Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 222 Infantry vs. Cavalry (Second Change)

Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian agreed with Ningwuhou Zhou Yuji very much.

Now the biggest reliance of the Qing army is his hundreds of red cannons.

The red cannon has a long range and strong destructive power. Although it is difficult to transport and inconvenient to operate, it is naturally not hindered by the Qing army's cavalry guards.

But now once the hundreds of red-clothed cannons of Duoduo are all back in place, the shells fired by the hundreds of red-clothed cannons will be enough to destroy the walls of Yangzhou City.

At that time, no matter how well-equipped the guards are, it will be difficult to resist the huge destructive power formed by the nearly [-] cavalry of the Qing army charging in one direction.

In other words, once the Qing army breaks through the city, Yangzhou will gain and lose.

In the original history, the Qing army broke Yangzhou City by bombarding Yangzhou City with cannons.

Now, Zhu Youjian naturally didn't want the Qing army to continue to stage such a battle, so he nodded and looked at Zhou Yuji:
"Ai Qing's intention is that the hundreds of red-clothed cannons of the Qing army must be destroyed first. However, the red-clothed cannons of the Qing army are not only guarded by the Manchurian cavalry of the Chinese army, but also very heavy and difficult to destroy."

Zhu Youjian raised his doubts. He naturally knew the importance of destroying the red cannons of the Qing army, but he also knew that it was more difficult than defeating the cavalry of the Qing army.

"Your Majesty, although the red-clothed cannon is difficult to destroy, the person who operates the red-clothed cannon is not difficult to destroy. I have fought at the frontier for many years, and I know that although the red-clothed cannon is powerful, it requires skilled gunners to be accurate. The red-clothed cannons can hit the city wall, and if we can kill these Chinese gunners who defected to the Qing army, even if the Qing army has red-clothed cannons, it will be difficult to destroy our city of Yangzhou in a short time."

When Zhou Yuji said this, Liu Fangliang also took up the words and said: "If you want to kill all the gunners of the Qing army, you must have cavalry. The cavalry can go back and forth very quickly, and they can go deep into the Qing army's enemy's rear to kill the gunners of the Qing army in a moment, or they can withdraw immediately. .”

"However, the artillery of the Qing army has Manchuria iron cavalry. Can our cavalry of the Guards break through and successfully attack the artillery of the Qing army?" He Xin also asked.

"In this way, the infantry can only attack the Qing army's iron cavalry, and the cavalry will take the opportunity to attack the Qing army's artillery. At dawn tomorrow, Dodo will definitely order the Qing army's artillery to bombard the city. I am afraid that the outer city will be destroyed by then. The army cavalry will advance quickly, so field artillery and some infantry battalions are needed to prevent the Qing army cavalry from attacking, and at the same time the heavy artillery will also bombard the enemy, assisting the guard cavalry to attack the Qing army artillery!"

When Zhu Youjian said this, Zhou Yuji cupped his hands and said, "As Your Majesty said, the Qing army will definitely be eager to attack the city tomorrow, while our guards will be eager to smash the cannons in red. It just depends on who's offensive is stronger and whoever takes it first Hit the opponent's vital point!"

Zhu Youjian took a look at Liu Fangliang and He Xin, and both of them expressed no objection.

Zhu Youjian made a decisive decree that, except for the infantry battalion of the First Corps of the Second Guards Army to assist the field artillery battalion to guard the gate of Yangzhou City, Zhou Yuji led all the infantry outside the city to prepare to attack the Qing army's nearly [-] cavalry; Commanded [-] iron cavalry to launch a sneak attack on the artillery of the Qing army.

He Xin commanded the rest of the troops to defend the city of Yangzhou.

……

Just as Zhu Youjian and others expected.

The next morning.

Duduo, Prince Yu of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, did not delay for a moment, and immediately ordered hundreds of red cannons from the Qing army to bombard Yangzhou City.

In an instant.

