There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 142 Artillery Battle
The Han army did not have many combat soldiers. Excluding the young and strong militiamen whose combat effectiveness was questionable, there were only more than 20,000 regular soldiers who had actually received training. Although there were not many infantry, they did bring a lot of cannons, muskets, and crossbows.

As the messenger beside Nie Yu used the walkie-talkie to issue orders to the artillery battalion, a cannon was mounted on a gun carriage behind the artillery position and turned towards the Qing army position and adjusted its position.

Including the newly cast cannons, the number of heavy artillery of the Han army has reached 50 pieces, including the cannons used by the rear army to defend the city. The number of light mortars (modified tiger squat cannons) is even greater, exceeding 400 pieces, and there are 5 heavy siege artillery.

Such powerful firepower may seem a bit exaggerated, but compared with the firearms ratio of the Qing army, it is obvious that the Han army has too few cannons.

Wang Er, an artillery battalion commander of the Han army, simply glanced through a telescope at the Qing army's artillery positions and exclaimed in amazement, "These Qing dogs have so many cannons! From this cursory glance, there must be at least several hundred. They're just too small. They're all small cannons, not many big ones."

Shaking his head, Wang Er raised his hand and issued a military order to his artillery team: "Men! The general has ordered that the first shot of this decisive battle be fired by us."

"As ordered!"

The captains of several artillery teams received the order in unison, and then immediately returned to their respective positions, directing the gunners to aim at the Qing army positions and quickly load shells and gunpowder.

The gunners were very skilled in their operations, thanks to sufficient food and wages, as well as continuous training.

It didn't take long for Wang Er's artillery team to load all the artillery pieces. They looked at the Qing army gunners on the opposite side, who were still pushing the artillery carts forward several hundred meters away.

Wang Er shouted with full energy: "Fire: Target: Qing artillery position ahead."

"Boom boom boom!"

Several cannons fired almost simultaneously.

The pungent smell of sulfur and gunpowder was accompanied by a large amount of smoke. Several solid ball shells flew out from the gun barrel, drew a parabola of several hundred meters in the air, and fell directly into the dense Qing army artillery positions.

The first shell's trajectory was poor, and it missed the Qing soldier, instead hitting the ground first. Its immense kinetic energy created a large crater, sending up a shower of dust and gravel. It then bounced back up, smashing the unfortunate Qing soldier, who had no time to react, from the thigh to the lower body.

The upper body of the Qing soldier was thrown to the ground by inertia. Before he could struggle or wail, he died on the spot.

The shell smashed through the flesh and blood, but its force did not decrease at all, and it continued to fly forward and bounce, just smashing a Qing army's sub-cannon into pieces. Wood chips flew everywhere on the gun carriage, and the barrel of the mother cannon weighing dozens of kilograms was thrown far away.

After smashing a Qing army's sub-cannon, the shell's kinetic energy was finally consumed. It no longer bounced, but rolled on the ground at high speed. Relying on its own weight and speed, it broke several more legs.

After one round of bombardment, more than half of the shells were used up, but due to the tremendous power of heavy artillery solid bullets and sugar gunpowder, the Qing army's artillery positions still suffered considerable casualties.

Eldengbao also had a telescope, a gift from Emperor Qianlong, which he usually didn't want to use. He was stunned: "Where did the rebels get the red cannon?"

Not only Eldengbao was surprised, but Delentang and Mingliang were also confused. They felt that they had taken the rebels very seriously and thought that the rebels must have cannons, but they only thought they were small-caliber cannons.

But now, where did this red cannon come from?

Of course, the Qing army also had red-coated cannons, but the actual number of red-coated cannons of the Qing army was very small. The artillery that the local Green Camp and Eight Banners could truly equip were mostly sub-cannons and Weiyuan cannons.

Moreover, the main type was the sub-munitions cannon, with the Weiyuan cannon as an auxiliary. The sub-munitions cannon generally weighed 30 to 40 kilograms, which was a typical light field artillery. The Weiyuan cannon was heavier, weighing more than 300 kilograms, which was considered a heavy artillery of the Qing army.

And what about the Han army’s heavy artillery?
Well, the smallest one weighs 1 ton, which is a 6-pound cannon, and the largest one weighs nearly 5 tons. The Han army currently has 5 such heavy cannons, and they were all brought here by Nie Yu on a packboat.

Even though it is a light mortar, its weight is not much different from that of a submachine gun, but after being improved based on the blueprints produced in the mall, its range and power have been greatly enhanced. In addition, it has a seamless steel pipe as the main body, so it can also withstand the chamber pressure of sugar gunpowder.

"Boom boom boom!"

After a round of artillery fire, the Han army gunners seemed to have officially sounded the clarion call for attack.

50 heavy artillery pieces and 400 light mortars all fired indiscriminately at the advancing Qing army artillery positions, pouring down artillery fire.

Under the dense firepower network, the Qing army artillerymen were completely unable to push forward. The heavy artillery was not a big deal, although it was powerful, but there were not many of them, so the shells could only bounce back and forth locally.

But light mortars are different. Even if the hit rate is low after firing more than 400 shells, if you remove one-third of them, you can still get more than 100 shells to hit the target.

With sugar gunpowder and improved blueprints, the Han army mortar was already very close to the modern mortar, and also had the functions of normal light artillery.

