Chapter 305: A battle of wits and courage with the air
Cold rain caused the temperature to drop sharply.
The handsome tent was set up on a two-foot-high earth mountain. Liu Chengzong walked into the rain curtain wearing an oily raincoat, picked up his telescope and looked towards the north.
He knew that the enemy might have artillery, but in this weather, there was little chance that the enemy would bring the artillery to specifically bombard him. On the contrary, if it rained for a longer time, the mountain might collapse on its own...
Through the fogged lenses, we can see the Mongolian army in the distance forming several columns. The cavalry is in the middle of the river valley, and the infantry is in the mountains on both sides, meandering from the north. At the front of the battle formation are several people riding white horses. The generals on the horses are wearing scale armor. If
It would be pretty cool if it doesn’t rain.
There were supplies in the army that were dragged by yaks, huge logs and felt tents, and a mobile tent cart that was dragged by at least twelve yaks. Liu Chengzong fell in love with this apartment at a glance.
Dai Daozi's Tangqi still maintained a distance of one mile from the enemy's forward, but was forced to retreat slowly by the pressure of the army, and quickly crossed the ditch.
At this time, the battlefield could no longer be covered. Through the telescope, Liu Chengzong saw on the slopes on both sides of the river valley, Mongolian soldiers holding flags climbed up the mountainside in the rain to report frontline intelligence to the troops in the river valley.
He can see the enemy, and the enemy can see him.
The Khalkha army was pressing forward with great momentum. The army could not be seen at a glance, so Liu Chengzong could not estimate the number of enemies. He only knew that there were more enemies than him. He lowered his head and looked down the mountain. The enemy army had formed three formations.
On the left wing are twelve aristocratic cavalry teams composed of light and heavy ones. Everyone has armor. Most of them are mail armor with or without a visor. There are less heavy-duty armor and four-dimensional armor. Each team is based on the armor of the great nobles.
The number of troops varied depending on their appeal, ranging from about one hundred to three hundred cavalry, with a total strength of nearly two thousand.
The Chinese army is composed of 800 veterans of Ah Liu. Their equipment is no different from that of the Ming army, but they have no firearms and use five-armed crossbows as their main weapons. The 1,600 light infantry of the Basang tribe were broken up and distributed to them as
Infantry archers and spearmen serve as additional troops.
The right wing is composed of 600 long Hexi heavy infantry led by Gas. They have the best equipment and are almost armed to the teeth by the standards of a chieftain. They are close to the hillside, which is the terrain they are most accustomed to. The right wing is also the weakest part of the military formation.
Liu Chengzong deliberately set up such a thick military formation on the left and thin on the right in order to allow the lion cavalry to pass quickly from the right formation.
Zhang Tianlin and Gao Yingdeng's 1,800-horse team served as a reserve team and stayed behind the formation.
Most of Huang Shengxiao's gun and artillery troops were huddled in simple sheds in the second ditch due to the weather. Only a hundred artillerymen were mixed in the front line with their lynx grandsons. They made simple sheds for the lynx grandsons, who could use powder.
Play once.
According to the plan, they will return after the release. If it doesn't work, they have also received infantry and cavalry training in Cowan, and they will not hesitate to go into battle with swords.
This is Huang Shengxiao's request. The first time this guy came to prominence under Liu Chengzong was by firing guns in the rain. Now he has caught his old job.
Seeing the menacing Mongolian army, there was a brief commotion between the left wing and the central army. Zhang Tianlin, who was standing on the mountain to observe the battlefield, narrowed her eyes and said: "Commander, the enemy troops may not be able to defeat the Tatars. They can't even defeat the Xie Erhu in the south.
If we put it on the front line and be the first to attack, I'm worried that it will collapse directly."
"No, they won't be afraid after the artillery fire." Liu Chengzong answered confidently, but asked an irrelevant question: "Does General Zhang know which sword is the most powerful in the world?"
Zhang Tianlin thought that Fanzi couldn't do it with a sword. Besides, even if the Fanzi was powerful, their fans didn't have that many swords, so she shook her head and said, "I don't know."
