It’s all in the longevity!
Boom!
With a deafening explosion, huge flames suddenly erupted from the muzzles of the cannons on the city walls.
The next second, a huge iron ball shot into the sky like a meteor.
It was seen that it was flying very fast. It flew two or three miles in almost the blink of an eye, drew a gorgeous arc in the air, then passed over Yelu Dilugu's head and fell directly into the crowd of Liao soldiers outside the city.
"Bang!"
A huge sound wave then exploded like thunder. Since the city wall was high up and the shooting was in a parabolic trajectory instead of a straight line on the ground, it did not create the effect of piercing a candied haws stick.
But even so, the huge solid bullet fell straight down and killed the two people on the spot, then penetrated the ground, raising dust.
Many people didn't even know what had happened. They only knew that the originally densely packed crowd was thrown into chaos in an instant. The blood and brains of the two people who died on the spot splattered everywhere, dust flew up, and there were faint screams.
That was a shell hitting the ground, splashing dirt and rocks everywhere, injuring people around.
The entire battlefield fell silent in an instant.
Everyone froze in their spots, looking around blankly, completely unaware of the explosion and what had landed in their formation.
"Zhu Zi, you bastard, you missed the target!"
Instead, an angry shout erupted from the top of the city wall. It was a middle-aged officer cursing at the artillerymen.
However, just a moment later, the second cannon fired again.
Boom!
After another loud noise, Yelu Dilugu opened his eyes wide, because he saw that the black iron ball was falling straight towards him, and he didn't even have time to urge his horse to escape.
The next moment, there was another "bang" sound, without a scream, and Yelu Dilugu's strong body, including the man and the horse, turned directly into a pool of meat paste. There was only flying dust and the remains of the man and horse buried in the dust, which were smashed to pieces.
"kill!"
Almost at the moment when the enemy general was killed, the north gate of Baosai City opened wide, and a middle-aged officer in armor galloped out on his horse, followed by thousands of cavalrymen.
This middle-aged officer was called Yang Wenguang. He was a guard of the left rank, just a junior officer of the ninth rank, not even a general.
During the Bianliang period, after the artillery was built, artillery test firing was needed, so Zhao Zhen transferred Yang Wenguang, who was a guard at the time, to be the squad leader of the artillerymen. There were only a few cannons anyway, and there were only more than ten artillerymen in total.
When the Liao Kingdom attacked this time, the imperial court mobilized 100,000 imperial troops from the rear to the front line. Yang Wenguang's artillery team was naturally among them. His father, Yang Yanzhao, had served as the prefect of Baozhou and was very familiar with the place. As the son of a general, Yang Wenguang came to Baosai to guard against the Liao Kingdom, which was considered to be following in his father's footsteps.
The damage caused by the two artillery pieces was actually very small. Due to the difficulty in manufacturing grenades, solid bullets could only be used before the industrial level reached that level. So far, two artillery shells had only killed three people and one horse.
But almost at the moment when the Baosai city gate was opened, the Liao infantry phalanx was in chaos. Then, with the first soldier's strange cry of "Ah", he threw away his weapon and turned around to run. The entire Liao infantry phalanx collapsed in an instant, and the defeated soldiers rushed to the rear.
In the era of muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons, solid bullets were indeed less powerful than explosive grenades. However, whether in naval or land warfare, solid bullets were generally recognized as the most effective.
Because in the black powder era, spherical grenades were essentially decorative, producing too few fragments to be effective against infantry. A 12-pound Napoleon shell produced only about 20 fragments. Considering the spherical distribution of fragments, and the fact that the effective fragments above the ground were almost halved, the chance of hitting someone within a 15-meter radius was extremely low.
On the other hand, solid bullets, if fired from a flat surface, can have the effect of piercing through a candied haws string against the enemy's formation. One shot can penetrate a row of people standing upright on the opposite side, no matter how many people there are.
According to "The Science of Victory" and "On War," during the Napoleonic era, a single solid bullet pierced 26 rows of infantry formations, killing over 40 people. These individuals were ripped apart, their bodies ripped apart, and their deaths were horrific, dealing a heavy blow to enemy morale.
From this we can see that although the shells fired from the city walls were parabolic and could not create the effect of a direct shot from the ground to penetrate the heart, this thing that could smash people into pieces from miles away caused great psychological damage to the Liao soldiers!
Under such circumstances, the Liao soldiers around the deceased began to collapse first, and then led others to follow like dominoes. Before the battle even started, the army was defeated.
Even the Liao cavalry supervising the battle stopped killing the fleeing soldiers, but reined in their horses and ran away at a very fast speed.
One is that their Lord is about to die.
Secondly, they were also afraid after seeing what happened to Yelu Dilugu!
Yang Wenguang led several thousand cavalrymen prepared in the city and chased the Liao army all the way, chasing them for several miles and killing hundreds of enemies before returning.
If Yelu Zongzhen had not concentrated all his forces to attack outside the north gate, and if there were Liao troops in the west and east cities who had not yet been defeated, in addition to the north city, and had rushed to the rescue immediately after hearing the noise, I am afraid that this attack would have caused the Liao invasion force to completely collapse.
Even so, Yelu Zongzhen was shocked to learn that the Song army had super long-range killing weapons. The Song army was too powerful. There were catapults throwing thunder bombs within a mile or so, bows and crossbows a hundred steps away, and grenades under the city walls.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
