I want to be emperor

Chapter 158 The thieves' guns are so terrifying

Wang Xiazi's cavalry only ran up to shoot a wave of arrows symbolically, because they were afraid that the enemy would use long-range weapons such as infantry and muskets to counterattack, so they didn't even dare to get too close or stay for long.

Instead, taking advantage of the short time before the enemy reacted, he hurried forward and shot arrows at high speed.

Because of the lack of time, of the three cavalry posts under Wang Xiazi's command, only the first cavalry post at the front actually went up to shoot arrows, and the remaining two cavalry posts were still behind.

When the first cavalry sentry rushed to shoot arrows, the cavalry were riding at high speed and shooting arrows from a relatively long distance at the same time. Naturally, this accuracy was not good. Even if few of the opponents had armor, their protection was close to zero. , but only a dozen or so people were killed or injured.

But, just such casualties caused the Ming army's phalanx, which was not very effective in combat and continued to face pressure from the cavalry, to cause high tension among the soldiers and the already extremely low morale of the Ming army's phalanx.

The collapse of the Ming army's ordinary guards caught Wang Xiazi himself by surprise, and he never thought that he could directly defeat the enemy's infantry phalanx.

After all, his task is not to directly defeat a certain infantry phalanx.

No matter how insane Luo Zhixue was, he wouldn't be able to attack the enemy's infantry phalanx head-on with the typical oriental classical horse-shooting light cavalry like the First Cavalry Brigade.

Not to mention whether the light infantry can win by attacking the infantry phalanx, even if they can win, even if the battle loss ratio is large, it will be a loss!

The real task of the cavalry under Wang Xiazi's command is to force the enemy to change their formation constantly through continuous short-distance high-speed maneuvers on the battlefield, so as to make loopholes in the enemy's formation, and at the same time to help the [-]st Infantry Brigade contain more enemy troops.

This will create more favorable opportunities for your own infantry.

Of course, if the enemy army is not professional enough and exposes loopholes when faced with the mobilization of cavalry, then the cavalry will also rush to kill a wave.

The forward shooting just now was purely due to the lack of professionalism in the formation of the Ming army on the opposite side. There were problems with normal formation changes and short-distance maneuvers, which exposed the weakness.

Under such circumstances, if Wang Xiazi didn't want to go up and shoot a wave of arrows, he would be sorry for himself.

Besides, if you don't cause some casualties to the Ming army, if you have a chance, don't rush forward, how can you continue to create pressure on the Ming army, and then mobilize the Ming army's strength.

Therefore, he decisively let the first cavalry post under his command rush forward.

But, the opposite side only endured a round of cavalry and shooting from their own side, and there were only a dozen people killed or wounded, but they collapsed directly...

To be honest, Wang Xiazi didn't expect this kind of thing. If he had known earlier, he would have let the second cavalry post and the seventh cavalry post rush up, so he wouldn't have wiped out the Ming army phalanx.

Blind Wang, who was involved, was caught off guard, and Lu Xiangsheng didn't expect such a thing to happen.

This battle has just begun, strictly speaking, it has not yet fully started. After all, the infantry on both sides have not yet maneuvered in place, and there is still some distance.

As a result, an infantry phalanx of their own was finished first...

Even if the infantry phalanx was just a phalanx composed of ordinary guard soldiers transferred from Yunyang, and there were not many soldiers among them, it wouldn't have collapsed just after entering the battle.

Is this my bad luck?

Or is the bandit army really too strong?

Or, are these guard soldiers really too scumbags?
With doubts and even more anger, Lu Xiangsheng ordered the other two infantry phalanxes on the right to make an emergency turn, facing Wang Xiazi's cavalry to form a defensive formation, preventing Wang Xiazi's cavalry from continuing to advance, and then shaking his right wing formation, which then evolved into An out-of-control total defeat situation.

Wang Xiazi saw that the other two Ming army arrays in front began to turn urgently, and when a large number of archers were waiting in front of them, he decisively led the cavalry to turn and retreat.

Although Wang Xiazi's cavalry temporarily retreated, this time Wang Xiazi's cavalry assault still achieved fruitful results.

Not only did it directly defeat a phalanx of three to 400 Ming troops, it also caused the phalanx to collapse on a large scale, making it impossible to reorganize in a short period of time.

At the same time, two phalanxes were mobilized. The Ming army with a total number of about [-] people broke away from the frontal formation and moved to the right edge to form a defensive cavalry.

As a result, at least 500 troops from the Ming army were unable to participate in frontal combat.

The pressure on the right army forces such as the [-]st Infantry Brigade in the front was further reduced.

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When Wang Xiazi's cavalry withdrew temporarily and was about to continue roaming to create a favorable opportunity, the artillery unit of the rural protection army on the front line also let out the roar of the god of war!

Having continued to maneuver on the battlefield before, the artillery unit of the Rural Protection Army, which arrived at the predetermined position, began intensive shelling under the command of Zhang Malin.

The combat method of the artillery unit of the Township Protection Army is different from that of the Ming Army and Dongyao, which are also equipped with a large number of artillery.

