weaving

Chapter 1604 Cavalry Artillery Department

Everything happened so suddenly...

Hana had anticipated the threat of the Ming army's muskets and also anticipated the potential casualties on his side, but he did not expect the Ming army to be so uncivilized!
Just as the booming cannon fire rang out—Hana suddenly felt everything go black...

It turned out that countless pieces of pebbles and iron pellets were flying up, blotting out the sky and even blocking out the sun's dazzling light. Rays of sunlight shone in through the gaps in the small cannons, and the scene was simply beautiful!

"Puff puff……"

These small cannonballs fired by the Tiger Crouching Cannon were far more powerful than the bullets fired by the muskets used by the Brave and Resolute Army. While they might not have the power to split mountains and shatter rocks, they were certainly unbearable to men and horses.

Even wearing three layers of iron armor is useless; there will always be a small bullet that pierces through the armor and leaves a tiny, bloody hole...

Hana's eyes bulged outwards, as if they were about to pop out of their sockets, but they were devoid of any light. His face was also extremely ferocious, and his features seemed to be squeezed together.

Especially on his chest and arms, four or five bloody holes were clearly visible, with bright red blood constantly gushing out...

His warhorse, however, was incredibly lucky. It emerged unscathed from the hail of bullets flying everywhere, as if divinely aided.

However, the loud cannon fire startled many warhorses, who stood still, momentarily forgetting to run for their lives.

The cannon fire had barely ceased when shouts of battle erupted...

The cavalry of the Yongyi Army, which had already stopped, spurred their horses like tigers descending from the mountain and galloped toward this hellish place that had been bombarded by cannon fire, ready to continue reaping the remaining heads of the Mongol Tartars.

As the saying goes, "A snake cannot move without a head, and a bird cannot fly without wings." Without a leader, an army will fall into disarray—even the fierce Mongol cavalry is no exception!

After a moment of stunned silence, both the Mongol soldiers and their warhorses reacted, and amidst the chaos, they scattered and fled in all directions.

Some people, organized by Zhuangda and Niru, initially wanted to put up a fight and even tried to retrieve the body of Jiala Zhangjing Hana. However, their frightened warhorses became uncontrollable and immediately disrupted their formation.

Seeing that the Yongyi Army cavalry had already charged forward, even if they regrouped, their morale and numbers were significantly weaker than those of the Ming army. The Mongol Tartars instantly lost their will to fight and spurred their horses to flee.

…………

A dark-skinned man with a full beard rode forward on horseback, raising a monocular telescope to observe the changing situation on the battlefield ahead. He was overjoyed to see the Mongol Tartars of the Plain Yellow Banner running rampant.

This man was none other than Qiu Yingquan, the commander of the vanguard of the Tengshe Battalion of the Yongyi Army, and his cavalry unit was the newly reorganized cavalry artillery unit of Zhang Cheng, the Earl of Yongning.

As the only one in the Brave and Resolute Army, it shoulders the heavy responsibility of testing the results of the reorganization on the battlefield, and is also related to the major direction of the future development and construction of the Brave and Resolute Army.

Qiu Yingquan was extremely nervous. Even though he had conducted countless drills before the battle, this was the first battle for this cavalry artillery unit, and only now did he finally feel at ease. Compared to the previous tiger-squat cannon, the cavalry could carry it, but it was still somewhat cumbersome, and they had to dismount to fire it. Even the more convenient tiger-squat cannon required setting it up and loading it, which would inevitably reduce the cavalry's mobility.

Based on this, the Yunzhou Craftsmen's Camp made a series of improvements to the original Tiger Crouching Cannon. Although its range and power were not as good as before, it was lighter and easier to carry, which greatly reduced its impact on the mobility of cavalry.

Therefore, Zhang Cheng, the Earl of Yongning, specially added 300 men to the cavalry force. They did not participate in cavalry combat, but were only responsible for training in new-style tiger-squatting cannons and other firearms.

Although the newly added 300 men were all gunners, Qiu Yingquan's cavalry artillery unit was only equipped with 20 tiger crouching cannons, so 100 of them were dedicated to operating the cannons, with five men responsible for one tiger crouching cannon.

The remaining two hundred men then practiced musket shooting, responsible for covering the gunners when they fired, and protecting the gunners and their horses. Of course, if a gunner was wounded, they would take his place at any time; this was their main purpose.

As someone who transmigrated from a more advanced parallel world, Zhang Chengtai knew the value of artillery in war, so he always attached great importance to and supported the Yunzhou Artisan Camp.

Moreover, the Yunzhou artisan camp had already turned from loss to profit, and had even become an important source of money for Zhang Cheng. Even items such as armor, weapons, guns, and ammunition were important sources of money for him.

Although many arms buyers are not very wealthy and mostly purchase on credit, as long as the debt is recorded, Zhang Cheng is not afraid of not being able to collect it in the future. Moreover, most of these buyers will settle their debts with goods over the years. Overall, Zhang Cheng is guaranteed to make a profit!
That being said, although he knew that cavalry combined with artillery had a great advantage, Zhang Cheng was not very confident about the current artillery technology. He was afraid that the coordination would not be good and that the artillery would not be powerful enough.

That's why only one cavalry artillery unit was reorganized and only twenty new tiger-squatting cannons were equipped. The purpose was to decide how to proceed after the exercises and battlefield testing.

This battle has basically validated the form of cavalry-artillery coordination. Although this battle was unexpected, the cavalry-artillery unit has more than one way of fighting, and can always catch the enemy off guard.

The premise is whether this concept of cavalry and artillery combined operations is correct.

With a loud "thump," a cluster of colorful fireworks exploded in the sky over the open field three hundred paces to the north. The colorful smoke grew larger and larger before gradually disappearing into the sky.

Qiu Yingquan merely glanced at them and then shouted, "Men, Chen De's Kaifeng camp is blocking the Tartars behind us. We can only deal with the Tartars in front and give them a piece of our minds."

He left two hundred cavalrymen to pursue the fleeing Mongol Tartars, and left three hundred artillerymen to clean up the battlefield.

He himself roared and led his seven or eight hundred cavalrymen straight south to attack, intending to intercept the two or three hundred Mongol Plain Yellow Banner soldiers who were scouting ahead.

…………

In this interception battle, the Earl of Yongning dispatched three teams led by Qiu Yingquan, Hu Zichen, and Chen De, totaling nearly four thousand elite cavalrymen, demonstrating his determination to capture the Mongol Bordered Yellow Banner that was on its way to aid Cuzhuang.

Qiu Yingquan's troops took the lead in the attack, not only to test the feasibility of the new cavalry-artillery coordination model, but also to continue to encircle the Mongol Tartars who were scouting ahead after defeating the main force of the Plain Yellow Banner.

Meanwhile, Chen De led 1,000 elite cavalry from Kaifeng in the central route, while Hu Zichen's 1,500 cavalry were tasked with intercepting them at the rear. In addition to defeating the main force of the Mongol Plain Yellow Banner behind them, Hu Zichen also needed to encircle and intercept them from the south, striving to annihilate the Mongol Tartars who were coming to their aid.