Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 478

"put!"

Kong Youde, who was standing in the middle of the Qing army's artillery formation on the middle road, gave an order, and more than [-] Hongyi cannons at the rear of the artillery formation with the longest range were fired one after another, and the battle between the Ming and Qing armies finally kicked off.

The deafening bangs continued one after another, like the god of thunder beating a war drum in the sky. The dense white smoke had just risen, and was blown away by the strong wind in the wilderness in an instant.

Kong Youde, who was in charge of directing the firing of the cannons, divided the more than [-] cannons into three layers. The front row was the [-]-jin Fran cannon with a relatively short range, and the more than [-] cannons were divided into two places, separated by a distance of nearly For two miles, [-] infantry of the Lianghuang Banner and [-] horses lined up in order to protect the artillery array, so as not to be damaged by the infantry of the Ming army.

The second row is nearly a hundred small Hongyi cannons weighing a thousand catties. This kind of cannon with a range of two miles and the Fran cannons in the front row, some were brought by Kong Youde when he surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, and some were captured Ming Dynasty cannons. Army, and part of it was imitated by the captured Han artisans ordered by Huang Taiji.

With the firing of the Hongyi Cannon, more than [-] projectiles flew into the air, drawing elegant arcs in the blue sky at a speed visible to the naked eye, and smashed towards the advancing Ming army array three miles away. past.

Sun Chuanting, who was on the car in the back formation, had observed the frontal artillery formation of the Qing army with a binoculars. Under his order, the large square formations of the Yongwei Battalion and the Che Battalion were changed into a column of thousands of people. Formation, there is a large space between the two columns, which can minimize the lethal effect of shelling.

During this period, because firearms did not completely dominate, skirmish lines were not yet popular. This kind of column that broke the traditional array method appeared on the battlefield for the first time. This idea was of course inspired by Zhu Youjian.

On the battlefield of this kind of large-scale battle dominated by cold weapons, it is very important to maintain the formation. If 2 or [-] people line up in a skirmish line, although it will reduce the damage caused by the shells, once they are in the formation, so many People can't form an array in chaos, and the result is sure to lose the battle. Therefore, it is the most basic common sense to say that fighting in an array is the most basic common sense when fighting in an array.

A simple comparison is that one chopstick is easily broken, but what if dozens of chopsticks are gathered together?

However, the column method of the Yongwei Battalion is based on the battalion as a unit. Once a battle is fought, it can also form a square formation to meet the enemy in a relatively short period of time.

The strong firepower of the car battalion in front was used as cover, which gave sufficient time for the rear pawns to line up.

After hearing the loud noise of the cannon, the soldiers of the Ming army, who were very familiar with the damaging effect of the cannonball, felt fear in their hearts, but they still marched forward under the habit of obeying orders developed in the weekdays.

These more than twenty projectiles came with a slight whistling sound in the blink of an eye, some smashed into the slowly moving carriage camp, and some passed over the carriage camp and smashed into the infantry column of the Yongwei Battalion behind.

Not to mention in this world, even in later generations, it is very difficult to strike a moving target with a cannon equipped with various auxiliary aiming equipment, not to mention in this era of smoothbore running.

The Qing army's cannons were very powerful when they were fired, but the gunner's aiming method was all based on visual inspection, and the projectile's impact was mainly on the surface. As for whether it hits in the end, it all depends on luck.

The infantry of the Ming army who were facing the direction of the projectile watched helplessly as the projectile rushed towards them. The old soldiers with quick reactions quickly moved aside to avoid the route of the projectile's rebound after falling, while some less experienced soldiers had no time to dodge or If you forget to avoid it because of fear, you can only close your eyes with great fear and resign yourself to fate.

A small half of the more than twenty projectiles landed in front of the vehicle camp, and stopped after bouncing on the ground several times, without causing any damage to the Ming army, but the remaining five or six projectiles still hit a few off-road vehicles. van.

One of the bullets just hit the steer pulling the cart, splitting the [-]-[-]-jin steer in two, and the van swayed to one side. Fortunately, the gunner did not Before getting on the car, the kinetic energy of the projectile quickly disappeared after hitting the target, and stopped after rolling a few times, which did not cause secondary damage to the Ming army behind the car.

Some projectiles directly hit the main body of the car, and the car was smashed to pieces for a moment, and the pieces of wood flying around were like sharp arrows, stabbing several soldiers behind the car, and then there were screams of pain.

A projectile just hit the Franco machine gun on the carriage. Duang made a ringing sound like a bell. The projectile, which had lost most of its kinetic energy, bounced to one side and hit a Ming soldier on the head when it fell. The gun body of the Franc machine was smashed and jumped to one side, and the wooden bracket was shaken to pieces.

The other seven or eight bullets flew over the carriage camp and flew towards the infantry column behind. Suddenly, blood and flesh flew across this large area, and screams were heard endlessly. At least fifty or sixty soldiers fell in a pool of blood. The column around the casualties suddenly became agitated.

Although the Yongwei Battalion has participated in many battles, and many soldiers have fought against the Qing army several times, the Ming army has always suppressed the Qing army with powerful firepower, and it is still difficult to bear the Qing army's bombardment when they cannot fight back. For the first time, under this fear of the unknown, some soldiers involuntarily quickened their pace, while others slowed down because of timidity, which also caused considerable confusion in some columns.

Immediately afterwards, dozens of small Hongyi cannons of the Qing army also fired. After firing the last row of Hongyi cannons, the gunners quickly ran to the front artillery array, preparing to fire the small Hongyi cannons that had prepared ammunition.

There are too few gunners in the Han army flag. There are less than one hundred gunners in total for more than 300 artillery pieces. This method can only be used to maintain the continuity of firepower.

It is not an easy task to train a gunner. At the beginning, Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, hired several artillery instructors from the Portuguese army through a Portuguese businessman in Macau. It took almost a year to teach more than 100 artillerymen. In the end, most of these people followed Kong Youde across the sea and surrendered to Huang Taiji.

"Fast forward!"

Sun Yingyuan, standing in the front row in the middle van, was observing the movement of the Qing army's artillery, and gave a decisive order. A trumpeter beside him immediately blew his horn, and a long and sharp sound pierced through the rumbling artillery. It came out, and the driver who heard the order forcefully pressed the fear in his heart, and waved his whip to drive away, and the bullock whose ears were plugged could not help stepping forward with four hooves to speed up the pace.

The second round of shelling by the Qing army fired more intensive projectiles, and the number of casualties caused to the Ming army also doubled. Five or six vans were concentrated and lost their combat effectiveness. Nearly 200 people were either injured or killed.

Mao Yuanyi, the deputy commander of the Yongwei Battalion who was in charge of commanding the infantry, ignored the projectiles that fell from time to time, and led a few soldiers on horseback through the open space between the columns, rushed to the front row of the infantry column, and then ordered the soldiers to send their own soldiers to the front row of the infantry column. The banner was raised high to lead the soldiers forward.

With a black and white "Mao" flag fluttering in the wind, the flustered soldiers under the shelling saw the general's flag, and the already shaken morale of the army immediately stabilized, and the low morale became high again. .

　Thanks for the potato clip, Youaitianxia, ​​and Lin Lingsu for the 2018 rewards.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)