Nan Ming Sun Never Sets

Chapter 55 The Battle of the King of Jin to Kill the Thieves ([-])

The lack of firearms has always been a problem for the Ming Dynasty Restoration Army, especially after Li Dingguo studied the "Western Land Art of War", he is sure that in future wars, new types of firearms and firearm tactics will emerge in an endless stream.However, despite all kinds of support from Zheng He's remnants in Australia, the ranks of the Ming Dynasty Restoration Army continued to expand, and guns and artillery were not enough.

Otherwise, it would not have happened. The Army's First Division and Army's Second Division organized by Li Dingguo only had two artillery regiments, and they were not satisfied with the formation. The cavalry division had no artillery at all.

Li Dingguo's artillery is mainly the Napoleon cannon that Bai Mingxiu exchanged before, namely the Type 15 front-loading smoothbore cannon with two calibers of 80 mm and 120 mm.These are very good field artillery, and Li Dingguo gradually discovered its subtleties during use. However, this kind of artillery is still slightly insufficient for siege.

Fortunately, the Kunming Manchu Qing defenders faced by the Ming army were not opponents of the same rank. Although Kunming was a prefectural city, it was not a large-scale city defense.Moreover, the overall defensive layout of the city wall is a product of the Middle Ages, and it is not good at anti-cannon.

The artillery of the two divisions of the Ming Dynasty Restoration Army set up artillery positions on both sides of the city wall.The artillery used by the Ming army to siege the city was mainly a 120mm caliber howitzer.These artillery are actually slightly insufficient for siege, no matter in terms of quantity or power.

In order to make up for the lack of artillery in the Ming Dynasty's Restoration Army, Li Dingguo even ordered to temporarily pull out the 18-pound naval guns and several 32-pound mortars from several frigates stationed in the Myanmar fleet.In addition to the usable artillery captured by the Qing army before, the Ming army led by Li Dingguo deployed a total of one hundred artillery pieces on both sides.

Jin Tongwu, who was already qualified as the commander of the First Division, said to Li Dingguo: "Commander, instead of shooting directly at the artillery deployed on the Kunming city defense, we still have a lot of risk."

Li Dingguo didn't care too much, and said: "Wu Sangui's artillery is not too many. The roads in Yunnan and Guizhou are rough and difficult, and the artillery from the Central Plains is difficult to reach. In addition, the artillery of the Qing army is not unified. Although the battle in the city made the Hongyi cannons have a longer range, but I don't like the artillery skills of the Qing army. Our position is located at the front, and it is not easy for the Tartar artillery to hit it, let alone be accurate. .”

Li Dingguo has initially become a general with modern military thinking. Bai Mingxiu read history books when he was young. Many historians described Li Dingguo's military talent as unparalleled.This is indeed the case for Li Dingguo. He has studied the art of war in the West, and verified it with his actual experience in leading troops. He is already quite standard.

The effective range of the artillery of the Ming Dynasty Fuguo Army is about 1200 meters, and the longest artillery of the Qing Army is almost 1000 meters. Although the maximum range can be improved in theory, but in fact, considering the bullet points, it threatens the Ming Dynasty Fuguo. The possibility of corps artillery positions is slim.

Moreover, after Li Dingguo took over the retraining of the Daming Fuguo Army, he accepted a lot of military theories from later generations from Bai Mingxiu, and honed the soldiers' thinking, fighting spirit and values, which became one of Li Dingguo's key management things.

In fact, when the Nanming Building collapsed, Li Dingguo had also moved towards paranoia and chaos.He once lamented in front of the man-eating city of Xinhui, but when he was in Yunnan, he would kill those who might surrender because he suspected that his generals would defect to the Qing army.They were even worried that the deserters would reveal their whereabouts and military secrets, and would order people to attack these deserters.When he goes to Mengen's village, he will also kill in order to maintain the army and not cause more trouble to himself.

But when Bai Mingxiu appeared, everything changed.Li Dingguo rebuilt the Ming army spiritually. He took the banner of restoring the country and set an example. Under the bureaucratic atmosphere, people are convinced by ability and prestige.

It can be said that Li Dingguo's complete worship under Bai Mingxiu has a huge relationship with Bai Mingxiu's efforts to reorganize the Ming army.

So now Li Dingguo, he knows that maybe the artillery shells of the Qing army will fall on the head of his army, but the artillery of the Ming army is going to attack Kunming with a neat posture, and they will not move under the artillery fire. The blow to the morale of the Qing army will also be very huge.

"Boom!" The artillery finally started shelling Kunming. Hundreds of artillery shells began to pour shells at the southwestern important town at their own pace without stopping.

The sound of the artillery was so fierce that even Li Dingguo would not ask the cavalry and the elephant team of the feudal army to approach the artillery, for fear that the sound of the artillery would startle the animals.

Solid bullets hit Kunming's not particularly thick city wall, causing potholes on the city wall and peeling off of the wall. Although it was not particularly serious, it is obvious that the shelling of the Ming army had an obvious effect. of.

Li Dingguo's youngest son, Li Runxing, was still younger than the prince Zhu Cixuan at this time, but he had been brought by Li Dingguo's side to educate him.Looking at the condition of the city wall, Li Runxing asked Li Dingguo, "Father, the "Western Land Art of War" records that when attacking the city, it is difficult for the cannons to directly attack the solid city defense. Looking at the city of Kunming, my son may blast it like this." In a few days, this city should be broken."

Li Dingguo loves his studious young son very much. He said: "Cannons are hard to break through. Those Westerners built bastions whose walls may be five or six feet thick. The walls of my Ming Dynasty are all handed down from ancient times. Yes, I didn’t think too much about defending against artillery, and Kunming is not the strongest city, and it is possible to be bombed through the city wall. As long as the wall collapses and forms a slope, then our army can attack.”

At this time, the commander on the artillery position has already shouted: "Mortar, replace the hollow shell!"

Mortars with a relatively large arc trajectory, although very bulky, can generally be made large in caliber. The Ming army’s hollow flower bombs are actually a type of artillery shell from Europe. The shell has its own fuze. It needs to be ignited first, and then Launched, the shell exploded when it flew over the target, and then released a large number of fragments, causing casualties within a range.

This ammunition was cumbersome and unsafe, but artillerymen still liked it because it was so good.

The mortar was pushed forward by the gun cart pulled by multiple horses. After the setting was completed, it began to fire shells towards the city wall.Originally, the city wall had been attacked by solid bullets and became crumbling. Only sporadic city defense cannons could continue to operate, but there was no way to cause substantial damage to the artillery of the Ming army.

(End of this chapter)