Zhang Yanling stood up in a hurry and asked in a low voice: "Who is this suspicious person?"
Chen Shiyi hurriedly said: "There were suspicious people gathering at the south entrance of the town. The brothers who were alert noticed it and reported it to me. I took a look and found that something was indeed wrong. There were... quite a few people!"
Zhang Yanling immediately stood up and said, "Take me to have a look."
Chen Shiyi led Zhang Yanling to the south entrance of the town. The south side of the town was an open land. Under the hazy crescent moon, everything was dim. But in the shadows, one could still see the darkness in the open space outside the town.
Crowds are gathering.
Although they did not light torches and moved very lightly, the people and horses that were constantly gathering from the southwest could still be seen clearly under the observation of the telescope. In addition to people, there were many horses. A rough estimate was that there were hundreds of horses.
.
According to common sense, let alone hundreds of horses gathered here, even if dozens of horses are walking around, the sound of horse hooves can be clearly heard in this quiet night. Even if it cannot be heard in the town, it is not possible to gather together at this moment.
Five or six hundred steps away, you can definitely hear it clearly.
But now the people and horses gathering opposite were silent and silent. That could only mean one thing: the horses' hooves were wrapped in cotton cloth and straw, and they were put on bridles to prevent them from making any sound.
What's the purpose of doing this? It's obviously not a good thing.
Zhang Yanling keenly felt the threat coming. Although he did not know the identities of these people, it was obvious that they were coming with bad intentions, and they were most likely coming for his group. Hundreds of horsemen gathered here. Once the assembly was completed, they rode
Rushing into the town, I'm afraid the consequences will be disastrous.
"Master Hou, I'm afraid these people are coming for us. What should we do?" Chen Shiyi also realized this.
Zhang Yanling gritted his teeth and said: "It's a blessing, not a curse, but we can't avoid it. If they come for us, we won't be able to escape at this time. I ordered people to keep an eye on them and warn them immediately if they attack. We have to go back and make arrangements.
A fight."
Chen Shiyi nodded slightly, knowing that the situation was urgent, and hurriedly ordered two personal guards to monitor these uninvited guests on the slope at the entrance of the town, ready to warn them at any time.
Zhang Yanling and Chen Shiyi quickly returned to their station in the middle of the town. Everyone was woken up immediately, and everyone was shocked when they heard the news. The guards were better off, after all, they had experienced hundreds of battles. But Huo Shijian and a dozen other young people recruited
The man was frightened and stood there in shock, not knowing what to do.
"The large carts loaded with artillery were dragged over and lined up facing the intersection. The artillery shells were loaded. Thirteen muskets were in hand to guard against enemy attacks from the flanks and rear flanks." Zhang Yanling ordered hastily.
The place where everyone camped was a common people's house. Zhang Yanling gave the common people some money to stay for one night. There were only four-foot-high short earth walls around it, but this was enough to prevent the cavalry from crossing. However, two walls several feet wide collapsed at the front entrance.
The gap must be the direction from which the enemy cavalry rushes in.
The guards immediately took action, climbed onto the roof of the dilapidated house, loaded their muskets with bullets, and lay down on the roof in preparation.
In the yard, four large carts were pulled to the open space in the middle. The two small Buddha cannons could be unloaded. After all, they only weighed less than 500 kilograms. A group of people could unload them together. But the four medium and heavy Buddhas could be unloaded.
The Lang machine gun cannot be unloaded.
Zhang Yanling made a prompt decision and ordered the wheels to be dismantled, and the four Folan cannons landed on the base of the flatbed truck. The six Folan cannons did not need to be calibrated or anything, they only needed to aim at the two gaps.
The sub-cannons were quickly loaded and the six Folan cannons were ready. All this took less than a stick of incense.
After finishing all this work, the surroundings suddenly became quiet. The early winter wind blew by, and the yellow leaves on the surrounding trees rustled down. The sound of the wind brought with it the cries of night owls in the distance, which was bone-chilling.
of chill.
Zhang Yanling stood behind the artillery with a lit torch in his hand. Beside him were Chen Shiyi, frightened Huo Shijian, Tian Dongxin and others, as well as a dozen pale-faced coachmen.
"Huo Shijian, Tian Dongxin, are you afraid?" Zhang Yanling asked in a low voice.
"Going back to Lord Marquis, I'm lying if I say I'm not afraid, but I'm not that scared. The worst thing I can do is fight." Huo Shijian said hurriedly.
Zhang Yanling laughed and said softly: "It's normal to be afraid. After tonight, if we are still alive, you won't be afraid next time."
Chen Shiyi chuckled and said, "It doesn't matter if you're afraid, but don't pee your pants."
Huo Shijian and others all laughed.
"Don't worry, Lord Marquis, we, the children of Guangzhou Prefecture, will never be so scared that we wet our pants. Mazu will protect us," Huo Shijian said.
Zhang Yanling said with a smile: "Yes, it is a good idea to ask Mazu to bless us now. After all, I just took back the temple for her and also provided money to build a gold statue for her. It would be unreasonable not to bless us."
As soon as Zhang Yanling finished speaking, the sharp whistle from the south of the town filled the night sky, and the whistle shrilled the membranes. The next moment, a rumble was heard from the entrance to the south of the town, the rumble was like muffled thunder. The ground also followed.
