Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 377 The Ming Dynasty destroyed Ceylon
"Crackling..."

On New Year's Eve, the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, the day before the New Year, when the flames in the bonfire made explosion sounds from time to time, the Ming army on the Mannar Pier stood ready.

Due to the shallow seaport of Mannar, the Ming army's ships with more than 3,000 materials could not dock, so they had to build fortifications to prepare for defense.

After four days of repairs, Chen Zuo directed a four-foot-high semicircular fortification built with sand and earth.

At sea, the Ming army's ship lookouts have been paying attention to the Ming army on the shore at twelve o'clock, and bonfires are a means for both sides to convey messages under the cover of night.

Under the night, Nayan also led the army to the outskirts of Mannar.

Mannar is just a small town with less than 3,000 people living in it, so it cannot hide the presence of 50,000 people.

Only with the help of night, Mannar could lead his army close to the Ming army and launch a night attack when they were tired.

At this moment, the time has come, and Nayan suppressed his excitement and ordered to the left and right: "Let the whole army rush towards the bonfire and deal with all these guys!"

"Yes!"

"Crack crack!"

Nayan led 5,000 Royal City troops to kill the fleeers on the periphery. Such a dilemma drove those Ceylon soldiers who were not even considered militiamen to continue charging towards the Ming army.

Nayan did not give a clear time, so the 50,000 Ceylonese army was almost like a runaway horse. They rushed towards the town of Mannar with shouts, thinking of the Ming army at the port.

"Boom bang bang-"

More than twenty fireworks bloomed, instantly lighting up the surroundings of the pier.

"China's Ming army has something that can kill many of us in an instant!"

"What?!" Nayan thought he heard wrongly, but there was a shout of killing coming from the direction of the port.

It wasn't until more and more people fell down that it began to affect their running, that they reacted belatedly, and the fleeers appeared.

The sound of the artillery frightened Nayan who was on the outside, and the general who fled from the front was also explaining to him.

The general responded and began to deliver the message, and the military backwardness of the State of Ceylon was also revealed here.

"Beep--"

"They have no armor, keep shooting!"

"Boom boom boom——"

"light fireworks!"

In an instant, the Ming army stationed on the front line saw many Ceylon troops rushing towards the Ming army along the streets of the town.

"Uhhhhhh!!"

The weird howling sound woke up all the Ming troops in an instant, and whistles continued.

As soon as the shouts came out, dozens of soldiers immediately took out a white cylinder that was as thick as a human arm and only one foot long from a large box.

But if you don’t want to be a target, you can use fireworks.

The military attache shouted excitedly, because as long as the enemy army was unarmored, the whistle he just blew would not be considered an operational error.

They grasped the end of the cylinder with one hand, lit the fuse above and raised it to the sky.

Hundreds of lead bullets were fired at the Ceylon soldiers seventy steps away, but the military attache who blew the wooden whistle felt nervous and knew that he had blown it too early.

"light fireworks!"

They have dark skin, short stature, run extremely fast, hold shields and spears in their hands, and have disheveled hair, like evil ghosts.

To the soldiers of the Ceylon Kingdom, the muffled thunder sounded like an angry god, and some of the timid ones even knelt down directly.

For a moment, they felt numbness in their hands and a tremor in their ears. When they looked up again, they saw bright fireworks lighting up the night sky.

Thanks to Chen Zuo's order to sleep while wearing armor, all Ming troops immediately took up their positions after waking up. This was a skill developed during long-term camp training.

Not only can it be used for simple lighting to see the general situation of the enemy, but it can also remind the maritime fleet to send reinforcements.

Weird shouts came from all directions. The Ming army was divided into three rows and stood behind sandbags, holding ordinary matchlock guns and shooting.

Almost immediately upon seeing them, the military attachés blew their wooden whistles, and the musketeers' muscles reacted to ignite the fuse and pull the trigger.

"The whole family who fled were turned into slaves!"

"Beep--"

Seeing them seizing the gap between the Ming army's reloading, they were about to rush into the Ming army's position, but at this moment, a flash of fire suddenly appeared in front of their eyes.

Two thousand musketeers continued to take turns firing, and fireworks exploded overhead from time to time, bringing them a faint light so that they could see where the enemy was coming from.

