Chapter 98: When things go wrong, there must be demons
Zhang Naicai led his team back and saw the bandit soldiers led by King Chuang rushing towards him. Before he could speak, Li Shuangxi rushed to him and said: "Official troops are coming from the north. The general sentry Liu Ye has already arrived."
Confront them!"
Zhang Nai was still full of doubts and said: "Uncle Erhu was not at the north gate, why did the army suddenly come?"
Li Shuangxi followed the brigade to the north on horseback. He also said with a puzzled face: "We are confused too. This army of officers and soldiers seemed to fall from the sky and suddenly stopped at the northwest corner of Kaifeng City.
."
He drove his horse and galloped, and said: "We were watching the battle with King Chuang just now, and the commander-in-chief Liu Ye sent his soldiers to report that a group of officers and soldiers were blocking the way between his troops and Uncle Erhu.
It’s strange.”
At this moment, Liu Zongmin also galloped up to meet King Chuang and said, "Brother Li, it's not easy!"
King Chuang was riding on his black dragon horse, with a smile still on his face, and said lightly: "Do you know which army unit it is from?"
"The fighting style of this group of officers and soldiers is rare. They are like a coward, standing between us and the two tigers, but they don't go out to fight."
At this time, Li Zicheng had already driven his horse to the front of the formation. What appeared in front of him was an array of large carts. Dozens of meters in front of the formation, there were corpses of some bandit soldiers lying strewn about. They must have been left behind by the previous charge into the formation.
.
"Car array?"
Li Zicheng continued with a look of disdain: "That old dog Chen Qiyu has used a car formation to fight against us before. Although it is quite difficult to fight, it is not flexible."
But when he carefully inspected the military formation on the opposite side, he was also secretly frightened.
I saw that the large carts on the opposite side were interlocked with each other, and the gaps in the middle were filled with antlers. There was no leakage. Looking to the left and right, I realized that the array of carts was more than two miles long.
He also had a serious expression on his face and said, "Jixuan, tell me what the situation is."
Only then did Liu Zongmin tell the whole story.
It turned out that since the intruder army launched a large-scale attack on the city this morning, the cavalry he led had been in strict formation. During this period, there were only a few elite cavalry galloping around for several miles to patrol the city. The main direction was Luoyang and Zhongmou.
The two thousand infantrymen gathered together and participated in the excavation of the city. Originally, everything was developing in a favorable direction for the invading army, and the excavation of the city also achieved quite a few results.
But as soon as noon passed, hundreds of official cavalrymen suddenly appeared covering a huge convoy. They galloped from a distance and inserted themselves into the gap between the two invading armies in the north and west of Kaifeng City.
As the billowing smoke and dust dissipated, an insurmountable mountain stood in front of the rebel soldiers. They were connected by carts and stretched for two miles.
The black muzzles of the cannons on the cart were aimed at the rebels. During their first two not very fierce charges, these cannons were surprisingly quiet.
The muzzle of the cannon did not emit life-threatening tongues of flame, and their charge was repelled only by the bursts of muskets behind the vehicle formation. This is where Liu Zongmin felt the slightest fear.
The first charge organized by Liu Zongmin only consisted of more than 500 thieves who had gathered temporarily. They were like newborn calves, roaring and rushing towards the car formation without knowing whether to live or die.
Two hundred steps, one hundred and fifty steps, there was no movement at all, and even when they rushed into a hundred steps, they didn't see any reaction from the car formation. Just when they all thought that the car formation on the opposite side was just an appearance, those five
Hundreds of thieves have rushed into the distance of eighty paces.
There was a burst of cannons, and as the smoke rose, deadly cannonballs flew out one after another. The more than two hundred thieves rushing in the two rows in front were immediately covered in blood.
The rest were panicked at first, and then turned around and ran for their lives.
Of the more than 500 thieves who first attacked the car formation, less than a hundred finally escaped back to the formation. The area between 60 and 120 steps in front of the car formation was filled with thieves who were not dead after being shot.
