Naturally, everything on the battlefield would not go according to Li Chunjing's plan. Li Chunjing wanted to use the range advantage of muskets to continuously attack the Ming army who were still in formation, in order to kill and injure the Ming army.
Depress their morale.
This tactic has obviously achieved certain results. After the Ming army suffered multiple rounds of volley fire, although the casualties suffered by each round of shooting were not large because of the distance, the cumulative casualties would be accumulated if they continued to be beaten like this.
Still not small.
After several rounds of firing, dozens of people had fallen in the Ming army's array, and screams continued to sound in the Ming army's array.
But obviously, these Ming troops cannot endure being beaten passively all the time. After the leader Qianhu shouted a few words, a deputy Qianhu soon ran out, and soon he led a group of archers.
Fang's Ming saber, shield, and spearmen rushed out from the array.
As soon as he saw these archers, Li Chunjing knew that they were trying to fight back, but due to the effective range and power of the bows and the quality of the Ming army's archers themselves, they had to get closer, at least as close as possible.
Only a distance of eighty meters can cause effective damage to the puppet Tang rebel army.
And the Ming army did exactly that. About a hundred archers among them tried to rush up and shoot at close range.
However, at this time, the officer of the second mixed battalion musketry team raised his hand, and the musketry team's shooting immediately stopped. At the same time, the officer shouted: "Prepare for volley!"
Suddenly, the hundreds of musketeers in the musketeers immediately changed their formation. The first row of soldiers knelt down, the second row of soldiers bent down, and the third row of soldiers stood, thus forming a standard three-row salvo formation.
To be honest, this three-row volley formation is actually not suitable for matchlock guns, because when using a matchlock gun in combat, there is a lit match rope on the matchlock gun. In order to avoid the problem when loading ammunition,
A soldier holds a match rope close to him, and then the gunpowder is ignited. Therefore, musketeers using matchlocks need to keep a certain distance when fighting.
Therefore, in the age of matchlocks, when musketeers fought in line, in order to maintain the density of firepower, they often adopted a six-row formation.
If flintlock guns are used, they can stand side by side and reload, which can shorten the distance between soldiers. On the same 100-meter line, the number of soldiers in each row can be doubled!
Therefore, while maintaining the same firepower density, musketeers using flintlock guns will fight in a three-row formation or even a two-row formation.
Of course, if you don't care about the density of firepower, you can use a matchlock gun to form a three-row formation and play the so-called three-stage shooting. As for whether you will be defeated by the enemy, it depends on who your opponent is.
However, this problem only occurs during the process of loading ammunition. After loading, the match rope will be clamped on the fire door again, so there is no need to worry about the soldier holding the match rope in his hand and igniting another soldier's gunpowder.
.
After loading is completed, the soldiers in the back row can come forward to fill in the air attack, allowing a whole team of six rows of soldiers to fire at the same time.
However, after firing, the reloading cannot be continued. At this time, either a bayonet charge is launched, or the soldiers in the last three rows retreat to reload.
In most cases, the new army of the Tang Dynasty directly launched a bayonet charge after completing three rows of salvos!
The New Army of the Tang Dynasty has always emphasized volleys and bayonet charges, and the tactics of multi-row shooting before that were actually more of an appetizer. Most of the battles in which the musketeers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty used it
The final close range volley defeated the enemy, and the bayonet charge was used to annihilate the enemy.
And this time, the same is true!
When the archers from the opposite side rushed up, Li Chunjing decisively and quickly ordered the muskets to form a salvo formation!
He couldn't let these archers rush up to a distance of seventy or eighty meters or even closer. He had to take advantage of the range and power of the musket to completely defeat these archers in one fell swoop!
How to make them collapse is very simple. As long as the damage caused by this round of volley is enough, it will be difficult for the archers on the opposite side not to collapse!
At the same time, he has also ordered other troops in the second mixed battalion to start taking action!
The archers about twenty meters away also started shooting arrows, providing long-range fire support to the musketeers.
But more important are the spearmen!
They are already starting from the middle and gradually moving forward. Yes, that's right, they are launching an attack!
The front row of these spearmen are all heavily armored spearmen!
They rely on the defense of their armor and are not afraid of those arrows at all!
Moreover, these armored spearmen in the front row will also give the enemy an illusion, that is, they think that the spearmen in their entire team are heavily armored spearmen, and more than a hundred heavily armored spearmen
To be honest, spearmen can easily sweep through the same number or even several times the number of light infantry.
Although the musketeers of the Pseudo-Tang thief army sounded sharp and had indeed caused a lot of damage to the Ming army just now, the heavily armed spearmen of the Pseudo-Tang thief army in front of them looked even more terrifying.
The archers' initial goal was to fight back against the musketeers, but when they found a group of heavily armored spearmen rushing towards them, they could still stand there.
Many people began to point their bows and arrows at these spearmen!
At this time, the generals of the Ming army obviously did not care whether they had formed a formation or not, and quickly urged the army to move forward and prepare to fight.
However, at this time, the volley from the First Musketeer Team of the Second Mixed Battalion finally fired!
This was a far denser burst of gunfire than the previous multiple rows of rounds. A salvo of hundreds of muskets and a salvo of twenty muskets were completely different concepts.
In addition, the distance between the two sides has been shortened from the previous 100 meters to about 70 meters, and the hit rate of this round of salvo is quite impressive.
Seeing that a large number of our comrades fell down, and the heavily armored spearmen of the Pseudo-Tang rebel army were almost rushing up, these archers still dared to stay where they were and continue shooting.
Abandoned the bow and arrow.
Don’t think that when an archer drops his bow and arrow when facing an enemy charge, he will collapse. In fact, this is not the case. This is a very normal tactical choice.
In ancient times, archers fought and faced the enemy's charge. They often could not get more than three shots from the enemy. When they were thirty steps away, they would abandon their bows and arrows and replace them with swords or other melee weapons to prepare for battle. Then they would transform into light infantry and continue fighting with the enemy.
Fighting at close quarters.
Well, this is of course a theoretical situation. Those who can do this are usually the elites of the ancient army. Can these Ming army archers face the impact of heavy infantry and still form formations to meet the enemy?
Are you kidding?
They dropped their bows and arrows, turned around and ran away!