prosperous age

Chapter 1072 1163 Rattan Shield

Outside the city wall of Shidian Prefecture in Yunnan Province of the Ming Dynasty, the sound of shouting and killing was deafening. A large number of barbarian soldiers were coming from west to east. Among them, groups of war elephants could be seen. There were people on the elephants constantly waving their weapons to cheer up the barbarian soldiers around them.

At this time, the Left General Li Chengliang was standing on the city wall, and his eldest son Li Rusong was looking outside the city with a gloomy face.

"Any news about the two Lu garrisons?"

After a long while, Li Chengliang finally opened his mouth and asked.

"General, I didn't see him. I heard from the fleeing soldiers that Feng Shanling had been killed in the city by the personal soldiers of the Longchuan Tusi."

Liang Dingnan, the defender of Shidian, spoke up.

"With Lu Liang lost, your Shidian is the front line. Do you have the confidence to hold on to this place?"

Li Chengliang looked back at Liang Dingnan and said.

"Several months ago, according to the commander's instructions, the city prepared various supplies for defending the city. Please rest assured, the city has sufficient food and grass, and with the help of the city's strongmen, defending the city will be a piece of cake."

Liang Dingnan immediately clasped his fists and replied.

A smile finally appeared on Li Chengliang's face. He hadn't encountered any good news recently. Even though he was mentally prepared, the fall of Lu and Liang was still beyond his expectations.

A month ago, the Burmese enemy chieftain Mang Yinglong led hundreds of thousands of troops from Ava, Dongwu, Mengbie, Mengmi, Manmo, Longchuan, Wuzhang, Yonghui, and Guangnao and launched a murderous invasion from the west. They were backed by tens of thousands of troops from Cheli, Babai, Menggen, Menglian, and Gengma, which made the people in the Ming Dynasty panic.

Important towns such as Nanyaguan, Tiebiguan, and Tianmaguan fell one after another with almost no resistance, and the chieftains in Qianya, Longchuan and other places surrendered to the enemy one after another.

However, this was not what made Li Chengliang angry the most. The two Lu garrison commanders had already received his order to close the city gates and not let any westerners enter the city. But who could have thought that the two Lu garrison commander Feng Shanling would secretly open the city gates and let the so-called Luchuan defeated soldiers enter the city.

Perhaps, he wanted to increase the defense strength of Lu and Liang cities, so it was a good idea to gather some troops, but he obviously fell into the enemy's trap.

Now, not only did he lose his own life, but he also lost the two cities of Lu, causing the Tengchong and Lu defense lines built by Mu Changzuo to be completely breached.

When the news reached Baoshan City in Yongchang Prefecture, Li Chengliang had to rush to Shidian, while Mu Changzuo rushed to Tengchong with his personal soldiers and personally supervised the Tengchong guards to defend the city and not retreat.

Now the only defense line the Ming army can rely on is the new defense line formed by Tengchong, Lujiang and Shidian. The original plan to retreat slowly, lure the Burmese army to Baoshan and Shidian and then launch a surprise attack to encircle them is facing severe challenges.

At this time, the Burmese army outside the city had already rushed to within an arrow's reach of the city, as if they were going to take advantage of the situation today to launch a fierce attack on Shidian City.

"You just need to defend, don't worry about me."

Li Chengliang, who was on the city wall, saw that the morale of the enemy troops below was high and was unsure whether they would launch a fierce attack today, so he gave orders to the defending general Liang Dingnan.

Upon hearing this, Liang Dingnan clasped his hands together again, agreed loudly, turned around and left. The collision of his armor plates made a "clattering" sound as he moved.

"Dad, I didn't expect that the commander of the Southern Army would still wear this old-style scale armor."

Li Rusong glanced at Liang Dingnan's back and said in a low voice. He then pointed at the soldiers guarding the city and continued, "The armor rate of these soldiers is too low."

The Ming army in the north was equipped with a large number of cotton armor. Although it seemed not as good as the armor of soldiers in previous dynasties, in fact, the cotton armor had very good defense and warmth effects.

In the south, most soldiers wore cloth armor that was finalized during the Jiajing period. Similar to cotton armor, it also had iron plates inside to enhance defense, but it was not too hot and was suitable for wearing in the warm climate of the south.

However, among these soldiers, not only is the proportion of soldiers wearing cloth armor extremely low, but many of the only half of soldiers wearing armor are actually wearing blue cloth leather armor from the Hongzhi period.

In the 16th year of the Hongzhi reign, the government ordered the blue cloth armor of the southern garrisons to replace the iron leaf armor with leather armor with cotton ropes and buffalo hide armor plates.

This may be because the south is full of mountains and paddy fields, which requires light armor. At the same time, the humidity in the south is high, and iron armor is prone to rust.

