On the hillside, in front of a giant drum standing behind Li Xuan, a drummer with his upper body exposed and his muscles shining in the sun raised the mallet in his hand. After taking a deep breath, he fiercely moved toward the giant drum in front of him.
The drum was smashed.
Boom, the sound of drums suddenly sounded in the fields, on the river, and in the sky, reaching the ears of every soldier of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty.
Boom, the drum sounds again!
At this time, the soldiers of each battalion and team in the New Army of the Tang Dynasty were also preparing to fight!
In particular, the officers of the three musketeers have already given orders: "Get ready!"
Immediately, the musketeers of each musketeer team lit the match ropes, ready to fire at any time to meet the enemy!
Behind the musketeers were nearly a hundred archers. They had already taken their arrows out of their quivers in advance and stuck them on the ground.
On the one hand, this is done to facilitate archery, but on the other hand, there is another reason that ordinary people don't know, but it is extremely vicious, and that is to increase the probability of infection for the enemy who is hit by the arrow.
Speaking of this, many people may ask, why didn’t the arrows fired by archers in ancient wars be coated with poison?
This is because in ancient times, highly toxic drugs were difficult to extract and even harder to preserve, which led to high costs. If they were just ordinary poisons, they would not be of much use.
Therefore, ancient archers usually did not dip their bows and arrows in poison!
But this does not mean that they did nothing. They did not apply poison, but they often stained the arrowheads with gold juice.
What is golden juice? It’s also shit and urine!
If an arrow with feces and urine is shot at an enemy, the enemy will be more likely to be infected after being hit by the arrow.
In addition, they also like to use rusty arrowheads, and inserting arrowheads into the soil also has the same effect.
So don't believe that archers in ancient armies would use poison on a large scale, but don't even think that archers in ancient times would be stupid and do nothing.
Human wisdom is infinite, especially in war, because both the enemy and us will try their best to kill the other party. If they cannot kill the other party, then they will die. In order to survive and kill the enemy, people fight in war.
China will continue to innovate.
During the Thirty Years' War, flintlocks replaced matchlocks in large-scale equipment, making line tactics the mainstream on the battlefield.
During the Napoleonic Wars, artillery rose from an auxiliary arm to the status of the main arm, and had a decisive impact on the outcome of the war.
In the American Revolutionary War, the high-precision Minie rifle replaced the musket and became the mainstream of warfare, and skirmishing tactics became the mainstream.
The Russo-Japanese War made machine guns shine. By the time of the First World War, intensive charges had become history.
The Second World War was the palace of various technological innovations. The various new technologies developed for the war were simply dazzling. The technologies that everyone is familiar with today were actually born during World War II, such as television, radar, and ultraviolet light.
Night vision devices, and the famous nuclear bomb!
In addition, during the decades-long Cold War, although no hot war broke out, both sides were preparing for war, so technological innovation was also exploding.
Therefore, war is the source of all technological innovation!
After coming to this era, Li Xuan also made many technological innovations within his ability in order to win the war.
A matchlock gun that uses fixed powder, has a front sight, and is equipped with a sleeve bayonet.
A long-barreled front-loading smoothbore gun made of bronze.
A parapet defense system suitable for unleashing musket firepower.
Even the innovation and modification of the entire organization and tactics are all for the victory of the war.
And today is the time to test whether everything he has done can work.
The Ming army began to cross the river. Looking from the west bank, the opposite side was densely packed with rafts and Ming soldiers on the rafts. They were struggling to paddle with simple wooden oars in their hands, or even just a small wooden board, to push the raft forward.
Go faster.
Corresponding to the densely packed Ming army, there were the officers and soldiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty who were equally neatly and densely arrayed behind the parapet.
The parapet is located about thirty meters away from the river. Originally, they wanted to build the parapet directly to the river, but the land too close to the river was soft, and some were even mud or sand.
It was too difficult to build a complete parapet fortification, so the parapet could only be built thirty meters back.
But this does not mean that the thirty meters from the parapet to the river are empty, which can allow the Ming army to land smoothly. In order to prevent the Ming army from landing, they placed a large number of horses in this area, and even
Just put up some wooden stakes.
These wooden fortifications were naturally not intended to kill the enemy, but to prevent the Ming army from forming dense formations.
It's a pity that time is too tight, otherwise Li Xuan would have planned to build a wooden fence directly near the river.
Dense soldiers lined up behind the breastworks, and the musketeers had already loaded their weapons and were waiting for orders from above to fire.
The commanders of the musketeers also secretly calculated the distance. Now the Ming army has not even reached the center of the river. The distance is too far and the muskets cannot hit it.
We could only watch Xie Ziwei's artillery fire intermittently. However, when the Ming army was still on the river beach, Xie Ziwei's artillery was very lethal because the solid ball shells could bounce up continuously.
But when the Ming army was in the water and officially crossed the river, the medicine ball shells were of little use, because they would sink when hit into the water. As for one cannon hitting the Ming army's raft, knocking out the entire raft.
Falling into the water.
This hit rate is too small. Instead of wasting cannonballs, it is better to use shotguns!
Yes, Xie Ziwei and the others had already begun shelling with shotguns. However, the effect of the first shot was not good and it missed the target. It just landed on the water where there was no Ming army raft. Xie Ziwei was so angry that he screamed, wishing he could
Take aim yourself.
Unfortunately, he had only been learning artillery for two days, and it was already very difficult for him to decide the timing and type of ammunition based on the distance. It was still too difficult for him to load and aim by himself.
But then again, even if Xie Ziwei's artillery hit a boatload of enemy soldiers, it would still not affect the outcome of the battle.
As for the 3,000 Ming army, there were more than 200 large and small rafts used to cross the river. In addition to the rafts, there were also boats from the original ferry.
Relying on these rafts and boats, they were able to cross the river all at once.
When the Ming army's river-crossing troops crossed the center line and were only 70 meters away from the shore and only 100 meters away from the Tang Dynasty's new army, the officers of each musketeer team had already unanimously ordered to shoot!
A snapping sound suddenly sounded on the river, and a column of white smoke spread over a hundred meters long from the parapet.
The shooting of the musketeers announced that the battle between the two sides had entered the most critical, and it could also be said to be the most intense stage!