Da Ming started to ascend the throne

Chapter 224 Shield Car and Barrel Ladder

The shield chariot, Dongyao was defeated one after another, and finally no longer arrogant.

The shield car, which used to be the most effective defense against artillery and muskets, reappeared again.

This old fox Daishan is much more stable than the young man.

Like other banner owners, such as Duoduo Yuetuo, etc., when confronting the Ming army, they don't even bother to use shield cars now.

Whatever the result, in the end they all died under their arrogance.

Although Dongyao's chariots were inspired by the Ming army, their combat thinking and chariot design are completely different from those of the Ming army.

It can be said that the Dongyao chariot was invented specifically to restrain the Ming army's firearms and firearms tactics.

When Nurhachi set up the Eight Banners against the Ming Dynasty, the captives in the east lacked firearms.

Facing the Ming army's firearms, whose range and power surpassed that of bows and arrows, Dongbao was at a disadvantage.

How to let the cavalry of the Eastern captives approach the Ming army to shoot bows and arrows has become a problem that Nurhachi needs to solve, so the shield chariot came into being.

Regarding the chariots of the Eastern Captives, the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty has this description:

"The card is very thick, with a layer of cowhide and a layer of iron. Small bricks and stones will not move, big bricks and stones will roll down, and firewood will not burn."

The Dongyao chariot is simpler in design than the Ming army, and the main structure is the huge wooden sign erected on the two-wheeled chariot.

One car can move and cover 20 people.The wooden signs are made of 2-5 inch thick wood boards, and iron sheets and cowhide are pasted on the boards to form a three-layer composite structure, which can be said to be a composite armor.

The Ming army chariot only needs to defend against bows and arrows, and the wooden boards assembled are very thin, usually only 1 inch thick wooden boards are installed.

In the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, the light car designed by Ye Mengxiong was only 6 cents thick in order to reduce weight.

From such a sharp contrast, it can be seen that the Dongyao chariot is more focused on the defensive function.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, heavy arquebus guns could penetrate 4mm iron plates, but they were powerless against the level of defense of shield vehicles.

It is obvious that neither the bird gun nor the three-eyed gun used by the Ming army could penetrate the Dongyao chariot.

Secondly, as the opponent of the Eastern Captivity, the Ming army often faced intensive charges of Mongolian cavalry in combat.

Therefore, the Ming army prefers to use light artillery with a fast rate of fire, such as light artillery such as Franji and tiger squatting artillery.

And the Ming army often used shotgun shells that spread widely and could hit a patch of enemies.

Qi Jiguang even referred to the breech-loading smoothbore gun of the Franji, and modified the original general gun of the Ming army to make the "invincible general gun", which can shoot [-] lead in one shot.

The Ming army often did not use large artillery to shoot at farther distances. Instead, they hid cannons that fired shotguns in the formation.

The guns were fired only when the Mongolian cavalry approached to a very short distance, in order to pursue the effect of "strike twenty feet across" with one cannon.

It's a pity that the shotgun just couldn't break the Dongyao chariot.

With chariots that can effectively resist the Ming army's firearms, Dongyao can rely on the chariots to advance to the Ming army's battle formation.

Archers, infantry and cavalry can all hide behind the chariot. When they approach the Ming army, the archers can hide behind the chariot and shoot at the Ming army.

The infantry could take the opportunity to rush out and into the Ming army's camp to overthrow the Ming army's chariots, antlers and other obstacles, and the cavalry rushed out from behind to disrupt the Ming army's formation.

The battle of the Eastern captives using chariots is the most typical battle of the Daling River that took place in the fourth year of Chongzhen.

At that time, Zhang Chun, the supervising army, rescued Dalinghe, and this Ming army car battalion had a field battle with the Eight Banners.

According to the monthly archives of the Eight Banners, the infantry battalion of the Ming Dynasty "dig trenches in a square formation and stand with guns and guns".

So Huang Taiji ordered the Eight Banners Battalion to line up the chariots in front of the formation, and Bai Yala and the Mongolian cavalry to line up behind the formation. The battalion pushed the chariots forward, followed by the horse infantry.

