There are two main reasons for this. On the one hand, three-stage shooting can basically maintain the continuity of firepower.
Once two-stage shooting is adopted, it is easy for the second team to finish shooting but the first team has not finished loading. Therefore, three-stage shooting is almost the minimum standard for multi-stage shooting to ensure the continuity of firepower.
Another problem is that three-stage shooting can maintain the density of firepower very well. If four-stage or five-stage shooting is used, the firepower of a single batch of shooting will be greatly weakened.
In an era when a rifle's ability to hit a target over 20 meters depended on "fate", such a loss of firepower was obviously extremely fatal.
Therefore, shooting with more than three stages can almost only be seen on crossbowmen. Almost all musketeers shoot in three stages.
It’s just that...these problems are different when it comes to holding a gun!
The reason for the difference is very simple and can be summed up in one word - big!
The lifting of the gun is really too big, which leads to a big question mark as to whether the traditional three-stage shooting can be effective in lifting the gun.
The caliber of the raised gun is much larger than that of an ordinary rifle, and the length of the barrel is also much longer than that of an ordinary rifle.
If according to modern standards, anything with a caliber of more than 20 mm is considered a cannon. Then most of the guns are actually artillery, and when Westerners encountered the guns on the battlefield, they did call them "small artillery."
.
The Xin'an Army now has 500 guns. Even if Lu Xu uses five-stage shooting, the firepower density of each batch of 100 small artillery pieces is still high.
Isn't this density enough? Apparently it is!
In addition, the large lift of the gun also brings another problem. That is, since it is already a small artillery, its loading speed is naturally much slower than that of a musket.
Not to mention anything else, Lu Xu's rifle is a front-loaded matchlock gun, and the length of the Xin'an Army's rifle is more than two meters. The process and time required to load this thing is almost the same as loading a cannon.
There is no difference.
The three-stage shooting of the musket is enough to ensure the continuity of firepower. But it may not be possible to lift the gun!
All the above show that the traditional three-stage shooting may not be suitable for the Xin'an Army. On the contrary, the five-stage shooting seems to be better.
Anyway, this is the first time that firearms have participated in the battle. In Lu Xu's opinion, this time is a crushing game, and he can try new tactics at will. So Lu Xu thought about whether the five-stage style of play would be suitable this time.
Not suitable?
"ignition!"
Following Lu Xu's order, the second wave of bullets hit the city wall of Qinzhou Mansion.
The rebels who had just been driven back by the Beiting Supervisory Team screamed and hid behind the city wall, not daring to show their faces.
The Xin'an Army took this opportunity to push the Tiger Crouching Cannon towards the city gate!
The accuracy of the Crouching Tiger Cannon is really poor, and its power is not enough. If you want to blast open the city gate, you must get the Crouching Tiger Cannon as close to the city gate as possible.
In normal times, such a tactic would obviously come at a high price. Just like when Prince Wulu wanted to send the crashed car to the foot of Wei'an Fort, he paid a heavy casualty.
However, with the fire cover from the guns, the gunners were not hindered much on their way forward!
Seeing the actions of the Xin'an Army, Ding Nian was frightened.
In fact, Ding Nian was frightened when the Xin'an Army fired the first wave! Has he ever seen such a powerful weapon?
Fortunately, Ding Nian didn't have to worry about things on the battlefield. The Beiting people were the first to respond. The Beiting Supervisory Team stabilized the situation promptly and prevented his troops from collapsing on a large scale.
However, Ding Nian didn't feel happy because of this. After all, he himself was trapped on the city wall!
Ding Nian has no idea at all whether the Beiting people dare to kill him. Because he knows that the Beiting people will definitely dare!
But let him stay on the city wall? He was also a little frightened!
He knew that although the new equipment of the Xin'an Army was indeed quite powerful, it was still somewhat powerless to deal with the Qinzhou Prefecture, which had a high wall and a fortified city.
But this does not mean that he is safe. Even if it took him a while to understand the current situation, those "foolish people" naturally cannot see the current situation even more clearly.
In fact, Ding Nian and King Youxian didn't think that Lu Xu used any evil method. It must be a kind of equipment that he had never seen before, and it was not a magic method at all.
Is the thing under the city a strange power or a new type of equipment? It will directly determine the stability of the defending side.
If the soldiers guarding the city also think that the gun lift is a piece of equipment they have never seen before, like Ding Nian, then there will be an effective way to resist the gun lift, and the morale of the army will be stable.
But if the soldiers guarding the city felt that it was an inhuman force, they would not be able to think of any resistance at all.
Ding Nian felt that these "foolish people" he had recruited would definitely think that it was a kind of strange and chaotic power.
Compared to the people in Beiting, Ding Nian actually looked down upon his own soldiers even more. Because in his opinion, the soldiers he recruited were first of all the "foolish people" under his rule.
As a member of the Liang scholar-bureaucrats, his contempt, distrust and even defensiveness towards the people at the bottom were engraved in his bones.
He didn't feel at all that the soldiers under his command were people like him who had the ability to think independently.
So when the battle situation changed, he subconsciously felt that his soldiers were going to do something bad.
And he has already thought about what bad things those soldiers will do?
"How can they dare to resist such a powerful force?"
"In normal times, they might not dare to do anything to me."
"But now, facing a force that is even more irresistible to them, their awe of me will naturally be much less."
"When their spirits completely collapse, they will probably attack me, right?"
Although Ding Nian's thinking is full of the feudal literati's oppression and distrust of the lower class, one thing is indeed correct.
When the people of Daliang face a force that they cannot explain or resist, they really like to use something to offer sacrifices.
If the rebels at this time felt that Lu Xu was using Ding Nian's betrayal of Daliang to bring them "God's punishment", then they would very likely want to sacrifice Ding Nian to heaven.
Of course, there are ideas, but whether you dare to do it or not is another matter.
Just when Ding Nian was thinking quickly, trying to find a way for himself not to be used as a sacrifice, he saw the Xin'an Army pushing the Tiger Crouching Cannon up.
He noticed almost immediately that the crouching tiger cannon had a much larger caliber than the raised gun.
And Ding Nian immediately thought that during the two attacks just now, the "bowls" of those big poles seemed to spit out fire and smoke.