Daming Yinghua

Chapter 473: Decisive Battle (X)

Cavalry needs a long enough distance to speed up the charge.

When the Sichuan Army's white-pole soldiers were still far away, the commander of the Jin Army's Wuzhen Chaoha, Mu Zaohua, had already ordered the gunners to fire without hesitation.

"boom……"

The first iron bullet, just like the previous attack on the Guangshun Pass city wall, flew out in a not very high arc and shot towards the dense cavalry line in the distance.

This was followed by the second and third iron bullets fired from nearby artillery.

Huang Taiji led the young beile and princes, as well as brave family generals like Oboi, and distributed them on both sides of the trench. After the Jin army's artillery completed effective shooting and blocked the advance of the Sichuan army, he would order those powerful archers to start the second round of killing, and then attack from both wings. After achieving a speed comparable to that of the Ming army's cavalry, they would fight to the death.

At this moment, Huang Taiji was still showing off his ambition to personally kill Ma Xianglin in battle, but deep down in his heart, he still couldn't help but hope that the artillery shells flying towards the Ming cavalry would first blow that Sichuan barbarian, who was more brave than Zhao Zilong, into pieces.

However, he was disappointed.

The first batch of more than a dozen shells landed in front of the Ming cavalry line. The deafening sound and the rising dust only caused some frightened neighs to be heard from the horses in the White Spear Army formation.

But they were well-trained war horses after all, and they quickly adjusted their status and repaired the formation under the control of their master who had rich combat experience.

"I deserve to die. This is the first time I met the enemy on the plain. I miscalculated," Mu Zaohua, who was riding on a horse, loudly apologized to Huang Taiji, and then turned to the artillery commander of the Yuetuo Red Banner and shouted, "Clear the chamber quickly and load the second round of iron bullets!"

The gunner and the gunners dared not delay for even a second and did as they were told promptly.

Huang Taiji saw that the Sichuan Army had come a hundred steps closer. The dust raised by the countless horses' hooves had merged with the gunpowder smoke that had not yet dissipated. He had no time to reprimand Mu Zaohua. He just waved his sword and ordered before Nikan's wife, "Light the fire, light it quickly!"

The gunner, who was usually smart, cast a hesitant look at Mu Zaohua.

It is taboo to fire the gun right after brushing the barrel while the tube is still too hot.

His inquiry was met with Zaohua Ezhen's angry rebuke: "What are you servants confused about? Didn't you hear the Fourth Prince's order?"

The Jin soldiers of several artillery groups quickly obeyed the order, but a moment later, the situation behind the trench suddenly changed.

"boom!"

"Ah...ah..."

Explosions that were much louder than normal launches, accompanied by screams, rang out almost simultaneously.

Unlike the muzzle flashes and white smoke that the Jin army was accustomed to, the scene after the ignition this time was as if their own position was hit by an enemy artillery shell.

In the large balls of flames, iron pieces, dirt, grass clippings, and the gunner's body parts flew everywhere.

"It exploded!"

The three or four guns lined up on the edge had not yet been fired. The gunners, who had witnessed the horrifying sight of their comrades' flesh and blood flying everywhere, shouted in horror. The gun cleaners threw away their wool brushes, the igniters threw away their primer rods, and they all fled in all directions.

As the explosion was very close, many horses on the left and right wings and the center of the Plain White Banner were frightened, causing chaos.

"Fourteenth Beile!" Mu Zaohua rode her horse backwards and quickly turned to the right, trying to drive away Dorgon's severely stressed mount and avoid stepping on the young Beile who had fallen off the horse.

She looked anxious and flustered, but her heart was ecstatic.

  It worked!

The strong water that Xu San gave could really corrode the inner wall of the barrel into pits and holes within three or four days, making the surface of the copper-iron alloy cast with an iron mold not as smooth as the barrel formed with the old mud mold.

Mu Zaohua did not dare to be careless, since today was the final moment of the decisive battle, so she fired the first round in advance, with the aim of making the already disabled gun barrel even worse.

The inner wall withstood the first round of gunpowder burning, and under Huang Taiji's urgent order, it encountered another round of high temperature in a short period of time and finally exploded.

"Fourteenth Prince, get on my horse quickly." Mu Zaohua reached out to pull Dorgon.

After all, Dorgon had been skilled in archery and horse riding since childhood. He used the force of the horse to jump onto the horse's back and sat behind Mu Zaohua.

"Fire! The Ming army is charging! Fire!" Mu Zaohua rode his horse to the rear of the Korean musketeers and gave orders.

These Han soldiers disguised as foreign mercenaries understood that they could not reveal any flaws at this moment.

Gunfire rang out.

Although the lead bullets weighing several taels were not as powerful as cannonballs, after the cannon exploded, the musketeers launched a killing move on the enemy so quickly that they quickly brought the morale of the Jin army back on track.

Unfortunately, whether it was because the Koreans themselves were panicking or the Sichuan Army was too fast, the firing of the muskets still did not bring the scene that Huang Taiji hoped to see.

"Master, how come these Korean dogs can't hit the Nikan cavalry?"

Beside Huang Taiji, Oboi roared.

How could this master and servant know that what the musketeers had just loaded were mud balls.

Seeing the familiar wedge-shaped formation of the Sichuan Army approaching a hundred steps, Huang Taiji had no time to curse those Korean rubbish. "Order the archers, shoot!"

The personal soldiers under his command immediately sent out flag signals, and in an instant the best hunters among the Jurchens raised their heavy bows and used rings made from deer or ox horns to press against the bowstrings.

The strings rang out and the arrows whizzed away.

On the black line that was pressing forward like a dark cloud, a knight was finally shot by an arrow and fell to the ground.

