The Tang Dynasty, because of the existence of a later generation like Li Xuan, had already begun to use relatively primitive mechanical equipment, and even used water power as power to produce artillery. The Ming Army could still only use manual craftsmanship, even if
Their population is large and they can collect more craftsmen, but it is still unrealistic to produce a large number of field artillery in a short period of time.
Craftsmen who can simply make cannons by hand are not so easy to train!
In addition to the slow speed of hand-made craftsmen and the difficulty in cultivating craftsmen, this also involves the high cost of field guns!
The field artillery of the Ming army were all made of bronze!
And what is bronze? It is money. To put it more bluntly, a bronze cannon is made of copper coins of the same weight. The cost of raw materials is self-evident.
If it weren't for the high cost of bronze cannons, the Tang Dynasty would not have bothered to use iron cannons, even if the iron cannons were not as good as bronze cannons in performance.
Even so, the Tang Dynasty can currently only use iron to make five-pound field cannons. Field cannons over seven kilograms still cannot be cast with iron. This has led to the Datang Dynasty directly giving up the production of seven-jin field cannons.
The bronze resources were concentrated to cast the nine-pound field cannon.
Due to cost constraints, the Tang Dynasty used iron-made five-pound field guns and two-pound and three-pound shotguns on a large scale. The Ming Army was no exception, and was naturally equipped with a large number of various shotguns.
gun.
Previously, the range of shotguns from both sides was generally only more than a hundred meters, so the previous artillery battles were still dominated by field artillery from both sides. However, after the Ming army saw that the field artillery bombardment was not effective, they decisively ordered
They directly launched an infantry charge, and their shotguns also rushed up with the infantry!
When the infantry of the Ming army began to move up slowly, Wang Chaohong on the top of the mountain also said: "The field artillery shifted its target and concentrated its firepower on the enemy infantry!"
After transferring the firepower, more than twenty field artillery pieces began to project solid bullets towards the numerous infantry phalanxes of the Ming Army!
Whenever a solid bomb fell into the Ming army's array, it would always cause a bloody storm!
And when the infantry of the Ming Army crossed a distance of 300 meters despite the shelling, suddenly dozens of violent explosions occurred in the Ming Army's array. The violent explosions raised huge clouds of smoke and dust that shot straight into the sky!
These are the landmines laid by the Army of the Tang Dynasty. These landmines are huge in size. Although it is inconvenient to ignite, their huge power makes up for it!
The violent explosion almost caused the complete collapse of several Ming army formations in the explosion!
Before they even got close to the top of the mountain, three of the Ming army's phalanxes had already collapsed, and these phalanxes were all phalanxes of four to five hundred people, which added up to more than a thousand people.
Although the Ming army generals in these three phalanxes tried their best to restrain the troops, they still failed to prevent the complete collapse of these three phalanxes!
Even in the end, it still caused chaos in several nearby phalanxes!
And because the terrain is not wide enough, the area that can be used for frontal attack is only so large, so the troops sent by the Ming army this time only have a total of about ten square formations. Now three have collapsed, and three or four have fallen into chaos. Naturally,
Unable to continue the attack.
Therefore, soon the sound of ringing gold was heard from the rear, and the remaining Ming troops were like the tide, coming and going as fast as they came, retreating five to six hundred meters away in an instant.
The Ming army generals at the rear reorganized the retreating phalanxes on one side and launched a second wave of offensive on the other!
There is no way, the Ming army is large enough, even if they use wheel tactics, they can continuously launch four or five waves of offensive!
This time, the incoming Ming army still formed a square formation and braved the artillery fire of the Tang Army to advance. Moreover, they were smarter this time and sent a small team of troops to search forward in advance, and they found them as expected.
Hidden mine leads on the ground, and then follow these leads to find many mines.
In this way, although they were ambushed by a small number of mines about two hundred meters away, the casualties were much smaller than in the first wave, so they were still able to continue to push forward reluctantly.
But when they entered 150 meters, and the shotgun artillerymen in front of the infantry square were preparing to reload and fire, suddenly they saw dozens of dark-skinned soldiers exposed on the position of the Puppet Tang rebel army in front of them.
Muzzle!
Seeing this scene, they didn't know what these were. They must be shotguns from the puppet Tang rebel army!
Immediately afterwards, a dense sound of artillery sounded!
The Ming infantry and gunners in the front row fell down row by row, causing heavy casualties in an instant!
