer as effective as it was hundreds of years ago.
It may take months to build a city wall, but it may only take a blink of an eye to destroy a city wall with a catapult.
It is no exaggeration to say that the advent of catapults made the defensive means of city walls almost a decoration, and made humankind's achievements in destruction a big step forward.
However, after listening to Sima An's inquiry, Zhao Hongrun shook his head and said calmly: "There is no need for stone bullets. I have prepared a special kind of bomb, let's call it a barrel bomb, as a catapult projectile."
"Barrel Bomb"
Sima An had a strange look on his face.
Suddenly, he turned around as if he was aware of it, and happened to see some merchant soldiers driving several four-wheeled carriages nearby. Immediately, several merchant soldiers lifted up the green cloth covering the carriages, revealing the neatly stacked carriages.
Barrels on the carriage.
“Could this be oil?”
Sima An asked tentatively.
Zhao Hongrun nodded, then shook his head.
Seeing this, Sima Anxin understood the idea and added, "It's kerosene."
At this time, Zhao Hongrun also noticed the behavior of the Shangshui soldiers and looked back.
In the Wei State, the so-called oil refers to edible oil that is generally used for cooking. After all, for the people of the Wei State, meat is still not a common home-cooked dish in the country. There are still a considerable number of Wei people who only eat some all year round.
Vegetarian dishes, mostly pickled vegetables.
But what should I do if I want to eat something greasy and meaty?
If there was no spare money at home, the Wei people would go to the market to buy some white meat, which is the fattest and fatty meat among pork. They would use it to cook a pot of pork and hide it in the kitchen. In the future, they would use the lard to stir-fry from time to time and make it a dipping sauce for vegetarian dishes.
A bit meaty.
Kerosene refers to the lamp oil used for lighting, usually rapeseed oil. After all, the technology for refining pure rapeseed oil in this era is not very good. Therefore, the extracted rapeseed oil is not only thick and black in color, but also mixed with There are many impurities and the taste is very bad when used for cooking.
Generally speaking, people in Wei with poor family conditions would use rapeseed oil as the raw material for oil lamps. After all, it was much cheaper than candles.
However, at this moment, the wooden barrels carried by the Shangshui sergeants were not filled with the oil or kerosene that Wei people saw every day. Instead, Zhao Hongrun called the officials from the Smelting Bureau and the warehouse department to come. From the barren land of Guizhou, the black viscous substance that was transported to Daliang was called black water by the locals in Guizhou.
oil
Today, there is no artificially refined oil that is purer and more suitable for burning than the oil produced in Guizhou.
"Thirty. Shen Yu ordered Wu Ji to assemble thirty catapults."
After some hesitation, Zhao Hongrun finally decided to take out only one-tenth of the catapult.
After all, what he was facing at the moment was Luocheng, and the people living in the city were the Yi tribe and the Sanchuan tribe of the Yi tribe, not the Jie tribe.
Therefore, as long as he scares the opponent and forces the opponent to surrender, Zhao Hongrun will have achieved his goal. There is no need to use all the catapults with the purpose of annihilating the entire tribe on the opposite side.
After all, once something like oil gets on fire, it can't be extinguished easily.
What to use sand
Do you think sand can be used to put out a sea of fire caused by burning oil?
Not at all
The sea of fire caused by the burning of oil is already a natural disaster. It cannot be extinguished by human power. The only thing people can do is to hide far away and silently watch the sea of fire burn away everything that can be burned. After something, it will naturally extinguish.
To be honest, although the catapults carried by the Shangshui Army were dismantled parts, they were not all spare parts. Some really troublesome joints were actually assembled by the Metallurgical and Manufacturing Bureau. After all, the Metallurgical and Manufacturing Bureau was responsible for the assembly after the assembly was completed. , and then disassemble it into several large parts.
Therefore, it is actually not very difficult to assemble these catapults again.
But unfortunately, because they were coming into contact with this kind of thing for the first time, the Shangshui sergeants responsible for assembling it were in a hurry, so Zhao Hongrun asked Shen Yu and other Zongwei to come over for guidance. After all, the Zongwei often followed Zhao Hongrun in and out of the smelting bureau, and they were immersed in it. Next, assembling this type of catapult is not a problem for them.
While the Shang Shui Army was assembling the catapults, Sima An asked Zhao Hongrun in confusion: "Your Highness, if the Shang Shui Army doesn't have three hundred catapults like this, why are they only using thirty?"
