stubborn thief

Chapter 306 Fighting with the Air

The cold rain brought the temperature down.

The handsome tent was set up on a two-foot-high earth mountain. Liu Chengzong walked into the rain screen wearing an oil raincoat, and looked north with his binoculars.

He knew that the enemy might have artillery, but in this weather, it was unlikely that the enemy would drag the artillery to bomb him specifically. On the contrary, if the rain lasted longer, the mountain might collapse by itself.

Through the foggy lens, the Mongolian army in the distance is lined up in several columns. The cavalry is in the middle of the valley, and the infantry is in the mountains on both sides. It should be cool if it doesn't rain.

In the army, there were materials dragged by yaks, huge logs and felt tents, and a mobile tent cart pulled by at least twelve yaks. Liu Chengzong took a fancy to this apartment at a glance.

Dai Daozi's Tangqi still kept a distance of one mile from the enemy's forward, and was forced to retreat slowly by the pressure of the army, and quickly crossed the trench.

At this time, the battlefield could no longer be covered. Through the binoculars, Liu Chengzong saw that on the slopes on both sides of the valley, there were Mongolian soldiers holding flags climbing up the mountainside in the rain to report front-line intelligence to the army in the valley.

He can see the enemy, and the enemy can see him.

The Khalkha army was imposing on the border. Liu Chengzong couldn't estimate the number of enemies with the invisible army at a glance. He only knew that there were more enemies than himself. He looked down at the bottom of the earth mountain, and there were three formations for the army to fight.

The left wing consisted of [-] aristocratic cavalry of mixed light and heavy. Everyone had armor. Most of them were mail armor with or without heart guards, and there were fewer heavy armor and four-level armor. The appeal is different and the number of troops is different, about [-] to [-] cavalry, and the total number of troops is nearly [-].

The Chinese army consisted of [-] veterans from Ah Liu. Their equipment was no different from that of the Ming army, but they had no firearms, and the main weapon was a five-branched crossbow. Infantry archers and spearmen supplemented the troops.

The right wing is the [-] long Hexi heavy infantry led by Gass, with the best equipment, almost armed to the teeth by the standards of chieftains, close to the hillside, which is the terrain they are most accustomed to, and the right wing is also the thinnest part of the army.

Liu Chengzong deliberately set up such an army formation with thick left and thin right, in order to allow the lion horse team to pass quickly from the right formation. .

Zhang Tianlin and Gao Yingdeng's [-] cavalry served as a reserve team and stayed behind.

Most of Huang Shengxiao's gun artillery troops were huddled in simple sheds in the second ditch due to the weather. Only a hundred artillerymen were mixed with lynx grandchildren at the front line. They made simple sheds for lynx grandchildren, and they could use loose Play once.

According to the plan, they will return after release. If it is not possible, they have also received infantry training in Juerwan, and it is unambiguous to carry swords into battle.

This is Huang Shengxiao's request. The first time this guy made his mark under Liu Chengzong's command was firing a cannon in the rain, and now he has caught his old job.

Seeing the menacing Mongolian army, the left wing and the central army had a brief turmoil. Zhang Tianlin, who was standing on the dirt hill to observe the battlefield, narrowed her eyes and said, "Commander, the Fan soldiers may not be able to defeat the Tartars. They can't even beat Xie Erhu in the south. Putting it on the front line and attacking first, I am worried that it will collapse directly."

"No, they won't be afraid if the cannon is fired." Liu Chengzong answered with confidence, but instead asked an irrelevant question: "Does General Zhang know what is the most powerful sword in the world?"

Zhang Tianlin thought that it would be impossible for a fan to fight with a knife, and even if the fan knife was powerful, the fans under them didn't have that many knives, so she shook her head and said, "I don't know."

"The gun knife, the gun knife is the most powerful, it can defeat all swords, and it can also defeat spears."

Liu Chengzong looked at the battle formation in the distance, the raindrops mixed with ice slag hit his oil coat, crackling.

He spoke intermittently: "It's not because of the superb forging technique of the blunderbuss knife, but because it is inserted into the blunderbuss."

After finishing speaking, he turned his head and said: "We are guns, they are knives, if the Mongols are on our side, the Mongols can kill Fanzi to the point of blood; Humans can beat the crap out of Tartars... It's not Xie Erhu who can beat us, but us."

Of course, the bayonet is not as useful as a spear, and it is not even as good as a normal one-handed knife, but if it is inserted into a musket, it can be invincible in the world with the performance of the musket.

Liu Chengzong believes that fifty small cannons can bring a little surprise to the approaching Khalkha horse team.

But it wasn't Xiaopao that brought surprises first.

The large Mongol troops stood at a distance of [-] paces to the north of a ditch. A Mongolian team of one thousand continued to advance forward, accelerated, and outflanked the two wings... probably because of the visibility in rainy days, they only found the ditch a few steps away.

