The general guarding the gate who came after hearing the words looked very much like a hero. But he was indeed not a hero, but a demon spirit named Shuhu. Ever since Du Ziren took over the Southern Barbarians, he has always been a hero because of his ability to fight and his loyalty.
He is Du Ziren's confidant and favorite general, and has always been the guard of this pass.
With his pair of demonic eyes capable of night vision, Shehu could see through the billowing dust, and through the firelight like stars falling in the basin, he could vaguely see that there were indeed six soldiers on the ground, each wearing Cheng Liang's stainless steel armor, carrying on his shoulders.
An army of all kinds of firecrackers. At this time, they were marching towards their pass in neat steps.
Among them, the large army that sprang out from the north was led by war elephant cavalry with rolled trunks. Each war elephant had a cannon with multiple hoops on its forehead, shaped like a bamboo joint.
Following closely behind were the infantry composed of human souls and demon souls. Among them were many ghosts with blue skin and red skin. They could be recognized at a glance as the human souls of the Zhurong clan and the Gonggong clan. Each of them had a ghost on their back.
Carrying two bags and ammunition pouches, as well as firecrackers of different lengths, there were many bamboo tubes wrapped around the waist with steel knives, but what was different from ordinary bamboo tubes was that there was a section of cotton thread sticking out from the top.
There is also a jar slightly larger than a fist hanging on the left and right. The wooden stopper blocking the mouth of the jar has a hole in it and a cloth strip is stuffed inside.
At the end of the team was the artillery guarded by many wolf cavalry. However, their artillery was not huge. Most of them were nearly a foot long. The barrel-shaped cannon was beautifully decorated with four wheels, and two ghosts could push it.
The remaining few artillery pieces are only four feet long, and the muzzles are all shaped like ghosts with their mouths open; a soldier can carry them on his shoulders and move forward easily.
At first glance, it is not a Nanman flint cannon.
The two armies coming from the northwest have even more diverse types of troops. In addition to the mandrill cavalry and the Qingsi cavalry who opened the way, there are also many aerial cavalry. However, they are all riding on a horse as big as an ox, with wings spread wide.
There are more than two feet of tiger eagle.
Most of the human souls riding tiger eagles have muscular beards with arms above the knees. They are minnows who are good at shooting.
This is the Tiger Eagle Air Cavalry that Qin Yuan has trained on the southwest border of Jiuyou Kingdom over the years. He once participated in the war to annex the Republic of Pseudo and the Jiao Rao Kingdom and made great achievements. Later, he recruited many people who were good at shooting.
The addition of minnows with magic skills greatly enhanced the combat effectiveness of this aerial cavalry.
Today they followed Qinyuan south again, and after defeating dozens of cities, they escorted Qinyuan's army to the outside of Muli Pass.
Shehu turned his head and looked to the northeast of the pass. He saw that the three armies coming from the northeast had more types of troops. Not only did they have strong Qingyi cavalry, but there were also Sanmiao warriors riding Baihuanhuan Butterfly in the air.
Among the infantrymen walking quickly on the ground, there were countless three-body ghosts and three-headed ghosts, and there were also many tall ghosts whose bodies were made of hard bluestone.
As an old demon soul from the underworld, Shehu could tell at a glance that it was the stone ghost mentioned in the newspaper a few days ago. At that moment, his heart tightened, and a thin stream of sweat broke out on his forehead.
No matter which army they were in, there were many flags with the same style. The white flag flying on the top of the flagpole had a blooming Hibiscus flower embroidered with red silk thread in the center of the flag.
She Hu recognized it at a glance as the national flag of the Nine Nether Kingdom, which had been frightening the Southern Barbarians for the past month.
The Jiuyou National Army continued to gather into the basin, and the torches in their hands were connected together, tearing apart the darkness in the basin, and shining like daylight.
"Wake up all the soldiers and prepare for defense." At that moment, Shihu no longer hesitated and hurriedly shouted to the messenger: "Blow the horn and notify the Wubao garrison on the east and west sides of the pass to prepare for battle!".
