Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 112 Kill! Kill! Kill...

On the wall of Tianjin, Jinghai County Magistrate Cai Zhongren and the rest of the people had already made plans to die in battle, but suddenly the shouts of killing were heard throughout the city.

The morale of the only soldiers defending the city suddenly boosted.

"Hold on, our people are here."

"Everyone who can move, get on the city wall!"

"I heard that our Ming soldiers have defeated the Tartars twice in a row, killing tens of thousands of them in one fell swoop."

"I saw it. The Ming Times said it was his Majesty's personal army. Their artillery is very powerful..."

Not only the elderly and boys climbed up the city wall, but also some women and children. Before that, many of them had already prepared themselves to die.

Before the project started, the Tatars warned that if there was fierce resistance, they would massacre the entire city after it was captured.

Now seeing the arrival of Ming reinforcements, people were ecstatic and rushed to the walls of the inner city desperately.

Without weapons, they just used their own shoulder poles, wooden sticks, buckets, hoes, spoons, iron pots, bricks, kitchen knives... There was nothing they didn't have in their hands, except what you couldn't think of.

"Kill the Tartars!"

"Kill the Tartars..."

"kill!"

A Qing soldier who had already boarded the first place had no time to celebrate before he was suddenly hit with the bottom of a pot by a burly woman, who said, "Get out of here!"

The big gap that had just been opened was instantly blocked by the people.

"Golden juice", stones, bricks, buckets of water... kept falling down, and the Tatars who were climbing up were instantly knocked to the ground.

"Kill the Tartars and protect our homeland!" Jinghai County Magistrate Cai Zhongren could not help but raise his arms and shout upon seeing this.

"Kill the Tartars and protect our homeland..."

"..."

The Ming soldiers and civilians shouted like tigers, shaking the sky and shocking the Qing army that was attacking the city.

Dorgon, who had already climbed up to the outer city, had bloodshot eyes and roared, "Send all the remaining 10 Niulu up to me."

……

Seeing the heavy casualties of the Qing army, Duoduo almost immediately understood what he should do.

He quickly gave orders, "Get out of the Ming army's artillery range!"

Once out of the range of the Ming artillery, the Ming army would no longer be able to reach the Qing army.

The order given to me by my Fourteenth Brother was to hold off the Ming army for two hours. Since I couldn't defeat the enemy, I would just engage in a tug-of-war with them.

The Qing army had strong mobility and withdrew from the Ming army's artillery range first. Once the Ming army advanced, they would stop the Qing army's charge again.

The opponent would inevitably stop and attack again, but once the opponent stopped, he would be out of the attack range of the Ming army again.

Harassment!

Duoduo asked his men to count the losses of the Bordered White Banner.

In this short engagement, the casualties of the Bordered White Banner amounted to more than 1,700 people.

Since its establishment, the Bordered White Banner has never suffered such heavy losses.

Duoduo's teeth were chattering, and there was uncontrollable rage in his eyes. He roared like an enraged lion, and his voice was like thunder that could be heard from far away.

In the next few waves, the Tatars continuously sent troops to charge towards the Ming Dynasty, but they were almost always kept within a hundred or fifty steps, and only occasionally did they charge close.

The reason why it was within a hundred steps was because Duoduo also realized that the effective range of the musketeers was exactly within a hundred and fifty steps.

There were six thousand musketeers, but only a hundred cannons.

Moreover, today's artillery fires solid bullets. Although they make a great noise, the actual casualties they cause are far less than those caused by musketeers.

Not only Duoduo's Bordered White Banner, but also the other Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty and the Eight Banners of Mongolia suffered heavy casualties.

After noticing Duoduo's tactics, they quickly adjusted themselves, gave up on annihilation, and focused on stopping the three camps from advancing.

……

Ming army side,

The soldiers from the three camps cleaned up the battlefield, leaving no one captured alive. They beheaded all of them and put them into the bags behind them. If they were to be counted as the first to make merit, the soldiers were like killer gods from hell.

In addition to the Bordered White Banner, the other eight Manchu and Mongolian banners had more than 4,800 heads...

In addition, there were a large number of iron armor, chain mail, cotton armor and other things. Except for iron armor and chain mail worn by some soldiers, no one touched the rest. However, thousands of war horses were directly divided among the three camps.

In the central military camp, Cao Huachun was the first to realize the Qing army's intention and quickly adjusted his tactics.

"Put the musketeers in front and the infantry in the back, and push forward. Don't stop!"

You want to block my progress by harassing me, but how can I possibly do as you wish?

The moon is dark and the wind is high,

On the ground, the sound of iron hooves was like thunder, and the sounds of various armors and weapons were endless, mixing with the neighing of war horses.

The Ming army's musketeers assembled at an extremely fast speed and began to approach the Qing army.

Seeing this, the Tatars launched another charge.

In fact, during this period, most people, whether in the Ming or Qing army, were night blind, because most of the ancient people did not have enough food and lacked vitamin A.

