Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 457 Flesh Mill ([-])

Under Yantai Fort, the sound of guns shook the sky, arrows and rocks flew across the sky, and a large group of masters who were forced up by the Qing army rushed over like locusts.

The moat is less than 150 meters away from the city wall, which is already within the range of some short-barreled howitzers on the city head.Therefore, they quickly accepted the devastation and devastation of the two 8-pound howitzers above the front wall.The explosive shells fired by the howitzers exploded in the air above their heads, which was much more lethal than those solid iron balls. Groups of wives were knocked down by these shells, and then trampled mercilessly by the people behind them again.

The masters began to accelerate suddenly after entering a distance of 50 meters from the trench. They shouted meaningless syllables and rushed forward with sandbags on their shoulders.The fastest group of people just wanted to throw the sandbags on their shoulders towards the river, but the people behind crowded over and knocked them into the moat with sandbags.The icy cold water soon soaked them all. They wanted to make a sound, but their mouths were full of muddy water. They wanted to climb ashore, but their heads were rained down by sandbags and people who fell down from time to time.Soon, the first group of teachers who fell was gradually submerged by the river, and together with the sandbags, they became the filler in the trench.

The trench was gradually being filled, the river bed was raised, the river overflowed everywhere, and the ground became muddy after countless people trampled on it.The moat of Yantai Fort is only five or six meters wide and only two meters deep, so the 200-meter-long moat facing the southern city wall was quickly filled by the masters who rushed over.Of course, they also paid the price of blood. During the chaotic and disorderly filling of the trench for more than an hour, they trampled on each other and died, were shot dead, pushed and fell into the river and died more than 500 people.If you add some who fled in all directions but were chased and felled to the ground by the Qing cavalry, the number would exceed [-].

It took [-] lives to fill up a very short trench. Dong Xueli was a little terrified. Nearly half of the trenches were killed by the artillery of the yellow bandit army on the east bank.When the troops of myself and others start to charge and attack the city, God knows how many lives will be spent.Dong Xueli can clearly see that the artillery team of the Yellow Clothes Army on the east bank has not done its best, or it has not yet entered the area where all their artillery can exert their greatest power.

Dong Xueli squinted his eyes and looked at the slightly broken city wall on the front of Yantai Fort, as well as the prismatic polyhedron protrusions with towers on each side, and felt his heart sinking continuously.He has fought for more than 20 years, and he is not the kind of uninformed villager. He knows very well that if the yellow-clothed thieves place their artillery on the two protruding towers, the Qing army that is attached to the city will be attacked three times at the same time. blow in one direction.In fact, no matter whether it is attacking the city wall or attacking the protruding towers first, the attacking Qing army will inevitably suffer from the enemy, which is extremely detrimental to the attacker.

Maybe I have to explain it here this time.Dong Xueli felt more and more uneasy when he saw these subordinates who came here with him from Henan through risk of death.

……

"Boom! Boom!" The rumbling cannon resounded throughout Yantai Fort.

First came two 18-pound long-barreled cannons, followed by four 12-pound long-barreled cannons. The solid iron balls fired by these guns every 2 minutes only splashed a few small waves in the crowd of the Qing army. It quickly disappeared into the surging crowd.

"The Qing army is really impatient. They were still fighting in the morning, and they were attacking the city in the afternoon. They didn't have enough siege equipment, so they rushed over." Li Wenchang, captain of the Yantai Fortress Defense Team, looked at the dense crowd ahead. The Qing soldiers flowed, and said speechlessly.

"It's useless to have too many siege equipment. Our city wall is only so wide, and it can't be expanded if there are too many. If you put a bunch of people in, that's to deliver food." Mo Ming, wearing a bearskin coat, stood on the top of the city wall. Slowly pacing up and down, the orderlies and staff officers behind him have been persuading him to go to the nearby tower to observe the enemy's formation through the observation hole. It is still too dangerous on the top of the tower.However, Mo Ming believed that the Qing army could not cause any harm to him at all, so he refused to go to the city.

"At present, these siege equipment should be brought by them. They should have made two-handed preparations from the beginning. In this way, the news that the Qing army is short of food is not completely a rumor. Food should not be available in a short time. There is a big problem, but it can’t last for a long time. After all, it’s the season of shortage, and everyone is short of food.” Mo Ming looked at the Qing army camp outside the city that has been going out for a long time, and continued. "You see, they were in a hurry to build camps and fortifications on the first day they came. After the main force arrived, the camps were not fully completed, and they immediately started to attack. It is really okay to be so anxious. What is an unsteady foothold? That's right. It's a pity that he calculated the disparity in the strength of the enemy and us. We don't have the ability to attack, so we are so arrogant. Well, what is coming up now is cannon fodder, the real Eight Banners, the Eight Banners of Han, and even Jiaozhou led by the Eight Banners of Han The town army has not seen anyone yet. Let's fight this battle slowly."

