New Han Dynasty 1834

Chapter 30 Breaking the City

The Han army officially began its siege of the city, and the Spanish army regimental commander García, who was inside the city, was the first to be informed.

Garcia was taken aback and immediately sent his guards to report to the governor, while he went up into the city to observe the situation on the battlefield.

Garcia bent down near the edge of the city wall, peered over to observe the situation on the battlefield, and a look of delight quickly spread across his face:

"It seems that the generals of the Han Kingdom really don't know how to attack a bastion."

"If we charge like this, no matter how many troops come, they will all die from shotgun shells and exploding shells."

"Even if they aren't killed, they'll drown in the moat..."

After observing for a while, Garcia began to feel puzzled again:

"These aren't soldiers... are they building bunkers outside the range of heavy shotguns?"

"But what's the use of that? You can't just push the cannons up here and fire at the cannons on the city walls."

"If the heavy cannons can't push down the fortifications, they will be destroyed by the cannons on the city walls."

"Even if a small number of riflemen manage to get up there, the rate of fire of their rifles is insufficient to suppress the artillery fire from the city walls..."

Garcia crawled around for a long time, but still couldn't figure out what the point of doing this was. So, with his doubts, he returned to the city and explained the situation to the governor and the bishops.

Governor Alcedo and Bishop González were already on edge when the soldiers reported that the Han army had begun their siege.

After hearing Garcia's explanation, the governor was relieved.

"When they realize that such an attack is impossible, they should come to negotiate with us again, and then we can negotiate terms with them."

"We can surrender to them and allow them to occupy Manila, but they can provide a transport fleet to escort us to other European colonies."

Bishop González also hoped for this outcome, but he was still somewhat apprehensive:

"Their previous announcement stated that if we did not surrender before the siege, they would kill everyone."

"If they actually manage to breach the city, the consequences for us would be unimaginable..."

Garcia felt something was off:

"It's hard to say what will happen in the future. With the methods they're using now, it's impossible for them to break into the city."

Bishop González relaxed slightly and made a prayer gesture:

"I hope everything goes well..."

…………

The process of the Han army in Luzon driving the natives to build shelters lasted for two days.

On the morning of the third day, just as dawn was breaking, the operation, which looked almost identical to the previous two days, began again.

This time, however, the natives were more numerous, and a group of riflemen had also been mixed in.

These riflemen, equipped with "base-expanding ammunition," charged all the way to the bunkers 300 meters below the city walls.

They hid there and stopped advancing, immediately loading their muskets and aiming at the cannons firing from the city walls.

Similar to the city walls in the east, the top of the bastion also has a parapet, a low wall about 1.2 meters high.

However, the places behind the low wall where cannons were placed all had crenellations left for the cannons to fire outwards.

At this time, artillery was muzzle-loading, and gunners had to walk to the front of the cannon to load shells or clean the breech.

At this point, their bodies would be exposed to the firing ports of the artillery.

The burly rifleman carefully observed the crenellations and, upon spotting a figure appearing within one of them, immediately pulled the trigger.

A plume of gunpowder smoke burst from the muzzle, and the bullet flew out, hitting the artillerymen on the city wall who were preparing to reload.

The artilleryman immediately screamed and fell forward, tumbling from the crenellations of the cannons down to the foot of the city wall.

The first group of riflemen split up and took aim at all the artillery firing positions.

More riflemen arrived later and provided additional firepower to each fortified position.

The remaining riflemen fired freely, and anyone exposed above the city wall would be hit almost immediately.

The cannons on the Spanish royal city were thus suppressed by the riflemen.

Garcia believed that riflemen could not suppress artillery because conventional rifled guns had an extremely slow rate of fire.

For the rifling to be effective, the bullet must be embedded in the rifling, which requires the bullet's diameter to be larger than the rifling bore diameter.

In the era of muzzle-loading guns, a round bullet larger than the rifling caliber had to be loaded from the muzzle into the chamber.

Use a strong enough cleaning rod to hold the bullet in place, and slowly tap it into the chamber with a hammer.

You can't use too much force, otherwise you'll deform the softer lead bullets and reduce the sealing effect of the rifling.

Therefore, muzzle-loading rifled guns have an extremely slow rate of fire and can only be used as auxiliary hunters in traditional armies, specifically for sniping missions.

However, the base-expanding projectile solved this problem.

The structure of the bottom-expanding spring is similar to that of a badminton shuttlecock, except that it does not have a constricting neck.

It is generally cylindrical, with a convex front end, an open bottom, and a hollow interior, into which a pointed wooden plug is placed.

When the gunpowder in the chamber is ignited, it first pushes the cork forward, and the pointed cork will push the tail of the bullet outward, creating an effect similar to an umbrella being opened, also known as the "bottom expansion" effect.

The base-expanding cartridge has a diameter smaller than the rifling bore, allowing it to be loaded into the barrel as quickly as a smoothbore gun.

However, when fired, the base expands beyond the rifling bore, allowing it to fit tightly against the rifling and achieve sufficient airtightness, thus significantly increasing the range and accuracy of the rifled gun.

Base-expanding bullets used in rifled guns, commonly known as Minié bullets, can maintain a certain level of accuracy at 500 meters and have good lethality at 300 meters, exceeding the range of traditional shotguns and early exploding bullets.

But its most important function is to give rifled guns the rate of fire of smoothbore guns.