"The blunderbuss sword is the most powerful. It can defeat all swords and even spears."
Liu Chengzong looked at the battle formation in the distance. Raindrops mixed with ice were hitting his oil jacket, crackling.
He spoke intermittently: "It's not because of the superb forging skills of the blunderbuss, but because it is inserted into the blunderbuss."
After saying that, he turned his head and said: "We are cannons and they are swords. If the Mongols stand on our side, the Mongols can kill Fanzi until the blood flows like rivers; if the Xifan people stand on our side, Xifan will
People can beat the crap out of the Tatars...it’s not Xie Erhu who can beat them, it’s us.”
Of course, a bayonet is not as useful as a spear, and it is not even as good as a normal one-handed knife, but if it is inserted into a musket, it can be invincible in the world with the performance of the musket.
Liu Chengzong believed that fifty small cannons could bring a little surprise to the approaching Khalkha horse team.
But it wasn’t Xiao Pao who brought the first surprise.
The large Mongolian army stood 300 steps north of a trench. A Mongolian force of a thousand men continued to advance forward, accelerated, and outflanked the two flanks... It may be due to the poor visibility in the rainy weather that they only discovered the trench after a few steps.<
/p>
The captain immediately walked around to the two wings, but there were two horses that had their own ideas. Under Liu Chengzong's gaze, he led the cavalry soldiers into the ditch.
The laughter of our own soldiers was overwhelming, and the enemy generals in front of the formation were furious. They drove the yaks to drag the giant trees forward, and used the two wings of rangers and herdsmen infantry to try to spread out along the trenches to both sides to find gaps.
Tangqi, who had retreated to the main camp, also attacked again under the leadership of Dai Daozi, fighting the Mongolian scouts on the flanking hillsides, but this time the weapons they used were replaced by bows and arrows.
In this way, the advantage is not that big.
Ahai Daiqing and Guyang of Khalkha stood side by side on the chariot. They raised their fingers and pointed at Tangqi and said: "On a rainy day, we have to fight for half an hour. Even the bow cannot be used after being soaked in water. I will prepare treasures for them and smash them to death."
them."
Bald Qiang is so proud that he is not angry at all when he sees the ditch.
Because he has mastered a rare technology among the Mongols, building a cannon.
This is a very backward technology. It is very simple to master it, but you have to be very interested in these things... because it is useless.
It is useless in Khalkha, and it is useless outside Khalkha. It has a short range, is heavy, and is difficult to assemble and move quickly.
Whether it is internal strife with the Mongolian army, or fighting with the Ming army or Hou Jin, it is useless. The Mongolian army can run fast, the Ming army has artillery, and Hou Jin can both run fast and have artillery.
But on rainy days, this old skill comes into play.
Fifty six-liang stone bullets can be hit by counterweighted cannons to a distance of 150 steps, and then attacked by horsemen. What can the Han army without artillery do to fight him?
Not to mention there is a trench!
At this time, the front armies of both sides were only separated by a hundred steps between the two trenches. Except for Tangqi and the scouts, both sides had a tacit understanding not to release arrows, because their bows and arrows were still in their bags and they would not take action until they actually started.
It will not be taken out and wound.
Liu Chengzong saw yaks dragging large logs to the front line. The logs were being lifted up and erected. They were not for filling trenches and building bridges, but seemed to be assembling something.
Then Liu Chengzong glared, cursed and drove Zhang Tianlin and his guards away: "Let's go, let's get down except for the flag bearers. I can just stand here. What's wrong with these Tatars? Catapults? Put Huang
Come up and call me."
Ahai Daiqing's two counterweight catapults were slowly but surely assembled in front of a trench.
These two things brought great commotion in front of the battle. The noble cavalry wanted to lead the troops across the ditch to attack the stone cannon several times, but they did not dare to face the large number of Mongolian cavalry alone. The leaders of each team anxiously turned back to Tushan.
Fortunately, their commander is still standing on the mountain.