After Chen Zuo woke up from his sleep, he immediately ordered the army to set off fireworks.

Fifty field guns fired in an instant, and they who were loading shotguns overturned a wave of charging Ceylon soldiers in an instant.

He knew very well that the Ming army relied on firearms, and it was impossible to extinguish bonfires and torches, so they were targets.

"what sound?"

Nayan was right to choose a surprise attack at night, because most of the Ceylon soldiers could only see the firelight of the Ming army. Even if there were fireworks blooming above their heads, they could hardly see how many people were lying under their feet because they were running.

"Crack, crackle -"

He originally had no hope for this round of volley, but in his eyes, there were many fallen soldiers among the Ceylon soldiers. Although there were only a few dozen, this made his eyes widen.

"kill!!"

"Kill Yi!!"

"What sound?!" Nayan became panicked. He had never encountered such an army.

"General! China's Ming army has launched a charge!"

"What did you say?!"

The news coming from the front made Nayan's mind go blank. He did not expect that even though he led 50,000 people to besiege 5,000 people, he did not dare to lead the Wangcheng army to charge directly. The Ming army actually dared to counterattack his 50,000 people.

For a moment, Nayan suddenly became angry. He pulled out the knife from his waist and said, "Everyone, please come forward and kill these Chinese Ming soldiers. Whoever captures the things belongs to him!"

"kill!!"

Nayan's words inspired the Ceylon Royal City Army, which had not yet fought against the Ming army. They rushed forward with overwhelming force, carrying a large number of ordinary Ceylon soldiers with them to charge.

However, when they collided with the Ming army, they instantly understood the gap between themselves and the Ming army.

When the Ceylon Royal City Army, accustomed to the skirmishing style of fighting, rushed to the front of the formation, what they saw were iron soldiers who were half a head taller than them, formed into a formation of long spears, and pressed forward step by step.

The Ming army's armor coverage was higher, they were taller, their armor was heavier and thicker, and their spears were six feet longer than those of the Ceylon Royal City Army.

In other words, their spears were stabbed to death by the Ming army before their spears even touched them.

They tried to harass the Ming army with arrows, but the arrows hitting the armor only made a sound. Except for a few unlucky Ming soldiers who were injured in the cheek because they did not bow their heads in time, the rest of the Ming army continued to advance steadily.

"Beep--"

The whistle sounded, and the Ming army spearmen instantly squatted down.

Suddenly, gunpowder smoke and fire appeared, and at a distance of less than ten steps, the royal army fell down in droves like wheat after autumn.

"Beep--"

The whistle sounded again, and the pikemen stood up and continued their steady advance.

This seemingly simple fighting method allowed the Ming army to crush the Royal Ceylon Army out of the Mannar market town and drive them onto the plains to start shooting.

"retreat!!"

In the dark night, as the Ming army stopped lighting fireworks, Nayan immediately started to escape with the people around him.

As soon as he left, the 5,000 royal city troops and more than 40,000 Ceylon soldiers immediately began to flee.

At this moment, Chen Zuo blew the horn without thinking: "The whole army is pursuing us!"

"Uuuuuu——"

As if there was a terrifying sound coming from the bottomless cave, the Ming army no longer obsessed with forming a formation, but instead drew out their daggers and started a one-sided pursuit and massacre with long spears in hand.

The chase lasted for two quarters of an hour and ran for several miles outside the town of Mannar.

If Chen Zuo hadn't been worried about the ambushes in the Ceylon Kingdom, he might have been able to chase him all the way until he was exhausted.

All Ming troops, under the command of Chen Zuo, withdrew to their own formation and rested while waiting for reinforcements from the sea.

Two-quarters of an hour later, dozens of sand ships arrived at the port, with thousands of people disembarking.

Since Chen Xuan needed to stay in charge of the fleet and did not go ashore, the troops were controlled by Chen Zuo.

Chen Zuo did not attack rashly, but ordered the army to collect the corpses and tally the results of the battle.

From Zi Shi to Yin Shi, as the sky gradually became brighter, the Ming army also counted the results of the battle.

More than 4,600 enemy soldiers were killed, and more than 3,200 wounded soldiers were captured. There were no casualties in the headquarters and 17 were lightly wounded.