However, the Jin army's chances of winning against the Ming army had changed significantly because of the failure of the firearms battalion. The Sichuan army was about to cross the trench, and if the Jin army's cavalry did not rush out, they would be defeated because they could not achieve an equal speed.

Huang Taiji could not wait to fire a few more volleys of arrows, so he shouted to the flag officers and ordered the cavalry to charge.

Earth-shaking shouts rang out. Yuetuo, who was commanded by the Red Banner on the flank, had apparently seen clearly in these few brief moments the situation encountered by the Plain White Banner, and understood that Huang Taiji had quickly changed his battlefield strategy due to the different circumstances.

The cavalry and infantry of the Red Banner also rushed in like a tide, trying to attack the flanks of the Sichuan Army, or to encircle and annihilate the Ming Army infantry, which also had a considerable number of troops behind the Sichuan Army.

"Bang... bang..."

Suddenly, in the Red Banner camp, there were explosions of thunder, followed by splashes of blood, and the sound of people and horses falling to the ground and wailing.

Yue Tuo, who was leading the battle, blurted out in amazement: "What is that? How can those Ming troops, who are different from the Sichuan Army, have muskets?"

A military commander named Bayala ran up to him and said hastily, "Master, they are not firing rifles, they are throwing Wuduo. How can their Wuduo explode like a cannonball?"

……

"Good throwing, dolls! Wow, awesome! This hand cannon made by Mr. Song is quite useful!"

In the Ming army's infantry formation, Man Gui cheered excitedly.

Zheng Haizhu stared at the primitive grenade made by Song Yingxing. After careful testing and improvements by this talented scientist in the late Ming Dynasty, the effectiveness of the "delay time" and "killing radius" was ensured. After arming the Daijun children with the Mandarin Duck Formation, these infantrymen were ordered to launch medium- and long-range strikes that were more lethal than shooting arrows before engaging in close combat with the enemy.

The young men of Dai County tasted success for the first time and their morale was boosted. They roared in anger, but they strictly maintained the mandarin duck formation and followed Man Gui's more than a hundred elite cavalrymen to rush towards the red flag.

Man Gui's blood boiled, as if he had returned to the scene when he defeated the Dergelei troops of the Zhenglan Banner on the banks of the Luan River.

He ignored the heavy bows drawn by the Tatar infantrymen who were not killed or injured by the grenades, spurred his horse to speed up, and specifically attacked the silver-armored Bayara who was at the forefront of the red flag army.

"Damn it, a higher rank can crush a person to death. General Ma doesn't allow us to fly the White Banner, fearing that I will chop down Huang Taiji, whom he wants to deal with. I will kill 30 or 40 of his Bayalas, and then capture Yuetuo alive. I can't lose to that Sichuan barbarian!"

Man Gui grinned grimly and brandished his sword to fend off several Tartar red-armored soldiers who were about to chop the horse's neck. He leaned his upper body to the right and crossed paths with Bayala on horseback. When the moment was right, he stabbed the opponent's throat, which was surrounded by protective gear, with the tip of his sword.

"puff……"

Man Gui's amazing strength and the steel knife's excellent quality easily penetrated the protective mask. Bayala's throat was cut and arterial blood gushed out instantly.

"The first one, I'm counting!"

Man Gui laughed triumphantly, then killed three or four more silver-armored soldiers. He quickly turned back to look at the battle record of the Dai County's young and strong killer team, and confirmed that although those guys who were fighting for the first time had begun to suffer casualties, most of the Mandarin Duck Formation's formation remained intact.

Man Gui still wanted to look for He Zhuo's figure, but the thought only flashed through his mind. He quickly returned to the fighting spirit, shouting at the elite Xuan Da soldiers who had followed him for many years, and rushed straight towards the direction of the commander's flag of the Red Banner.

On the grassy slope farther away, Ma Xianglin's troops were in a stalemate with the Zhengbai Banner.

Countless hook-and-sickle spears shining with dazzling silver light became the life-saving ropes of the Tatar soldiers.

Some veterans experienced the Battle of Fushun and heard the bannermen of the Zhenglan Banner exaggerate the Battle of Luanhe. Psychologically, it is impossible for them to say that they are not afraid of fighting the Sichuan Army, which has not changed at all from its commander to its appearance and morale.

But the momentum of Aoba, the young retainer of the Fourth Prince, who rushed towards Ma Xianglin wielding a mace, slightly boosted the morale of the army.

After shooting down several Sichuan Army knights, Oboi finally rushed to the vicinity of Ma Xianglin.

Ma Xianglin had just stabbed a red-armored soldier of the Plain White Banner when he felt a black shadow like a gust of wind attacking from the side. He simply used the force of the stabbing red-armored soldier to lean forward on his horse and avoid the mace swung by Oboi.

The head of Aobai's horse brushed against the butt of his opponent's horse as they passed each other. When he came back to confront Ma Xianglin, two of Ma Xianglin's most capable servants had already surrounded him.

"Young master, leave this dog Tartar to us, and you go and pick on Huang Taiji!" a servant shouted.

Just as Ma Xianglin was thinking this, he turned his horse around without hesitation, thrust his spear forward, and stabbed left and right, clearing a path for himself.

Different from the tiger-like roars of fierce generals like Man Gui, Ma Xianglin remained silent on the battlefield. Even the heavy breathing when he was killing the enemies seemed to be suppressed in his chest.

But wherever he went, his spear moves were fast and fierce, and the "swish" sound caused by the wind cutting through the air was more frightening to the enemy than the howl of any male animal.

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(I will try to finish the main text tomorrow. Thank you for your continued support)