Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

“Boom boom—boom boom boom—”

Black smoke billowed from the artillery positions as more than forty artillery pieces of various types exploded one after another at the west gate of Suzhou City. Even the rammed earth walls surrounding the artillery pieces raised dust.

Amid the deafening sound, the west gate of Suzhou City, along with the gate tower and the walls on both sides of the gate tower, were hit one after another.

The solid shells had knocked several holes in the wooden boards of the city gate, but since the city gate had been completely blocked by huge rocks by Liu Liangzuo at that time, the damage to the gate was of no use.

The city gate tower was almost entirely made of wood and suffered severe damage, with the plaque even being blown away by a solid cannonball.

The blue bricks on the city walls on both sides were broken into pieces by the impact of artillery shells.

Liu Liangzuo, who was still watching in the city gate tower, had a grim face. He was not hit, but he was in a mess due to the fallen wooden boards and debris from the city gate.

"Order Chen Datou to fire back! Aim at those cannons!" Liu Liangzuo brushed off the dirt on his body and said to the messenger.

A few breaths later, more than 20 cannons within the range of Suzhou's west city wall, after calibrating their muzzles, began to spew out flames one after another.

Boom-boom-boom-boom-

Of course, the target of artillery is much smaller than the city gate and gate tower. Of the more than 20 artillery pieces on both sides of Suzhou’s west gate, less than half hit the target.

Even the dozen or so shells that hit the wall were all hit by the bamboo-stacked earth wall. The solid shells hit the half-compacted earth and only made a dull sound, and then...

It's gone.

Liu Liangzuo glanced at the city and his eyes widened.

The artillery has no effect!

Of course, Zhang Shikang was also paying attention to his artillery positions. In fact, this method of defending against artillery was not what he had in mind.

His brain is good for reform, but terrible for innovation.

This method was told to him by Mao Yuanyi before. The rammed earth wall is the natural nemesis of solid artillery shells. The artillery shells often consume all their kinetic energy when they penetrate into the earth pile.

"We have to believe in science! General Mao is still the best." Zhang Shikang muttered.

This time, Zhang Shikang did not bring Mao Yuanyi with him on the expedition, using a trumped-up excuse.

Scientists should do research. If they died on the battlefield, Zhang Shikang would have no place to cry.

Since the imperial court no longer lacked silver, before Zhang Shikang went on the expedition, he specifically asked his brother Chongzhen for permission to allocate one million taels of silver as start-up capital.

The first project to be undertaken with this money was to open up an area on the right side of the Xishan camp, allowing the Ministry of Works to build various workshop buildings required by Zhang Shikang.

Although the Ministry of Industry has many workshops of various types, most of them are only responsible for mass production, and there is basically no research on various disciplines of firearms.

It's not absolute, but the Ministry of Industry has problems with the research direction of firearms. They have made some strange firearms, but compared with traditional firearms, they are just a change of name without any essential improvement.

Especially in the development of artillery, the Ming Dynasty went astray in terms of technology, and the artillery became bigger and bigger, with some red cannons even weighing 10,000 pounds.

It’s not that bigger is bad, but without much improvement in technology, not only will the cost of labor and materials be high, but the increase in power will not be proportional. Once the barrel explodes, tens of thousands of taels of silver will be wasted.

Zhang Shikang had previously suffered from a lack of money and talent, but now the thing the national treasury lacked the least was money, so he decisively launched this new project.

According to his plan, the workshop complex next to the Xishan Camp will serve as an experimental base for various disciplines of the Ming Dynasty in the future, or an institution such as a research institute.

Research included but was not limited to firearms, gunpowder, chemistry, and Zhang Shikang's other fantastic ideas.

Fortunately, the flow of the Yongding River next to the Xishan Camp was too small, otherwise Zhang Shikang would have had to build a shipyard in Beijing.

Off topic.

"Tell Xu Wenyuan to aim at the cannons on the city wall first!" Zhang Shikang ordered.

Although the artillery on the walls of Suzhou City did not cause any substantial damage to his artillery positions, the same was true for Zhang Shikang's artillery.

The reason is simple: the artillery is not good.

The impact force of solid shells is enough, but the destructive power, especially on city walls, is really average.

Although the concave earthen city method was effective, it was only fixed with bamboo boards. After only one round of volleys, the bamboo boards of several earthen cities were blown into pieces, and the earth piles had begun to loosen.

If Liu Liangzuo continues to attack for a few more rounds, the defensive power of the concave earth wall will be gone.

Since Zhang Shikang did not want to choose soldiers to attack the city, he was naturally prepared for a protracted war.

Therefore, it would be a wiser choice to target Suzhou City’s defense artillery first.

Liu Liangzuo was actually quite depressed. In addition to his more than 20,000 troops in Suzhou City, there were more than 20,000 garrison soldiers who had fled from the nearby Zhenjiang Prefecture and Changzhou Prefecture.

Suzhou City is neither small nor big, and 50,000 troops are more than enough to defend it.

In order to stop Zhang Shikang from attacking the city, Liu Liangzuo even mobilized tens of thousands of militiamen in the city.

After all, those who died at the beginning of the defense of the city were definitely not soldiers, but civilians in the city.

In addition to doing hard labor, carrying rolling logs, thunder stones, and boiling water, these militiamen were also responsible for throwing things under the city.

Unfortunately, Zhang Shikang had no intention of exchanging the lives of the Beijing soldiers for the city wall of Suzhou.

This made all of Liu Liangzuo's previous arrangements very awkward.

So the inside and outside of the west gate of Suzhou City became a strange scene.

Both sides looked at each other, you fired at me and I fired at you.

At that time, the speed of changing ammunition for artillery was very slow. Often, after firing a shot, a gunner would use a broom-like object made of cloth strips to wipe the burnt gunpowder waste in the barrel.

After wiping it clean, reload the gunpowder, install the fuse, and then stuff the solid cannonball in and tamp it down.

Of course, there were also more than a dozen falconets on the artillery position. Although the caliber of the falconets was not as good as that of the red cannon, it had an advantage.

This type of artillery was continuously improved by the Portuguese and Ming Dynasty firearms craftsmen and designed into a mother-and-child barrel model.

In short, it is to put a smaller barrel into the gun barrel. The gunpowder and lead bullets in this barrel are already pressed. You just need to load it into the barrel and it can be fired.

After the firing is completed, you only need to take out the sub-gun, clean it briefly, and then put another sub-gun back in. This is more than twice as fast as changing ammunition in traditional artillery.

But even so, it still took Zhang Shikang more than a dozen rounds of artillery fire before he destroyed all the artillery pieces within the range of Suzhou City's west gate.

In order to prevent Liu Liangzuo from transferring artillery from other city walls to the west city wall again, Zhang Shikang did not let Xu Wenyuan stop the shelling.

The bombardment continued until noon, when the entire battlements of the western city wall were blown away, making it impossible for Liu Liangzuo to set up his artillery.

Of course, there was a price to pay. Eight or nine artillery pieces in Zhang Shikang's artillery position were put out of service, and more than a hundred gunners were killed in the battle.

But until this moment, the real siege has just begun.

"Target the city gate, concentrate fire!"

……