Daming kill

Chapter 156
"Boom."

After a flash of fire and a loud muffled bang.

The few unresponsive soldiers under the wooden cannon immediately fell back howling and rolled on the ground.

One of the soldiers tremblingly held the face under the iron helmet with both hands while rolling, and shouted indistinctly: "Ah... my face, my eyes."

Soon, his cries became more and more hoarse, as if he was losing his strength.

After the blood mist dissipated, his body, like the other soldiers who were hit, continued to bleed everywhere like a sieve.

A group of gray-faced men who were more than ten meters away from these soldiers all looked up in astonishment at the muzzle of the wooden cannon that was being retracted on the top of the wall, and their faces were filled with fear.

At this time, a few feathered arrows flew from behind them to the top of the wall sparsely, one was nailed to the log fence with a "bang" and began to shake, and the other few seemed to be able to fly over the top of the wall.

A scruffy bearded man who was looking down screamed, grabbed the arrow tail that suddenly appeared on his neck and fell down, and the other figures all shrank back immediately.

Looking at the bandit soldiers who fell to the ground and were still twitching, a man who was probably an officer in a short iron armor finally started to roar.

"Mother, don't be cowardly, go build a ladder and go up."

While cursing, the officer vigorously kicked the buttocks of several soldiers around him.

After several soldiers gasped and lifted the ladder up from the pile of corpses under the wall, the officer held a shield in one hand and a knife in the other, and stood there for a while looking up at the earthen wall several meters high.

The muzzle of the wooden cannon is gone, but what else is there?
The unknown is sometimes more frightening.

After the officer yelled a few times in a cheering manner, he finally roared: "I'll go first, you follow."

After finishing speaking, the officer leaned on the ladder with only his legs and body, and slowly kicked up the ladder with a delicate balance.

When the officer had stepped up to the height of a person, a soldier on the escalator below gritted his teeth and climbed up the ladder with a knife.

"Boom."

There was another muffled cannon.

Although this time the smoking place was not above the officer's head, and it was still a wooden cannon.

But wooden cannons are artillery after all.

Such as firing at close range, the sound is still very loud and shocking, enough to eclipse all the chaos and shouts within tens of meters.

The officer whose head was almost at the same height as the wall of the village was stunned by the shock, his neck shrank involuntarily, and at the same time subconsciously glanced in the direction of the gunfire.

20 meters away, a small cloud of blood mist was floating again under the wall of the village.

However, at this moment of distraction, a few figures flashed from the wall above the officer's head, and then two very long spears quickly stretched out from the left and right sides.

One spear was blocked by the officer's slanted shield and slipped aside, while the other spear successfully passed through the gap and stabbed at the officer's waist.

With the sound of "clang", this not very powerful spear came into close contact with the short iron armor of the climbing officer, and then slid to the side.

Tie Zhajia has made great contributions, and the lives of officers should be safe.

However, the officer had a hard time balancing with the shield in one hand and the knife in the other. This stab immediately caused him to shake violently and fell to one side with an "oops".

The soldier following the officer was not holding a shield.

Ben held on to the ladder and stared at the top. He happened to witness the officer being stabbed and falling. Since he couldn't judge whether he would be hit, he instinctively jumped to the ground on the other side which was not too high.

But at this moment, a three-eyed gun protruded from the wall again.

In the continuous flames, the officer who had just fallen to the ground clutched a part of his upper body and howled in an instant.

Tie Zhajia didn't bring him any more luck this time.

The sudden dense firing of firecrackers and three-eyed blunderbusses and the sudden sound of three cannons completely slowed down the offensive under the entire wall of the village, and made the brave attackers hesitate.

The feeling of being bombarded by firearms, especially artillery, at close range is quite unpleasant.

All climbing activity seemed to be suspended.

Under the wall of the stronghold, some irritable and anxious shouts began to rise and fall, and the sudden and chaotic whistle sound made the panicked crowd feel at a loss.

But on the wall of the village, there was a lot of applause and curse.

Then more stones mixed with bamboo arrows began to pour down, further intensifying the chaos under the wall.

Several large platoons of blunderbuss soldiers who had been tens of meters away from the wall began to rush up in a chaotic manner. They didn't stop until they were more than ten meters away from the wall, and began to form a chaotic team.

Most of them looked at the top and bottom of the wall in a daze, looking for their officers.

Suddenly, a bird gun soldier who was holding a gun and holding a match was shot in the shoulder by a bamboo arrow.The soldier who was shot immediately yelled exaggeratedly.

