Huge roars were heard one after another, and even the garrison soldiers on the city were stunned. Even some veterans who had been on the battlefield had seen the power of gunpowder weapons, and it was the same at this time.
More people didn't know what happened for a while, and could only stare at the metal tubular object that made a loud noise like a ghost.
These objects are arranged in a row, large and small, and come in several specifications.
It is not as thick as a wrist, and can be lifted and moved by four or five people. It is being lifted diagonally at the moment, and it is inconvenient to fill it with ammunition. It is a huge object as thick as the mouth of a bowl, and its tail is touching the earth and rocks.
Seven or eight people had to use bags filled with soil to hold it down to prevent it from jumping up; the structure was extremely huge, and it took a lot of effort to lift it up to the top of the city. As a result, it made a loud noise and cracks appeared in the metal shell, and the high-temperature gas inside escaped, causing scalding.
People around me had big blisters on their hands and faces.
These are the artillery that Guo Zhongyuan collected from the city. And every one of them is privately cast contraband. It is a little troublesome to use, but it is not a big deal.
The army of the Great Zhou Dynasty used a large number of throwing gunpowder weapons a few years ago. Although there was no war in the following years, the promotion of gunpowder weapons in the army did not stop. Guo Zhongyuan paid even more attention to this. However, the gunpowder weapons belonging to the army were concentrated.
The research and manufacturing factories in Daxing Prefecture and Tianjin Prefecture in the north are also strictly controlled and are not located in the Central Plains. What Guo Zhongyuan collected is actually the product of cooperation between wealthy local merchants in Kaifeng and a group of maritime merchants.
It has to be said that compared to the stability of the farming regime, in a dynasty with a complex foundation like the Zhou Dynasty, all kinds of weird and bizarre things kept happening, which can be called a chaotic chaos.
For example, with the development of commerce, more and more forces are participating in maritime trade, and the sea is by no means a land of kings. After many armed sailors under maritime merchants landed on land, they were suppressed by the force of the army and did not dare to disobey the law.
When they got to the sea and were lured by the huge profits, they immediately became evil and preyed on the weak without any scruples. Even though the Zhou Dynasty and the Song Dynasty had military fleets to suppress them, the conflict of killing and stealing goods was difficult to control. Therefore, each family secretly
Find ways to add armaments to seagoing ships in addition to normal equipment.
At first, this kind of arms race remained at the level of privately recruiting armed sailors from Goryeo and wandering Japanese warriors. Later, as the Taoism was higher and the magic was higher, all parties continued to invest huge sums of money, and the force was continuously upgraded. In a very short period of time, it was upgraded to transformation.
Sophisticated weapons, even equipped with gunpowder weapons.
In this regard, it was the maritime merchants of the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty who started the trend. They probably bribed someone in the army to steal a weapon called a musket and quickly copied it on a large scale.
The fire gun uses a giant bamboo as a tube with a nest inside. After burning, the flames are released from the nest. The sound is like the sound of a cannon, and the range is more than two hundred steps. Although there is no accuracy at all, it is used to kill and wound people and burn down sails.
Very useful, you can always gain an advantage before a hand-to-hand encounter.
Moreover, it was convenient for the Song Dynasty maritime merchants to travel across the southern seas and go to the Song Dynasty's seaports to replenish gunpowder or bamboo tubes. For a time, this trading company's fleet showed off its power and took advantage of many advantages. However, how many people were involved in the maritime trade of hundreds of millions?
Just watch! Anyone who suffers a little loss feels heartbroken. If you have to regain the situation, how can you keep taking advantage?
In just over a few years, the musket was used more and more widely, and its shape was modified several times by various families, becoming more and more powerful and having a farther and farther range. In the end, the gun from Zhongdu in the Great Zhou Dynasty
A certain confidential blueprint was leaked for unknown reasons, and the maritime merchants found that a new world beyond everyone's imagination appeared before their eyes.
They began to privately forge artillery.