He knew clearly that the six armies that were gradually filling the basin in front of him numbered at least one million people. The hundreds of thousands of defenders in the pass alone were unable to deal with the artillery in the hands of the Jiuyou National Army.
But in his anxiety, he ignored that it was the night before dawn, and the Jiuyou National Army could not light torches and sneak in the darkness at night to catch them off guard.
However, the Jiuyou National Army uncharacteristically lit torches to illuminate the road, and came in a big way, as if entering and exiting their own home, and they seemed to be eager for the defenders in the pass to come and watch their spectacular lineup.
Looking at this posture, it seems that if the Jiuyou National Army were charged more visiting fees, they would be even more excited.
In fact, this was not the case. This was all a plan of the ghosts. It was the middle of the night, and the ghosts were asleep. If they were suddenly woken up, they would be haggard and depressed, and their combat effectiveness would naturally be reduced. He ordered the whole army to light torches and move forward, swaggering through the city.
The purpose was to make the defenders notice and panic, and then the panic forced them to not all get up to prepare for battle.
This is similar to Xiao Shizhu's clever plan to seize Guiweitan.
Urgent horn sounds sounded one after another in the pass on the hillside, piercing the night sky and resounding through the sky; the birds and beasts in the mountain were startled and scattered.
Immediately afterwards, there was a burst of noise in the pass, followed by the rumble of war drums. One could still faintly hear curses with resentment and anger coming out.
Just as the hustle and bustle in the pass continued, the six armies had calmly gathered into a huge army, almost filling the entire basin; then, under the gaze of the pass defenders, they quickly formed a huge square formation.
It stopped a mile down the hillside.
In front of the formation were all infantrymen holding long swords made of fine steel and spears made of star marrow steel. Most of them were One-horned Mountain Ghosts who had surrendered to the Nine Nether Kingdom after the slave collars were opened on their necks not long ago.
With four hands, they can each hold a long card on the left and right, and each of the remaining two big hands holds a sharp spear made of star marrow steel, which is specially designed to defeat the vine armor of the southern barbarian army.
The infantry faced the direction of the pass, lined up calmly and calmly, and placed their long cards in front of them in a row to protect themselves and the army behind them.
Behind them are neatly arranged fire gun soldiers, divided into three columns. The Yin soldiers in the first row each hold a total of eighteen gun barrels in a circle, and a round shield-like thing is installed on the front end of the barrel.
Thunderbolt.
This team of Yin soldiers knelt down on one knee, stretched out the blazing guns in their hands along the gaps between each long card, and pointed the black gun mouth straight ahead.
The second row was all standing, holding rifles in their hands. As for the third row of soldiers, there were two ghosts and one team. They set up a gun about four feet long on the ground, and the muzzles were all made like ghosts with open mouths.
The small cannons raised their muzzles one after another and pointed straight into the sky ahead.
Followed closely by the artillery, they were also arranged in three columns. However, the artillery used by each column of artillery did not have small cannons, but were all cannons with four wheels mounted underneath them. After that, there was no limit.
Infantry, guarding the central army's formation.
The large number of road cavalry has been divided into two armies. Xuanshui, who is riding the triangular beast, and Changya, who is driving the mandrill, each lead an army. They are arrayed on the left and right of the formation, guarding the infantry and artillery in the middle. War elephants
The artillery mounted on the foreheads of the cavalry was aiming at the watchtowers on the city wall.
The air cavalry, composed of beast souls such as Bai Ze, Fire Qilin and Tiger Eagle, together with the flying-headed feathered people, thunder ghosts and hutou people, hovered above the large formation on the ground. Various firearms in their hands were also aimed at
hillside.
It's just that they are not targeting the pass, but the docks and forts on the east and west sides of the pass, which are hidden in the forest and built on the edge of the cliff.
Most of the Guanzhong defenders were gathered on the northern city wall, overlooking the formation at the bottom of the hillside. They were all shocked and frightened.
The Jiuyou National Army at the foot of the mountain was vast, numbering in the millions, and it was assumed that they had many artillery pieces that the Southern Barbarian Army had never seen before.
