On the second day, September 22 of the Ming Dynasty, early in the morning, smoke was rising from the two camps ten miles apart. Mingjis warrior took out all the food in his hands and allowed the soldiers to eat as much as they wanted.
; Zhu Chu and Mu Ang also slaughtered half of the captured fat pigs so that every soldier could eat the meat.
When the sun was high in the sky, the armies from both sides walked out of the camp and slowly walked towards the middle. The two armies marched at the same pace, almost four and a half miles away, facing each other more than 200 feet apart.
Mingjis Fuxiu was originally worried, but when he arrived at the battlefield, he discovered something was wrong: the Ming army did not place elephants in front of the battle array!
He looked carefully several times, but could not see an elephant from beginning to end.
He turned to his youngest son and said: "Where is the Ming army's elephant you mentioned!"
His youngest son was also stunned, and after a while he said: "The Ming army obviously has elephants. Meng Yang and several other chieftains came with elephants. Why didn't they move out?"
Mingjisfuxiu also felt that it was unreasonable. But he didn't know why. He could only explain it to himself: "Maybe the elephants in the Ming army were sick and could not be dispatched." However, even he did not believe this explanation.
He couldn't figure out the reason and simply stopped thinking about it, saying: "No matter what the reason is, let the elephant soldiers be sent out immediately to attack the Ming army's formation."
After his order was conveyed, the infantry phalanx cleared several passages, and more than a hundred elephants walked from the passages to the front of the formation; followed closely by more than 2,000 soldiers wearing iron armor. The Central and Southern Kingdoms
Although his smelting skills were somewhat inferior, but he also knew the importance of iron armor, Mingisfashion pinched his nose and built thousands of pieces of iron armor to equip his main army. Today he selected two thousand men from them and followed the elephant into battle.
The Ming army on the opposite side did indeed change, but instead of sending out elephants, some iron tubes were pushed forward by the horse-drawn men.
"Those iron barrels are the cannons of the Han people. Although these cannons are very powerful in siege, they are of little use in field operations." Mingjis Fasiu said with some confusion: "It's okay if the solid cannonballs hit the wall, but they hit the land of Myanmar.
You can't reload a few times, and you can't kill a few people; the shotgun does a lot of damage, but the range is short. By the time the shotgun can be fired, the two warring parties are almost in a group, and it has no effect. Even the use of bows and arrows is more effective than cannons.
Bar."
"Your Majesty, it's useless to think too much. Order the elephant soldiers to charge into the formation immediately." The Magic Club said.
"Let the elephant soldiers charge into the formation. Tell them to be careful. I always feel something is wrong." Mingjisfasiu said.
…
…
"They are indeed going to use elephant soldiers to charge into the formation." Zhu Zhen put down his clairvoyance and said.
"These barbarians in the south never use cavalry because they have elephants. The impact of elephants is much stronger than that of cavalry. But from today on, elephant soldiers will only be used to transport baggage and cannot be used to charge into formations.
" Mu Ang also put down his clairvoyance and said.
"Will this tactic of yours work? If it doesn't work on the elephant, wouldn't it mean that the lives of the soldiers will be sacrificed in vain?" Zhu Zhen asked.
"When General Fu (Youde) and my late father entered Sichuan and entered Yunnan, they encountered the enemy using elephants, but they defeated the enemy using this tactic." Mu Ang said with a relaxed expression.
Mu Ang stared at the elephants on the opposite side and watched them running slowly. When they ran within the range of the cannon, he said: "Fire!" The messenger next to him immediately waved the flag and told the artillerymen in front to fire.
The command.
Immediately, the eighteen cannons that had already been loaded with gunpowder and shells opened fire at the same time. The sound shook for ten miles for a while, and countless shells hit the vicinity of the elephant herd. Then these artillerymen immediately loaded the second shells and gunpowder.
The tactic used by Mu Ang was naturally to use firearms to scare elephants. Although elephants have a strong impact, they also have great shortcomings. They are afraid of sound and fire, and once they go crazy, they will not distinguish between friend and foe. They were used in the Han Dynasty when they attacked Richang County.
They attacked the elephants intensively with "rockets" and defeated Richang County's army.
The bombardment of the eighteen cannons was indeed effective, and the elephant herd suddenly became chaotic. But just when Mu Ang was about to order the army to attack, he suddenly saw more than a hundred elephants falling to the ground.
It turns out that Mingjis was not stupid. In the Han Dynasty, there were records of the Han army attacking elephants with fire. How could he not know? Although the successful examples of "rocket" attacks on elephants in history were to lure the elephants to a high ground and then use them to attack elephants.
Rocket attack - the shooting range of bows and arrows is very short. The effective shooting range of most soldiers' arrows on flat ground is the modern thirty to fifty meters. Rockets are not harmful to elephants, so using rockets on flat ground may cause elephants to be desperate.
Attacking one's own formation caused casualties - and there was no high ground that elephants could not reach, but he was still prepared for it.
All the people riding on the elephants picked up sledgehammers and hit the elephants' skulls, killing the elephants. The elephants relied on their inertia and rushed forward a few steps before falling to the ground.
