Chapter two hundred and seventy-two Ming army artillery
If the Ming army cannot withstand the medium and long-range interception firepower of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty, then it can basically declare a failure to cross the river. If the New Army of the Tang Dynasty fails to successfully intercept the Ming army and allows the Ming army to rush ashore, then the next battle will be very difficult.
Hard to beat.
As the gunshots rang out, the Ming soldiers crossing the river immediately felt the threat of death.
Even at this distance, the hit rate of muskets is not high, but with so many muskets firing at the same time, there is still a fairly high probability of hitting.
When the gunshots were fired, many Ming soldiers had already been hit. Many of them were knocked over by the impact of the bullets and fell into the water. Some of the dead and injured were knocked down and then lay on the rafts, letting the river wash them away.
touching their bodies.
At this time, many Ming army generals shouted loudly: "Quick, put up your shields!"
In order to cross the river, the Ming army naturally took relevant precautions knowing that the puppet Tang rebels had sharp weapons and weapons.
And this shield is one of them!
This shield was not the small round shield carried in one hand by ordinary sword and shield soldiers, but a large shield that was half a person tall.
Moreover, although the main body of this shield is made of thick wooden boards, some of the wooden shields have iron sheets nailed on the front, and some of the wooden shields have a layer of wet quilts or cotton clothes nailed on the front.
These Ming troops obviously put their best efforts into guarding against the blunderbuss of the new Tang army.
Wet and compacted cotton can protect against lead bullets. This is something the Ming army themselves have known for a long time. The many cotton armors of the Ming army were to protect against firearms.
Placing these large shields at the front of the raft was enough to provide the Ming soldiers on the raft with an incomplete but somewhat effective defense effect.
Seeing that the Ming army's bows had all erected large shields, Zeng Ziwen on the side immediately said to Li Xuan: "Your Majesty, the puppet Tang rebel army has erected shields on the bows. I am afraid that the lead will not be effective at this distance, so why not let it go?"
Fight again when you reach 80 meters?"
Zeng Ziwen could see it and tell it. Li Xuan himself was not blind, so he naturally saw it too. He saw that the Ming army had erected a big shield on the bow of the ship. And the shield was very thick at a glance. It was 100 meters high.
The distance will definitely greatly reduce the threat of lead bullets.
He immediately nodded and said: "Yes!"
As the messenger conveyed the order in time, the musketeers of each team stopped shooting in unison. However, although they stopped shooting, they continued to reload and the matchlocks were still lit to prepare for the next round of shooting.
.
The Ming army continued to approach. If they were just walking or running, the distance of twenty meters would not take long at all. However, the Ming army used rafts to cross the river, and a distance of several tens of meters would take a lot of time.
When the Ming army crossed the twenty-meter distance and was only eighty meters away from the Tang Dynasty's new army on the shore, Li Xuan once again ordered the musketeers to re-enter and set up.
And this time, it was not just the musketeers who were shooting, but also the archers.
A distance of eighty meters is considered an effective range for bows and arrows. Even if the penetration power of bows and arrows at this distance is insufficient and the hit rate is not high, not everyone in the Ming army wears armor.
The problem of insufficiency is not a problem at all.
As for the hit rate issue, this bow uses a semi-projectile method to shoot arrows within 80 meters. The arrows under this curve are pursuing coverage.
The Ming army had nowhere to hide on the river, and it was so dense. Under the rain of arrows, there would always be Ming soldiers hit by arrows.
As the archers started shooting arrows, the casualties of the Ming army increased rapidly!
Seeing that the archers' results were good, Li Xuan did not let the archers speed up their shooting, but continued to let the archers maintain the current slow shooting speed.
Because the explosive power of archers is limited in a short period of time, in other words, their physical strength that can be used for shooting arrows in a short period of time is limited. Generally speaking, a standard archer can shoot arrows continuously and quickly in a battle.
After shooting more than ten arrows, its physical strength will be exhausted.
In order to preserve the physical strength of the archers so that they could fire dense and rapid rain of arrows when the Ming army first came ashore, Li Xuan was not willing to let the archers exhaust their physical strength now.
It takes a long time to shoot an arrow. Although the impact on physical strength is somewhat, it is still within the controllable range.
In a battle, as a general, there are too many things to consider, because every detail on the battlefield can determine success or failure.
So before this battle started, Li Xuan was thinking about what would happen when the Ming army crossed the river almost every day, and how to deal with it.
Li Xuan needed to consider the distance at which distance to start the long-range harassing blockade, the distance at which to start the all-out attack, and the physical consumption of the soldiers, and made corresponding preparations.
And now is the time to prove whether his preparations were sufficient or not, and whether his preparations were correct.
The archers continued to shoot at a speed that was not too fast, or even slow, but the musketeers did not have this physical limit.
