The Jurchen tribes were extremely messy, there were at least eighty tribes if not a hundred. There were countless people who wanted to unify the Jurchen people, so why was Nurhachi the only one who succeeded in the past few hundred years? There was a reason for this.
For a slave society, the pressure of the rulers always came from external enemies, and internal forces were rarely a threat to them. Because of the high concentration of power, the leaders of the Jurchen people never thought about how to integrate and improve their internal forces, including the subordinates in the middle and the slaves at the bottom. Nurhachi was the first to do so.
Power did not come from the superiors, but from the subordinates' obedience. Not everyone understood this principle.
The Old Manwen Archives recorded many stories of small Jurchen tribes and even Mongols coming to Jianzhou from thousands of miles away. Four of the five ministers who made great contributions to Nurhachi in the early days were outsiders. This Khan of Jianzhou used discipline and kindness to rope in his people, and only then did he grow stronger in the decades of war.
Today, He Zhuo led his troops to attack the grasslands, and the Mongols' weakness of disunity was exposed after two heavy blows. Only two thousand people died, more than a hundred thousand men and horses, and tens of thousands of strong men were helpless. After the initial stupidity was forcibly beaten down, no one was willing to go forward and die. At this critical moment, the thirty thousand Jurchen soldiers brought by Amin could take the lead.
The Jurchen people of Jianzhou were good at infantry, and they lined up neatly. They had more than half of their firearms, and their training was far better than the 'God's Blessing' army made up of Han slaves. When they went into battle, the national defense army and militia were obviously under pressure.
At a distance of five hundred meters, the national defense army's cannons began to fire solid bullets. In the sound of the cannons, shot after shot bounced beautifully on the flat grasslands. The bullets were like floating on the water, and every time they fell, they could kill or injure many people.
Lu Xiangsheng had just fired a few shots with his gun, and felt that he had killed a few Tartars, and it could be said that he had experienced the battle. He was proud of himself, and looked down on this war, thinking that it was nothing more than this. The foreign tribes in the north were not scary, and a group of militia could easily deal with them.
Because his performance was not bad, Lu Xiangsheng was sent to be a porter for an artillery team, mainly to help move artillery shells. According to the regulations, cannons were not allowed to store too many cannons. Basically, they had to move as many shells as they could use, and it was strictly forbidden to stack the shells on the cannon positions.
The barracks cannons used fixed ammunition, and a wooden box could hold two rounds. Lu Xiangsheng squatted next to the ammunition truck at the back and watched. Through the temporarily constructed cannon position, he could see the Female Enlightened Master advancing a few hundred meters away. When they saw their own artillery shells hitting the enemy's formation, blood and flesh flew everywhere, they could even see broken limbs flying in the air from hundreds of meters away.
As for those female Enlightened Masters, they acted as if nothing had happened and continued to line up. It was neither fast nor slow, maintaining a steady pace. Lu Xiangsheng was stunned on the spot. Just now, when the Mongolians charged forward on their horses, they could be said to have been unable to stop their momentum. It could also be said that their momentum had risen, and they did not care about their own lives. However, the leisurely manner of queuing up in front of him was truly indifferent to life and death.
"They … how could they do this?" Lu Xiangsheng was dumbfounded. He looked around, hoping that someone could answer him. However, he was also surrounded by migrant workers. They were no longer afraid of the Mongolians' charge just now. Instead, the slow pace of the Female Enlightened Masters frightened them. Lu Xiangsheng continued to shout, "Are these still humans? Aren't they afraid? They can't be puppets, right? "
Lu Xiangsheng was flustered by the sound of the bombardment from behind the cannons. He felt that if he were to face the bombardment directly, he would turn around and run away immediately. However, no one answered his question. Only the cannons on the cannon positions kept rumbling.
Zilharang, who was commanding a team of a thousand people, stared ahead nervously and excitedly. When the Dutch taught this tactic of 'lining up and shooting', they emphasized discipline and used some formulas to show how much damage and damage would be caused by the kind of firepower encountered at a certain distance. In the end, the conclusion was that if the enemy had how many cannons, how many guns, and how far away, how many people would die on their side.
The numbers were cold, but the pressure of facing the cannons was real.
Zilharang had just been trying to be a hero in front of his brother, but now that he had really led his team up, he realized that the cannon in the distance was giving him a huge mental pressure. The Dutch instructor had said that not many people would die from a long distance, but in the face of cannons, there was no distinction between high and low. It was a gamble of life and death.
The pressure of the ordinary Jurchen soldiers could be alleviated by the accompanying shaman priests. Their minds were as stiff as stone in the sound of prayer, and they were completely unmoved by death. However, Zilharang had to bear the pressure on himself. His legs were already trembling a little, and his bladder was filled with the urge to pee.
Zilharang prayed to the Pope in the skin of a wild boar who had descended to the earth in one of the Trinity, hoping to get help. He did get help. The entire formation of a thousand people lit up, stabilizing the formation and providing defense. However, this bit of defense was useless against the cannons. Every time the cannon in the distance fired, it could still kill several people.
The scary thing was that they did not know who would be killed by the next cannonball.
Zilharang was still young, and he hoped for a vigorous war, not this kind of gambling on the probability of being hit by a bullet. He deliberately chose an area where there was only one enemy cannon to attack, but he was still about to have a mental breakdown by that cannon.