Although they had never fired so many artillery pieces, they had heard a little bit about the advanced firearms of Jiuyou Country, which could crack mountains and crack rocks. Therefore, those pitch-black muzzles made them tremble just by looking at them.
"This can't hit us." The sergeant who first discovered Jiuyou Kingdom observed for a long time, scratched his head and shouted ignorantly: "The front army is one mile away at the foot of the mountain, and the artillery is farther away. Our pass is not at the foot of the mountain.
, are all on a hillside, the distance is at least five or six miles away, what on earth are they trying to fight?"
As soon as these words came out, Shehu, who was looking at the distance, was stunned for a moment. After a closer look, it was exactly as his subordinates said, and he felt a little more at ease at the moment.
The surrounding defenders heard this and reacted. Some were making suspicious guesses, while others were laughing at the Jiuyou National Army for not knowing how to fight.
At the same time, Guilu, who was riding in the same car with Hu Huitong in the Chinese army, had already stood up and raised the command flag he was holding tightly in his hand. Immediately afterwards, there were melodious and powerful dragon horn trumpets from the army.
It sounded and spread in all directions; in less than a moment, it had spread throughout the entire army.
The first three rows of infantry in the front army did not move, and the three columns of artillery behind them all fired their artillery pieces.
A moment later, under the sound of continuous rumblings, the muzzle of the gun puffed out red light, and quickly shot out waves of angry dancing fire, roaring towards the north of the pass.
The defenders raised their heads one after another, their eyes moving upward as the cannonballs wrapped in flames continued to rise into the sky in front of them.
The flames from the cannonballs illuminated the sky, turning the night sky a fiery red in an instant.
In less than a breath or two, the cannonballs all over the sky had already drawn blazing arcs in the air, dragging the meandering waves of fire like falling meteors, and rushed towards the heads of the Southern Barbarians.
Infinite panic suddenly appeared in the eyes of the Southern Barbarian Army who were just watching the excitement. They had no idea that as early as when Jiuyou Kingdom was still the Ghost Mother Country, Lai Yueqi used the Zhonghuo Lake in Heilong County to harden steel, and then used this batch of steel to develop large artillery
The firing range was only ten miles away. After acquiring various rare metals from the Sao Feng Plain and a room of strange books about the ancient gods' heritage, the artillery of Jiuyou Kingdom suddenly not only had more types, but also had a longer range.
Although it is not as good as human artillery, cannons and other artillery can generally hit a range of tens of miles, but the large artillery of Jiuyou Kingdom can easily hit a range of seventeen or eighty miles, so there is no problem at all.
Guilu also asked Hu Hui to calculate the distance in advance this time before opening up the formation.
Before the Southern Barbarians could recover from their fear, those artillery pieces had already landed. The poisonous fire cannons and sky thunder cannons exploded one after another on the northern wall of the pass. The lightning shot rapidly amidst the dust and flying debris, and the scorching gas
Waves and billowing fire continued to rise; for a time, miserable cries could be heard on the entire north wall of the pass.
As the earth shook and the mountains shook, the northern city wall of Mulikuan, which was originally impregnable, was riddled with holes. Most of the towers shattered in the violent explosion and then collapsed. Flames were everywhere, and the seriously injured Nanman soldiers could be heard everywhere saying,
A shrill scream.
But this did not make the Jiuyou National Army at the foot of the hillside merciful. Just when the Southern Barbarian Army was panicking, with thousands of casualties and many passes collapsing, they calmly reloaded their bombs again.
Guilu's second goal was achieved; if he hadn't woken up all the defenders in advance and guided them to come together to watch his army, how could he have gathered them to take advantage of the artillery bombardment?
After hanging out with Xiao Shizhu for a long time, Guilu not only became loyal, Xiao Shizhu often changed his ways to eat, drink and have fun, but he didn't learn much at all, but the other party said: "If there is an advantage, don't take advantage of it, you will never be poor."
"Like this." He still understood this sentence very thoroughly, and he had integrated it into the war. (To be continued)