Zhao Hongrun sighed slightly after hearing this, and said melancholy: "Because I don't want all the people of Sanchuan in Luodi to die here. Besides, even if there are thirty catapults, I'm afraid..."
Hearing this, Sima An's eyes widened slightly, and he almost blurted out the words "Your Highness, please don't hesitate any longer and use all the catapults immediately."
Fortunately, in the end, Sima An swallowed back the words he almost blurted out, and asked in confusion: "It's just thirty catapults. What's so special about these catapults?"
Zhao Hongrun smiled faintly.
Although these catapults were developed by the Metallurgical and Manufacturing Bureau, and the accuracy of bomb delivery was greatly improved, this was not the reason for Zhao Hongrun's troubles. The real reason was that those barrel bombs, that is, the barrels were filled with Sealed wooden barrels for oil.
This is the big killer
"The general will understand later."
Without saying a word, Zhao Hongrun stood up and walked to the front, because in front, the soldiers of the Shang Shui Army had successfully assembled thirty catapults under the guidance of Shen Yu and other Zongwei.
"Gao Kuo, Zhongzhao, there are more than a dozen stone bullets on the Shang Shui Army's carriage. Bring two or three to me."
"yes"
Gao Kuo, Zhongzhao and others clasped their fists and accepted the order. After searching for a while, they found a cart of stone bullets and brought two of them over.
I saw that these stone bullets were exactly the same, as if even their weights were almost the same.
No wonder, because these stone bullets are test bombs used to adjust the calibration and distance. The weight of a stone bullet is the same as the weight of a barrel of oil.
"Wu Ji, Zhai Huang, I'm here to teach you how to use it, please watch it."
Zhao Hongrun called the generals of the Shang Navy to him and told them to watch his movements carefully.
But in fact, not only the generals of the Shang Shui Army, but also the generals of the Dangshan Army crowded over. After all, everyone wanted to see it, which was enough to match the power of another sharp weapon of Lian Nu.
Under the attentive gaze of all the generals present, Zhao Hongrun walked to one of the catapults loaded with test stone bombs, raised his right hand, and used the method of autoranging to estimate the distance between the catapult and Luocheng in the distance.
.Note: Autometric ranging means using the human body to estimate the approximate distance to the target without using any measuring tools. Because it is more troublesome to explain, I will not introduce it. Those who are interested can search online by themselves. It is said to be a basic skill of artillery.
After testing the distance to Luodi, Zhao Hongrun closed his eyes and simulated the parabola in his mind. Anyway, his super memory was enough to simulate and calculate the complex parabola angle formula.
"What is your Royal Highness Prince Su doing?"
"I don't know, just look at it."
"oh."
Seeing Zhao Hongrun's eyes closed and motionless, the generals began to whisper.
Come to think of it, even if they knew that Zhao Hongrun was calculating angles, they still wouldn't be able to understand it. After all, the way contemporary catapults are used is still at the level of a blind cat catching a mouse. To put it bluntly, it's just a fool's errand.
As for whether it can hit or not, it just depends on fate.
Phew, the pressure is so great! If this test bullet misses the ground too much, it will be really bad.
Muttering in his mouth, Zhao Hongrun repeatedly corrected the direction of the catapult and the angle of the throwing pole. After tinkering for a while, he saw that there was no more negligence, and then he tried to throw the projectile.
"throw bomb"
Following Zhao Hongrun's words to himself, the catapult shook the ground under his operation. Immediately, the stone bullet was thrown high by a strong reaction force and flew for more than a mile.
, banged on top of the gate on the south side of Luocheng City.
With a loud bang, the historic tower above the city gate was smashed to the ground and collapsed, causing many Yi and Yi people in the area to scream in surprise.
One shot hit.
Zhao Hongrun's expression gradually changed from shock to surprise.
"Take the move from the fat pig on the other side, this is the anger of the little bird."
Perhaps because he hit the target with one blow, even Zhao Hongrun couldn't help but raise his arms excitedly and celebrate himself.
Behind him, the generals who were about to praise and compliment His Highness Prince Su in front of them opened their mouths and were at a loss.
They can honestly admit that His Highness betrayed them. The Yi people call them fat pigs. However, what is the anger of the little bird?
""
All the generals looked at each other in confusion. Even Sima An touched the beard on his chin with a puzzled look on his face. To be continued.