Soldiers, the sound of wailing could be heard from the bright red ground.
Liu Zongmin organized a second charge. This time he mobilized five or six hundred thieves, but he also added more than 200 elite cavalrymen from the old battalion to attack on the flanks.
According to his idea, he still sent the infantry thieves to attack the officers and soldiers behind the chariot formation in front and fired their guns, and then made the horse thieves rush out suddenly, taking advantage of the moment when the officers and soldiers were loading their ammunition, to see if they could break into the chariot formation.
However, he miscalculated again. The infantry thieves still left rows of corpses and wounded soldiers in front of the chariot formation as before, while the horse thieves only rushed within twenty steps in front of the chariot formation, even the large area in front of them was blocked.
They all fell in front of the car without even touching the sides of the car.
This time, more than 100 foot thieves came back, but the 200 horse thieves only managed to escape with less than 50 people. Among them, about 30 people abandoned their horses and rolled and crawled to escape with their lives.
…………
The vehicle formation that lay across the northwest corner of Kaifeng City was formed by nearly 300 large vehicles from Zhang Cheng's lower camp, and there were more than 4,000 officers and soldiers inside, most of whom were musketeers.
In particular, the Yunzhou Gun Type 2 used by Zhang Cheng's fire gun soldiers can stably break through three layers of cotton armor in sixty steps, and two layers of cotton armor in eighty steps. For thieves without armor, it can kill 120
It can be effectively killed within ten steps. As long as it hits, there is almost no hope of survival.
Today, when the thieves were released into the 80th step, the first round of volleys was launched, which was already very forbearing. The purpose was to frighten the thieves' courage in one battle and make them not dare to underestimate them.
Unexpectedly, the thieves were careless and failed to stop immediately after the first round of volleys. Many of the thieves ran forward for more than ten steps before stopping, and then fled back without their lives.
Therefore, Zhang Cheng's officers and soldiers in the car formation fired three full rounds of volleys, leaving more than 400 corpses of thieves in front of the car formation.
…………
As Li Zicheng listened to Liu Zongmin's story, his expression became more and more solemn. He turned to Song Xiance and asked, "Military advisor, what do you think?"
Song Xiance was also quite surprised by the sudden appearance of the army car formation in front of him. According to Liu Zongmin, the officers and soldiers in this car formation were quite capable, but they did not go out to fight.
In line with the principle of "when things go wrong, there must be monsters", he vaguely felt that something was not good. He pretended to be calm and thought for a moment before saying: "The officers and soldiers suddenly appeared here, and they were quite powerful, but they
If he doesn't go to war, he will have other plans.
King Chuang, there may be danger on the side of General Liu Tichun in the north of the city, so we must not ignore it!"
The expression on Li Zicheng's face has not changed. Since the rebellion in the early years of Chongzhen, he has been fighting for many years. He has experienced nearly a hundred major and small battles, ups and downs many times, and his heart has long been as strong as iron. Even Liu Tichun, his old brother who has followed him for many years, has not changed.
Even though the situation was critical, he could no longer move his face.
At this moment, no one knew the heavy and excited mood of the commander of the Chuang Army who had been tempered in the war, but they saw that he looked calm and immediately stood on the sand dunes, staring intently at the formation of government and army vehicles on the opposite side.
The vehicle formation on the opposite side is well-organized and almost invulnerable. If its firearms are as sharp as Liu Zongmin said, a strong attack will not be able to capture them in a short time. Now they are only defending without attacking, just as Song Xiance said, there must be something up his sleeve.
After a moment, he said: "The army will stop attacking the city for the time being. Zhang Nai, Shuangxi, and Bai Wang each took one of their troops and were ready to prepare."
Li Zicheng turned to look at Liu Zongmin and said: "Jixun, can you see if the cavalry can bypass the opposite vehicle formation and go to the north of the city to pick up Erhu and the others?"