Boom! Boom! Boom!
Huge explosions sounded one after another at the foot of the mountain. The mountain and the ground were filled with smoke and rolling dust, making the 100,000-strong army that was fighting looming. Even the wave-like shouting and killing could not break through the smoke and dust.
Li Dingguo wore a suit of armor with a "mountain" pattern, and below the waist, he also had an iron mesh skirt and mesh pants, and iron mesh boots on his feet. He was tall and strong, and his steps were sonorous. He personally went to the front of the battle to command the firearms battalion to bomb the mountain.
In front of the smoke-filled battlefield, there were various kinds of firearms, including the falconet, the tiger crouching cannon, the musket, the thunder gun, the three-eyed gun, the divine fire flying crow, the swarm of bees, the hundred tigers running arrows, and so on.
In the Ming army, various firearms were already very important equipment. Each musketeer was equipped with two gunpowder cans, one for propellant and one for primer, and carried 300 lead bullets. It is worth mentioning that the propellant at this time was granular gunpowder, not the powdered gunpowder of the past;
Its composition ratio is 1 liang of saltpeter (accounting for 75.75%), 1 qian and 4 fen of sulfur (accounting for 10.6%), and 1 qian and 8 fen of willow charcoal (accounting for 13.65%), which has basically reached the optimal ratio of black powder (75% saltpeter, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal).
Not only were Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong once soldiers of the Ming army, but some of the rebels under their command also came from the rebellious Ming army. Therefore, firearms were widely used by both the Ming army and the rebels.
The Portuguese cannon and the tiger squat cannon had little killing power against the left army on the mountain due to the problem of firing angle and the fact that they mostly used solid bullets. On the contrary, the rockets such as the divine fire flying crow and the hundred tigers running arrows posed a great threat to the left army on the mountain. Moreover, after these rockets were fired, they could easily ignite a mountain fire.
It was already late autumn in September, and the grass and trees on the mountain were withered and yellow, which could easily catch fire. The black smoke enveloped the entire mountain, making the left army on the mountain feel suffocated. It also blurred the vision, making it difficult to see the movements of the rebels below the mountain.
Li Dingguo's concentrated firearms bombardment this time coincided with the meaning of artillery preparation before a large army charged in later generations. The fierce explosions sounded like the rumbling of war drums. Although the casualties were limited, on the one hand it could hit the enemy's morale, and on the other hand it could greatly inspire his own morale. What's more subtle is that after the thick smoke filled the mountain top, it could conceal his own actions.
After the artillery fire was ready, Li Dingguo gave an order. The drumbeat suddenly changed, and the first wave of 40,000 rebels rushed towards Tiger's Mouth like a raging wave. Due to the restrictions of the mountain, this charge did not require any formation, and all the troops just had to rush up desperately, which was just right for the rebels who lacked training and could not even form a neat formation.
Countless black shadows appeared and disappeared in the diffuse smoke, and the huge shouts were like rolling thunder, shaking the sky and the momentum was incomparable.
Due to the narrow terrain on the mountain and the fact that all the fortifications were hastily built within a day, Wu Xueli only had time to place a few Portuguese cannons. At this time, all of them were loaded with buckshot, and they fired one after another, and a bunch of iron beads and nails shot down violently, causing heavy casualties to the rebels who rushed up the mountain.
At the same time, a hail of arrows flew into the sky. It was like a whistling cloud covering the ground, creating a forest of thorns at the foot of the mountain. The wounded rebels howled miserably, like the cries of evil spirits. Soon, corpses were strewn all over the hillside. The scarlet blood dyed the trees and grass red, and formed a stream, flowing down the mountain.
The rebels who rushed to the middle of the mountain kept firing at the mountain with muskets, thunder guns, three-eyed guns and other weapons. The "bang bang" sound brought out tongues of fire, which also caused casualties to the left army on the mountain.
This would be the toughest battle Zhang Xianzhong's rebels had fought since Nanchang, but for Zhang Xianzhong, as long as he could capture Yuanzhou, he would not be afraid even if most of the 200,000 men and women were killed or wounded. In just one month, his military strength in Huguang had grown to 500,000, and it would not be difficult to raise an army of one million if he wanted to.
Therefore, even if the attack on Tiger Pass resulted in heavy casualties, he would not hesitate. His hundreds of thousands of troops were basically untrained. Using a brutal battlefield instead of training, so that the good and bad of the hundreds of thousands of troops could be eliminated in the war, was beneficial to him.
After all, Zhang Xianzhong had been in rebellion for more than ten years, so he was very clear about this principle.
Blood was flowing in Laohukou, and the breeze was gentle and pleasant on Yuchun Mountain.
Lü Daqi wanted Qin Mu to take the initiative and look for opportunities to attack the enemy. Qin Mu asked him to recognize Li Xiangjun as his adopted daughter first, but he didn't know if it made him angry. Qin Mu himself didn't have much hope for this, he just wanted to find a reason to embarrass Lü Daqi so that he could sit back and watch the fight.
