Southern Ming: A boy soldier at the beginning, supporting the world

Chapter 157 Unstoppable
In the early Ming Dynasty, there were many wild elephants in Guangxi. The Elephant Taming Guard not only trained war elephants, but also domesticated wild elephants for tribute. By the late Ming Dynasty, the Little Ice Age caused a large number of wild elephants to die, and the Elephant Taming Guard had reached the point where there were no elephants left to tame.

Nanning is located on the border of Guangxi, adjacent to Jiaozhi, where there are still a small number of wild elephants. Although Xu Biao's army only has four war elephants, they are his trump card weapon. When fighting against Chen Bangfu, once the war elephants attack, they are often as powerful as thunder. The enemy army, regardless of whether they are men or horses, often gets frightened when seeing the war elephants, and they are already defeated before they can even make contact.

The four war elephants before them were decorated with feathers and painted red by the enemy, and from a distance they looked like ghosts.

Danchu took a matchlock and tried his best to restrain the central army. The musketeers were all equipped with matchlocks, and 50% of the soldiers in the personal guard camp were also equipped with matchlocks. If they concentrated their fire at the same time, they would have no problem dealing with the war elephants.

The key is to overcome fear on the battlefield and use strict military discipline to ensure that everyone sticks to their positions. Otherwise, cowardice will spread like a plague, and one person's desertion will cause the collapse of the entire formation, and then the defeat will be like a landslide, becoming increasingly uncontrollable.

"Thomas!" Ferreira shouted, pointing his bayonet at a foreign soldier who was about to flee.

He was an Italian who had never seen elephant soldiers and was not brave enough on the battlefield, but he was very accurate with a gun. Ferreira preferred foreigners and recommended him as a sentry leader.

Seeing that Dormer was about to flee, Danchu's face darkened and he ordered Ferreira: "Kill him!"

According to the military law of Zhaoyong, if a sentry leader deserted the battlefield, the captain could execute him. Seeing Danchu's anger, Thomas was frightened and knelt down to beg for mercy, begging Ferreira in the foreign language to let him escape with his life.

Danchu was unmoved and ordered Ferreira again: "In the name of God, I order you to stab Thomas to death immediately!"

Ferreira looked stern and replied, "Yes!"

Thomas's face was filled with tears. He closed his eyes cowardly and tilted his head back, exposing his throat.

With a "puff", Ferreira thrust his bayonet into Dormer's throat. Blood splattered, and the soldiers were awed. No one dared to run away.

"All musketeers, aim at the elephants and shoot after you hear my gunshots!"

"Start aiming!" The war elephant in front was already fifty steps away. Danchu had never dealt with elephant soldiers before, and his heart was in his throat. If the muskets didn't work and the war elephants trampled over, the Zhaoyong army would be defeated.

The musketeers had already dismounted and loaded their bullets and bayonets. After hearing Danchu's command, they immediately adjusted the matchlock and aimed their guns.

"Bang!" Danchu fired the first shot, and the driver on the first war elephant fell down.

"Fire!" Danchu shouted loudly, and the musketeers immediately opened fire. More than 300 musketeers fired 300 deadly bullets at the same time, focusing their fire on the four war elephants. You can imagine how dense the firepower was.

"Moo—" A miserable neighing sound resounded through the sky. The war elephant in the front was the tallest and most muscular, and was hit the most by bullets. One of its front hooves was seriously injured. It staggered forward for more than ten steps under inertia, and finally collapsed seven or eight steps away from the Zhaoyong Army, stirring up a cloud of dust.

The three enemy soldiers on the platform fell to the ground and were about to flee, but were shot like hedgehogs by the archers of the Zhaoyong army.

Behind him was another war elephant, which had been hit by dozens of lead bullets. Its steps were disorderly and it staggered from side to side like a drunk. Finally, it fell to the ground, groaning in pain.

There were still two war elephants left. They were not seriously injured, but they had experienced the power of the Zhaoyong army's matchlock rifles and consciously slowed down.