With the advent of base-expanding ammunition, rifled guns were no longer auxiliary weapons on the battlefield; they could become standard infantry weapons and eventually replace smoothbore guns, ushering in the true era of "rifles" for infantry.

The widespread use of rifled guns gave infantry the ability to temporarily suppress traditional artillery, rendering Napoleonic-era tactics ineffective.

The bastion's defensive system was designed to maximize the power of its artillery; once the artillery was no longer effective, the bastion became useless.

After the artillery on the walls of the Spanish Royal City was suppressed by rifled muskets, Chen Huacheng, who was in command from the rear, immediately ordered the field artillery to move forward with indirect fire mortars and light field guns to completely suppress all the remaining soldiers on the walls.

At the same time, he ordered more natives to move forward quickly and begin filling the moat with soil to build a road.

There were more than 80,000 natives outside the city. Now, regardless of age or gender, they have all been driven out and are taking turns carrying bags of soil to fill the river.

The "earthen-stone road" in the moat is growing rapidly at a visible rate.

There were also several special teams that transported ventilation oil stoves across the river in small boats to the area below the city wall to heat the stone walls.

Using artillery to ram the city walls is very slow, and more importantly, it consumes a great deal of resources.

If the attacking side can suppress the firepower on the city walls and maintain stable control of the space below the city walls.

By continuously heating the stone wall with high-temperature flames while simultaneously striking it with a sledgehammer, the stone wall can be made to collapse more quickly.

…………

When the gunner who was loading the cannons atop the Spanish royal city was killed, the other artillerymen around him were all startled.

Some people instinctively went forward to check, but were immediately hit by more than one bullet and fell off the city wall.

The other artillerymen were extremely shocked and panicked, and they all instinctively ran backward, so the artillery naturally stopped firing.

As the battle had just begun in the early morning, Army Commander Garcia was also on the city wall boosting morale.

Garcia was taken aback when he saw this:

"Is this a rifled sniper shot? But a rifled gun shouldn't have this rate of fire."

"Did the Han army assemble a large number of riflemen?"

Garcia hesitated for a moment, then shouted:

"Don't be afraid, those are rifled gunners. Rifled gunners have a very slow rate of fire. Get back to your positions immediately!"

Garcia shouted several times, but only a few artillerymen tentatively approached the cannons. However, as soon as they appeared at the firing positions, they were hit and fell to the ground again.

The remaining artillerymen immediately ran back, and no matter how Garcia shouted, no artilleryman dared to go forward.

By the time indirect fire artillery appeared at the front and began dropping exploding shells on the city walls, there was no way for anyone to stand on them.

Garcia, along with a group of artillerymen, stumbled and ran down the city wall, his heart screaming:

"It's over...it's completely over...God, the Han people are about to breach the city walls..."

Once Garcia reached the ground, he rushed into the governor's mansion almost without hesitation and explained the situation as quickly as possible:

"Surrender! Surrender immediately! Our artillery is under suppression, and the Han army may soon storm the city! Raise your flag and surrender now!"

At this time, some cannons fired from a greater distance landed inside the city wall and exploded, creating an even stronger sense of panic.

Governor Alcedo was startled, but reacted quickly and immediately issued an order:

"Then go immediately... go raise the flag and surrender!"

Garcia frantically searched for the white flag, and led a group of soldiers to raise it and retake the city.

When the white flag appeared above the city wall, it was spotted by the lookout on the Great Han watchtower and immediately reported to Chen Huacheng.

After listening, Chen Huacheng gave the order without hesitation:

"The barbarians fear power but do not cherish virtue; this is definitely a delaying tactic!"

"Keep attacking! Don't stop!"

"Let's storm the city first, then we can consider everything else!"

The order was relayed to the bugler on the watchtower, who immediately sounded the charge signal with his suona.

Garcia, who was on the city wall, faintly heard the sound of suonas and assumed that the Han army had received the signal and was ready to accept the surrender.

I felt a little relieved.

The sound of artillery fire became even more intense, and the rate of fire seemed to increase.

Garcia stumbled down the city wall again, ran back to the governor's mansion, and collapsed into a chair.

Alcedo immediately followed up with:

"What's going on? Why are you back? I hear the cannon fire getting even louder!"

Garcia answered weakly:

"Yes, it seems the Han army is not prepared to accept surrender; they are prepared to... carry out their promises..."

Arce was stunned for a moment, but then quickly understood what Garcia's promise was.

If they don't surrender before the siege, then once they enter the city, they will kill all the resisters.

The entire governor's mansion was plunged into despair.

The attacks outside the city did not stop; in fact, they accelerated.

After a morning of continuous bombing, burying, and baking.

At noon that day, large sections of the stones on the city wall began to collapse.

After a large gap appeared in the stone wall, the soldiers in charge of the demolition operation chose a suitable location to insert explosive charges.

The detonator ignited the explosive charge, causing the stone wall to collapse on a larger scale, exposing the rammed earth inside.

Around 2 p.m., tens of thousands of natives finally filled in the moat to create a barely passable path.

The city walls, which had been continuously ravaged, had also developed into gentle slopes that were barely passable.

Chen Huacheng personally climbed the watchtower, used binoculars to observe the situation on the city wall ahead, and ordered the main force to charge.

The bugler received the order and blew a more urgent signal.

The main force, which had been resting and recuperating for most of the day behind the battlefield, charged forward with guns raised and shouts.

They charged straight up the city walls, quickly killing the few Spanish soldiers holding the walls, and stormed into the Spanish capital.