Lu Ming

Chapter 629 Retribution (seven)
In humid April, the temperature rises, and both sides of the Zhengjiang River feel sultry.

Under such depressing temperature conditions, the two lines of defense on the south bank that determined Annan's national destiny were also in a state of suffocating confrontation.

The first line of defense was completely opened up on April 4th, and was occupied by the North Vietnamese rebel army.

Of course, since the central core fortress group has been breached, the South Vietnamese did not desperately resist the auxiliary defense facilities on both sides.After all, the opponent can now go around and attack from the rear. It is not so much an occupation as it is a plan to give up by the South Vietnamese.

Now, the ruthless confrontation begins again, and the South Vietnamese on the defensive undoubtedly see the dawn of victory in the war: the rainy season in April may start at any point in the next time, and the North Vietnamese army will be in a dilemma situation.

Time, on the side of the South Vietnamese.

With 100% confidence, the South Vietnamese used the second line of defense to hold off the Yankees until the rainy season came.

Even if it takes [-] steps back, the rainy season will come a little later this year, and the South Vietnamese people still don't care: a third line of defense has been built under the city of Hue.

To sum up the above reasons, in the early morning of April 4, the defenders inside the South Vietnamese defense line actually looked at the busy Yankees on the opposite side with a superior mood towards the losers.

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The actions of the Yankees were the same as the previous few days, nothing new: the army came out to form a line to hold their ground, and then the civilian men came out to dig out a few shallow mounds in front of the line.

In the past, one was dug, but later, in order to save time, the Yankees dug another at a distance to facilitate the transfer of mortars.

The mound can block the shells fired from the opposite line, and it can also block the prying eyes of the defenders-the latter is now useless.After so many days, everyone in the northern and southern armies knew that there would be a cannon with its muzzle facing the sky behind the mound.

It looks like business as usual today.

But what was different from the past was that the people gathered behind the mound today were a group of people the defenders had never seen before.

These people wore cardigans and strange hats.Although their clothes are of the same shape, they are of different colors.Judging from the figure and movements of the generally young Kong Wu, it is obvious that he is also a soldier.

What the South Vietnamese defenders didn't know was that there was a conversation about them just behind the obscure mound on the opposite side.

"I said Mao Daoxue, this '[-]-style mortar' is the equipment of the army, why did your navy come here to join in the fun?"

The one who spoke was the tall and long-legged combat staff officer Yang Er. Yang Weili.

At this moment, Yang Weili was raising his hand with a smile, winking at his colleagues, and putting his hand on the shoulder of Captain Mao Wujian, who was wearing a white navy uniform beside him.

"Pay attention to military discipline, the army is loose in discipline, what it looks like!"

Although short in stature, Captain Mao Wujian, who always has a straight figure and maintains a military example, frowned and patted Yang Weili's paw off his shoulder in distaste: "Don't say that the [-]-style is a navy It was brought in, and right now it is the naval gun crew who are operating the test firing. As a navy captain, why can’t I come to observe it?”

Yang Weili seemed to have gotten used to this brother's face for a long time, put his hand on it without paying attention, and shouted the nickname he gave Mao Wujian privately: "Dao Xue, don't be so serious, we are also Da Yuan Beach Brother who has eaten sand and been whipped together last time, isn’t he? Don’t go back to the boat at night, I invite you to eat the roasted sea turtle from the Annan people.”

"On duty at night."

"Ask for leave."

"Serving soldiers are not allowed to take leave without reason!"

While this group of future minions of the empire were bickering, the artillery positions in front of them had been built.

The much-anticipated artifact of a generation of empires, the [-]-type petrol barrel, is not the [-]-type mortar, nicknamed the Heartless Cannon. It has been half buried in the earth pit and is ready to be fired.

The gun lives up to its name.This oil drum welded with standard thin steel plates has a diameter of 80 cm.

The so-called heartless cannon was really famous during the Liberation War of later generations.

The structure of this thing is simple and rough. To put it bluntly, it is not a cannon, but actually an explosive package ejector with a gasoline barrel as the barrel.

When the unscrupulous gun is in use, the bottom of the gun is filled with propellant, and then the explosive package bundled into a disc is put into it.After being ignited, the explosive package can be projected to a distance of 150-200 meters.

During the War of Liberation, although this kind of earth-made explosive package ejector was not accurate and had no range, when it was used intensively, it could cause huge damage to the enemy's fortifications and became a well-known artifact of the People's Liberation Army.

Today, an upgraded version of the barrel ejector is half buried in the front line of the seventeenth century.

It is different from those unconscionable cannons with substandard quality and different standards during the liberation period of later generations.Today's cannon is an industrial oil barrel made by the public through small electric furnaces and electric welding techniques.

The light diameter of this large barrel has reached 80 cm, and there are steel wire reinforcements on the outside, which can withstand a certain launch gas pressure and are of high quality.

In addition, considering that there will be countless foreign cities in the future that will need the assistance of Mr. Oil Barrel to attack, so in this shelling test, even the supporting explosive kits and propellants were standardized, in order to control the trajectory as much as possible.

After everything was ready, with a sharp whistle, the South Vietnamese defenders suddenly discovered that all the Yankees had returned to the camp?
This action is a bit unusual.According to the previous script, shouldn't the Yankees drag their cannons out to bombard them?Why didn't you move and went back to camp?As a result, the defenders stepped up their vigilance, and the troops who were planning to withdraw from the fortress temporarily stopped moving.