Although the Ming army "fired guns and guns like hail, and arrows fell like rain", under the cover of chariots, the soldiers from the Eastern Captives approached the Ming army, and the horse infantry rushed into the Ming army's infantry phalanx, and the Ming army was finally defeated.

It can be seen that the use of chariots in the Ming and Qing Dynasties has its own characteristics. They are all targeted weapons and tactics created and invented based on their own conditions and the enemies they faced in a specific period.

With the introduction of Western military technology, the military technology of both sides has made great progress.

Chariots, a unique tactical weapon, have also been phased out.

Especially when the Eastern captives possessed the latest firearm of the Ming Dynasty, the Hongyi artillery brought by the rebel general Kong Youde, and the corresponding firearm tactics.

Dongyao no longer needs chariots to cover the Ming army's firearms in front of the formation, because Dongyao can also use artillery to bombard the Ming army's phalanx.

The Ming army could also use the red barbarian cannon with a longer range and higher precision to attack the Dongcap camp.

So in the 14th year of Chongzhen's Battle of Songjin, the Ming and Qing Dynasties each put out dozens of cannons on Rufeng Mountain and fought a vigorous artillery battle.

On the second day after the war, the Ming army cleaned up the battlefield, picking up more than 400 shells that weighed only seven or eight catties.

Later, as the Ming army became weaker and weaker, Dongyao gradually disdained the use of shield vehicles as defensive equipment.

Daishan still doesn't know that his second son Shuotuo was killed by the Ming army again.

He is riding on a tall horse, and his other two sons, Man Dahai and Hakda, are guarding him.

Daishan slowly drew out the scimitar and ordered:

The shield car goes forward to consume Minggou shells, and the siege ladder advances behind. Once it gets close to the city wall, the siege begins immediately.

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The messenger agreed and immediately passed on the siege order.

Received the siege order from Prince Li Daishan, Dongyao's shield chariots began to advance towards the city wall of Liaoyang.

At the same time, Dongyao's siege ladder was also launched. This kind of siege ladder is not a simple cloud ladder.

The siege ladder is by no means the simple wooden and bamboo ladder we often see in film and television works (that's the director's trick)

Using that kind of wooden ladder to attack the city will not only cause a lot of casualties, but it will also be difficult to succeed.

There are also experts in the military camps of the Dongyao. In order to deal with the city walls of the Ming army, they began to think hard, modifying and upgrading the old-fashioned ladder vehicles in the past.

First of all, two sharper big iron hooks were added to the top of the ladder. Once this kind of big iron hook hooked the city wall of the Ming army, the hook tip could be deeply hooked into the cracks in the wall at the top of the city.

Not to mention that the Ming army on the city was difficult to pry, even if the tube ladder was withdrawn after the war, it would take a lot of effort.

Next, guardrails were added on both sides of the ladder, and raw cowhide was covered on the guardrails to prevent the enemy's sharp arrows and artillery.

After this kind of cloud ladder was designed, it was called a tube ladder.

The tube ladder was used in several siege battles against the Ming army by the Dongyao, and it really exerted great power.

The Ming army once used the strategy of attacking with fire to burn down many tube ladders held by the Dong captives.

But it is very time-consuming to burn down the water-splashed tube ladder with fire, at least a quarter of an hour.

And from the tube ladder to the top of the city, to Dongyao stepping on the tube ladder to kill the Ming army's city wall, 1 minute is enough.

The reason why this powerful tube ladder withdrew from the battlefield was not because it was afraid of fire during the siege and was repeatedly burned.

But there is a more important reason, that is, the supply of cowhide is not available.

You must know that to make a tube ladder that can be used by several Dong captives to attack the city, at least hundreds of high-quality cowhide are required.

In order to prevent arrows, stones and imitation fire, the cowhide must be stacked in several layers, based on the loss of [-] barrel ladders based on the capture of a city by the Ming army in Dongyao.

The fall of a city is equivalent to the loss of 3000 cattle. Even if the cattle were captured in the east, they were very precious.

This chapter is a little watery, and I mainly want everyone to understand the situation at that time. The Eastern Captives did not all rely on cavalry to charge.

(End of this chapter)