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Have you read "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms"?

In another time and space, the Qing army in the Battle of Yaksa, someone in the army must have read it.

At that time, the Qing army attacked the bastion as soon as it arrived, but did not dare to confront the enemy head-on after suffering heavy losses. He also deliberately built siege equipment near the river to lure the Cossacks out of the city. As expected, the Rakshasa ghosts made a sneak attack in the fog and were ambushed by the Qing army and killed nearly a hundred people.

From then on, neither side moved, and they just fought there.

The Qing army discovered that the enemy's well was outside the city, so they destroyed it. The Cossacks could only go out of the city to fetch water from the river. The Qing army aimed their artillery at the city gate. Every time they wanted to get water in the city, they had to rush to the river with the shells on their backs. Or, if you secretly collect water at night, the Qing army will always fail to find it.

Next, the Qing army used the tactics of the Battle of Guandu to build high platforms and bombard the enemy's castle.

There was really nothing to do, so the high platform built by the Qing army turned into a castle. There was still nothing to do, so they continued to build earth walls. The Qing army built three earth walls and directly surrounded Yaksa.

For half a year, we built soil, shelled, built soil, shelled... The whole process was boring.

But the battle was the most incomprehensible. The Qing army fired artillery from time to time, and when the attack failed to cross the city wall, they shelled the buildings in the city. Food was cut off and water sources were limited. Not to mention how many native servants died, only less than 150 of the more than 800 Cossacks died. Many Cossacks starved to death!

The Qing army was also miserable. The climate was cold and supplies were difficult. More than half of the more than 2,000 soldiers died.

Then the two sides negotiated a peace, because Tsarist Russia was fighting with the Ottomans, and the Manchus wanted to use troops against Zhonger. Neither China nor Russia wanted to waste time in Yaksa.

What a coincidence, Li Zheng has also read "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and learned about Cao Cao and Yuan Shao without any suspense!

After taking Zibao, Li Zheng divided his troops to camp upstream to block possible Cossack reinforcements. The remaining soldiers and civilians built a high platform inside the fort. He wanted to fire from a high position and kill the enemy's fort's fort.

"Phew, I'm so exhausted!"

Qiao Guang collapsed on the ground with his whole body, looking up at the sky and muttering to himself: "This is a war. How can a soldier eat so well and sleep so well, while a civilian husband is half exhausted to death?"

The second shopkeeper, Qiao Nian, sat on the slope and said, "Li Duhu is learning from Cao Yuan, building high towers and firing cannons."

"Stop lying down now. Those who are taking a break from their shifts should come over to eat!" a cook shouted.

Qiao Guang climbed up slowly and moved with difficulty.

The blisters on the palms of my hands and soles of my feet broke and popped up again and again. This happened several times, and the soles of my hands and feet were covered with calluses. His arms and legs have also become stronger. They are not as weak as before. He should really pay a fitness fee to the Datong Army.

It was salted fish porridge again. Qiao Guangyong felt like vomiting after eating it.

Along the Heilongjiang River, the most indispensable thing is fish. Several boats of salted fish have been stocked, and this time they are all brought out to make military rations.

Qiao Guang complained: "When this battle is over, I would rather eat shit than eat salted fish!"

Qiao Nian smiled and said: "Master, it would be nice to have meat to eat in the army. I heard people say that during the Chongzhen Dynasty, many civilians didn't even have to eat bran and worked hungry until they died." He suddenly lowered his voice, "This place is so dangerous. After the officers and soldiers capture it, a large army will inevitably be stationed. We need to open a cargo depot here first and establish a good relationship with the officers in advance. Then we can win the nearby fur business. Maybe we can also get some Military transport license to transport food to the soldiers here."

"Indeed." Qiao Guang nodded solemnly.

Day after day, build up soil and build up soil.

Many buildings in the castle have been torn down, and the mounds of earth are getting higher and wider.

After the base was built to a height of three feet, Li Zheng finally issued a military order to drag more than 20 artillery pieces down the slope to the high platform.

The artillery surveyors went into action, calculating the distance and height difference between the battery and the target.

The artillery newly built by the Datong Army in recent years are all rifled artillery. Straight rifling, round shells, and muzzleloading are purely to increase the rate of fire - straight rifling can greatly improve the efficiency of muzzle loading and slightly increase the range of the gun.

As for spiral rifling, it existed a hundred years ago, but it is really not very useful now.

While it improves range and accuracy, the muzzleloader is extremely slow to reload. You can also modify the shape of the cannonball and make it an enlarged version of the mini bomb, but this thing is of no use. In an era when cannonballs couldn't explode, conical shells were far less useful than spherical shells. Spherical shells could bounce, roll and hit in a row!

Rear-travel guns and rear-travel guns are currently under development, but they will be difficult to use in actual combat in the short term.

Zhao Han provided ideas for the air tightness problem, and the craftsmen quickly solved it.

But the cartridge was always a hurdle. At this time, there was no smokeless powder and no mercury fulminate to make a flash cap. Regardless of whether it is a rear-loaded gun or a rear-loaded gun, there is a lot of residue after firing, which is countless times more troublesome to clean than a front-loaded firearm.

This has to wait for the advancement of chemistry, and the technology tree is still missing a link.

"Boom boom boom!"

More than twenty artillery pieces were fired, all aimed at the two nearest bastions, and the artillery range could only allow them to hit there.

With straight rifling and round shells, the accuracy is still impressive.

