Dragon Sea Empire

A few days ago, through the contact of Mr. Wen, all the hidden stakes in the city received clear tasks and started to act.

Early this morning, more than a dozen people from all walks of life gathered at the Huaji Iron Shop by the Desheng Bridge.

The iron shop was next to the busiest bridge on weekdays, and there were often people coming and going at the door, but at this time, the sound of cannons continued to be heard from outside the city, and there were only a few passers-by in a hurry on the empty street.

There were a few stern-faced soldiers of the Ming army standing at the gate of the ironware shop. They were Jiangxi soldiers in their uniforms. These soldiers shrunk their heads in the cold wind and held their spears in their arms. They said they were standing guard, but in reality they were walking back and forth Stamp your feet to keep warm.

Several officers of the Ming army were in the blacksmithing yard in the backyard of the iron shop. Facing a dozen or so men in different clothes and different professions, a leading tall officer stood up and said, "Mr. Wen, there are so many people, there is no way to arrange them." Ah, the person in charge of Wusheng Gate is Huguang Deputy General Yue Ling, and our Jiangxi soldiers can only obey his orders. I am just a small guard. It is no problem to arrange a cronies, but I can put all of you more than a dozen people at once. Go in, it's not easy..."

Mr. Wen looked like a storekeeper, sitting there with a small bench, and said slowly: "Jiangxi soldiers have more than 1000 people in Wushengmen, how can it be difficult to install so many dozen people, you just came here Ten days in Wuchang City, Yue Ling doesn't know the details of your camp, "

When he said this, he stood up, reached out to pick up a cloth bag from the table behind him, and casually threw it to the tall Jiangxi Army garrison. The garrison officer took the bag, feeling heavy in his hand, and opened it. , his face changed drastically, and the two officers beside him leaned over their heads, and when they saw it, they all gasped.

This is a bag full of finely divided gold, and the golden light almost blinded the eyes of these three Ming army officers. This is about ten catties of gold, which comes from the gold mine of the Chinese Company in Borneo.

Mr. Wen said to the three Ming army officers with a half-smile: "This gold is considered to be paid to your brothers. We also prepared gifts for your boss Fuzhou General Zhang Ji," he said to someone behind him. The man nodded, and the man immediately threw a small box to the tall guard.

"Share certificate of Zhonghua Company, five thousand silver dollars,"

"That's right, General Zhang can collect thousands of taels of dividends every year. If he wants to get cash, he can go to any money bank or bank in Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi to exchange the full 5000 taels of silver,"

The three officers of the Ming army have never seen such a huge wealth in front of their eyes since they were born. All three were stunned by the money and looked at each other. One of them gritted his teeth and said to the tall man. "Third brother, we have been fighting for the imperial court for more than ten years, with more than a dozen injuries all over our bodies, but our family members often go hungry... You are a guard, your sister is married, and you have to go to the bank to pay on credit for the dowry... Besides... This time when we came back to Wuchang for the war, we promised to pay us three months’ salary years ago, but we actually only paid for one month, and we had to pay for the departure fee ourselves, the brothers below have long since given up on it…”

Another military officer who looked at the clothes and was also a famous commander also said: "Zhao Shoubei, your family has a lot of land, and life is better. My family of seven or eight people all point at me to eat and drink, and now they are owed two wages." It's the month, and the children in the family will be hungry in the first month... As the saying goes, the emperor does not send hungry soldiers, look..."

During this period, the middle- and lower-level officers of the Ming Dynasty, especially the small officers of the Ming army in the non-elite troops in the southern regions, were crushed to death by the civil officials. It is a unit of the Nine Frontier Army, and the middle and lower-level officers are also very serious in arrears of salary. There have been many pay mutinies led by the lower-level officers.

The tall guard shook his head, then nodded again, raised his head and said to Mr. Wen: "With these dumb things going up and down, it should be no problem for these dozen strong men to be inserted into our barracks, but what should we do then?" action,"

Mr. Wen glanced at someone behind him, waved his hand and said, "This matter needs to be discussed in the long term. We will notify you in advance before it happens. At that time, these brothers will help you,"

At this time, there was a loud noise like rolling thunder in the sky in the north, shaking the earth under people's feet and the roof beams on their heads, and everyone's expressions changed drastically: "The siege has begun,"

……

Both sides of the Lei Zhenzi Cannon of the Chinese Army have pulley hoisting frames, because the shells it fires are too heavy and need to be loaded by a manual crane.

This six-thousand-jin bronze smoothbore gun reinforced with iron bars requires three or four people to turn the base winch to adjust the shooting angle. There is a ten-meter-long rope tied to the breech flint firing device. After everything is ready, the gunners are all nervous He hid in the trench just dug five meters away, bent down and covered his ears, and the rope gunner covered his head with a cotton cap, plugged his ears with cotton, and then pulled the rope hard.

After the loud bang, the flames and smoke immediately enveloped the giant cannon. The Lei Zhenzi cannon was pushed back nearly five steps by the huge recoil after being fired by the shell, and it just stabilized on the edge of the trench. The rope-drawn gunner was blown away by a hurricane. Hat, regardless of rushing forward to see the launch effect.

The sailors and marines of the Chinese Army who were hiding behind the earth wall on the bank of the river cheered in unison at this time: "It's a hit!"

Digging trenches by the river is prone to water seepage, so the marines only dug out an earthen wall as a cover. Behind the earthen wall they were waiting for to rest, they could clearly see the shells from the Lei Zhenzi cannon hitting the left side of the Zhonghe Gate. , An obvious big hole was made on the city wall.

This was the first shot of the Chinese army's siege cannon, and it also announced that the Chinese army had begun to attack Wuchang City.

