Fu Shanhe

Chapter 83 Gun volley tactics
Vanguard camp.

"Captain Li, since you've discovered the rebels are approaching, why don't you gather the army?"

Marquis Wuyang asked with a dissatisfied look on his face.

The total strength of the Nancheng Qianhu and his personal soldiers was only two thousand people.

With such a small number of troops, it was undoubtedly too risky for them to set up camp and wait for the rebels to attack.

Even if we have to fight a battle with the enemy, we should gather all the troops of the Five Cities Army.

"Commander, we have captured several prisoners and interrogated them to find out the origins of the rebels ahead.

Most of them were local people from Xinghua, who were coerced by the bandits into joining the rebellion.

There seem to be tens of thousands of people, but in fact only a few can fight.

According to the prisoners, they were only the vanguard and the main force was still behind.

If the entire army were assembled together, the enemy might be scared away.

Now that we are here, we have to fight.

Anyway, the distance between our three departments is very close, and we can reach the battlefield half an hour after the war breaks out.

Just put your mind at ease!
When the enemy approaches, our army will launch a surprise attack and will surely gain something!"

Li Mu said tiredly.

The other side calls them rebels, but in fact they are just rioters.

Rebellion is a technical job. You can't turn a farmer into a soldier just by raising the banner of rebellion.

A pure peasant uprising at least had experience in attacking landlords' estates.

In the uprisings instigated by local aristocratic families, except for a few officials who resisted, most of them would surrender directly.

The number of casualties in occupying a county town may not necessarily be in the three digits.

No experience of killing, no training.

Such enemies are most suitable for training the troops under your command.

"Do you dare to lead the troops to attack?"

Marquis Wuyang asked in surprise.

In his opinion, Li Mu is good at making money, knowing the times, and does have some courage, but not much true courage.

Risky work is always left to others.

"dare!"

Li Mu answered with gritted teeth.

Frankly speaking, he was not prepared to take part in the match himself.

However, the atmosphere has become so heated that we cannot give in.

As long as the enemy is weak enough, the risk is controllable.

At worst, I can just put on armor and bring more personal soldiers to protect me.

"That's no problem!
I will go with you, so we can see what it's like on the battlefield!"

Marquis Wuyang slapped his thigh and said.

Looking at his excitement, you can tell that this is a man’s obsession, but he doesn’t dare to go because he is afraid of death.

It's rare to meet a subordinate who is equally afraid of death and proficient in military affairs.

Now that my safety is guaranteed, I must fulfill my dream of becoming a general.

"Commander, you can go with us, but you cannot interfere with the command.

There may be stray arrows on the battlefield, so for safety reasons, full armor is required.

The armor is heavy and hot, so it's a pain to wear."

Li Mu advised tactfully.

Marquis Wuyang is now his political pillar. It is not easy to find such a leader who has a strong backing, can withstand risks, and will do things for money.

Even if he intended to take up a local post, he still needed someone to speak for him in the court.

If something unexpected happens and you die on the battlefield, it would be a huge loss.

"Don't worry, I will be watching from behind and will not charge into the battle line!
If possible, lure the enemy to the vicinity of the camp and I will watch the battle from inside the camp.

Even if an accident occurs, reinforcements will arrive in time."

Marquis Wuyang said after thinking for a while.

Reason prevailed, dreams lost to reality, and he was ultimately a man who cherished his life.

Li Mu had a lot of words to curse, but he finally chose to swallow them back.

Although the expression was wasted, the result was good.

……

Rebel camp.

"Reporting to the Fifth General, we have discovered a government army camp five miles ahead, with approximately one to two thousand soldiers!"

After hearing the soldiers' report, Wen Jianshao frowned suddenly.

Most likely, the soldiers sent out were lazy and did not discover the difference until the two armies were five miles apart in this flat area.

There is no need for spies. Soldiers walking in front of the army can see the enemy camp with their naked eyes.

"Who arranged the scouts? Why didn't they report the news in advance?"

Wen Jianshao asked angrily.

