I

  Chapter 203 201【Strong battle】

  Three days before the fierce battle, the situation of the two sides is as follows:

   There were more than 28,000 officers and soldiers in Jiangxi, 738 were killed and more than 3,700 were injured.

  The death rate was 2.63%, and the casualty rate was 13.5%.

  It seems that the casualty rate is high, but most of them are minor injuries, caused by falls and sprains when they fled down the mountain.

  A sprained ankle can be considered an injury, and it is also a headache. Soldiers cannot be allowed to limp and charge up the mountain.

  Datong had more than 5,000 soldiers, 6 were killed and 47 were injured.

  It seems that the casualty rate is very low, but the rolling stones, rolling logs, and ten thousand enemies have all been used up. The simple fortifications were destroyed in many places, and the soldiers of the Datong Army were far more exhausted than the officers and soldiers, because there were more officers and soldiers and they could fight with wheels.

  The real hard battle has just begun.

  The Datong Navy has just returned to Ji'an at this moment, and the river course from Zhangshu Town to Fengcheng County is completely dominated by officers and soldiers.

  The 400 soldiers brought by Zhang Tieniu and Liu Zhu had to disembark at Linjiang Mansion and go overland to support the Lion Mountain battlefield. The magistrate helped recruit a thousand civilians to help four hundred soldiers transport armor and food. Although the straight-line distance was only 40 miles, several small rivers had to be crossed.

  At noon on the third day of the Lion Mountain offensive and defensive battle, four hundred soldiers crossed the last river and entered the mountain to get in touch with members of the peasant association hiding in the mountains.

   After asking about the situation, they contacted Li Zheng and Fei Yinggong further north.

   "When will the fight start?" Zhang Tieniu asked.

  Fei Yinggong said: "Don't worry, Huang Yao hasn't lit the beacon fire yet, so he can hold it for now."

   Once the beacon fire is lit on the Lion Rock, it means that it will soon be unable to hold on.

  Li Zheng also said: "It takes more than one day, and the longer it is delayed, the lower the morale of the officers and soldiers."

  Therefore, Zhang Tieniu and Liu Zhu led four hundred soldiers and joined the ranks of watching the play, watching the officers and soldiers attack Lion Mountain from afar.

  The west side of Lion Mountain is adjacent to the river, but there are artificial rivers on the other three sides and farther away.

  The entire mountain, together with the surrounding land, can be regarded as a large-scale water conservancy facility. For specific functions, please refer to Dujiangyan.

   Hundreds of years later in another time and space, Liu Shuai annihilated a regular division of the National Army on Lion Mountain here.

   Li Zheng, Fei Yinggong, Zhang Tieniu, Liu Zhu and the others had to cross the artificial river if they wanted to attack the officers and soldiers down the mountain, and they were easily attacked by Zhu Xieyuan halfway across.

  In the evening of that day, Jiangxi General Zhu Guoxun sent 200 officers, soldiers and sailors to assist in the battle.

   To be precise, they are Zhu Guoxun's personal soldiers, all of whom are confidantes brought from Fujian, and half of the two hundred people can use artillery.

   "Master, the cannon is coming!"

   "Hurry up and bring it here!"

  Twenty Franc cannons, all bought from Zheng Zhilong at a high price. After spending more than half a year, it finally arrived in Jiangxi, and Zhu Guoxun hurriedly sent someone to deliver it.

   Morning of the fourth day.

  The destroyed simple fortifications on the mountain were repaired overnight.

  Twenty French cannons were carried to the half-hillside for assembly, and began to fire at the fortifications and positions.

   "Boom boom boom!"

   The first round was a test firing, and only one shell hit the target.

  A few hundred steps away from Hu Dinggui, another brigade's defensive area, a gap was blown open in the simple fortifications.

  Fran cannons are weak, but the fortifications of the Datong Army are not strong.

   "Boom boom boom!"

