Liu Chengzong was waving the big flag in the mountains. Behind him, the bald Xiao Liu was holding drumsticks and playing urgent tunes on the waist drum with all his strength.
The eldest daughter and daughter-in-law of the border army's family wore floral jackets and played the snare drum in a messy manner, which was not in tune at all, and it made people feel nervous.
There was also Sister-in-law Cao, standing at the end of the line, carrying a Japanese-style waist sword and a small bow.
This is not a war drum. The drum sound is not meant for people to hear, and no one can hear any information from the drum sound. It is only used to scare people. Firstly, it is to make the thieves think they are officers and soldiers, and secondly, it is to make them think that the officers and soldiers are other people.
The remaining troops are encircling.
It’s hard to say whether the drum sound worked, or whether the bandits were frightened by the sight of the frontier army’s cloth-faced armor. Liu Chengzong, who was waving the flag, could see clearly that the first time his brother and Cao Yao’s second group of infantry invaded the village
, the thieves have retreated like a tide.
Although there were many bloody and brave people among them, they could only stop the boiling water by rushing forward in twos and threes. Before they could reach the military formation, they were stabbed to death one by one by swordsmen and shieldmen throwing javelins.
When they got closer, they only needed to make up for it with one more sword, picked up the javelin, and moved forward over the corpse. Only about thirty people forced hundreds of thieves to flee and drove eastward.
The two groups of infantry were not in a hurry, and the formation was always maintained by the two captains. When they approached the siege, they merged into three rows of a long snake formation, with the two wings moving forward and out of the middle, forming a small crescent shape toward the enemy.
Press forward.
With a bang, smoke rose from the formation, and Cao Yaoduan fired his three-eyed gun into the sky.
The three-eye gun is a short-barreled fire door gun. It has three barrels about one foot long and is connected to a long wooden pole. When firing, you need to hold the gun with one hand, clamp the wooden pole with your elbow ribs, and hold the match rope with the other hand to light the fire door.
, because the gun tube is short, it is also difficult to shoot accurately.
In this era, the three-eyed gun was an old weapon in terms of age. The southern gun soldiers mostly used bird guns under the influence of Qi Jiguang. However, in the northern frontier army, Qi Shaobao's work of promoting bird guns was not smooth.
The bird gun has a medicine pool. Since the gunpowder is placed in the chamber first and then the projectiles, the primer connected to the gunpowder still needs to be sprinkled into the medicine pool lit by the match rope outside the barrel. The wind is strong in the north, and there is often a problem when using the bird gun.
Risk of being blown away by the wind.
Therefore, three-eyed blunderbuss are still widely deployed in the northern frontier army. Excellent frontier army horsemen can use this difficult-to-ignite firearm to gallop and shoot. This is basically two weapons in terms of use method with the bird blunderbuss of the Chinese matchlock gun.
The bird cannon can shoot far and accurately, and the three-eyed cannon seeks a wide range. For example, the border army of Yansui Town, whose defense direction is Hetao Mongolia, faces border conflicts with hundreds or thousands of cavalry. They use the three-eyed cannon as a
Make a one-time little spray.
Each of the three gun tubes was stuffed with two or three lead pellets, and they were fired at a nearby location, covering the face of the horse thief who lacked armor protection on the other side with blood, and then used him as a sap to fight hand-to-hand.
It is neither a repeating machine gun nor a toy that can only be heard. It is just a cheap weapon of this era that is good at dealing with unarmored enemies.
In terms of long-range weapons, most soldiers still use bows. Small bows can shoot quickly and long range, while long-tip bows with high power can shoot heavy arrows to supplement their strength in close combat.
The Yuhe Fort frontier troops turned in all their firearms when they left the fort. Only Cao Yao kept a three-pronged blunderbuss, not for any other reason, but because bad luck had fallen out again and it could be used as a trumpet.
The trumpet cannon is used to transmit information. The three-eyed gun barrel has a short barrel and is quick to load. It is the most efficient way to transmit information on the battlefield.
Cao Yao's trumpet blast, Liu Chengzong knew full well that it had two meanings.
The first is that the bandits are defeated and the cavalry can be provoked into a conflict; the second is to tell him to kill the lame man.
The thieves did not have the opportunity to observe the situation calmly. As the saying goes, a Taoist cannot stand without strength. The leader of the bandits, Bai Yingzi, is the backbone of this group of bandits. During the sudden attack, everyone searched for Bai Yingzi within their sight range.
