Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1040 1035 [Lu You also killed someone]

The enemy actually had cavalry, but they rode elephants.

The Ceylon elephant is the largest Asian elephant, only slightly smaller than the African elephant.

The indigenous coalition forces chose this battlefield to facilitate the attack of the elephant soldiers.

The elephant soldiers are similar to ancient tanks, with some riding on them to shoot arrows and others riding on them to stab. Surrounding them are a group of infantry soldiers who advance with the elephant soldiers, which is quite similar to the coordination between infantry and tanks.

Although he was defeated in the duel on the battlefield, the regicide Parakalama was not discouraged.

He sent out a vanguard of 2,000 men to test the enemy's strength and provide an opportunity for the elephant corps.

It was true that Parakalama was beaten by the Ming army, but the main force of the Ming army had long since returned home. In the past few years, he had been restoring his strength while contacting other nobles and sending merchants to Wangxiang Port to inquire.

It has been found out that the Ming people only have 500 noble warriors, and the rest are Tamil vassal troops.

The only thing to worry about is that the Ming people have firearms.

Therefore, Parakalama made full preparations. Although the coalition forces only had more than 10,000 people on the surface, they actually had several thousand mobile troops.

The thousands of people who were hidden were not used to cross mountains and ridges for a surprise attack, but to collect all the boats and take the boats to go around. At this moment, they were hiding on a large island called Kakativa, which was not far from the main battlefield. If they delayed for a while, they would appear on the coast beside the Ming people.

In order to transport troops by sea, all the ships in the territories of several nobles in the coalition were requisitioned, including ordinary small offshore fishing boats.

Those Tamil vassal troops had not been trained at all. Once an ambush suddenly appeared on the flank of the sea, the Tamil soldiers would be frightened and scattered no matter how many there were!
"Boom boom boom!"

Four guns suddenly opened fire.

The vanguard troops sent by Parakalama were still far away from the enemy when they were bombarded.

Xia Yuqing muttered, "After all, he is not a cannon shooter from the imperial court. This cannon is firing a little crookedly."

Although the diplomatic corps left behind four cannons, the first governor took all the gunners away when he left office.

Today's gunners are all from the same hometown that the five hundred soldiers recruited from the Ming Dynasty. They have no idea what ballistics are. Moreover, gunpowder and artillery are expensive, and they don't receive much training in normal times. They just know how to fire the cannon.

At this moment, four shells were fired, but all missed the target!

The enemy was startled and even stopped advancing, waiting for orders in panic.

"Wan Sheng! Wan Sheng!"

The thousands of Tamil soldiers under Xia Yuqing cheered collectively. Even though all the shells missed their target, they seemed to have been given a morale buff by the artillery.

Moreover, the slogans shouted were in Chinese.

The earliest batch of Tamil tribes followed their master for a long time and learned a little daily Chinese.

As for the Tamils ​​who were temporarily recruited for this war, they only knew two Chinese words: "Shadi" (kill the enemy) and "Wansheng" (win the whole world). The former was translated as "kill the enemy" and the latter was translated as "invincible".

They took these two Chinese words as foreign spells...

"Let them aim before firing!" Xia Yuqing sent someone to give the order to the gunner.

Those half-baked gunners adjusted their angles in a panic, and the enemy's front army hesitated for a while before being forced to move forward by Parakalama. In addition, two more coalition forces slowly pressed forward.

Parakalama looked at the sea from time to time. When the mage group went out to fight, he had already sent a small boat to the island to notify them. Logically, the ambush should be arriving soon.

"Boom boom boom!"

The second round of shelling finally began, and the effect was quite good, with one shell falling into the enemy's position.

The terrain here is flat, and when the shells bounced, they hit a string of blood gourds.

The enemy's front troops were in a panic, mainly because of the fear of the unknown. They could not understand what a cannon was and always felt that it was a magical weapon of some demon.