Fortunately, the government troops were few in number. If they had collided with the main force of the government troops, they would have been doomed.

"General Five, this is a scout arranged by me.

A total of five groups of spies were sent out today, and none of them have returned so far.

According to military rules, we need to report to you only if the scouts have not returned by twilight hour."

A middle-aged fat man explained nervously.

The Jiangnan region does not produce horses, and the imperial court has very strict control over horses. All horses imported from other places are castrated.

After the Wen family rebelled, they only obtained a small number of war horses from various post stations.

In order to form cavalry, war horses and slow horses from all over the country were gathered in Gaoyou.

Xinghua was not taken seriously. Except for the main general Wen Jianshao who was assigned a slow horse, the other generals could only ride mules.

Because their numbers were so small, the soldiers below suffered.

In name he was a scout, but in reality he had no horses to use, so he could only do the work of a horse part-time.

To gather information, one had to run. At the beginning, the reconnaissance distance required was twenty or thirty miles, and everyone could complete the task easily.

Later, the range was gradually expanded to fifty miles and then a hundred miles. The continuous increase in the workload made the soldiers responsible for detecting the enemy situation exhausted every day.

Knowing that the better they perform, the heavier the tasks assigned to them will be, the soldiers also begin to learn to be lazy.

Since the generals were not around to watch over them, everyone chose to leave early and come back late.

Unless it is close to the specified time, I will definitely not come back early.

This is to prevent superiors from thinking that the reconnaissance mission is too easy and increasing the workload again.

When nothing happened, no one thought there was anything wrong with it.

"Humph!"

"idiot!"

"The scouts you sent out were all intercepted by the enemy.

Maybe our military intelligence has been leaked to the enemy by them!"

Wen Jianshao couldn't help but scolded.

If looks could kill, the middle-aged fat man in front of me would have been chopped into pieces.

"Fifth General, calm down. I really don't know!"

The middle-aged fat man said with a sad face.

Before he rebelled, he was a butcher.

Because he was stronger than ordinary people, he was selected as an officer.

When leading troops to fight, he always follows orders from his superiors.

Despite the scolding, Wen Jianshao still restrained his desire to kill. It was a makeshift team, and there were a lot of middle-aged fat generals in the army, all of whom were forced to do something.

If the requirements are too strict, the people below might revolt.

Since the uprising, there have been desertions among the rebel army almost every day.

Sometimes, people from a whole village would desert together.

For Wen Jianshao, stabilizing the military's morale is the top priority compared to holding people accountable.

"Go down and receive twenty military sticks. If you do it again, watch out for your head.

Send orders to all units to surround the enemy camp!"

Reaching out and touching the military book in his sleeve pocket, Wen Jianshao's uneasy heart calmed down a little.

According to military books, there are many ways to stabilize military morale, one of which is to win battles.

The number of enemies killed is secondary; the key is to make the soldiers stained with the blood of the government troops and cut off their retreat.

In his opinion, the reason why people dared to desert was simply because they felt that they had nothing to do with the rebellion.

As long as they escape from the rebels and wait for the imperial court to put down the rebellion, they can go back and farm in peace.

Since the soldiers have ideas, we must stop them.

……

On the observation tower, Marquis Wuyang put down the telescope as he watched the rebels surrounding him from all directions.

"Captain Li, are you sure the people outside are rebels and not a civilian fight?"

The extended version of the hoe is the "spear" in the hands of the rebel soldiers.

The hatchet tied to a wooden stick becomes the spear in their hands.

……

These are all good things, at least I have a sharp blade.

The weapon of more soldiers is just a wooden stick.

You can tell it was just chopped off, and it's shaking in his hand. If you're not careful, you might accidentally hurt your own people.

“My Lord, when we were defending the city, we couldn’t even gather weapons for our soldiers, let alone a group of rebels.

From a strategic point of view, Baoying has much higher military value than Xinghua.

The strength of the Beijing camp is far beyond ours.

