Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 261 Melee
After breaking open the crumbling city gate with a huge axe, the heavily armored infantry retreated to one side. The battalion officer of the firecracker phalanx gave an order, and the soldiers around him waved a black flag. The soldiers changed their formation, and the phalanx became a long queue of four.A team with a red flag on their backs was about to lead the team into the city through the city gate, when suddenly there was a burst of screams and wailing from the north of the gate, followed by the sound of chaotic footsteps from the gate, a group of unarmed There are hundreds of women rushing out of the city through the long doorway. Judging from the clothing and appearance of the women walking in the front, they are a group of Han women who were probably captured by Jian captives. The mainland was taken captive to Liaodong.

"Come forward! Raise the gun!"

The battalion officer who led the team also noticed this situation. He immediately realized that the situation was not simple, and then he quickly ordered the soldiers to change their formation from a row of four to a row of 100 people. The gunners in the second row aimed their guns at the city gate.

After the battalion officer of the spear phalanx realized that the situation was wrong, he also ordered the phalanx to be divided into two parts, moving from the left and right wings to the city gate.

Hundreds of women poured out of the city one after another. When they saw the muzzles of guns pointing at them tens of steps away, the women who ran in the front were all frightened and stood on the spot.At this moment, a few screams sounded, and more than a dozen Eight Banners soldiers following the group of women saw that the wrapped woman stopped, so they raised their weapons and slashed at the woman in front of them without any explanation. After more than a dozen people fell, the women screamed and ran away in all directions in panic. Most of them ran to the front of the Ming army, and they were about to hit the formation of the gunners.

A sharp and short horn sounded suddenly, and the two rows of musketeers subconsciously pulled the trigger. The already lit matchlock fell into the fire door from the faucet clamp, and with a series of popping bean-like sounds, a large cloud of smoke rose into the air. At the same time, except for more than twenty firecrackers that failed to fire, the rest of the firecrackers were all fired. More than 100 pieces of lead that weighed three coins were shot out, and with the screams and blood splashing, dozens of women who had already run more than ten steps away from the gunners' formation were knocked down to the ground .

After shooting, the gunners in the two rows resisted the discomfort in their hearts, and quickly ran to the sides to make room for the gunners in the back row.

The musketeers who ran back to the rear took off the matchlocks and began to clean the fire holes and pots.This is the first procedure required for a second shot because powder residue can block the pilot hole.Then pour the primer into the primer pot, close the lid of the pot, take out an oiled paper bag containing the propellant and the projectile from the shoulder bag, bite the oiled paper bag with your teeth, and stuff the projectile into the gun one after another. Open the mouth, remove the cleaning rod from the gun barrel, push the projectile and propellant powder to the level of the gun barrel and tamp it tightly, and then fix the matchlock on the faucet clamp, and the complicated loading procedure is finally completed.

With such a troublesome firing procedure, even a well-trained gunner of the Guards Battalion can only complete two loading and firings within one minute, and the fastest three shots per minute at most, and subject to weather factors, once encountering wet In cloudy and rainy weather conditions, not only the match could not be ignited, but also the gunpowder could not be used after being damp.

The self-generating gun invented by Bi Maokang is still being developed. The reason why it cannot be equipped on a large scale for the army is that its main defect is that the misfire rate is too high, which has exceeded [-]% on average. Such a misfire rate will reduce the is extremely deadly.

The Huozhu battalion officer looked expressionlessly at the dozens of women lying in a pool of blood more than ten steps away, but his clenched fists betrayed his heart.

It's not that he doesn't want to yell to remind these women to get down or run to the sides, but in the battle where the gunfire is deafening, the women can't hear you shouting loudly, and as a commander, any of his actions may It affected the emotions of the soldiers, so he could only watch these women being hit by the firecrackers, or died immediately, or fell to the ground struggling, and died slowly in pain.

The women who were threatened with death screamed and staggered and ran to both sides. Some people fell to the ground occasionally, and the screams and wailing were mixed in, and the scene was chaotic.

Thousands of wrapped clothes rushed out of the city gate behind the women, shouting under the threat of swords and guns in the hands of the Eight Banners soldiers, rushing towards the gunners like a tide, and behind them were hundreds of Eight Banners in armor. pawn.

The gunners in a row of 100 have already turned to the fifth row to shoot. With the continuous rotation of the front row, the gunners' formation is gradually retreating, and the distance from the city gate has been slowly drawn away, so that there is a crowd in front of the city gate. More space.A thousand spearmen on both sides of the gunner came up to meet them, and attacked the packers from the flanks.

There is a Stockholm syndrome in later generations, also known as Stockholm syndrome or hostage complex or hostage syndrome, which refers to a complex in which the victim of a crime develops feelings for the perpetrator, and even helps the perpetrator in turn.This emotion causes the victim to have a good impression of the perpetrator, to rely on him, and even to assist the perpetrator.

