The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 334: Supervisor, you need to pay more
The basic unit of the Zheng army in Beihe was the Qi, and each Qi had about 500 people. According to the records of the Great Southern Military Preparations, the Zheng army was divided into infantry, navy, elephant army, cavalry and artillery.

Their infantry was not the infantry of the Xing Tang Army, but the hand-to-hand combat troops. Correspondingly, the artillery was not the artillery, but the firearms troops.

The reason for this situation is poverty. Although Beihe occupies the Red River Plain, where water and heat occur at the same time, and three crops are harvested a year, and it has been developed for thousands of years, there are cultivated land everywhere.

However, due to the existence of high-ranking families in Beijing and Han, the power of the Zheng ruler could not reach the grassroots level at all, and he could not levy taxes on everyone.

The tax system currently implemented by Lord Zheng is called the unified tax system, or in other words, the tax-sharing system.

That is, the annual land tax paid by a county and a commune is fixed. Zheng Zhu doesn't care who pays it or how it is collected, as long as the tax amount is not small.

This tax system also meant that the unified tax would not be too high, because if it was too high, the nobles would not agree. Therefore, during the 200 years that Lord Zheng ruled Beihe, the finances were always very tight.

The financial constraints were reflected in military equipment, with Beizheng suffering from an extreme shortage of firearms.

For example, at this moment, Huang Tingbao brought forty Qi people, about 20,000 people, but among them there were only three cavalry Qi people, two elephant Qi people, five artillery Qi people, and the rest were infantry Qi people equipped with cold weapons.

At the same time, the conjugate relationship between the Zheng army and the three prefecture armies also led to the Zheng lord being unwilling to increase the armaments of the three prefecture armies, so as to prevent the three prefecture armies from gaining an overwhelming advantage and controlling the entire prefecture.

"We can't win. How can we win like this?" A group of soldiers from the Three Prefectures Army began to line up while muttering loudly.

The reason they were scared before the fight even started was that they occupied a formation on a gentle slope, and then looking down from above, they saw that all the members of the Xing Tang Army on the opposite side were holding flintlock rifles. Compared with them, their side looked like a mob.

"Master Qi, how can we fight? The enemy is armed with muskets. If we don't see anyone, all our brothers will be killed."

Not only the soldiers were grumbling, but the grassroots fire chiefs and junior officers of the team also began to grumble.

Moreover, the sound was getting louder and louder, with a faint tendency to clamor.

"Boom, boom, boom!" The drums of the Xing Tang Army began to beat. Chen Lian walked in front, donning a red lacquered helmet with the word "Yong" (valor) on his head and holding two of his signature sharp-edged Thai swords.

Seeing Chen Lian wearing a helmet, the guards around him shouted and raised the flag of the First Regiment of the Republic.

This is a big flag with a golden sun on a red background, but below the golden sun, there are two intersecting swords.

"Put on the iron helmet!" the guards shouted.

"Tiger!" The soldiers of the First Regiment of the Republic shouted collectively, stomped their feet on the ground, and all put on vermilion helmets with the word "Yong" on them.

The officers and soldiers of the First Regiment of the Republic were mainly composed of the sons of vassal states in the Andai area, and were the richest in the Xing Tang Army.

Therefore, although King Mo did not have the strength to equip all his members with iron helmets, they still armed themselves at their own expense.

Even in view of the fact that the Beihe Army had many hand-to-hand combat soldiers, many of them wore a sixteen or seventeen-pound piece of fine steel half-breastplate inside their mandarin duck battle robes.

This time, not only the grassroots officers and soldiers of Beihe were in trouble, but middle-level officers like Gaiqi also felt it was very difficult.

"We can't fight, we can't fight. Let the artillery and elephant troops go first. From a high position, they can charge the southern bandits' firearms array first. Then we, the infantry, can seize the opportunity to kill them."

Soon Gai Qi started to make noise to the battalion commander and even Huang Tingbao, and the noise of the entire Beihe Army became louder and louder.

Huang Tingbao watched all this indifferently. He knew that all of them were excuses. They were not completely afraid, but wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to gain benefits.

"Prince Jingdu, you forced me to do this!" Huang Tingbao looked up at the sky and muttered softly, then he looked at the senior military officers in front of him who were waiting for his decision.

"Rewards will be given. Each soldier will receive one ounce of silver first. If a southern bandit is killed, five ounces will be given. If five or more are killed, ten acres of land will be given!"

The commanders around looked at Huang Tingbao in shock. The silver in Beihe was very valuable, and its purchasing power was much greater than that of the Qing Dynasty.

You should know that the last time Huang Wufu led 20,000 soldiers to capture Hue, King Zheng Sen of Jingdu only gave an additional reward of 5,000 taels of silver to the entire army of 20,000 people.

"Commander, is King Jingdu really willing to pay so much money?" asked a camp commander with a hint of doubt.

