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(Yesterday, this chapter was blocked for review, and all the illegal red parts were deleted. When I applied for unbanning, several large sections of illegal content appeared. If you want to apply for unbanning again, you have to wait until two days later. So I just re-wrote this chapter, I am too lazy Application has been made to lift the ban.)

Batavia City, formerly the Dutch Municipal Building.

Zhang Xianzhong had made meritorious deeds in continuous battles, and now he was becoming more majestic. He slapped the table and said, "Angel Liu, these Indian prisoners can't be used any more. They can't work one by one and eat like food. Why don't they all be used as cannon fodder in the siege of the city?"

"Just give me a bowl of gruel every day." Liu Hanyi said.

Zhang Xianzhong said: "I certainly won't let them eat more, but they only eat a bowl of gruel, and they are completely unwilling to work. They are whipped with whips, and they can't even move a few times. If the supervisors don't watch, they will lie down on the ground to dry in the sun. Sun. I also ordered that if you work well, you can eat more. This trick is useful even for Taiwanese headhunters, but it is useless for those Indian prisoners."

Deputy envoy Sun Jie said: "I asked wealthy Indian businessmen that these prisoners are all untouchables and can only do work like digging out excrement and moving corpses. They are not allowed to believe in religion, and they are not allowed to reincarnate. They will be like that for the rest of their lives, no matter you No matter what promise you make, they won't believe it. You said you can eat more if you do a good job, have you ever rewarded anyone?"

"Return rewards? The work given to them is never finished. It's okay if I don't kill them." Zhang Xianzhong said angrily.

Sun Jie said with a smile: "Only when Lord Shang migrated to Mu Lixin can he carry out the reform in Qin. Village chief Zhang can also reward rice and Lixin, regardless of whether the Indian prisoners have completed their work or not. Choose three who have done the most work every day, and in front of the rest Give the prisoners an extra bowl of porridge. If more people are willing to work, reward four people every day. Keep going up, reward ten or twenty people every day. Then divide the Indian prisoners into groups, and which group does the most work? Okay, give everyone an extra bowl of porridge. In order to eat more, the team leader will punish those who are unwilling to work. But remember, even after receiving the reward, they cannot really be fed. Only the hungry people, Then I realized how valuable it is to eat more.”

"Will this be effective?" Zhang Xianzhong questioned.

"Let's try it. Village Chief Zhang is still reluctant to give him a few more bowls of porridge a day?" Liu Hanyi said with a smile.

Zhang Xianzhong said depressedly: "Then give it a try."

The insensitivity of the untouchables in India means that they have no hope at all.

Sun Jie said: "These hundreds of Indian prisoners can actually be put to good use. First reward Lixin, change their ideas, and make them feel that they are useful. Then let them be tenants in Luzon. They are real tenants, nothing like that. Serfs. As long as they are willing to work and learn to farm, no matter how lazy they are, it will be enough. In the future, when the Datong Army comes to India, these hundreds of Indian untouchable prisoners will be able to recruit and educate more untouchables."

Liu Hanyi said: "We will discuss the Indian matter later. Should we step up the attack? In a few days, the rainy season will come. I heard that the rainy season will last for three months."

Sun Kewang said: "It's not easy to fight. The Dutch castle has four bastions. The city walls are short and thick, and the artillery can't collapse them at all. No matter which side you attack from, you will be hit by the enemy in the bastion. arrive."

Zhang Xianzhong said: "The method of digging trenches that was used in the past is not easy to use here. There are moats on all sides of the castle, and the moats must be filled in first. One side of the moat is connected to the sea water. The other two sides of the moat are connected to the Tiger Canal. It cannot be directly filled in. A canal must be dug first to divert the water from the Tiger Canal to other places and into the sea."

Everyone was speechless.

If you want to fill in the moat of the Dutch Castle, the amount of work is not very large. You must first dig a canal to divert the water, otherwise the city where the Datong Army is stationed will be flooded.

"Can it be flooded..." Sun Jie said halfway, but he felt funny, "Okay, just pretend I didn't say it."

The castle is close to the sea, so even if it is flooded, it will quickly flow into the sea.

Everyone discussed repeatedly, but could not think of a good way, so they could only continue to besiege the castle until there was no food.

Tie Hong asked: "Do you want another night attack?"

"I'm afraid it won't be easy to fight." Zhang Xianzhong shook his head.

At this moment, an officer in his twenties raised his hand.

The officer's name was Li Cunhui, a missionary officer transferred from Liaodong. If there are casualties in the Luzon Datong Army, ordinary soldiers will be replaced on the spot, but missionary officers are transferred from the mainland.

Li Cunhui said: "The cities of the Liaodong Tatars also had sharp-angled enemy towers similar to bastions. Later, they learned from us in building bastions. I have participated in several sieges. The difficulty in attacking bastions is that the siege team has to , was bombarded by the defenders' artillery and suffered a large number of casualties. However, the siege's artillery was difficult to cause damage to the defenders. I have been studying mathematics by myself in the army, and I think this is a geometric problem. "

No one present understood it.

Li Cunhui took out a small notebook and scribbled: "Our army's previous trenching was too complicated and the amount of work was too large. In fact, it can be simplified. Just align the angular lines of the bastion and divide the angular lines. Extending outward, dig trenches in a 'B' shape along this line. At each corner of the trench, dig a parallel trench. In this way, it will be difficult for the defending artillery to hit the siege party. And the siege party In front of each parallel trench, you can use sacks filled with soil to build fortifications, hide behind the fortifications and in the trenches, and use muskets to shoot at the city to cover the friendly troops who continue to dig trenches, and to block the enemies who come out of the city to destroy the trenches."

