But behind the tenacious and tough front of the Mongolian army, it was already a mess. The basic killing of the Song Dynasty fell on the rear ranks of the Mongolians. Their messengers lined up to shoot at the Mongolian army formation behind in the gap between the infantry phalanx. Although there were only six formations, the firepower of the Song army musketeers was continuously creating killing. Given the dense formation of the Mongolian army, almost every bullet was wasted.

When the Mongolian phalanx caught up from the back row to participate in the war, they suffered heavy losses before the battle. The more terrifying blow came from the shooting of the Song army's artillery. Generally speaking, if it was not a mortar, or, according to folk sayings, the dwarf cannon could use curved trajectories to shoot, ordinary muskets and cannons could usually only be deployed in front of the army for direct shooting. This is because the cannon's trajectory is straight and no obstacles can be set in front of the muzzle.

However, the Song people obviously used a new type of shooting method, tilting the muzzle up to a certain angle, so that the shells could fly over the head of the infantry formation of their own, forming a shallow arc, and directly falling into the enemy formation opposite. Because its trajectory is more elegant than rough straight-line shooting or obscene curved shooting, it was given a poetic name by the literati in Lin'an, "Rainbow Falling".

Although the name is beautiful, if the usual solid shell is used, rainbow fall will become a tactic that is not useful, because only flat shots can achieve the best killing effect. Similar to the shooting technique of rainbow falls, it can only smash a large pit on the ground. If it cannot cause direct damage to the enemy, then its power will be very limited.

Obviously, the Song Dynasty did not invent such shooting methods only for beauty. They had a more practical need, which was to give full play to the power of new shells.

The idea of ​​practical grenades almost existed from the moment the artillery began to appear. However, for twenty years, the Song Dynasty has continuously invested manpower and material resources in grenade development, but usually has little effect. The grenades developed are either insufficient power or difficult to apply to the active artillery. However, Zheng Yunming still stubbornly insisted on the development of this weapon. Inside and outside the court, the inside and outside of the court regarded it as one of the rare failures of the wise and wise Zheng Xianggong. This is because the grenade envisioned by Zheng Yunming must meet two contradictory conditions. One is that the shell of the grenade must be solid enough to withstand the ultra-high pressure caused by the explosion of gunpowder in the cannon chamber, and the other is that the shell of the shell must be fragile enough to allow the hidden explosive to immediately break into countless small fragments after it explodes, increasing lethality.

This seems to be a pair of conflicts that cannot be reconciled at all. No wonder even the emperor himself complained to his close servants while chatting: "If this matter can be accomplished, wouldn't it be that he would carry firewood to put out the fire and keep the ice cold? Zheng Yunming has been wise all his life, how can this matter be so confused?"

Naturally, the research on grenades has not made any profit. At least the research on grenades provided an extremely effective siege ammunition for the trencher troops, namely the grenade for the trencher, also known as the flowering bomb. Before this war, the Song army in Yunnan had already used the trencher to throw flowering bombs in the Battle of Dragon Head, with significant effects. Secondly, the research on grenades derived a new accompanying invention, which was a hand-held grenade with leads. The grenades that needed to be ignited and threw by hands quickly eliminated old-fashioned firearms such as fire caltrops and ten thousand enemies with their huge lethality and shocking effect, and quickly won the popularity of the Song Dynasty's Buzhu. The rapidly popular grenades have become more and more weapons used by the Song army in close combat, although this

The effect of a weapon is not as exaggerated as the people boast. The soldiers on the front line even gave the hand-thrown grenade a harsh nickname called "Go and Return" thunder. This is because if the throwing time and the length of the lead cannot be perfectly matched, it will not explode immediately when throwing it into the enemy's cluster. The enemy often builds grenades that have not yet exploded and thrown back hard, which will cause casualties on its own. Despite this, the emergence of hand-thrown grenades provides an extremely effective means for close combat and city offensive and defensive operations. It is precisely because of the good performance of the catapult grenades and hand-thrown grenades that the Ministry of War can tolerate Zheng Yunming's application to advance the cannon grenade project when throwing investments into the water again and again.

Now, the consistent persistence over the past twenty years has finally achieved results.

Although this result is not as perfect as Zheng Yunming expected, the final result is inevitably a product of compromise. In order to launch grenades, all artillery cannons can only reduce the launching medicine by two-thirds, and only use about 30% of the original launching medicine, and the range is much more close to the solid bomb. In order to ensure that the shells can withstand huge pressure on gunpowder in the chamber, the shells of the grenades have to be made thick, resulting in limited loading of gunpowder not enough to blow the iron shells, and at most they only explode in half. For a grenade, this is not even as low as Zheng Yunming's minimum standard.

