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Chapter 895 Breaking the Formation 2
"Pah... pah pah pah..." Just as the heavy cavalry shouted and leveled their spears, preparing to rush the last hundred meters at the speed of the wind, a long stream of white smoke emerged from the front, accompanied by continuous crisp sounds.

The infantry column that was marching silently in small steps suddenly stopped. The soldiers in the first row held their muskets level, took aim and pulled the trigger. Then they turned around, ran through the gaps between their companions to the back of the fourth row of soldiers, knelt on one leg and loaded bullets.

Then the second row of soldiers repeated the same action, followed by the third and fourth rows. Then a surprising scene appeared: the first row of soldiers who had just fired more than ten seconds ago leveled their muskets and pulled the trigger again!

From a distance, the four rows of soldiers looked like long fleshy worms, slowly tumbling backwards, emitting grayish-white smoke and ejecting hundreds of deadly lead bullets every few seconds.

The short distance of 200 meters became an insurmountable barrier for the Yarkand cavalry. No matter how hard they whipped their mounts, the distance seemed to never shorten, and their companions in front, behind, and on both sides of them stumbled one after another.

"Beep, beep... beep, beep..." Just when everyone focused their attention on the battlefield, a loud trumpet sounded. Although the sound was not loud, it was enough to penetrate the noisy horse hooves and gunfire and could be heard clearly by people far away.

"Huang Dusi, it's our turn. We should encircle the enemy and get behind them to block their retreat!"

Ding Shun did not focus all his attention on watching the battle, but spent more time looking at the hot air balloon with a telescope. After hearing the horn, he immediately relayed a very clear and specific order to Huang Taiji.

"Kill the enemy...!" Huang Taiji was enjoying the show so much that he reluctantly looked away after hearing this. He raised his Iron Bones and shouted loudly, urging his horse to rush out.

Just now, I was not just simply watching, but also silently replacing roles in my mind, calculating the impact of replacing the Yarkand cavalry with the Eight Banners Army on the battle situation.

Although the Eight Banners Army did not have so many heavy cavalry, but instead used more heavy infantry and light cavalry that could travel on horseback, its impact was not as strong as that of the Yarkand Khanate's army.

But the result seemed to be no different. Not counting the previous rounds of artillery fire, no known cavalry unit could cross the 200-meter distance under such dense lead bullets.

15 seconds, just 15 seconds, almost every army soldier completes the loading action. Divide 15 seconds into four parts, that is, every 4 seconds, 400 lead bullets will be fired, and the hit rate is extremely high.

What was even more despairing was that the army only used less than half of the guard's strength, and the other half was standing back without firing a single shot. If all of them went into battle, a guard's army could at least face three times the cavalry in a field battle, and even more if it was infantry.

It was obvious that the Ming Army did not use its full strength in Liaoyang. The reason was unclear. Anyway, what Ding Shun said just now was not a ridicule. His choice to surrender did save the lives of most of the Eight Banners Army.

"Okay, the battle is over, and it's time for us to go down. Come on, Jinsuo, show us a demonstration for Gulandam!" Standing in the basket of the hot air balloon and seeing the Eight Banners Army on both wings set off according to orders, Hong Tao finally breathed a sigh of relief.

What he was most worried about in this battle was not the Yarkand army, but the friendly forces that might suddenly become the enemy. Now that the threat was lifted, there was no need to continue observing, and the scene that followed was not pretty at all.

At this time, the army soldiers in the front had changed from retreating to advancing. As they walked, they pulled out bayonets from their waists and mounted them on the barrels of their guns. They still maintained a long horizontal line, but they quickened their pace and began to jog under the command of officers at all levels.

The Yarkand cavalry that charged earlier lost their formation, numbers, impact force and unified command under the impact of the rain of bullets. More and more of them chose to turn their horses around and retreat, leaving behind a large number of injured companions. In fact, many of the knights who rushed in the front were not directly hit by the bullets, and they also avoided being trampled by the horses' hooves. But what followed was not luck, but death, stabbed to death by steel spikes, like a groundhog on the grassland.

A second wave of attack? There won't be one. Even if the enemy commander is extremely tough and turns a blind eye to the huge casualties and slim chances, there is no time to organize.

The field artillery will soon launch dispersing fire. The Yarkand army obviously has no idea how far the Ming Army's artillery can fire, which will cost them a heavy price.

"Wang Chengen, bring me my spear! Jinsuo, you will be the judge and bet on a piece of spoils."

When Hong Tao was the last one tied with a rope and lowered from the hanging basket to the ground, he immediately ran to the roof of the carriage not far away, took the rifle handed to him by Wang Chengen, climbed onto the roof, took aim and urged the carriage to start.

As an emperor and marshal, he consciously accepted the advice of the General Staff and court officials, not putting himself in danger on the battlefield, and not easily getting involved in the front line.

But in order to satisfy his desire, he asked the machine factory to make several rifles specially made for him, with larger caliber, longer barrel, more powder charge, more precise workmanship, longer shooting distance and more accurate.

As long as you have good eyesight, good marksmanship and a strong body, you can use these rifles to maintain the same hit rate at 600 meters as shooting at a 200-meter target with an ordinary rifle.

Unfortunately, he does not fully possess these prerequisites, so the low hit rate can be ignored. But as the saying goes, the worse you are, the more you like to play.

Whenever he had the chance, he would actively participate in the battles, and gradually get lost in the cheers of Wang Chengen and the Warrior Battalion guards, and he never got tired of it.

The direct battle lasted for 20 minutes, and the encirclement and annihilation battle lasted for more than an hour. When the last pursuing Eight Banners Army returned with the spoils piled on their horses, the battlefield had been almost completely cleaned up by the army.

"Your Majesty, the front battlefield will be cleared in about half an hour, and it may take two hours to count the number of escaped enemies."

The commander of the 33rd Guard was Yuan Datou, who was born in the Haihu Division and ranked 1616st. He entered the army in 1618 and served as the first guard of the Northeast Dusi. He was promoted to the rank of Qianhu in 33. He participated in almost all the battles of the army. When the army was expanded last year, he was promoted to the commander of the rd Guard for his meritorious service and was awarded the rank of General Guangwei.

As a senior general who has served in the army for six years and has been promoted from the bottom, Yuan Datou's greatest advantage is his ordinariness. He has neither outstanding advantages nor obvious disadvantages. He is very methodical in his work and life, like a walking textbook of the army.

"Have we got any information on our army's casualties?"

Hong Tao did not admire Yuan Datou himself because he was too rigid and inflexible, but he was very positive about his work and believed that most generals and even officials should be like this.

(End of this chapter)