It's entirely reasonable for the rebels to place their elite troops there.

Look at the enemy's center, there is a group of soldiers holding spears, some of them even have muskets."

Li Mu explained calmly.

The power of the Dayu family is mainly in the court, and what remains among the people is mainly influence.

The aristocratic families of the Jin Dynasty were able to mobilize tens of thousands of soldiers at the command of the head of the family.

Nowadays, if a local gentry dares to privately hide a few sets of armor, he will lose his head.

When it comes to working within the rules system, the literati families are almost invincible.

Outside of the rules, these guys are nothing.

Among the literati families, the seven major families in Lianghuai that own salt, their military strength is already very outstanding.

Over two hundred years after the founding of Dayu, we have only heard of rebellions by princes and separatist regimes run by military commanders.

The literati families rose up in rebellion, and they were the first wave.

If they really had strong military power, how could the civil service group be afraid of the butcher knife of the factory guards?

"I understand. You will command the battle!"

Marquis Wuyang nodded and said.

When I came into close contact with the rebels, the fear I had originally felt slowly began to disappear.

Not only to the rebels, but also to the civil servants in the court.

Reality told him that those guys who seemed so powerful were actually a group of weaklings.

In essence, civil servants and his in-laws are the same, and their power comes from imperial power.

However, in recent years, the power of the civil service group has grown rapidly, and they have gradually become dissatisfied with relying on imperial power and have begun to want to limit imperial power.

To a certain extent, the civil servants were successful.

Compared with the several monarchs in the early days of the founding of the country, the later emperors had much less power.

Even the powerful monarch Emperor Tianyuan was slowly testing the bottom line of the civil officials and strengthening the imperial power step by step.

Do you want to tell the emperor what you saw?

After hesitating for a while, Marquis Wuyang chose to give up.

He knows best how troublesome his nephew is.

Under certain constraints, we dared to push forward a series of reforms despite pressure.

If the weak nature of civil servants is understood, who knows what else might happen.

"The general will get the order!"

Li Mu answered immediately.

It was inevitable that Marquis Wuyang was touched.

If he had not studied history in his previous life and knew how obedient the literati families were under the butcher knife of the Qing Dynasty, he would also be touched.

It is incredible to think that the largest interest group that holds power in the empire has no weapons to protect its power.

……

As time passed, the camp was gradually surrounded by the rebels.

After experiencing the Battle of Yangzhou, the soldiers' emotions were much more stable than that day.

"Pass the order down and have the musketeers prepare for battle.

Once the enemy is within range, use volley tactics!"

Li Mu gave the order expressionlessly.

It's rare to have such a cooperative enemy, so this is a good opportunity to test out new tactics.

He had no idea how effective the musket version of the volley tactics would be.

The main reason is that the range is too short and the shooting distance is unstable.

The approximate killing distance is fifty to one hundred meters, and the specific range depends entirely on the soldiers' own performance.

Although Li Mu strictly ordered his subordinates to standardize the ammunition, it was just wishful thinking.

When a soldier is reloading ammunition, any extra shaking will affect the range of the firearm.

"Bang, bang, bang..."

"what!"

……

There was a burst of dense gunfire, followed by a burst of wailing.

Looking in the direction of the sound, there were already hundreds of corpses lying on the ground.

The rebels' chaotic charge successfully turned themselves into sitting ducks.

It’s better if you die, just lie there dead.

The worst were those soldiers who were hit by muskets but not yet dead. They were now rolling on the ground wailing.

No matter how much you scream, this is a battlefield.

There were countless rebel soldiers behind them moving forward, pushing the soldiers in front of them forward to be shot. It was like a large-scale suicide scene.

Standing on the observation deck and observing the battlefield, the tragic scene made Li Mu very uncomfortable.

"My Lord, let's go down first!

The war has already begun, and the enemy will surely prepare weapons to attack the observatory. This place is no longer safe."

Li Mu began to persuade.

War blockbusters are exciting to watch on the screen, but a disaster to be there in person.

(End of this chapter)