On the observation tower of the camp, Qin Mu, Liu Meng, Huo Sheng, Su Jin and others were each holding a monocular telescope and looking down the mountain. Liu Meng and others kept making startled noises.
They were like little kids who got a new toy and couldn't let it go. Especially Huo Sheng, he kept exclaiming: "It's so big, it's really getting bigger, so big..."
Qin Mu couldn't help it and blurted out, "Damn it, is it as big as a papaya?"
"pawpaw?"
Huo Sheng was still a little confused, but Liu Meng and the others were already laughing like thunder. When Qin Mu was in Yuanzhou, he couldn't see the battle between Hu Yansan and Wang Yuncheng, so he suddenly thought of making a telescope. The threshold for making a telescope is not high. As long as you know the principle and find a good craftsman, you can make it.
The magnification effect of the telescopes currently produced is about fifteen times, which has already amazed Huo Sheng and others. I wonder how amazed they would be if they were given a military telescope from later generations.
"Huh!" Su Jin suddenly exclaimed in surprise.
"Su Jin, what's wrong?"
"My Lord, please get to the opposite hillside. That hillside, I just saw some horses and men moving in the forest."
Qin Mu and his companions immediately raised their telescopes and looked towards the opposite hillside.
The northern area of Yuanzhou is the Jiuling Mountains, with numerous peaks and towering mountains. It runs from northeast to southwest. It extends to Jiujiang Lushan in the northeast and enters Hunan in the southwest. Yuchun Mountain where Qin Mu stationed his troops is part of the Jiuling Mountains. There are many mountains and dense forests nearby, with many isolated peaks, broken mountains, karst pits and karst gullies, as well as strangely shaped and large and small underground rivers and karst caves, and relatively few open plains.
Such terrain is not conducive to the movement of large armies, but it provides the best hiding place for small groups of troops. When Qin Mu and his companions looked again, there was no movement on the mountainside several miles away, and the forest was silent.
"Su Jin, did you see it wrong?" Qin Mu asked.
"That shouldn't be the case, sir. I saw it clearly just now. I did see someone on the opposite hillside, and there was only one person."
"Hurry up and send someone over to check it out. Damn it, don't let the enemy get under our noses without us knowing."
Qin Mu gave the order, and Su Jin personally led a team of soldiers and immediately rushed to the opposite hillside. Before Su Jin could report, several riders came back galloping from the bottom of the mountain.
Qin Mu was watching from the sidelines at Yuchun Mountain, so naturally he had to keep abreast of the changes in the entire battle situation. Only then could he be considered to be watching from the sidelines, and it was inevitable to send out a large number of scouts every day.
The few riders who hurried back reported the same information to Qin Mu, that they found many small groups of rebels appeared around Yuanzhou.
Several scouts scouted different areas, but they all found small groups of rebels infiltrating. Qin Mu immediately realized that this was unusual. There were many mountains near Yuanzhou, but small groups of rebels were not blocked by the mountains and could easily infiltrate. Their destructive power could not be ignored when the enemy was in the dark and we were in the light.
Half an hour later, Su Jin came back and captured a dozen rebels. Qin Mu came out and asked, "Su Jin, how is it?"
"Sir, this group of rebels has a total of fifty people. The leader is called Wang Erma, but he and a few others escaped. I have interrogated them. Zhang Xianzhong sent a large number of small groups of people to infiltrate Yuanzhou. They don't know the total number. This group of people set out from the west of Laohukou last night, got lost in the mountains, and accidentally came to the vicinity of Yuchun Mountain."
"Ants moving." Qin Mu muttered these four words. It seemed that Zhang Xianzhong was planning to take advantage of his large numbers and play the ants moving trick.
Ling Zhan added, "Sir, I don't think that's the only problem. Once these numerous small groups of people are successfully gathered together, even if they only form a force of a thousand or so people, it will pose a serious threat to Yuanzhou, and even cause considerable trouble to us."
Qin Mu nodded, glanced at everyone and asked, "What countermeasures do you have?"
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ps: I have been immersed in writing books in the past few years and have seldom met up with friends. My alcohol tolerance has decreased. Yesterday, I drank a small bottle of strong liquor with a few friends and I still felt hangover in the morning.
It's been so quiet these past two days. There's not even anyone cursing in the book review section. There are few monthly tickets and recommendation tickets, and even the number of clicks is pitifully low. I can't help but think of "From Baicaotang to" which I read in my textbook when I was a child. I liked Lu Xun's articles very much when I was a child. I still remember that the book wrote that there was no one in the school, and the teacher shouted in the study: "Where are all the people!"
At this moment, Hao Yuan not only wanted to ask where the people had gone;
I also want to ask, where has the time gone
.(To be continued..)
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