Late Tang

(Thanks to Grandmaster Zui Xiaodao for his support, thank you!)

"Report to Dutou, Hulu has entered the range of artillery fire!" Shi Yong, the observer of the artillery battalion, held an observation mirror in his hand, turned his head and shouted loudly to Zhao Zhang, Dutou.

In his 40s, Zhao Zhang, the head of the Paoying Capital, who was originally a carpenter, was biting a grass stalk in his mouth, wearing a helmet without a mask on his head, and also holding an observation glass, looking at the queue. The array is approaching the barbarians in the southern camp.The edge of the mouth was raised slightly, revealing a sly smile.

It is said that Feilei cannon is also called heartless cannon. It is famous for its accuracy. Its range can reach two hundred paces, but its accuracy is extremely poor.But despite these shortcomings, as long as it is used well, in Zhao Zhang's view, this thing is much stronger than catapults and ballistas.After all, the Feilei cannon barrel is only three feet high and one foot in diameter, and weighs less than thirty catties, so that each infantry team is equipped with two, and the cavalry is also equipped with two, which can be stopped at any time. Fire a shot.Especially against those fortresses and dense arrays, it is simply not very easy to use.

As a professional artillery battalion, Zhao Zhang has a total of twenty flying thunder cannons. Anyway, these things are cheap, easy to manufacture, and convenient to transport.

"Hey, third child, let's shoot first according to the predetermined target!"

The Qin army has not only dealt with the more than ten thousand miscellaneous fish and soldiers here these days, in fact, they have built a very powerful fortification and artillery positions here.Behind the simple wooden fence that seems to be able to fall down in the wind, there are strips of ditches, on which anti-arrow boards are built, and soil is piled up, leaving only a line of space for shooting arrows. A little behind, in the trenches are Artillery positions.Flying thunder cannons have been prepared here for a long time, and they even adjusted the ballistic trajectory in advance before the Hu army arrived, set the bombing point, and planted small flags of various colors in front of the barracks. .

Everything is ready, only need to be shot.

"Boom!" A puff of white smoke rose from the Feilei cannon barrel. The ace gunner Lao San in Zhao Zhangdu was shirtless and raised his thumbs and squinted his eyes for a long time, then lit the fuse and tied it into a disc shape. The [-]-jin heavy bomb bag flew out with a roar, and then landed beside a small red flag about [-] steps ahead of the formation, where a group of barbarians had just rushed past like a tide.

Accompanied by a burst of tragic screams, the twenty-pound flying thunder deviated from the small red flag by about three feet. This kind of accuracy is already quite remarkable. Zhao Zhang patted the third child on the shoulder, worthy of being the trump card of Bendu gunner.Although it is three feet away, it sounds far away, but it doesn't matter.Those stupid donkey-like barbarians had already eaten a lot of shells under the city of Yunzhou. When they got here, they didn't learn a lesson. They still came up in a dense array. The wall is blocked, but they don't know that disasters are flying from the sky.

Two hundred steps away, even beyond the range of most catapults, but still within the attack range of the fly thunder cannon.

The [-]-pound flying thunder deviated from the small red flag, but accurately smashed into a team of thousands of Shiwei. Although the power of the gunpowder was not great, at least the momentum effect was extremely strong compared to the stone bomb.While the ground was shaking for a while, the flying thunder that exploded overturned all the Shiwei fighters within a three-foot range, and seven or eight people within one foot of the explosion center were killed directly, and even more so. Dozens of people farther away also fell to the ground, bleeding from their ears and nose, and dizzy.

Bara the Tiger of Shiwei lay on the ground and spit out a few mouthfuls of mud, panting heavily and with lingering fear, he led his team of thousands of people to run backwards, retreated more than 200 steps in a panic, and ran to a mound before stopping.Bala is known as the Tiger of Shiwei, and he is proficient in riding and shooting immediately, but he is really afraid of this kind of thing that can't even see the enemy's face, but can overturn a group of people at a distance of two or three hundred steps. .This thing is even different from the catapult. The catapult causes trouble, and it often takes a long time to continue firing once. Even if it is unlucky to be hit, it will kill a few people at most.It is completely different from this kind of cannon. Not only is it powerful, but also the sound like thunder and the flames soaring into the sky make those men in Mobei almost helpless.

These Shiwei people still don't know that when facing shelling, the dense array is killing them. If they are arranged in skirmish lines, the lethality of this kind of artillery will be much smaller.And it would be safer if they saw the shells coming and lay down directly.It's a pity that they still don't know that the shelling on Yunzhou city didn't let them understand this.

It was a good start, and the corners of Zhao Zhang's mouth rose even more.

