Xinshun 1730

Chapter 441 Crazy
On the mountain, the scouting hot air balloon has already risen, paying close attention to the surrounding movements.

It wasn't that Wu Fangrui was overly careful, but it was really beyond his expectation.

He thought that the Japanese would at least have to struggle with the strength of the various domains, according to the number of 6000 people.

But he roughly clicked, and the Japanese only had seven or eight thousand soldiers.

He rubbed his eyes carefully, and asked the messenger beside him, "Look carefully, the Japanese only have 6 cannons? I won't miss anything, right?"

The orderly checked it carefully, and replied: "That's right, my lord, there are only 6 guns."

He turned his head and looked at the staff officers, and said in surprise: "The Japanese are indeed courageous. Seven or eight thousand troops, at most two thousand matchlock guns, and six cannons, dare to confront each other? Is this...crazy?"

Back then when he followed Liu Yu on the westward expedition, it was difficult to provide logistical supplies, and he was on an expedition of thousands of miles. In addition, he used French-style field artillery, which was too heavy. Therefore, even in that battle, there was not such a disparity in artillery comparison.

This time the sea transportation did not go deep into the inland. He had expected that the artillery would have an advantage, but he really did not expect it to be so dominant.

Two thousand 200-year-old antique matchlock guns, four Francophones with serious air leaks, and two 200-year-old Western European naval guns dare to confront each other without moving the gun mounts?
Wu Fangrui looked up at the sky, made sure that the weather was fine, and it didn't look like it was going to rain. He shook his head and muttered, "Crazy...crazy!"

Either the lord of the Changzhou domain is crazy, or the Japanese may try to sneak attack from other paths?
He asked the adjutant to bring a basin of cold water, splashed it on his face, and after making sure he was awake, he ordered: "Let the hot air balloon observe carefully, and let the scouts out, and look south to see if there is any ambush by the Japanese."

The messenger quickly passed on the order. Wu Fangrui walked up to Li Yan and asked, "Your Highness, if I am not suspicious, then the Japanese are crazy. Let me wait a little longer. I am afraid that the Japanese will collapse in half an hour. Interlude It may be difficult for the troops to intercept in the rear."

Li Yan also couldn't understand it, and thought that this equipment was much worse than that of Dashun before the military reform.

Before the military reform, at least Dashun's heavy arquebus of Central Asian origin had an equipment rate of more than half, and every battle must have the advantage of heavy artillery.

Even, it seems that even when Dashun was founded, Donglu's artillery and firearms equipment rate was much higher than that of these Japanese.Otherwise, Dashun and Donglu would not have lost so badly in the few battles before Jingxiang. It has to be said that those traitors indeed gave Donglu the strongest artillery in Asia at that time.

Now the entire battlefield revealed a kind of weirdness everywhere. According to his thinking, after the Japanese found out their own strength, they should choose to retreat and run away. Why did they still want to fight in the field?

There are also [-]% to [-]% of the Musketeers in the quasi-corps, and there are even artillery formed by the Swedes.In addition, he didn't know the bayonet and hollow formation tactics at all, so he dared to take the initiative to attack Liu Yu, who was alone and deep, but was defeated in the first battle.

Before attacking the city or defending the city, Li Yan really didn't expect the Japanese's field weapons to look like this, so he smiled helplessly: "General Wu is reluctant, so let's fight."

Facing the formation of the Japanese, Wu Fangrui did not leave the rest of the reserve team except combat engineers as a reserve team.

Excluding the reserve team and artillery, as well as the part of the force that threatened Hagi Castle in the castle town, he still has 4500 troops that can be used for front-line operations.

The narrow terrain made him unable to think of a way to outflank, so he ordered the outflanking troops to intercept them.

The main battle of the Japanese is on the mountain on the east side, and there are two roads leading to the rear.One is along the bank of the Abu River, which is easier to walk; the other is just to the south of the Japanese formation on the mountain, where the Japanese cavalry is deployed.