What the South Vietnamese didn't know was that a gasoline barrel didn't need to be laboriously and chanted to arrange it.Without the defender's knowledge, preparations for the launch have been completed.

At this moment, except for the artillery crew members, all the staff officers who were happy to observe at close range ran back to the rear camp to watch the fire from behind. These are military elites who are capable of calculating the explosive equivalent of black powder. If something goes wrong, there will probably be no living people near that "mortar gun".

At the same time, on a high nest car behind the camp gate, North Vietnamese Qingdu Wang Zheng Bing was observing the launch site with a binoculars, accompanied by Tuan Zhang who came here specially.

The serious prince said that he was not nervous, that was a lie.He has bet on everything, and he has also agreed to some additional requirements from Mingren, which can be described as a debt operation.

If today's weird mortar can't produce immediate results, then the prince will be bankrupt on the spot, and he will fall off the nest cart.

In Wang Ye's shot, the gun crew leader in charge of firing checked the cannon again, then bent down and pushed a thin piece of propellant into the bottom of the cannon.

Since the "cannonball" is just a pack of explosives, and the "barrel" is very thin, it doesn't need too much propellant.This piece of propellant is wrapped in silk, and the amount used is very small.

Next, the gunner stuffed a linen "round cake" with the same diameter of 80 cm into the barrel.

This round cake is a standard explosive bag, which is filled with black powder and weighs [-] kilograms.

Next, the critical moment came: the gunner calmly lit the two fuses with a military lighter.

The first thing to ignite is a long fuse on the surface of the explosive package in the barrel.The length of this lead wire is cut, and the distance to the target has been calculated in advance, and it will probably explode after the explosive package flies down to the enemy's fortifications.

The second lead wire is the lead wire of the propellant pack drawn out from a small hole in the breech of the gun.This fuse was much shorter. After lighting the fuse, the gunner quickly sprinted back about ten steps and jumped into the anti-gun ditch dug in advance.

The gunner jumped into the trench, and the battlefield was dead silent.The northern and southern armies held their breaths, and everyone spent a depressing seven or eight seconds together.

Suddenly, there was a muffled "bang", and a thick white smoke came out of the large oil barrel.At the same time, under the watchful eyes of tens of thousands of people on both sides, a dark object rolled and flew into the air, "dangling" and flew towards the second line of defense of the South Vietnamese.

It is different from the iron egg that flashed past before.This "bump" black thing seems to be very slow in the air, and everyone can clearly see its trajectory.

A few seconds later, the tumbling black object flew over the defense line.The defenders with good eyesight can even see clearly that the flying over is a sackcloth. Straw bag?

While the straw bales were rolling, they kept emitting green smoke.Finally, it landed on the top of a stone castle in the middle of the defense line after making a soft "poof" sound.

The startled defenders first dodged one after another.After finding that there seemed to be no big movement in the straw bag emitting green smoke, everyone walked a few steps forward curiously to take a closer look.

The next moment, the fuse burned to the end and the charge exploded.

The moment eighteen kilograms of black powder exploded, a small mushroom cloud mixed with white smoke and black mist rose up.The white smoke is the smoke color of the black gunpowder, while the black mist is the dust and rubble blown away from the top of the fortress.

At the same time as the cloud and mist rose, the defenders on the top of the stone castle were also turned into pieces.The fort itself, built of bamboo, stone and civil engineering, also completely lost its defensive function at this moment. It was blown to pieces by the huge energy, and suddenly turned into a pile of rubble.

The stone castle is like this, and the surrounding defenders have not escaped the disaster.Many soldiers near the positions on both sides were shocked to death, and those who survived were also bleeding from both ears, screaming and rolling in the trenches.

A short moment seems like an eternity.At this time, the huge and dull roar gradually reached the ears of the Northern Army from the opposite side.

Prince Zheng, who witnessed the live explosion effect with a telescope, held onto the railing of the nest car with trembling hands at this moment.His face was pale, his arms trembled uncontrollably, as if he was exhausted—he realized that Ming Ren had indeed kept his hands back in the Dragon House.Otherwise, Shenglong Mansion would have been reduced to powder by this destructive magic weapon.

Turning his head to look at Sheng Nan, who was as immobile as a mountain, the prince couldn't help admiring secretly.It's just that the prince probably didn't expect that this level of explosion is really too common in the eyes of Sheng Nan, who can be seen in anti-Japanese dramas every night.

"General Sheng, this thing is worthy of being the treasure of Mr. Cao's town house! According to Xiao Wang, whoever gets this artifact can go anywhere in the world!"

General Sheng is a good soldier of the Ming Dynasty who was loyal to the emperor and served the country. Naturally, he must refute his sincere words to the prince.So he waved his hand, and changed the subject triumphantly: "My lord, once this human cannon is fired, it will take less than three hours, and we will be able to come to the city of Hue in the afternoon!"

"Hahaha, it's all thanks to General Huwei!"

Seeing that his family's dream of founding a country has come true, Prince Zheng is very proud at this moment.While laughing heartily, his eyes looking towards Hue City were full of viciousness.

(End of this chapter)