"The barbarians of Gouyue retreated [-] steps after only one shot. If a thousand shots come out in a while, they can't retreat to grandma's house?" Zhao Zhang said with a lot of complacency. Back then The carpenter who fled the famine, and now he has become the commander of the capital, and the captain Renyong of the ninth rank.And if this battle is won, if you go up to a higher level, you will be at the eighth rank. After two years, when you change jobs and return to your hometown, you will almost be able to become the chief of the county police. "Third brother, come up again in a short while, bring them closer, and start shooting at two hundred paces. This time, we will fire all twenty flying thunder cannons. If we fight well, we will be able to fight at noon." I personally went to the logistics camp to make sticks of stewed pork and taro noodles for everyone."

The third child wiped the cannon fodder from his face, grinned, showing a mouthful of white teeth, "I'll have another roasted whole lamb, and I'll assign it to Dutou for a while!"

"Damn it, you're still good at bargaining. Earning face for Lao Tzu is also earning merit for you. If you fight well, King Qin can still lose your reward. You boy, keep the reward money well, and let me go back this time. Your sister-in-law told you that if a girl from a good family gets married, it will save you a whole lot of money, and if you have money, you will either gamble or drink."

The third child, who was almost 30 years old, was a little embarrassed by what was said, smiled awkwardly, and turned his head to pretend to observe the barbarians.

Under the banner of the Hu people's army, Yelu Shilu saw that Bala was shot back by the Qin people, his face was ashen.These damn guys are getting more and more cunning, and they already know how to preserve their strength.He didn't believe that Shi Wei Zhihu was so courageous. It was obvious that this guy had the idea of ​​not working hard.Thinking of this, he also sighed a little.If it wasn't for a big loss in Yunzhou City, coupled with the defeat of Jincheng, and those idiots of the Tatars, only 20 of the [-] people were left, and those tribal leaders would not be so timid now .

Especially at the moment when the flag of King Li is planted there, the tribes are even more fearful. Before the situation is clear, they don't plan to go up and work hard as cannon fodder.

"Beat the drums to cheer the tiger of Shiwei, raise the command flag, and urge Bala to break the formation!"

The rumbling drums rang out like heaven and earth, and Bala looked back helplessly.He knew that Yelu Shilu was urging him, so he quickly gathered himself together.Unless it was a last resort, he still didn't dare to confront Yelu Shilu.He is also experienced in many battles, but he is really embarrassed when facing the flying thunder cannons of the Qin people.But looking back, Yelu Shilu couldn't spare him by retreating at this time, so he might as well give it a go. After all, the Qin army only has more than [-] people, and they are still attacking from three sides.Perhaps, Li Jing will abandon the camp and leave.

He looked behind the mound, and saw that the opposite side just fired this cannon and there was no sound.

Several commanders behind him said angrily: "These southern barbarians only dare to fire cannons, they are all cowards!"

Bala said loudly: "Those flying thunder cannons sound scary, but they are actually not as good as our bows and arrows. Look at that shot just now, they were lucky to hit it, and only a few dozen people died. We The sons and daughters faced each other, and there was a rain of arrows, often hundreds of enemies fell. Besides, we have seen a lot of these guns in the city of Yunzhou. It is rare for ten cannons to hit one. It was just that they ran into a dead mouse just now."

After boosting the morale of several subordinates, Bala directly called the five commanders over.Just now he had the heart to preserve his strength, but he just brought a thousand-man team to play.This time, he planned to send his own 5000 people and another 5000 people from several small tribes of his. A total of [-] people will all be invested together, and they will directly follow their traditional tactics, without any formations, and no more temptations. Come directly to charge with Wanqi, and smash these southern barbarians in one fell swoop.

"Can a few small cannons scare our warriors in Mobei? Let's rush over and fight close to each other. Can they still equip their cannons with spears?"

"Hahaha!" The group of people who were still terrified just now laughed wildly.Indeed, being cautious is not their style, approaching on horseback, impacting, riding and shooting, and close combat are their tactics.

"Destroy the Southern Barbarians!"

"Kill them all!"

Bala looked proudly at the revived morale, and nodded in satisfaction.

"rush!"

The Hu people started to attack again, but this time the scale was much larger, and they directly launched a charge of ten thousand riders from the south.On the vast grassland beside Baishuiluo, thousands of horses roared on the grassland to the south for more than ten miles, and the hooves sounded like thunder, and the knights shouted wildly on their horses.

"Your Majesty, Hu Lu is fierce, you should retreat to the Zhanhao Command Center to take charge of the overall situation." Zhang Chengye looked at the overwhelming Hu Qi and persuaded Li Jing carefully.He is not a timid eunuch, he has also participated in several big battles with Li Jing, and the scale is not smaller than this.It's just that Li Jing's status is different now, so there is no room for any mistakes.

