Kingdom of Heaven and Han

Chapter 581 Make Good Use of Cannons
Jiang Min stood at the bottom of the city, watching the soldiers put the iron cannon on the top of the city.Said to Wang Gan: "Tell Su Jie in the city that after the artillery is installed, let's try firing a few shots. First, mark the place where the Jin army may gather outside the city to see if you can hit it accurately."

Wang Gan made his promise and walked quickly to the city.

Not long after, Su Jie brought out a few soldiers and saluted Jiang Min.He said: "Please, we have already listed the places where the Jin army may gather when they attack the city, so let's go there and set up some targets. But these cannons have not been cast for a long time, and the processing is not fine, I'm afraid they may not be accurate."

Jiang Min said: "There are no inaccurate usages, the key is that we know it well. The Jin army has never seen artillery before, and there is no way to deal with it. We must use it well in this battle. If the artillery is used well, it can easily defend the city. If the artillery is not used well, many lives will be lost for nothing.”

Su Jie agreed.He personally took the soldiers and set up targets one mile outside the city.

As thick smoke rose from the city, the shell hit the target ten paces away.Seeing Jiang Min, she couldn't help frowning.

Su Jie's forehead was sweating, and after checking quickly, he went to the city and continued to fire.Even after firing three shots, the nearest one was a few steps away from the target.

Seeing that Su Jie was still busy, Jiang Min said: "Time is short, so let's do it. For the area outside the city where the Jin army is gathering, you have to choose a reference object in advance and divide this area into squares. When fighting, follow the selected Calculate the distance on the grid and adjust the aim constantly. We have only been here for a short time, so we can only guarantee that there are four cannons in one city. One cannon weighs [-] jin, and it is really not easy to move. You have to arrange special The personnel moved the artillery according to the direction of the Jin army's attack."

Su Jie promised.

Looking at the sun in the sky, Jiang Min said: "This afternoon, all the castle masters, village masters, military envoys, etc. will come here to study how to fight against the Jin army. You go and prepare some wine, kill a sheep, and entertain everyone. "

Su Jie said yes.Immediately arrange for someone to prepare.

After everything was arranged properly, Jiang Min went to the backyard of the yamen and sat alone under the ginkgo tree, quietly thinking about the war.

After noon, the generals arrived.Su Jie ordered the army to serve noodles to entertain the generals who came.After a short rest, they gathered in the village hall for a meeting.

Jiang Min looked at the crowd and said: "Yesterday's news, the Jin army has left Lingshi County, and the striker has arrived in Zhaocheng. Li Songchen has suffered a lot. Fortunately, he has nothing to do, and he still has six or seven hundred troops under his command. Participate in the battle. I wrote back, telling him not to come to Shenshan County, as long as he can guard the Lingshi. Liang Xing from Zezhou in the east, with 800 elite troops, including [-] cavalry, is rushing over. The day before yesterday According to the news, we have already passed Heilonggou, and it is estimated that we will arrive here tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. We have [-] people, and we are facing the [-] Golden Army, and our strength is actually about the same."

Wang Zhongfu said: "The Jin army should have a puppet army, and there are still a lot of people."

Jiang Min nodded: "Yes, there should be puppet troops. However, these people's combat effectiveness is not strong, and a little attention is enough. This time against the Jin army, we will not stick to the fortress, but deploy the main force Outside the fort. The three forts with Shenshan County as the center are the main battlefield. Each fort has 100 troops, and Shenshan County has another 800 mobile troops. Fort Shibi in the north, pay attention to the battlefield situation at any time. If the Jin army is attracted If the three forts can't draw mobile soldiers, they will send troops to threaten the Jin army's rear. The remaining [-] people will be led by me and hide in the mountains to the east. When the conditions are right, they will come out and attack the Jin army in the fort."

Having said that, Jiang Min was silent for a while.Said: "The main point of this battle is that the artillery in the fort must give full play to its power. The Jin army likes to gather heavy troops to form a heavy formation and break through forcibly. Until today, no special battles have been found for the Jin army's mobile warfare or attacking fortifications." Artillery. Artillery poses a particularly great threat to heavy formations."

The emergence of artillery directly changed the formation of infantry.Especially field artillery, after the widespread use, the formation of infantry on the battlefield has changed.

Whether it is a hollow phalanx or a line of infantry, one thing in common is that a single shell can only kill very few people.In a dense formation, one shell can penetrate a column, and it is easy to cause a large number of casualties in front of the artillery.And it doesn't take much accuracy from the artillery to do a lot of damage.

The characteristic of the Jin army's offensive is to form a dense formation, not afraid of casualties, and attack continuously.Whether it is the Song army or the Liao army, in the face of such overwhelming attacks, they often cannot resist and collapse soon.With artillery, this formation is becoming a fatal flaw.

Jiang Min discovered this and resolutely carried it out.As long as there are a few cannons, after a battle, the Jinbing will suffer heavy casualties.At this time, it is useless for Jin Jun to be afraid of death.Attack resolutely, and the army will soon be exhausted.

Wang Xiaolie understands this, but his personality is more stable, and he will not put his hope of victory in the war on one or two weapons.Therefore, when fighting with Jinbing, the first choice is to choose a suitable battlefield and encircle the enemy strategically.At this time, the specific battlefield situation is not so important.

Jiang Min is different.Since we have this advantage, we must use this advantage to the extreme.Due to the short time, building more than a dozen cannons is already the limit, otherwise Jiang Min would push cannons all over the city wall.The Jin army assembled in formation according to the habit, just in time for the artillery to exert its power.

Modern military reforms were initially changed because of the characteristics of artillery.Especially after the field artillery has matured and been widely used, the form of warfare is completely different from before.For example, the Spanish phalanx in the matchlock era quickly became a hollow phalanx.When the rifle technology matured, it became a line array.These reforms are all to adapt to the artillery on the battlefield, not because of the cavalry.

When the field artillery is mature and the infantry attacks, they will not march forward under the rain of arrows as before, but march amidst the continuous shooting of shells.If the enemy's long-range offensive weapon is a crossbow, the denser the formation, the better, and it must be tapered.When the enemy's long-range weapons become artillery, the gap between each row must make the shells lose their lethality.Form a row in a row, and assemble after getting out of the range of the artillery.

The ancients often said that the place where an arrow is shot, or that the ground is shot before the battle, they are all talking about the formation of the two sides, and the distance between the two formations is determined by the range of the bow and crossbow.After the field artillery is equipped, the distance between the two formations is determined by the artillery.How to quickly pass through the middle space is a problem that the offensive side must consider.

The range of artillery is much greater than that of bows and crossbows. If you are not familiar with this, if you continue to form an array as before, you will be killed by artillery and the formation will collapse if you do not start a battle.Wang Xiaolie is equipped with a large number of field artillery. In fact, the current Jin army cannot confront him head-on.

Because Jiang Min was far away on the East Road, he couldn't get support from the rear for a while. There was no field artillery in the army, so he could only make full use of the castle's anti-city artillery.

(End of this chapter)