The captain immediately walked around to the two wings, but there were two horses that had their own ideas, and led the horse soldiers into the ditch with their heads under the watchful eyes of Liu Chengzong.

The laughter of the soldiers in the own army was overwhelming, and the generals in front of the enemy army were furious. They drove the yaks and dragged the giant logs forward.

Tang Qi, who had withdrawn from the camp, also attacked again under the leadership of Dai Daozi, fighting the Mongolian scouts on the flanking hillside, but this time they used bows and arrows instead.

In this way, the advantage is not so great.

A Haidaiqing of Khalkha and Gu Yang stood side by side on the pasture cart, raised his finger to Tang Qi and said, "It's rainy, and after half an hour, even the bow can't be used after being soaked in water. I'll prepare treasures for them and beat them to death." them."

The bald Qiang is proud, and he is not angry at all when he sees the trenches.

Because he has mastered a technology rarely seen by the Mongols, making back cannons.

This is a very backward technology. It is very easy to master it, but you have to be very interested in these things... because it is useless.

It is useless in Khalkha, and it is useless outside Khalkha. It has a short range and heavy weight, making it difficult to quickly assemble and move.

Whether it is internal strife with the Mongolian army, or fighting with the Ming army or Houjin, it is useless. The Mongolian army runs fast, the Ming army has artillery, and Houjin runs fast and has artillery.

But on rainy days, this old craft comes in handy.

Fifty stone bullets with a weight of six taels can be smashed 150 steps away by the return gun after passing the counterweight, and they are supplemented by horsemen to attack. What can the Han army without artillery fight against him?

Not to mention that there are trenches!

At this time, the front troops of the two sides were only a hundred steps away from the middle of the two trenches. Except for the Tangqi and the scouts, both sides tacitly did not release arrows, because their bows and arrows were still in the bag, and they could not actually do anything. It will not be taken out and wound.

Liu Chengzong saw yaks dragging large logs to the front line. Those logs were lifted up and stood up, not for filling trenches and building bridges, but as if they were assembling something.

Then Liu Chengzong glared, cursed and drove Zhang Tianlin and his guards away: "Go, go, everyone except the standard bearer is fine, I can just stand here, what's wrong with these Tartars, catapult? Take the yellow Call up."

A Haidaiqing's two counterweight catapults were slowly but firmly assembled in front of a ditch.

These two things caused great commotion in front of the battle. The noble cavalry wanted to lead the crowd across the trench to attack the stone cannon several times, but they did not dare to face a large number of Mongolian cavalry alone. The leaders of each team turned back to the mountain anxiously.

Fortunately, their commander-in-chief is still standing on the dirt hill.

Huang Shengxiao ran up the mound from the blunderbuss shed, Liu Chengzong pointed to the return cannons in front of the formation and asked, "Can we hit them?"

He was a little annoyed. He never expected that the two trenches he dug would become a powerful barrier for the Tartars to protect the catapults.

It's no wonder that Lao Qijia didn't observe it carefully, and the snow mountain has too high requirements for detection information, besides, Lao Qijia may have never seen this thing.

In fact, even Liu Chengzong saw the return cannon for the first time. If he hadn't read the blueprint in the book, he wouldn't have recognized it at all.

Huang Shengxiao felt like he was facing a formidable enemy. The rain had a great impact on gunpowder weapons, but it had no effect on gravitational trebuchets like return guns.

He shook his head and said: "Commander, I don't know, the range is enough, but it's hard to see clearly in rainy weather, and it's hard to aim. Our blunderbuss can only kill people, but can't dismantle the stone cannon."

"Fight first and talk later. If you can't dismantle the cannon, you will kill everyone."

As soon as Liu Chengzong's voice fell, the guards holding the flag quickly gave orders, and then the sound of orders sounded in the gun shed one after another. The soldiers carrying firearms on their shoulders changed positions to set up weapons, and fifty guns were organized into five teams. car enemy.

The Mongolian cavalry still swaggered around the two catapults in front of the trench, and they enjoyed the shock brought by the catapults to the enemy.

Two two-foot-high tripods have been installed, and the shepherd stands on the wooden ladder on the side and shouts down. One end of the force arm is tied with a rope, and the short arm at the other end hangs a stone box, which is filled with large stones for counterweight.

Four soldiers pulled the rope, and one person on the left and right of the stone cannon turned the winch, pulled the end of the throwing arm of the force arm to the bottom, and smashed the pebble shell into the thick leather pocket. The soldiers shouted ready.

Accompanied by an order from the Mongolian general on the front line, the moment the live hook was smashed, there was a buzzing sound, and the heavy stone at the front end of the force arm suddenly fell, dragging the entire force arm to draw a semicircle in the air. At this point, the buckle at one end of the leather pocket came out of the arm, and hundreds of flying stones in the pocket shot forward.

