open sea

Chapter 1433 Kowtow
Just north of the Ming army's line, there is a canal used by English landowners to irrigate farmland.

In fact, it is more accurate to call it a ditch. Something less than a foot wide will only be called a ditch in Daming, but since the longest and only artificial canal here is [-] miles long, let’s call it a ditch for now. It is still very suitable for the aqueduct.

Since this spring, there were soldiers and horses going back and forth on this road, and the surrounding fields were not reclaimed, and the natural canal was not dredged. The water in the canal today is very shallow, and there is still half a leg of silt.

This width is very embarrassing, jumping is impossible, and the detour is not worth the loss. The most suitable choice for the coalition forces of England and Scotland is to slowly wade across and climb up from here.

Therefore, in Yang Ce's theory, all enemies who wanted to attack him from the front had to kowtow to him before hitting him.

General Yang, who was delusional about others kowtowing to him, did not make good use of this aqueduct. Facing an unknown but no less than four times the number of enemies, he did not dare to line up behind the aqueduct, for fear that someone would use a longbow before they had time to fight. Shot into a sieve.

His people opened up the line just a stone's throw away from the canal, watching the enemies in messy armor in the distance slowly approaching like a market with various flags.

The Scottish army did not have much training and strict discipline. Although they looked like they were forming a small phalanx similar to the Swiss, even the bagpipes playing military music could not keep them in step.

Some are fast, some are slow, making the serious front out of a sexy curve.

Even so, on the front lines of the Western Han Allied Forces, no one dared to laugh at the soldiers of all colors - this curve is too long, so long that it can't be seen.

Layers upon layers of Scottish soldiers were crowded, and the soldiers at the front were wrapped in sackcloth, with one piece on their upper body and one piece on their lower body, holding long or short bows, standing in two to three rows.

Behind them are five or even deeper rows of spearmen in the same attire. Every few of them have a swordsman carrying a broadsword and wearing half armor. Next to the swordsman is a sword-shieldman holding a saber and shield. , forming the entire array.

At intervals of three or four spear companies, there will be a company composed entirely of highland warriors carrying broadswords and battle axes on their shoulders. Yang Ce immediately ordered his Han musketeers to fight against the enemy. Focus on taking care of those phalanxes when crossing the canal.

There is nothing new after that, it is nothing more than some Scottish highland riders and plate knights on horseback. Although they are the most terrifying, but with the Spanish phalanx of the complete large army in hand, what Yang Ce is most afraid of is the cavalry.

Even the Beiyang Army has never used cavalry to break through the Spanish phalanx on the frontal battlefield. In Yang Ce's thinking, this kind of large phalanx has only one natural enemy, which is artillery. Can't keep up.

The enemy's archers crossed the ditch and began to kowtow to Yang Ce!
The people behind kowtowed one by one, then raised their weapons and walked forward for more than ten steps. The respective captains tied down the flags, drew their bows and arrows and shot a few arrows.

The follow-up troops are still in the process of crossing the canal. Two test shots have been completed, with an interval of about a hundred steps. The archers uniformly raised their bows to the same angle according to the captain's order, and shot at Yang Ce's line fully. Come the first shower of arrows.

While they were shooting arrows to measure the distance, Yang Ce's musketeers also set up their muskets and lit the matchlocks. The firearms used by the Han musketeers were mixed, including Ming, Western, and Portuguese light muskets, as well as Spanish-style heavy muskets. The ignition method is all fire rope percussion.

The Spanish musketeers are much better. The old Duke Alva, who returned to Spain from the New World a few years ago, promoted domestic firearms reforms. Now the phalanx regiments use heavy flintlock muskets.

This kind of thing that hits one or two multiple bombs is absolutely powerful. No matter what armor you wear, it is difficult to block. The excellent range and absolute lethality can make people who are accurately hit be shot through, smashed, and smashed. Died, knocked unconscious... Few people survived.

The difficulty lies in hitting.

Pieces of feathered arrows were like locusts, covering a large area in front of Yang Ce's army, creating opportunities for the troops on both wings to outflank.

The musketeers of the Han Dynasty obeyed the order and endured a shower of arrows with their muskets ready to go.

But the Spanish company was not so easy to talk about. They knew the performance of the muskets in their hands very well, and they pulled the trigger under the order of the company commander almost at the same time as the enemy's arrow rain hit.

Hundreds of heavy muskets from ten companies fired one after another, and then another burst of muskets fired after only two steps. The well-trained Spanish musketeers still used the method of retreating and shooting, and their speed was not much slower than that of the archers on the opposite side.

The distance between the line array formed by the matchlock guns is much larger than that of the flintlock guns. They do not stand in a dense formation, and everyone is separated by two bodies. Each company has ten muskets fired at the same time. Even so, each Every time a musket is fired, two or three people will always fall on the opposite side of the company.

At this distance, heavy muskets can penetrate two or three people almost every time against unarmored Scottish archers. That is to say, it is not bad if one of ten muskets hits.

From Yang Ce's point of view, he didn't think the Spanish musketeers were any better in training than the Scottish archers.

His musketeers are better than the Spaniards in terms of accuracy. After all, he has trained a lot, and with the gunpowder support of the Eastern Army and Songhai Kingdom, his musketeers can be trained more fully.

The rain of arrows fell uninterruptedly into the formation, and the Spanish musketeers who fired back quickly fell out of the enemy's range at a very small cost. The Han musketeers remained standing, making them out of touch with the army formation, but fortunately their troops were loose , the chance of being shot is very low.

The Spanish musket offensive was very powerful. When thousands of muskets sprayed projectiles in ten rounds, only one-tenth of the hit rate opened up many gaps in the front line of the Scottish archers, causing the enemy to shake.

Even if the muskets of this era are heavy muskets like hand cannons, unless they hit the head and heart, it is difficult to kill people directly. A phalanx rendered as hell on earth.

After a very short interval, the Spanish musketeers started a new round of shooting again, shooting a large amount of gunpowder smoke in front of the formation, and at the same time continued to retreat. Speaking of which, the spearmen of the Western Army are really miserable, and this kind of long-range shooting is not for them. He could only stand behind the musketeer again and again and kept backing away.

But for a moment, the musketeers of the Han Dynasty who stood still were already thrown away by Pao Ze for a distance of thirty or forty steps. people.

Finally, the Scottish general realized that it was difficult for their feathered arrows to hit the Spaniards who were shooting continuously at this distance, but the Spaniards could keep hurting them, and the soldiers who stood still and took the feathered arrows met them in a loose formation , Continuing to fight like this would do too much damage to morale, and finally decided to continue marching forward.

"Pass, shoot, back sixty paces."

Yang Ce, who had been watching his subordinates fall to the ground with a blank expression, finally gave the order to allow the musketeers of the Han Dynasty to fire the first shot after the battle at a closer distance.

　Good morning!Today Chapter 2 may really be released at night.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)