Dawn of the Empire

Chapter 499 93 Midnight Navy Comes - 4

The two armies of the Liao and Song Dynasties have been confronting each other in Shuzhou for several months, and both sides are well aware of the enemy's actual situation.

"Leave the camp! Formation—" Accompanied by yelling, the firearms gunners put on armor and formed neat small square formations with the commander as the unit.Officers and standard bearers are standing in the front left of the phalanx.Different from the Liao army's habit of using the lottery army as the front line, Yue Fei's formation is that most of the suppressed soldiers are the front line, and the Baoyi army and some of the suppressed soldiers are the central army.The Yijun camps in prefectures and counties with weak combat effectiveness were protected in the rear to avoid being rushed by the Liao army.

Both the Suppression Army and the Baoyi Army are dominated by gunners, and the formations and drill methods are similar.But the color of the military robes is very different. The military robes of the suppressing army are red, and the helmets worn by ordinary soldiers are decorated with red tassels, which look like a sea of ​​fire from a distance.The military robes of the Baoyi Army are black, with two iron armors on the chest and back, looking from a distance, there is a cold light shining in the black.Behind the two armies of Zhen Guo and Baoyi Army, there are prefectural and county volunteer camps with mixed uniforms. The Baoyi Army has spent a lot of effort to make the archers of the prefectural and county volunteers form a defensive line behind.But in fact, Yue Fei and Zhao Xingde didn't have much hope for the combat effectiveness of these volunteer soldiers. To really defeat the Liao army, they had to rely on well-trained elites.

After a light rain, the river wind carried a damp breath, but there was a hint of burning in the air.Dozens of iron barrel cannons from the artillery battalion of the Baoyi Army began to roar, and heavy solid round iron bullets roared towards the Liao army camp.Before launching the attack, Gao Su had already determined the position of the Liao army's camp by firing cold shots.Although the Liao army has more than [-] elite cavalry, they are at an absolute disadvantage in terms of firearms.In the face of the Song Army's shelling, the Liao Army's artillery counterattack seemed sparse.Tie Muge tentatively sent thousands of cavalry, trying to quickly attack the Song army's artillery barracks through the flat place by the river.

The sailors of the Henghai Navy lined up, cruising on the river, all the guns of the black holes were aimed at the river bank.Han Shizhong used binoculars to observe the progress of the battle on the shore.The killing sounds from the shore were overwhelming, and most of them spoke in barbarian language. The cavalry under Brother Timu's troops were more ferocious and barbaric than the ordinary Liao army, and they caused heavier killings in various places.

"Fire!" Han Shizhong said with a heavy body.The flag officer issued a military order.The flags on the ships waved.

"Okay!" The gunners of each gun position ordered loudly, "Fire!" The gunners solemnly lit the fuse. "Boom" "Boom——" With the violent shaking of the ship, shells rushed from the river to the river bank.The cavalry of the Liao army who were charging were attacked by artillery fire from the front and the side at the same time, and they were beaten to pieces.Some cavalry subconsciously lowered their bodies, as if facing the arrow feathers of the infantry, but whenever the shells hit, they mercilessly penetrated with the horse and the people, and some war horses were frightened and jumped around. Running around, the cavalry couldn't control it, and the formation began to break up.Approaching the artillery barracks of the Song Army, the cavalry desperately urged their horses, and began to straighten up, the machete reflected cold light in the binoculars.

The artillery forts of the Baoyi Army are actually equivalent to low cities, and the cavalry of the Liao Army seem to be able to jump over them.But in fact, the closer they get to the battery, the more intense side fire they will encounter.At the same time, there were "bang bang" and "bang bang" firecrackers on the artillery base.In front of the battery, there is a gunner's position slightly lower than the battery.When the cavalry of the Liao army rushed into the range of dozens of steps, in addition to the artillery, the gunners on the artillery base also began to fire guns intensively.In the firearms battalion of the Liao Army, firecrackers are also considered as a type of artillery, called hand cannons or small cannons.Compared with bows and arrows, the accuracy of firecrackers is very low. Therefore, the Baoyi Army did not spend too much time on training aiming. When firing firecrackers against the enemy, they just wanted a quick word. Firing firecrackers is far better than firing crossbows. Arrows are complicated and can be subdivided into more than a dozen movements. However, after years of repeated training, the speed of the Baoyi Army's firecrackers has caught up with the speed of the fast crossbowmen.

"Change the shotgun! Change the shotgun!" the gunners shouted.The gunners hurriedly pushed the cylinders full of shot into the barrels. The sound of "Boom" and "Boom" roared again, and hundreds of shotguns were scattered on the cavalry near the artillery fort.Almost in an instant, a bloody death zone formed in front of the artillery barracks of the Song army. The horses that rushed close fell down one after another, and few cavalrymen survived.Just when the musket gunners were about to put on their spears, the cavalry of the Liao army saw that the situation was not good, turned their horses' heads, and tried to bypass the front where the Song army's artillery positions were densely distributed, and rushed up the artillery barracks from the side and rear.

"General Zhao, the northern prisoner wants to copy the rear route." The officer who sent the order said loudly.

Zhao Xingde shook his head, and continued to observe the Liao army's main formation ahead with the binoculars.Although the Liao army who raided the artillery fortress was frustrated, there was no continuous cavalry following up. It seems that the Liao army's round was just a trial.On the flanks and rear of the artillery fort, because of the limited number of artillery, the Baoyi Army did not arrange many artillery positions, but the Yajun battalion, mainly thunder-throwers, stood there.

