Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 171
The field at the foot of Yueshan Mountain to the east of Anqingfu City is where the left army and the middle army are concentrated. The large tents stretching for several miles are staggered between ditches and canals.

It is worthy of being the most elite army of the left army. The layout of the entire barracks is very reasonable. The ditches and canals not only provide convenience for drinking water but also play a blocking role. Muzhai gates are set up between the ditches and they are connected by suspension bridges.

In addition, every village gate has a watchtower, and sentinels patrol everywhere day and night.

Zuo Liangyu's large tent of the Chinese army was located in Huaining County at the foot of Moon Mountain, with [-] cavalry guarding the left and right day and night, and tens of thousands of archers were on guard on the battlements.

There are also forts on the gates of each village, and forts are located in the southeast and northwest, which can facilitate bombardment in any direction.

Liu Zhaoji, the deputy commander of the First Corps of the First Army of the Guards, could tell that Zuo Liangyu's camp of the Central Army was a place that was easy to defend and difficult to attack, and Zuo Liangyu was obviously planning to stay here for a long time. .

Liu Zhaoji led Yan Yingyuan and his platoon of cavalry to observe the entire camp of the Left Army under the moonlight, and couldn't help but look sad for a moment.

"Our guards were prepared to fight the Tartars from the very beginning. If the left army did not have such a strong camp, I could order an attack now. But now the left army is relying on the camp and fortified every step of the way. Relying on a Huaining County, my guards have less training in the battle, and now it seems that it will not be easy to take down the Zuo Army as soon as possible!"

Liu Zhaoji then said, "No wonder the Marquis of Jingnan and Governor Yuan have hundreds of thousands of troops and dare not attack the Zuo army. It seems that the Zuo army is not a grasshopper after autumn as expected by the court."

Seeing Liu Zhaoji looking at him, Yan Yingyuan also responded: "What the commander-in-chief said is exactly what your Majesty and the princes of the court can't see, so naturally they can't see the real situation, but if you just rely on what you see, it is indeed difficult for the left army to break through. , but the left army has been trapped here for a long time, I am afraid that the food and grass have long been exhausted, as long as I attack properly, I may not be able to win a complete victory."

Liu Zhaoji smiled slightly, noncommittal. Behind him were infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which was different from the traditional formation of the army.

But now each arm is divided into separate roles. As a commander, he has three sharp weapons in his hands. He has to figure out how to use these three sharp weapons to fight against the left army.

Liu Zhaoji also knew that it would not be a problem to defeat the Zuo Army with the weapons and quality of the soldiers under his command, but he did not want to cause too much loss to his First Corps in this battle. After all, he always remembered that His Majesty the Emperor told him that their Guards The main opponent is the Qing army going south.

"Let's go back to the camp! No matter what, as long as the time for the decisive battle of the Marquis of Jingnan is fixed, our army will attack with all its strength!"

As Liu Zhaoji spoke, he rode away lightly, and after half a quarter of an hour he rode his horse towards the temporary station of the Ming Guards.

Yan Yingyuan held the knife tightly in his hand, and followed behind Liu Zhaoji. Although he was picked up by Zhu Youjian, in Liu Zhaoji's opinion, he was just a young man with a lot of insight.

After all, Liu Zhaoji's army also has many talents of all kinds.

As soon as he returned to the station, Liu Zhaoji received Huang Degong's order.

Knowing that the decisive battle will start at noon tomorrow, Liu Zhaoji sat on the ground without saying a word.

It wasn't until an hour later that Liu Zhaoji suddenly ordered: "The order is that the First Battalion of Artillery Type A and the First Battalion of Artillery Type B will advance to all directions of Yueshan Mountain overnight in the dark, and start shelling early the next morning!"

The artillery battalion, with a total of hundreds of cannons, began to gather, and took advantage of the night to rush to the front of the left army camp.

Each battalion of the artillery battalion of the Guards is a team of 15 people, one team is responsible for one cannon, and a battalion has more than [-] artillery pieces.

A battalion is divided into three marks, and each mark is equipped with a Flo machine gun, a tiger squatting gun and a new big Ming gun made by the Ordnance Institute.

This kind of big Ming gun is a field gun that is more practical for infantry combat. It is much smaller in weight and volume than the red cannon, and its range is also reduced by half, but it is easier to transport and operate, and the misfire rate and possibility of bombing are less. .

After all, it is the latest alloy steel manufactured by the Iron and Steel Smelting Bureau, which is harder than iron cannons but not much different in weight than copper cannons.

Of course, the biggest advantage of the various types of artillery of the Ming Guards lies in the fact that the barrels are cast to the right moment, and no longer rely on soldiers to fire according to experience.

The next morning.

The two artillery battalions of the Ming Dynasty Guards began to poke their heads out among the weeds, and each artillery began to operate the artillery according to the orders of each target.

In one team, one person started to measure the distance between the target shelling object and the gun body and the angle of the gun body according to the gun body's quasi-moment and caliper, and began to issue instructions to the operator using the position of the cursor.

"Tilt to the right thirty degrees, raise the elevation thirty degrees!"

Zheng Chenggong came from a family of pirates. He had a special liking for artillery and was proficient in arithmetic. Like him, the artillery operators and commanders in the Artillery of the Type A Battalion of the First Corps all had a certain foundation of knowledge. can also be applied effectively.

Once debugging is completed.

Zheng Chenggong, the captain, stood up first, and the rest of the artillery captains stood up.

Immediately afterwards, each standard thousand households ran to the battalion commander to obey the order.

The battalion commander reported to Liu Zhaoji with semaphore.

Liu Zhaoji nodded.

In an instant, several cannons rang out in the entire quiet wilderness.

The left soldiers hadn't heard such a high-density artillery sound for a long time, and they exploded in an instant, and all of them were busy coming out of their tents to observe.

Zuo Menggeng was also awakened from his sleep by the sound of cannons. He hurriedly ran out of the county office and asked, "What's going on, where are the cannons fired!"

The soldiers under his command even said they didn't know, and they were sending people to find out.

Here, Zuo Liangyu also sat up in a panic, hurriedly pushed open the window, but saw the white smoke in the distance, couldn't help wondering: "Whose army is this, the artillery fire is so dense!"

At this time, the gates of the wooden villages of the Zuojun camp were shot one after another, and they were directly broken into sawdust and collapsed in the trench.

The Zuo army on the gate of the wooden village also fell down one after another, and the generals of the Zuo army's pro-army left the camp immediately, but they dared not go up the gate of the wooden village.

Zuo Menggeng also came to the front at this time, and the generals of the various ministries of the Zuo Army hurriedly surrounded Zuo Menggeng: "Young Marshal, judging from the situation, it should be the imperial army. The scale of artillery fire is no less than 20 soldiers! We should How to deal with it is up to the young commander to decide!"

Zuo Menggeng couldn't help laughing: "What can I do, since there are many enemies coming, then first abandon the wooden villages, concentrate our forces to defend Huaining County, rule other ministries and rush to help the Chinese army immediately!"

With that said, Zuo Menggeng first went to find his father, Zuo Liangyu.

On Liu Zhaoji's side, seeing the first shelling, the left army began to retreat, so he couldn't help laughing: "The turtle is really cowardly! Order the cavalry battalion to take a small path and march under Huaining city, lock the left army's retreat, and the infantry battalion advance. Attack the left army's outlying army from the front! Just finish the left army's outlying camp at noon!"

(End of this chapter)