This little book was passed down, and one after another read carefully.

The schematic diagram is very simple and vivid. Even if you have not studied geometry, anyone with a normal mind can understand the benefits of this excavation method.

It will exponentially reduce the amount of trench excavation work and at the same time reduce casualties during trench excavation. In particular, the additional parallel trenches and on-site fortifications made it impossible for the defenders to come out to cause trouble.

Zhang Xianzhong was very interested and asked: "How to deal with the defenders' artillery? It is difficult for the siege's artillery to hit the defenders. But the defender's artillery can easily hit the siege."

"It's also a geometry problem."

Li Cunhui continued to draw the pattern: "The siege party's artillery should not be placed in a straight line. A castle with four corners as bastions, such as the Dutch castle. The siege party's artillery positions only need to be placed at eight points. Each An artillery position is located on the parallel line of the castle wall. As for which point to locate on the parallel line, it needs to be calculated based on the height of the city wall, the caliber of the artillery, the weight of the artillery shell, and the shooting elevation angle."

Zhang Xianzhong was really confused this time: "You still need arithmetic when you're having sex?"

"This involves the analytical geometry created by His Majesty, and is also related to physical and mechanical movements," Li Cunhui continued to draw a schematic diagram. "After careful calculation, the cannonballs emitted from each artillery position can land on the city wall as long as the error is not too large. Moreover, the cannonballs jumped and rolled forward along the city wall, and one cannonball could hit a bunch of enemy troops, making it useless for the soldiers defending the city to hide behind the female wall."

Everyone gathered around. They understood the general principle, but they were completely confused about the specific calculation.

Li Cunhui said: "I have made detailed calculations about the Dutch castle in front of me. Since one side of the castle faces the sea and the other side is too close to the city, only three of the eight theoretically perfect artillery positions can be used. In addition, due to the size of the moat, Complexity, the angular line extension excavation method I designed can only dig trenches to the moat, but cannot dig all the way to the bastion. Therefore, the artillery can only be suppressed by firing parallel fire at low elevation angles, and then human lives must be used to attack. "

Tie Hong said: "Don't rush to attack the city first, let's try your artillery and other parallel shooting."

Everyone went out of the city together, and Li Cunhui was on the east side of the castle, using an improved version of the sky ruler to make observations. First find the extension line of the castle wall, then use equations to calculate the height of the wall, and then calculate the shooting elevation and the impact point of the cannonball.

For dozens of minutes, I did nothing but do math problems.

The location of the artillery positions is calculated and then the artillery positions are built.

In front of the artillery position, sacks filled with soil were used to build defenses layer by layer, leaving only a hole at the barrel.

Three artillery pieces were pushed up and placed vertically in a line.

The defenders' artillery can already hit this artillery position. But the location was too weird to pose a threat to the city wall, so the Dutch defenders all stood in the castle to watch the excitement, waiting for the Datong Army to fire cannons outside the city to waste ammunition.

"Can this be done?" Sun Kewang expressed doubt.

"Boom boom boom!"

Three shells were fired, passing over the bastion in the southeast corner, and then hitting the wall connecting the two bastions.

This method of fighting will not cause any damage to the city wall, and continuous bombardment for a year will not bring down the city wall. However, the flight direction of the cannonball was parallel to the city wall. As long as it did not hit too far, it would definitely land on the city wall.

As for where it falls on the city wall, it doesn't matter anymore.

Because the shooting elevation angle is very small, the cannonballs will bounce off the city wall after falling. Every time it bounces and rolls, it will hit the defenders of the city, and a large number of cannonballs will be struck.

The lookout on the hot air balloon was stunned.

Three artillery shells were thrown out, hitting more than 20 enemies during the ricochet. The Dutch army was all in the bastion, and the city walls were full of Dutch civilians. They were so frightened by this approach that they ran away wildly. In the blink of an eye, no one dared to stand on the city wall.

"Fight back, fight back!"

The Dutch artillery commander finally couldn't sit still and ordered the city defense artillery to aim at the artillery position and fire.

"Push the artillery back!" Tie Hong ordered quickly.

This is not a formal siege, only three artillery pieces are used for experiments. The defenders' city defense artillery will definitely destroy the fortifications of the artillery positions.

After the experiment, everyone went back to summarize.

Sun Kewang said: "This method is indeed effective. But it can only attack the defenders on the city wall, not the defenders in the fortress."

Deputy Yu Zhan said: "It is enough to be able to attack the defenders on the city wall. Use trench digging to deal with the bastion, and the artillery suppresses the enemies on the city wall. Many fewer people will die during the siege. If the city does not have ridges, The fort, with this method of bombardment, can make the defenders dare not stand on the city wall. Can't the siege be easily won?"

Zhang Xianzhong said: "Yes, if this method of artillery fire had been available a month ago, why would we have used night attacks to attack Batavia?"

"It won't be easy to win," Li Cunhui said, "but it can indeed reduce casualties during the siege. I had been thinking about it when I was in Liaodong, but I hadn't learned analytic geometry at the time. I was shelling Batavia City. At that time, I had some ideas, and I finally figured it out two days ago.”

The method is very good and can be promoted by the whole army, but it is useless against the bastion in front of us. The main reason is that the moat is too disgusting.

Of course, it can be defeated with some effort.

First, a canal should be dug to divert the water from the Laohu Canal to other places and into the sea. Then fill the moat with soil, then dig angular Z-shaped trenches, build fortifications with extended parallel trenches, and suppress the city walls in a parallel and low elevation angle, so that the bastion can be forcibly attacked.

This attack plan will have to wait until the rainy season has passed.

If all goes well, from digging the canal to capturing the castle, it should take three months.