The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 111 Hunhe Demonic Dragon
Countless light arrows rose from the Later Jin camp on the south bank, and the birch arrow shafts with accumulated kinetic energy twisted in the air like snakes.

Amid the continuous sound of bowstrings vibrating, tens of thousands of arrows, like little black snakes, chased each other and climbed up to the sky above the Hunhe River.

Millions of small snakes continued to gather together and soon formed a huge black demon dragon on the surface of Hunhe River.

The giant dragon's tail stopped at the south bank, and its body was already roaring and rushing towards the Kaiyuan army on the north bank.

At the tail of the evil dragon, 12,000 archers drawn from the four flags of Zhenglan Banner, Zhenghuang Banner, Huangqi Banner and Huangqi Banner formed a dense battle formation on the shore and shot light arrows at the Ming army on the north bank with their foot bows.

Tens of thousands of Later Jin soldiers quickly shot more than 100,000 light arrows. The black demon dragon covered the sky and swallowed up the sky on the north bank. The mere 6,000 Ming troops led by Liu Zhaosun were instantly submerged in the dense arrows.

"Hahaha! I've been accumulating energy for twenty years, just for this day! A mere Liu Zhaosun, you dare to try to stop a chariot with your bare hands? Look! This is what will happen to you! I am the true dragon!"

On the northern city wall behind the Later Jin archers, the golden dragon banner of the Later Jin Khan was erected high. Nurhaci sat at the place where his son was killed in the explosion, looking at the Kaiyuan general's flag standing tall under the rain of arrows on the north bank, with a cruel smile on the corner of his mouth.

Since all the artillery in Shenyang City was sent by the Khan to the north bank to attack the white-pole soldiers' shield formation, it finally fell into the hands of the bandit Liu Zhaosun.

In addition, the army has run out of gunpowder, and the only weapons that each flag can use for long-range attacks are these infantry bows.

Fortunately, there was no shortage of bows and arrows in the Shenyang arsenal. Li Ruzhen and Ding Bi, two good servants, sent some infantry bows to each flag overnight. Since the Later Jin armored soldiers all knew how to shoot arrows, they quickly gathered more than 10,000 archers.

Tens of thousands of people fired at the same time, and the scene was quite spectacular.

Fan Wencheng, who was standing next to him, couldn't help but say:

"The Great Jin has a powerful army, with 100,000 soldiers who can stop the flow of water with a single whip. Liu Zhaosun is marching alone deep into the enemy's territory, and he is only here to die!"

Nurhaci looked at him, and Fan Wencheng was so scared that he stopped immediately.

On top of the city wall, there are still traces of the artillery explosion that day.

Nurhaci looked up at the Kaiyuan soldiers crossing the river on the north bank. His eyes suddenly turned cold and he gritted his teeth and said:

"Less than a hundred thousand, but it can still crush these ants!"

Fan Wencheng heard a shrill scream behind him. When he looked back, he saw that the north-south streets near the city wall were full of people fleeing for their lives.

Groups of Yehe people were knocking on doors one by one. They rushed into the Liao people's homes, carrying silver and jewelry, and dragged out ragged Han women.

A group of servants blocked a few people at the entrance of the alley, and without saying a word, they attacked them with swords. The people on the opposite side fought back with strange weapons, and the alley was suddenly filled with dead and wounded.

Fan Wencheng guessed that these people should be the Kaiyuan Wolf Soldiers lurking in Shenyang as mentioned by Ding Bi.

The scene in the city made his teeth ache. Although he was a bondservant, he was not as bloodthirsty as Ding Bi. He turned his head and looked towards the south bank.

Countless Later Jin Bayara soldiers with small triangular flags on their backs were galloping along the shore. All the armored soldiers of the four major flags filled the open space on the shore, quietly waiting for the enemy troops on the north bank to cross the river.

"Liu Zhaosun is really like an ant trying to shake a tree! Hahaha!"

