prosperous age

Chapter 1134 1225 Killing Prisoners

"Ready your muskets, aim at the Burmese soldiers on the elephants' backs, and shoot."

In front of the Ming army, guerrilla Chen Tao shouted.

After the Burmese army gathered more than 200 war elephants and rushed towards the Ming army, although the guerrilla Chen Tao was somewhat surprised at the Burmese army's large-scale move, he still responded calmly.

Ever since learning about the power of the Burmese army's war elephants, the generals and officers of the Ming army have all been thinking hard about how to fight the enemy.

They also carefully studied the processes of several battles with the Burmese war elephants, and gradually discovered the shortcomings of the war elephants.

In the past, when the Han people fought against elephant soldiers, they could only set up ambushes at special locations and use fire attacks to defeat the elephant soldiers.

This is because elephants are afraid of fire. After all, they are beasts. Once attacked by fire, they will lose their composure and will no longer listen to their driver.

But now the Ming army is chasing the Burmese army, so the strategy of setting an ambush and setting fire is certainly not feasible.

Fortunately, even though my skin is thick and hard to be hurt by swords and knives, I am still afraid of pain.

Although the Ming army was equipped with a large number of Portuguese cannons that could not kill the elephants with one blow, they were still quite intimidating to them.

You can't kill them from a long distance, but you can hurt them, and the war elephants will go crazy and lose control.

Perhaps, in the minds of the war elephants, continuing to move forward means being tortured by pain, and the drivers want them to die.

It is better to resist than to be killed by the driver.

Therefore, after the Ming army opened fire on the war elephants with their artillery, the originally neat formation immediately fell into chaos, with the war elephants constantly colliding with each other and becoming a mess.

However, there were too many war elephants rushing over this time, and they quickly reached the front of the Ming army.

In the past, the Burmese army would mobilize war elephants depending on the terrain, ranging from dozens to hundreds at a time, but this time it clearly exceeded the carrying capacity of the terrain.

As they got closer, Chen Tao did not dare to delay and shouted again: "Fire the falconets at full speed and kill these beasts. Fire the tiger squat cannon and shoot."

The Ming army is now firing at full power, and almost all firearms have been used.

Except for the archers behind the strong shield formation, it can be said that all long-range firepower was thrown in.

The reason why archers were not used was because the Ming army had tried it and found that arrows were almost completely ineffective against war elephants.

Yes, these war elephants were like wild boars, covered with a thick layer of mud.

The mud is relatively soft when it is wet, but becomes hard after it dries.

Moreover, even without this layer of mud, arrows would have little killing power on elephants.

Some people even suggested using rockets to shoot at the railing on the elephant's back, where the elephant soldiers stayed. There they directed the actions of the war elephants, killed the enemy with arrows, and stabbed the surrounding enemy troops with spears.

But the war elephants were always moving, and if the archers wanted to shoot the rockets into the basket, they had to ignite them, which was more difficult. The soldiers on top would also pull out the rockets and throw them away.

Even if we gather a large number of archers, it would be difficult to do so.

Therefore, the Portuguese cannon remained a powerful weapon for the Ming army to fight against war elephants.

If the distance is too far, it will only hurt, but if you hit the head at close range, it is still possible to knock the war elephant unconscious or even kill it.

The Ming army had killed war elephants before, and even captured several injured war elephants after the Burmese army retreated. However, only two of them were still usable, and the Ming army was looking for people to tame them.

The others were seriously injured and had lost their fighting value.

At this moment, the Ming army gunners were frantically loading ammunition into the cartridge cases of the falconet cannons. Even for the falconet cannons that dissipated heat quickly, the cartridge cases already felt a little hot in the gunners' hands.

The real reason was that the firing speed in this section was too fast. Looking at the approaching war elephants, it would be abnormal for the gunners not to panic.

"bang bang bang"

Just as the Portuguese gunners were replacing the cartridges and preparing to fire again, a row of more than a dozen tiger squat cannons in front finally opened fire. Then, more than a dozen Ming army gunners dropped their tiger squat cannons and quickly ran back.

"what"

"all."

Several war elephants that were rushing in the front had people falling off their backs. They were accidentally hit by the Ming army's tiger squat cannon shotgun shells and fell off.

"Push the cart up, quickly."

The firing of the Tiger Crouching Cannon proved that the Burmese war elephants were very close to the Ming army's formation. If they continued like this, the formation would definitely be broken by these beasts.

Therefore, Chen Tao could only use the last solution they could think of, which was the unicycle.

Ripples appeared in the Ming army's formation and passages appeared.

In the passage, dozens of chariots with one-foot-long spears stuck in the front were pushed to the front of the formation.

