prosperous age

Chapter 1122 1213 Cutting-edge weapons in the cold weapon era

Hanlong Pass is one of the eight border passes in western Yunnan of the Ming Dynasty. Together with Tianma, Huju, Tiebi, Jushi, Shenhu, Wanren and Tongbi, they are collectively known as the "Eight Passes Controlling Myanmar".

Today, at the Hanlong Pass gate, a large group of Burmese troops fled into the pass in a panic, and in the distance, smoke and dust were billowing, indicating that an army was approaching.

"Close the city gate quickly, close the city gate quickly."

When the last Burmese soldier escaped into the wall, Mang Yingli on the city wall shouted to his men.

Standing on the city wall, he could already see the flags of the Ming army in the distance; they were about to arrive.

While fleeing from Mubang to Hanlinguan, he tried every means to slow down the Ming army's offensive pace, for he was worried that the Ming army would advance too quickly and encircle the Burmese army in Longchuan and Qianya areas.

Although there were a large number of rattan armors in the Burmese army, he did not lead many infantrymen to the south to rescue Toungoo City, and was unable to form a rattan armor formation to resist the Ming army's firearms.

Especially the famous general on the opposite side, who would first launch a cannon bombardment at the army formation he had deployed, and then a volley of musket fire, followed by a frontal charge by the spear and shield soldiers, and at the same time, the cavalry would carry out a roundabout encirclement from both sides, leaving them no chance to resist at all.

As they retreated, the weak walls of several small fortresses they passed by were simply unable to withstand the Ming army's artillery fire.

After a round of bombardment, several gaps appeared in the city wall, and the Ming army rushed in directly through the gaps.

How can he fight the Ming army like this?

If we fight head-on, their troops are still less than the Ming army’s.

But they had no choice but to resist. If they fled, the Ming army would pursue them all the way and complete the encirclement of the Burmese army together with the Ming army in Baoshan.

They could only flee, destroying roads along the way and causing trouble for the Ming army.

As for letting the cavalry wear rattan armor and fight against the Ming army, he didn't dare to think about it at all, because the Ming cavalry charge was too sharp.

He felt it was very dangerous even if he let the cavalry wearing rattan armor attack the Ming army's infantry.

Because rattan armor can protect the knights but cannot protect the horses under their crotches, in fact Myanmar itself is very short of war horses.

Perhaps, only war elephants can make up for the gap between the two.

"Go and urge the troops from Shidian to come to Hanlong Pass as soon as possible to take over the defense."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Mang Yingli gave a loud order, and his close followers responded immediately, and immediately arranged for people to go out of the city to urge them to go.

Mang Yinglong certainly would not trap his son in the Ming Dynasty, and the only countermeasure he could take now was to move the detachment attacking Shidian to Hanlong Pass, blocking the Ming army coming from the south while attracting the attention of the Ming army in Shidian.

He took Mang Yingli and other troops out of Tiebi Pass, took the Manmo retreat route to Mengmi, and then returned to Myanmar via a detour.

It can be said that the Shidian detachment had been abandoned by him as a pawn to attract the attention of the Ming army.

The thing that Mang Yingli regretted most was that he did not bring elephant soldiers with him on this expedition south. If he had had war elephants, he might have had a chance to break through the Ming army's defense line and defeat them.

Although it is said that the Ming people once scared the war elephants with muskets more than a hundred years ago, they now have a way to deal with the Ming army's muskets. That is to plug the ears of the war elephants before going into battle to prevent them from being frightened by the sound of the firearms.

As for the fire bull tactics, they also chose to cover the eyes of the elephants and have the elephant soldiers command the war elephants to advance and retreat.

At the beginning, if it had not been the first time they saw firearms, their war elephants would not have been able to adapt to that kind of fighting style for a while, and Mu Ying would have had no chance of defeating them.

Didn’t you see that even the Mongol army, which was powerful enough to sweep across the continent, could only choose to flee when encountering their war elephants, and use roundabout tactics to evade and avoid fighting with the elephant army.

Yes, although the Pagan Dynasty of Myanmar finally chose to surrender after eight years of war with the Mongols, it does not mean that the Mongol army had the advantage to defeat the elephant soldiers.

In fact, when the Mongolian cavalry faced the elephant soldiers, most of them chose to retreat to a distant place and use bows and arrows to consume the elephant soldiers on the backs of the elephants. They also did not have the ability to engage in head-on combat with the elephant soldiers.

The Burmese army, assisted by elephants, fought against the Mongols, and 50,000 men were defeated by 600 men. This was not accomplished in one or two battles, but was achieved after a period of back and forth fighting.

After all, it was impossible for Mongolian cavalry to carry thousands of arrows with them. To deal with elephants, they had to use special heavy arrows to penetrate the rough elephant skin and cause damage to the elephant.

