The further east you go, the more rivers you encounter. The intertwined water network in the area near Changsha greatly affects the marching speed. This is the third time the Suzaku Army has crossed the river in one day. Fortunately, it is the dry season and the river is shallow and narrow, so there are The deepest water in the difāng was only up to the chest. So the infantry waded across the river, and their equipment passed over the stone arch bridge above. The army's journey could not be blocked.
Suddenly there was a "bang" sound, and a firework soared into the sky from the mountains and forests to the north. It roared into the air and exploded into a huge spark. All the soldiers who had just crossed the river looked up. "Please search Piao Tian Literature, the novels are better and updated faster!" Zhang Ning was also immediately attracted attention.
It's not a Chinese New Year or a festival. It's indeed a very weird thing for a firework to go off in the wilderness in broad daylight. Zhang Ning had an idea almost instantly: a flare.
"Cavalry!" someone shouted at this time.
Zhang Ning looked around hurriedly, but he didn't see Shime. The people in Zhouwéi were similar to him. To the north, the left wing of the Suzaku Army, was a gently sloping mountain forest. The fireworks just came from there; There is a village, with bamboo forests and low trees and crops nearby, and it is a small hilly area; in front of it is the main road where the Suzaku Army marched.
At this time, a general in pángbiān jumped down from mǎshàng, then lay down and put his ear to the ground. After a while, he raised his head and stared: "There is the sound of horse hooves on the right wing!" He said this, Zhang Ning also vaguely heard a deep sound in the distance; others hurriedly followed suit and put their ears to the ground to listen to the sound.
Seeing the strange situation, many brigades stepped back on their own. After a while, Wei Bin also ordered the messengers to ride on horseback to convey orders to all sentries and brigades to stop where they were.
Wei Bin rode his horse to catch up to Zhang Ning's army and said: "There should be a large number of horses rushing towards us on the right wing. I am afraid that the army has set up an ambush here and wants to attack us."
"There are shime in the mountains and forests on the left wing? Have the former army scouts searched for them?" Zhang Ning pointed in the opposite direction.
The generals were at a loss. Along the way, the Suzaku Army was rushing to catch up with the army camp retreating eastward. In addition, most of the scouts were chasing the retreating troops in the front. This time the march was indeed a bit rash. Only then did Wei Bin shout: "Qiu Captain! Go and call Captain Qiu to the Central Army!"
Everyone focused their attention on Zhang Ning's face. He was not mentally prepared at this time, but he had to behave calmly. The battlefield is like this. You can take your time and solemnly when planning and setting up, but it is also important to adapt to changes. Yes, sometimes you have to make a decision on the spur of the moment.
Zhang Ning immediately said in a deep voice: "Send orders to all posts, set up a blocking formation, and prepare to meet the enemy."
The so-called denial phalanx of the Suzaku Army is actually a passive defense formation. Because it has heavy matchlocks and pikemen, and it is an infantry phalanx, it is somewhat similar to the Spanish grand phalanx. This formation is designed for mobile assaults. The defensive power of the cavalry attack was very strong. There was a suspicion of a large group of cavalry on the right wing, so Zhang Ning made this decision.
The generals of the Chinese army immediately dispatched messengers to convey orders along the road. Soon, the sergeants were heard shouting from far and near: "The Chinese army has an order. Each camp sentry is divided into two sentries, and a blocking square formation is deployed nearby to prepare for battle. The enemy must not make mistakes!"
Captain Qiu, the scout brigade that Wei Bin had sent to search for, finally arrived, and Zhang Ning repeated the previous question: "Have you sent anyone to search the left-wing mountain forest?"
Captain Qiu replied: "As far as I'm concerned, my lord, I went to see the person and found no abnormalities in the shime."
Wei Bin on the side asked angrily: "Then what happened to the signal sent over there just now?"
Captain Qiu was bowing his head and saying: "You know it, my lord. According to our marching speed, and there are not many people at the end, there won't be any soldiers along the way, near and left. Check every difang inch by inch."
Zhang Ning stopped Wei Bin's questioning and said calmly: "We are not in charge of questioning at the moment. Captain Qiu, please send someone over now to see if there is anything in that forest."
"I have the order!" Captain Qiu saluted hurriedly, mounted his horse and left.
The drums and horns in the army have already sounded, and people and horses are coming and going continuously. People are running around in formations and preparing weapons. At first glance, it seems chaotic, but in the noise, it is orderly. The two sentries in the standing army are the most well-trained.
, and soon the prototype of the phalanx was formed in Yijing. The other peasant and soldier units were somewhat mixed, some were chaotic, and some were slightly better. Among them, the "Changde Camp" commanded by Yao Erlang was the new army, and it was the most chaotic.
Although the total size of the Suzaku Army's infantry and cavalry has reached more than 15,000, the army's army is not long. In addition, the land is limited and resources are insufficient. In fact, not all of them are elite soldiers. Counting the horse soldiers and captured government prisoners,
The number of people who can truly be called elite is at most five or six thousand, less than half of the total.
The cavalry's tactical maneuvers were very fast. Not long ago, they could not even hear the sound. Soon they appeared in sight. In the hills and mountains, people and horses came in large numbers. I don't know how many there were. At a glance, they looked like animals.
A scene like the migration of animals.
Gradually, the cavalry vanguard, who was running fast on the wasteland in the south, quickly jogged and approached hundreds of paces away. Zhang Ning observed Ziji's men and horses in a mǎshàng. Most of the phalanxes had basically taken shape, but only one phalanx in the Changde camp was still unprepared.
