latelenovela Chapter 723 Where the shrapnel passed, not a blade of grass remained.
Chapter 723 Where the shrapnel passed, not a blade of grass remained.
The next morning, Zuo Wuwei and his entourage arrived outside the rebel army camp. After introducing themselves, the rebel soldiers, who had been waiting for a long time, reported to them, and Li Zicheng and his men quickly came out to greet them. They were eager to see what the cannons, which had been described as miraculous, looked like, and they didn't bother with any airs.
"What the hell? This is the siege cannon you were talking about?" Liu Zongmin circled around a mortar, asking doubtfully, "It's just a big rice pounding bucket, but it's made of iron... Can this thing really be used?"
Li Zicheng was also full of questions. Looking at this dark, unremarkable, and clumsy fellow, he couldn't see what was so powerful about him.
"It would be better to get a few more Hongyi cannons," Li Zicheng thought.
Zuo Wuwei replied confidently, "Don't underestimate this thing. It can fire 70-pound explosive shells, which are no match for the Hongyi cannons. Back then, our Qionghai Army, with only a thousand men, could bomb the huge city of Guangzhou into submission. Now, with two or three hundred thousand men besieging Luoyang, this thing will naturally make it a piece of cake."
"70 jin (35 catties), and it's a high-explosive shell!" Li Zicheng and his generals were stunned. They could only comprehend the limit of what a Hongyi cannon could fire a shell weighing ten or twenty jin (5-10 catties). A 70-jin shell? What did that even mean? A skinny adult man probably weighs about that much. Could one shot send a person flying?
Liu Zongmin bent down and touched the cannon barrel, tapped the outer wall, then peered into the breech, shaking his head repeatedly, saying, "I don't believe it. Can this iron barrel be that powerful?"
"If you don't believe me, just try it and you'll see." Zuo Wuwei smiled slightly. "Please let me lead the first battle tomorrow, King Chuang. After the bombardment is over, we can launch a full-scale attack on the city. I can guarantee that the resistance we encounter today will be negligible, and the city will be breached in no time."
Although Li Zicheng was skeptical of Zuo Wuwei's suggestion, he had no better way to attack the city and had no choice but to try it as a last resort. He waved his hand and said, "I'll do as you say. But let me make this clear: if firing the cannons doesn't work, don't blame me for being impolite."
"Rest assured, King Li, watch us."
As the command cannon fired, the siege began again. The defenders, who had been sleeping fully clothed on the city wall, were startled awake. They gripped their weapons tightly and peered through the holes in the crenellations to observe the movements of the attacking army.
The scene was quite strange. The dense band of marauders didn't rush forward all at once; instead, they slowly moved beyond the range of the city walls' arrows, then stopped. Immediately afterward, cannons of all sizes were pushed up, seemingly preparing to bombard the city first. The defenders quickly ducked back, crouching or sitting close to the outer walls to avoid the cannon fire. Their experience from yesterday's defense told them that even the most powerful cannonballs wouldn't bend; as long as they stayed behind the battlements, they were safe—unless the enemy could breach the walls and bury them in rubble.
Zuo Wuwei said to Li Zicheng, "Chuang Wang, the artillery positions are ready. Now, please send men to launch a feint attack. Both archers and infantry should be sent in to lure the defenders out."
Li Zicheng glanced at him, suppressed his doubts, and gave the order to launch a feint attack.
Thousands of people stepped forward, shouting as they charged. Several dirt roads had already been created by filling in the moat yesterday, so there was no need to fill it again; they could simply charge across. Ladders were erected on the city walls, and people scrambled to climb them.
The shouts alerted the defenders. They didn't know what tactic the enemy was using to send so few men up the wall, but they couldn't let them get onto the wall no matter what. A commander who looked like a centurion shouted, "Stop cowering! Stand up, get to work, and drive these men down!" If they let the enemy get on the wall, reinforcements would keep coming up to wear them down, and given the disparity in numbers, this section of the wall would soon fall.
The soldiers and militia, disregarding the possibility of artillery fire, quickly stood up, picked up logs and stones, and began hurling them down. In this situation, they weren't too worried about the cannons; with the parapets providing cover and their numbers dispersed across different sections of the wall, the solid shells weren't very effective. On the contrary, the threat was greater to the bandits swarming the walls, who were exposed, densely packed, and more easily spotted. With the enemy acting as sandbags, they hesitated to fire, making themselves much safer.
Zuo Wuwei observed the battle situation, and when he saw the densely packed heads of the defenders appearing on the wall, he shouted: "All mountain artillery, prepare: two volleys of shrapnel, get ready..."
The artillery battalion lined up the dozen or so mountain guns they had brought and loaded them with cylindrical shrapnel shells as instructed.
Zuo Wuwei raised his command sword high and brought it down heavily, shouting, "Fire!"
"Boom boom boom!" Accompanied by the huge cannon fire, cylindrical shells trailing white smoke emerged from the cannon barrels, tracing a relatively straight arc as they flew towards the city wall.
Zuo Wuwei closed his eyes, silently counted to two, then opened them and whispered, "Explode!"
One after another, a dozen cylinders split open in mid-air, turning into a cone-shaped rain of bullets that sprayed forward, enveloping the entire section of the city wall.
The defenders, who were using logs and stones to defend against the siege, stared wide-eyed at the dense hail of bullets before them and almost blurted out: What the hell is this?
But they had no chance to speak. The dense barrage of bullets, like a torrential downpour of metal, swept them away. Even the walls couldn't stop such a dense barrage. Amidst the crackling sounds of metal clashing against bricks, the upper bodies of anyone standing were riddled with holes. Many had their heads, chests, and abdomens smashed to pieces, leaving them unrecognizable. Blood and bits of flesh splattered backward with the bullets, staining the walls behind them red.
Before the few survivors could even react, the "boom boom boom" of cannons rang out again, and cylindrical shells emitting white smoke exploded before their eyes, the projectiles whistling as they pierced through their bodies.
Where the shrapnel passed, not a blade of grass grew.
After two rounds of shrapnel, not a single defender could stand on the hundreds-of-meters-long city wall. The walls were littered with corpses, severed limbs, bits of flesh, and rags, and blood flowed like a small river, a scene of utter devastation resembling hell.
Even the rebel soldiers climbing the ladders were hit by the wide-ranging shrapnel. Many were riddled with bullets and fell off the city wall. Several ladders were broken in half by the bullets and collapsed with a crash, and a long line of people fell to the ground, either dead or injured.
The effect of the artillery bombardment stunned everyone. Li Zicheng and his men gaped, speechless. The tens of thousands of troops responsible for attacking the north gate were also dumbfounded. All the shouts and cheers disappeared, and the vast battlefield suddenly became eerily silent.