Huang Tingbao looked at him strangely, "Don't you want me to wear the yellow robe?
After defeating the southern bandits, are the swords and guns in your hands vegetarian? If King Jingdu won't give them to us, we can get them ourselves.

Is it that the nobles and wealthy families in Tokyo are short of gold and silver, or that the high-ranking families have no land?"

"Master, you are wise!"

"Master, you are wise!"

"Hahahaha, this should have happened a long time ago."

A group of Beihe officers howled with excitement. Huang Tingbao was finally going to fulfill their wish.

Then they stopped haggling over price or who would go up first or later, and stopped saying that they could not defeat the southern bandit army. They all went down excitedly to make arrangements for the battle.

Soon, the Beihe Army, upon hearing the news, cheered loudly, and some people on the battlefield even started shouting "Long live the army!"

Huang Tingbao still watched all this indifferently, "Father, I don't want this to happen, but they are all forcing me. If this is the case, then if I win, my whole family will die. If I lose, I will be free."

Hearing the thunderous cheers and seeing the morale of the opposite side suddenly soar, the generals of the Xing Tang Army were a little surprised, but they were immediately filled with heroic spirit.

If we can still boost morale at this time, it proves that the elite soldiers of Beihe are indeed here. If we defeat and kill them, we can reap the fruits of victory.

Mo Zibu put on a set of inconspicuous armor and held a flintlock in his hand. After fiddling with it for a few times, he said to Reinstein:

"Ryan, I'll leave this to you. Your command ability is superior to mine. I believe you can definitely defeat the Beihe Army.

I will lead the Yuan Cong Guards to intercept Nguyen Van Hue's army at Chongsheng Temple. You have three hours to kill Huang Dinh Bao, then come and attack the Beihe army at Chongsheng Temple."

Reinstein nodded calmly, "Your Majesty, don't worry. They will be defeated within three hours."

. . . .

A thunderous roar sounded, and under the command of Reinstein, the artillery of the Xingtang Army began to attack first. A large number of four-pound, six-pound, and eight-pound field guns continuously fired huge projectiles at the Beihe Army.

Although they were arrayed on high ground, this was a vast plain, and the so-called hills were only slightly undulating. Therefore, even when firing from above, the Xing Tang Army's field artillery was still quite powerful. Every shot, as long as it hit the Beihe Army's battle formation, could immediately take away several, even dozens of lives.

The Beihe Army's artillery also fought back, but they had very few cannons, most of which were Shenwei General cannons made in Foshan.

This type of cannon weighs 472 jin (6.7 catties), has a charge of 1 liang (3 liang) of explosives, and the shell weighs liang ( jin liang).

At this time, the Qing Dynasty's cannon-casting technology was far inferior to that of the Ming Dynasty more than a hundred years ago due to the suppression of successive Qing emperors. A cannon weighing four or five hundred kilograms could only hold less than seven taels of gunpowder and fire a shell weighing one kilogram and three taels. The power was really not enough.

The four-pound cannon purchased by the Xing Tang Army from France and imitated by the First Arsenal in Pattani was only a hundred pounds heavier than the Shenwei General Cannon, but it could hold three pounds of gunpowder, and the shell weighed more than eight pounds. Its range and rate of fire were completely superior.

So after just a few shots, the Beihe artillerymen were dumbfounded. Not only were they unable to cause much casualties to the Xingtang army, but every time a shot was fired, several of their own men fell.

So Ruan Yin, the general of the Northern Zheng Three Prefectures Army who took over the command from Huang Tingbao, immediately ordered the musketeers to attack, hoping that they could disperse the artillery that was forcing back the Xing Tang Army.

And Reinstein was waiting for them. When he saw the Beihe musketeers come out, he immediately ordered the hunters to go up.

The result was that the Beihe musketeers had just stepped out of the line for a short time before they were beaten back with heavy casualties, not to mention driving away the artillery, and before they even had the fuse lit, and they retreated wailing.

What a joke, a matchlock gun versus a flintlock rifle, there is a complete generation gap in weapons.

Reinstein curled his lips. "Too weak! They're not even as strong as the Siamese army, and only slightly better than the armies of the indigenous sultans. I wish the Qing army wasn't so weak."

While he was complaining, Ruan Yan could no longer bear the beating from the hunters and artillery, so he ordered the Beihe cavalry to attack, attempting to use cavalry to force back the Xing Tang army's hunters and artillery.

Huang Wangcai curled his lips in the same standard way as Reinstein, and as soon as he heard the slogan of the general, he and several senior non-commissioned officers around him immediately commanded the other soldiers to quickly approach the artillery.

The Beihe cavalry did not arrive quickly. By the time they arrived, the Xingtang army had already formed a battle array with twenty hunters and one field gun for every twenty.

When these Beihe cavalry were still four or five hundred meters away, they were bombarded by a round of field artillery, and their formation immediately became chaotic. When they got closer, the hunters started firing in bursts, resulting in even greater casualties.