   Another round of salvo, the Fran cannon fires very fast, and the standard configuration of a cannon is five guns. Each sub-gun can be filled with ammunition first, and can be fired directly after being replaced, which is a bit similar to a rifle magazine.

  In the 30-man brigade in that position, two people were killed by shells in an instant, and one person had his arm broken.

  The rest of the soldiers fled.

   "Boom boom boom!"

   Another salvo.

   Only one person was killed this time, but the morale of the Datong defenders dropped rapidly, and they were considered elite soldiers if they did not collapse on the spot.

   "Defend my hometown, protect my fields!"

  Scholar Wan Huaxin started to attack the mountain with self-recruited courage. After he went into battle on the first day, he had rested for two days and two nights.

   "Boom boom boom!"

   When the officers and soldiers charged, another round of artillery hit them.

  Replenishment and recharge, the morale of the village brave is boosted, but at the same time, he is really guilty, for fear of being accidentally injured by the artillery on his side.

  Of course the artillery didn’t dare to fire again, so they took the opportunity to dismantle it and carry it away. By the way, they cooled the barrel and planned to aim at another position and fire.

   "Get up, get up, line up!"

  Most of the fortifications here have been demolished, and more than 20 soldiers of the Datong Army quickly got up and formed a defense.

   Huang Yao received an urgent report and sent a reserve team of 30 people to support.

  The wolf poked indiscriminately, and the Xiangyong who attacked the mountain did not dare to step forward.

   "Rope tie!"

  Wan Huaxin let out a loud roar, and these Xiangyongs suddenly took out their newly invented weapons.

  This kind of weapon uses a rope tied to a piece of bamboo, and then a stone is tied to the end of the rope. You only need to swing the bamboo pole, and the stone will drive the rope to rotate, and you can easily stir up the wolf trap. To put it bluntly, it is a thing specially designed to deal with wolf trap soldiers.

   Under the violent dragging, a wolf soldier was caught off guard and was dragged down by a man with a weapon. He was shot several times and died in an instant.

  The rest of the wolf-whip soldiers who were entangled in their weapons either gave up their wolf-whip or steadfastly stabilized their bodies.

"kill!"

  Yu Xiangyong took the opportunity to charge, but the rattan player quickly blocked it, and the spearman started to poke against Xiangyong.

   "Kill the Thief Yasuda!"

   "Farm and eat!"

  The soldiers on both sides chanted slogans, and they fought with real swords and guns.

   "Ouch, my hand!"

   "Run away!"

   Only a dozen people died, and this group of brave men began to collapse.

  The supervising team stood ready to prevent them from continuing to flee, and another team of Xiangyong immediately made up for it.

  Datong soldiers could not rest, and after repeated battles, all of them were exhausted.

  Huang Liangying, who followed Zhao Han as early as in Wuxing Town, is only a captain of thirty people due to lack of ability. His hands holding the gun were trembling, and he hissed to warn his subordinates: "Hold on, hold on for a few more days, and the reinforcements from the main town will arrive!"

   After repelling three waves of attacks in a row, a gap suddenly appeared on the side, but the rattan player was exhausted and distracted.

"kill!"

  Eight townships bravely attacked the battlefield, and three Datong soldiers fell instantly.

  Huang Liangying immediately filled the vacant seat, raised a gun and stabbed one person to death, and was also stabbed in the thigh himself. Another gun stabbed him in the waist, but the cotton armor blocked most of the force. Huang Liangying retracted the gun and fired it again, stabbing another person immediately.

   Collapsed, this team of brave men collapsed again.

  While the supervising team prevented its rout, another team of Xiangyong bypassed the rout and rushed up from the side.

  The morale of these village braves is very low, and if a few more die, they will collapse.

   At the same time, the morale is very high, even when the friendly army was defeated, they were able to rush forward and continue to fight.

"kill!"

  Huang Liangying was injured in two places. Taking advantage of the new Xiangyong's unsteady footing, he even led his troops out of the position.

  The other captain who fought side by side also led his troops out when he saw this situation.