At this time, the field artillery of the puppet Tang rebels also began to be reloaded with shotguns. Every sound of the cannon meant that countless iron nails, shrapnel, etc. were sprayed out. The Ming soldiers who were hit, even those in the front row,
Those Ming soldiers wearing heavy armor were not spared.
After being intensively bombarded, this wave of Ming troops inevitably collapsed and then turned around and fled!
The failure of two consecutive waves of attacks made the Ming army generals in the rear extremely angry!
He ordered his own field artillery to launch a huge offensive, seemingly trying to destroy the artillery positions of the puppet Tang rebels even if the artillery exploded!
But after the infantry of the Ming Army withdrew, the shotguns of the Tang Army also hid in the trenches. As for the field artillery, although they occasionally suffered casualties, due to the protection of the ring fortifications, the casualties were not too large.
!
The current situation is that although the Tang Army's field artillery cannot destroy the Ming Army's field artillery positions, the Ming Army's field artillery is also unable to destroy the Datang Army's artillery positions.
However, if the infantry of the Ming army wanted to launch an attack, these artillery pieces of the puppet Tang rebel army that had not been destroyed would be able to cause a lot of damage to the infantry!
The scene suddenly reached a deadlock!
Amidst the roar of artillery, the Ming army's infantry rested for an hour before relaunching the attack. This time, the Ming army was more determined and invested six to seven thousand troops in a small area.
This number of troops almost filled the battlefield to the brim.
However, the denser Ming army formation also faced more heavy casualties when it withstood the bombardment!
When they endured the fierce shelling and rushed within a hundred meters, and when their own shotguns also opened fire to provide support, rows of musketeers suddenly appeared in the position of the puppet Tang rebel army.
, and then began intensive shooting!
Although there were many musketeers in the Ming army's phalanx who began to fight back, the puppet Tang rebel army on the opposite side stood behind the parapet, with only one head exposed. This hit rate was too small.
On the other hand, the Ming army did not have any protection, and they could not even lie down to avoid bullets, because then they would not be able to reload.
However, for the Tang Army, their parapets were actually very special fortifications, and they were even field fortifications that were built after countless experiences!
The parapet is about two meters above the ground, but the parapet is not just a lonely wall. The top parapet is about thirty centimeters thick. Behind the parapet, there is another one about sixty centimeters high and one meter thick.
This small platform is about one and four meters away from the top of the parapet. The soldiers actually stood on this small platform to load and then shoot.
These fortifications form an L-shaped fortification on the ground. The upper part is actually used as bullets and shotguns, while the base of the lower part is used to heighten and defend against solid bullets!
Behind the parapet, there is a trench about one meter deep. This trench, half a meter deep, is the last means of anti-artillery after the base of the parapet is destroyed by enemy artillery!
There is a small gap at every certain distance in the parapet, which is used to place shotguns!
The depth of the parapet is connected to several communication trenches, and is connected to the second and third parapet trench defense systems at the rear.
Usually, there are artillery positions protected by ring fortifications in the rear.
If the defense is on mountainous ground, then the first, second, third or even more defensive fortifications and field artillery positions can all fire at the same time, and the defensive firepower is extremely fierce.
This kind of field fortification was developed by a group of staff officers of the Tang Dynasty Army after several years of painstaking research!
It is quite suitable for the Datang Army, which currently uses muskets and artillery on a large scale. In order to allow the troops to quickly dig field fortifications in the field, the soldiers of the Datang Army also received a new piece of equipment: "Wooden-handled shovels!", and
Each army has also begun to strengthen the deployment of engineering troops.
Likewise, this is also the first large-scale actual combat of this defense system!
This set of fortifications was Wang Chaohong's greatest confidence. Relatively speaking, the mines laid in advance did not play a big role. After all, these mines had too many flaws and required fuses to ignite them. As long as they found the fuses,
No mines were found, and simply cutting the match rope short was enough to render the mines that had been laid in advance useless.
Seeing that one's own muskets were not effective in shooting, and even the shotguns were not very effective, a Ming army general leading the front row shouted and commanded the troops to rush forward!
In his view, the puppet Tang rebel army was a hundred meters ahead, and what was blocking them was just a small wall two meters high. As long as he could rush over, he could fight with the opponent in hand-to-hand combat, and then use
Our own absolute military superiority completely defeated the opponent!
But when they rushed to about thirty meters, small black dots suddenly flew out of the small wall opposite, and experienced Ming army soldiers could recognize them at a glance!
Immediately, someone shouted in fear: "No, this is a bomb, get out of the way!"