Yangzhou City was covered by countless black iron bullets. The city wall outside Yangzhou City was immediately covered with bricks and mud, and more than half of the solid city walls collapsed in many places.

Some of the defenders of the outer city were smashed into meatloaf by themselves, and some fell from the city wall and smashed to pieces.

In addition, artillery shells from the Qing army accidentally fell into the city, destroying countless houses, and even the sound of wailing can be heard.

Some disturbances began to erupt in the entire city of Yangzhou. Fortunately, Ma Shiying and Li Banghua had already prepared countermeasures to appease the hearts of the people in time.

However, some gentry came to the gate of the city and strongly demanded that Kaesong surrender, saying that they would rather surrender in Kaesong than sit back and watch the Qing army ruin the people of Yangzhou City.

Some people even began to persuade Zhu Youjian to put down his resistance.

Zhu Youjian didn't expect that the battle had just started, and before the winner was decided, many Yangzhou officials, gentry and wealthy families were already scared out of their wits by the sound of gunfire.

Zhu Youjian was not polite, and directly ordered that anyone who wants to surrender to the enemy at this time will be killed!

For a while, countless heads of cowardly people were chopped off in Yangzhou City, which kept the order in Yangzhou City stable, and those who took advantage of the opportunity to make trouble and violated the law were promptly suppressed.

Moreover, Zhu Youjian's order of repression is to beheaded directly, regardless of the severity of the crime.

However, because of this, the city of Yangzhou became quiet. There were no pedestrians on the entire street, but there were more and more patrolling officers and soldiers. Once an official or civilian house was bombed, a pre-prepared ambulance team rushed to treat it.

Outside the city, the main force of the guards, who were used to the sound of cannons, was much calmer than the officials and people inside the city.

At this time, Zhou Yuji had assembled [-] infantry battalions with a total of more than [-] people to form [-] square formations and charged towards the nearly [-] Qing cavalry on the opposite side.

Among the 18 people, except for Zhou Yuji and the battalion commanders riding horses, the rest of the Guards infantry officers and soldiers were all armed with steel guns and bayonets in front. They walked neatly towards the Qing cavalry in front of them, and kept shouting: "Kill! Kill! Kill!"

The formation formed by 18 infantry in the fierce pride is not inferior to [-] cavalry.

Of course, if you look carefully, you can see that although the infantry of each battalion of the Guards advances in a square formation with the battalion as a unit, from a few people in a team to six or seven people in a battalion, they all form a defensive attack formation against the cavalry.

The trinity combination of spears, shields, and flintlocks allowed the infantry of the Guards to come towards the cavalry of the Qing army at this moment, without losing the battle at all.

Seeing that the red cannons on his side had blasted the outer city of Yangzhou, Duoduo immediately ordered the red cannons to move forward and bombard the inner city.

At the same time, after leaving 18 Manchu cavalry to guard the artillery, he personally led [-] cavalry to Yangzhou City, and killed the [-] guard infantry in front of him.

The 18 cavalry and [-] infantry began to close the distance outside Yangzhou City.

Under Zhou Yuji's order, the Guards infantry immediately dispersed ten battalions of the Guards infantry in the first column, formed a long defensive line in small groups, and immediately started shooting with guns.

At this time, it was still two hundred steps away, but the flintlock guns were already lethal, but only a small number of Qing cavalry had the strength to draw a bow and shoot the enemy at this moment.

Although there is no range accuracy at this distance, a firepower network composed of 6 people is enough to reduce the impact of accuracy on infantry shooting.

At the beginning, some cavalry and horses of the Qing army fell down, and even flew up directly because of inertia, but some infantrymen of the Guards accidentally fell to the ground with arrows.

In the middle of the [-] paces, there were countless corpses or wounded soldiers of the Qing army wailing, and there were also wounded soldiers of the Guards crawling on the ground in great pain between the battalions of the Guards.

(End of this chapter)