"Bang, bang, bang..."

Finally, as several officers waved their sabers, the first row of blunderbusses started in chaos.

After a puff of smoke, another row of bird gunmen fired upwards.

The walls of the village finally became quiet.

But the people above the wall should not be killed so easily, they are more likely to lie down temporarily, anyway, the people below the wall should not be able to climb up at this time.

The bird gun is a smooth-bore gun, and the lead bullet does not rotate, so its shooting is completely sketchy.That is to say, most of the bullets do not go in a straight line, but irregular slanted curves, and the spread of impact points will only make you unimaginable.

This is also the reason why queue shooting tactics appeared in Europe.

Regarding the hit rate of the musket, the Prussian army once conducted a test on the muskets of Prussia and France.

对一个10英尺宽6英尺高的目标（3.05×1.83m），普军1782型滑膛枪射击100发，在100步长（76米）的距离上可以命中60发；200步时40发；300步时只有25发。而法国的1777型滑膛枪的成绩也没好到哪去。

You know, this is still an ideal experimental state.

Considering the battlefield environment, such as the influence of factors such as smoke, fear and noise on the soldiers' minds, the hit rate on the real battlefield is much lower than this ideal experiment.

When the musket was rifled and the technology was fully mature, when the bullet could be pointed where to hit, the queuing shooting tactic finally slowly came to an end.

As for the bird gun, it is definitely much, much worse technically than the Prussian 1782 smoothbore gun.

This is also the reason why the guards on the wall were not so worried about the rows of gunners gathering in the distance of the wall.

As long as these bird gunners don't get very close, and don't get into the range of the three-eyed guns and bamboo arrows that are much closer than their range, they don't have to worry about being suddenly attacked by the bird gunners from a long distance.

As for the arrival of the bird gun soldiers, there is no big problem.

Due to the lack of wind today, the smoke from the gunfire could not dissipate for a long time.It is equivalent to saying that after firing a shot, the blunderbuss basically can no longer aim precisely, but can only shoot at a general area.

In this way, the defenders of the stronghold cannot stand and defend the city, and the attackers of the stronghold cannot dare to attack.

In the end, the small battlefield turned into a simple firework display by the blunderbuss soldiers.

Taking advantage of this time, some soldiers surrounded by the wall of the village covered their ears with various things while dragging out the corpses and wounded of their companions on the ground.

But there are also some people who refuse to do this. They want to try their best to receive the voice from the rear through the sound of frying beans. They seem to want to wait for some order.

They are hesitating.

At this time, Li Ping was looking at the chaos under the wall with a pale face about 200 meters behind them.

This not-so-tall wall made of earth, rocks and giant trees seemed to be an insurmountable barrier for them.

In the two attacks, more than 100 people were killed or injured. They didn't even climb up the wall of the village, and the enemy had just moved out the cannon.

The bandit soldiers still had strength to spare, but they couldn't take it anymore.

This is a disaster.

The area of ​​this bandit den is not large, but its location is excellent.

In the Ming Dynasty, Jingzhou, Jingmen, and Qianjiang were surrounded by a large number of large-scale lakes. Among them, Changhu Lake was the largest and most famous.

Its northern waters go deep into the hills and hills, the lake shore is tortuous, and there are many lake branches, and many small lakes and branch lakes are derived and connected.

Of course, most of these lakes have disappeared today, and even Long Lake, which still exists, has shrunk severely.

The poem by Yuan Zhongdao, a poet of the Ming Dynasty, "The Mausoleum Valley has changed for thousands of years, and the plains of the Sichuan Province cannot be divided. The Changhu Lake is full of water, and there is the tomb of the king of Chu..." summarizes the size and characteristics of the Changhu Lake at that time.

The bandit's nest that Li Ping was attacking was hidden in a lake in a corner of the many branches of the Changhu Lake, and it was very trickily built on a high ground in the lake.

A 400-meter-long and [-]-[-]-meter-high wall effectively separates the village from the outside world.

But such a coincidental geographical feature did not arouse much vigilance among Li Ping's troops under the winning streak.

The troops that have shown pride from top to bottom are still preparing according to past experience, and even feel that gathering the entire army together has caused a lot of trouble.

In particular, there is only one not-so-large waterway where the not-so-small Fenhu Lake connects with the entire waters of Changhu Lake. The way for the bandits to escape by boat is easily blocked, which makes it easier to gather and annihilate.