At this moment, they were placed next to the falconet.

The chariot was already piled with things that could start a flammable fire.

According to the idea of ​​the Ming army generals, they would light the chariots and push them in front of the war elephants. Even if those beasts could not see the fire, they could feel the temperature of the flames and would naturally be afraid to move forward.

Those tanks have actually been treated as disposable tools and have almost no recycling value after being ignited.

However, this thing is cheap, so it doesn't matter to the Ming army. They can just ask the craftsmen in the garrison to make it again.

The manufacture of a wheelbarrow is not too simple. It only requires some wood and a small amount of iron.

Unlike the single-wheeled chariots used by the northern border troops, the handlebars of these chariots were relatively long, and the spears on the front of the chariots were also shortened a lot because they were not used against cavalry.

After all, if the fire is too big, the driver pushing the car from behind will also be burned.

Longer handlebars would have prevented such injuries.

The handlebars are just longer, so the person pushing the cart needs to operate it more precisely. He has to aim in the direction the war elephant is moving. If the spear inserted into the front of the cart can be inserted into the elephant's body, the effect will be best.

The single-wheeled chariots of the north had spears at the front that were at least five or six feet long and were used as movable barriers.

"Light the fire, push forward, and the musketeers will provide cover."

Chen Tao shouted loudly again in front of the formation, giving his soldiers the final order.

Yes, now the Burmese war elephants are less than ten steps away from the Ming Army's Portuguese cannon positions, and they can clearly see the faces of the Burmese soldiers on the elephants' backs.

"clap clap"

Another burst of dense bird-gun fire rang out, and bullets flew towards the Burmese soldiers on the elephant's back. The driver had already taken fire from the brazier next to the gunner, lit the torch that had been prepared long ago, and threw it onto the car.

These torches are all coated with tung oil, which makes them very easy to ignite and not easy to extinguish.

Unless you are unlucky enough to encounter heavy rain, you don't have to worry about ignition failure.

There was no rain today, so dozens of chariots were set on fire quickly, and the drivers pushed the chariots towards the approaching war elephants.

The Ming army's idea worked. Although they could not see the fire in front of them, these beasts could still feel the temperature change.

He wanted to dodge left and right, but the temperature was getting higher and higher.

This is the importance of an agile driver, who must promptly block the elephant's path according to changes in the elephant's movement trajectory.

Soon, the chariots that were already burning were pushed in front of the war elephants, and the war elephants either retreated or stopped circling on the spot, no longer willing to move forward.

On the backs of elephants, the remaining Burmese soldiers discovered that the road ahead was blocked by the Ming army's trains and realized that their attack had failed.

Let alone the war elephants, it would be difficult to even rush through. The war elephants at the back quickly turned around and began to retreat under the control of the driver.

Yes, failed again.

But this was not the first time. This time it was just forcing the Ming army to come up with a way to deal with the war elephants.

As for the war elephants in front, they had already fallen to the ground one by one under the bombardment of the Portuguese cannons, and could only lie on the ground and let out painful howls.

Along with it were the Burmese soldiers on the elephant's back.

Many people were injured and then shot to death by the Ming army's bird-gunmen behind them.

At this time, Chen Tao wiped the thick beads of sweat from his forehead. If the chariot could not block the war elephants' advance, he planned to turn his horse and leave.

Even if he had to be punished by Li Chengliang, he was unwilling to die on the battlefield.

As long as the green mountains remain, there will be no shortage of firewood. This is the mentality of the Ming army from generals to soldiers. No one wants to die. They all want to live, even if it is difficult.

Even though those generals pat their chests loudly in front of their superiors, when they really face the possibility of losing their lives, they will often choose to escape danger and protect themselves.

After all, even ants are greedy for life, let alone humans.

"Come here, report to the Grand Commander that our army has defeated the Burmese army. More than 300 war elephants attacked, and now the Burmese army has retreated. Our army will take a short rest and then continue to pursue them."

Chen Tao gave an order to the soldiers behind him and sent a messenger back to report the victory to Li Chengliang.

After all, he had won a battle and had to show off in front of Li Chengliang. When the credit book was written in the future, he just hoped that his position could be improved.

Even if it's just a few positions, perhaps you can get a promotion instead of accumulating merits.

After ordering his men to go back and report the victory, and looking at the dozens of huge fires still burning in the distance, Chen Tao couldn't help but feel a glimmer of hope.

Fortunately, he listened to other people's advice and prepared this chariot, otherwise the army formation would have been broken.