When a small number of cavalry approached within 80 meters, the firepower became more intense. The hunters' rifles and the artillerymen's pistols fired alternately, and the rain of bullets was like water.

The Beihe cavalry were beaten and run around in circles. No field artillery could get close to them, and if they were not careful they would suffer heavy losses from the volley fire.

However, Ruan Yan was not completely incompetent. He had already anticipated that the cavalry would not be able to break through or scare away the Xing Tang army, so he sent out the cavalry only to cover up the next move.

Sure enough, after the Xing Tang Army focused its attention on the cavalry, the Beihe Army's elephant soldiers set out, relying on the sound of cannons, the sound of horses' hooves, and the dust raised by the horses' hooves.

Dozens of war elephants covered with thick bamboo armor, under the stimulation of the elephant slaves, began to charge forward madly, roaring. Behind the war elephants, the Beihe melee soldiers followed suit and rushed over in overwhelming numbers.

There were only two or three hundred meters left. The elephant slave took out a handful of something from his arms and suddenly threw it in front of the war elephant, staining its long trunk with it.

This is the elephant slaves' secret weapon. This herb, soaked in the urine of a female elephant in estrus, can greatly stimulate the emotions of male elephants.

At the same time, during training, as long as the elephant slaves sprinkle this thing in front of the war elephant, they will often guide it to charge, and after the charge, they will reward it with food such as bananas.

This is to make the war elephants form a conditioned reflex. Once they smell this herb with the scent of a mother elephant, they will immediately start charging like crazy.

When these little creatures weighing several tons run, they are so powerful that the earth shakes. Combined with the strange patterns painted on the bamboo armor and their sharp neighing, they are really visually impactful.

However, Huang Wangcai was not panicked at all. He raised the rifle in his hand and gently pulled the trigger from more than 200 meters away.

With a bang, a bloody hole appeared on the forehead of the elephant slave who was still desperately provoking the war elephant, and then he fell directly to the ground.

The war elephant was stunned for a moment, and when it saw the elephant slave it had been with day and night fall down, it let out a huge cry of grief, but soon it also suffered.

The six-pound field gun spewed out a stream of orange-red flames, and seven field guns fired in one direction.

With a 'bang', one of the arrows hit the war elephant's forehead steadily, and blood and flesh splattered everywhere.

The war elephant's limbs suddenly stiffened, and even its screams stopped abruptly. Then it fell down with a bang, crushing several unlucky guys in the process.

Perhaps in ancient times, biological tanks like war elephants were indeed a powerful weapon on the battlefield, but in front of field artillery that can easily and quickly adjust the shooting direction and angle and fire one shot per minute, flesh and blood are ultimately just flesh and blood.

In almost all the attack directions of the Beihe Army, more than 90% of the war elephants' attacks were blocked by the combination of field artillery and rifled guns. In places where they were not blocked, the power of the war elephants was reduced to the weakest.

Because elephants are very smart and can judge the situation very well. When they sense that they cannot defeat the opponent, it is common for them to slack off or even run away.

"Let the entire army attack. The killing speed of artillery and muskets is too slow. Use bayonets to deal with this mob." Reinstein quickly gave the order, and the charge horn began to sound.

The Xing Tang Army's line infantry marched in neat steps and squeezed forward from three directions.

Facing an enemy that was twice their number, they would simply line up and march to a distance of seventy or eighty meters before firing a volley of gunfire and then launching an assault.

When the enemy was forced to retreat after the assault, they would, under the command of the officers, chase them for one or two hundred meters, then stop to reload, and then catch up with the Beihe Army that was assembling, fire a round of volleys, and then launch a hand-to-hand assault.

This set of tactics is not complicated, but it tests the soldiers' morale, will and combat experience.

The Beihe Army was hit by this simple back and forth attack and had no power to fight back. The casualties increased rapidly as they continued to retreat - reorganize - and then retreat again.

Two hours later, the Beihe soldiers had completely lost their will to fight. No amount of rewards could calm their minds. A large number of soldiers and even officers began to flee towards the fort and Shuiyuan City in Thanh Hoa Nei Town.

"The Beihe Army is too weak. I don't understand how they could become a sharp weapon in Lord Zheng's hands."

Chen Lian raised the same question as Reinstein, and even felt that it was a little unbelievable that he could defeat the Beihe Army so easily.

Of course, he didn't know that Zheng Zhu was unable to mobilize the energy of the entire Bac Hoa. In history, when Nguyen Van Hue entered Bac Hoa, the performance of the three prefecture armies was much more shocking than it is now.

"Leave 5,000 men to block them in the camp and keep watch over them. The rest of you will follow me across the river to attack the northern troops of Chongsheng Temple from both sides."

Reinstein gave the order quickly. In his eyes, these Northern River soldiers were almost dead.

(End of this chapter)