For example, it is also Hongyi artillery, which is equipped by the above three companies. The [-]-jin long cannon of the Township Protection Army is actually a small Hongyi artillery, but the diameter is shorter.

However, the small Hongyi artillery of the Xiangxiang Army is more active and maneuverable, and pays more attention to the rate of fire.

In order to obtain sufficient mobility, not only a more advanced large two-wheeled gun mount is used, but also the weight is strictly controlled, so that the caliber is relatively small, and the multiple diameter is also relatively low.

In order to increase the rate of fire, the whole ammunition is used.

With these technical improvements, the Township Protection Army can directly pull the heavy and difficult-to-maneuver cannon artillery onto the battlefield, and accompany the infantry to carry out field battles.

If these are just technical improvements, then there is another point that belongs to tactical changes.

That is, the artillery of the Rural Protection Army has always followed the principle of centralized use.

Unlike the Ming Army and the Eastern Captives, artillery is only a part of the infantry. The artillery of the Township Protection Army is an independent arm, and it is one of the four independent arms of the Township Protection Army, like infantry, cavalry, and heavy soldiers.

It is used independently for combat, and it is used intensively during battle to carry out covering intensive shelling on a certain target.

This is a very obvious feature of the Field Artillery Unit of the Rural Protection Army.

Now on the Sanyuanzhuang battlefield, the same is true for the artillery units of the Township Protection Army!

Zhang Malin led the artillery unit to maneuver quickly, even faster than the infantry when advancing. When the infantry was still slowly marching forward, the two artillery posts under Zhang Malin had already maneuvered into place, and Shelling began at the front line of the Ming army 600 meters away.

And the two artillery posts aimed at the frontmost Ming army array for shelling.

With the sound of rumbling cannons, the shells fired by the artillery of the Township Protection Army crossed the sky and fell into an array of about 800 Ming troops at the forefront of the front.

After these shells landed, because the ground was relatively solid, many shells bounced many times, which caused a bloody storm among the enemy troops!
Just in the first round of shelling, at least 800 or [-] people were killed or injured in a Ming army formation of about [-] people directly in front, and the formation was even broken.

Many soldiers involuntarily took a few steps back after seeing that even the heavily armored soldiers next to them were either dead or maimed under the shelling from the opposite side.

The Hongyi cannons of the bandit army are really too scary, they are at least 200 feet apart, yet they can cause such heavy damage to one's own side.

If it weren't for the Ming army generals in the formation trying their best to maintain the queue, they might have collapsed after the first round of shelling.

But this hasn't been played yet. Just 30 seconds later, the artillery unit of the Rural Protection Army, which was urgently loaded, started the second round of shelling.

Under rapid fire, the [-]-jin long gun with full ammunition can achieve a rate of fire of two to three rounds per minute under the operation of a skilled gunner, and its rate of fire is directly comparable to that of an arquebus.

After another round of shelling, the Ming army lined up hundreds of meters away and laid down dozens of people again.

Another 30 seconds later, the third round of shelling arrived as scheduled, causing at least 30 casualties to the Ming army phalanx again.

1 minutes
Three rounds of shelling!

Twelve cannons!
36 rounds!

It directly caused more than 500 deaths and injuries to this Ming army phalanx that was still more than 100 meters away!

The surviving soldiers of the Ming army who were in it were all panicked.

At first they just didn't have the freedom to move backwards, but after the third round of shelling, many Ming soldiers in the front row couldn't stand the pressure of being unilaterally slaughtered anymore, and turned around one by one to the back. run away.

They collapsed without incident.

Lu Xiangsheng at the back of the battlefield looked at a recruiting phalanx in front of the Chinese army formation that he had placed high hopes on. When he was hit by the artillery of the bandit army and collapsed in a short period of time, his expression was still as calm as water on the surface, and no change could be seen. .

But in fact, he has already set off a stormy sea in his heart!

The guns of the bandit army are so terrifying!
Everything that happened in front of him was completely different from what he had expected before!
He never imagined that the cannons of these bandits could run so fast, and even maneuvered one step ahead of the infantry before shelling them.

What's more, he didn't expect that the dozens of long-barreled artillery pieces of the bandit army were not scattered and deployed on the battlefield to accompany the infantry to fight, but they were directly concentrated and directly fired long-distance bombardment at one of their own arrays.

It's also very accurate.

With the bombardment of the rebel army, the recruitment array in front was unilaterally massacred!

Yes, this is a one-sided massacre!

The distance between the two sides is still 600 meters. At this time, the infantry arrays of both sides have not yet maneuvered in place, let alone entered the stage of hand-to-hand combat.

However, in the face of such a large-scale cluster target, the artillery unit of the Rural Protection Army can completely open the distance to shell, and it can also cause a lot of damage to this cluster target.

When the Township Protection Army started shelling with artillery tactics that almost surpassed this era, Lu Xiangsheng couldn't understand the battle at Sanyuanzhuang, and he didn't even know how to deal with it.

The war in front of him is beyond his cognition!
(End of this chapter)