The siege of the day was nothing more than a Chinese army bombardment performance. Various cannons ranging from 6-pound to 46-pound on naval battleships, the heavy mortar "Hang Tianlei" on the bombardment ship rebuilt from sand ships, and the guns moved to the shore Dozens of infantry field artillery and heavy artillery... The Chinese Army participated in the bombardment of the cannons around Zhonghemen, including the Lei Zhenzi Cannon, which totaled three or four hundred. The Chinese Army's three observation balloons rose in turn throughout the day. In the air, the surveillance of Wuchang City has been maintained.

In one day, the Chinese Army fired nearly [-] shells at Wuchang City, half of which were solid shells, half of which were flower shells, shrapnel shells, and grape shells.

Lin Yu, governor of Huguang, Jiang Yue, prefect of Wuchang, and Du Xiancheng, general of Huguang, who hid far away on the Snake Mountain, were silent all day long and looked at each other in blank dismay until evening.

"It's a waste of money. How can the pirate army get so much money if they fire so many shells in one day?" Du Xiancheng, the commander in chief, became more and more pessimistic about the prospect of the city defense battle.

Lin Yu, governor of Huguang, had calmed down at this time, and with the idea that if he fails, he will be benevolent and die. He asked, "Mr. Du, has the inner wall inside the Zhonghe Gate been built?"

In order to prevent the pirates from rushing into the city through the Zhonghe Gate, Du Xiancheng recruited a large number of civilians inside the Zhonghe Gate to demolish houses with a radius of hundreds of feet, and temporarily built a new inner wall of the urn city. Driven by the Chinese army's shells falling into the city, he desperately completed the construction of the inner wall before night fell.

At this time, the shelling of the Chinese Army gradually ceased.

Only the cannon is still firing regularly. Every time the siege cannon is fired, the barrel is cleaned, the propellant is loaded, the shell is hoisted, the gun position is adjusted, the pitch angle of the muzzle is adjusted, and then it is fired... the whole set of firing The procedure usually takes half an hour, and it takes 10 minutes at the fastest. Therefore, during the whole day, the cannon was fired 19 times in total.

Zhonghe Gate, a well-organized and tall city gate, is now so dilapidated that it is unbearable to see. There are broken wall bricks and solid bullets everywhere on the ground. The entire iron-clad wooden city gate has been broken. The Ming army in the gate hole was used to block the gate. The scattered stones and broken bricks have been dug a big hole by the artillery fire outside the city.

The staff of the weapon research department with binoculars estimated that if they fought with the same intensity of artillery fire for another day, the Zhonghe Gate and the city walls within fifty steps around it would be completely in ruins.

"There's no need to completely collapse the city wall, as long as part of the city wall is collapsed to form a slope that allows our marines to walk up, that's fine," Yang Qi suggested.

"In this case..." Lin Qing, the boss of the firearms quartet, scratched the ground with a small stick, and after calculating for a moment, said: "It's safer, I think it's safer to fight for another day. The observation balloon has found the neutralization door. Later, a temporary city wall appeared, making the gap a little bigger, which will be beneficial for you to rush into the city, "

……

In the yamen of the prefect of Wuchang, more than a dozen generals, generals, deputy generals and other officers of the Ming army gathered in front of Lin Yu, the governor of Huguang, Jiang Yue, the prefect of Wuchang, and Du Xiancheng, the general of Huguang. "Lin Junmen (in the Ming Dynasty, the governor and the general army are called the army gate), it is normal for us to be loyal to the country, but the soldiers below are starving and cold, unable to fight, and the naval bandits outside the city are under fire. Within a day, our Jiangxi soldiers died More than 80 people were killed by shelling, and the morale of the military gate is worrying. We can no longer let the soldiers defend the city hungry."

The troops of Guizhou General Soldier guarding the south and west of Wuchang City did not lose in today's artillery battle. They just complained about the problem of military rations. Next, Huguang General Soldier Du Xiancheng said: "Report Master Lin, the inner wall of the Zhonghe Gate has been built. I had people demolish houses overnight and use local materials to reinforce them, but in today's artillery battle, our army lost more than [-] cannons, big guns, and extermination guns, and the firearms that could hit far were basically destroyed by the naval bandits... ...Tomorrow we will fight again, shall we transfer the other cannons to the Zhonghe Gate?"

Lin Yu lowered his eyebrows and sighed: "Du Junmen, can your cannon hit the pirate army?"

Du Xiancheng also sighed, and stopped talking. During the artillery battle during the day, at the beginning, the generals of the Ming army could fire back fire with miscellaneous firearms, but none of them could reach the river bank. There is no accuracy at all. Under the surveillance of the Chinese Army's hot air balloon, all Ming Army firearm positions that dared to fire were covered by the ensuing shelling as dense as raindrops. In just half an hour, they could threaten the Chinese Army's attack. The cannons of the Wuchang Ming army of the city's heavy artillery had all been destroyed. Therefore, the giant cannon was only three hundred steps away from the city wall, but it was able to fire shells slowly, and it is still firing until now.

This is the current situation of the Ming army in Wuchang. This time, the military meeting convened by Huguang governor Lin Yu ended without any results in the dull air. Lin Yu just assured that he immediately Go to the Chu King's Mansion and ask the Chu King to donate food and salaries.

The artillery battle on the second day still repeated the scene of the first day. At night, the city wall near the Zhonghe Gate was completely finished, and it became a few gentle hillsides piled up with rocks.

On the third day, all the cannons of the Chinese Army that were capable of firing explosive shells were raised, and began to shell the city with explosive shells and shrapnel. The Marine Corps began to move under the city wall of Wuchang through the trench dug urgently in the past two days.