There were just too many Mongolian cavaliers. This was their home ground, and it was their home. Men, women, old, and young all rode on horses. They were soldiers and citizens. From old men in their sixties to children of seven or eight years old, all of them could nock their arrows and lead their horses into battle. The cavalry charged forward like dark clouds covering the land.
Lu Xiangsheng and Sun Chuanting's ears were filled with the galloping of the horses. Their chests even trembled along with the ground. This was their first time going into battle, and it was only then that they realized that the words they read in books could not compare to reality. The battles between words made their blood boil, but the battles in real life made their hearts turn cold.
The Mongolian cavaliers charged at the rear of the Han army. Even though there were carriages surrounding the area, some of the militiamen could not withstand such a strong psychological impact. They fired randomly and ran backward while screaming. The supervisors would capture these people who ran without hesitation. Even though they did not execute them on the spot, they would announce loudly that they would be stripped of all the privileges they enjoyed.
Sun Chuanting held a loaded matchlock and tried his best to protect the gunpowder in the medicinal pool so that it would not be blown away by the wind. Even though he was older, he felt his mouth go dry, his heart race, the veins on his forehead bulging, and he felt dizzy. Around him were more than ten migrant workers who were also looking at each other at a loss. Most of them were here to earn some money, and many of their faces had already turned pale.
A militiaman who ran around was dragged away by the supervisors. He kept struggling and shouting, "Sir, sir, let me go into battle again. This is my first time fighting, and I ran around in a daze. Don't write this down. Sir, please let me go into battle again. My mother is still waiting for me to earn money. I won't run again even if I die. "
The militiaman who was dragged away struggled to break free from the supervisors and ran to Sun Chuanting's carriage. He hugged the wheel and shouted, "Sir, please don't drag me away. My mother is seriously ill, and she really needs money. If I become a deserter, my mother will die. Please be kind and let me at least earn some money for her death. "
The militiaman kept begging, but the supervisors refused to let him go. They dragged him away with all their might. Sun Chuanting couldn't bear to hear this and pleaded, "Let him work here as a laborer to atone for his crimes."
The supervisors also knew that it was the first time these militia workers were going into battle, so it was normal for them to be timid. The people who ran around were immediately arrested and locked up, but usually they would be given another chance to render meritorious service. With Sun Chuanting's words and the pleading of the militia, the two supervisors let him off the hook. They only scolded him for a while before going to patrol elsewhere.
The militia was very grateful to Sun Chuanting and kept thanking him. Without waiting for him to say more, intense gunshots rang out from the line of defense behind the group of people. Bang, bang, bang.
The carriages used to transport soldiers were all specially made, with a slender firing hole on each side. When fired from one side, the empty gun would be passed from the other side. Sun Chuanting and the other workers were just outside the carriage. They took the empty guns and passed the loaded ones into the carriage.
The militia who was punished had obviously received more training. When he took an empty gun, he immediately started to reload. Not only did he reload himself, he even instructed the workers who were not skilled or panicked to correct their mistakes. This made Sun Chuanting and the rest much faster.
Bang, bang, bang. Gunshots rang out again, attracting Sun Chuanting's attention to the battlefield outside the carriage. He saw a dense group of Mongolian cavalry running around and shouting. They were completely unafraid of death and kept charging towards the carriages.
These Mongolian cavalry did not know that the Hans had changed their way of fighting. They still thought that their opponents only had bows and spears. In addition, they were extremely fast. It only took them a few seconds to charge over from dozens of meters away. All of them wanted to charge through the carriages and fight. To fight against their barbaric charge, the militia in the carriage fired quickly. Once the gunshots rang out, they would not stop.
Due to the close distance and the tight formation, every time a gunshot rang out, a large group of Mongolian cavalry would fall. But the fallen Mongolian cavalry did not obstruct their comrades behind them. As expected of a race that grew up on horseback. With a light leap, they jumped over the Mongolian cavalry and continued charging forward.
When the Mongolian cavalry closed the distance between them to more than thirty meters, they would draw their bows and shoot arrows into the sky. Within a few seconds, hundreds and thousands of arrows would fly over and land behind the Han's carriages. Some unlucky ones would be hit by arrows, and they would fall to the ground and cry. But the Mongolian cavalry outside suffered even more casualties.
Sun Chuanting personally saw a Mongolian cavalry being killed by a musket, but a Mongolian boy who was only twelve or thirteen years old jumped out from behind him. The boy was dressed in rags and was not very old, but he opened his mouth and shouted loudly. Once he rushed forward, he drew his bow with both hands and shot arrows. Once he finished shooting, he stomped on the ground, and his horse turned around in a very intelligent manner. None of the Han cavaliers knew how to ride like this.
Bang, bang, bang …
Another round of gunshots rang out.
The Mongolian boy who shot arrows was about to leave, but he staggered and fell off his horse. His horse stopped after it ran more than thirty meters. It used its head to push against its young master on the battlefield, which was filled with howling bullets, in an attempt to make the unmoving boy get up again. Until the next volley of gunfire, even the young pony was killed.
"Why the hell are you acting like an idiot?" A loud shout rose behind Sun Chuanting. The person from the supervision team whipped his whip in the air, and with a loud crack, Sun Chuanting shuddered in fear. "We're at war! Do you think you're watching a show? Hurry up and reload the ammunition for the militia. "
Sun Chuanting shuddered, and he actually did not feel afraid anymore. But he noticed that the militia in the carriage had already emptied the few muskets they had prepared beforehand. The labourers were slow in reloading, and their firing rate had become much slower.