Besides, it's not a fortress in a steep valley, but how strong can a fortress in a plain and water town be just a wall?
Unfortunately, they were discovered when they approached here last night, but they didn't know anything about it.

And their enemies chose to remain silent.

Fo Xiao, when the first wave of troops rushing under the wall set up ladders and was about to climb up to the quiet and scary wall, the sudden sound of gongs and drums almost scared the souls of the attackers out.

Immediately afterwards, stones, crossbow bolts, spear guns, hot water and burning fireballs fell from the sky one after another, and even a few firecrackers and three-eyed blunderbusses fired to join in the fun.

The sneak attackers who were caught off guard were beaten and cried.

The raid was a total failure.

To make matters worse, the first wave of attacking troops were the sixth and seventh companies that planned to practice their skills, a company with a less rigid style, and a company with a shorter formation time.

Under the fierce blow, the soldiers of these two companies quickly retreated in a large area, and the entire attack had to be stopped urgently by Ma Yong, who was leading the command.

After the confusion and stunned, after an urgent deliberation, all the officers above the company strongly demanded to continue the attack.

Although the initial confrontation failed, the basic situation of this group of bandits was roughly and clearly displayed.

Bandits are not well equipped, they have very little armor.

Knife is its main equipment.

Although there are also a large number of spears, most of them are improvised long bamboo spears that have no iron spearheads and are only sharpened at one end of the bamboo and simply roasted with fire.

The number of bows and crossbows is also very small, and the crossbows are basically small light crossbows and more than bows, and the arrows are mostly bamboo arrows, so there should be no strong bows.

Although firecrackers and three-eyed blunderbusses were also equipped, they were not many in number, and there was no sign of bird blunderbusses firing.

Judging from the chaos when the bandits fought back, the obvious lack of layers of firepower, and the casualties of the raiding troops who were caught off guard, the combat skills of the bandits were also very average.

It's just that their will to resist is stronger.

Such a retreat and being blocked by this small wall made everyone feel unwilling and shameless.

Although some people suggested whether to transfer the four small cannons deployed on both sides of the small waterway to block the attack, most people, including Li Ping, were unwilling to wait.

They don't want the enemy to have more time to adjust and prepare, and they don't want to let the enemy make up their minds to flee by boat.

They hope that the enemy will continue to stick to their lair.

Therefore, in addition to the Sixth Company and the Seventh Company that were going to attack again, Li Ping also put the two old companies, the First Company and the Third Company, into the attack, and concentrated most of the armor of the entire army.

Looking at it now, their decision was too hasty, and they continue to make the mistake of underestimating the enemy.

Once again they suffered a huge and totally unexpected setback, and the enemy also brought out the guns.

After paying a large number of casualties, although the attacking troops did not retreat lightly and persisted, the rising casualties and the failure of the attack also made their morale more and more depressed.

Although the armor played a certain role, it did not change their current predicament.

Playing a strong defensive structure is really hard, beyond imagination, even if it's just a short wall.

It is a huge test of the willpower and combat experience of the troops, and it requires an absolute superiority of troops and sophisticated equipment support, but the attacking troops do not have any of the three items.

Strictly speaking, even the first company and the third company are not considered old companies. They are still immature and far from mature after only half a year since their founding.

All recruits within a year.

Song Baolai, who was watching the battle with Li Ping, had already lost all blood on his face. He originally wanted to come to watch the fun, but he didn't expect to see being beaten and slaughtered.

He kept swallowing, and kept turning his head to look at Li Ping, whose face was cloudy and uncertain.

After wiping off his sweat, he persuaded in a trembling voice: "Brother, don't do it! Keep the green hills here, so you don't have to worry about running out of firewood. We can't throw all our old foundations here!"

Li Ping glanced at the terrified Song Baolai depressedly, his stomach was full of bitterness.

Li Ping did not expect such a situation at all, they were too careless.

The smooth sailing some time ago made him build up too much confidence in his troops, and made him look down and dismiss the bandits too much.

Now, he is paying the price for his complacency and arrogance.

Li Ping knew very well that today's attack might be impossible.

You can retreat.

Thinking of a group of frustrated defeated soldiers moaning there, thinking of him becoming a loser so quickly, his cold sweat broke out.

His face was flushed red.

He kept admonishing himself in his heart: there are no generals who are always victorious, and the most important quality a general should learn is to dare to accept failure and pull the troops out of the brink of collapse as much as possible.

Ahead, the blunderbussmen were continuing to intercept their shots, and he had to make an immediate choice.

(End of this chapter)