He laughed twice and looked cautiously at the Great Jin Khan sitting next to him.

~~~~~~
The buzzing sound of a swarm of bees suddenly came from far away, and the two guards immediately raised their long shields to protect Liu Zhaosun.

A black demon dragon formed by tens of thousands of light arrows roared and smashed into the north bank position with the force of thunder, as if it wanted to tear apart all living things on the north bank.

The sharp arrowheads hit the buffalo leather shield, and the shield made a dull thud, like an exciting war drum.

Liu Zhaosun looked at the black demon dragon, smiled contemptuously, and turned to the messenger and said:

"The Jiannu have shown their face! Launch the Divine Fire Crows! Destroy this demonic dragon!"

The blue flag was raised high under the cover of two long signs.

A huge cloud of white smoke suddenly covered the hillside one mile away from the floating bridge on the north bank of the Hun River.

Then, three hundred and sixty divine fire crows flew into the air through the white mist formed by the burning gunpowder, rising obliquely into the sky.

Hundreds of divine fire crows with long tails of flames soon merged into a red fire dragon over the Hun River.

The fire dragon flew into the sky, and with a terrifying roar, it rushed towards the expanding body of the black demon dragon below it.

Two giant dragons were colliding and biting each other in the air in the middle of the river. The sounds of dragon roars filled the two sides of the Hunhe River, and millions of black and red dragon scales fell off.

Countless black arrows were engulfed in flames, like millions of dragon scales, falling from the sky and scattering onto the river surface.

More than a dozen of the shot Divine Fire Crows circled in the air and fell rapidly, slamming into the center of the river, and the explosion raised a water column several feet high.

Tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides of the strait stared at the sky with their mouths wide open.

Liu Zhaosun smiled coldly:
"Nurhaci, today I will slay you, this evil dragon!"

The fire dragon split up again a hundred steps away from the north bank, and transformed into more than two hundred Nirvana Fire Phoenixes, dragging several meters of flames, and flew to the Houjin formation on the north bank.

"What a phoenix rising from the ashes! Too bad it can't wash away your heinous sins."

Liu Zhaosun's eyes were stern. As he expected, the Rockets' cleanup effect this time was still not ideal, even worse than last night.

Of the three hundred and sixty divine fire crows, only fifty fell into the archers' formation on the south bank.

Most rockets begin to perform Brownian motion (the endless, irregular motion of particles suspended in liquid or gas) as soon as they fly over the Hunhe River.

Some of the rockets fell into the moat, and some were shot towards the top of the north gate city wall.

More divine fire crows directly crossed the north gate wall and rushed into the city. Hopefully, they would not kill or injure Lieutenant General Ding and others who were running around.

There was even a divine fire crow that turned around and flew over the top of the 1,000th headquarters as they were preparing to cross the river, and exploded in an open space three hundred steps away from the Kaiyuan Army's formation.

After the divine fire crows washed the ground, the black demon dragon calmed down a lot. Because they were too far away, Liu Zhaosun could not see the casualties of the Later Jin.

Seeing that the rain of arrows around was obviously sparse, Liu Zhaosun judged that Nurhaci had lost at least a thousand archers in this attack.

The morale of the other side has definitely reached rock bottom.

Especially the two yellow flags who had experienced this incident, their warriors had already experienced the horror of the Divine Fire Flying Crow last night.

In addition, the memories of the cavalry charge were not very good for the warriors.

Liu Zhaosun estimated that if a few more rounds of fire dragons swept the ground, the Zhenyi armored soldiers of the two yellow flags would collapse immediately.

Thinking of this, he decided to help the remaining soldiers of the two yellow flags break through their psychological limits free of charge, so he immediately summoned the workshop's head thundersmith who was responsible for the launch.

Said to him angrily:

"When I get back this time, I'm going to have a good chat with Lord Song. He almost prevented me from annihilating the Later Jin. Watching the divine fire crows fly over the soldiers' heads, I was so frightened that my wounds were about to burst open again."

The honest and simple Master Lei's face turned pale and he knelt on the ground and kowtowed repeatedly.

Liu Zhaosun patted his shoulder and said with a smile:
"How many rockets do you have left?"

"Reply, reply to my lord, there are only 700 guns left. This time my lord wants the soldiers to travel light and fast. The workshop is short of manpower, so we can only take more than 1,000 guns..."

Liu Zhaosun reached out and broke the thunder craftsman's head, pointed to the distant hillside, and said to the frightened old man:
