Wentang

Chapter 470 Artillery
Seeing that everyone's appetite had been whetted, Li Shimin led the crowd to the side of the mysterious thing covered with straw mats, and said to an imposing general, "Duan Xiong, let's start."

This general is Duan Xiongzhixuan, the leader of the Xuanjia Army, and the head of Li Shimin's bodyguard.

The Xuanjia Army is an elite force that Li Tang spent a huge amount of resources to build at the beginning of the founding of the country. You can tell from the name that the Xuanjia Army Xuan is a black, black armor-piercing army.

In the early Tang Dynasty, iron production was very low, and it was not easy for any force to gather an army wearing iron armor. This army was Li Tang's sharp knife.

Li Shimin's ability to command the army is very strong, so Li Yuan entrusted this army to him to command.Over time, this Xuanjia army has become his iron club from top to bottom.

It can be said that the Xuanjia Army is the most trusted army of Li Shimin. After becoming the emperor, they were used as personal guards most of the time, and some tasks with high confidentiality were also entrusted to them.

The safety of such a major event like today is also entrusted to the Xuanjia Army throughout the entire process, and other armies cannot even rely on it, including the most powerful Wanqi.

Duan Zhixuan went out and bowed his hands to accept the order, and then said: "The saint and everyone, please retreat beyond the white line."

After everyone retreated to the white line 50 meters away, he said again: "Please be sure to open your mouth slightly, otherwise you will bear the consequences."

Now everyone is even more curious, what are you doing with your mouth open?Is it because we are afraid that we will be too surprised for a while and bite our tongues?But no matter how confused they were, no one dared to give up at this time, and they all opened their mouths obediently.

There is only one person who has no doubts and that is Yue Shan. He has been [-]% sure of Li Shimin's purpose, and he also knows the purpose of letting him open his mouth—for fear of breaking the eardrum—this is the precautions he wrote in the book "Science" .

After instructing everyone, Duan Zhixuan stood on the spot, turned around and waved a small flag, signaling the start of the exercise.

After receiving the order, a large group of big men in brown linen clothes drilled out from under the straw mat. They quickly swept the grass in groups of ten, revealing thick and dark round iron pillars...or iron pipes are also fine. .

Everyone counted, and there are thirty iron pillars like this.

what is this?What does it have to do with divine punishment?Everyone was angry and puzzled at the same time.

Seeing these unfamiliar and familiar figures, Yue Shan's eyes flashed "as expected", and Li Shimin finally made the cannon.

In the gunpowder chapter of the book of science, Yue Shan wrote several ways to use gunpowder, among which artillery was mentioned emphatically.With Li Shimin's personality, he would naturally not let go of such a sharp weapon, and would definitely organize people to imitate it.

It's just that I didn't expect the process to be so fast, and a qualified cannon was produced in just a few years.

However, he showed a relieved expression when he thought of the local method of blast furnace steelmaking.

The difficulty of manufacturing ancient cannons is actually not high. The most difficult thing is the metal material. It is too difficult to manufacture high-quality cannons without qualified metals.

For a long time, everyone used bronze and wrought iron to cast cannons. The disadvantage is that they are heavy, especially heavy, and have a short range and low power. Later, high-quality steel was used to manufacture high-quality cannons.

Although the indigenous blast furnace steelmaking technology that Yueshan came up with is very crude, it was also a smelting technology in the 60s and 89s of the [-]th century.Even if the difference in technical processing level is removed, the steel produced at least has the level of steel smelting in the [-]s.

There is enough steel in this age to make good primitive cannons.

It is precisely because of the high-quality steel produced by the local blast furnace that Li Shimin's craftsmen can imitate the cannon so quickly.

When Yue Shan was falling into memory, the artillerymen of the Xuanjia Army began to operate. They were in a group of ten, some of them were cleaning the barrel of the gun with a mop, some were fixing the gun mount, some were aiming, and some were preparing fire igniters...

Soon everything was ready, the flag bearer of the cannon position waved the flag again, and the surface was ready to start shelling.

Duan Zhixuan did not answer directly, but asked for instructions: "Saint, the gunners are ready, do you want to start shelling?"

Li Shimin was also very excited, and said in a slightly trembling voice: "Start."

"Here." After Duan Zhixuan took the order, he waved the flag to deliver the order.

Hearing this request, everyone quieted down, staring at the iron pillar position 50 meters away, waiting to see what Li Shimin was up to.

After receiving the order, the herald at the artillery position shouted loudly: "Fire."

Then I saw [-] igniters inserting the fiery red iron rod into the igniter, and a few seconds later...

"Boom..." "Boom..." "Boom..."

The deafening voices sounded one after another, and even Yue Shan, who had been prepared for a long time, was shocked, let alone others.

Yue Shan clearly saw that the faces of Yuwen Shiji, Fang Xuanling and others turned pale instantly, and an unconcealable fear appeared in their pupils.

This was considered good, and many people behind were terrified and fell to the ground.What's more, Yue Shan saw water stains on the hem of several people's clothes, and after a while, a faint smell of urine permeated the crowd.

But at this time, no one cared about this issue anymore, and everyone was dumbfounded looking at the artillery position tens of meters away.

"Look...look, look at that city wall." At this moment, Cheng Yaojin suddenly shouted.

Everyone looked in the direction of his finger, and saw a shocking scene again.

There were more than a dozen obvious impact marks on the city wall, and three stacks of female walls were destroyed.

"This is...a trebuchet?" Qin Qiong was the first to break the silence and asked uncertainly.

"No, this is a cannon. It can fire two iron pellets the size of a fist. The longest range is six or seven miles, and the effective range is about five miles. Today, it is convenient for everyone to watch. It is placed at a distance of one mile." Li Shimin was full of enthusiasm. the way.

"Hiss... Wuli?" Everyone gasped, and then their expressions were different.

The envoys of Turkic, Goguryeo and other forces have a heavy expression, while Xue Yantuo, Huihe and other envoys are somewhat rejoicing in fear...

After recovering from the shock, all the prime ministers in the Tang Dynasty showed joyful expressions, and the generals were more excited and wanted to operate it themselves.

The expressions of the big officials in the frontier are more complicated, some are happy, some sigh, some are disappointed... Generally speaking, there are more happy ones.

When everyone was shocked by the terrifying power of the cannon, the gunners were not idle, and started the next round of operation according to the steps.

Cleaning the barrel, cleaning the barrel, prepping the ammunition, prepping the ammunition...

A soldier representing the loader stretched out his hand and twisted the tail of the cannon, turning it quickly, and the tail was quickly twisted off to reveal the dark barrel.

Neither the gunner nor the group watching from a distance knew what rear loading meant.

(End of this chapter)