"Don't panic, don't panic. Those Mongolians won't be able to defeat us." The militia who was punished for his crimes quickly reloaded while he comforted the labourers beside him. Sun Chuanting lit an extinguished musket again, and while he reloaded, he listened to the words of the militia who was punished for his crimes. This guy was running around in a panic just now, but now, he was talking and laughing as if he had let go of everything.
"The officer in charge of training said that these cavaliers can only shoot a few arrows at us. It's called 'insufficient firepower delivery', and they won't be able to kill us. We've trained with the cavaliers before, and the National Defense Army's cavaliers all said that those who charge at us directly are idiots. To deal with a formation like ours, they have to use cannons. "
The militia who was punished for his crimes chuckled as he spoke. Then, an arrow passed through the gap between the carriages and pierced his thigh. He immediately cried out in pain.
The moment he cried out in pain, two medics ran over and wanted to carry the militia who was punished for his crimes away. But this guy turned his head to look at the wound, and he actually shouted, "Don't, don't, this is a bone arrow, it's not that serious. The military rules say that 'if you're lightly injured and don't leave the frontline' is a third-class merit. Don't carry me away, this is my credit. "
The two medics looked at the wound, and indeed, it was not that deep. Even the arrow did not enter. They pulled out the arrow on the spot, used alcohol to disinfect the wound, and used a triangular bandage to stop the bleeding. That was it. After the battle, they would change the dressing and see whether more treatment was needed.
When the militia who was punished for his crimes saw the wound, he actually laughed and said, "Good luck, good luck, these Tartars don't have any good weapons, they can't hurt us. They're giving me a third-class merit for free, I can be chosen to join the National Defense Army. This is 50 acres of land, you know. My mother can be saved. "
When they saw that this guy was actually happy because he was injured, the migrant workers hiding behind the carriages were no longer nervous. When they heard the words' third-class merit ',' National Defense Army ', and' giving 50 acres of land for free ', quite a number of them wished that they were the ones who were shot. At that moment, an officer suddenly shouted from behind the militia's formation, "The formation is free, open up a gap. Pikemen, prepare to attack! "
As the number of muskets the militia could fire decreased, the number of Mongolian cavaliers who rushed to the front of the militia's formation increased. The arrows that were thrown at them also gradually became denser. In fact, some of the bolder cavaliers charged straight into the formation and tried to jump in through the gaps between the carriages.
To handle the charge from the enemy cavaliers, the armored pikemen formed a dense formation and wanted to charge out through the gap opened by the formation of carriages to chase away the fearless barbarians outside. When the gap was opened, the Mongolian cavaliers outside were all excited, and they charged over without thinking.
The originally chaotic Mongolian cavaliers instantly formed a cavalry formation, and with their exquisite horsemanship, they completed turning around in an extremely small area. At least one thousand to two thousand cavaliers charged over without any regard for their lives.
When so many cavaliers charged forward in such a dense formation, the momentum was astonishing. Sun Chuanting was immediately terrified, and he instinctively felt that it would be difficult for him to withstand this wave of attacks. But the militia who was punished for his crimes actually laughed loudly and said, "The artillerymen are going to be rich. Those who fire cannons dream of running into such a good thing."
Just as he expected, right when the dense cavalier formation formed, a series of cannon sounds rose from behind the formation of carriages. The militia itself was only equipped with light cannons. Since they were using light cannons, they might as well use cavalry cannons.
Also, the two infantry brigades of the national army had specialized artillery battalions as support, and the cavalry artillery platoons attached to them were also arranged to provide support to the militia they were attached to. Hence, there were more than ten light cannons set up behind the small gap.
The classic tactic of cavalry artillery was three-minute explosive fire. They used the characteristic of the cannon's small recoil to fire a large number of cannonballs in one go. Right now, when they faced the enemy cavaliers who were charging forward swiftly, they even loaded canisters with canister shells and fired at the enemy's faces!
The booming sounds from the cannons were so loud that they shook the sky and earth. Sun Chuanting's original worry turned into an inexplicable excitement when the cannons sounded. Because right before his eyes, the Mongolian cavaliers who charged forward crashed into a wall of bullets. They were thrown off their horses, and their heads were battered and bleeding.
It had to be said that the Mongolian barbarians were very brave, or rather, they were completely ignorant and fearless. They continuously urged their horses to charge forward, shouted nonstop, and continued charging forward bravely. No one organized such a suicidal act. They came out of their own volition to fight with their lives on the line.
But human lives were worthless in front of cannonballs.
Every single time a cannonball was fired, there would definitely be a few cavaliers who would be blasted off their horses and fall to the ground. Before they fell to the ground, their bodies would usually be torn to shreds by the bullets that shot out from all directions. This terrifying scene caused the incredibly worried workers behind the formation to shout in excitement. Everyone was proud of having such a powerful force on their side, and it was a typical case of them thinking that they were awesome even though they did not understand it!
This kind of fighting style overturned all of Sun Chuanting's imaginations of war. There was a saying in books that when weapons clashed, blood would stain war robes, but by the looks of it, that was not the case at all. He stood behind the formation of carriages in a daze and watched how the artillerymen brutally trampled on the enemy cavaliers. When the artillery attack lasted for three minutes, all the cannons' barrels were so hot that they could light up the gunpowder packs, and the booming sounds only stopped.
The artillerymen had finished reorganizing themselves, and the pikemen who had finished their preparations strode out of their formation under the officer's shouts. Their target was the Mongolian cavaliers who had already been scattered all over the place by the artillery fire. This was the perfect chance for them to hit the enemy when they were down!
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
