1848 Great Qing Charcoal Burners

Chapter 68 Shelling [Please read on Tuesday]

"The militia is just a bunch of rabble. Why ask so many questions? There are only ninety or so scumbags. It's just a matter of a quick charge and a kill."

Chen Ajiu was an impatient person, not one to mince words, and spoke very directly.

It took Chen Ajiu a while to realize he had spoken out of turn.

Peng Gang was also a member of the militia. While cursing the Wang family's bunch of bastards, he also cursed Peng Gang, and hurriedly apologized to Peng Gang.

“Master Peng, I didn’t mean to criticize them indirectly. You are different from them.”

"A courtyard by the mountain, with about ninety people, cannons, guns, and three archers. Do you think it's that easy to rush up there?" Peng Gang shook his head with a gloomy face.

"Even if we manage to storm the courtyard, how many more people will we lose? Brother Jiu, fighting a war isn't just about brute force; you also need to use your brain. The real skill is to achieve the greatest results with the least cost."

Chen Ajiu seemed to understand Peng Gang's meaning and felt that Peng Gang was somewhat cowardly. His good impression of Peng Gang had faded a bit: "Does Master Peng want to capture Wang Dazuo without losing anyone? That's unrealistic. In war, there are always casualties."

"It's not about preventing deaths, but about minimizing them." Faced with Chen Ajiu's misunderstanding, Peng Gang was too lazy to explain.

Luo Dagang is resourceful, while Chen Ajiu is all brawn and no brains.

Peng Gang now understood why Luo Dagang was uneasy about letting Chen Ajiu lead the boat corps alone, but instead wanted Su Sanniang to accompany him.

If Chen Ajiu were to lead the army alone, Luo Dagang's last remaining fortune would sooner or later be squandered by Chen Ajiu.

After questioning the prisoners, Peng Gang arrived at the foot of the mountain where Wang Dazuo's residence was located.

Compared to his cousin Wang Zuoxin, Wang Dazuo's branch of the family had relatively limited financial resources, and Dachong was much poorer than Mengchong and Sanjiang.

Looking across Dachong, including Wang Dazuo, there are dozens of households, but even wealthy households can't gather five.

According to the prisoners' confession, Dachong had a considerable amount of arable land, including 113 mu of low-grade paddy fields and 310 mu of dry sloping land.

However, more than 80% of these fields belong to the great writer Wang. There are only five or six households in Dachong with their own farmland, and of the land owned by these five or six households, sixteen or seventeen mu are still rocky land (rubble slope).

The two-courtyard mansion of Wang Dazuo, located halfway up the mountain, was built as if it had drained the lifeblood of the entire Dachong area.

Of course, with only Da Chong's meager resources, Wang Da Zuo certainly couldn't support a hundred guards and trainees.

Most of the farmland and mountain areas in the nearby Shanbatang, Fulukou, and Mushan villages also belong to the great writer Wang.

The Wang family, specifically the Wang Zuoxin family, occupied the prime locations of Zijing Mountain, including Mengchong, Sanjiang, Hualei, and Daping, and feasted on the spoils. Their collateral relatives within three generations also benefited from this, and none of them were innocent.

A mile away from Wang Dazuo's courtyard, Wang Dazuo fired cannons at Peng Gang and others at the foot of the mountain.

After Wang Dazuo made that outburst, Peng Gang knew just how capable Wang Dazuo was.

The inferior cast iron cannons privately cast by local militias had an effective range of only about 200 meters when firing solid shot. Although the maximum range could barely reach one kilometer, the accuracy was extremely poor. A deviation of 30 meters beyond 200 meters was considered quite accurate.

At this distance, firing cannons would at best embolden oneself, with a lower probability of hitting the target than Hong Xiuquan passing the imperial examination.

The fine mountain-splitting cannon that Peng Gang carried was cast by the Guangdong Artillery Bureau. During practice, the cannon crew fired more than a dozen rounds, and its effective range was about 450 meters.

Even though attacking from a low position is disadvantageous, it is still possible to reach the yard from outside the effective range of the enemy's homemade cannons.

Peng Gang raised his binoculars and carefully observed the situation in Writer Wang's courtyard.

It wasn't a fortress, and the walls weren't bricked; they were just two-foot-thick rammed earth walls with firing ports. A few more shots might have been enough to blast a breach in the wall.

"Chen Xuyuan! Aim at Writer Wang's courtyard wall and fire hard! Smash it down!"

With such an excellent target, Peng Gang could take this opportunity to give the artillery crew some practice.

Opportunities for relatively safe combat training while under enemy fire are few and far between.

Chen Xuyuan directed his artillery crew to set up the cannons, and based on the feeling from the training test firing, they used prepared wooden wedges to adjust the elevation angle and ignite the cannons.

With a loud bang, the shell landed on the slope two zhang away from the courtyard wall.

Although it didn't hit the target, it was still considered a fairly accurate shot, and it dealt a significant blow to the enemy's morale.