Weapons such as artillery are also in the experimental stage in Zhongdu Daxing Prefecture. I heard that because of the huge cost, many people opposed it, and it was a big shot in the court who advocated it, and then it was pushed forward.
There is no precedent for maritime merchants to secretly forge artillery. Such a powerful weapon requires extremely high manufacturing technology, and the supply of copper, iron and even the coordination of facilities required for production cannot be met at all.
A slight mistake.
This kind of thing is naturally against the law, so it cannot be done in Shandong. Shandong is the place where Ding Haijun started. Putting it there would be like putting it under the eyes of the imperial court. If something goes wrong, even ten heads would not be enough.
For the same reason, the factory cannot be placed close to Zhongdu.
It would be even more impossible to place it in the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty. Everyone invested huge resources and a huge amount of money was poured desperately in order to overwhelm all competitors at sea, including the Song people. If the factory was placed in the Song Dynasty,
If the results were stolen by the Song people, wouldn't everyone become fools?
After excluding various places, the area around Kaifeng, which is extremely prosperous and has a large number of handicraftsmen, became the only suitable choice.
Especially in the past six months, officials across the Central Plains have been purged one after another, inevitably leaving gaps in local management, and the behavior of maritime merchants has become more and more unscrupulous.
They even secretly intercepted the output of a certain copper mountain and used it for casting. Thanks to the rapid increase in copper production in Dazhou, there was inevitably some negligence in management, and the trickle they withheld was not discovered.
In recent months, several groups of sailors from Shandong have come to Kaifeng under the pretext of inspecting and accepting ships. Where can ships be built in Kaifeng? Let alone sea-going ships. In fact, they are here to inspect and accept artillery.
Because all forces covered this up so tightly, the so-called all-pervasive Dazhou spy agency received wind of it, but had no solid evidence, and even Guo Zhongyuan, who was left behind in Nanjing, didn't know about it.
Unfortunately, all the cover-up arrangements were completely in vain when the Mongolian army invaded. Before the danger came, the manager in charge of the factory reacted quickly, hurriedly packed up the manpower and materials located in a secret place, and headed for Kaifeng to take refuge. Just as he was crashing into the city of Kaifeng
The army and the people were in disarray, and Guo Zhongyuan made great efforts to put things in order.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! Firstly, in order to strictly guard against spies and spies, and secondly, in order to search for war potential, we really dare not neglect it at all. How can these privately-made artillery that escaped to the city be used at this time?
After escaping, he was gathered together after three times, five times and two times.
The stewards, craftsmen, Lifu and others related to it were trembling in fear, thinking that they were going to lose their heads, but they never thought that Guo Zhongyuan was about to gather all the available forces and give them the opportunity to make meritorious deeds.
Considering that they will be installed on ships for naval battles in the future, the specifications of these artillery pieces are generally small. And because of the limitations of technology and materials, the range of the artillery can be long or short, and the power can be large or small.
When we arrested this group of people the day before yesterday, we found that there were many cannon barrels, but almost all the gunpowder had been thrown away by them. There was also a craftsman leader who confessed in tears that he had secretly benefited from the manufacturing process and had several artillery pieces.
The materials used are not good and are just used to fool the owner. Once filled with gunpowder and used on the battlefield, the wall of the tube will explode at any time.
It was really a nest of snakes and rats, what went up was followed by what was followed down, and it was a mess. The situation at that time almost made Guo Zhongyuan laugh out loud.
But it doesn't matter, these are enough.
No matter how crude it is, this is a weapon produced in a new environment. Its power far exceeds the throwing weapons that were used before, and it is enough to launch a unilateral massacre of the Mongolian cavalry.
Of course, the range of artillery has its limits. Tou Lei and others who are far away from the city cannot reach it. Therefore, the first to bear the brunt of the misfortune is the Mongolian light cavalry that has been patrolling under the city for a long time.
The appearance of Han troops from several directions at the same time made the light cavalry very vigilant. They gathered the loose team in advance and were ready to respond to the order of towing mines at any time, or to intercept and kill the defenders leaving the city.