Chen Tao couldn't remember who came up with this idea. He only remembered that it seemed that it was not long after they left Lujiang City and encountered the Burmese elephant soldiers again. Everyone was drinking and eating meat in the tent when someone came up with the idea.

Anyway, some units of the Ming army have prepared this thing, but some have not, perhaps because they think it is useless.

After all, it is a method that has not been tried before, so it is hard to say whether it works well or not.

It can be said that it is just false joy and a waste of time.

In the eyes of most people, the chariot is not as useful as the cold falconet.

Instead of spending time preparing this, it would be better to ask Li Chengliang for more cannons.

But after today's battle, I believe that as long as the Burmese army still has war elephants, each unit will have to prepare this thing to some extent.

"All troops rest where they are, send out scouts to monitor the surrounding enemy situation."

Chen Tao also gave the order at this time.

In the battle just now, although the ones who really fought hard were the gunners at the front and the musketeers had limited effect, facing the impact of so many war elephants, all the soldiers were still psychologically shocked.

You need to adjust yourself and relieve your tension.

Chen Tao could understand this from his own psychological changes.

He just sat on his horse and did nothing, which was not right, he gave a few orders.

But even so, he feels very tired now.

After the order was given, most of the gunners at the front decisively lay on the ground and did not move, gasping for breath.

They were the ones who were most shocked by everything that happened just now.

As for the others, most of them sat down on the spot. Some of them took out the dry food distributed in the camp and started to eat it, while more people took out water bags and started to drink water.

When people are nervous, they don't feel hungry most of the time, they just feel dry mouth. At this time, Chen Tao was drinking water in big gulps.

But not long after they rested, Chen Tao felt some movement behind him.

He looked back while riding on his horse and saw a large flag of the Ming army in the distance on the left, which meant that the Ming army on his flank had arrived.

Now the Ming army, under the command of Li Chengliang, is arranged in array and advancing forward layer by layer.

Even if one part was defeated by the Burmese army, the Ming army behind would soon catch up and continue to attack the Burmese army.

Although each unit had a small number of troops, mostly around two thousand, with such a dense formation, even if the Burmese army could win a battle in a certain place, they would soon discover that new Ming army troops were coming in the distance.

They had no time to clean up the battlefield, so they had to either retreat or regroup and fight the Ming army.

However, so far, in several battles with the Burmese army, except for two defeats in the beginning due to war elephants and Burmese artillery, there have been almost no major defeats since then.

Of course, the Ming army did suffer losses and even had a small-scale retreat, but the generals in command blocked the news and did not report the failure to Li Chengliang.

Instead, they retreated and disengaged, then immediately regrouped and continued their advance.

When registering battle reports in the camp, most of them were simply mentioned as a surprise attack by the Burmese army and the loss of so many people.

Would Li Chengliang not know that his subordinates were concealing their battle achievements?

Of course he knew, but what could he do?

But as long as his orders were carried out by his subordinates and nothing serious happened, he would turn a blind eye and pretend not to know.

Often at this time, he would keep sending orders to Luo Rufang in the rear, asking him to send up food and supplies as soon as possible.

The biggest advantage of the Ming army in its battle against the Burmese army is that everyone can have enough food, while most of the Burmese soldiers are starving.

"understood."

At this time, Li Chengliang was in a temporary tent, listening to the news of victory reported by the messenger from the front.

However, the victory news from the front did not make him happy, probably because of a document in his hand, a battle report written by Luo Rufang himself.

Yes, there was a small problem in the rear, and Luo Rufang had to follow his orders.

In the previous battle of Lujiang, although the Burmese King Mang Yinglong took most of the main forces across the river, the remaining 20,000 to 30,000 people were still blocked by the river.

Those who resisted were naturally killed, but more than 20,000 Burmese soldiers were still captured.

Li Chengliang left two battalions of 4,000 people to guard the prisoners of war, while he led the Ming army to continue the pursuit.

The small problem that arose in the rear was that these 20,000 men were a little restless.

"It's a woman's kindness."

Li Chengliang murmured something, then asked someone to prepare pen and ink, and he gave Luo Rufang the latest order.

To deal with those prisoners of war, it is enough to give them one meal a day, as long as they don't starve to death.

Anyway, what fed them was the food and fodder they looted from the Burmese army.

Luo Rufang actually gave these prisoners of war two full meals. After they were full and satisfied, they started to cause trouble and even wanted to escape.

Li Chengliang's order not only included a reduction in food rations by two-thirds, but also an order to randomly select one thousand people and execute them in front of the remaining prisoners.

To kill one to warn the rest, Li Chengliang believed that the only way to deal with these people was to use blood to make them respectful and afraid.

Killing prisoners, this is what Li Chengliang wanted to do.