When this shot is fired, its power is fully utilized within the effective range of several hundred meters!
The Qing artillerymen were so badly hit that they couldn't fight back. The advantage of the sub-cannon, as a light artillery piece, lay in its rate of fire, not its range. Its maximum range was only 300 meters, and its effective range was just over 100 meters. Yet, the Han army was already covering their lines with fire from just a few hundred meters away. The Han army's heavy artillery was already trained on the Qing army's rear artillery and gunpowder barrels, a thousand meters away.

A heavy artillery shell luckily hit a cart that was transporting a barrel of gunpowder. The high heat and speed of the artillery instantly ignited the gunpowder in the barrel, and then caused a violent explosion. Several Qing soldiers pushing the cart were blown to pieces on the spot.

How can we fight this? There is absolutely no way to fight this!

As the temporary commander-in-chief of the three armies, Eldengbao was able to remain calm because the war had already begun. Excessive interference and changes in the battlefield would not only be useless, but would make the situation worse.

Even when Delentang volunteered to take the Baturu cavalry to crush the rebels' cannons, he flatly refused.

Cavalry is the Qing army's trump card and the key to determining the direction of the war. He has just observed with a telescope that the rebels seem to have very few cavalry. In addition, in the previous cavalry confrontations, the number of the rebels' scouts is obviously insufficient.

This is also reasonable. The rebels started their journey in Hunan and Xiangxi, where horses are not produced. Even the thousands of cavalrymen under his command were actually gathered from seven provinces, and were not cavalry units from Hunan and Xiangxi.

Moreover, the Qing army's artillery seemed to have been suppressed by the Han army, but the actual losses were still within an acceptable range. This was because the Qing army had too many artillery pieces, almost reaching an average of 10 artillery pieces per thousand-man commander.

Such a high proportion of firearms quota was not because the Qing Dynasty attached great importance to firearms, but simply because these things were really useful in fighting. There was no need to pay attention to any tactics. The firearms could directly crush the resistance of most Han people and suppress them.

However, the situation is now reversed. The firearms crushing tactics that the Qing army once relied on and were always effective have become ineffective, and they are instead suppressed by the rebels' firepower.

The reason why the Qing army's artillerymen were able to survive was not because they were all veterans from Xiangxi who had fought in battles, but simply because the Qing army's artillery positions were relatively scattered.

This is artillery, so it must be arranged in a dispersed manner. Dense positions are relative. How can they be placed all close together? Aren't they afraid that one will explode and take the others with it?

This also meant that when the Qing army's artillerymen advanced, they could only focus on themselves and hardly noticed the tragic casualties of their friendly forces. Even if they did see them, they would have no time to care because the war had already begun.

To give a simple example, when someone falls down next to you and blood splatters all over you, a normal person will freeze all over, feel scared and instinctively fearful, and there is no need to feel ashamed.

But if the distance is several meters, or more than ten meters, the sense of horror will be greatly reduced, and those who are curious may instinctively want to join in the fun.

This is even more true on the battlefield. In a large battlefield with tens of thousands of people, surrounded by the roar of artillery fire, the gunners and friendly soldiers around you are only a few meters away, and you may not even know if one of them dies.

Moreover, there are tens of thousands of troops behind him, supporting him and advancing steadily with him. There is no sense of fear at all. All he can do is numbly follow the crowd, and everyone pushes the artillery forward together.

Even if there are people who are really afraid of death and want to retreat, they won’t think that the supervision team is just there to do nothing, right?
As an anti-Qing righteous army that had only been established for a year, the Han Army also had a supervisory team under its military structure, which was the last insurance measure to maintain the army's pre-war structure.

"Boom boom boom!"

Under the continuous bombardment of the Han army's artillery, the distance on the battlefield, which was several hundred meters to one thousand meters, was rapidly shortening.

Finally, the Qing army's vanguard gunners, despite the Han army's fire suppression, approached the effective range of more than 100 meters from several hundred meters away.

One third of the Qing army's vanguard gunners had been killed, all of whom were casualties caused by the firepower of the Han army's artillery.

However, when they finally reached the effective range, before they could switch in their sub-cannons and fire back, the Han army had quickly replaced the solid ball shells with the shotgun shells that had been prepared in advance.

The Tiger Crouching Cannon can fire buckshot, and the Ming army used it when fighting the Jurchens. Moreover, it was not only the Tiger Crouching Cannon that fired buckshot, but also dozens of heavy artillery, which quickly cleaned the barrels and loaded a large number of fragmented buckshot blocks into them.

The Qing army reached an effective range of 100 meters, and the Han army also reached the effective range of shotgun shells.

The shotgun shells fired by 400 mortars and 50 heavy artillery pieces are so powerful that even an iron man can’t withstand it!
The Qing army artillerymen had almost no time to react before they were mowed down by the scattered bullets fired by hundreds of Han army artillery pieces.

The Qing army's artillerymen suffered heavy casualties in an instant. Those who died suddenly were fortunate enough not to suffer much pain.

Those who were not dead were in a miserable state. They were all covered in blood by shotgun shells. Their blood mixed with the Green Camp soldier uniforms on their bodies. They kept rolling and wailing on the ground, which was particularly terrifying to look at.

Many of the surviving Qing artillerymen were almost scared silly.

(End of this chapter)