Looking at this report, Chen Xuan, who was on the boat, didn't know what to say. After holding it in for a long time, he could only say one sentence: "How did they have the courage to attack us at night?"

"Master Marquis, what should we do next? It's almost dawn." A commander asked Chen Xuan. When Chen Xuan heard this, he put his hand on the handle of his knife:

"Let that boy Chen Zuo take charge of the fleet. I will personally lead the 14,000 people ashore to attack the mountain city of Ceylon and rush to the aid of Ambassador Zheng!"

"At the same time, Tangqi was dispatched to search urgently. We must find traces of Zheng Zhengshi and the others!"

"Yes!" After hearing the military order, the commander quickly asked people to transport the horses to the shore.

Soon, more than a hundred Tangqi set off in groups and began to search for traces of Zheng He.

After Chen Xuan and Chen Zuo changed formations and landed ashore, they immediately led an army of 14,000 people, led by Ceylon prisoners, and rushed towards Ceylon Mountain City.

During this period, the Ming army's sentry cavalry also searched for the defeated Ceylon army who had retreated to Ceylon Mountain City. Facing them, the Ming army's sentinel cavalry could easily defeat hundreds of captives with only a dozen or so riders.

Gradually, more and more Ceylon soldiers captured by Chen Xuan surrendered, and most of them were in poor physical condition and could not keep up with the marching speed of the Ming army.

In order to catch Ceylon Mountain City off guard, Chen Xuan left 500 men to guard the more than 7,000 Ceylonese prisoners captured on the road, and led the rest of the troops to continue advancing towards Ceylon Mountain City.

At the same time, Zheng He was also ordered to wake up Li Shi early in the morning.

"Your Majesty, Adaha and the others just took advantage of our troops to gather and left first."

Li Shi bowed his head and complained, and Zheng He also rubbed his restless eyes: "Did you send someone to follow?"

"Sent, they didn't notice." Li Shi nodded, and Zheng He also nodded after hearing this:

"It seems like they are hiding something from us. Maybe Pingjiang Marquis has been attacked."

"Since Ceylon is unkind, then we must repay him." "The army will follow Adaha and his team, and follow me to raid the mountain city of Ceylon!"

"Yes!" Li Shilong agreed, and soon three thousand Ming troops were ready to pursue them.

Minister Adaha was not very fast. He originally thought it would take the Ming army three hours to catch up, but in less than an hour, the Ming army appeared behind him, and the cavalry even intercepted Adaha's carriage.

"Zheng, what are you going to do?!"

Adaha was shocked. He only had 500 guards here, and he was no match for Zheng He.

In his exclamation, the Ming army surrounded him, and Zheng He also walked out and interrogated him on the plain.

"Adaha, my Ming Dynasty is extremely polite to you, but you plot against us. What are your intentions?!"

Zheng He tightened his grip on the horse's reins, looking very angry.

He wanted to deceive this Adaha and see if he could get out any useful information.

Unexpectedly, he just put his hand on the handle of the knife at his waist, and Adaha in the carriage rolled out of the carriage, his fat and fat face full of panic.

"This is Ariel Kunel's arrangement. I just got the news this morning, so I chose to flee."

"Ariel Kunel?" Zheng He frowned. He didn't expect that this guy would dare to attack him after accepting his gift.

"How many soldiers and horses are there in Ceylon Mountain City?"

He questioned Adaha, who was frightened and said quickly: "Eight thousand people."

"Only eight thousand people?" Zheng He couldn't believe it. After all, Ceylon had a population of nearly one million.

"There were originally thirteen thousand men, but five thousand were sent out to attack Mannar. Now there are only eight thousand."

In order to survive, Adaha handed over all the information and even actively suggested that Zheng He go to support Chen Xuan, otherwise Chen Xuan might be torn apart by an army of more than 50,000 people led by Nayan.

"Ha ha!"

Facing Adaha's words, Zheng He laughed and said: "I'm afraid your fifty thousand army has been defeated, and what I have to do now is to bring the culprit to justice!"

"What are you going to do?!" Adaha was startled by Zheng He, but Zheng He told the commander Li Shi beside him: "Leave a hundred people to guard them. If you dare to do anything else, punish them on the spot."

"The rest of you, follow me to raid Ceylon Mountain City!"