Du Chuijiao looked at the cavalry getting closer and raised his right hand.

"Get ready—" the officer of the Tooth Battalion shouted.The thunder-throwers stood on the fort, holding the thunderbolt in one hand and the fire pocket in the other.Seeing the cavalry of the Liao army getting closer, many people couldn't help breathing heavily.This row of thunder-throwing soldiers was a full head taller than ordinary soldiers, and they were not wearing simple two-tier armor, but the well-protected formation armor, which was removed for the convenience of throwing.Except for the Thunderbolt, the melee weapons are all 'inserted' beside the Thunder Thrower, and the left and right army barracks use motley long soldiers, such as long-handled heavy axes, long spears, long-handled maces, and strangers. Knives, etc., and the Chinese Army's tooth barracks are full of spears.Throwing Thunderbolt requires more courage, it is not as complicated as the operation of the firecracker, and it is not as difficult to train as the crossbowman.

The enemy cavalry was only a hundred steps away, and without Du Chuijiao's order, the archers of the Yabing Battalion had already begun to bend their bows and set arrows, suppressing the enemy cavalry's rush from a long distance.Because Zhentianlei couldn't reach far, Zhao Xingde put the few archers of the Baoyi Army in the Yabing Battalion.The Liao army under Timuge came from the grassland tribes, and the riding 'shooting' was its director.The artillery fire on the flanks and rear of the fortress was not as dense as the front, which gave the cavalry who rushed into the formation a chance to breathe. I saw the cavalry of the Liao army purely controlling the horse with their legs, almost standing on the stirrups, bending over the undulating horseback like waves. With the bow and arrow set, the sound of "whoosh" can be heard endlessly, and arrow feathers fly past in the air.

"My darling, do these barbarian meat and horses grow together?"

Ma Yuanyi, Xu Shiqi and others stared dumbfounded at the cavalry and shooting of the Liao army. The faces of more volunteer soldiers were as white as paper. The Liao army cavalry did not attack the Raozhou camp behind the artillery barracks.But they were so frightened that some of them trembled unconsciously while holding their spears.Compared with the pale soldiers, Zhang Jiurong, the commander of the battalion, had a sickly crimson cheek. He was wearing a thick leather armor, looking at the cavalry of the Liao army not far away through the gap in the wooden fence, and murmured: "It's today to kill yourself and become a benevolent."

"These people are like evil spirits," the deputy commander once whispered, "Can we stop them?"

Zhang Jiurong's face froze, he looked back at his timid subordinates, a feeling of shame suddenly rushed to the top of his head, "It's my fault!" Zhang Jiurong said in his heart.

"If you can't stop it, you have to stop it," Zhang Jiurong suppressed the anger in his heart after yelling out of composure, and slowed down his tone, but said louder, "No matter how fierce the Beilu is, this battle cannot be retreated. This battle If you lose, the entire southeast will be over, and Raozhou will be over, you, you, you——" He looked at those subordinates who were still in doubt, and said word by word, "If you lose this battle, your family , your relatives will all suffer.”

Thinking of You Yan under the rule of the Liao army, and the tragedy that happened in Henan and Hebei, Zhang Jiurong's eyes turned red, and he said loudly: "The coward who turned around and ran away today will regret it in the future! I, Zhang Jiurong, will be with you today! Beilu fights to the last breath, even if he dies here, he will not hesitate!" Zhang Jiurong seldom spoke so loudly, and after he finished speaking, he only felt that there was a chill in his bones, as if to hide himself In a state of mind, he drew the long sword from his waist, held it in his hand, and faced the cavalry of the Liao army in the distance.Despite the unprofessional way he held his sword, none of the old soldiers in the battalion laughed at him.The aura of seeing death as home can always be somewhat intimidating.Zhang Jiurong usually didn't care much about the affairs of the camp, but he took good care of the distribution of military pay and the food and clothing of the soldiers.Although the soldiers in the battalion looked down on him, they still obeyed the battalion's control in face.At this moment, in front of the menacing cavalry of the Liao Army, when everyone felt guilty, this scholarly commander, who was usually despised by everyone, unexpectedly burst out with courage that was usually unknown.Hundreds of soldiers in the battalion looked at Zhang Jiurong with something unusual in their eyes.

"Zhang Tongzhi is like this, we have no other way out," Ma Yuanyi sighed, "let's fight."

"Let's fight." Xu Shiqi also nodded.The soldiers of the Raozhou Battalion clenched their weapons tightly, and the morale of the soldiers just now was floating like a bubble.People's hearts are always like this. After giving up the last sliver of luck, a burst of courage emerges from despair.

At this time, the detoured cavalry of the Liao army rushed into the area about thirty or forty steps behind the artillery fortress, and the battle here also entered a fierce hand-to-hand combat.

"Prepare—" "Ignite—" Following the officer's command, the thunderbolts were ignited one by one, and the fuses were burning, and many people's faces were serious. If they can't throw this thing out in time , Make sure to blow yourself up to nothing.The Liao cavalry gradually rushed forward, but had to slow down. The Song army arranged a lot of horse traps, antlers and caltrops near the artillery barracks. Bypass these things.