However, the defensive power of such leather armor is definitely not as good as that of blue cloth iron armor.

So, now we can see that the Ming army on the entire Shidian city wall is dressed in colorful clothes. Some are wearing red battle jackets, some are wearing green cloth leather armor, and some are wearing khaki cloth armor.

If one is not familiar with the changes in the Ming army’s uniforms, one might think that these different uniforms represent different branches of the military.

But in fact, this is a manifestation of the lack of military equipment in the South. The military households all wear things that have been passed down from generation to generation. They try to make do with whatever their elders have left behind, and they will not pay out of their own pockets to replace it.

  Although the imperial court gave military households silver to replace their equipment, after so many deductions, how much would be left in the soldiers' hands?

Instead of spending a lot of money to replace equipment, it is better to buy more food, eat more, and at least run faster.

At this time, the Ming army on the city wall had been divided into two rows. One row was close to the outer wall, and the other was against the inner wall. As the military flags on the city wall waved, a rain of arrows suddenly appeared in the air and shot towards the Burmese army that was still approaching outside the city.

The soldiers on the outer city wall were working in groups of three or two, busy loading gunpowder.

Yes, there were a small number of Portuguese cannons on the top of Shidian City, and some soldiers were equipped with muskets. At this time, they were standing near the outer wall, ready to fire the firearms in their hands.

"Puff puff"

After a slight noise, several wailing sounds were heard from outside the city. At the same time, Li Chengliang and Li Rusong saw a boundary drawn by arrows.

A slightly distorted line was left by arrows that pierced the ground. More than a dozen unlucky guys were hit by arrows. Several corpses fell straight to the ground, and the injured enemy soldiers were holding their wounds and wailing.

None of the Ming army archers ran to the city wall to look out. Instead, they glanced at the flag on the city wall not far away. Then they drew out an arrow, drew their bows and shot arrows at a certain angle. When the command flag waved, they let go of the arrows and shot arrows into the air again.

This is a typical Ming army tactic of throwing arrows, which can increase the effective range of arrows.

However, this time the Myanmar army was prepared, and some of them had raised their shields or hid next to their companions who had shields.

When the Burmese soldiers in front saw that the arrows were flying over their heads and could not hit them at all, they immediately understood what was going on.

The vanguards were naturally experienced veterans who had fought many battles. They now quickened their pace and ran towards the city wall.

The reason they did this was naturally to get closer to the city wall so that the Ming army archers' projectiles would never be able to hit their heads.

Soon, the Burmese soldiers carrying ladders rushed to the city wall and began to piece together the ladders in preparation for the siege.

The speed has to be fast, otherwise the archer will move up and shoot the arrow from a high position, and the power will be just right.

Of course, while these soldiers were assembling the ladders, a group of soldiers holding rattan shields also stood in front of them to defend against arrows that might be shot from the city walls.

The other soldiers also hid behind their shields, and soon formed small groups of three or five people, standing sparsely under the city waiting to attack.

"Haha, this is so funny, this is the vanguard of the Burmese army."

Li Rusong, who was on the distant city wall, was laughing while clapping the battlements. It was truly amazing that such soldiers with no training at all could carve out a large territory in Myanmar.

"Rusong, shut up."

Li Chengliang shouted softly at this time, "They probably have no plan to attack the city today, but just want to test whether our army is determined to hold on.

It's not that the Burmese army has no training, but that the generals in front acted on impulse."

The Burmese army fought many battles in the Indochina Peninsula and captured countless cities of all sizes. How could they have performed so poorly?

The only thing that can be represented is that the Myanmar army has no plans to launch a large-scale attack on the city today.

Hearing his father's stop, Li Rusong immediately put away his smile and continued to look out through the battlements of the city wall.

The ladders were assembled very quickly, and in just a short while, two or three ladders were assembled. Just as the rattan shield bearers in front made way for the laborers to carry the ladders to the city, a cannon rang out from the tower in the distance, followed by a burst of gunfire from the city wall, and puffs of green smoke spread out.

Three newly assembled ladders were carried towards the city wall, and then the people carrying the ladders were seen staggering all over the place, and many of them uttered various screams.

Obviously, this was a group of people who were being paid special attention by the Portuguese cannons on the city wall. Some soldiers carrying ladders were hit and injured by shells in the first round of artillery fire.

Soon afterwards, another round of Portuguese artillery fire was heard, and the target was still near the ladder, because there were the most Burmese soldiers gathered around there, so it was naturally the best target for artillery fire.

“Hey, not bad, hahahaha”

Li Rusong laughed out loud again at this time.

Li Chengliang also saw that an assembled ladder was hit directly by a shell and had broken into two sections. It obviously needed to be repaired before it could be used.