Almost half a catty of stone bullets passed through the wind and rain with a buzzing sound. Almost at the same time, Liu Chengzong's entire army was in a panic. People shouted to raise their shields in various languages. Don't dare to look directly at the flying stones.

But the flying stone is going to fall down after all.

For a while, two catapults threw flying stones one after another. Hundreds of stone bullets were thrown in the air. In the middle army where the Tubo nobles and Alubasang belonged, the soldiers were beaten to the point of crying for their parents and running away with their heads in their arms.

Those without shields were thrown backwards, those with shields were also smashed to the ground, and some were hit in the head without wearing helmets, and were directly knocked unconscious.

Ah Liu was the first to react, and immediately ordered his veterans to set up hundreds of crossbows in front of the formation, and shoot a bunch of arrows towards the catapult.

His big crossbow can hit that far, but it has no power at that distance.

The Kangning light soldiers who were mixed together also stringed the bows, splashing a rain of arrows, and were stopped immediately. Their bows are weak and powerful, and they are useless except to waste feather arrows... No, Do not waste feathered arrows, as their arrows are often featherless.

Under normal circumstances, they should have been defeated by now.

The enemy can hit me, but I can't hit the enemy, so if I don't run, why don't I stay here and get smashed?

But at this moment, there was a loud noise from the artillery shed behind the formation, ten large guns sticking out of the shed spewed out a cloud of gunpowder smoke, and ten two-and-a-half lead bumps responded to the call from the siege equipment 400 years ago.

The Mongolian general riding the white horse still held his neck high to enjoy the scene of the flying stones smashing the enemy soldiers to their heads. The next moment, gunpowder smoke rose in the distance in the rain, and there was a whoosh in his ear.

He then turned his head sharply, and the soldiers lined up beside him all looked down at their stomachs in a daze.

The last soldier held up the remaining half of his arm, with a pierced round shield hanging on his arm, bleeding from the leather armor on his chest, and then let out a heart-wrenching cry.

"This……"

General Baima hadn't reacted from the sudden shock, all he was thinking was: What?
There was another burst of fire in the distance, and he turned his head quickly. The previous handful of gunpowder smoke had just been dispersed by the rain, and another piece of gunpowder smoke rose there, and the sound of swishing passed over the battlefield again.

This time the enemy's attack was very clear in his eyes. Some things hit the catapult like pegs built into wood, and some things swept past the front line, kicking up a large piece of turf behind them, breaking up wet clods and mud Fly around.

There were also some things hitting his soldiers, and the only thing that passed was the sound of tearing cloth and breaking wood. It didn't matter whether the leather armor was inlaid with iron or not, and whether the shield had iron or not.

As long as they are on one line, shields, armor, war horses, and soldiers will all be pierced, and sometimes even more than one line, those lead lumps that hit hard objects and were crushed will still fly and kill people.

Lightning flashed across the sky, and in the blink of an eye, he saw a cavalry captain holding up a saber shining with lightning, trying to stop the soldiers from breaking up.

A lump of lead collided with the saber, and the blade broke into three sections from the middle. infantry.

The front line was already in disarray, another burst of gunpowder smoke rose from the corner of the eye, and the sound was mixed with the rolling thunder in the distance.

All kinds of voices crashed into the ears of General White Horse. His mind was confused and his horse was flustered.

The team of thousands gathered by the catapult fled immediately, and even the army formation behind them was rushed by their rout, and at the same time, the Corning nobles who formed the brigade also collapsed.

For the mob, rushing and retreating are just a form of collapse. There is no order on the earth mountain, and it is unknown who started it. The noble cavalry stepped forward one by one, holding their spears straight forward.

The Sixth Chinese Army, who didn't know where it was, also raised the banner and crossed the trench in formation.

Liu Chengzong was dumbfounded. Thirty lead knocked down the thousand-man team, which he expected.

But he never expected that this thousand-man team would turn around and rush to their own camp. They were really impulsive and ran northwest with them.

What's more, he never imagined that the Western nobles under him would rush out like wild boars who had never won a battle in their life.

Originally, he wanted to lead the cavalry to stop the Chinese army. Although it was said that it was rainy and the information communication was probably out of order, what if it was a false defeat?The enemy parked tens of thousands of troops behind, just rushing over like this?
But in a second, he considered the matching mechanism between Western and Mongolian in this era.

Perhaps following the charge and turning a false defeat into a rout is the correct way to start a war.

What digging ditches, building earth hills, encircling on both sides, and advancing slowly all belong to a battle of wits and courage with the air.

In the end, he folded his arms and sighed on the dirt hill, glanced at the snow-capped mountains to the north, and said in great disappointment: "Forget it, let Gao Yingdeng protect the flanks of the Chinese army, let's go forward, this motherfucker What are you still encircling!"

"Zhang Tianlin doesn't move. If it's a bluff, there is still a front." Liu Chengzong said, then raised his binoculars to take a look: "I guess he won."

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)