Xia Yuqing scolded his son angrily, and then said, "Wait for one more round of bombardment, and then you will follow Uncle Yang into battle. Remember to obey military orders. Remember to take note of your previous disobedience, and you can slowly clean up after the battle!"

"Yes!"

Xia Xiliang smiled awkwardly, knowing that he would be whipped when he returned this time.

The three enemy front troops continued to move forward, and the left and right armies followed suit, and the elephant corps began to move. However, the sound of artillery made the war elephants seem a little anxious.

"coming!"

Upon hearing the sound, Parakalama looked towards the sea and saw countless ships appearing on the distant sea.

There were regular Ceylon galley warships, sea trade merchant ships of the coalition nobles, and offshore fishing boats within the coalition territory. Each ship was packed with people, so it was impossible to fight a naval battle, but it was very effective in transporting troops to the flanks of the battlefield.

"Commander Xia, there are enemies coming from the sea!" a deputy general sent someone to report.

Xia Yuqing said: "I saw it, why should I panic?"

Xia Yuqing was not panicked, but the Tamil soldiers were very panicked.

Because the direction of the ship's advance was their side and rear. When thousands of enemies landed, they would be attacked from both sides, and many Tamil soldiers would flee.

The gunner was hurriedly reloading, preparing for the third round of artillery fire.

More than one hundred Han cavalrymen were divided into two teams, waiting for orders.

Xia Yuqing sent out another hundred old brothers, who brought their brothers, nephews and Tamil troops with them, and formed a messy formation and gradually pressed forward.

"Boom boom boom!"

In the third round of shelling, the team was extremely lucky and three shells actually fell into the enemy camp.

Just as the enemy's front army became more panicked, the Han cavalry, divided into two teams, rushed out from the left and right.

Cavalry general Yang Zun warned Xia Xiliang: "The Ceylon bow is very powerful. It may be able to penetrate ordinary lamellar armor. Be careful when you charge." "Understood!" Xia Xiliang did not dare to be careless anymore and rushed out closely behind Yang Zun.

One third of the cavalry were armed with muskets, and they rushed to the left front of the enemy's front army, then dismounted, stood on the ground and fired, then put away their muskets and took out their lances to charge.

The other two-thirds of the cavalry used bows and arrows to shoot from the front right of the enemy's front army. These guys were converted to cavalry halfway through Ceylon, and their riding and archery skills were not particularly elite. But after all, they were all noble lords, and they had been trained seriously for several years, so they were more than enough to bully the natives.

The Han cavalry were lucky because there were no archers in the enemy's front army.

There are two types of Ceylon bows and arrows.

One is the longbow, which is generally more than 150 cm long, and some even exceed 180 cm long. It has an effective range of more than 200 meters and is the main weapon of Ceylon archers.

The other is the composite shortbow. Due to the difficulty and cost of making it, composite bows are relatively rare and can only be used by Ceylonese nobles.

Although the longbow is very powerful, it also has obvious shortcomings.

Its bow is too long, has strict height requirements, and is particularly difficult to train.

The last time, Parakalama was defeated by the Ming Dynasty envoys. The longbowmen under his command didn't even have time to shoot arrows before they were almost wiped out by the Ming army.

A few years later, he retrained a group of archers, but there were only two hundred people.

There was no way. The Ceylon longbow was easy to make, but the Sinhalese were not tall enough, and it was difficult to select qualified archers. It was too difficult for a nation with an average male height of 1 meters to train longbow archers in large numbers.

At this moment, the only 200 Ceylon longbowmen were all treated as treasures and left in Parakalama's central army.

They were not sent out to fight at all!
Well, the archers on the war elephants used the rarer composite bows.

In the absence of long-range fire interference, the Han cavalry quickly rushed to attack distance.

The enemy's front troops were first bombarded with artillery fire, then shot at with muskets and bows, and then charged by cavalry. They were extremely panicked and their formation was particularly chaotic, but they had not yet completely collapsed.

More than a hundred cavalrymen passed by at an angle, some of them ran back to shoot, while others dismounted to reload their muskets.