Wu Fangrui pondered for a while, and felt that it would not be difficult if he mainly attacked the mountain road on the south side, defeated the Japanese cavalry, and blocked the south road.

The problem is that it is likely to cause the Japanese people to flee northward frantically when they see the South Road blocked.I'm not afraid of them fleeing to Hagi Castle, because there are cavalry near the castle town.I was afraid that they would run into the woods along the path. The Dashun soldiers were not familiar with the place, so it would be difficult to catch them.

Wu Fangrui is very worried about the current situation. Once he starts to attack, he will be beaten as a sheep.The key is the sheep, where are they going?
Outflanking on both sides and cutting off both roads can actually force the Japanese to go up the mountain.

The Japanese didn't carry much supplies, and they had to surrender on the mountain in at most three days.

But the key is that this requires consistent attacks on both sides. If the north side is fast and the south side is slow, it may cause the Japanese to flee when they see the situation is not good; and vice versa.

These Japanese people are all locals, and when they drilled into the mountains, there was nowhere to catch them.

But if it is done, the main force of the Japanese can be wiped out without the intervention of the troops.

Under the chaos, running to the mountain controlled by them, and the general is still on the mountain, it is almost a subconscious reaction.

He shared this idea with Li Yan, and Li Yan said with a smile: "General, do as you please. Although I am called the chief general, I am actually an apprentice. All orders are issued by me, and the general only needs to deploy."

After getting Li Yan's endorsement and approval, Wu Fangrui set up the formation into a standard formation with more sides and less middle.

Just in case, he judged the marching time of the troops behind the attack, and decided to set the attack time at twelve o'clock noon.

Mobilized two companies of skirmishers and six light cannons, crossed the river and moved eastward in the castle town, and attacked the northern retreat of the Japanese from the north bank of the Abu River.

The two thousand lines of private soldiers lined up the resistance line.

All the artillery was concentrated and divided into two parts, one part bombarded the north side and the other part bombarded the south side, and all the heavy artillery was aimed at the south side.

The cavalry put on a posture to confront the Japanese banner cavalry, and they were also placed on the south side, followed by an elite grenadier company and a battalion of infantry.

The order to the cavalry was that once the southern side of the Japanese was destroyed, if the cavalry on the southern side of the Japanese fled along the road, the Lancers would do nothing but chase after the Japanese.

The matter of blocking the flanks is not for the Lancers, but for the grenadiers and infantry behind.

The rest of the troops were formed into battalion columns and assembled on the front line of the Abu River.

At eleven o'clock in the morning, the artillerymen of the heavy artillery began to shoot at the Japanese artillery positions one by one, and none of them. They were not eager to destroy them immediately, but were testing to judge the angle and distance.

At 11:30, the commanders of each battalion received the final order from Wu Fangruina, and they all took their positions.

At 45:[-], the skirmishers of the two companies and six light artillery assembled in the castle town by crossing the river have been deployed at a position that can threaten the flank of the Japanese.

He took out his pocket watch, and when the minute hand finally turned to twelve o'clock, the artillerymen who had already calculated their positions destroyed the only six Japanese cannons in the first place.

Subsequently, the artillery assembled on both sides began to bombard the sides according to the established target.

The flower bombs kept passing the iron gunners in front and exploded above the heads of the Japanese cavalry on the south side. The 1200 Japanese cavalry in the formation lost more than [-] people after three rounds of shelling. For a long distance, they avoided some unexpected shelling.

Under the shelling, the formation of Kusakuchi and Bamboo Spearmen on the north side has begun to shake.

The stragglers who crossed the river kept marching towards their flanks on the Awu River and the north side. Across the river, the Japanese archers could not fight back, and the iron gunners could not hit them at all.

At the same time, the naval guns assembled at sea also began to shell Hagi Castle, making it impossible for the samurai in Hagi Castle to gather at all, and could only watch the battle in the distance.

Occasionally, a few warriors who ran out were also shot dead by the cavalry and musketeers deployed nearby to monitor them.The bombardment of warships has a clearer purpose than before, which is to block the exit of Hagi Castle, so that the samurai of Hagi Castle cannot leave the city.

