Volume 2: The King's Way Chapter 167: Bai Gong Cannon
Yuan Huan always felt that these catapults looked a little different from the ones he had seen in Guangling before, but he did not show any abnormality on his face and did not ask any more questions.
The difference is naturally huge!
Outside the cities of Qichun and Guangling, the only equipment used to throw relief grain was the torque catapults that had been used for "practice".
In Chao County, not far from Hefei City, a special team of the Ministry of Industry has been stationed. Shiploads of parts manufactured by the Ministry of Industry are transported directly from Gongkou into the river, to Ruxukou, and into Chaohu Lake. After being unloaded in Chao County, the special team of the Ministry of Industry will complete the final assembly here, as well as the final manufacturing of some parts that do not require much technical content, are easy to obtain locally, but are bulky.
The twenty catapults in front of Bai Tu’s army are all counterweight catapults. The main design concept refers to the "Huiyi Cannon" used by the Mongols in the Battle of Xiangfan between the Song and Yuan Dynasties in later generations. As the name suggests, it is a skill from the Western Regions and was invented by Yi Sima Yin, a Westerner.
In May of the third year of Jian'an, because Yuan Yin refused to cooperate and ignored the people in the city who wanted to welcome Bai Tu, the Jiangdong army outside Hefei City replaced the relief grain thrown every day with stone bombs weighing more than 100 kilograms each!
Yuan Yin also felt that the Jiangdong army was coming with great force today. He climbed up the tower in armor with some nervousness and looked down at the army formation below from the city wall.
"The Yuan thief has ravaged Huainan. The once prosperous and peaceful place is now full of starving people, with people exchanging their children for food. Although Bai started from humble beginnings, he has the people's trust...
"Although you are determined to follow the bandits, I still have a kind heart. If you consider the more than 100,000 people in the city today and open the gate to welcome us to help, you can still leave a good name in history. If you resist stubbornly and ignore the people of Hefei, Bai will have to obey the will of heaven and the people. On the day the city is broken, the main culprit will be cooked in a cauldron and feasted with the soldiers and civilians of Hefei!" Bai Tu shouted loudly under the city.
Yuan Yin knew the reason and even expected it, as Bai Tu had changed his previous persuasion in a nonchalant and pleading manner and suddenly became vicious today, threatening to stew him and share his food with the whole city.
The surrender of Guangling and Qichun not only hit the morale of the Huainan army and inspired Bai Tu's Jiangdong army, but also enabled Bai Tu to completely gain the moral upper hand.
Yuan Yin had anticipated this before, Bai Tu... might have to attack the city head-on!
After all, how could tens of thousands of people waded into the drought-stricken Huainan and do nothing?
However, after hearing Bai Tu's threat... especially when the 30,000 elite soldiers outside shouted in unison, "Let's share it together, let's share it together", Yuan Yin was still nervous.
"Bai Tu! Let's not talk about the past for now. You keep saying that you are doing this for the common people, but there is drought in Huainan and Jiangdong now. Isn't it against the way of benevolence for you to mobilize the army at this time?" Yuan Yin shouted with a stiff face.
"Absurd! The three million people in Jiangdong have worked together to worry about the concerns of their fellow countrymen in Huainan, and have been anxious about the urgent needs of their fellow countrymen in Huainan. They have cut back on their clothes and food, and have obtained millions of tons of relief grain, hoping to overcome the difficulties together with the people in Huainan. You, for your own selfish desires, have blocked it. It seems that Yuan Lin and his ilk have done such a jackal-like thing of poisoning the people in order to discredit Jiangdong...
"Soldiers! Can you tolerate this happening? Can you watch the good intentions of the elders of Jiangdong being wasted and the innocent people of Huainan being harmed by Yuan Ni?" Bai Tu asked loudly.
At this time, among the 30,000 Jiangdong troops, there were nearly 5,000 "living people", a very high proportion - Bai Tu's temple to protect the people and the treatment of soldiers increased the enthusiasm for joining the army, and the number of grassroots sergeants and squad leaders became more and more abundant.
In the world of Cheng Ji, even if the princes are warlike, they can only increase the proportion of manpower drawn, and rarely force men to join the army - because the living people in the army are at least sergeants, and even in the Huainan Army, because too much manpower is drawn and it is unpopular among the people, the living people joining the army start from the rank of sergeant.
In this situation, if the men are forced to be soldiers and they betray their allies in the middle of a battle, it may cause chaos on the battlefield.
In comparison, although Bai Tu’s Jiangdong Army has a small proportion of conscription, the corresponding... sergeants are almost complete!
Moreover, Bai Tu specially set up a propaganda team in the army. The prototype of it was the persuasion team that Bai Tu had previously asked the Ministry of Rites to set up. However, some of the officials and clerks transferred to the army by the Ministry of Rites were too out of touch with reality, and the time they spent on preaching had even become a burden to the grassroots officers.
After Zhang Liao reported this to Bai Tu, Bai Tu also made adjustments. He replaced them with a propaganda team that could better integrate with the officers and was even selected from the officers themselves. There were not so many annoying principles and the focus was on "war mobilization" before each battle.
For example, at this time, all the Jiangdong army understood that they were fighting for the people of Huainan!
Think about the old and young in your family, who are living frugally and eating relief food, isn’t it just to help the people in Huainan?
Every time I think of this, the soldiers in the army feel proud...
However, the enemy was so cruel that they did not allow them to hand over the relief grain to the people in Huainan. How could there be such bad people?
A sense of solidarity against a common enemy arose among the Jiangdong army - the lord is right, this "benevolence" was put together by us, the elders of Jiangdong, and it must be given away!