"Go, shoot them all at once, get closer and fire in bursts, aiming at the surviving Jiannu archers on the south bank."

Lei Jiangtou was stunned for a moment, then turned and left.

Liu Zhaosun shouted at the old craftsman's back:
"Captain Lei, I was just joking just now. Don't worry about missing your target. Remember, destiny is with me, not the Jiannu!"

Liu Zhaosun smiled, and the pain in his body seemed to be relieved a little.

At this time, the rain of arrows that had paused for a moment came again, and the black demon dragon roared and rushed towards the No. 1,000 headquarters that was preparing to cross the river.

At the same time, the second round of divine fire crows was launched into the sky. Thousands of fire birds turned into fire dragons in the sky, roaring and crashing into the black demon dragon.

Liu Zhaosun did not watch the fight between the Hunhe River dragon and turned around to loudly order his soldiers to cross the river.

"Move forward in shield formation! Watch out for potholes on the bridge!"

"Auxiliary soldiers, carry the planks! Prevent the Jiannu from burning the bridge!"

"Fishing boats, scatter! Cross the river as quickly as possible!"

"After landing, the 1,000th Headquarters will dispatch two flag teams to enter the city to rescue the Wolf Soldiers and civilians! The rest of the troops will all attack eastward and move closer to the Zhejiang troops!"

The captains of each battalion and each flag captain repeated General Liu's order to the soldiers, and the 1,000 soldiers from the headquarters, who had formed up, immediately began to cross the river.

The fifteen fishing boats docked at the shore also rowed at the same time, moving quickly towards the south bank.

These fifteen temporarily requisitioned fishing boats, each carrying more than thirty people, totaling five hundred people, served as auxiliary forces for forced crossing of the river.

The fishing boats were surrounded by dense arrays of thatched bamboo nails for cover, with gun holes left between the bamboos for shooting arrows and firing guns.

On the pontoon bridge, the 1,300-man headquarters was divided into twelve banners, with spearmen following behind the sword and shield soldiers, and white-pole soldiers mixed in. Auxiliary soldiers carried wooden planks at the rear.

The second and third thousand headquarters, totaling more than 2,600 soldiers, formed a huge long shield formation, preparing to cross the river. Burhanggu led the cavalry to provide cover behind the soldiers' camp.

The rain of arrows covered the sky, but the shield formation on the north bank remained motionless.

The bridge section near the north bank was covered with dense arrows. The white arrow feathers in the sky were like colorful fallen petals, covering the bodies of the Kaiyuan soldiers who charged into the battle last night.

The bridge was filled with corpses in various postures, forming a small hill. Most of the corpses were those of the Later Jin soldiers.

Last night, on this section of the bridge, the Ming and Jin sides engaged in the most intense battle in the bloody battle of Hunhe River.

The soldiers had no time to stop and check the bodies of their comrades. The sword and shield soldiers held up long signs to cover the spearmen as they moved forward quickly.

Light arrows roared around the soldiers like a storm, and the flag captains of each team blew their bamboo whistles desperately to remind the long-card players to pay attention to the corpses under their feet.

Soon a soldier was tripped by a corpse, his body exposed outside the long shield, and was immediately hit by a dense rain of arrows.

Sporadic screams were heard from the pontoon bridge, and casualties began to occur in the combat camp. Deng Changxiong ordered to speed up the advance.

The flag team in the front had approached to within fifty steps of the south bank. The Jin archers on the opposite bank immediately switched to heavy arrows and shot at the Kaiyuan soldiers.

Above the soldiers' heads, rockets flew across the river, making a shrill whistling sound.

Deng Changxiong, escorted by two combat soldiers, led the 1,000th headquarters to the front.

The roar of his own rockets overhead was deafening and almost pierced his eardrums, but General Xiong Qian felt a sense of relief in his heart.

Another burst of intensive explosions was heard on the other side of the river. This was the third round of rocket launches.

After three rounds of divine fire flying crows washed the ground, the black demon dragon that had just been wreaking havoc on the banks of the Hun River completely disappeared.

Deng Changxiong and his men, who were not far from the south bank, could clearly hear bursts of screams coming from the shore, mixed with the roars of the Jiannu Bayara.

Liu Zhaosun witnessed the vanguard of the 1,000th headquarters rapidly approaching the south bank, and the Jiannu on the opposite bank were still trying to break the bridge. Liu Zhaosun suspected that the archers on the opposite side had collapsed.

He did not think about what conspiracy the slave chief was up to, and immediately ordered the 2000th headquarters to start crossing the river.

The 1,300 soldiers from the 2,000th headquarters poured onto the pontoon bridge like a tide.

(End of this chapter)