The armored soldiers prepared by Mingjis for the expedition were all at the rear not close to the elephants and were not trampled by the elephants. They walked to the elephant that fell on the ground, slowed down for a while, and then ran towards Mingjis.
The army formed a large formation; ten thousand Ava people armed with bows and arrows or spears also rushed into the formation behind the armored soldiers.
"They have been prepared for this tactic of using cannons to scare elephants!" Zhu Zhen said.
Mu Ang ignored him, raised his clairvoyance to his eyes, and said something to the messenger.
As the flags of the messengers waved, the cannons pushed ahead continued to bombard the enemy. Although not many people died, it made the already unorganized Ava army formation even more scattered.
At the same time, rows of soldiers who were originally standing at the back walked forward, fired another round of cannonballs, and walked to the front of the cannon to form a neat queue.
At the same time, the artilleryman waved his whip and asked the soldiers on the right guard of Ava to pull the artillery truck backward. Of course, the artillery truck could not move very far backwards in a short period of time, so countless soldiers holding bows and arrows passed by the place where the artillery truck was located and lined up.
, and raised the bow.
The Ava armored army at the front rushed towards the Ming army's formation with great confidence. They wore iron armor and used elephants to shorten the charging distance. They still had enough physical strength to fight the Ming army. Although they were about to
They are within the range of bows and arrows, but bows and arrows cannot penetrate armor, so they only need to cover their faces with shields.
Roddy Hall, who was rushing at the front, could already see the faces of the Ming army. "You damn northern barbarians, suffer death!" he shouted. As long as he rushed into the Ming army's formation, he was confident
Disrupt the Ming army's formation and tear the Ming army soldiers in front of you into pieces.
Rodyhar raised his shield to guard against the bow and arrow, but not a single arrow fell. He was curious when he suddenly saw the Ming army at the front holding up a long pipe. 'What are you doing?'
He thought doubtfully.
Then he saw smoke coming out of these long tubes and making loud noises. Rodyhar felt severe pain coming from his heart, and he lost consciousness.
"Quickly retreat and let the musketeers behind come up." Liu Mingzhao, the head of the musketeers' thousand households, shouted loudly.
The musketeers in the front row who had already fired the bullets from their guns immediately stepped back to reveal the figures of the second row of musketeers. The musketeers in the second row crowded the team together and held them up.
They fired the musket and fired the bullets in the gun as the drum beat sounded. The smoke that had not completely dissipated suddenly became thicker. However, although they could not see the target in front of them and could only shoot forward, there was a sound coming from the opposite side.
The screams were enough to prove that their attack was effective.
The musketeers are Mu Ang's second gift to the Ava army. Mu Ang also made preparations for the fact that the cannons did not play the role he imagined on the elephants. He did not have the ability to equip hundreds of cannons - just like the ambitious
Yunxi planned to equip the capital's garrison with Zhu Zhen's troops, so he could only resort to using a large number of musketeers.
Although the cost of musketeers is not low, it is still cheaper than cannons, and muskets can inflict substantial damage to elephants at a certain distance to prevent crazy elephants from rushing into the Ming army. He used Yunxi to allocate Zhu
With Zhu's money, he purchased a large amount of iron from Guangdong, cast muskets that could equip a thousand households, and established a thousand households of musketeers directly under Zhu Chu's jurisdiction.
Although his original plan of preparing musketeers to destroy elephants is no longer needed, they have played another role: the range that muskets can aim at is not much further than that of bows and arrows, but their armor-piercing capabilities are far greater than that of bows and arrows; the musketeers have passed
They formed a dense queue to increase the probability of hitting, inflicting great damage to Ava's armored army. Mu Ang and Zhu Zhu saw countless armored soldiers being attacked by the musketeers who lined up in five columns and took turns to shoot.
The Ava soldier fell to the ground.
By the time they rushed to the Ming army's formation, there were only less than a hundred of the two thousand Ava armored soldiers left. In fact, most of the armored soldiers were not killed, but they fell to the ground unable to do anything because they were hit in some places on their bodies.
Keep charging.
The messenger waved the flag again, the musketeers retreated, and the pikemen rushed up, quickly wiping out the remaining armored soldiers.
At this time, the archers also began to fire arrows, attacking other Ava soldiers who were rushing to the front of the formation following the armored soldiers.
Originally, the training and physical fitness of the Ava soldiers were inferior to those of the Ming army from the north. Moreover, the soldiers from both sides had just witnessed the armored soldiers being 'easily' wiped out. The morale of the Ming army was greatly boosted while the morale of the Ava army was declining, so they followed the charge.
The Ava army in formation was quickly defeated. They rushed to throw their weapons to the ground, turned around and ran away, for fear of being left behind.
Of course, Mu Aung immediately ordered the pursuit. He Fu led the Han army and native soldiers to chase after the Ava people. Only four thousand cavalry were also dispatched. Although the land in the plains of central Myanmar is soft, the cavalry is always faster than the infantry.
.The Ming army soon chased the defeated soldiers of Ava to the front of the formation of the Ava army.