In fact, Mang Yinglong dared to attack the Ming Dynasty this time because they thought that the trained war elephants could ignore the Ming Dynasty's firearms, and with a small team of cavalry guarding the elephant soldiers, they were not afraid that the Ming Dynasty would imitate the tactics of the Mongolian cavalry.

Of course, the most important thing was that they believed that the Ming Dynasty had declined and was on the decline, and it was a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

In fact, to be honest, our judgment was correct, but we underestimated the size of both sides.

Even the Ming Dynasty, which was on the decline, was still stronger than Myanmar in its heyday.

Mang Yingli just wanted to try to use war elephants to fight against the Ming army, but his father Mang Yinglong took direct action.

Because he was being pursued by the Ming army, in order to repel the enemy behind him, after the method of using rattan shields to block the Ming army's bullets and counterattacks failed, he chose to mobilize a hundred war elephants to cover the rear, ready to teach the Ming army a profound lesson.

There was no way to deal with the Ming army defending the city, but in a field battle, Mang Yinglong believed that with the help of war elephants, they still had a great chance of defeating the Ming army.

At this time, one hundred war elephants were lined up in two rows, almost covering the road and the mountains on both sides, extending all the way to the edge of the forest.

Behind the war elephants, there were thousands of Burmese soldiers holding rattan shields, ready to charge with the elephant soldiers at any time and kill the Ming army on the opposite side.

The troops leading the pursuit today are none other than the Guizhou troops led by Guizhou's general Qi Jimei.

When the Ming army saw the Burmese army formation in front of them, they immediately began to deploy their troops.

In the front, more than ten large and medium-sized falconets were carried to the front of the formation and arranged. Behind them were three rows of musketeers, and after that were the spear and shield formation composed of sword and shield soldiers and spearmen.

The few archers also formed several square formations, ready to shoot at the Burmese army on the opposite side.

"Send someone from the rear team into the woods to find some firewood, faster."

Qi Jimei was not sure he could stop the charge of the Burmese elephant soldiers, but he had no way to retreat as the brave would prevail when two meet in a narrow road.

If they fail to try their best to defeat the Burmese army on the opposite side, and if the elephant soldiers continue to charge forward, they may very likely disperse the other Ming troops behind them.

However, victory or defeat cannot be reversed by human willpower, so he made plans for the worst, which was to have the rear army cut firewood and pile it on both sides of the road.

Once his men were defeated by the Burmese army, he would immediately light the firewood and use the fire to stop the war elephants.

At the very least, we must not give the Burmese army the opportunity to hunt down our subordinates.

"Report the situation here to the commander-in-chief immediately and ask them to quickly mobilize the artillery to come to our aid."

Qi Jimei didn't know when the Burmese army would attack. At this time, the other side seemed to have completed preparations for the attack and could start at any time.

As for the Ming army, after half a year of intensive training, the speed at which they can form battle formations has become very fast.

Sure enough, just as the Ming army's rear team sent people into the woods, a horn sounded from the opposite side, which was the signal for the Burmese army to attack.

"Use artillery to bombard the enemy's war elephants, and have the bird gunners shoot the elephant drivers with all their might."

With the war elephants acting as human shields in the front, the bird guns could not hit the Burmese troops behind, so they could only attack the Burmese troops on the backs of the elephants.

The charge of a hundred war elephants was so powerful that it shocked the Ming army greatly. The Ming army felt as if the earth was shaking, and the power was greater than that of a charge launched by thousands of cavalry.

Qi Jimei stared at the battle situation ahead, and saw that his own soldiers were facing this invincible existence in the era of cold weapons, and they also felt a sense of powerlessness.

All I can say is that the number of falconets I brought seems to be too few. If there were hundreds of cannons, perhaps there would be a chance to defeat the enemy.

"bang bang bang"

After the Burmese soldiers drove the war elephants towards the Ming army and entered the artillery range, the Ming army gunners immediately fired their artillery.

Because the only requirement for the Ming army's artillery was to break the Burmese army's formation, the cartridges were all used with live ammunition and no shotgun shells were prepared. Therefore, there was no need to replace the warheads before the artillery was lifted into battle, and it could be fired directly and quickly.

Amid the dense fire of Portuguese artillery, each shell accurately hit the Burmese war elephants.

If it was a bird gun, the power of lead bullets in this era was basically unable to cause effective damage to elephants, and its rough and hard skin could withstand the shooting of the bird gun.

Even at close range, without fear of explosion and with large charge, it is difficult to cause substantial damage to the elephant.

Even though the Spanish and Portuguese were equipped with a small number of heavy muskets at that time, their lethality against elephants was actually very limited.

However, if we replace it with a falconet with a greater impact force, the effect will be obviously different.

Although the distance was far at this time and the falconet had limited long-range killing power due to its poor airtightness, a fist-sized shell hitting an elephant was enough to cause it serious damage.

The Burmese army's war elephants were densely packed, perhaps in order to eliminate the enemy at once, so the Ming army did not need to aim and shoot, they only needed to fire artillery shells at the opposite side.