Loading the musket and then pulling the trigger to fire does not use much physical strength. At most, the continuous firing will cause pain in the shoulders, but this is only a little painful and will not affect the continuation of the battle too much.
So the musketeers continued to fire at normal rapid fire rates!
Moreover, this kind of shooting did not maintain volleys and rounds, but free fire. Anyway, the Ming army would not be able to come over for a while, and they, the musketeers, still had enough time to adjust.
Therefore, it is better to perform free fire, which allows soldiers with fast reloading speed to fire more bullets.
The battle continues, and the Ming army's casualties continue to increase, but to be honest, counting from the time when the New Army of the Tang Dynasty opened fire, the Ming army's casualties have been extremely effective until now.
Added up from beginning to end, the number of casualties would not exceed a hundred people, and you have to know that this was almost half an hour of artillery fire by the new army of the Tang Dynasty, and the musketeers and archers also fought several rounds.
For a Ming army of 3,000 people, the number of casualties of these 100 people is quite small. And more importantly, the casualties of more than 100 people are relatively evenly distributed among the various Ming armies. Most of them are
They are all ordinary cannon fodder.
Unlike in ordinary battles, the casualties are the core main force who are at the front and the bravest in the battle!
If it is an ordinary Ming army with ten thousand people, well, I am talking about the ordinary local Ming army in the inland, not the border army or the recruits for the coastal anti-Japanese war, just the ordinary garrison army, there may be only two or three thousand people in it.
After people have been relatively well trained, most of the rest are pulled in temporarily to make up the numbers.
As for the real main force, that is, the core who dare to rush into the battle and fight, there are probably only five or six hundred people, who are basically the servants and personal soldiers of each general.
So you can see that an army collapses when its casualties are no more than a few hundred, and the casualty ratio is no more than four or five percent. But sometimes you can also see the same army collapse after more than half of its casualties are killed or wounded.
It can also maintain the establishment and even turn defeat into victory.
There is only one difference between the two, and that is that in the former, all the core members die, while in the latter, all the cannon fodder die.
But now, most of the hundreds of casualties among the Ming army who crossed the river were cannon fodder, so this did not affect the Ming army's continued crossing of the river at all!
On the contrary, they are getting closer and closer to the shore!
Just when they were about to approach the shore, a thick plume of smoke mixed with flames suddenly rose from the bow of one of the ships. At the same time, the new army of the Tang Dynasty, which had never suffered any casualties before, fell instantly.
Several people came.
This scene made Li Xuan and others on the hillside change their colors slightly!
That's the artillery of the Ming army!
"Is this the artillery of the Puppet Ming Thief Army? It doesn't look very good!" Although Li Xuan's face changed slightly just now, he quickly regained his composure and still maintained his usual calm appearance.
From his demeanor and his tone, it seems that Li Xuan's contempt for the Ming army's artillery can be sensed, and this contempt was also felt by other generals of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty.
Especially when Zeng Ziwen, who was beside him, heard Li Xuan's words, the shock caused by the Ming army's artillery shooting was instantly restored.
Yes, the artillery of the puppet Ming rebels only has a range of a few dozen meters, and its power is far less powerful than our own artillery.
In this situation, it can indeed be said that the artillery of the puppet Ming thief army is nothing more than this!
Immediately Zeng Ziwen also said: "What your Majesty said is true. The range and power of the bowl-mouth cannons of the puppet Ming thieves are far superior to the Italian cannons of the Heavenly Arms of the Tang Dynasty, so there is nothing to be afraid of!"
Li Xuan nodded slightly and said with a look of approval: "Well, even though the artillery of the false Ming Dynasty is not as good as the artillery of the Tang Dynasty, it is still a threat to some extent. Send the order and focus on attacking the artillery of the false Ming Dynasty!"
Li Xuan's words are correct. No matter how rubbish the Ming army's artillery is, if it fires shotguns within a few dozen meters, the damage caused will not be small. If there is a chance, it must be fired early.
The Ming army's artillery was knocked out.
After the messenger passed the order in a flag language, the new officer of the First Fusiliers behind the parapet, a rather young and somewhat excessive young captain, raised his command knife: "Everyone has the target, the enemy artillery right in front!"
Under his order, the soldiers who were still shooting freely stopped. After completing their preparations, they aimed their guns at a ferry about sixty meters away in front. There happened to be a cannon on the bow.
The artillery, several Ming soldiers are loading it.
"preparation!"
"shooting!"
Nearly a hundred muskets were fired at a ship at a distance of about sixty meters, so one can imagine its power.
Almost instantly, hundreds of lead bullets were fired at the ferry. In an instant, sawdust flew across the small ferry. As screams rang out, blood flowed all over the ferry.