Obviously, the reinforcements that had just arrived did not take the hundreds of defenders seriously.
As soon as the 3,000-man battalion of the vanguard arrived, they immediately organized an attack.
The terrain here is narrow and the troops cannot deploy. The battalion was brought by Deputy Commander-in-Chief Chen Guang. The quota was 5,000, but the actual number was 3,000.
Soon, the three square formations pressed towards the fortress.
The first square formation is made up of shield and sword soldiers, about 300 people. The second square formation is made up of spearmen, about 500 people. The third square formation is made up of musket soldiers, about 500 people, holding 500 muskets.
Thirty sidecars lined up behind.
The sidecars are all light vehicles, which were improved models when Qi Jiguang was in charge of Jiubian. In addition to grain and ammunition, each car also carries a No. 5 general cannon.
Tian Peng waved his hand, and the fusilier squadron immediately climbed onto the city wall from behind. They took cover behind the battlements made of sandbags and began loading ammunition.
Chen Guang waved his hand and said, "Let's get started. There are only a hundred or so defenders in total. Defeat them as soon as possible so that we can rescue Zhangjiakou Fort."
Yongning Counselor Zhao Erdong took the order and left. He ordered the flag bearer to wave the flag and immediately issued an order to attack. In his opinion, these 1,300 people were enough to capture the castle.
Because the water froze and it was originally a trapezoidal shape, plus there was some snow, it looked like a slope.
The rumble of war drums started beating. Three hundred soldiers with swords and shields formed a team and moved forward.
They used shields to cover the front. They carried rattan shields with a diameter of half a meter. They were relatively light and easy to swing and block. They were sharp weapons in hand-to-hand combat with the Mongols.
The training of shield soldiers is far more difficult than that of pikemen, and there is nothing that cannot be trained in two or three years. In this era, shield soldiers belong to elite soldiers.
These soldiers stepped on the snow, making a crunching sound, and walked forward in neat queues.
The width of the valley is only more than thirty meters, and it cannot be spread out if there are too many people. These sword and shield soldiers formed a formation of sixty people in a row. There are five rows in front and back.
After the shield soldiers came the spearmen. Five hundred spearmen followed behind, all armed with three-meter spears.
Tian Peng looked at the Xuanfu camp soldiers, getting closer and closer. Until they were 100 meters away, there was still no order to shoot.
Everyone was carefully aiming at the shield soldiers without saying a word, waiting for Tian Peng's order.
One hundred meters, eighty meters, fifty meters. I never got the order to fire.
Thirty meters away, Tian Peng waved his hand and shouted: "Rifle three-stage shot, fire!"
The first team, which had been waiting anxiously for a long time, consisted of thirty-one people, thirty-one flintlock rifles, and immediately pulled the trigger.
A burst of fire and smoke erupted from the crenel. Thirty-one bullets were fired at the shield soldiers thirty meters away.
Bang bang bang! There was a sound like exploding beans, and the shields on the opposite side were shot one after another, shaking violently.
Because of the cold weather and marching in the wild, a layer of frost accumulated on the shield. Under the impact of lead bullets, the frost suddenly turned into snow and mist flying all over the sky.
As a burst of snow and fog rose, the phalanx of shield and sword soldiers became a little blurry for a while.
The vine shield could not withstand the firing of a flintlock gun. At a distance of thirty meters, the bullet had already flown to the maximum kinetic energy distance. As it continued to fly forward, the kinetic energy of the lead bullet began to decay.
At this distance, the power is greatest.
When Chen Guang saw the first row of sixty shield and sword soldiers, their progress suddenly stalled. A dozen of them fell down. He was shocked that these Mongolians actually had shotguns, and they were very good shotguns.
Chen Guang immediately began to think about who sold them so many shotguns. It couldn't be his own people. After all, the muskets of the Mongolian Tatars were smuggled in by the Ming Dynasty's border troops.
With the sound of gunfire, the shield soldiers immediately became agitated. They obviously didn't know that the Mongols actually had shotguns. Penetrating the shield at this distance was definitely not something that the fire door gun could do. The team immediately panicked.
After the first row finished shooting, they immediately retreated with guns in hand. Then the second team advanced to fill the first team's fighting position. Then there was another salvo, knocking down more than a dozen sword and shield soldiers again.
