Zhu Shuren made people scream and scold him before the battle, which really caused a big blow to the morale of Zhang Xianzhong's army.
However, the old thieves under Zhang Xianzhong have all seen the big world. They have struggled through life and death for more than ten years. It is not that they have never encountered more tragic and desperate situations, but they will not collapse immediately——
When Chen Qiyu and Xiong Wencan forced him to make an emergency landing, was it any worse than now? How could the resilience of a bandit who has been on the run for fifteen years be broken by a few pieces of bad news?
The biggest impact of Zhu Shuren's mental battle was on Zhang Xianzhong's 178,000 to 170,000 Sichuan local Xinla men. These people had never seen the world. I heard that the escape routes to the north and south were blocked, and Chengdu was left with only one isolated city. In an instant,
People's hearts became unstable, and some even caused chaos at the top of the city.
However, Zhang Xianzhong has dealt with this situation for more than ten years and is very experienced. His army has always sent out a considerable number of brothers from the old camp to serve as the backbone of the new army's officers.
There are a total of 40,000 veterans, only more than 20,000 of whom form an army of their own, and the remaining 10,000 or so are scattered among the hundreds of thousands of strong men in an attempt to better control the army.
At this moment, I saw that some people were unstable, and some who made a big fuss were dealt with by the officers of the old battalion directly in front of the battle. On the entire city wall in the south of Chengdu, at least dozens of people were killed to temporarily stabilize the people's hearts.
There were also some strong men from some teams and villages who, after being killed by the officers of the old battalion, got mad for a moment. They grabbed a knife on the wall and resisted the officers of the old battalion. Maybe they were thinking about Zhu Shuren's promise to "kill the boss."
Those who come to surrender will be exempted from sin."
Several veteran battalion officers did not expect that these strong Sichuan men would dare to resist with force after their companions were killed. Some of them were caught off guard and hacked to death with random knives. However, the team under Zhang Xianzhong who was responsible for supervising the battle immediately stepped in to suppress them, killing hundreds of them.
Hold your position.
"Don't panic! Anyone who dares to shake the morale of the army will be killed! Dog officers are all liars!" While killing, officers at all levels yelled and shouted wildly in an attempt to stabilize the morale of the army.
Zhu Shuren on the opposite side did not expect that releasing the bad news about the enemy at once could cause such great chaos temporarily, so he quickly urged all the ministries to formally attack the city.
The troops had made all preparations long ago. They had spent several days at Longquanyi and Xinjindu, waiting for Zhu Shuren to come in person to reap the final victory. Therefore, they had sufficient siege weapons and could attack immediately with an order.
Seeing that the officers and soldiers in the distance had already launched a charge and pushed up siege weapons, Zhang Xianzhong's direct troops were facing a formidable enemy and had to throw in as many brothers as possible from the old camp in order to withstand this wave.
Originally, if the situation had been different, Zhang Xianzhong would have been absolutely reluctant to let such a high proportion of soldiers from the old battalion engage in the battle during this exhausting stage of throwing logs and rocks at the top of the city.
After all, throwing rocks and wood doesn't require any martial arts. It's just a matter of luck, whether you'll be hit by the enemy's long-range fire when you probe or throw.
As long as you are fooled, no matter how strong your martial arts skills are, you will still be killed and wounded, no different from a new recruit. In this situation, it is really a waste to let the veterans use it.
But today there is really no way. Zhang Xianzhong knows very well that if the cannon fodder of the strong men is consumed first, it is entirely possible that morale will completely collapse and they will not be able to withstand it. At this juncture, no matter how valuable the life of the veteran is, it can only be filled into a bottomless pit.
The bandit soldiers frantically threw down wood and rocks, as well as a small number of gray bottles. Hundreds of cauldrons at the top of the city were boiling with golden juice, but the siege team had not yet entered the range, so throwing it in advance would have no effect. All they could do was to do it.
wait.
There was no kerosene at all. How could Zhang Xianzhong afford such expensive city defense equipment? The only liquid weapon he could splash was gold juice.
The crossbowmen tried to shoot outwards at first, but were soon beaten to the point where they could not lift their heads.
Rows of attacking troops on the opposite side advanced one by one with wooden planks or long rattan shields, approaching the city wall about a hundred paces away. Then, under the cover of wooden planks and rattan shields, they fired shotguns at the city head. The crossbowmen were ordinary people.
If you dare to show your face and aim and shoot, you will definitely be hit by the dense debris and bullets.
Although the distance of a hundred steps can greatly reduce the kinetic energy of broken iron slag and broken lead beads, it may not be fatal, but once the head and face are covered in half, it will definitely scream and instantly lose combat effectiveness, but will affect the defense of the city and also affect the friendly forces.
morale.
The defenders' crossbowmen could only hide behind the battlements, rely on the inclination of the inner side of the battlements, and cross-shoot diagonally forward at an angle of at least 45 degrees.
In this way, the crossbowmen themselves could completely rely on the protection of the battlements to block direct musket fire, but it also gave up the opportunity to shoot with the enemy musketeers, allowing the official musketry team to become more and more unscrupulous in their output.
The effective range of ordinary crossbows is of course not inferior to that of muskets. However, in the case of cross-shooting at large angles, simply calculate the length relationship between the hypotenuse and the vertical side of the trigonometric function, and you will know how much longitudinal range will be lost.
With the crossbowmen being suppressed, those soldiers who were throwing logs and rocks could only hide behind the battlements, and throw logs and rocks blindly outside with a posture similar to Sakuragi Hanamichi's throwing a toilet penalty shot. It was impossible to aim at all, and the accuracy was poor.
Lower.