Huang Shengxiao ran up Tushan from the gun barracks. Liu Chengzong pointed at the front of the formation and returned the artillery fire and asked: "Can it be shot?"
He was a little angry, but he never expected that the two trenches he dug would actually become a powerful barrier for the Tatars to protect their trebuchets.
It’s no wonder that Lao Qijia didn’t observe carefully. The requirements for detecting intelligence in the snow-capped mountains are too high, not to mention that Lao Qijia may have never seen this thing.
In fact, this was the first time even Liu Chengzong had seen the Huihui Pao. If he hadn't seen the drawings in a book, he wouldn't have recognized it at all.
Huang Shengxiao felt like he was facing a formidable enemy. Rain had a great impact on gunpowder weapons, but it had no effect on gravity trebuchets such as return artillery.
He shook his head and said: "Commander, I don't know. The range is enough, but it's hard to see clearly in rainy days and it's difficult to aim. Our guns can only kill people, but they can't dismantle stone cannons."
"Fight first, then talk. If you can't dismantle the cannon, then kill everyone."
As soon as Liu Chengzong finished speaking, the flag guard quickly gave orders, and then the sound of orders sounded in the gun shed. The soldiers with firearms on their shoulders changed their positions to set up their weapons. Fifty guns were organized into five teams, and they assemble their stones in front of the trench.
The enemy of the car.
The Mongolian cavalry still surrounded the two catapults in front of the trench to show off their power. They enjoyed the shock the catapults brought to the enemy.
Two two-foot-high tripods have been installed. The shepherd soldiers stood on the side of the wooden ladder and shouted down. One end of the strength arm was tied with a rope, and the short arm at the other end hung a stone box, which was filled with large counterweight stones. p>
Four soldiers pulled the rope, and one person on each side of the stone cannon turned the winch, pulled the parabolic end of the force arm downward, and drove the pebble bullet into the thick leather bag. The long force arm was fixed on the cannon body and on the wooden ladder with a live hook.
The soldiers shouted that they were ready.
Following the order from the Mongolian general on the front line, the moment the live hook was smashed open, there was a buzzing sound, and the heavy stone that had been charging at the front of the force arm suddenly fell, pulling the entire force arm to draw a semicircle in the air, reaching its highest point.
Click, the live buckle at one end of the leather bag comes out of the free arm, and hundreds of flying stones in the bag are shot forward.
Nearly half a kilogram of stone bullets passed through the wind and rain with a buzzing sound. Almost at the same time, Liu Chengzong's entire military front line was in panic. People shouted in various languages to raise their shields. For a while, those with shields raised their shields and those without shields squatted down at all.
I dare not look directly at the flying rocks.
But the flying rocks will eventually fall.
At one time, two catapults threw flying stones one after another. Hundreds of stone bombs were thrown in the air. Most of the stone bombs weighing nearly half a kilogram fell on the second trench and the open space, but there were still twenty or thirty stone bombs.
In the central army where the Tubo nobles and Ah Liu Basang were, they beat the soldiers until they cried for their fathers and screamed for their mothers, and ran away with their heads in their hands.
Those without shields were knocked down, and those with shields were knocked to the ground. Some people were hit in the head without wearing helmets, and were knocked unconscious.
Ah Liu was the first to react. He immediately ordered his veterans to set up hundreds of large crossbows in front of the formation and fire a barrage of crossbow arrows near the catapult.
His big crossbow can hit that far, but it has no power at that distance.
The Kangning light soldiers who were mixed together also strung their bows, spraying out a rain of arrows, and were immediately stopped. Their bows were weak and powerful, and they had no use except wasting arrows... No,
Don't waste feathered arrows, because their arrows often have no feathers.
Under normal circumstances, they would have been defeated by now.
The enemy can hit me, but I can't hit the enemy. If I don't run away, why should I stay here and be beaten?
But at this moment, there was a loud noise from the cannon shed behind the formation, and the ten large guns sticking out of the shed spewed out a cloud of smoke. The ten two-and-a-half lead lumps responded to the call of the siege equipment from four hundred years ago.