The once relatively quiet courtyard suddenly erupted into chaos. "Those bastards have cannons!"

"And those are the best mountain-splitting cannons from the Green Camp!"

"Shells have no eyes! Find a place to hide!"

Many people in Wang Dazuo's courtyard had served in local militias, fought alongside the Green Standard Army in suppressing bandits, and fought against the Yao people who were causing trouble in the Dayao Mountains. They had also seen Green Standard Army artillerymen using mountain-splitting cannons.

They could still distinguish between homemade cannons and the Green Standard Army's mountain-splitting cannons.

After the first shot was fired, the homemade cannon in the yard didn't dare to return fire.

Peng Gang knew that the cannon shot he had just fired had intimidated the Wang family members and guards in the courtyard.

We still need artillery to demoralize them!

On their side, seeing the enemy crippled by a single shot, both the young men Peng Gang brought and the submarine crew clapped and cheered, their morale soaring.

These five hundred taels of silver were well spent!
"Chen Xuyuan! You fucking shot over two zhang away! Shoot it against the wall! Shoot it into the yard!" Peng Gang said to Chen Xuyuan, observing the impact point of the shell.

Peng Gang's mountain-splitting gun has a wooden double-wheeled carriage, but the gun barrel is fixed to the base. The gun barrel and the carriage are usually rigidly connected, and there is no spiral lifting mechanism like in modern artillery to adjust the elevation angle.

If the firing angle needs to be changed, the breech can only be raised by using wooden wedges, bricks, or sandbags, and the muzzle elevation can be roughly adjusted by increasing or decreasing the thickness of the padding material.

Chen Xuyuan instructed his team members to place a wooden wedge under the breech of the cannon, then lit the cannon again with torches and fired, observing the impact point of the shells.

The shell grazed the courtyard wall and flew into the yard, causing chaos and panic among the chickens and dogs.

"Not bad, use a slightly thinner wooden wedge instead!" Chen Xuyuan's adjustment was acceptable, and Peng Gang was quite satisfied with his performance.

However, the third shot came too close, hitting the slope less than ten feet from the courtyard wall.

The mountain-splitting cannon is ultimately a product of technology from two hundred years ago; it's too outdated.

If you had a Napoleon cannon, even a second-hand one, three shots would be enough to blast a hole in the courtyard wall at a distance of less than 300 meters.

At this time, some of the classic Napoleonic cannons in the West had already adopted stud-type elevation mechanisms.

A threaded metal screw is mounted below the breech; by rotating the handle on the screw, the muzzle elevation angle can be precisely adjusted within the range of -5° to +15°.
The gun carriage is also engraved with angle markings, allowing the gunner to quickly set the target range according to the firing table, significantly improving firing accuracy and efficiency.

The Qing Dynasty couldn't even manufacture screws that barely met the requirements for precision and strength.

The success of firing a cannon depends entirely on the gunner's experience.

Peng Gang sighed in disappointment and lent the telescope to Chen Xuyuan so that he could observe the impact points of the shells, accumulate experience, and record the trajectory of the cannon.

After firing the cannons intermittently for an hour and a half, Chen Xuyuan finally smashed a gap about two people wide in the courtyard wall.

Seeing that the courtyard wall on the mountainside had been breached, Chen Ajiu and the boatmen, carrying door panels, bed boards, and bamboo ladders that they had borrowed from the villagers at some unknown time, volunteered to attack the courtyard.

Chen Ajiu was bloodthirsty and belligerent, and he got excited at the sight of blood. Even Su Sanniang couldn't persuade him otherwise.

Peng Gang has no plans to launch a full-scale attack, as such an attack would be too risky and a poor choice.

Moreover, Wang Zuoxin's family, the main branch of the Wang family, was being besieged in Mengchong by Xiao Chaogui and Yang Xiuqing with over a thousand men. Wang Zuoxin had no outside support, and the initiative was entirely in their hands, so there was no need for a strong attack.

Unable to dissuade Chen Ajiu, and with Chen Ajiu volunteering again, Peng Gang reluctantly agreed. In any case, he hadn't used the submarine force as cannon fodder, and he could at least give Luo Dagang an explanation.

Under the cover of artillery fire, Chen Ajiu and his group of eager and impatient boatmen pressed against doors and bed boards, carrying ladders, and rhythmically shouted as they advanced up the slope.

Peng Gang instructed Chen Xuyuan to continue aiming at the breach in the courtyard wall, thus dispersing the Wang family members and guards who were busy filling the breach with debris.

When Chen Ajiu led about fifty new and old boatmen to within seventy or eighty meters of the compound wall, Peng Gang ordered Chen Xuyuan to cease fire, fearing that continuing to fire would accidentally injure the boatmen.

　After two weeks of running around naked, today is my last chance to revive! Please keep reading, I'll add an extra chapter tonight! Thank you for your support!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)