"Yes!" Li Shi instantly became excited when he heard that he was about to raid the capital of Ceylon.

Capturing the royal capital and capturing the king is a rare achievement!
Like Zheng He, he did not take Ceylon's so-called 8,000 royal city troops seriously. The 2,900 Ming army was enough to defeat the Ceylon Mountain City.

"go!"

Shaking the reins of his horse, Zheng He rushed towards the mountain city of Ceylon. Upon seeing this, Li Shi also left a hundred people to supervise Adaha and his group of more than 500 people, and then led the army to follow Zheng He's footsteps.

Adaha saw the main force of the Ming army gradually walking away, and the fear on his face began to slowly disappear, and he finally calmed down.

He took the lead in pulling out his dagger and stabbed the Ming soldier closest to him. However, after the dagger pierced the armor, it could not penetrate even an inch.

"Beep!"

The Ming army reacted, pulled out the golden melon hammer and hit Adaha while blowing the wooden whistle.

In an instant, one hundred Ming troops took action against five hundred guards. Although the group of guards wearing leather armor had a numerical advantage, when they actually fought, they were divided and killed by the Ming troops in an instant, and most of them surrendered.

As for Adaha, who was the first to take action, he was immediately killed with a hammer by the soldier he was trying to assassinate.

When Tang Qi spread the news to Zheng He, Zheng He felt extremely disgusted with Ceylon.

He has never been so disgusted by anyone during his voyages to the West. If he doesn't break the Ceylon Mountain City today, he will be disgusted for the rest of his life!

The sound of uniform footsteps sounded on the plains of Ceylon. Since he had already traveled for three days, Zheng He was now only more than twenty miles away from the mountain city of Ceylon.

Although it had taken action against the Ming army, the Ceylon Kingdom did not distribute Tangqi around the Ceylon Mountain City. Therefore, when the city defenders discovered the Ming army, Zheng He had already led the Ming army to arrive three miles outside the Ceylon Mountain City.

"Go forward two miles and bombard the city gate and gate tower!"

After traveling all morning, the Ming army soldiers had accumulated a lot of resentment. Therefore, when Zheng He ordered the artillery attack, the Ming army quickly walked to a location one mile outside the city of Mount Ceylon to build an artillery position.

Twenty field guns were constructed, and urgent bells and rapid whistles sounded in the Ceylon Hill City.

"Dang...dang...dang..."

"Boom boom boom——"

The bell tower had not been ringing for long before it was overshadowed by the sound of Ming army artillery. Twenty five-pound stone bullets smashed through the city gate in an instant.

Seeing this, the Ceylonese troops guarding the city quickly filled the city gate with debris. Zheng He used a telescope to get a rough look at their movements. He immediately changed direction: "Bombard the northeast corner of the city wall, prepare gunpowder packs!"

"Yes!" The Ming army gunner changed direction and began to bombard the northeast corner of Ceylon City.

Unlike the Ming Dynasty's city walls that were often several feet wide, Ceylon's city walls, like most of the Deccan Plateau city walls, were low and thin, and had not experienced any siege warfare at all.

In the war on the island of Ceylon, ladders, trebuchets, and rams were often already very sophisticated siege equipment.

Before entering the Great Navigation, their city walls were not very strong for cannons.

"Boom boom boom——"

The sound of artillery sounded again, this time it was a test fire, but the test result was successful.

After a slight adjustment, the Ming army's artillery began to continuously bombard the northeast corner of the mountain city of Ceylon. It was not until Zheng He saw the phenomenon of wall bricks falling off that Zheng He looked behind him and ordered: "Be prepared to blast the gap with gunpowder packets. The artillery will destroy the female wall." Stop me!"

"Yes!"

The artillery continued to fire, and from noon to midnight, the shelling from one direction for an entire hour soon exposed the rammed earth behind the wall bricks.

At this time, Alejandro hurriedly gathered the remaining defenders in the city and climbed onto the city wall. However, in the face of the bombardment, no one dared to climb onto the city wall, and the city gate was blocked.

"Idiot, why are you blocking the city wall? They only have three thousand people!"

Ariel Kunel cursed loudly, and quickly ordered the army and surrounding residents to clear the blocked city gate corridor, and opened the city gate under Zheng He's disbelieving eyes.