He started to tremble slightly.
"Here we come!" Zhang Yanling shouted coldly: "Everyone is ready. Please make your hands and feet more agile."
The rumble of horse hooves came from far away, and through the gap in the wall, one could already see the torches on the dirt road leading to the south entrance of the town, and a large number of cavalry were swarming towards them. In the blink of an eye, they were hundreds of steps away.
Zhang Yanling sneered, and with the torch in his hand, he lit the match ropes of a large Franco cannon beside him. Then the next one, and then the next one. As the torch was being dragged, the match ropes of all six Franco cannons were ignited.
Boom boom boom boom boom!
Six consecutive violent roars were like a thunderbolt from the blue. Everyone's ears temporarily lost hearing, leaving only a buzzing sound.
Six artillery shells flew out of the muzzle, shot out from two gaps in the wall with direct aim, and rushed straight into the crowd. Three exploding shells exploded, and in an instant people were turned on their backs, and blood and flesh flew everywhere. The horses neighed and
People screamed one after another.
The effect of the three solid bullets was even more terrifying. After directly hitting the bodies of the soldiers and horses, the victims were like hammers hitting watermelons. Their bodies were torn apart and their flesh and blood were blurred. The big iron balls stained with flesh and blood continued to blast without losing force.
After killing six or seven people, they fell to the ground wrapped in flesh and blood.
A round of six artillery shells caused extremely horrific casualties. More than thirty people were killed on the spot and dozens more were injured.
The opponent was completely unexpected to be bombarded by such ferocious firearms, and the cavalry behind them screamed in shock.
"Charge! Charge me. Whoever dares to take a step back will have his head chopped off." Several masked men on horseback shouted loudly from behind.
The cavalry roared forward, trampling the corpses of men and horses on the ground and rushing forward.
"Load, load." Zhang Yanling yelled.
Although Huo Shijian, Tian Dongxin and more than a dozen people had buzzing ears, they also knew what Zhang Yanling was shouting. The sub-cannons were already ready, and they knew what to do without Zhang Yanling urging them.
After the Folang machine cannon was fired, they had already begun to take action. After knocking open a few pieces of iron clamps that fixed the sub-cannon, and removing the hot and empty sub-cannon, they stuffed another sub-cannon into the breech and jammed it.
Secure it with a thick iron rod, and the reloading is complete.
The characteristics of the breech loading and rapid firing of the Franco cannons shortened the long firing interval several times. The only trouble was that after the first round of firing, all the Franco cannons had no time to reload the base.
It is fixed on the ground, causing the muzzle to deflect.
Chen Shiyi called on more than a dozen coachmen to work together and turned the muzzles of the guns forward, which took a lot of effort. By the time the six guns were returned to their positions and loaded, the black cavalry had already swarmed 150 steps away.
.
"Boom boom boom boom boom!"
"Boom, boom, boom!"
Another six rounds of artillery shells were fired, and the approaching enemies fell to pieces like cutting leeks. This time it was even more tragic. Because the formation was denser, the casualties were greater.
On the ground outside the gap in the house, there are broken flesh and blood stumps everywhere, and groaning wounded everywhere. Horses covered in blood are struggling on the ground, kicking and clawing in the air. The flesh and blood corpses of the cavalry guards rushing from behind
Obstacled by the fighting horses and struggling horses, dozens of them were knocked down. The scene was bloody and chaotic.
"Come on! They don't have time for gunfire. Come on, kill one person and get a reward of fifty taels of silver. Kill Zhang Yanling and get a reward of a thousand taels of silver and get the top spot in the village. Anyone who escapes will be killed without mercy."
The masked man on horseback behind them roared loudly and waved the large ring knife in his hand to intimidate his subordinates. Dozens of supervisors holding long swords in front of them also shouted threats, forcing the cavalry to continue charging.
He was right, there was indeed no time to load ammunition and fire. It was not a loading problem, but that the Folan cannon was misaligned again and had to be corrected. But the opponent had already rushed a hundred steps away, and it was too late.
However, little did this group of attacking enemies know that in addition to artillery, the group they attacked had a lot of goods in their hands.
The bird cannons on the roof started shooting. A dozen or so fire cannons were already aiming down from above. The opponents were all gathered a hundred steps away to the south, and there was no need to aim at all. They just shot the steel balls into their bodies one by one.
Pull the bolt to load and shoot. Pull the bolt to load and shoot.
Having formed muscle memory, their movements were extremely skilled. In just ten breaths, they fired four rounds, killing and injuring forty or fifty of the opponent's cavalry.
But the opposing cavalry finally rushed out of the gap and poured into the yard.
Then they were treated to a delicious treat: a dozen small smoking pumpkins were thrown under their horses' hooves.
"Boom, boom, boom!"
The violent explosions combined with the sound of gunshots were deafening. Fireworks, shrapnel, air waves, earth, stone, flesh and blood, limbs and weapons were scattered in all directions. More than thirty cavalrymen who finally rushed into the gap were cleared instantly, leaving only corpses and corpses on the ground.
A writhing body of flesh and blood.
No one had ever experienced such a level of blow, and in less than half a minute after the battle began, the unlucky enemy was baptized by cannonballs, muskets, and pumpkins in turn. More than 500 people were killed and nearly half were injured.