  More than forty Datong soldiers came down the mountain like a tiger, and the newcomers of more than three hundred Xiangyong were so frightened that they turned around and fled, even breaking the supervisor's team.

  However, when they chased to the bottom, two thousand Xiangyongs were waiting in formation, and the fleeing Xiangyongs could only escape around the army formation.

  Huang Liangying didn't dare to chase anymore, and led his troops back to the position. This kind of war of attrition could not cause a major defeat.

   Taking advantage of the enemy's reorganization of the attack, Huang Liangying counted the number of people. Eleven of his team of thirty people were killed, and several others were wounded. The casualty rate was close to 50%.

  If Xiang Yong worked harder, the Datong Army might collapse.

  This position is the focus of attention, because it was chosen as the first target of the artillery attack.

  Zhu Xieyuan held the binoculars sent yesterday to watch the battle all the time, and his scalp felt numb when he saw it. Under normal circumstances, he should have been defeated long ago!

  At a time, 300 township warriors took turns attacking the position guarded by 60 people, and that position suffered several rounds of shelling.

   As a result, the officers and soldiers were defeated several times, but the rebels still held on.

  Although there is a terrain advantage, the morale is too outrageous.

  How to fight this kind of battle?

  Zhu Xieyuan had never encountered such a rebel. He felt that there was a problem with his tactics, and immediately ordered: "Don't fight any more in the northwest. Surround three and miss one, and leave the rebels to go down the mountain and jump into the river to escape."

  After repelling the attack of officers and soldiers again, Huang Liangying was injured again, and finally two brigades came to change defenses.

   "Old Huang, you all retire to rest." The new captain said.

   Huang Liangying gritted his teeth and said, "No, I can still fight."

  The new captain smiled and said: "The officers and soldiers in the northwest have withdrawn, and Huang Beiyuan (Huang Yao) has sent out a lot of troops."

  The Fran cannon is still firing, so take a break and fire it for a while, so as not to overheat the gun barrel and not clean up the residue.

  Chen Fugui was seriously injured, and he didn't know if he would survive. The whole team was taken off to rest.

  Hu Dinggui was also resting, this guy even fell asleep, the sound of fighting and shelling could not wake him up.

   After sleeping for an unknown amount of time, Hu Dinggui was suddenly patted awake: "Get up and fight!"

  Hu Dinggui jumped up suddenly and led the soldiers back to the position. The officer in this position was bombarded to death.

   Another wave of Xiangyong rushed up, holding that strange weapon. Although it was not very useful in fighting on flat ground, it made it difficult for the wolf to play its miraculous effect when attacking mountains.

  The two sides can only use shields as a cover, and then the pikemen poke each other.

  The Datong army is condescending and likes to poke the heads of the officers and soldiers, and the officers and soldiers like to poke the legs and feet of the Datong soldiers. Therefore, the shield players on both sides adjusted their protective positions.

"kill!"

   There was another sound of fighting from the northwest, but the encirclement and lack of one did not work.

  Zhu Xieyuan simply followed his plan, taking advantage of the withdrawal of some troops from the Datong Army, he wanted to take advantage of the vacancy and attack on a large scale from there.

  Hu Dinggui's arms were already sore, and he didn't know how many enemies he had killed. It's already numb at the moment, and I just think about when I can sleep for a while, and it's good to lie down and rest for a while.

"Uh!"

  Hu Dinggui woke up suddenly, he was awakened by the pain, and the shield hand was not well protected, which caused his calf to be poked.

  Two soldiers under his command had already fallen, and the enemy attacked the position again. Hu Dinggui stabbed obliquely with pain, and killed one Xiangyong with one shot, and the other soldiers worked together to stab the other Xiangyong to death.

   Seeing the failure of the attack, this team of Xiangyong was immediately defeated.

"kill!"

  Hu Dinggui limped and led his troops out, chased and killed several village braves one after another, and quickly ordered to withdraw to the position.

   "Just attack there!"