But on the battlefield, it was of course considered scrapped and there was no time to repair it.

At this time, the sound of gunfire from the city walls was endless, and the Ming army was frantically pouring ammunition down to the city, but the more Li Chengliang watched, the more his brows furrowed.

Since he is a veteran, he naturally knows what kind of weapon to choose. Among the Burmese vanguard troops in front of him, the proportion of shields equipped is extremely high. Behind each shield under the city are Burmese soldiers.

At this time, the power of the bird guns fired from the city wall was almost zero, and it seemed that they could not penetrate the rattan shields.

At least, from Li Chengliang's angle, he couldn't see how many Burmese soldiers were injured behind the shields, and the shields were still upright, blocking his view.

However, some Portuguese shells hit two shields, and the few Burmese soldiers behind were almost completely destroyed.

However, there were only eleven Portuguese cannons on the top of Shidian City, all of which were small and medium-sized Portuguese cannons. Their lethality was naturally limited, and they were mainly used to deal with the ladders.

"woooooo"

A horn sounded from the rear of the Burmese army, and the Burmese army in front began to retreat quickly to the rear, dragging the corpses and wounded. Obviously, their plan to use momentum to break into the city today had failed. The opposing generals did not want to lose these veterans in vain, so they decisively chose to retreat.

"Someone, go and ask Vice General Liang to come over."

Li Chengliang gave an order to the soldiers beside him and continued to watch the Burmese troops outside the city retreat.

"You see, the retreat is much more methodical, not a mob."

Li Chengliang said this to Li Rusong, who had previously mocked the other side for having no training.

The seemingly chaotic rush toward the city might be because these Burmese troops had not encountered any decent resistance since entering the Ming territory. They underestimated the enemy and believed that the Ming army was in disarray and vulnerable.

Therefore, this marching method that seems to show no concern for the existence of the enemy can actually put a certain amount of psychological pressure on the opponent.

If you suddenly explode after getting close, you can catch the opponent off guard and perhaps have a miraculous effect.

As the Burmese army withdrew a certain distance, the Ming army's gunners and archers stopped shooting, and some archers were still gently swinging their arms.

Li Chengliang saw it and knew in his heart that this was the result of insufficient training.

Mature archers know how many arrows they can shoot, maybe twenty or thirty.

Generally, people don't shoot all the arrows, otherwise they won't be able to swing the sword.

After all, after shooting arrows, archers still have to participate in the defense of the city walls and chop with swords, so they can't use up all their strength.

Soon, Liang Dingnan came to Li Chengliang and bowed to him.

"No gift."

Li Chengliang smiled and said to Liang Dingnan, then pointed at the retreating Burmese troops outside the city wall and said, "Did you see anything from the encounter with the Burmese troops today?"

"They are very skilled in fighting and work well together. They are all veterans."

Liang Dingnan lowered his head and answered.

"Look at your people again."

Li Chengliang turned around and pointed at two archers who were still swinging their arms in the distance and said.

As soon as he finished speaking, Liang Dingnan raised his head and looked in the direction he pointed, and his face turned slightly red for a moment.

These generals of the Ming army may have never fought in a war in their lives, but because their positions were hereditary, they knew more or less about the military taboos from their family elders.

Therefore, even if they are inexperienced generals, they actually understand a lot of battlefield common sense.

The performance of those two archers was a slap in his face.

"And those gunmen, I saw someone pour gunpowder outside the barrel when they were shooting earlier."

Li Chengliang added bluntly, "Several months ago, General Mu ordered diligent training, but look at what kind of soldiers you are training."

"Do you know what to do next?"

Li Chengliang asked in a stern tone.

"Yes, I will immediately organize them and train them strictly."

Liang Dingnan lowered his head and said.

“It’s too late. Let the archers count the arrows they have shot in the past few days and estimate their own endurance. Don’t use up all their strength.

And those firearms operators, who had practiced reloading repeatedly, performed really poorly today.

Tell them that after the war, the court will definitely reward them generously, and this governor will personally supervise the distribution.

And you will naturally be included in the list of merits, and you will definitely receive a lot of rewards from the imperial court after the war."

Li Chengliang painted a big picture for Liang Dingnan, and also asked him to go back and paint a big picture for his subordinates.

No matter how many people are left on the city wall, everything will be possible as long as we defend Shidian.

Otherwise, they would just be one of the reported casualties, with no reward at all. At most, they would be given silver for burial and their families would send reinforcements to the barracks.

"I will defend Shidian City to the death, and I will never fail you, Marshal."

Liang Dingnan also knew that this was the time to show his determination, so he spoke loudly.

"Can the rattan shields used by the Burmese army protect against bird guns?"

Li Chengliang asked suddenly.