.
The Mongolian general riding a white horse held his neck high and admired the scene of flying rocks smashing the enemy soldiers into panic. The next moment, a cloud of gunpowder smoke rose in the distance in the rain curtain, and a whooshing sound flashed in his ears.
He turned back sharply, and the soldiers lined up beside him all looked down at their abdomens in a daze. One after another they fell down, their blood mixed with the mud, and they were in so much pain that they couldn't even scream.
The last soldier held up his half-parted arm, with a round shield hanging on it that had been punched through. The leather armor on his chest was bleeding everywhere, and then he let out a heart-wrenching cry.
"This..."
General White Horse has not yet reacted to the sudden change, and all he can think about is: What?
There was another burst of fire in the distance, and he quickly turned his head. The previous handful of gunpowder smoke had just been dispersed by the rain, and another piece of gunpowder smoke rose there, and another whooshing sound passed across the battlefield.
This time the enemy's attack was particularly clear in his eyes. Some things hit the catapult, like pegs built into the wood, and some things passed over the front line, lifting up a large piece of turf behind them, and crumbled into wet soil and mud.
Flying around.
Something else hit his soldiers, and there was only the sound of tearing cloth and breaking wood. It didn't matter whether the leather armor was inlaid with iron or not, and whether the shield had iron or not.
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As long as they are in one line, shields, armors, horses, and soldiers will all be penetrated. Sometimes there are even more than one line, and those lumps of lead that are broken when they hit hard objects will still fly and kill people.
Lightning flashed across the sky, and at the moment he blinked, he saw a cavalry captain holding up his saber that reflected the lightning, trying to contain the soldiers from dispersing.
A piece of lead hit the saber, and the blade broke into three sections from the middle. The lead bullet was cut into two halves. One half flew to an unknown place, and the other half hit the neck of a war horse, causing it to throw off the captain and trample two people as it galloped.
Infantryman.
The front line was already in chaos, and another burst of smoke rose in the peripheral vision, and the sound was mixed with the rolling thunder in the distance.
Various sounds crashed into the ears of General White Horse. His mind was very confused, and the war horse under his crotch was in a panic. For a moment, he couldn't care about anything and just turned his head and turned the horse to run back.
The thousand-man team gathered next to the catapult immediately fled, and even the army formation behind was overwhelmed by their rout. At the same time, the Corning nobles who formed the team also collapsed.
For the mob, charging and retreating are just a form of collapse. There has been no order from Tushan, and I don’t know who started it. The noble cavalry came forward one by one, galloping forward with their spears.
The Ah Liu Chinese Army, who had no idea what was going on, also raised their flags and formed a formation to cross the ditch.
Liu Chengzong was dumbfounded. Thirty lead pellets defeated the Thousand-Man Army, which was beyond his expectation.
But he never expected that this thousand-man team would actually turn around and rush towards his own position. He was really impulsive and ran northwest with people in his arms.
What's more, he never imagined that his Xifan nobles would rush out like wild boars that had never won a battle in their lives.
Originally, he wanted to lead his cavalry to stop the Chinese army. Although information communication probably failed in rainy weather, what if they were faking defeat? The enemy had tens of thousands of troops parked behind them, and they just rushed over?
But in a second thought, he considered the matching mechanism between Spain and Mongolia in this era.
Perhaps following the charge and converting a false defeat into a rout is the correct way to start a war.
Digging trenches, building mountains of earth, encircling both sides, and advancing slowly together are all about fighting the air with wits and courage.
Finally, he folded his arms and sighed on the dirt mountain. He glanced at the snow-capped mountains to the north and said with great disappointment: "Forget it, let Gao Yingdeng protect the Chinese army's flanks and move forward. What the hell!"
What's the point of encirclement?"
"Zhang Tianlin doesn't move. If it's a false defeat, at least there is still a front." Liu Chengzong said, raising the telescope and taking another look: "I guess we won."