"Master, look, they are starting to attack." Chen Xi put down his binoculars and shouted anxiously.
Looking down from the mountain, you can have a panoramic view of the valley.
The first cavalry group of the Hoshuote people, divided into three square formations on the left, center and right, with a total of 15,000 people, was starting to trot.
They were about a mile to a mile and a half away from the trenches.
"Order, let the artillery fire. We have entered the firing range." Yang Fan said.
Hou Ping, the adjutant general, immediately went down to deliver the order. Qin Gang, the captain of the guard, moved some chairs for the master and his ladies to sit down and watch the battle.
Soon, several chairs and a small folding table were placed under a temporary steel umbrella. Hot drinks were served by the ladies' personal bodyguards.
After all, it was still quite cold. Their little hands were red from the cold, and they held hot cups to warm their babies.
Behind the trenches of the three fronts, at the junction of the gun platoons, there were semicircular artillery fortifications piled with sandbags. Each one contained a three-pounder cannon.
This artillery design is extremely light, and everything that can be saved is omitted just to reduce weight.
As a green signal flare took off, nearly 500 three-pound guns on three defense lines opened fire collectively.
Because of the long distance between them, the Heshuote first cavalry group was at a distance of 500 to 750 meters, and the maximum range of this lightweight infantry cannon was 750 meters.
Therefore, if you fire the cannon immediately, you can shoot one more time. At this distance, you can only choose to use spherical solid bullets.
Boom boom boom! A dense artillery fire started.
Because of the distance, the Heshuote people directly mentioned the maximum speed, which is 250 meters per minute.
Mongolian horses are not as tall as European war horses. Prussian war horses can maintain a high speed for six minutes and run 330 meters per minute. They can launch a maximum speed charge from 1,800 meters away.
Mongolian horses are not very fast, and their maximum charging speed cannot be increased.
The war horses of Mongolia in the Desert are actually much better than those in Eastern Mongolia and Monan due to crossbreeding with the fine horses from the Western Regions. But they can only run about 250 meters per minute.
Because of his short legs, his speed is limited.
In other words, within two minutes, the vanguard would be able to rush to the edge of the trench.
Yang Fan has five chances to fire.
"First round, spherical solid bullet, fire." The gunners at each gun position gave orders one after another.
One by one, the three-pound cannon spewed out flames and thick smoke, and the entire artillery moved back more than three meters under the recoil. More than 400 lead balls roared and flew toward the Heshuote cavalry group.
The cavalry on the opposite side was severely beaten as soon as they started running.
Although the three-pounder cannon's shells are relatively small, it has no problem at all against cavalry, and it has no problem at all against Jiannu's reinforced carriages.
Wherever the cannonballs hit, everything is invincible.
Visible to the naked eye, the cannonballs hit the front row of the cavalry. It was like countless huge spears that instantly pierced the cavalry group.
Every cannonball was shattered one after another, and every cavalryman it encountered.
The cavalrymen on a line were beaten and turned upside down.
A three-pound shot put is enough to fly away limbs and shatter a horse's head and chest.
With such a dense cavalry formation, there is no need to aim at all, just hit them directly.
Each one can take away five or six people and horses. Some of the cannonballs ricochet, bounce again, and then crash. A few more will be taken away.
"Accelerate, accelerate, rush forward as quickly as possible" the captains roared loudly.
They knew clearly that they could only get rid of this situation by rushing forward and killing the artillerymen. For a distance of one mile, they could only fire two cannons at most.
In this era, the rate of fire of artillery was much slower than that of matchlocks.
Under various disturbances on the battlefield, their matchlock guns could only fire one shot every two minutes.
At the beginning, the Ming army fired a cannon that had been loaded in advance. After firing another cannon, they rushed forward. Maybe they were lucky and the Ming army had only this chance to fire. The second cannon was not loaded before they arrived.
Everyone immediately understood the current situation. They almost crouched on the back of the horse, and some even hid in stirrups to minimize their frontal projection area. They kept whipping the horses to let them run at the maximum speed.
"Master, master, they are speeding up." Xiao Niangpi held a telescope in one hand and pulled Yang Fan's clothes anxiously with the other.
The cavalry below suddenly accelerated, and the horses unleashed their full potential. Under the sting of the spurs and the whip of the whip, they accelerated as fast as they could.
The horse's hooves kicked up a large amount of snow and fog, and the whole mountain was so white that it was almost impossible to see clearly.
The first round of shelling just now, with more than 400 shells, took away more than 2,000 people and caused them pain.
They had never encountered such dense artillery fire. The number of artillery pieces of the Ming army was too large.
Half a minute passed in the blink of an eye, and they had rushed within 375 meters.
"Once the grape bullets are fired, open fire." the gunner shouted loudly. The artillerymen quickly changed the grape bullets, then ignited and fired.
Boom boom boom! The second round of artillery fire started.
The grapeshot for the three-pounder was five layers wrapped in linen, with three small steel balls in each layer.
This type of artillery shell was transferred from the Navy to the Army and can be used at a distance of 350 meters. It has a longer range than shotgun shells and has stronger penetrating power, but is not as dense as shotgun shells.
Orqitu Khan did not expect that they would open fire again so soon.
He was very shocked, it had only been five breaths.
Viewed from the mountain, the second shelling was much more effective than the first. The first time it dealt more than 400 linear damage. But this time, the shells were fifteen times denser.
The entire front of the queue had a layer cut off.
Grape bullets are uncontrollable. After leaving the muzzle, they may fly in various directions. However, the general direction is towards the enemy's cavalry group.
Maybe it was hit high and it flew into the sky. It was also possible it was hit low and fell to the ground and then ricocheted.
But there were still a large number of steel balls that swept away the knights and horses. The lethality of these one-fifth-pound steel balls was still astonishing.
The steel ball can penetrate the carriage and hit people and horses.
The whole row of knights were beaten and their limbs were broken into pieces. A bloody mist erupted.
This kind of steel ball penetrates the first person, continues to fly backward, and penetrates the second and third people again.
A large number of war horses fell forward. After the war horses were shot, the knights would be thrown down. These unlucky knights were trampled to a pulp by the horses behind them before they could get up.
Orqitu Khan's face turned pale with anxiety, the loss was too great!
This round caused greater losses than the previous round. Although he didn't understand why the Ming army's artillery could fire so fast, he knew that now was not the time to pursue these problems. What he had to do now was to speed up and speed up again!
"Eject, prepare to eject," he immediately ordered.
We cannot continue to be beaten passively like this. The war horses will soon rush to a distance of 150 meters. We must throw light arrows as soon as possible to interfere with the artillery of the Ming army, causing them to be killed by the rain of arrows, making it impossible for them to continue firing.