But all this is enough for today's decisive battle. Mongolia imitated the large formation formed by the Song Dynasty. Even a grenade that exploded into two halves could cause terrible damage to the dense crowd. As for the only problem, it was because the accuracy of the shooting was too poor and it could not cause such damage frequently. However, being exploded by grenades falling from the sky from time to time is already a blow to morale. For those recruits who had just been recruited, witnessing the burning iron block flying across the crowd of comrades, breaking the bones and tendons that were broken by people. Even if there were hundreds of Mongolian households and thousands of households in charge, someone would not be allowed to secretly throw down his weapons and escape.

Although Li Gu did not care much about the losses of these newcomers. As long as the territory was in, similar young and strong could be recruited as much as they wanted. The poorest part of the Han area was far more populated than the northern part of the Mo area. But what really made him heartbroken was the losses of the cavalry as an elite force. In order to ensure the stability of the front line, the Mongolian army had to constantly encircle the two wings with cavalry in order to involve the infantry attack of the Song army and threaten the Song army with flanks. In the past, when the Mongolian army used cavalry only, this tactic was often used. With the use of firearms and the infantry became the protagonist of the battlefield again, this tactic almost became the standard configuration of the Mongolian army. But it is also obvious that the flank encirclement of the cavalry was becoming less and less comfortable to advance and retreat as before.

Light cavalrymen wearing leather armor or simple iron armor rushed up regardless of their formation. It was the traditional tactic of the Han cavalry. However, when facing the well-prepared infantry team of the Shenwu New Army, such tactics encountered layers of strict fire interception. First, the direct interception of the grape shells of the tiger cannon, knocking down a group of brave men rushing in front, and then the muskets of the muskets were fired. Although these veterans were born with Li Gu.

He died and participated in the expedition to Goryeo and the North of the Ridge. However, when facing an unprecedented fire strike, the situation where the corpses of people and horses could not approach the enemy's formation was the first time he had seen it. In the face of such heavy casualties, these veterans still mustered up the courage to launch second and third attacks desperately, which was a commendable thing in itself. However, with such continuous charges, huge casualties were naturally inevitable.

Alihan had no expression on his face and asked coldly: "How many people have died?"

Li Gu said anxiously: "It took less than an hour of fighting, and more than 2,000 people have been killed or injured!"

"Very good." Marshal Alihan responded expressionlessly: "Let me tell me if I die until five thousand!"

Li Gu suddenly changed color, and his whole body trembled and shouted: "Come on my pocket!" When a young man, a personal soldier brought the pocket weapon. Li Gu put on his helmet and turned over the horse, shouting: "All the men follow me!" He immediately took his personal follower and killed him.

On the other hand, Zhang Sheng was also surprised by the Mongolian army's sacrificial battle. Usually, the fighting will of the Mongolian Han soldiers was not as high as that of their main troops. Although the combat effectiveness of several Han soldiers and their elite troops was not weaker than that of the elite troops of the Mongolian headquarters, the combat effectiveness and morale of these conscription soldiers were usually not high. It was unprecedented to fight like today.

Fortunately, Zheng Xianggong also made up his mind to win in this battle. Before the battle, he issued an order to the entire army: "If you leave the team, you will kill the generals, and the generals will kill the entire team! If you lose today, you will be a slave to another race. Life is worse than death! If you win today, you will be a treasure of thousands of times, and the world will be left with all your might! Move forward with all your might and achieve success for all generations!" Under such encouragement, the Song army pushed forward with all his life and forcing the enemy who was struggling to retreat step by step.

But why did the Mongolians fight so hard? What Alihan wants to fight for is not space, but time. When death and blood were piled up in front of him, thousands of civilians were dragging heavy beasts hard on the road behind him, moving forward inch by inch. The existence of the Shenwu cannon has become one of the spiritual pillars of the Mongolian army. Seeing the firearms that the Song people used to rely on for the past became their own nightmare and turned into powder inch by the fierce artillery fire, the Mongolian army felt proud. Even the Ezhou city walls built with stones and bricks turned into powder in front of the Shenwu cannon. Could it be that Zheng Yunming's subordinates were all indestructible bodies of the Vajra!

With such a New Year, Alihan ordered Li Gu to lead his army to fight to the death and buy time for the transfer of the Shenwu cannon. Of course, he still had a scruple after all, let the Han people act as cannon fodder on the ground and hold the elite proton army in his hands to preserve his strength. It should be noted that these protons are not only young nobles of the Mongolian tribe, but also children of the Western Regions and the powerful Han areas. The value of these people is far more than death on the battlefield. Or, it is a waste to consume their lives at will on the battlefield. They will become seeds, sow on the vast lands of Jiangnan and Nanyang that are about to be conquered, take root and sprout, and grow into towering trees, and protect these lands with gold and beautiful jade forever for the Mongolian Empire.
Chapter completed!