   Zhu Xieyuan pointed to Hu Dinggui who retreated to the position.

   Two thousand Governor-General's pacesetters came out. This is the army that Zhu Xieyuan has raised for six years. He chooses 15 to 20-year-old Miao slaves as soldiers. It is said that it is the Miao nationality, but it actually includes the Yi, Zhuang and other ethnic minorities.

  These minority teenagers lived very hard under the exploitation of the chieftain.

  Zhu Xieyuan recruited them so that they could have enough to eat, and all of them were willing to die for their allegiance.

  They wear rattan armor all over their bodies and rattan helmets on their heads, as if the rattan armor soldiers in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" reappeared in the world.

  In fact, there were no rattan armor soldiers in the Three Kingdoms, but they were common in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The "Wu Bei Zhi" of the Ming Dynasty also specifically recorded the production method of rattan armor.

   And after being soaked in tung oil, the ignition point of rattan armor is very high, and it is not as afraid of fire as in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"-of course, if it does burn, it is more difficult to extinguish than ordinary rattan wood.

   Repeatedly soaking in water and then drying in the shade, it takes a year to soak rattan. The rattan armor produced in this way is light and strong.

  These Guizhou soldiers climbed the mountain very fast, climbing the hillside as if walking on flat ground. Two thousand people were divided into four teams, and they attacked four positions including Hu Dinggui at the same time.

   "Go and ask for support!" Hu Dinggui exclaimed.

   Without Hu Dinggui's request, Huang Yao had already sent a reserve team, even Huang Yao came with his own soldiers.

   "Stab their arms and throats!"

  These rattan armor soldiers have large areas of their necks, arms and legs exposed, mainly because rattan armor is inconvenient to wear.

  But they are very flexible, and the whole body of rattan armor weighs less than ten catties.

  Huang Yao stabbed a man in the arm with a gun. The rattan armored soldier was extremely fierce. This fellow fell in a mess, shook his head, and got up again and continued to charge upwards.

  Hu Dinggui shot a rattan armored soldier in the throat, but two soldiers beside him were hacked to death.

   More and more rattan armor soldiers rushed up, and the position gradually showed signs of falling.

   "Fire!"

   There are still 20 left in the ten thousand enemies, and this is Huang Yao's bottom of the box. These tens of thousands of enemies, as well as those reserve teams, are designed to prevent unexpected situations.

   "Boom boom boom!"

  The upper body of the Rattan Armored Soldier was not afraid of the explosion (the power was too small), but his legs were injured in various ways, and those who were close were directly blown off their legs.

  At the same time, the spreading chili noodles also made Tengjiabing very uncomfortable.

   Huang Yao and Hu Dinggui took the opportunity to counterattack, killed the rattan armored soldiers who had entered the position, and then went to support the adjacent positions.

   After finally killing the rattan armored soldiers, those defeated rattan armored soldiers wanted to organize another attack.

   "Quick retreat, retreat up the mountain!"

  Huang Yao quickly ordered to shrink the line of defense. After repelling the enemy, all positions were completely moved towards the top of the mountain, where there was a second line of defense.

  However, the water pool in the middle of the mountain was gone, and Datong soldiers could only drink a small amount of mountain spring water and some water stored in advance.

  Hu Dinggui had two injuries to his legs and one injury to his chest. If it wasn't for the protection of the cotton armor, he would have died long ago.

  He ordered to count the number of people, and there were only 16 people left in his team of 30 people.

  However, after abandoning the first line of defense, the second line of defense is more conducive to sticking to it, and the problem of insufficient drinking water can be temporarily ignored.

  Although the officers and soldiers occupy the first line of defense and seem to have made a major breakthrough, the camp at the foot of the mountain has already become noisy.

   "Master, you can't fight anymore, if you fight again, there will be deserters!"

   "The Luling Zhao bandit knows how to bewitch, so he must invite the gods, and the rebels will kill every single one of them."

   "Yeah, more than half of the casualties will not retreat, it must be using black magic!"