"Hurry up." Zilharang could not help but give this order. His face was flushed and his breathing was rapid. If he continued to walk slowly like this, even if he was not killed, he would still be unable to breathe from the psychological pressure. Under his command, the thousand-man squad immediately doubled their speed, going from their original marching to a trot.
Zilharang's order also brought about a chain reaction. Because no one could stop him, the other Jurchen officers of the thousand-man squad could only follow. After all, he was not the only one who was under pressure. Everyone wanted to hurry up and start fighting. When one person broke the rules and was not corrected, the rules would soon cease to exist.
Soon, Zilharang gave another order. "Increase the distance between the lines."
Running with small steps sped up their speed, but it also broke the formation. However, this at least reduced the time they were exposed to artillery fire, so it was not without its benefits. But because they ran fast, the thousand-man squad of the Jurchen people entered the range of 300 meters one by one, and the solid shells on the opposite side were immediately replaced by chain shells that could spin in the air.
A chain shell flew over and broke four or five Jurchen soldiers in the waist. The soldiers who had been calm all this time were in an uproar. That was because the Shaman priests behind them were afraid. The blood from the chain shell splattered on Zilharang's body, and the young Jurchen nobleman became even more frantic. So he requested to increase the distance between the lines so that fewer people would die.
"Master, it won't do if the line is too big." An old Jurchen soldier could not help but come forward to advise, "In the past, when the Great Khan led us to war, we had to line up closely. If the line is scattered, we won't be able to kill people, but will be killed instead. "
The chain shell just now made Zilharang so nervous that he was sweating all over. He also knew that if the line was scattered, it would lead to failure, but if the line was too dense, the other side's artillery would feel good. Ignoring the old soldier, he shouted again, "Charge, charge up and line up again."
The old Jurchen soldier could not stop him even if he wanted to, so he could only charge with an iron spear. His mouth was still shouting, "Wrong, wrong. That's not how wars are fought. Since we're afraid of the Han people's artillery, we can't charge like this. We're doomed to lose from the beginning. "
After the Jurchen infantry formation entered 150 meters, the national army's artillery simply switched to canister shells. Although the formation on the other side was much looser, a canister shell could still easily kill a group of Jurchen infantry.
The shouting old soldier charged forward in the line, and a wave of bullets shot over, knocking him to the ground on the spot. Blood splattered all over his body, and he was unable to move. Even when he died, he shouted, "This is not how wars are fought, we're going to die in vain."
Zilharang, however, felt that he had done the right thing. He led his thousand-man team all the way from a few hundred meters away against the artillery fire to a distance of 100 meters from the Han army. The terrain of the grassland was flat, and this period of time took about three minutes, which was considered very fast. On the other hand, the cannon on the other side fired more than ten shells, and especially after the distance was shortened, it fired three or four shells in one go.
"Fortunately, fortunately, I gave the order to disperse the formation and run over quickly." Zilharang felt that if he had not given the order to speed up on the spot, who knew how many shells they would have taken. Although the losses were not small, it was only 60 to 70. The morale of the Jurchen infantry formation was still there, and they could already start shooting at each other.
"Line up, line up!" Zilharang at least knew that a volley of guns had to be lined up, otherwise they wouldn't be able to kill many people if they spread out. He especially hated the cannon on the other side, and raised his saber and pointed it at the Han artillery position. That was a temporarily constructed cannon position, and it was unobstructed, making it a good target to focus fire on. "Aim at that cannon and fire, aim and fire."
The Jurchen infantry hurriedly lined up with their matchlocks, but when Zilharang gave the order to fire, he found that the gunners he had high hopes for were all reloading gunpowder. Not to mention the wind blowing wildly on the grassland, just running over here had already caused the gunpowder on the matchlocks to run out. It was impossible for them to reload in advance.
Zilharang didn't know who to scold. If he had to scold someone, he should scold himself. He was the one who gave the order to run up here. Not only did he run up here, he even led the thousand-man squads of Jurchen soldiers in the vicinity to run up here like a swarm of bees. In the end, everyone had to regroup and reload gunpowder when they ran up here. Although it was only a short while, it still took time!
In that short amount of time, the national defense forces on the other side opened fire first.
When the Kennu infantry formation began to gather, the gunners with flintlock guns began to take aim. When the other side lowered their heads to reload gunpowder, the rows of muzzles spewed out flames and white smoke. A series of gunshots rang out, and the Jurchen infantry formation that had just finished lining up with great difficulty fell to the ground.
Zilharang stood in the second row, feeling that he was already very brave. Just as he was waiting for his subordinates to reload the gunpowder, his eyes suddenly lit up, and a gunner in front of him fell softly. He didn't understand what was going on, so he hurriedly stood back in a row and prepared to raise the scimitar in his hand again.
In the end, before the scimitar could fall, another volley of gunfire came from the other side, and the gunner in front of Zilharang was shot again and fell to the ground. The distance of a hundred meters was not even the best range of the matchlock guns. Zilharang couldn't hold back and wanted to fight first to raise morale, but now his own side's morale hadn't been raised, and many people had fallen.
After being beaten by the national defense forces twice in a row, Zilharang couldn't wait any longer. He didn't retreat either. He waved his scimitar in a fit of pique and shouted, "Shoot when you're done reloading."
Bang, bang, bang …
Both sides fired a wave of bullets at the same time. Zilharang was full of hope that the Han people on the other side would also have a taste of his power. But after the gunshot, he felt as if his chest had been hit by a hammer, as if someone had hit him hard with a mace. His face turned pale, and he fell to the ground with a plop. The strength in his body began to dissipate.
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