Eight thousand royal troops came out of the city. They were all wearing chainmail and helmets.

Although the protection strength is not as good as the armor of the Ming army, having such an army is already very good in South Asia.

More importantly, Zheng He also saw elephant soldiers among the troops walking out of the corridor.

Twenty war elephants walked out of the corridor, acted as vanguards under the command of the Ceylon Army, and charged towards the Ming Army.

"This group of people fights without any rules and dare to attack us."

Zheng He put down the telescope, hummed lightly, and then signaled the artillery to prepare.

The Ming army did not take action, but waited for the Ceylon army to approach.

When Ariel Kunel saw this scene, he just thought that Zheng He was frightened by the war elephant, so sitting on the back of the war elephant, he still commanded the army to rush towards Zheng He arrogantly.

As the distance between the two sides got closer, the war elephants also roared to intimidate the Ming army.

But they didn't know that as many as eight hundred war elephants died at the hands of the Ming army.

"Artillery preparation."

Zheng He sat on the horse, restraining the frightened horses of the war elephants, and gave orders as steadily as Mount Tai.

At his military order, twenty artillery pieces were fired, and at this moment they were less than a hundred paces away from the Ceylon Army.

"Boom boom boom——"

When the artillery sounded, twenty iron cannonballs hit the war elephant herd like lead balls thrown by someone.

For a while, the wails of the war elephants continued, and it was unknown how many war elephants were shot. In short, many war elephants whined and fell down, and less than ten of them could stand.

"charge!"

Seeing this terrifying scene, Ariel Kunel suddenly panicked, but when he saw that they were only seventy or eighty steps away from the Ming army, he immediately boldly ordered the entire army to charge.

This time he rode a war elephant and rushed towards the Ming army. The Ming army seemed to be frightened by them. They actually abandoned their artillery and huddled together.

If they had taken out a spear, Ariel Kunel would still have had a headache, but what they had taken out was a strange weapon that was about the same height as them.

"Beep--"

There was a whistle, and the spearmen in the front row half knelt on the ground, their spears flat.

The thousand arquebusiers in the rear row raised their arquebuses and pulled the trigger when the Ceylon army approached less than twenty steps away.

"Crack, crackle -"

For a time, a large number of Ceylon King's city troops fell, but the war elephants did not suffer too many blows.

Although they are wailing, they will not die for a while.

Seeing this, Zheng He quickly shouted behind him: "Throw the gunpowder bag!"

"Yes!"

As he shouted, two soldiers lit the gunpowder bag, and one soldier grabbed the ten-pound heavy gunpowder bag and threw it while spinning in circles.

"Beep--"

The Ceylon Army was already close at hand. After three rounds of volleys, the whistle sounded again. The matchlock soldiers retreated, and the pikemen stood up and faced the elephant soldiers with their guns.

The gunpowder bag was thrown into the ranks of the Royal Ceylon City Army at this moment, while the Ming Army fought and retreated.

In a few breaths, the Ming army had already taken seven or eight steps back.

Just when Ariel Kunel felt that the Ming army was vulnerable, he caught a glimpse of the smoking gunpowder bag.

At this moment, it was right next to the war elephant that Ariel Kunel was riding.

Under his gaze, the gunpowder bag suddenly exploded...

"boom!!"

A wave of air knocked away the surrounding Ceylon soldiers, and even the war elephants fell to the ground. The Ming army seized this opportunity and began to charge.

Two thousand pikemen charged in formation, while the arquebusiers stayed where they were to reload ammunition.

Zheng He put on his armor and led a dozen cavalrymen beside him to charge into the Ceylon army, stabbing left and right.

For a time, the eight thousand royal city troops were disrupted by Zheng He's less than two thousand short soldiers, and the musketeers also followed the team after loading their ammunition.

The Ming army cooperated closely, and the war elephant that tried to stand was also greeted by the Ming army's hammers, muskets, and spears, and it didn't take long before it completely breathed its last.

In a daze, Ariel Kunel only felt that his collar was being pulled up by someone. When he opened his eyes in a daze, there was a middle-aged man with dark skin and a beardless man in front of him.

"Ariel Kunel, right? Grandpa, I am the Zheng He you want to kill!"

(End of this chapter)