So in the dim light, Huang Jingxia could hardly see anything and had difficulty moving.

But thanks to Zhu Changgan's investment in the three major camps in the past two months, the three major camps have a large amount of food, vegetables, and even meat from time to time in addition to grain on weekdays.

Compared with the soldiers of the three camps two months ago, there has been a substantial improvement.

"Release the fire dragon!" a captain of the Ming army shouted loudly.

Then several Ming army soldiers threw out "fire dragons" one by one.

"Chichi..."

The so-called fire dragon is actually a rocket. It is very different from the rockets of later generations and is somewhat similar to a flamethrower. This thing was already very common in the Song Dynasty.

The dragon body, dragon head and dragon tail. The dragon body is made of a thin bamboo tube about 1 meters long, with a wooden dragon head in the front and a wooden dragon tail in the back.

After being ignited, the gunpowder in the dragon's tail and body pushes the fire dragon forward and flies towards the enemy. Inflammable materials such as grease-soaked linen are tied to the back, which can be used for the purpose of arson after being ignited.

The range can reach 1 to kilometers.

But here, the biggest purpose of the "fire dragon" is to illuminate the soldiers' vision.

Dozens of "fire dragons" were scattered across the front of the Ming army, illuminating the surrounding environment.

"Five hundred steps!"

"Three hundred steps!"

"..."

With the help of the "fire dragon", the Ming army could clearly know the distance of the Qing army.

When they reached one hundred and fifty steps, there was a loud explosion like a gong and the roar of artillery.

Fired out one shell after another.

Then, the sound of suona rang out.

The musketeers began to pull the triggers, and the battlefield was instantly filled with the smell of gunpowder, and death shrouded the area ahead.

At night, the command flags could no longer be seen clearly, so the most effective instruments were gongs and suonas.

The Tatar cavalry fell off their horses in rows. The key point was that they could not see where the Ming army was, and they fell down immediately. Unconsciously, they felt a bit more depressed and fear in their hearts.

Even though they rushed to the front of the Ming army, when they reacted, they found themselves surrounded by the White Spear Soldiers.

He was directly pierced by rows of spears and fell off his horse.

As a Beile, Duoduo usually ate delicacies from land and sea, so he naturally did not have night blindness. Seeing this scene, he almost vomited blood. On the Ming army side, the fire gun soldiers continued to move forward, and the artillery behind them also moved forward for a while, then lined up and fired wildly at the Qing cavalry in front.

"fire!"

"put!"

"Put it on again..."

"Move forward!"

The commander of the artillery battalion was so shocked by the deafening roar that the soldiers could hardly hear the sounds outside, so he could only use all his strength to hit the gong.

One shot means firing, two shots mean moving forward.

Countless iron balls smashed into the Tartar's tent. After taking away several Tartars, the solid bullets weighing more than ten pounds did not stop, bounced from the ground, and fell into the Tartar crowd again.

A large number of Qing soldiers and horses were knocked over, and shrill screams continued to be heard.

The war horses neighed and ran around, throwing the Tartars on their backs away, and then being trampled by the horses following behind.

The fire dragons, cannons, and muskets continued to advance forward, forcing the Tartars to the point where they could not raise their heads.

At this time, the cavalry of the Yongwei Camp, the Jing Camp, the Baigan Soldiers, and a large number of infantry were guarding the two wings to prevent the Tatar cavalry from launching a surprise attack. Similar situations had occurred during the day.

"Keep the artillery moving forward and fire forward!"

Cao Huachun gave the order that no matter whether there were people in front or not, range was justice, and as long as the artillery shells were fired, the Ming army's resistance to advance would be reduced.

……

"Charge from both wings!" Duoduo's eyes were red with anger at this time, and he organized a counterattack again.

At this rate of advance, it would be impossible for him to stop the Ming army for an hour, so he could only bite the bullet and charge again.

But after two charges, the number of his Bordered White Banner troops had been reduced from more than 9,000 to less than 7,000, including many wounded soldiers, and only about 6,000 were able to fight.

All the Qing soldiers who were hit fell down covered in blood. Some of them could not die for a while. The shrill roars made the fear in their hearts suddenly increase.

Faced with the fierce flames bursting out in front of them, they actually became frightened.

That’s right, the famous Bordered White Banner was actually chilled and frightened at this moment.

Hundreds of artillery pieces fired at the same time. The scene was so shocking that it made their scalps tingle and their backs feel cold.

The Ming army counted the figures of the Tatars rushing past the fire dragon to calculate the distance.

The sound of suona rang out again.

"put!"

"Put it back!"

At this moment, a total of 6,000 musketeers from the Yongwei Camp and the Beijing Camp were like the god of death suddenly revealing his scythe and began to reap the lives of the Tartars.

At this moment, row after row of musketeers fired at the same time. The dense bullets were like fallen leaves swept by a typhoon, and the bodies of the soldiers and horses who were hit were covered with blood holes.