"Ang ang ang"

Several war elephants on the opposite side that were hit by the Portuguese cannon felt the pain and began to shake their trunks and bodies restlessly, as if this would make them feel more comfortable. At the same time, they kept wailing in pain.

The effect of the Portuguese cannon on the elephant soldiers was obvious. More than a dozen war elephants were no longer under the command of their drivers and dared not move forward.

Animals actually have a certain level of intelligence and know how to seek benefits and avoid harm.

They were hit when they moved forward just now and it was very painful, so no matter what the driver did, they chose not to move forward.

More than a dozen war elephants felt the pain and were unwilling to move forward, thus blocking the war elephants behind them.

While the drivers in the second row were not paying attention, nearly twenty war elephants collided with each other at once.

Because their vision and ears were blocked, they mistakenly thought each other was the enemy and actually began to collide with each other. Even if the drivers tried their best to separate them, they failed.

The scene before him greatly surprised Qi Jimei, but he soon fell into ecstasy.

He had realized something. He had also heard that in order to prevent their war horses from being frightened by the Ming army's firearms, the northern Mongols would choose to cover their horses' ears.

In the storybooks, heavily armored cavalry such as the Linked Horses would also cover their horses' eyes to prevent them from being afraid and stopping when charging at the enemy's formation, thus directly destroying the attack formation.

The horse is not stupid. When it sees the spears standing on the opposite side, it will rush forward regardless of life and death.

The war elephants on the opposite side fell into internal strife so easily that Qi Jimei immediately guessed why these war elephants were not afraid of the roar of the Portuguese cannon.

Generally speaking, animals are afraid of this kind of sound.

In fact, even humans will instinctively feel afraid when they hear the sound of gunfire when they don't know the truth.

The remaining war elephants still rushed towards the Ming army formation, and the Ming army gunners did not even look at the effect of their first round of artillery fire. They just mechanically took out the used cartridges in the belly of the gun, replaced them with new ones, and then fired at the war elephants rushing forward.

"bang bang bang"

The sound of continuous artillery fire rang out again.

The gunners were reloading the replaced cartridges behind the formation, but they were still sneaking glances forward in a tense situation.

Yes, the Ming army's gunners were not consumables. In fact, when the enemy rushed in front of them, their training was to drop the cannons, pass through the army formation behind them, and hide behind.

Because when the enemy rushed forward, it was difficult to carry the cannon away quickly, and they were usually abandoned directly in front of the battle.

After the battle, just pick up the cannon.

As for if you lose the battle, well, at least you're alive and don't even think about picking up cannons.

After more than ten falconets and more than sixty cartridges were fired, nearly half of the war elephants lost control.

At the beginning, because the war elephants were standing densely, the hit rate of the Ming army's artillery was quite high.

However, as batches of war elephants lost control and stopped charging at the Ming army, the number of war elephants approaching the Ming army became sparse, which in turn reduced the hit rate of the Ming army's artillery.

As for the three rows of musketeers, after the battle, they retreated to the back of the army formation and began to reload ammunition frantically.

"bang bang bang"

After the six cartridges were used up, there was no time to put the new cartridges into the gun and fire them, as the Burmese war elephants had already rushed to the front.

"Run."

I don't know which gunner shouted, but the others dropped their work and rushed back.

Using the gap specially made for them, the gunners quickly hid behind the army formation, drew their daggers and nervously observed the enemy situation.

After the gunners retreated, the Ming army no longer had any weapons that could truly threaten the war elephants.

Qi Jimei was also observing the battlefield nervously at this time. It had only been a short time and no firewood was delivered to him. If he was defeated by the enemy directly, he would definitely be defeated.

It can only be said that not only him, but even Li Chengliang was too optimistic and did not expect the tremendous power of the enemy's elephant soldiers.

Perhaps, Li Chengliang had thought about it, but he thought that Mu Ying could scare away elephants with a musket more than a hundred years ago, and it should be the same now.

Therefore, he only paid attention to the rattan shields equipped by the Burmese army that could resist bird guns, but did not consider the enemy's war elephants.

When the Burmese war elephants rushed to the front of the Ming army, the seemingly strict formation was unable to stop the charge of the elephant soldiers and directly broke through the Ming army's formation.

Even though the Ming troops around them were still trying their best to attack the elephants and the Burmese troops on their backs, the effect of killing the enemy was not obvious.

The Ming army's formation was like paper in front of the war elephants. Wherever they went, it was as if they were in an empty space. All the Ming army soldiers were knocked away, and many were trampled to death.

The Ming army's formation collapsed amid the wailing of the wounded.

The soldiers began to turn around and run back. Even their commander, Qi Jimei, could only turn his horse around with difficulty and run backwards when seeing this situation.

"Sleep in the wood, sleep in the wood"

Seeing the miserable condition of the Ming army, the Burmese soldiers shouted excitedly.