When the artillery roared, the Mongolian cavalry all looked up. These Mongolians had experienced battles for a long time, and some of them knew the power of the Zhou army's firearms. They immediately shouted and warned to avoid. But most of the cavalry did not react. They looked up in the air.
I didn’t see the tracks in the air, how could I hide?
The next moment, large and small artillery shells fell, and dozens of impact points were scattered within the range.
When a cannonball hit the ground, it hit a cavalryman in the chest. People around him could almost hear a "bang" sound, and then saw a fine mist of blood explode.
Under the blood mist, the cavalryman's torso was completely gone, leaving only the waist, crotch and legs still sitting upright on the saddle. Tufts of gray-red and green internal organs were gurgling out from the gap in the crotch, along the horse
The front legs continue to flow.
The cannonball continued to fly past and hit the leg of another cavalryman. The whole leg immediately turned into splatters of flesh and blood. The cavalryman was sitting on a fat Mongolian horse. The horse also fell to the ground with a crash, and the horse's torso was almost cut in two, exposed.
Almost all the bones that came out were shattered.
After hitting two targets in a row, the speed of the artillery shells dropped significantly. Only then did the people around them vaguely see the black shadow passing through the air. The black shadow bounced twice in a row on the hard ground in winter, smashing the head of a cavalryman and
The legs of the two war horses slowly stopped rolling, and white smoke emitted.
The cannonballs are made of iron or polished stones. They are suitable for smashing the cabins of seagoing ships. They are overly powerful when used against people. The hits are very brutal, but the damage caused is not shocking in fact. There are dozens of them within the range.
The cannonballs rolled past, and the number of cavalry actually killed by the cannonballs was only thirty. If the cannons were not used, but the giant crossbows on the top of the city were used to shoot, the damage would be similar.
But this excess power and almost inescapability were a bit scary for the Mongols who were exposed to artillery for the first time.
This is not the same as iron artillery.
The Mongols are natural conquerors, and the Mongolian army is also a very professional army. After suffering losses in battles with the Dinghai navy in their early years, the Mongols have done a lot of analysis on iron artillery and conveyed a lot of experience in dealing with it. They now know that as long as
Just see the arc of the throw and predict the landing point in advance.
A Mongolian riding a horse can pull the reins and run away from the explosion range of the iron artillery... The range is not that big in the first place.
In other words, the Mongolian army relies on its superior warfare skills to keep the threat of iron artillery within control. That is just a common trouble in war.
But what happened to the weapon that smashed wherever it hit?
Even if the skin of a person killed by an iron cannon is scorched, he still looks like a human being. How should he deal with being smashed into a pulp?
Thirty dead people are just thirty lumps of flesh! How can other people defend themselves? How can they hide?
Or is it that there is no way to defend or hide? You can only survive?
Why do the Han people have new gadgets? Where did this come from?
Many Mongolian cavalry were stunned and stared at the dead and wounded, not knowing what to do.
The other places where the cannonballs hit were also very chaotic. Even if the cannonballs were of different weights, within a range of three to four hundred steps, their power was astonishing. Almost everything in their way was shattered.
.
"Hoo, ho..."
A Mongolian cavalryman whose body was covered with flesh and blood was holding his horse's neck and gasping for breath. His companions who were originally walking with him had been smashed into pieces, and only one arm holding the long knife fell to the ground. But he
He didn't care to admire his own luck, he just huffed and puffed, as if he was going to faint at any moment.
More people were hesitant, not knowing whether to disperse or retreat. Even the best warriors would hesitate when faced with weapons they had never seen before, not to mention the power of artillery was so terrifying that it completely exceeded the scope of the Mongols' understanding.
This is not the kind of war they are used to! Even if their courage and experience are ten times or a hundred times greater than that of the Han people, they still cannot cope with this situation!
At this time, the city gate suddenly opened, and the Kaifeng defenders marched out of the city with clanging footsteps.