The Qing army rushing over was still dominated by the newly surrendered Ming and Shun army infantry. The unarmored auxiliary soldiers carried long ladders and walked forward like ants under artillery fire.Their speed is not fast, because they need to maintain enough physical strength to be able to charge quickly after entering the last 100 meters of dense fire.Behind each ladder was a large group of warriors, and the proportion of these people wearing armor was not high. Even if there were, most of them were wearing tattered leather armor. Cotton armor and iron armor were hardly seen.And walking in the front is a group of strong men holding shields and carrying battle axes on their backs, as if to clear obstacles such as barbed wire set up by the people on the east coast.But they probably didn't realize what those barbed wire fences in front of them were?Perhaps they will have to pay a great price in casualties before they understand how much trouble this gadget will cause their offensive operations.

Due to the distance, Mo Ming couldn't see the expressions on their faces, but it was conceivable that they should be in a state of fear, hesitation, and tension at the moment.These people come from complex sources, and their combat effectiveness is generally not high. There are gentry armed forces from Denglai and other places, bandit armed forces from Zhao Yingyuan and other ministries that were recruited, and Ming army Shunjun who surrendered.What they have in common is poor training, poor equipment, and poor morale. Among them, the more than [-] members of the Dong Xueli Department may have the strongest combat effectiveness.

After all, Dong Bu had just fought a fierce battle with Dashun on the Henan battlefield. Although Dong Bu lost more than a thousand elite veterans in the Meng County breakout battle, nearly 2000 people still managed to escape.Later, after he incorporated and annexed some Henan local miscellaneous armed forces, his force expanded to more than 3000 people, which was regarded as one of the more capable troops in this Qing army.

But what's the use of being able to fight, as the so-called difference between closeness and estrangement, even if you can fight better than Li Shutai's Han Eight Banners, the master of the Manchu Qing Dynasty will not regard you as a human being.Why?Because you are not even their servant in clothes, why should they look at you high?And you Dong Xueli is not like Ke Yongsheng of the Jiaozhou Town Army. He is an out-and-out Han Eight Banners. The officers and backbone of the Jiaozhou Town Army are also from the Han Eight Banners.You, Dong Xueli, are still far behind them. You can only be cannon fodder, at most advanced cannon fodder, and you can be qualified to be thrown into the battlefield at the most critical time, instead of being sent to the front line from the very beginning. Lose.

The 12-pound solid iron ball slammed into the marching Qing army with a shriek of air.From time to time, a shell hit the auxiliary soldiers carrying the ladders, and the bouncing shells could often kill several people at once.What's more, the 18-pound artillery crew on the Jiacheng tower stuffed a chain bullet into the barrel for hitting the cavalry or the mast of the ship, and then picked up the Qing army carrying ladders to shoot. With one hit, the Qing army was beaten to the ground, and the east bank gunners on the top of the city laughed loudly when they saw this.

The frontal battlefield width of 200 meters was filled with a full 2000 people, and what they faced were six long-barreled heavy artillery fired continuously.But this is not their most tragic moment. After entering the area of ​​400 meters, six howitzers will join in one after another and launch explosive bombs at them. At that time, the death rate will increase sharply. Can their morale support it? Resisting this kind of blow is still very problematic.

You know, the striking power of 12 light and heavy artillery is not covered.Especially in such a situation where the width of the frontal battlefield is very small, the attacking side's troop density has to be greatly increased, which will double the casualties.According to the firing frequency of the East Coaster’s artillery, it cools down for 10 minutes for every ten shells fired, which means that each cannon can fire ten shells within half an hour (actually the first 10 minutes), and 12 cannons equal 120 rounds. shells.Assuming that the hit rate is 72% (in fact, it is more than that, because the Qing army is densely populated and the width of the battlefield is small, and the hit rate will increase significantly the closer the distance is), about 6 shells can hit the enemy every half an hour. Considering the six howitzers About half of the explosive bombs fired failed to explode, so there were probably more than 50 shells that could actually cause damage to the enemy every half hour.These more than 50 rounds include solid iron ball shells, explosive shells, and even a small amount of chain bombs and grape shells. It is conservatively estimated that they can kill and wound more than 500 Qing soldiers.In fact, judging from the actual combat effect, it is likely to be more than that. The actual combat result should be 20%-30% larger than this, that is to say, more than 600 people.

The damage was terrible, enough to shatter a 2000-man army on the spot.Considering that the Qing army started from a distance of 2000 meters—this is another resentment, because otherwise it is impossible to avoid the continuous attack of the two 18-pound heavy artillery at the head of Yantai Fort—at the same time, in order to ensure physical strength and formation They can't walk too fast yet, so under normal circumstances it takes about seven or eight minutes for them to rush under the city wall.

But the actual situation is far from so optimistic. Due to the crowding and collision and the chaos caused by the artillery shells on the east coast, it may take them ten minutes to actually rush to the barbed wire fence under the Yantai Fort wall-of course, they are more likely to go directly on the way. Collapse.Calculated in this way, they will still lose about 300 people during the attack. This number is not something that the messy villager troops can bear.

(End of this chapter)