When Bai Yingzi was not found, the thieves fighting on their own were like a loose sand; when they found Bai Yingzi, they saw him leading a few management teams to pull seven or eight grain trucks and fleeing eastward.
none.
The flag was lowered, and Liu Chengzong turned around and ran quickly down the hill. On the official road, beside the red flag, stood twelve frontier cavalry soldiers holding their horses.
Everything has been arranged before the war. As agreed, they will intercept and defeat the deserters from the east under the leadership of Liu Chengzong.
Everything on this familiar road was like a carnival belonging to the deserted soldiers of the frontier army. The soldiers climbed on the newly prepared saddles, and even the war horses twisted awkwardly because they had not been saddled for a long time and were not carrying people.
In the eyes of the riders, it was as if the war horses were also excited.
They drove their horses quietly, and their hoofs stepped on the yellow earth, making a deep and firm sonorous sound.
In order to ensure that the frontier cavalry could complete the interception mission, Liu Chengzong raised his strong bow and issued several orders to the team. They completed the last detachment before the battle on the official road, gathered together, changed their formation, and trotted towards the fields east of the village with neat steps.
go.
The thieves in the village have used all available means. Some people tried to stop them, but were knocked down by the frontier soldiers throwing spears. Even if they were lucky, they could not avoid the infantry who came close to kill them with hobs.
Anyone who was willing to resist was killed in an instant, and the remaining people didn't know how to deal with it. There were endless people throwing away money and pushing their accomplices.
Seeing that the army's infantry formation was advancing step by step and could not catch up with them, Bai Yingzi, who had escaped from the village entrance to the east, also noticed that something was wrong, stopped following the fleeing subordinates, climbed onto the shaft of the carriage at Panliang Station, and looked back to the west.
"It seems that the official army has no reinforcements. There are only more than 30 people and there is no big flag."
In the Ming Dynasty, the combat effectiveness of the frontier armies was reduced due to court corruption and poor financial conditions, but they were still strong in terms of morale, training, and discipline. Troops that had not been paid for three years could still be dragged out to fight according to the emperor's order. This was a sign of their high morale, training, and so on.
The embodiment of discipline.
Institutionalized troops, let alone large armies, go into battle. Even if a small flag officer leads troops to carry out work for the landlords, there will still be helmets and flags. This seems to be common sense to Bai Yingzi, who has been fighting against the government and the army for many years.
But at this time, the officers and soldiers only saw bare helmets and guns on their heads, and the red flag that was waving on the hilltop at first was gone. Looking back again, that flag didn't look like a military flag at all. It didn't have the four-color flying tiger or the five directions.
The divine flag does not even have twenty-eight stars.
After experiencing the initial panic, Bai Yingzi came to his senses, slapped his head and cursed fiercely: "If you fall into the trap of these cowardly suspects, they are just a bunch of deserters. They will starve to death without food. Gather your hands and follow them - forget it, pull it."
Form a team to protect the grain truck!"
Sober, sober, Bai Yingzi is not yet enthusiastic.
It's not that he didn't want to fight, it was just that the thieves were scared out of their wits. Even if he ordered a counterattack, no one would die for him.
During this moment of hesitation, the sound of horse hooves sounded in the south, and a frontier cavalry team was approaching them.
The cavalry was preceded by a single rider, followed by twelve riders arranged in three teams. Everyone held a rein in their left hand and a sword in their right hand, with the backs of their swords resting on their right shoulders, galloping forward like thunder with an indomitable momentum.
Before they even got close, the thieves gathered around the grain cart had already dispersed to both sides like waves. When Liu Chengzong galloped five or six steps closer, there were only three or four people on the left and right sides of the grain cart who were petrified with fear.
No matter how much Shang Bai Yingzi calls, he can't call his subordinates back.
Bai Yingzi had just lifted the bow from the bow pouch at his waist, but before he could pinch the arrow, Liu Chengzong had already turned his horse's head and galloped to one side, turned around and pulled the bow to full strength and released the fast arrow with carved feathers.
In an instant, Liu Chengzong heard a shout of being hit by an arrow coming from behind him, and his ears were immediately filled with the wails of the cavalry rushing into the crowd, charging and killing.
Note: The cavalry formation, saber leaning on the shoulder and other movements refer to the "Ping Fan Victory Picture" which depicts the border troops in Guyuan Town performing military tasks during the Wanli Period of the Ming Dynasty.