Li Jing was wearing a cricket dragon golden armor, a four-clawed python wrapped around the golden battle armor, and gold-plated steel and gold silk gloves tightly pressed the jade long sword, standing on a high archery tower.In the hot weather of July, even wearing such a set of armor outside the Great Wall was a pain in the ass.Li Jing really wanted to take off his armor and lie down in Zhan Hao's headquarters drinking herbal tea.But right now it's a war, especially this one is very important.

The Hu people have failed to go south, and there are 20 left in the 20 people, but these [-] are the elite part of the [-] people.Li Jing didn't want to let them go back, and none of them planned to let them go back.However, it is easy to defeat a Hu Qi, but it is very difficult to annihilate a Hu Qi.Especially since they have already left the Great Wall. On this vast fortress, these barbarians on horseback will roar away once they lose, unable to catch up.Because of this, he tried his best to use himself as bait to lure the barbarians here.What you want is to wipe them out.

How could he leave at such an important juncture?

With him standing here, the morale of the Qin army will increase a bit.

"The barbarians are on the verge of death. This is a deadly battle. Even if we have planned it long ago, if we want to annihilate these fierce barbarians, we still have to use all our strength. Trapped beasts will fight to the death, and we must not be careless. This king stands here to let the whole army know that in this battle, there is no retreat, and if we let go of a barbarian, we will all be considered a failure."

After Li Jing finished speaking, he raised his binoculars to observe the barbarians, and ignored Zhang Chengye.

"Gongsun, how many more soldiers and horses do we need to encircle us?"

"In order to hide, the four ambush soldiers are far away, and they will arrive in about an hour." Gongsun Lan replied.

It was Li Jing's idea to place the ambush soldiers fifty miles away.Li Jing personally lured the enemy here, it is impossible for the barbarians to rush in unprepared.Especially after they have just experienced several failures, they will be more careful.In order to successfully lure the enemy to come, Li Jing only brought 2 people here, and the rest of the army was divided into four, fifty miles away.

These four armies are Wang Zhong's personal bodyguard army with 5000 horses, Li Wei's Yingyang Army and Iron Cavalry Army with 1 horses, Qiu Shengong's Leopard Cavalry Army and Iron Cavalry Second Army with a total of 1 horses. Xuancheng's Flying Bear Army plus the Iron Cavalry Army had a total of 1 horses.A total of [-] soldiers and horses are just [-] miles away from here, and it takes about an hour to dispatch troops from the moment the guns sound.

With 2 horses, Li Jing had to deal with 5000 Hu people alone for at least an hour.Then [-] people wanted to encircle and wipe out this Hu army, and the pressure was a bit high.

Feeling the pressure is not because I am worried that I will not be able to stand up to the barbarians for an hour, but that my own troops are still a little small, and it is easy to defeat and difficult to annihilate.

"How soon can the follow-up troops arrive?" The Qin army dispatched more than 20 horses this time.

"The fastest to arrive is the 2 Shatuo soldiers at Niupi Pass. Li Siyuan has sent someone to summon them, but it is estimated that they will arrive tomorrow morning. Moreover, the [-] soldiers are not strong enough." Gongsun Lan replied, Niupi Among the [-] Li Siyuan's subordinates in Guan, [-] auxiliary soldiers were recruited after he entered Datong, and the remaining [-] soldiers were old and weak.However, they are the closest to this. The barbarians have never paid attention to this miscellaneous soldier before. As a result, they are now the closest soldier to this.

"In addition, Marshal Zhang Zimian's new ever-victorious army has to stay in Yanmen Town to stabilize the battle for the time being, and it is difficult to participate in the battle. Liu Xun's ever-victorious army is coming, at least the day after tomorrow."

3 Shatuo will arrive tomorrow, and Liu Xun's 5 will arrive the day after tomorrow. By the day after tomorrow, they can add [-] people, but it is still not enough to wipe out the Hu people.If it was in the Central Plains, Li Jing was already sure, but on this grassland, there were no terrain obstacles, and it was very easy for the Hu people to escape.

"Where is the military capital?"

"There are still ten remaining troops of the Cavalry Legion at Junduguan. They have already assembled and are rushing here. They are expected to arrive in three days. In addition, [-] troops from each town have also arrived at Junduguan. It is estimated that they will arrive in Junduguan in five days. can reach."

Li Jing frowned and thought for a long time, then suddenly said in a deep voice: "Immediately send an order to the four armies of Wang Zhong, Li Wei, Qiu Shengong, and Xuan Cheng to suspend sending troops and stay where they are and wait for orders! Without this king's order, it is forbidden to expose !"

"Your Highness!" Gongsun Lan exclaimed.

"Send the order!" Li Jing said firmly. (To be continued.)