These shields were like paper lakes and did not play any protective role at all.
Then, the third team opened fire.
In the blink of an eye, he fired three volleys in surprise, directly knocking down about fifty sword and shield soldiers. The people below were suddenly frightened and panicked.
Zhao Erdong immediately ordered the cavalry to come forward to supervise the battle, forcing the sword and shield soldiers to speed up the charge.
Under the pressure of the cavalry, the sword and shield soldiers began to run. They all knew that since the opponent had firearms, they had to engage the enemy as soon as possible. Those who waited here would only be beaten down by the opponent row by row.
After the sandbags, there was a salvo every six seconds or so.
Each time, more than a dozen people were knocked down. However, they quickly rushed over from a distance of thirty meters. They only had time to fire four times.
Seeing these sword and shield soldiers reaching the bottom of the fortress and starting to climb the fortress, Zhao Erdong breathed a sigh of relief. He did not expect that the opponent actually had hundreds of gunners. However, after taking casualties, they finally rushed over.
The swordsmen and shieldmen tried to climb up the slope. However, as soon as a few people stepped on it, they fell down. As the floating snow covering it was trampled off, they were surprised to find that the slope was actually frozen.
The sword and shield players suddenly panicked and began to climb up using their hands and feet.
Because there are gunmen shooting at them from above. But the more anxious they are, the less able they are to climb up. The ice is very slippery and the slope is very steep. Without ladders and the like, it is impossible to climb up with bare hands.
Soon, another round of musket fire came. Again, more than a dozen people fell. The swordsmen and shieldmen couldn't stand it anymore.
Unable to climb up, they were pressed down and hit by muskets at close range. They turned around and fired back.
The first attack was a complete failure. Hundreds of people were thrown on the snow in front. Some of them were injured and still wailing. However, in such a cold weather, no one went to rescue and bandage them, and they would soon suffer from blood loss and loss of body.
Warm and die.
Hou Shilu felt a little headache when he saw the fortress in front and the tragic situation on the snow.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Although the simple fortress was only ten feet wide, the ice was so slippery that it made him dumbfounded. He had never fought such a battle before.
"Set up camp," Hou Shilu poked Yahuazi for a long time, and then a few words popped out from between his teeth.
The deputy general (deputy chief soldier) Chen Guang looked at it for a while and said: "Sir, this ice city is a bit tricky. But the general looked at it and saw that there were not many defenders inside. There were only more than a hundred people.
You don’t have to worry, we probably won it in one go regardless of the losses, and if we fight hard, we can cut down the trees and make some siege weapons today."
Hou Shilu said: "These damn Mobei Tatars are not living well in the overwintering camp. They came to Xuanfu to bring trouble on us. God knows how many people they came. This fortress is only ten miles away from Zhangjiakou Fortress. They reinforced it.
It’s also very convenient.”
Tian Guang said: "How about we go around. We didn't bring any large artillery with us this time. I looked at the frozen solidity. The No. 3 General Cannon and the Xiaoflang Machine Cannon couldn't hit it. Let's take down the No. 3 cannon at the head of Xuanfu City.
Bring the big bronze cannon from Luzon. It’s not that far anyway. We’ll transport it overnight and it will arrive tomorrow.”
Hou Shilu nodded and said: "This is the only thing we can do. Let's set up camp first."
Tian Peng looked down at the crenel made of sandbags for a while. There were quite a lot of enemies, tens of thousands of them. Teams from far away were coming, and those nearby were setting up camp in the distance.
"Why didn't they attack in one go?" Li Jike asked doubtfully, "It's not far from Xuanfu to here. We haven't used up too much physical strength. We only have a few people."
Tian Peng said: "Hou Shilu is also a veteran. It can be seen that he is quite cautious."
"Look, these guardsmen are shivering from the cold. Some of them can no longer walk. They are also weak at work. You can't compare our soldiers with them. Our cavalry officers and soldiers all have beef jerky to eat every day.
How can they compare?"
Li Jike looked at it for a while and found that the opponent's camp was fairly well-organized and there were no obvious loopholes. This showed that Hou Shilu still had basic military qualities.
"Deputy Tian Ying, you said they are not waiting for the cannon to arrive."
"If they don't fight today, the possibility is very high."