Okay. This time the battle was rushed, but it didn’t look too bad; it was obvious that the army on the South Road had a premeditated ambush, but their ambush couldn’t be deployed too close or they would be discovered, so Zhang Ning still had
yidiǎnshijiān prepared.
The army and cavalry several hundred steps away showed no intention of stopping and ran straight towards the Suzaku Army. The moment of engagement was right in front of them.
Zhang Ning kicked the horse's belly, and Qian Lixue rushed out quickly. General Zuoyou hurriedly rode his horse to follow. He ran past the formations on all sides, and some soldiers recognized him and shouted. One of them
The general leading the troops even shouted "prepare for war", perhaps because he wanted to show off in front of Zhang Ning.
The wind whistled in his ears, Zhang Ning raised his scabbard and shouted: "Do you soldiers still remember the brothers who were tricked and killed in Lizhou?"
At this time, the people in Zhouwei had been attracted by Zhang Ning running among the formations, and many people started shouting. Zhang Ning asked loudly: "Do you want to become a prisoner of the puppet government, and be insulted and slaughtered by others?"
Someone in the dense crowd quickly responded, and people shouted: "No!" Zhang Ning shouted again: "Brothers, are you willing to succumb to unjust tyranny?" The soldiers' shouts were now more uniform: "No.
!”
Zhang Ning took advantage of the situation and shouted incitingly: "Unity and glory! For the Suzaku Army!" The soldiers became even more excited and shouted "Long live" and "We must win"!
The shouts on the battlefield shook the sky and resounded throughout the world. The earth was already boiling with great enthusiasm. In the hot-blooded atmosphere, the fear of death was weakened. After a while, the military band played music again, shouting and killing amid the sound of horse hooves.
reverberating in the air.
Soon the sound of artillery roared, but just after the sound of the artillery, the suppressed military music still failed. The cannon was fired by the Suzaku Army's cavalry artillery, which was a light double-arm gun, also called a flange.
The machine gun. The mother-and-gun gun weighs about one hundred kilograms. It is a primary rear-loading artillery piece with a range of about two to three hundred paces. Because it can be transported directly by mules and horses, it is also known as mounted artillery. This time the Suzaku Army went on an expedition in order to march faster.
It was the only type of artillery they carried.
After the cannon was fired, the cavalry vanguard in the south launched a charge. They accelerated from a distance of about 150 to 200 steps and rushed directly to the square formation in the direction of Changde Camp. The cavalry attacked the weak link, and the officers and soldiers in this battle
The commander was probably no ordinary person; the first group they attacked was the weakest group of troops in the Changde camp, and the people there had not yet completely formed a tight square formation.
In the smoke of gunpowder, I could see the galloping war horses rushing towards the sharp arrows. The crowd was filled with dazzling swords and roars of murder. "Bang, bang, bang..." Amidst the continuous explosions of matchlock guns, the cavalry rushed to Changde Camp Zuoyou Er.
In the camp formed by whistles, even the music on the battlefield could not cover up the painful screams.
The unprepared phalanx was quickly broken, and the queue in front was thrown into chaos by the cavalry. The charging speed of the echelon behind the cavalry was obviously weakened because the road was blocked by a large number of dead and wounded people along the way, but they still
They joined the battle group one after another and fought with the soldiers of the Suzaku Army with swords, guns, three-eyed blunderbuss, bows and arrows. The Changde Camp infantry suffered heavy casualties.
Another square formation close to the battle group used matchlocks and cavalry cannons to attack the flanks of the cavalry charge, but it still could not stop the official cavalry from rushing towards the broken infantry. Zhang Ningyijing was mentally prepared, and Changde Battalion was the first square
The formation was defeated by the cavalry alone. It was just a matter of battle, and it did not take long. However, he could still keep his composure. Even if a square formation was completely wiped out, he would only lose about 1,500 people, which would hardly affect the overall situation. At this time, there were only a few other people on the battlefield.
The Chinese army also has six large square formations, each with its own separate layout. Therefore, the arrangement of the Suzaku Army usually does not cause the entire army to be defeated.
The battlefield was noisy, and Zhang Ning kept reminding Ziji to maintain a calm judgment. At present, it seems that only the cavalry in the ambush battle between the army and the army cannot achieve the same results. They also paid a corresponding price for defeating a weaker phalanx. If they continued
If we come down to attack other opposing phalanxes, we will have to kill the entire cavalry here.
Zhang Ning once again looked back at the mountains and forests on the left wing. If nothing unexpected happened, there should be an ambush coming from the left wing. This would be considered a qualified ambush... If there were heavy artillery on the mountain, he would be in a very bad situation.
However, he also felt that this kind of tactic should not appear among the "aboriginals" in the early Ming Dynasty, because it was too advanced and out of touch with the times.
Cavalry and artillery work together. The cavalry raises the wind and forces the enemy infantry to stand still and defend, and uses artillery to attack the phalanx; the artillery opens a gap for the cavalry, and then creates opportunities for the main cavalry to break the formation. Cooperate with each other, and each is connected... This is the main point in war.
In the era when we still relied on cold weapons, it was really difficult for tactics to appear, because the tactics were all developed in actual combat.
Perhaps a group of infantry came from the left, and coordination of infantry and cavalry was a tactic well known to the Ming Dynasty. Zhang Ning was waiting for the situation to change. The Qiu team who took the scouts to inquire about the military situation had not returned yet, and hoped that he would complete the task as soon as possible.