At this moment, Xia Yuqing had already commanded his infantry to press forward, and Parakalama also dispatched follow-up troops.

There was another burst of arrows and muskets, and more than a hundred cavalrymen charged again.

This time they were serious, and the cavalry suddenly crashed into the chaotic enemy formation.

At first, Xia Xiliang still remembered his father's words, but he started to get carried away. He knocked down an enemy swordsman with a spear, and then stabbed a spearman to death. He went deep into the enemy formation without any hindrance, even surpassing his uncle Yang and rushing to the front of all the cavalry.

The enemy's vanguard collapsed so quickly that Parakalama did not even have time to provide support, and the elephant corps, which had been eyeing them covetously, could not find an opportunity.

It is already difficult for poorly organized infantry to face cavalry, not to mention that the Han people also have firearms.

Parakalama had no hope of winning at all, as he had no chance of defeating those one hundred or so cavalrymen!
In another time and space, during the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He faced the unified Ceylon and the Ceylon army at its peak. Moreover, Zheng He was tricked into surrendering and almost lost his army. However, he turned the tables with thousands of cavalry and defeated the Ceylon army.

At this moment, the Ceylon coalition forces were just the troops of a few noble lords, and most of the soldiers were young and strong peasants who were conscripted.

How could they defeat cavalry and firearms?

Up to this moment, the fastest ships of Parakalama's ambush at sea had just begun to land.

On the front battlefield, the main force of Parakalama was defeated by the fleeing soldiers. More than a hundred Han cavalry chased and killed the fleeing soldiers, who in turn defeated more friendly troops, causing a snowball-like rout.

There were other old Han brothers in the rear, bringing their relatives, friends and followers, who rushed over madly and chaotically, chasing the enemy until they completely lost their formation.

Xia Yuqing no longer cared about the front battlefield, but led the central army to the seaside.

"The enemy reinforcements are coming from the sea and have not yet gained a firm foothold. We will attack them halfway across the river!"

"Kill!"

Bai Shihou drew his sword. He had only heard about this before in military school, but this was his first time to fight in the battlefield himself. He was as excited as a monkey out of a cage.

"My dear, don't run around!" Several followers hurriedly caught up and drew their weapons to protect the young master.

Lu You, Fan Chengda and others had also drawn their swords and mixed in with Xia Yuqing's central army, charging indiscriminately.

After all, they had no combat experience, and Lu You and his men did not know how to conserve their energy. They rushed fast, but were already out of breath when they reached the beach.

Fortunately, there were not many enemies who had landed. Seeing that their friendly forces had been defeated, the ambushers from the sea retreated. Those who had not yet disembarked directly sailed away, and those who had already landed quickly turned around to look for boats.

The second-generation officials rushed faster than most soldiers.

Lu You was so tired that he was gasping for breath. He was wearing a leather armor provided by Xia Yuqing, and he started to hack at a fleeing enemy soldier.

He had forgotten all the sword moves he had practiced and could only swing the sword randomly.

With one strike of the sword, he cut through the enemy's leather armor on his back. The enemy was still running away, so Lu You chased him and kicked him, causing him to stagger and fall. He quickly followed up with another strike of the sword.

Then, Lu You began to sleepwalk on the beach.

Did I kill someone?

Really killed a barbarian!
It was hard to tell whether it was fear or excitement, but Lu You was just dazed, walking around with his sword in hand instead of killing the enemy.

Fan Chengda also chopped down an enemy, but did not continue to kill him. Instead, he said, "Hurry up and surrender, and I will spare your life... Alas, you don't understand."

The man picked up his weapon and tried to fight. Fan Chengda's henchman quickly drew his gun and killed the enemy, then shouted, "Sir, why are you talking so much to the barbarians? On the battlefield, swords are blind and there should be no mercy."

"What a pleasure, what a pleasure!" Bai Shihou had already killed two people and was chasing the enemy with laughter under the protection of his close followers.

The six second-generation officials truly experienced a battlefield reality show.

(End of this chapter)