Even if only half of the fleet's artillery can be used, and the other half is always resting, there are still more than 200 artillery pieces that have been unloaded on the shore these days.

This level of bombardment was something Maori Zongguang could not see.Even if his ancestors were in the troubled times of the Warring States Period, no one had ever assembled 200 regular cannons.

Booming explosions kept coming, and every time the fireworks-like bombs flickered, more than a dozen people were hit.The bamboo spear soldiers in the formation should not be too loose, and the iron gunners in the formation also maintain the so-called three-stage strike. In such a dense formation, there is no artillery counterattack, and there is no cavalry counterattack. The artillerymen of Dashun were very happy. .

Mao Li Zongguang had never really fought against Dashun, and what he heard was that Dashun's firearms were sharp, but he never expected it to be so sharp.

Knowing that after another half an hour of such bombardment, Dashun's troops don't even need to attack, and their own front line will collapse.

While the artillery bombarded, he could see the infantry lined up in front of the Dashun army begin to advance.Standing on the hillside, I can see very clearly. Accompanied by the beating of drums, it seems like a wall is approaching neatly, and it looks like a moving forest.

This level of neatness and array has never been seen by Munehiro Mori.

The skirmishers in front dispersed, and when they approached about 150 steps, they kept shooting and killing the iron gunners in front with their muskets.

Iron gunners who had not received much training almost subconsciously fired back at each other, but such a long distance could not hit the scattered skirmishers at all.

When the line-up of the Dashun Army advanced to a distance of eighty steps, they stopped there neatly, despite the occasional feathered arrows thrown high and falling into the formation, or the iron gunners' bombardment remained still.Some people are concentrated, and the people behind are like logs to the front.

Then, Mori Zonghiro saw a real musket salvo.

Almost in an instant, white gunpowder smoke rose from the entire front at the same time, and the sound of crackling was connected together.

Most of the iron gunners who were still loading fell down almost instantly, while the infantry of the Dashun Army stayed in place, neither attacking nor charging, but loading gunpowder there.

On the north line, two battalions of infantry deployed battalion columns to charge forward along the Awuchuan River; on the south line, Dashun's cavalry had also moved.

Mao Li Zongguang suddenly figured out Dashun's purpose, which was to cut off the two routes of retreat from the north and the south, and encircle all his troops.

Before, I was still fantasizing that the Tang people were just good at defense because of their sharp firearms, not necessarily good at field combat.

The artillery bombardment is understandable, but the final confidence has not yet been crushed.

But when he saw the infantry advancing straight like a great wall of human flesh, he realized that these Tang people were very good at field combat.

Even if I have 1 more people, I can't win the field battle.

The vassal Saka Tokun, who was by Mouri Zonghiro's side, also saw that the battle could no longer be fought, and said repeatedly: "Lord, retreat!"

Mori Munehiro looked at the ashigaru and iron gunners at the foot of the mountain, gritted his teeth and said, "I can't retreat anymore."

"My lord, there is still a chance to withdraw the cavalry and the banner. If you hesitate any longer, once the cavalry of the Tang people assaults and blocks the way to withdraw to the south, you will have no chance to retreat."

The matter couldn't be more obvious. It's not that the Dashun army can't attack Hagi Castle, nor is it because Hagi Castle's defense is stronger than that of Xiaohama and Yonago.

However, soldiers are not soldiers, but samurai, which is the basis of Maori's rule.

Even if he withdrew, without the samurai, without the city of Hagi, what would he be, Mori Zonghiro?
This is not Dashun's recruiting, just recruit another batch if they are gone.

To him, these warriors are equivalent to all the sons of good families in Dashun, plus all Jinshi, Juren, plus all scholars, and all nobles. In other words, the entire ruling class from top to bottom died in one battle. Absolutely.

If all of Dashun's people were dead, at least it would be impossible for Dashun to exist.And these warriors are all gone, the place name Changzhou still exists, and the Changzhou Fan must be gone.

(End of this chapter)