   "Supervisor Rong, the Xiangyong recruited by the late students is no longer willing to fight. The last attack was defeated after a few random pokes, and all the Xiangyongs were scared!"

   "..."

  In the first three days combined, only more than 700 officers and soldiers were killed.

   On the fourth day of the **** battle, more than 3,100 officers and soldiers were killed in one day, and there were thousands of wounded in various conditions (most of them were still injured by fleeing and falling).

  The death rate has exceeded 10%. The reason why there is no large-scale rout is purely because both sides are scattered on the surrounding hillsides. If the two armies gather to confront each other, based on this death rate alone, the entire army will have already fled.

   On the side of the Datong Army, the casualties in the dangerous terrain were very small.

   The real losses are the less steep positions, and the casualty rate of individual sentries has exceeded 50%. In particular, the charge of the Tengjia soldiers caused heavy losses to the Datong soldiers, and they had to give up the first line of defense.

  In one day, the Datong Army suffered more than 1,200 casualties.

  Among them, 441 were killed, 106 were seriously injured, and the rest were minor injuries of varying degrees.

   Casualties mainly came from being too tired, slowing down the reaction speed, loosening the formation, and the impact of rattan armored soldiers.

   Otherwise, the Datong Army would occupy a favorable terrain to defend, and the officers and soldiers would be defeated at every turn. How could they not even lose 1 to 10 battle losses?

   "Master, I can't fight anymore!"

   There was a quarrel in the big camp, Zhu Xieyuan hesitated, and he was already riding a tiger.

  The situation of besieging the rebels this time was completely beyond Zhu Xieyuan's expectations. He has never seen this kind of army, and he can't even imagine in his dreams that there is such an army that is not afraid of death in the world!

  If the troops are withdrawn now, even if they can return to Nanchang safely, the officers and soldiers will inevitably feel terrified when they hear about the rebels.

  The officers and soldiers have been killed and feared, feared at the level of spiritual will.

   Fight again from now on, I am afraid that every time we face each other, there will be countless people who flee from the wind!

   But if you don’t withdraw your troops today, you won’t be able to fight again tomorrow. The rattan armored soldiers can continue to use them, but Xiangyong is tired of fighting. The few attacks in the evening were all pretending to fight, and fleeing after receiving the battle is considered a warrior, and many village braves fled halfway through the charge.

   "Every time the drum is tapped, the troops will be withdrawn at midnight!"

  One o'clock is about twenty-four minutes, that is, every twenty-four minutes, the Datong soldiers are disturbed by drumming.

   While beating drums, while preparing to withdraw, Zhu Xieyuan wanted the whole army to flee.

  This battle is really impossible to fight, not to mention the siege for eight days, if the siege lasts for two more days, the officers and soldiers will desert every night, and half of them will escape at night after the siege for five days.

  Wang Tingshi was a governor after all, and he was left alone by Zhu Xieyuan.

   "Why do the thieves and soldiers die, but the officers and soldiers are timid?" Zhu Xieyuan looked at the Lion Mountain and said to himself.

  Wang Tingshi said: "All the rebels are assigned to the land. To protect the land, they must die."

  Zhu Xieyuan pointed to the barracks and said: "But these brave men are mostly sons of good families, and they fight to keep their own land."

  Wang Tingshi said: "The small people protect the land, it is to save life. The gentry protects the land, it is only to protect wealth."

   "No, no, there must be more than that." Zhu Xieyuan shook his head repeatedly.

  Not only Xiangyong was afraid of being killed, but Zhu Xieyuan himself was also afraid. Fear and powerlessness were mixed in his heart. He really didn't know how to fight in the future.

  The same terrain, the same force, if it is replaced by conquest of the chieftains of Sichuan and Guizhou, those chieftain soldiers can last up to three days!

   This attack on the mountain made Zhu Xieyuan lose confidence.

  The coach is no longer confident, can he still count on the soldiers below?

  (end of this chapter)