The morale of the Zhaoyong Army was greatly boosted. To fight a war, you must have confidence. There is no trick to this. You just have to dare to fight and win. Even if it is an enemy you have never encountered before, as long as you can win once, confidence will naturally be established.

"Kill!" Dan Chu threw the matchlock gun to a personal soldier, raised his lance, mounted his horse and rushed towards the war elephant.

The personal guards and musketeers followed suit, and the cavalry battalion that had retreated to the flank also followed suit, engaging the enemy cavalry in close combat. This was a common tactic used in the triple formation, where the front team often pretended to be defeated to lure the enemy into pursuing them, and then joined the central army to counterattack the enemy.

Danchu led the way and charged at the third war elephant. Yuconglong was indeed a famous horse outside the Great Wall. He was not afraid of the war elephants and led the main force forward enthusiastically.

The personal soldiers stood on both sides, shooting at the elephant soldiers with bows and arrows. Danchu focused on the trunk of the war elephant. The war elephant was quite smart. When it saw the shining horse lance, it knew that the enemy was not friendly and flicked its trunk to the side of its ear.

Danchu stabbed the war elephant's ear with his spear, and the elephant felt pain and its trunk dropped. The elephant's trunk is as flexible as a human hand, but it is also the most tender part of the elephant.

"Hit!" Another spear hit the tip of the elephant's nose.

The war elephant mooed in pain, turned around and ran back.

Yang Fang, a sentry captain of the imperial guards, who was Danchu's childhood friend, rode his horse to catch up with the elephant and stabbed the elephant with the bayonet of his musket.

"Moo--" The elephant let out another heart-wrenching wail and rushed towards the rebel infantry like a madman, splashing trails of feces and filth.

A foul smell hit him, and Danchu laughed loudly, blurting out a swear word: "Fuck, Yang Fang, you are such a talent!"

Yang Fang also laughed and replied, "General, you are well-read, don't you know that the anus is a hollow and weak part of the body?"

There was only one elephant left, a cunning female elephant who had just reached adulthood. She was unwilling to put in effort during the charge and fell behind. When she saw her fellow elephants dead or injured, she immediately turned around and rushed back to her camp.

The elephant troops were defeated, and the enemy cavalry also lost their morale and began to retreat in a rush.

The enemy infantry had already formed a battle formation, probably a double-layer formation with a front width of about half a mile. Seeing the elephants and cavalry retreating one after another, the infantry also wavered.

The injured elephant in the valley rushed towards its own infantry as if it had gone mad. The driver on the platform pulled the reins desperately, but was thrown to the ground by the war elephant.

The enemy infantry fled from the war elephants one after another, leaving a gap in their formation. The remaining infantry thought that the army was going to retreat, and became even more frightened. They ignored the officers' obstruction and rushed to retreat.

Danchu saw an opportunity to take advantage of the situation and ordered the drums to be beaten and the whole army to charge. The Zhaoyong army was all on horseback, and they rushed towards the enemy army like tigers coming down the mountain and wild horses breaking free from their reins.

The enemy's infantry mostly used spears, had little armor, and had outdated weapons. They were so powerful that before the Zhaoyong army could engage the enemy, the enemy's formation had already collapsed. The enemy's flags fell, the soldiers fled, and the armor and weapons were scattered all over the ground. It was a complete defeat.

Zhao Yongjianer shouted loudly, "Drop your weapons and surrender and you won't be killed!" Upon hearing the order, the rebel infantrymen dropped their weapons and surrendered one after another.

Some of the bandits were like headless flies, desperately fleeing with weapons in hand. The Zhaoyong army chased them on horseback and killed them like chopping melons and vegetables, leaving corpses all over the ground.

Even the musketeers and auxiliary soldiers joined in the pursuit. The personal guards and firearms battalions were equipped with new matchlock muskets with bayonets at the muzzles.

This inconspicuous triangular bayonet is quite useful. Cavalry can easily pierce the enemy's armor with it. Once the bayonet pierces the enemy, blood will spurt out along the blood groove, which can easily cause fatal damage to the enemy.

(End of this chapter)