Understanding the significance of war not only helps to boost morale, but also helps to enforce military discipline.
After Bai Tu finished shouting, he retreated to the high earthen platform behind the formation.
As the "chief commander", Bai Tu is only responsible for the command of the grand strategy, and the specific command power lies in the hands of Lu Bu.
With the personal soldiers beside Bai Tu, under Bai Tu's command, flag signals were raised, and Ding Feng, the vanguard of the vanguard army, shouted: "Move up the Baigong Cannon!"
Baigong Cannon... Bai Tu also felt that the name was a bit awkward. Anyway, now there were twenty Baigong Cannons, all pointed at the city wall of Hefei.
"Lift!"
Crunch, crunch—
I saw the short arm end of the Baigong cannon's throwing wall being pulled up by a group of soldiers using a winch - the weight at the short arm end was ten times that of the long arm end. Although the long arm end saves effort according to the lever principle, due to the huge weight difference, the short arm end is still normally at the bottom.
The winch also uses the principle of the pulley, which makes it easier to lift the short arm weight. When one end of the long arm falls, stone bullets weighing more than 100 kilograms are placed in the bullet nest at the end of the long arm...
"put!"
At Ding Feng's command, the winch that was originally supporting the short arm end was loosened, and under the weight of more than a thousand pounds, the stone bullet weighing more than a hundred pounds was directly lifted up, and because it was located on the long arm side of the lever, the lifting speed was extremely fast!
"Raise your shields and face forward!" Yuan Yin also gave the order immediately.
After all, with the "feeding" a few days ago, Yuan Yin also knew what these were used for.
Amid the sound of wind and thunder, stone bullets weighing more than 100 kilograms were lifted to the highest point and flew towards Hefei City.
Most of them hit the city wall directly, but some landed on the tower...
The "grain delivery truck" from a few days ago showed its majestic side in front of Hefei city today!
Just then, a stone bullet hit a personal soldier who was holding a seemingly reliable heavy shield under Yuan Yin's command.
Yuan Yin only heard a roar in his ears, and then one of his personal soldiers was missing. Looking carefully... the broken shields, broken wood and stone armor, and the broken personal soldiers were indistinguishable from each other.
"This, this..." Yuan Yin couldn't help but be stunned.
The Baigong Cannon under the city did not give Yuan Yin a chance to react. After some adjustments, the second round of volleys came again!
The people who were debugging the Baigong Cannon were also accompanied by the Ministry of Works. At this time, they were correcting the angle of the turret and raising the height of the short arm based on the previous landing point...
Of course, although standardized processing has kept the differences between each Baigong cannon within a very small range, due to different wear and tear and the use of hastily polished stone bullets, the weight, center of gravity, and even shape of each stone bullet are different. It is technically impossible to expect the Baigong cannon to be able to aim accurately.
There is no need for precise positioning. Under Ding Feng's order, the target to be calibrated is the middle of the opposite city wall.
There was another round of artillery fire with thunder and lightning, but this time none of the shots "accidentally hit" the defenders on the city wall. However... the defenders on the city wall could clearly feel that the wall was shaking!
Although a faint golden light flashed on the city wall when the stone bullets hit it, which reduced some of the power, it was still not immune.
The main target of the Huihui cannon has never been the defenders, but the city walls or warships.
According to the "History of Yuan Dynasty" in another world, this kind of Huihui cannon "weighs 150 kilograms, and when fired, the sound shakes the heavens and the earth, and everything it hits is destroyed, penetrating seven feet into the ground"...
It was this powerful weapon invented by Western craftsmen that put an end to the last phase of the Song and Yuan offensive and defensive battles in Xiangfan, which lasted nearly six years. The Song Dynasty was doomed at this point and lost its last chance to drag down the Yuan and Mongolians.
In the history of "another world", the first appearance of Huihui cannon broke through Fancheng. Lü Wenhuan, who had defended Xiangyang for nearly six years, had no way to break the offensive of Huihui cannon and was forced by the Yuan army's massacre in Fancheng, so he had to leave the city and surrender to the Yuan army.
Afterwards, the Huihui artillery also followed the Yuan army's offensive and defeated the Yangtze River Navy, Tanzhou, and Jingjiang...
Of course, the Huihui Cannon is not invincible. No matter how it is optimized, its movement speed is extremely slow and even heavy infantry cannot outrun it. It can only be used for attack and defense in fixed positions.
As long as the army formation is set in motion, the Huihui artillery array is equivalent to finding an ancestor and a vital point for the army formation.
Therefore, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, when various rebel armies rebelled against the Yuan Dynasty, this thing was no longer seen . In the cavalry confrontation between the Ming and Jin dynasties, the catapult was even more of a joke.
However, just as the Song army in the late Southern Song Dynasty was unable to engage in direct combat with the Mongols and could only defend itself in dangerous places, do the Yuan army in Hefei City now dare to come down and fight Lu Bu?
"put!"
After the third round of Baigong cannon roared out, the golden light on the Hefei city wall was almost dim and invisible - this was largely due to the establishment of the Zhong family "dynasty", which gave all the city walls in the country a founding buff.
Otherwise, judging purely from the perspective of public opinion, the city wall of Hefei would probably not have played such a big role.
Yuan Yin also knew that if he continued like this, the defensive effect of the founding buff would probably not be able to save him.
The power of the Baigong Cannon was beyond his expectations. Although the Jiangdong Army had exhausted its stone bullets after firing five rounds,...
Yuan Yin had not cleared the surrounding stone sources before, which means that with just a simple repair, the other party could replenish stone bullets. There was no point in continuing to wait for the city wall to collapse!