"Don't worry about the army's musketeers! Hold on! You can't let the army's trench carts fill the trenches! You can't let the wooden donkey carts hit the wall! Hit me hard!"
The garrison generals commanded at the top of their lungs, and their thinking was clear, because the quality of Chengdu's city walls was really poor and riddled with holes.
More than three months ago, when Zhang Xianzhong invaded Chengdu, he relied on the fact that the city wall here was in disrepair and he had to dig holes and bury huge amounts of gunpowder to breach the city.
After Zhang Xianzhong's bombing, several gaps that were directly destroyed by the explosion were frantically squeezed out of the people's resources to re-construct and plug up with new rammed earth. As for the quality of the rammed earth, I don't know, and Zhang Xianzhong didn't have the ability to check it carefully.
.
But Zhang Xianzhong simply did not have the ability to fully repair the ordinary wall sections beyond the gaps. How much would it cost and how long would it take to repair a city as big as Chengdu?
The quality of those sections that have not been repaired will obviously be worse than three months ago - just like a whole building that was partially destroyed by blasting, and the remaining parts that did not collapse were not damaged at all by the blasting.
Fatigue and looseness are absolutely impossible.
Zhang Xianzhong's army tried their best to prevent the officers and soldiers from repeating their old tricks. They once again approached the base of the wall and used wooden donkey carts to dig into the city and bury gunpowder. In order to achieve this, Zhang Xianzhong's army also ignored casualties and consumed desperately, and the defense materials were poured down as if they were free.
If you throw it away, you don't care if these supplies are enough for a few days. Let's carry them over now.
However, the next operation of the officers and soldiers obviously exceeded the defenders' expectations again.
The army seemed to have sent many heavily armored siege engines, but they were mainly trench bridge vehicles, used to refill the trenches. Those heavy instruments that looked like wooden donkey carts were not used to dig walls, either.
To assist other construction, or to attract firepower.
The city wall of Chengdu is very long, and wooden donkeys are used in only a few wall sections. Those wall sections where only trench bridge carts are deployed, but no wooden donkeys are deployed, are the real main direction of Zhu Shuren's attack.
After a while, the generals of the army and the army briefly observed the density of the garrison troops on each wall section of the city through telescopes, and then selected a few targets for the Hongyi artillery group that had already been deployed to fire.
With dozens of roars, a bunch of large iron balls weighing more than 5,000 kilograms, equivalent to the power of a 42-pound naval gun, flew out and hit the Chengdu city wall hard. A few that were too high or too low formed a ricochet.
Or fly into the city, which also creates a huge shock to the enemy.
Being bombarded by such heavy bullets on the wall, at least one large crater several feet deep was directly smashed into the city wall, and the deepest ones were even close to one foot.
After the huge amount of rammed earth was hollowed out, the upper part lost its bearing and collapsed, accompanied by the screams of dozens of defenders who followed the earth and rocks falling into the city.
The generals guarding the city, including Zhang Xianzhong, Feng Shuangli and other senior generals, were also shocked. This was the first time they had seen the official Hongyi cannon with such heavy firepower.
The continuous bombardment was non-stop, like a giant hammer hitting the Chengdu city wall one after another, and also hitting the psychological defense line of the defenders. However, because of poor accuracy, most of the shells were unable to hit the same point repeatedly.
It didn't completely explode at that time.
But looking at the city wall that is riddled with holes, the thickness and height of many places have dropped to less than half of what they were before the war. As long as the officers and soldiers are given a chance, they can use digging donkeys to get closer and dig out part of the collapsed earth.
If you simply decorate and bury gunpowder in the gap created by the cannon, the city wall will never be able to withstand it.
…
The bloody battle on the first day only lasted half a day and ended.
It was also because Zhu Shuren had just arrived and came relatively late in the morning. Only in the afternoon did he actually spend two or three hours.
Chengdu's city wall barely withstood the bombardment and excavation on the first day, but the defenders definitely suffered much higher casualties than the attackers.
Nearly a thousand soldiers were even buried alive or fell to death when the wall collapsed during the shelling. In long-range shooting, even the official musketeers, who generally had armor and wooden shields, had an advantage.
The only problem with this style of play is that ammunition is consumed too quickly and money is spent like water. But Zhu Shuren doesn't feel bad at all, because he knows that the combat effectiveness of the firearms unit depends on a large number of live ammunition training.
If it's a field battle, the Tatar cavalry will charge forward and fight tooth and nail. The musketeers won't even have a chance to fire three or five rounds, and they will have to fight with their bayonets.
Like today, the defenders did not have enough long-range weapons. They just had too many people and did not dare to open the city and rush out to fight in the field. It was very difficult to encounter them in actual combat.
Shen Jiajun's musketeers had not trained with live ammunition for several months before, so they were saving ammunition for actual combat. In the past few days, even with fighting and training, the enemy strength was not high, so it was just to gain experience.
The most critical thing is that Zhang Xianzhong on the opposite side does not know how strong Zhu Shuren's logistics card is, nor whether the army can withstand such firepower output for a long time.
After the first day of fighting, Zhang Xianzhong had to summon the generals to discuss the possibility of breaking out and escaping.
But when it comes to escaping, several issues that have always been faced will come to the fore: Should we give up the huge wealth obtained in Chengdu? Should we give up the hundreds of thousands of newly recruited men?
When breaking through, you can't take away all the troops. If you break through by water, you may also take away some property. If you break through by land, you can only take a small amount of property with you, and you have to lose the rest, otherwise you won't be able to escape at all.
Lose.
——
ps: There was no football match last night, so there will be two updates today, one at noon, and the second before 5pm. Since there are two updates, the first chapter of 3,000 words will be released first, without making a big chapter.
Today I will write until Zhang Xianzhong finishes playing.