The hostage will have a psychological dependence on the hijacker.Their life and death are in the hands of their captors, and they are grateful to the captors for letting them live.They share fate with the hijackers, regard the future of the hijackers as their own, and regard the safety of the hijackers as their own.So they adopted an "us against them" attitude, treating the rescuers as enemies.

These Han Chinese coats have obvious symptoms of this.Although there were threats of swords and guns from Jiannu behind them, they could have dispersed without really confronting the Ming army. However, the accumulated resentment and anger of being oppressed during the day erupted at this moment.Regardless of the shooting of muskets and the assassination of spears, the packers rushed to the front of the spearmen or gunners with loud howls, fighting with the soldiers of the brave guard battalion.

Out of the natural fear of hot weapons, coupled with the long range of firecrackers, they were almost hit by the bullets before they got close, so after being shot at a hundred people at the beginning, the coaters turned to the sides The pikemen rushed forward, only the unknown coat behind was still rushing towards the gunner formation.

At this time, the distance between the two sides has reached the bow and arrow range of the Eight Banners soldiers hidden behind the wrappers. Tang Gudai stood on his horse and drew his bow and arrow. A black eagle plume arrow directly hit the man fifty steps away through the gap in the crowd. The eye socket of a gunslinger, the gunslinger fell to the ground and died without screaming.

Immediately afterwards, nearly two hundred heavy arrows either fell from the sky, or pierced through the gaps between the people, all of which poured into the formation of gunners. There was a scream, and in an instant, nearly a hundred gunners fell to the ground after being shot .

Tang Gudai shot seven long arrows one after another, all of which hit the gunmen of the Ming army. The long arrows of the other Eight Banners soldiers also caused huge damage to the gunmen. The formation of the gunmen suddenly became disorganized; some timid soldiers did not dare to aim , just firing the firecrackers indiscriminately, the hit rate can be imagined under such a situation.

Seeing that the formation of the Ming army was loose, Tang Gudai threw his longbow, drew out the long knife at his waist, and rushed towards the musketeers with a loud roar. The weapon followed behind him silently.

Mao Yuanyi, who was riding a horse and watching the battle in the rear, decisively ordered that the [-] heavy armored infantry and [-] sword and shield fighters standing by his side be divided into two teams, and after running forward for dozens of steps, they bypassed the phalanx of gunmen and headed towards the Eight Banners. The pawns greeted them.

The bows and arrows of the Eight Banners Soldiers caused more than [-] musketeers casualties, and several generals including the battalion officers were killed. The musketeers who lost their command showed signs of collapse, but there were still many red-eyed musketeers who continued to attack The incoming Eight Banners infantry fired blunderbusses, and dozens of Eight Banners infantry were knocked down by the blunderbuss bullets, but Tang Gudai, who rushed to the front, was unscathed.

When there were more than ten steps away from the Ming army's musketeer, Tang Gudai used his waist and legs to rush forward, and within a few breaths, he rushed to a Ming army who was about to shoot with a musket, and tilted the long knife in his hand. With a flick of his hand, the gunman of the Ming army swayed to one side and fired at the same time. The bullet shot to one side, just hitting the thigh of a man in a coat who was running forward, and the man in the coat let out a miserable howl , the spear in his hand fell to the ground, and after his body fell down, he covered the wound with his hands and rolled all over the ground in pain. The bright red blood instantly stained his tattered robe.

After Tang Gudai lifted the fire gun, he turned his wrist, and slashed the long knife horizontally, cutting a long gash in the gunman's throat, a large stream of blood gushed out, and the gunman covered his neck with his hands and sucked in air. Slowly fell to the ground, twisted and struggled for a few breaths before dying.

Seeing Tang Gudai's ferociousness, a blunderbussman threw his blunderbuss at Tang Gudai in desperation. Tang Gudai dodged, tilted his head to get out of the way, let the blunderbuss hit his shoulder, and stabbed straight with the long knife in his hand. Entering the gunslinger's left eye socket, the sharp blade pierced through the brain, and the gunslinger was dead without even a snort. The moment his body fell down, Tang Gudai drew back the long knife.

The spearmen on both sides saw that the gunners were about to be approached by the Eight Banners soldiers, but the coat in front of them was still stalking them, so they could only protect the gunners by killing the damned Han Chinese first.

Tang Gudai killed three people in a row in a flash, and many Eight Banners soldiers behind him also rushed up. The musketeers who lost their range and had no guards were knocked down by the heavy weapons of the Eight Banners soldiers in the blink of an eye.

Because the distance between the front and rear rows was relatively short, the gunners at the back could not fire. Seeing that the comrades in front had no resistance, some fought forward, and some wanted to back away and open fire. The entire formation was in chaos.Seeing that the situation was critical, the sentinels and teams in the back row had no choice but to shout loudly to the back row to retreat to avoid greater casualties.

After slaughtering all the musketeers in the front row, the Eight Banners pressed forward step by step, seeing that a defeat was about to happen. At this moment, the heavy armored infantry and sword shield fighters from the Yongwei Battalion rushed to the front row .

(End of this chapter)