Even after calculating the parabola, only four shells landed on the bastion. Moreover, not a single enemy fort was hit, but several Cossacks were killed.

"fight back!"

Bashkov shouted.

Facts have proven that traditional methods are still very effective.

Historically, the Qing army built high forts and fired cannons from a high position, beating the Cossacks until they lost their temper.

The same is true today. The Datong Army's fort is ten meters high and can easily bombard enemy forts when launched at an elevated angle. The Cossack bastion fort is only five meters high, with a Heilongjiang River in the middle. At most, it can hit the wall of the Zibao occupied by the Datong Army.

Of course, the Cossacks' mother fort was also designed with a defensive artillery fort, which was a full eleven meters high.

But this fort was built on the west wall, where there was the only land passage and it was also the easiest place for the siege to attack, so it was necessary to focus on deploying firepower. The Datong Army conducted shelling in the southeast and could not hit the enemy's artillery forts, and the enemy's artillery forts could not reach the Datong Army's high towers.

After firing a few shots, Bashkov had to give up and ordered the soldiers to withdraw into the city.

As for those artillery pieces, let the Datong Army bombard them. Anyway, the iron knots are not easily damaged by artillery fire. Wait until night, then drag the artillery into the city, and then pull up the city wall during the actual battle. The three fences and trenches on the outside of the fort were enough to buy time to rearrange the artillery positions.

Bashkov also has a secret weapon, a cannonball that explodes.

There is a fuse on the cannonball. First ignite the fuse of the cannonball, and then ignite the fuse of the artillery, and then you can launch this kind of explosive projectile. It's not a new gadget, it has been around for decades, but its shortcomings are so obvious that the Datong Army is too lazy to manufacture it.

Finding that there was no one on the enemy's city wall, Li Zheng ordered: "Raise the angle and hit the buildings in the city!"

The artillery fires at an elevation angle of 45 degrees and has the longest range.

One shell after another landed on the buildings in the city, occasionally making holes in the roofs and occasionally collapsing the walls of the houses.

The enemy troops in the city could only abandon the houses in the middle and all live near the city wall.

After continuous shelling for most of the day, today's operation came to an end.

The next day, the bombardment continued.

However, a few artillery pieces were pushed off the high platform and pulled to the north wall of Zibao for erection. Coupled with the captured Cossack artillery, they bombarded the wooden and earth fences outside the enemy's fortress - the high artillery position was too high, and the artillery at this time could not fire downwards, so it could not bombard closer targets. On the contrary, the shorter city walls were more vulnerable. Suitable.

For eight consecutive days, the artillery positions on the high platform bombarded the inside of the city, and the artillery positions on the city walls bombarded the outside.

The defenders in the city hid behind the city wall and did not dare to show their faces.

The fortifications outside the city, including the two outer wooden and earth fences, have been largely destroyed.

Li Zheng is not short of ammunition. A group of large ships have already returned and supplies will be delivered in a few days. But it cannot be delayed until winter. When Heilongjiang freezes, the logistics of the Datong Army will be interrupted.

Bashkov stood in the defensive fort on the west wall of the mother fort, watching through the telescope the Datong Army destroying its outer fortifications bit by bit. He had nothing to do about it. He only had more than 400 Cossacks in hand, and the rest were all indigenous servants. It was impossible to leave the city and take the initiative to attack.

The artillery attack was also unfavorable, and he could only wait for reinforcements to delay, until winter, and he would win.

"We will also build mounds of earth and fight with the enemy!" Bashkov ordered.

But he had too few men, so he could only call women and slaves. Go out from the north city gate (the west city deliberately does not have a city gate), dig the soil and move it into the city to build the city. After building the city, it was abandoned halfway.

Because not only were they few in number, but they also lacked tools and did not have enough rattan baskets and sacks.

Another half month later, the enemy's southern peripheral fortifications were all destroyed by Datong Army's artillery. As a result, all the artillery was moved back to the high platform and shelled the buildings in the city indiscriminately.

This style of play is a waste of ammunition and cannot cause effective damage.

The only function is to put psychological pressure on the enemy. If it were an army with low morale, and the bombardment continued for a month or two, all the soldiers would probably run away.

But these Cossacks are really tough. Even if they don't leave the castle, they don't know what beliefs are supporting them.

There are more and more soldiers under Li Zheng's command, and every few days, sporadic natives come to join the army. They were all warriors from the Sauron tribe. They hated the Cossacks. They heard that the Datong Army was besieging the city, and many tribal chiefs came with their people from far away.

Li Zheng decided to write a letter to the Ministry of War and the Governor's Mansion to recruit some Sauron people to join the army in the future. It can not only supply troops nearby, but also strengthen ties with indigenous tribes.

Seeing that Li Zheng was besieging and not attacking, but only shelling the buildings, Bashkov knew that he was going to fight a protracted war.

Bashkov ordered the corpses of the soldiers who were killed by shells a few days ago, whether they were Cossacks or servants, to be cut up, sprinkled with salt, and made into human meat.

There is not enough food stored in the castle. Even if Bashkov succeeds in his defense, half of him will starve to death during the winter.

The remaining half are still alive because they can eat the corpses of dead people!

The Dutch and Spanish castles in Southeast Asia could be besieged for a year or two because they had sufficient food sources. But not the Cossacks. Food here is often not enough, and sometimes they have to go to the indigenous tribes to grab food.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

The battle first started ten miles upstream. The Cossack reinforcements landed in advance and were discovered by the Datong Army sentrying in the mountains.