After several rounds of fighting, the musketeers retreated.

"Go on the bayonet!"

In order to solve the problem of musketeers' weakness in close combat, the Armory had more than 5,000 craftsmen produce more than 6,000 bayonets within three days.

With the sound of "click, click", they installed the triangular bayonet on the front of the musket.

Always be prepared for hand-to-hand combat.

The spearmen and white-pole soldiers from the three camps stepped forward. Their nearly four-meter-long spears, illuminated by the fire dragon's flames, flashed with a cold and striking light and pierced into the bodies of the Tatar cavalry, who were at the end of their strength.

At this time, the cavalry of Huang Degong and Sun Yingyuan finally moved again and charged towards the Tatars.

Because of the darkness, they were unable to take care of all situations. The Tatars' charge was even more fierce than during the day, with hundreds of horses charging into the musketeers.

But facing thousands of musketeers with bayonets, they just stabbed at them.

Some stabbed the horses, some stabbed the people. Even though the Tatars were wearing three layers of armor, they could not be completely blocked by the three-edged military bayonets.

The blade of the triangular bayonet is prismatic and it is a knife with three edges. The material requirements for its manufacturing are lower than those of the bayonet. The advantage of the triangular bayonet is that its blood groove can drain blood, and the wound is square. This kind of wound cannot be bandaged, pressed, or bleeding can not be stopped.

Moreover, after the Ming army penetrated the Tatars, they took advantage of the situation and turned around.

Only painful howls were heard, and streams of blood spurted out along the grooves of the triangular bayonet.

A soldier from the Yongwei Camp pulled the Tartar down, stabbed him a few more times, cut off his head, and then stabbed the next Tartar soldier.

Soon, the corpses of hundreds of Tartars were scattered all over the ground.

"kill!"

"kill!"

"kill!"

"..."

The overwhelming shouts of killing and the Ming army's high morale made the entire night sky hot.

The Qing cavalry of the Bordered White Banner tried several times to break through the Ming army camp, but after paying the price of two thousand Tatar lives, nearly half of their troops were lost.

Duoduo looked at the battlefield that was like purgatory and had no choice but to retreat again.

He didn't want to retreat, because once the battle started, it would be a fight to the death. He might have a chance if he fought hard, but if he retreated, he would be a complete failure.

But now he had to retreat.

Because the casualty rate exceeds 50%, it is enough to make any army lose its combat effectiveness.

This is based on the fact that the Qing army had always won great victories against the Ming army, so that they had a psychological advantage over the Ming army and an almost crazy sense of superiority, which allowed them to incur such a high casualty ratio and yet still dare to charge.

Relying on this advantage, he wanted to use his Bordered White Banner to compete with the "Ming Dynasty's Wonder Army" mentioned by Yue Tuo and Du Du, in order to show that his Bordered White Banner was worthy of the reputation of being the strongest.

But he never expected that the Ming army in front of him was so powerful that they directly pressed the white flag to the ground and rubbed it.

As the Qing army moved away, the Ming army's muskets and artillery fired again, firing desperately at the Tatars who wanted to leave the battlefield.

"The Qing army has retreated!"

"Victory!"

The choking sulfur gas and smoke on the entire battlefield made people want to cough, but it could not conceal the ambition and excitement of the Ming army soldiers.

"Fufufu...!"

The soldiers of the three camps could not help but shout, and the sound was like waves, one after another, piercing the sky.

"go ahead!"

The drumbeats of the advancing central army were as dense as raindrops, fueling the fire in the hearts of all Ming army officers and soldiers even more fiercely.

……

Although the people of Tianjin City rushed to the top of the city wall, they were not soldiers after all, and suffered heavy casualties under the fierce attack of the Manchu Tartars.

But just as the Tartars managed to create a gap, they were quickly blocked by the people of Tianjin City.

Among them were some young faces, apparently children in their teens. They picked up bricks and rubble and smashed them on the heads of the Tartars.

Suddenly, someone from the Qing army came on horseback, dismounted, ran all the way over, separated the crowd, and came in front of Dorgon.

"Prince Rui is defeated!"

"What's the defeat?"

"Dodo Beile's Bordered White Banner was defeated."

"What?" Dorgon couldn't help but sway when he heard that. Pain and anger enveloped him like a shroud. "How could he lose? He is from the Bordered White Banner!"

The Bordered White Banner was the most powerful force in the Qing army, so how could it be defeated?
Before he could recover, he heard another messenger arrive. He suddenly knelt on the ground and said in a terrified tone: "Prince Rui, a large number of Ming troops have arrived from the south, or the Ming troops from Shandong, Baoding, and Denglai have arrived."

……

ps: I had promised my fellow readers yesterday to update more chapters, but the author writes slowly, and the war scenes made it even slower. So I can’t update more chapters today. I will try to update twice a day starting from tomorrow!
(End of this chapter)